by J. S. Morin
“Good evening, Professor,” Rynn replied. She did not pause in her work as she acknowledged him.
Running a dripping cloth in circles took little concentration, and the rest of Rynn’s attention wandered to the diagrams drawn on the slate. They showed simple spark circuits of the same sort she had seen in every book on the subject. Nevertheless, she could not help but inspect them to be sure no new circuits were being depicted, in case Professor Hurmbeck had devised something revolutionary.
“What is it you see there?” Professor Hurmbeck asked. Rynn spun around to find him watching her. He was an elderly kuduk, bald but for a wreath of patchy hair that circled his scalp. He wore his white beard in scholarly fashion, combed but otherwise left long as a mark of age and wisdom. Above his thick spectacles, he raised a pair of eyebrows which looked as if they had grabbed a spark wire.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” Rynn said. She dunked her rag and wrung it out. “I didn’t mean to look at your pictures.”
“No, no. No problem at all; I am simply curious. To me, those diagrams speak a language all their own, one with which I am intimately familiar. I merely wanted to know what they said to someone who doesn’t have such familiarity.”
“Well...” Rynn said, pausing to buy time. They tell me you’re teaching introductory spark to a bunch of clerks’ sons, and you haven’t gotten as far as capacitors yet.“I imagine they have to do with the spark, since you’re a professor of spark. If I had to guess, the line is supposed to be a spark wire.” Professor Hurmbeck cocked his head and nodded slightly. “So then the little squiggles with the letters next to them must be where the spark goes, and the names of the people the spark is being delivered to.” The professor’s face fell, then slid into a smirk.
“Most of those are numbers, Rynn, not letters,” he informed her.
“Oh,” Rynn replied. She dropped her gaze to the water bucket.
Professor Hurmbeck finished putting away his papers; they exchanged a perfunctory “goodnight,” and the professor left for the evening. Rynn went back to washing the slate until she heard the silence after his footsteps had receded down the hall.
She abruptly wiped her hands dry on her dress, pulled open the third drawer on the right, and looked through the tangle of copper within. It came in different alloys and thicknesses, some wound neatly around wooden spools, while others were little more than bunched up masses, stuffed into the drawer until it would close. They were for class demonstrations, but it was no different from the wire that factories used to make all the wonders of the spark age.
Rynn found one of the thickest wires and pulled out several yards of it and snipped off what she needed with a pair of the professor’s clippers. She returned the clippers and the rest of the wire to the drawers, leaving them as she had found them. With the hem of her dress she wiped the drawer handles, lest anyone think to check for fingerprints if anything was later found amiss.
The remaining wire she coiled as uniformly as she was able. She held it over her bucket to judge the size, and once she had finished, she set the coil into the bottom of the bucket. It disappeared, hidden beneath a thin film of soap.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and Rynn scrambled back to work. She was back to the slate and washing away an example of a parallel circuit by the time Mrs. Bas-Klickten stuck her head through the door.
“Rynn!” the elderly kuduk scolded. “We haven’t all night, and the librarian is growing cross.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rynn replied. It was the easiest answer. It came from her lips whenever she had no other reply readily at hand.
“Don’t ‘yes, ma’am’ me, just get it finished!”
Rynn expected to find that a fountain pen had leaked. Instead, the spill that she found in the university library was the size of a small lake. Someone had been refilling the ink wells, and dropped the can of ink. The ink pooled on the polished rosewood table, forming an irregular shape save for a single clean, square corner where a book had lain—it had already been whisked away by library staff before Rynn arrived. The pool continued to the edge where it dripped to the floor, forming a second lake of ink.
Rynn had to acquire a second bucket for wringing out ink-stained rags. Ink that looked black on paper took on a deep blue hue on her fingers and the palms of her hands as the water diluted it. She sopped it with one rag, wrung it into the bucket, then went back to wash the rest clean. It took several passes with relatively clean rags to get the residue off the waxy surface of the floor.
