“When I sent the first of your people out into this world, I gave them each gifts of knowledge,” Mira said. “I armed them with tools that they could use to build a life here. A peaceful life, free of the animosity and violence of the Old World. I gave them the tools to do better than we had done before. But I didn’t give them everything.”
“The relic locks,” Atlas said. “They won’t all open.”
“No. They won’t,” Mira said. “Not yet. I didn’t think you were ready, so I waited and held some knowledge back. I wanted to be sure that you could use the tools I’d given you for good. Needed to be sure that you would find ways to live peacefully on this world and with its peoples.” She looked to Samra. “And to meet them with friendship and not aggression.” She smiled at the Skylighter girl. “You two are a sign that, despite my earliest failures, my dream is succeeding. I witnessed your sacrifice. Your fall from the sky took great courage. It was beautiful.”
“You saw us?” Samra asked.
“I’ve seen a great many things,” Mira replied.
Atlas felt the relic key warming in his left hand. He opened his palm to find the little ridges glowing even brighter than when it was outside. He looked back to Mira. “What did you fail at?”
“Keeping you safe. I could have helped your people a great deal more, but I was lost down here under the sands of this desert. This knowledge was a treasure that was never meant to be buried.” Mira pointed to the glowing cube. “And now I’m hoping you’ll help me distribute it properly.”
Atlas slipped his relic key into his pocket, then stretched a hand out and picked up the glowing relic.
“No!”
The shout came from behind them. Atlas turned to find the big bearded man who had tried to kill him looming in the doorway. “That’s mine!” he declared. The raider stomped his way through the passage, the relic keys around his neck casting his face in an eerie light. One of his hands wielded a shiny cutlass. He brandished it at the glowing woman. “I dug you up. This was my doing. The master relic is mine. This ship is mine.” Mira seemed unmoved by the man’s shouts.
“Hello, Marlow. It’s good to see you. You’ve accomplished much here.”
His mustache twitched as he faced her, then his eyes shifted to Atlas. “So some little boys are good at falling after all.”
“Don’t touch him.” It was Samra now, stepping in front of him and facing off against the big man. Her hand found his again and he gripped it behind her back.
Marlow laughed. “Is this what it’s come to? I’m forced to take my prize from the hands of children? Get out of my way, little parasite. This doesn’t involve your kind.”
“I must say, I had hoped you would turn out better, Marlow,” Mira said. She took a few steps closer to the raider. The relic keys around his neck throbbed with light as she drew closer. “You have so many good qualities: determination, intelligence, loyalty to your family.” Marlow still had the cutlass aimed her direction and was eyeing her cautiously. “But I’m afraid you have yet to acquire the virtues I most wanted you to possess. Kindness. Empathy. Generosity.”
Mira smiled at Marlow sympathetically. “The knowledge in these relics was never meant to be hoarded. I didn’t preserve and transport the best of humanity’s achievements across the stars so they could be the property of one family, even one as hard-working as yours.” She squared up in front of him. “The boy keeps the master relic. To share with all.”
Atlas looked down at the cube in his hand and clutched it a little tighter.
Marlow scowled at Mira, and cast a withering glance at Atlas. His mustache twitched again. “And the ship? Who will possess that?”
“I am the ship, Marlow. No one possesses me.”
“But what of its power? You flew here across the stars. You came from another world. A different world. A better world! I’ve seen it in the relics. They have no fell beasts stalking their skies there. No sinking sands swallowing every bloody thing in sight. They’re not scratching an existence from the ground like worms. You could take me there!” He shouted the last few words at her, spittle flying from his lips.
Atlas backed up a step. Samra did as well, bumping into him, and staying close.
“You could take me away from this place,” Marlow continued. “Me, and my family.” He stepped toward the glowing woman. “You brought our ancestors here. You could take us home again.”
Mira held up a soothing hand. “So that’s it. You don’t like it here. You don’t like the home I chose for your family.”
“I hate it!” Marlow screamed. “This place is Hell!”
