“Are you helping them tomorrow?”
“No; they’re going to smooth the plugs on the outer hull, and patch up the wood,” Francis said.
“Ah. Not quite ready to hang on a platform beneath the ship, then?”
“Not yet.”
Natasha grinned. “I’m sure you’ll work up to it.”
Francis smirked. “I hope not.”
They talked aimlessly for a while longer, the sun sinking lower down; directly ahead, it hung behind the Pantheon’s railing, a vibrant orange disc. Francis had to cover his face with his hand, it was so bright, and found himself looking out over the right side of the deck instead.
At first he didn’t see it; colours muted, his head either didn’t know what he was looking at, or convinced him it was part of the background. But suddenly something clicked; his eyebrows drew down, and whatever had just been coming from his mouth was lost.
“What’s that?”
Natasha turned and followed his gaze. “Floating island. A chain, actually.”
Francis gaped. From this far off it was difficult to discern, but he thought he could make out rock, and above that, greenery.
“You want to take a closer look?” Natasha asked.
“Err—”
“Sit tight.” And without another word, she was up on her legs, over the deck and down the porthole.
A couple of minutes later she was back, something stuffed under her arm. As she approached, she retrieved it: a long copper telescope, adorned with decorative rings and dotted with dials. Sticking out her free hand, she said, “Come on.”
Francis let her pull him up, and they crossed to the opposite rail. This time Natasha didn’t take Francis by the arm. Still, she slowed as Francis did, until they were a couple of metres from the Pantheon’s edge.
“Staying here?” she asked.
“I think so. And—I mean, that’s a telescope.”
Natasha grinned. “Right you are. Let me just …”
She placed it to her eye and set about adjusting it, twisting several sections in turn and pausing for a moment to scrutinise one of the dials. When she was happy, she made a pleased noise, and handed it over.
“Go ahead, take a look.”
Francis obeyed.
What he saw was breathtaking. The blurry smear he’d spotted a moment ago held nothing compared to the view Natasha presented him with now.
It was indeed a chain: six great rocks strung together by thick runners of what could have been little more than ivy through the viewfinder. Yet Francis suspected it was something thicker by many times, to be visible from this far off: like the trunk of a tree, or perhaps wider.
The rocks were arranged in a cluster, the largest right in the centre. Green topped them all in varying hues. Other patches of colour were just about visible; flowers, probably, like the charis in Vala and Stefan’s quarters. A handful of dots were moving between the islands, and Francis’s mouth dropped when he realised that those tiny specks could only be birds.
But the middlemost island was the most spectacular. Whereas the others were somewhat rounded, this one towered up. A great cleft was worn through the mountain. Mist surrounded it, rendering much of the island invisible—and beneath that cascaded a ribbon of water, spilling over the island’s edge and then turning into a spray of mist.
“What—how—”
Natasha laughed. “Which bit?”
“The waterfall.”
“Water vapour condenses in the mountain, then pours down a valley and over the edge.”
Francis let the telescope rove across the formation, drinking in every little detail; the wear to the rocks, their haphazard shapes, the fragility of it all.
“And there are Volum in there?” he asked.
“Yep. A colony, I’d expect,” Natasha said. “Probably other things too. Do you have puceals down there?”
Francis shook his head.
“They’re fat little birds with gaping mouths,” Natasha explained. “Eyeless, and without legs, so they never roost. Well, that’s a puceal. Small, but they taste delicious. We catch them sometimes, when we’re running low on food—if we can get close enough. They live around the rocks.”
“How do they lay eggs?”
“In each other’s mouths.” A look of horror passed over Francis’s face. “The other option is to drop them and hope for the best. Which would you pick?”
“I’d carry on being human,” Francis answered, and Natasha laughed again. He was watching those birds now, the puceals, as they fluttered between places. Natasha was right: no matter how he tracked, they never did seem to stop to land, instead pirouetting in another direction whenever they got too close to the nearest island.
