The Drache Girl

by Wesley Allison

  Bainbridge Clark Street didn’t actually end at the Emergency Wall, because there was a road on the other side of the wall, and it too was called Bainbridge Clark Street, but the two were separated by the thirty-foot tall structure. Thirty feet to the left though was a small unobtrusive door that had been cut into the wall about two years before, after a particularly nasty problem with tyrannosaurs. The door had been placed there specifically to allow emergency workers to move from one side of the wall to the other, without having to go all the way to the Town Square and through the big gate. Relatively few had keys to the locked door, but Saba was one of those who did. He unlocked the door, passed through, and then locked it once again with the key.

  On this side of the wall, the road sloped down a hill toward the dock area. A few small buildings, offices mostly separated it from the shoreline, while on the right were numerous warehouses and supply buildings. At the top of the hill, Saba stopped to take in the view. The Mirsannan freighter S.S. Meninia Impertinenta was docked and two large cranes were lifting freight from its cargo hold and setting it down onto the ground. Half a dozen lizardman work crews were ferrying the freight from there to two different warehouses.

  Walking down the hill a little way, the young constable turned from the bay and walked between a large warehouse on the left and a long row of small apartments on the right. This area was the lowest rent district in Port Dechantagne. The little two-story, four-apartment buildings were constructed all of wood with dimensions of twelve by thirty-six feet. Each of the apartments had one room, either with a wood-burning stove, or a fireplace, and the entire block of apartments—one hundred buildings, four hundred apartments—were serviced by a block of twenty water closets. When the apartments had originally been built, they had been built with outhouses. Two years ago, these had been replaced by small block houses, each of which had six WCs and all of which had the latest running water facilities. Saba stepped inside one of the WCs to relieve himself. He luxuriously washed his hands and face, and then stepped outside to find a woman waiting. She was slightly older than he was, about twenty, with bright red hair and a brightly painted face. Under her pink dress, he could see she clearly wore no bustle.

  “Miss Tabby Malloy,” said Saba. “I was just thinking of you this morning.”

  “Oh? What were you thinking about me?” She put her hand on her hip and struck a pose. She really was attractive, considering—clean, nice, and as far as Saba knew, not a thief.

  “I was just thinking about… well, about how pretty you are.”

  “You know I would do a pretty young lad like you, a virgin and all, for free.”

  “And you know I’m saving myself for marriage. But it’s good to see you’re doing well. Have a lovely day.”

  “You have a lovely day yourself, lad,” she said. “I expect to be seeing you soon, whether it’s before marriage or after.”

  The road between the warehouses and cheap apartments was Seventh and One Half Avenue, and as Bainbridge Clark Street went down a hill, Seven and One Half Avenue went back uphill. Trudging up the sliding gravel, Saba reflected upon the promise of a trolley system, in the planning stages now for more than three years. If he had a chance to bet on the probability of any such system ever being completed in his lifetime, he knew on which side of the line to place his money. Still it would be nice to step up onto a trolley and grab hold of the railing, whether it was pulled by horse, steam engine, or triceratops. At the top of the hill he leaned against a lamppost that hadn’t been here when he last walked to work this way. So there was some progress being made.

  From the new lamppost it was only a half a mile to the police station. For now the station occupied one of the barracks buildings on the grounds of the militia base. These buildings had been the original colony buildings, and were sturdily built rectangular structures twenty-five feet by two hundred feet. There were thirty-two of them, though the militia needed only ten. So the others were either used as temporary storage, temporary housing for new arrivals, or for city services that hadn’t yet had buildings constructed, like the police station, or city hall, or the office of the royal colonial governor. The barracks that housed the police station had once been divided into ten small apartments, but Saba and Eamon, his fellow officer, had torn down a couple of walls. What had been the first and second apartments was now one office. What had been the third and fourth apartments was now a large storage room. The rest of the apartments had been left in their original configurations, though outward facing locks had been installed on all the doors, and hen mesh had been fastened over the windows, turning them all into cells. So far they had never had need of more than one, but if needed, they had six available.

  Eamon Shrubb sat in the office, leaning back in the chair with both feet on the desk. He was flipping through the pages of Pilgrimage Into Danger, with his face screwed up into a strange shape.

  “If you want to read that,” said Saba. “You need to start with the lower numbered pages and make your way up to the higher numbered pages.”

  “I don’t want to read it. Why would I want to read it? Where did it come from?”

  “I’m reading it. I borrowed it from Mrs. Dechantagne. She says I need to expand my horizons.”

  “Who the hell is Delia Hume?”

  “She’s a very famous writer. How come you’re here so early anyway? Did Dot throw you out again?”

  Eamon just made a noise, sounding about halfway between a dog growling and a man coughing.

  “What did you do to brass her off this time?”

  “Kafira knows.” He tossed the heavy volume on the desk and put his feet down onto the wooden plank floor. “Don’t ever get married. That’s my advice to you.”

  “Yes, when I need marital advice, it’s you I’ll come running to, with your two months experience.”

  “Three months.”