Mira studied him, her light flickering faintly. “I’m sorry you feel that way. It was the best that could be done.”
“Take us back,” Marlow said. “I want to go back.” His voice was low now. Almost pleading.
“It’s too far, Marlow.”
“The ancestors did it. You think I’m less of a man than they were? Less of an airman?”
“You don’t understand.”
“You think I haven’t got what it takes to make a long journey? We’re an entire family of ship captains,” Marlow said. “It’s what we do.”
“You wouldn’t make it,” Mira said. “The distance between stars is not a bridge you can cross.”
“How far?” Marlow said. “Tell me.”
“Eighty-five thousand years.”
Marlow blinked, then smirked at her. “You’re making fun of me.”
Mira shook her head very slightly.
Marlow’s expression settled into a frown, his eyes searching her face for the truth. “That’s impossible. The ancestors . . .”
“Were all born here.”
“But the stories. The legends . . .”
“All born here.”
Atlas spoke up, unable to contain his confusion. “All of them? What about Garick the Bold and Rune the Mighty?”
“I crossed the stars alone. But I carried the seeds of human life with me. And its history. I kept them safe for a very, very long time. I made you a new home here. A new history. But there’s no going back. Not even for me. Even if it wasn’t so far, my time in this desert has taken its toll.”
“So you won’t help us,” Marlow said. “You’re letting us die here.” His mouth twisted into a scowl. He fixed his eyes on Atlas. “Give me the master relic.” He put his hand out. “You won’t leave here with it alive. My men control everything outside this ship. How far do you think you’ll get without her to help you?” He tilted his cutlass toward Mira. “And she’s just an illusion anyway.” He stepped forward and stabbed his sword through Mira’s chest.
His hand passed through her as well.
Mira simply stared at him.
“Whoever she was in life, she’s long dead now,” Marlow said, retracting his arm. “Eighty-five thousand years dead.” He turned and aimed the cutlass at the two of them.
Samra backed into Atlas, but there was nowhere else to go. They were pressed up against the wall, alcoves of relic cubes all around their heads.
“It’s not yours,” Atlas said, cradling the gift from Mira. “She said it’s meant to be shared.”
“Lovely idea. Let’s see what else we can share,” Marlow growled. His hand shot out and wrenched Samra’s shoulder. He yanked her toward him as she shrieked, then clamped his arm around her while pressing the edge of his blade to her throat. “We’ll try this again. The master relic. Now. Or the girl dies.”
38
ADMIRAL ORLOFF
“Are you crazy? Your friend is still down there.” Quimby pushed her goggles atop her head and pointed to the sphere. “They say it’s an ancient shipwreck. Who knows what might be in it?”
Kipling had watched Atlas and Samra disappear down the hole in the sunken metal sphere mere moments ago. Samra was so close, but with power dwindling in the Sun Dragon, he only had one move he could make.
“They’re raising it up. She’ll be okay.”
He hoped he was right.
From all appearances, the excavation crew was nearly finished. The giant orb was slipping slowly up the walls of the dig site, being drawn upward by the massive column of lift balloons and pods.
“It will be to the surface in minutes,” Kipling explained. “Samra and Atlas will be able to get out. They’ll be on the ground.”
“That’s not ground,” Quimby argued. “Have you heard nothing about this desert? That’s basically liquid sand down there. Nothing solid stays up long on that. Everything sinks.”
“Not Samra.” Kipling smiled. “They’ll be okay.” He looked beyond her. “I have to do this.” He pointed up at the tower of lift pods and the globe sons caught in the nets. One massive bundle of netting up top looked like it held hundreds. “Those globe sons are the patch’s future. We free those, the Mother has a chance. And so will my people.”
Quimby followed his gesture skyward, then looked back to him. “What’s your plan then?”
Kipling adjusted his grip on the warhook. “Just get me close. Once I get the globes free, we’ll pick up Samra and Atlas, and get out of here.”
The lifting tower was crawling with Air Corps now and Kipling realized his mission was far more complicated than he was making it out to be. Even so, he knew what he needed to do.
“There. We’ll start with that one, and work our way up.” He pointed to a small cluster of globe sons tied to the lowest dock.
Quimby steered the Sun Dragon in a circling turn to the outside edge of the lift tower. Scores of airships were docked in tiers up the outside of the tower. Some were still filing in from the desert convoy, searching for berths. In the general confusion, the Sun Dragon wasn’t obviously out of place.
The net of globe sons they were targeting was tethered to one of the circular central dock structures. The ships docked nearby appeared to belong to wealthy townsfolk and not the Air Corps. Kipling was grateful for that. While the ship owners had dutifully docked to the structure to aid in the lift project, none of the crews he could see were armed or especially on guard for danger. At least not yet.
Quimby glided their airship in close to the dock. A solitary dock master with a red mustache was directing arrivals. He squinted at them as they approached and waved them away. “All full here! You’ll have to try farther up.” He jabbed a finger skyward.
Quimby waved and acknowledged the instruction, feigning a turn with the ship, but as soon as the man turned away and moved toward the center of the tower, she angled the ship back to her original heading and the globe sons. Kipling climbed out of the front seat and onto the nose of the ship.
“Almost there . . . just a little closer . . .” He eyed the tether for the bundle.
“Hey! What are you doing?” The mustached dock master was back, striding across the dock and looking up at them
“Close enough!” Kipling yelled. He took a running start off the few feet of nose the Sun Dragon offered, lit himself up, and dove for the globe son bundle.
He landed in the netting and immediately started hacking at the ropes binding it together with his warhook.
“Oi!” The dock master yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Kipling scrambled down the bundle, cutting ropes as he went. The first globe son squeezed free of the net and escaped into the open sky. It was promptly followed by three more.
By the time he reached the main tether, a half dozen were free and drifting away. The dock master was pitching a fit, gesturing and swearing. Kipling paid him no mind and carved through the thicker tether line with the saw tooth spine of his warhook. He grinned with satisfaction as the bundle came loose and drifted away from the tower. There were still dozens of the globe sons tangled inside, but with the sizeable gash he had made in the netting, the wind would soon help more to escape.
The detached bundle rose rapidly, ascending into the early morning sky, the little globes flashing and blinking from the activity.
Kipling clung to a neighboring bundle of lift pods until Quimby could get the Sun Dragon close again, then he leapt back aboard.
“There’s going to be trouble soon,” Quimby said, as Kip clung to the side of the aircraft.
The mustached dock master had disappeared back into the tower, no doubt to alert the Air Corps.
“Then we’d better work fast,” Kipling said.
Quimby cast a worried look overhead to the swaying tower and its myriad docks and ships. “Maybe I should have picked an easier first mission.”
Kipling smirked at her. “At least they won’t say you lack experience.”
The second bundle of globe sons was one deck up and a quarter of the way around the tower. Quimby hovered just off the tower and Kipling once again jumped to the top of it and sliced his way down. He freed the tether without anyone interfering. A number of aristocratic-looking townsfolk aboard their house-ships at the neighboring dock watched the globes drift away into the sky with baffled expressions on their faces and drinks in their hands, but no one moved to accost him.
It was the third bundle that presented the problem.
Kipling was attacking the cluster from a different angle, cutting his way upward instead of down, to open a hole in the top of the netting. He was nearly to the crown of the bundle when Quimby shrieked. He spun around to see her fighting the controls of the Sun Dragon. A harpoon was imbedded in the tail and a long line ran from it to a dock just above them. Two men with a portable winch were cranking hard on it and dragging the little airship toward them.
“No!” Kipling yelled. He hacked the last few strands of netting below him to free the globes from the bundle he was standing on, then rode one of the emerging globe sons upward into the sky.
The globe son swayed and bobbed in the wind, suddenly free of confinement, but Kipling kept his eyes on his target and leapt for the harpoon rope. He caught the taut line with one outstretched hand and sliced at it immediately with the warhook in his other hand. As the line snapped free, he shouted to Quimby. “Go!” She spun the Dragon’s fans to full power and hauled Kipling and the trailing harpoon line upward and around the tower, out of sight of their attackers.
Kipling swung on the rope, waiting till he was lined up with the lift tower and let go. He landed atop the envelope of a little skiff moored to a dock one level up. As soon as he was upright, he turned and yelled to Quimby. “Get clear! Don’t stay in range of their harpoons!”
Quimby was lofting upward in the airship and he wasn’t sure she heard his instructions, but she seemed to be angling away from the tower anyway.
Kipling felt the envelope below him shudder, and the whole ship moved beneath his feet. It was drifting loose from its berth, an engine coughing to life somewhere below. Kipling spun aft to the flag mast and identified the colors and crossed harpoons logo of the Air Corps.
Trouble.
Crewmen shouted below and the nose of the craft began a slow turn to pursue the Sun Dragon. They were deploying to stop the threat.
Okay. He had a solution for that.
Kipling spun his warhook in his palm and swung it hard, gouging deep into the envelope. He ran across the top of the ship and repeated the punctures three more places before leaping clear of the aircraft. The men aboard were still intent on the Sun Dragon, climbing its way around the tower, but their pursuit ship began a steady descent as the lift gases leaked from the newly perforated exterior.
Kipling relished his success from the neighboring lift pods, but his joy ebbed at the sight of the other Air Corps ships descending from above. There were at least six of them, all bearing full complements of armed crew. Three of the ships broke away in pursuit of the Sun Dragon, the others were angling toward him.
Kipling only needed one look at the expressions on the Air Corpsmen’s faces to know they meant business, and he wasn’t about to stick around to confront them. He dropped a few feet, swung overhand along the bottom of the net of lift pods he was attached to, and dropped to the nearest dock below. He sprinted along it, dodging a few startled civilians, and reach
ed the center of the lifting tower.
The cylindrical core was hollow with the exception of a central cable and a number of wires attaching the various lifting docks. There were also vertical cables, not attached to the docks, running up and down the height of the tower, and these were vibrating.
An open-air elevator rattled its way down the cables, occupied by two men. One had a heavy black beard, and his neck was weighed down by stone pendants that Kipling recognized as relic keys. The other man was dressed in a black Air Corps uniform, but with much more flair. His shoulders were bedecked with golden epaulettes and a polished silver-hilted cutlass hung at his side.
The bearded man’s eyes met Kipling’s as he passed, then he threw a lever to bring the elevator to a halt. He appraised Kipling and his warhook. “What the hell are you?”
Kipling didn’t know what to say to that.
“Admiral Orloff, dispose of this intruder. Get it off my tower.”
Orloff looked a little put out, but he nodded dutifully. “Aye, Lord Savage, I’ll see to it immediately.” He cleared the gap between the elevator and the dock with ease, and landed facing Kipling.
Kipling brandished the warhook to keep him at bay.
Lord Savage engaged the elevator again without another word, and rattled his way down the tower.
Admiral Orloff grinned at Kipling. “That’s a fine looking weapon you have. I thought the skyborn only gave those to war heroes.” He drew his cutlass. “You know how to use it?”
Kipling considered the Admiral’s shiny blade, then lit himself up and leapt skyward. He soared to the underside of the next dock and grabbed hold, dangling from its anchor lines.
“I always knew you plant folk were gutless,” Orloff scoffed from below.
Kipling felt his face heating up. “Skylighter warriors are the best fighters in the world!”
Orloff smirked at him. “Then why don’t you come back down and prove it?”
Kipling wanted to wipe the sneer off the uniformed man’s face, but he held on. There were still more globes to free. He slung the warhook across his back and climbed. When he gained the top of the floating dock, he looked back down at the level below. Orloff was still watching him.
Faster Than Falling: The Skylighter Adventures Page 38