It was hard work, but mindless. Rynn found her eyes wandering afield from the black pool and its smaller, streakier descendants as her work progressed. One book had been caught up in the spill and taken away, but others lay nearby, untouched by both ink and librarian. One of the ones left open was a more advanced book on spark theory, the sort of subject that Professor Hurmbeck taught to older students on alternate Fourthdays. She leaned over it as she worked.
“What have we here?” Mrs. Bas-Klickten’s voice sounded just behind Rynn’s ear. She jumped. Watery ink splashed, as she dropped her rag in the bucket. Droplets sprayed the table, but came shy of the book. “Doing a bit of studying? I didn’t know you could read.”
“I ... I ... I can’t, ma’am. I was just admiring the pictures,” Rynn said. She swallowed, trying to sort out her insides as her stomach clenched, her face warmed, and her ears buzzed all at once. She was used to hearing the old kuduk woman’s footsteps from across the room, but had not noticed her approach. She spared a brief glance down at the floor before turning to address her superior face-to-face, and saw the padded booties that Mrs. Bas-Klickten wore over her shoes. Not everyone wore them, but they were available to all library visitors.
“Odd choice for a picture book,” Mrs. Bas-Klickten observed. She took one thick, stubby finger and turned the book to face her way. “I cannot even decipher this spark drivel. What do you see in it?”
Rynn pointed. “Those little loopy designs. Professor Hurmbeck told me that they show the way the spark goes, but I just think they look nice.”
“No accounting for human taste, I suppose. Still ...”
The old kuduk took up a pen and paper from a nearby table and scribbled something on it. Rynn tried to look, but Mrs. Bas-Klickten took care to hide the paper as she wrote. When she finished, she handed the paper to Rynn.
Her father’s words rang in her mind. “Anyone tries to get you to read, take the paper from them upside down, if you can. You won’t take the whole of it in at once that way.” It was advice given back in Tellurak, as she hadn’t seen her father’s counterpart for years, but it was just the situation he had prepared her for.
Rynn wiped her hands somewhat clean on her dress. She took the paper left-handed when she noticed which way the letters faced. It read:
˙pǝɹɐlloɔ puɐ pǝƃƃolɟ noʎ ǝʌɐɥ llɐɥs I ‘sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ʇıɯpɐ ʇou op noʎ ɟI
Rynn kept her expression carefully blank as she examined the paper. She could read upside down, but she had to puzzle the words out in her head, flipping them each in turn until she had the whole message. Even after she finished, she kept her eyes wandering about the words, waiting.
“So? What do you have to say for yourself?”
Rynn shrugged. “You have nice writing. All the little letters are very neat and tidy.”
Mrs. Bas-Klickten tore the paper from her hands. She gave Rynn a withering glare, which Rynn needed no acting or deception to shrink away from.
“Get the rest of that spill cleaned up and stop looking at picture books. Some of us would like dinner tonight.” She slammed the spark theory book shut, tucked it under an arm, and stalked off.
Rynn breathed a sigh of relief and went back to cleaning.
Rynn hunched forward and glanced all about her as she hurried down the dim tunnels of layer two. It was rare for her to be held at work beyond the hour where the day lamps were turned off, but Mrs. Bas-Klickten had no compunction against sending a lone human girl home at night.
Most of the other girls roomed beneath the dormitories at the university, but she had always preferred the company of her own kind. Occasionally, she regretted her choice.
Light peeked out from windows in the tunnel walls where kuduk families took their evening meals and leisure. A few shops kept a bulb aglow in the dark hours to keep their signs lit, or had a lamp on in the rooms above, where the day’s accounts were entered into ledgers and the tills counted. A spark bulb every few dozen paces kept the rest of the tunnel from falling into pitch darkness. The city was a haven of shadows.
Human eyes never adapt as well to the darkness as kuduks’ do. Rynn imagined leering eyes in every unlit doorway, peering out from side tunnels, and stalking along behind her in the gloom. She carried little money, and could imagine no kuduk man taking her for a prize, but neither of those were her worry. Some kuduks needed no reason to put a free human in her place. There was no collar around Rynn’s neck to mark her as someone’s property. There was no one to demand reparation if she was damaged.