  “Hamonth doesn’t count as a whole month.”

  “Two and a half then.” Eamon stood up and picked up his helmet from the desk. “Have you been down to the dock?”

  “Just looked over from the hill.”

  “I’ll just take a stroll down there then.”

  He passed Saba on the way to the door. The two men were about the same height, with Eamon the heavier built of the two. He was also almost four years older than Saba, though he treated the younger man as a peer. This might be because Saba had attained a higher rank than he had in the militia, Saba a sergeant and Eamon only a corporal. On the other hand, it might have just been because men working together in jobs like police constable felt a comradeship that transcended years. Saba, for his part, treated Eamon as though he was a brother.

  “Oh, hey,” called Saba. “Are you headed up past the wall?”

  “Might be.” Eamon paused inside the door and shoved his helmet on his head.

  “Have a butchers at the Lynnate house. Newcomers living there.”

  “I know. You think they’re up to something?”

  “No. But they shot Bessemer this morning?”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “And they’re still alive?”

  “For now.”

  “All right.”

  He stepped out the door and was gone.

  Saba sat down at the desk, taking off his helmet, and pulled a folder full of reports from the top drawer. There were records from more than a dozen incidents over the previous week. The names, dates, times, and locations were all filled in at the tops, but the descriptions had yet to be completed. He picked up a pen and inkwell and began writing. None of the incidents were very exciting. Mrs. Cora Gyffington’s cat was eaten by velociraptors. Mr. Jon Cartier had his wheelbarrow stolen, which was later recovered by the dinosaur pen. Mr. Lon Fonstan had reported that all of his furniture had been stolen and replaced with different furniture, but it turned out he had gotten pissed down by the docks and went to the wrong house. Mrs. Ilona Yembrick had on three different occasions had to chase lizardmen out of her yard
, and on another occasion claimed they were peeping in her window. Mr. Illya Beaten had been hit by his wife with a frying pan, after she found him in their bed with Miss Tahlia Emerborn. Saba thought that with a name like Beaten, one had to expect that kind of thing—at least his name wasn’t Chopt. And finally, Mr. Ignacious P. Dittle claimed that the Drache Girl had cast a spell upon him causing him to laugh uncontrollably for more than ten minutes, and causing him to soil himself. By the time he had finished all the reports, Saba’s right hand ached, and the chilly morning had become the chilly afternoon.

  He put the reports back in the folder and carried them across the room to the file cabinet that sat under the window, filing them with the completed reports for the month. Then he stepped back to his desk, grabbed his helmet and popped it on his head, and walked out of the office.

  The temporary City Hall was right next door, and with the exception of the lack of hen mesh over the windows, it looked exactly like the police station. Saba stepped up two very short steps and into the front office, which was only half the size of his own. Miss Cadence Gertz sat at the receptionist desk. Her black hair was pulled back into a severe bun, she had on horn-rimmed glasses, and she wore a plain brown gingham dress. Saba still thought she was very pretty.

  “Good morning, constable,” she said, smiling shyly.

  “Good morning, Miss Gertz.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here to see the mayor, if he’s not too busy.”

  “Police business?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll see if he can see you now.” She got up and walked to the door separating the twenty by twenty-five foot reception office from the mayor’s office, knocked on the door, and then went in, leaving Saba for a moment, to stand and contemplate brown gingham in a way that he never had before. She was gone no more than two minutes. When she came back out again, she ushered him into the presence of the mayor, closing the door behind him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Mayor.”

  Zeah Korlann rolled his eyes, and then stood up to shake hands with the young constable.

  “If I had known being the mayor meant I was doing essentially all of the Colonial Council’s work, I wouldn’t have accepted the position.” He waved for Saba to take a chair.

  “Somebody has to be the big man in charge,” said Saba, sitting down, crossing his legs, and setting his helmet on his knee.

  “How is your mother? I missed her yesterday, when I was visiting my grandson.”

  “She’s fine. And how is Miss Lusk?”

  “The same. I mean, fine. Miss Gertz said that you were here on police business?”

  “Yes, I need to requisition an item.”

  “A revolver or a shotgun?”

  “A typewriter.”

  “Do you know how to type?”

  “I’ll learn.”

  “I’ll bet we could get Mr. Collit to find one for us. Are there any funds in the police budget?”

  “No.”

  “All right,” Mayor Korlann sighed. “We’ll find the money somewhere.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Saba getting up. “Would you happen to know if Miss Gertz has gone to lunch yet?”

  Saba escorted Miss Gertz to lunch at Mrs. Finkler’s Bakery as he had done on six previous occasions. But just like those other six times, this could not be considered a date, because Miss Gertz insisted upon paying for her own meal. Mrs. Gertz was of the opinion that her daughter, at nineteen, was too young to be courted, and ought not to be receiving gentlemen who were Kafirites in any case. Still, the two young people had a lovely lunch and did not mention Miss Gertz’s mother, or religion, or police work. In fact, later, Saba could not remember what the topic of conversation had been at all. All he could remember was thick barley soup with onions and large brown eyes.