“I should probably let you take a turn,” Francis said at last, handing the telescope back across. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“I’ve seen it all before,” said Natasha, but she placed the viewfinder to her eye and peered out nonetheless. “Interesting little places. Fun to explore, though we rarely find anything of much use. Mostly they’re good for restocking the pantry.” She paused and swept around, away from the floating islands, looking out over the land. “Vala harvests the plants, too; can make salves with some of them, and others are valuable if you can cultivate them.”
Francis thought back to her quarters and its abundance of flora. “Is she a botanist?”
“Botanist, medicine lady, seamstress … Does it all. We’ve all got handy hidden talents,” Natasha said, and gave Francis a sidelong look. “I expect you have a few of your own, too. Perhaps not filling holes,” she added jokingly, “but something.”
For a couple moments longer she looked out, then removed the telescope and stuffed it back under her arm. Considering the sky, she rubbed her hands together. “I expect food’s about to be served,” she said. “Shall we go?”
“Okay.”
They returned across the deck, heading for the porthole. Natasha hummed to herself; Francis glanced back at the floating islands. Now he’d seen them through the telescope, he thought he could just about pick out each of the separate pieces … or maybe that was just his eyes playing tricks on him.
“What exactly do you do on this ship?” Francis asked. “Not you, but the ship as a whole.”
“Travel; adventure. We don’t tend to stay in one place very long. Little bit of trade here and there, but mostly …” Natasha shrugged. “I suppose our trek to find this fabled ‘Ghost Armada’ is a prime example, albeit a rather extreme one. We don’t hunt ghosts often.” She smiled. Now at the porthole, she extended the telescope to Francis; he took it, and she lowered herself onto the ladder. “Mostly we just try to do the same as anyone else in our position.”
“Which is?”
“Staying alive.”
Her face disappeared below the porthole. A grim twist shook Francis’s stomach. Once again, he remembered the last time he’d been out here. How he’d been grabbed from behind. The press of metal against his head.
This was a dangerous world he’d been thrown into. And foreboding though Natasha’s words were, he was thankful for the reminder.
Combustion
(Chapter Ten)
1
For a man whose office had once been a grand mahogany room, packed with fine art and sculptures and some of the most exotic plants one could find, an expansive custom-made desk filled with potent cigars, and great wall-to-ceiling windows overlooking the bustling SkyPort he had grown from little more than a handful of stalls, the office Rhod Stein now possessed was almost worse than having nothing at all.
It was small, pokey, stained; what was once a staff room in a store called The Wax Emporium, a shop that sold candles, of all things. Candles and potpourri. So it absolutely stunk. How anyone found this stuff pleasant was beyond Rhod. To him it was fetid, manufactured. Vile.
He’d considered moving. But in spite of its rancid scent and minimal space, this place had benefits. It was close enough to the clean-up op that Rhod could watch its pro
gress day in, day out (and he’d been doing a lot of that). It was also close enough to a thick bundle of cabling running from engineering up to ground level that his men had been able to fashion a work-around, meaning when the Eden’s power went off, Rhod’s stayed on.
Most of the time, anyway.
He could have had them spend longer and set it up elsewhere. Maybe should have. But he’d been in a rush—and besides, the more time they spent fussing about his personal circumstances, the less time they were working on the truly important thing: getting the Eden back into shape so she could be reopened and trade could resume.
Rhod’s radio clicked. He lifted it from his belt.
“Stein.”
“Ah, Mr Stein; it’s Lance.”
Lance. How Rhod hated this man.
“Good to finally hear from you,” Rhod said.
“I have a few minutes to spare and wondered if you’d like to take that meeting now?”
For days now Rhod had been trying to arrange this meeting, but Lance was always too busy. Finally Rhod had passed on his radio frequency so the foreman could get in contact, because damn if he was going to chase Lance around any longer.
“I’ll be right out.”
The Eden’s ground level was less of a mess now. Rubble cleared away, the process of repairing the damage had slowly begun. But it was tedious: given the poor state of the surviving horseshoe of shops, huge sections had to be dismantled before true repair could begin. In order to move forward, they were moving back a step.
Ships moved about overhead. On one side of the Eden, an enormous crane had been mounted; it was slowly lifting a girder away from the SkyPort, to be jetted off to be recycled. Dozens and dozens of men and women filled ground level. Rhod recognised their faces, but for the wrong reasons: very few of these were the Eden’s crew. Most were hired help, burning a fat hole in his bank account.
Beside a fountain that was no longer running stood Lance. His hard hat was tucked under one arm. Dusty overalls hung beneath a face that was too boyish and handsome for Rhod to respect. This was a foreman, not a damned model.
“Lance,” Rhod huffed.
Lance turned. A smile broke his face. “Mr Stein.” He extended a hand. Rhod looked at it sourly, but shook regardless. “Pleasure to see you again.”
“It ought to be. I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
“Well, things are proceeding rather nicely,” Lance said. “We’ve deconstructed—”
“I’m not after a status report,” Rhod cut across. “I want to know how long it will be until I can reopen.”
“Ah. Ah, ah, ah.” Lance rubbed his chin slowly—infuriatingly. “It’ll be a little while longer, I’m afraid.”
“How long?”
Lance considered. Spent too long considering. Moments before Rhod thought he might grab the man and shake the answer out of him, Lance said, “Perhaps a fortnight; maybe more.”
“A fortnight? Two weeks?”
“There’s still a lot of work to do. This Celeste woman, she did a lot of damage. You ought to think about organising a defense strategy in case something like this happens again.”
Rhod fumed. Purple crept into his cheeks. “That’s two weeks’ worth of trade I’ve got to lose. I’ve already lost customers! Have you seen how many people I’ve turned away? Why can’t I run the functioning part of the port?”
“Intermittent power doesn’t really make that possible,” Lance said. “And, if you don’t mind me saying,” he added, “you’re somewhat understaffed right now. How many people fled the Eden in the fray? I’ve heard as many as half—”
Rhod roared. It echoed across the plaza. Heads turned and stared before resuming their work, the hum of chatter slowly restarting.
Lance looked taken aback. Nothing more. No fear; just a little surprised. God, how Rhod hated him.
“Carry on with your work,” Rhod growled at last, bending forward and getting right into the man’s face. “And hurry the hell up fixing this mess.”
He marched away.
2
There had to be something Rhod could take his anger out on.
There was: the candles in this stupid, stupid shop. The moment he stepped in he let out another ear-piercing cry and began flinging them from the shelves. Glass holders smashed. Loose candles exploded in showers of wax. Potpourri flew in all directions, crunching underfoot as Rhod wheeled in mad circles, not sure where to direct his hate next.
And then that name clicked in his mind: Celeste. Said through the mouth of a person he despised, it sounded worse somehow.
Baring his teeth like a dog, Rhod pushed into the back room. He hefted down into his chair hard, picked up the phone, and began to dial.
“Hello.”
“Imelda,” he sneered.
“Ah, Rhod,” she said. Like Lance, she sounded too cheerful—too smug. “You sound unhappy.”
“Don’t fuck me around,” said Rhod. “It’s been three days since you called to say your man failed to kill Celeste—three days! Have you found her yet or not?”
“Not yet.”
“I thought you had her vector!”
“Well she must have changed direction,” Imelda snapped back. “Keep your cool, Stein.”
“You’re meant to know what you’re doing! I said I want her head on a damn stick, so find her and get me it!”
Rhod slammed the phone down. Panting hard, cheeks flushed, he glared at it—then ripped it up, pulling until the cord went taut, then snapped. The handset was thrown across the tiny room; it smashed into the wall, plastic splitting open, and clattered to the floor in a broken heap.
Rhod breathed hard. Celeste had done this, confined him to this pointless little waste-of-space room. Had ruined him.
But Imelda’s men would find her. They had better, the amount he was paying that old witch. And if they didn’t …
His fist clenched so hard the knuckles went white. Rhod would get Celeste—no matter what it took.
Diagnostics
(Chapter Eleven)
1
The jobs Francis had been handed over the past couple of days were varied, and sometimes few and far between. Mikhail tried light-heartedly to goad him into assisting with repairs to the Pantheon’s outer hull, but Francis couldn’t be swayed. He was glad of that: the first evening in the cafeteria, Evans and Peters recounted the fight they’d had on the platform hung over the edge of the ship, and how close Evans had come to taking a misstep over the side. Mikhail had caught him, and they’d all had a good laugh. For Francis, the thought only made him cringe.
One job came to be regular: morning, noon and night, he carted supplies from the pantry up to the kitchen for Samuel. It meant waking up earlier than the majority of the ship, but it also meant he kept busy—and got an early look at the day’s eating.
Today, five days after encountering the Modicum, breakfast was scrambled egg, hash browns, beans and toast. It was all written down on a greasy piece of paper, handed to him by Samuel as he walked into the cafeteria.
“No mushrooms?” Francis asked, scrutinising the list. “Bacon?”
Samuel just grunted.
Francis smiled as he headed for the lower deck. An oddity, to be sure, but Samuel had grown on him. He was simple, slow, and didn’t talk much. Didn’t talk at all, in fact: his vocabulary seemed entirely composed of caveman noises. The fact that he could write had turned out to be quite a surprise, uneven though the scrawl was. He often misspelled words, too, and either had his ‘N’s backward or drew very disjointed lower-case ones.
Reaching the lower deck, the lights overhead flickered. First just a twitch, then the waver became more violent. Francis paused on the stairs. Finally there was a pop and a bulb blew, casting a dim pool beneath it.
He took the last few steps more slowly, wondering if there would be a repeat. But there wasn’t; the dead bulb simply sat lifeless, the rest unaffected. Francis peered at the broken light as he passed, and stopped. Maybe it had got too hot?
>
He poked it. Perhaps not.
With a shrug, he went on.
The pantry was tucked to one side of the Pantheon’s lower deck, around a small bend that opened out. Francis turned the corner—
He froze.
A man stood up ahead. In the centre of the floor, his back was to Francis, head bowed slightly forward. The hair on the back of his head was grizzled, and his clothes were full of creases.
“Ben?”
The man turned. His eyes were trance-like. For a second the two stared at each other. Then Benjamin blinked, slow, and as if he had just awoken, the fug ebbed away.
Francis had only seen him on a couple of occasions, and he accepted that Ben always looked as if he forgot to care for himself. But it wasn’t just untidy hair or creased clothes now, nor a rug of forgotten stubble. Ben looked downright bedraggled: his clothes weren’t just creased but dirty, and deep black rings underlined his eyes. Already skinny, his cheeks had taken on a hollow, empty appearance.
“Ben? Are you okay?”
Ben gave a mechanical nod. “Yes. Yes, fine.” Even his voice seemed different, as though he’d forgotten how to use his vocal cords. Another of those slow blinks, and the fog in his eyes was diminished further. He took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Just stretching my legs.” There: he sounded better now. “Tired, that’s all.”
They stood still for a moment longer, both considering the other, before Benjamin crossed the floor and headed back for the Volum room.
“Is everything okay in there?” Francis asked.
“Yes.”
Ben took the door’s handle, then stopped.
Francis waited. But Ben didn’t move. Didn’t even seem to be breathing.
“Ben?” Francis prompted.
“Yes.” Ben looked around. His eyes met Francis’s: watery and blue, ringed with darkness.
“I think you’re working too hard. Maybe you ought to get some sleep.”
It looked like Ben might answer, but when he opened his mouth no words came out. His jaw flapped for a second. Then his eyes steeled.
The Ruby Celeste Series - Box Set, books 1 - 3: Ghost Armada, Dire Kraken, and Church of Ife Page 12