She passed by the lift shafts with nothing but a quick glance to check for kuduk thugs skulking about. Massive birdcages sat idle, their doors chained shut and locked. The lifts had shut down not half an hour earlier; her trip back down to layer five would require the stairs.
Rynn felt naked, and because she could see no one watching her, she assumed that everyone was—from hiding. She was unarmed, which was the worst of it. Even something like Tabby’s one-shot would have given her the comfort of some defense. So much of her skin showed, too, which she hated. In a crowd it wasn’t so bad, since everyone suffered together. As Chipmunk, she covered her hair, her face, her eyes. She wore coveralls like a workman, not a maid’s dress. Like any respectable dress, hers was cut wide enough to show she wore no slave collar.
A civic clock hung over the stairway entrance. It showed 9:37. She had planned to meet her friends at the Tap’n’Chug at 8:00. Not only would Rynn not have time to go home to change, she was already well overdue.
They must think something happened to me. Rynn let that worry wallow in her thoughts for all of three paces. No, they’ll think I got held at work ... again.
Rynn quickened her pace as she neared the stairshaft. The hard soles of her work shoes clopped with each step. The landing was empty at the second layer, for which she was thankful. She looked over the railing and saw it was clear along the inside railing all the way down to the fifth layer—there were only five layers to Eversall Deep.
Checking first to see that no one was coming down from the layer above, Rynn did something she hadn’t tried in years. She hiked up the skirts of her dress, sat on the railing, and began to slide.
There were tricks to riding the stair rails, ones that a lot of naughty human children learn. They were the sort of skills that went rusty, but never quite rusted through completely. Rynn kept a handful of her skirts in between the railing and bare skin, varying her grip to act as a brake. The rails were polished brass, and daredevil riders were killed streaking unchecked down the slick rails.
Rynn counted the turns—once, twice, thrice around. She let herself build speed as she approached the third layer landing. The railing went level and she skidded to a halt before reaching the down slope on the far side. She clopped over a few paces and resumed her ride.
Once, twice, thrice more around she went. Rynn leaned into the last turn, letting herself keep speed for the fourth layer landing. She hit the level section and slid the whole way across, feeling a giddy little thrill as her stomach tried to stay at landing height while the rest of her continued on down toward the fifth layer. Her face spread in a grin, forgetting for a moment the reason for her haste.
Once, twice, thrice—
Ahead of her, at the bottom of the stairshaft, was a knot of human workmen milling about. Alerted by the hissing of wool on brass as Rynn descended, they were all watching as she approached the bottom layer. One of them stood to block the bottom of the railing. She couldn’t slow herself in time.
Rynn slammed into him shoulder first, but he was set for the impact. He gave a grunt like a crashball player and wrapped her up in his arms. She smelled whiskey on his breath.
“Lookie what we got here!” remarked the one who caught her. “Eziel hears prayers even when we ain’t sayin’ ‘em aloud. Ain’t you a bit old for ridin’ the rails down?”
Rynn struggled in his grasp, but he not only had the technique down, but he had the size and build of a crashball player as well. She couldn’t break his grasp.
“Move aside, Raf. I wanna catch me one, too.” Another of the workers shoved her captor aside to place himself at the foot of the railing.
Rynn’s captor stumbled, and put a hand out to catch himself against a lamppost. Rynn took the chance to twist free, but found herself surrounded.
“Who are you, fellas?” Rynn demanded. She made a quick survey of them, looking for a weak link in the circle that spread around her, but also trying to remember faces ... for later.
They were coal miners by their look: soot-stained faces and clothes, meaty hands, and a hunched posture from working bent over all day. There wasn’t a scrawny one among them. The lack of collars and just a hint of stubble told that they were freemen working for the kuduks.
“We keep the stairs safe. Looks like we did you a favor, little lady,” said the one they called Raf.
“Yeah, some favor. Now let me go,” Rynn said. She meant the comment for Raf, but kept turning about, looking for an escape. She didn’t see Raf and his friends letting her go easily, even as she played along.
“Well, there’s the matter of the fee ...”
Rynn saw bystanders carefully avoiding becoming involved. A few were keeping a furtive eye on her plight, and she wondered whether any would have the decency to do anything if the Stairway Keepers decide to accost her.
She spotted him then: No-Boots. It was a brief glimpse, but she was sure of it. He disappeared into the crowd.
“Since when is there a fee for using the stairs?” Rynn asked.
“Safe stairs don’t come free,” Raf countered. “Seein’ as you already got saved, you oughtta be grateful.” A chorus of drunken laughs followed his remark. One of the workers passed a bottle to another. She heard lewd mutterings among them—it seemed as if they were meant to be overheard.
“Piss off! I’ve lived down here my whole life and never paid for the stairs. And you’re dim if you think I needed saving there. I’ve got a bum shoulder as it is, I didn’t need to be slamming into some drunken shaver.”
“Why you—”
The click of a pistol hammer being cocked stopped Raf both mid-sentence and mid-stride as he started toward Rynn. Raf found a barrel of cold steel pushed into his ear.
“I think that’s far enough,” Rascal spoke softly into Raf’s other ear.
“Hey, now!”Raf protested. “Whatcha doin’ with that thing?”
“You better got enough bullets in that thing fer all of us,” another of the mine workers said.
The circle around Rynn became fuzzy, as the miners refocused their attentions on their colleague. Rynn darted past them, but didn’t leave Rascal alone to face them.
“Girl told you to piss off,” Rascal said. “Maybe you didn’t hear her. I can clear both your ears out in one shot. Whaddaya say?”
“You makin’ a big mistake, mister,” another miner chimed in. “This is our territory.”
“What you been here, a couple of months?” Rascal asked. He turned and spat on the ground. “We ain’t had trouble yet cuz you ain’t got our attention ‘til now. This is our layer.”
“So you the gang that used to run this place?”Raf asked, despite his peril. He looked like he couldn’t decide whether to keep still or make a grab for Rascal’s gun.
“No, it ain’t mine,” Rascal corrected. “It’s ours. Human only. No kuduk, no daruu, no breaking it into little kingdoms. Don’t know that I’d expect a shaver like you to understand that.”
“Listen pal. You let
Raf go or it’s gonna be ugly for you.”
“No, you listen,” Hayfield’s voice came from behind the miners. All but Raf spun about to see who had spoken. “You ain’t welcome here no more. Go back up to four and stay there. I catch any of you lot down here again, it better be with yer head low, looking to make an apology.”
Rynn drifted in Hayfield’s direction. If anyone was a walking safe haven, he was. A crowd of bystanders had become a crowd of onlookers upon his arrival. Folk moved in closer. They seemed less frightened by the knot of miners who had made an encampment of the local stairshaft.
“But we—”
“Ain’t no buts,” Hayfield cut him off. “We don’t like drawing the head-knockers down here, but we’d let ‘em haul your carcasses off to the furnaces. No one down here woulda seen a thing, neither. Now get, before we vent you.”
Rascal shoved Raf toward the rest of the miners. They retreated up to the layer above, grumbling among themselves. Rascal grinned across the empty patch of tunnel vacated by the miners as he made his way across to Hayfield and Rynn.
“Barmy shavers,” Rascal muttered. He stroked his beard from moustache to the point at his chin. He had two shaved strips down his cheeks, but that was the only bare patch between his thick sideburns and the pointed circle of hair around his mouth.
“Come on. Let’s get inside before they shoo some knockers our way. Be just like a buncha shavers to go crying to the kuduks for help.”
Hayfield started off down Mercy Tunnel. Rynn followed, but lost sight of Rascal before the crowd had even dispersed.
A hand slapped a folded copy of the Eversall Deep Herald down onto the table amid a circle of mugs and tankards. The Tap’n’Chug was packed, but even a trip to the stairshaft and back hadn’t cost Hayfield his booth at the back. The five of them seated at the table looked down at the headline: TROLLEY DERAILED, 3 DEAD, SUSPECTS ESCAPE.