Planesrunner (Everness Book One)

by Ian McDonald

  “Fiigght!” Sen yelled. “Come on, Everett Singh!”

  “Here, what about my hood?” the car driver demanded.

  “Invoice me,” Sen said, blowing him a kiss as she spun on her heel and headed for the action.

  “Every bloody time I go up to Airish Town,” the driver grumbled as he backed away and turned the cab.

  Everett could make out words in the wall of voices, a huge chant; a ring, a ring, a ring!

  “What's going on?”

  “A ring,” Sen shouted. “Fisticuffs. Gloves off. No rules. A fight, Everett Singh. Come on!”

  Everett had seen a fight, a big fight, a street fight. It had been the easiest thing in the world to get into, just come up from the underground at Westminster Tube Station to get tickets for a Water Music and Fireworks New Year spectacular on the river, and without asking to be or wanting to be he and his dad had found themselves in the middle of a student protest. Ten thousand angry people not going anywhere. The police had this tactic where they got everyone into one small place, surrounded them with riot shields and horses, stationed helicopters overhead, and kept everyone there for hours. “Kettling” they called it. Everett knew what a kettle was for. You put things in it and brought them to a boil. Boil the students had, boiled over. A roar had gone up somewhere towards Parliament Square; then bodies had surged hard against Everett and Tejendra. There was action somewhere, but who, where? Everett was disoriented, afraid, exhilarated, aware something big was going on but not able to see it or know how near it was, whether it might break over them at any moment. He had known crushes and surges at football games; this was a different order. It was incredible and terrifying. For a few moments he had glimpsed police hi-viz jackets and black riot shields above black body armour; a mounted policeman head and shoulders above the crowds in a hail of sticks snapped off from placards. The fighting had died down as police squads had snatched and dragged out rioters, but he and Tejendra and ten thousand others had been kept there until nearly ten o'clock and then only released after the police had checked ID and photographed them and stored them on a database. This was a Hackney Street fight, not police and demonstrators, but Everett smelled that same gunpowder whiff of uncontrollable danger. This was raw, thrilling, scary, unpredictable; a mob: a fire that might blow back in an instant and engulf them. Everett had learned in Parliament Square to know and fear mob violence, its allure and how infectious that could be.

  “No, Sen. I can't risk Dr. Quantum getting damaged.”

  He saw the disdain in her face. Then a sudden uproar from the crowd distracted her as the ring of bodies heaved and parted and a man came reeling out. He was a hulk; shoulder-length black hair matted with sweat, face livid with exertion beneath his thick brows and muttonchop whiskers: exertion and bruises. His left eye was swollen shut; his mouth leaked blood from each corner. His shirt hung in tatters around his waist. He looked dazed but ready for the fight, eyeing the world as if any part of it might attack him, and he would be ready, his fists clenched hard like iron cannonballs.

  “Aw, did you get your dish kicked again, Seth Bromley?” Sen shouted.

  “Don't annoy him,” Everett said. “He's very big. Who is Seth Bromley?” A group of hard-faced men pushed their way out of the crowd. They took the big, groggy man over to the front of the Knights of the Air, set up the one intact chair, and sat him down in it. There was steam coming off him.

  “Who's Seth Bromley? The biggest fruity-boy in Hackney!” Sen shouted cheerfully at the big man. “Did your mummy put you up to it, Seth Bromley?” He looked up, stung, and glowered out of his one open eye.

  “Don't you sully my mother with your dirty breath, you little ship rat,” he growled.

  “Seth Bromley Seth Bromley, the big fruity omi; he does what his dear mama says,” Sen chanted. Everett had seen Sen's verbal aggression several times now, but it always surprised him. She could be bitingly cruel with deadly accuracy, but Everett wondered if her taunts and nasty little rhymes were thought out in advance, to be drawn like knives when she needed weapons, or if she was like a wasp that stings by reflex.

  Now Seth Bromley pointed a finger. “I don't fight polones.”

  “That's because this polone'd boot you in the basket, Seth Bromley.”

  “But in your case, you meese little feely…” He surged up from his chair, fists raised. The rear part of the crowd turned, attention seized, then opened. Sharkey walked slowly out. His hat was battered, the jaunty feather broken and dangling. Otherwise he was unmarked.

  “'Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones,'” he said to Seth Bromley.

  “I can look after myself, Sharkey,” Sen said.

  “Is that so, miss? If you'd half the facility for getting out of trouble that you have getting into it, I might be disposed to believe you. Come on, out of here.”

  “I want to see it. It's Mchynlyth again, isn't it?”

  “Mr. Mchynlyth, unlike you, donaette, can look after himself,” Sharkey said.

  “So what was you doing then?” Sen asked defiantly. “Wouldn't be like you to stand around with your arms the same length when the captain's honour's insulted.”

  “And what honour would I have if the captain's daughter got her charming features redesigned by one of the Bromleys?” