The Ruby Celeste Series - Box Set, books 1 - 3: Ghost Armada, Dire Kraken, and Church of Ife

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

  The low feeling in Francis’s gut sank lower.

  A stairway had been cut into the side of the rock face. The first dozen steps were visible enough. After that, darkness quickly leeched the colour. Past twenty steps, Francis couldn’t see anything except black.

  “I’ll lead,” said Remie. “It’s perfectly safe. Just take it slowly. Your eyes will adjust when you’re down there.”

  Francis wanted to ask, Will they? But this excursion was about earning points; about getting in with these people. Best keep his uptight streak to a minimum.

  It’s not uptight, it’s natural fear for my personal safety.

  Another voice: Blah-blah. Climb down the hole.

  He followed, one hand braced against the wall. It was smooth. The steps were polished and flat, too. Expert hands must have cut them, because each was of identical size. Francis hoped the same was true all the way down.

  Soon, he slowed. The murk was difficult to penetrate. He felt with his feet more than seeing the steps.

  How far were they?

  Hadn’t Remie said the switch for the lights was halfway down?

  “Nearly there,” she said after what felt like an age.

  “To the lights?”

  “Oh, no. Well, yes. I meant to the bottom, though.”

  “Have we gone past the switch?”

  “Oh, there’s no switch. First-timers are always a little jumpy. If I said it was at the bottom, you might not have come.” Francis could practically hear the grin in Remie’s voice.

  Debating the profanities he would hurl at Mikhail or the workhands if they had put him through this ordeal, Francis decided it was best he didn’t say a thing.

  When finally Remie announced they were at the bottom, Francis breathed a sigh of relief. Now if only they had—

  CLACK.

  The fluorescents came on all at once. Francis was momentarily blinded as white erupted.

  —light.

  “We’re here!” Remie announced cheerily.

  The area they’d descended to was the same loose circle as the hole above them. It was rocky, the floor only roughly flat, and it housed several silent machines. Hoppers were mounted at the front of each.

  “Curious things, aren’t they?” Remie said.

  “What are they?”

  “They clean up the silk. Droppings all over the place down here; it’s dirty stuff. See those inlets?” She pointed at thick rubber cables snaking down the rock to the tops of each of the machines. “Water comes through, and the machine scrubs up. The dirty water drains out of another pipe at the back.”

  “What happens to it?” Francis asked.

  “Same as what happens to most of our water; it gets cleaned and reused.”

  Of course. Water was limited up here. Every drop was made to count. Francis still remembered when Reuben had informed him even the crew’s urine was filtered and recycled. Midway through a drink of water, Francis had been. He had almost sprayed it out.

  “Relax,” Reuben had laughed. “It’s used for plumbing. Drinking water comes from our condensers.”

  Remie patted the machine nearest her. “You’ll get a go with them before long. The silk harvest is every eight days, so it’ll fall on one of our sessions here at Knot sometime.”

  “Where are the Volum?” Francis asked.

  “This way.”

  The basin’s walls did not only sport cabling and burning white lamps. Passages opened mouths in the rock. Remie headed for the nearest.

  “Are these natural?” asked Francis as they passed through.

  “Some. Carved by condensed water, a lot of them.”

  Francis boggled. He paused to touch the wall. It was smooth, but its surface rippled with bulges where the rock’s erosion had been uneven.

  “Some of the other routes were widened,” said Remie from up ahead, voice echoing. Francis trotted to catch up. “The church expanded several passageways way back when. Not all, mind,” she added. “We can access a fair set of tunnels, but there are countless more.” She stopped, and pointed to where the floor curved up into a wall. “See that?” A fist-sized opening pocked the rock. It was dark. “There are other tunnels down there, and other Volum.”

  Francis squatted. Hands flat on the rock, he pressed as close as he could to the peephole. No matter how he squinted, he could not make out anything.

  “Why hasn’t it been opened? If there are more Volum, that means more silk.”

  “Maybe someone will expand our network one day, and increase our potential. But we’d need more hands for that—and hands are our most finite resource.” She smiled. “More good can always be done. We simply do what we can with what we have.”

  They continued up the tunnel.

  Francis was just about to ask where the Volum were when the passage opened out.

  The space they came into was dark.

  Remie flipped a switch by the wall.

  Fluorescents burst on.

  “Here we are.”

  Francis ogled.

  Somewhere along the line—probably in books, and maybe from his friends aboard the Harbinger—Francis had learned bits and pieces about Volum. Their strange effects. It was almost like antigravity. They ate and ate and ate, and output lift. Not just lift, but power; the Harbinger had several batteries, and most of their energy came from the two Volum it housed. Francis had not even attempted to understand the mechanics of it. The creatures kept the ship aloft. Trusting that was all Francis needed.

  Volum were globular, leathery beasts. They were several metres in diameter, with a simple face capable of simple emotions. Cables trailed their bodies. They glowed with low light. Blue meant they were healthy. Red did not.

  All this was true of the hybridised Volum bred for ships.

  Wild Volum, however, were a different story.

  “They’re smaller,” was the first thing Francis said.

  Remie nodded. “Not as strong, either. That’s why ships use hybrids. One of these critters would never keep a ship up. Not even a small one.”

  Each of these creatures could have only come to Francis’s shoulder. The Volum on the Harbinger were so large they required a room as tall as both internal decks to fit comfortably.

  These Volum had larger faces, too. Their eyes were not beady black stones, but alive and, Francis thought, intelligent. More than a few regarded Francis warily.

  “Want to touch one?”

  “Err …”

  Remie chuckled. “Come on. They’re soft.”

  Francis followed obediently.

  Remie squatted beside one. She patted its side.

  Francis hesitated. The Volum watched him.

  “He’s safe,” Remie said to it. To Francis: “Stick your hand out. He won’t bite.”

  “‘He’?”

  “Of course ‘he’. Did you think they didn’t have genders?” At Francis’s bewildered look, Remie said, “You see these markings here?” She indicated subtle stripes along the Volum’s side. They were like calligraphic ink strokes, starting as thin points and widening before shrinking again. “It means this one is a male. The females don’t have them.” To show, she crouch-walked to a sleeping Volum a few feet over. “See?”

  Francis did.

  “Go on, give him a stroke. He’s friendly.”

  Francis considered the creature’s eyes again. “I’m not sure he likes me.”

  Remie snickered. “He’s a sweetie really. He’s always like this. Aren’t you, Vincent?”

  “Vincent?”

  “Didn’t your ship’s Volum have a name?”

  “We had two,” Francis said, “and no.”

  “Shame.” Remie patted the female she’d come to. It regarded her with almond eyes. “I suppose those ones have less character.”

  Francis still hadn’t moved. Finally, Remie laughed. She got up, took him by the wrist, and brought him forward.

  “I don’t—”

  “Here we go.”

  His hand touched the Volum at the t
op of its …

  What do you call the head part of something that’s all head?

  He moved to recoil, but paused. His fingers shifted.

  “They have fur?”

  “Only a little, but yes. Keeps them warm!”

  Huh. How odd.

  Francis patted the Volum—Vincent, he tried to think of it (him) as—for what felt the required length of time, then backed off. Job done. No need to get too friendly. Especially the way Vincent continued to look at him.

  He surveyed the cavern. It was small, but packed out with easily two dozen Volum. Maybe more. Tunnels wended away in three directions, their confines dark.

  “How many do you have here?” Francis asked. “Volum, I mean.”

  “Three hundred and fifty-six.” Remie smiled at Francis’s risen eyebrows. “Puts the two on your ship to shame, eh?”

  “Certainly does. And there are more in the caves you haven’t explored?”

  “Many more. There could be several thousand packed in here.”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s only a small island, but wild Volum are a lot weaker than hybrids. We need a lot to keep us up.”

  “That’s a lot of silk,” said Francis.

  Remie grinned. “It is! You want to see it? I gather you’ve never seen Volum silk before.”

  Francis nodded. “Sure.”

  Remie returned to the female she’d been patting. “I’m just going to move you a minute, Orla.”

  She planted hands against Orla’s side. Then, bracing her feet, she pushed.

  The Volum rolled up, face tilting comically sideways. Orla made an expression of surprise, and seemed to try twisting in Remie’s direction as if to see what she was doing.

  “Down there,” said Remie. “Go on, look quick; these things are heavy. We usually need two people to hold them up.”

  Francis stepped close.

  Under where Orla had just been sat was a bowl-shaped hole. It dropped perhaps sixteen inches. Curled in its bottom—some of which still hung from Orla—was a slimy mass of wet silk. Spattered with droppings, it looked like it ought to be white, though Francis could not be sure.

  He stepped back, lips downturned. “Lovely.”

  Remie eased Orla back into place. Orla looked up at her; Remie gave the top of her a gentle pat and a smile. “Good girl.”

  “I see why you have to clean it up.”

  “It’s not the most pleasant thing in the world,” Remie agreed, “but it does a lot of good. And you quickly get used to it.”

  Francis could not see that happening. “We get gloves, right?”

  Remie laughed. “You’re silly.”

  Francis caught the full brunt of his disgust from tumbling out only at the last moment.

  “You haven’t seen the best thing yet,” said Remie.

  Better than shit-smeared silk?

  She led Francis back to the light switches.

  CLACK.

  The room was sent into immediate darkness.

  Francis’s mental picture of it was instantly gone. He groped for the wall. “Why did you—?”

  “The Volum on your ship—do they glow?”

  Ah. “Yes.”

  “So do ours. Just wait for your eyes to adjust.”

  Slowly but surely, the room came back. It should not have; with the fluorescents off, it ought to have been pitch. No photons for his eyes to snatch and create an eigengrau rendering of the cavern.

  But come into view, it did. Not in grey fuzz, but soft blue flecked with glittering sparkles.

  Francis breathed a low breath. “Impressive.”

  “They’re amazing creatures,” said Remie.

  Francis nodded. “They certainly are.”

  3

  Francis spent the return trip grilling Remie on things he’d never found of interest until now.

  “Why do they produce silk? And why don’t the hybrids do it?”

  “Volum aren’t very good at locomotion. And what do you think would happen if a Volum fell out? They wouldn’t fall; their lift keeps them up. But they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere. Well, some scholars think Volum can use the wind to turn themselves around, and spin a kind of net—like a big web, or a sail. And they can use that to safely follow wind currents until they arrive at another land mass again.”

  “Right.” Or until they died, but Francis didn’t say that.

  “As for your other question, they do have silk-producing hybrids! There’s a silk farm not too far from here. Of course, those Volum are different to the sort in your ships. Most craft don’t have much need for industrial amounts of silk.”

  “What do those ones look like?”

  “Smaller. Much smaller. All the lift has been bred out of them, you see—so the farms have specialised Volum to keep them aloft, too. The silk producers are kept small, to minimise space, but bred to maximise their silk output.” Turning her nose up, Remie said, “I don’t agree with it, myself. Of course, business is business. We’re fortunate not all businesses are the same.”

  Once they were back up the hazardous steps and out onto solid ground again, Remie took Francis to one of Knot’s facilities to collect some things: a small loom, which was comprised of several interlocking parts, and a bundle of processed silk. Then she led Francis outside, and took up position with Jenny Harris.

  “What do you do when it rains?” Francis said when Remie had shown him how to put the loom together.

  “We have awnings, if the weather isn’t too bad. It’s usually not; it’s only in winter clouds start showing up above the island, and they don’t do much more than drizzle. But in the event it is bad, we can go inside. There are a few buildings out that way for it.” Grinning, Remie added, “Lucky for us, that’s pretty rare.”

  Unlucky for her, Francis could not make head or tail of the loom. Over the next few hours he struggled to get to grips with it, and entirely failed. Remie, as well as Jenny and the rest of the group, assured him he would get it. Francis did not believe them, and was glad when they set to packing up.

  “Trust me, once you have the hang of it, it’ll come naturally,” Remie said as they headed back to New Calais’s central island.

  “Reems is right,” said Davey. “I was a mess with the loom for weeks. Once I got it, though … it was like magic.”

  “Hm.”

  Remie laughed. “Everyone starts somewhere.”

  Francis thought of Vala. She was expert at what she did. Had she been the same?

  No, he decided. Vala had been fantastic from the start. Life simply would not make sense otherwise.

  He thought of his friends. It was strange. He’d been separate from them for little more than five hours now, and yet it seemed like forever.

  Had it been like this when he’d been snatched up from his parents?

  He couldn’t remember.

  What were the crew doing now? Where had they gone?

  How was Brie taking his absence?

  How was Ruby?

  Francis squashed down the thoughts. Only a fraction of the day had passed. He might be here for days or weeks yet. No sense starting to pine already.

  But though Francis wished to tamp it down, he was unable, and his friends hovered in the back of his mind the entire way back into New Calais.

  4

  Lunch was served in an enormous mess hall Francis had walked past on his first tour of the island with Reuben, Vala, and Stefan. Very few people ate inside, though; only a handful of the tables bore diners. The majority packed out the benches spread across the surrounding grounds.

  “We’re doing our stint here tomorrow,” said Remie as Francis was served; a bowl of crisp salad and a side of couscous dyed orange by tomato and herb dressing. “You can show us how a ship’s chef does it!”

  “I’m not—”

  “Are you a chef?” Allison asked.

  “No. I just collect the ingredients and chop things. My ship had—” Francis almost said ‘has’, but caught himself “—a dedicated cook. I w
as just there to bring him things.”

  “That doesn’t sound very fulfilling.”

  Francis fought not to purse his lips. It fulfilled me just fine, thanks, he wanted to say. But chewing someone out was no way to get in close to the church’s people, so he shut his mouth.

  The meal was finished with by twelve, so after the group had returned their eating things to the mess hall’s waiting staff, they headed out for the afternoon’s task.

  “Where are we going now?” Francis asked.

  “Grove,” said Remie. “It’s the southernmost island. We have a hydroponics bay there.”

  “A hydro-what?”

  “It’s like a farm, only the crops aren’t in soil; they’re grown in racks of liquid feed. It’s very efficient. It has to be, to feed everyone here.”

  “My ship had a woman—Vala—who had a greenhouse. She grew peppers and things. But it wasn’t anywhere near enough to cover our whole crew. Most food was brought in when we stopped off at ports or cities.”

  “We do import some things, of course. But the hydroponics facilities are very large, and we have several. We’ve often got surplus, actually. The extra, we ship out with our donated clothing.”

  True to Remie’s word, the hydroponics facilities were enormous. Francis recalled seeing them on the overhead of New Calais Ruby had pulled from the Harbinger’s databanks before their arrival. From so far, they had appeared little more than blots. Up close, he saw: each glassy building was several storeys tall, and could easily fit the Harbinger within its walls, with room to spare, even with its navigational fins extended.

  Compared with the simplicity of Knot, the hydroponics bay Remie led Francis into was a technological marvel. Kitted out in white metal, the many racks and levels were mazes of pipes delivering feed, sleek coverings through which stalks protruded, and powerful tube lights. Each rack sloped up like an isosceles triangle, overspilling leafy shelves set back like stairs. Ladders built into the stations split the greenery. Several of the church’s disciples were up these, tending.

  “I can see how you end up with too much food,” Francis muttered in awe.

  “Isn’t it impressive?” said Remie.

  “How do you unload those top levels?” Francis asked, pointing. “Not the ladders, surely?”