  He arrived back at the police station office to find Dot Shrubb in a pretty pink dress that highlighted her copper-colored hair. She was a thin, but pretty girl, of seventeen who had arrived in Port Dechantagne a year ago, without any family, and had stolen the heart of Eamon Shrubb the first time he laid eyes upon her.

  “Saba,” she said, in the nasal voice of someone who had been deaf all her life.

  “Looking for Eamon?” he asked, keeping his face toward her, so that she could read his lips.

  She nodded.

  “You two were fighting again.”

  She punched the palm of her left hand with her right fist.

  “What about?”

  She hesitated for a moment, and then made a rocking baby motion with her arms folded.

  “You’re expecting?”

  “Huh?”

  “Baby. You’re going to have a baby?”

  She nodded, smiling.

  “Then why were you fighting? Doesn’t he want a baby?”

  “Name,” she said.

  “Kafira,” Saba muttered.

  At that moment, Eamon opened the office door. He paused about halfway inside, looking at his wife the way a munitions expert looks at a bomb that didn’t go off as intended. She looked at the floor. After a moment, the constable stepped inside.

  “You nesh berk,” said Saba. Eamon looked at him in surprise. “You take your wife home and see to her. I may not have two and a half months experience being married, but even I know you don’t fight with a woman who’s expecting.”

  “She wanted to name the baby Yadira.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” demanded Saba.

  “Come on! That’s the worst name in the world.”

  “My mother’s name,” said Dot.

  “That happens to be my mother’s name, too,” said Saba.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” said Eamon.

  “It’s not like Eamon’s a brilliant name.”

  “I don’t want to name it Eamon either. If it’s a boy I want to name it Darsham, and if it’s a girl I want to name it Daria.”

  “Darsham Shrubb? Why don’t you just name it ‘kick my ass on the way to school’ and have done with it.”

  Eamon ballooned his cheeks out and rolled his eyes back to think for a moment. “It doesn’t sound that good when you put it all together, does it?”

  “Here’s my advice, Mr. I’ve-been-married-two-and-a-half-months. Take the rest of the day off and take your wife home. Make her a cup of tea and rub her feet. Then let her decide what to name the baby. You can go get a kitten from Mrs. Gyffington, and name it Darsham, or Daria, or whatever the bloody hell you want to name it.”

  “That’s right,” said Dot, taking Eamon by the arm. Then she said, “Rub my feet,” leading Saba to believe that she had missed most of what he had said.

  “You don’t mind if I take the afternoon?” asked Eamon. He turned his head slightly, so that his lips were not visible to his wife. “If I rub her feet, she’ll be all rumpy-pumpy.”

  “Go!”

  The two left the office, arm in arm. As soon as they were gone, Saba stepped back through the supply room and into cell number one. Setting his helmet beside the cot, he lay down and took a nap.

  When he got up again, it was completely black inside the cell. He reached down and found his helmet as the spike on top poked the palm of his hand. He stepped back though the supply room and into the office, both of which were just as black as the cell. There was absolutely no light coming into the window from outside. He opened the door and stepped out, locking it after him. The wind had died down now but it was getting cold enough that Saba wished for his reefer jacket that was even now hanging on the peg by his door at home.

  Despite the weather, Saba decided to take a pass by the docks. As he reached the bottom of the hill on Tenth Avenue, he spied movement near the docked ship. It wasn’t unusual that there should be someone out and about. It wasn’t all that late, and he could hear talking, laughter, music, and other noises coming from the apartments four blocks away. What was unusual was that there was no light associated with the movement. There was no moon out and it was hard
enough for the young constable just to find his way on the white gravel street. Why would anyone move around a dock area, with all kinds of dangerous equipment, in the dark?

  Taking the left side of the road, Saba hugged the edge of the buildings as he reached the corner with Bainbridge Clark Street. He peered around the corner and saw a dozen figures moving through the darkness. It was too dark to make out faces, but he didn’t need to. The size and the shape both told him that the figures were all lizardmen. They hissed quietly as they carried six coffin-sized boxes away from the ship, south and up the Clark Street hill. Saba couldn’t believe how fast they were moving in the downright cold air. He followed.

  The lizards moved not only quickly, but also quietly till they reached the Emergency Wall. Saba too was very quiet, and pressed against the building next to him. He had the authority of the police department with him, but he had nothing more to enforce it than a truncheon. One of the reptilians produced a key, a key that was supposed to be only available to the “proper authorities”. The door, unlocked and opened, was passed through by the aborigines and their crates. They locked it after them.

  Saba waited by the wall four or five minutes before unlocking, opening, and then passing through the door himself. He closed and locked it behind him and stood looking around into the darkness on the other side. It was inky, despite the lights coming from a few houses among the trees. Everything was quiet. The reptilians and whatever they carried had vanished into the night. Saba zigzagged through gravel streets, checking around houses and sheds and in among the trees, but he turned up no sign of the lizardmen, so at last, chilled to the bone, he started off in the direction of his own house a couple of miles to the east.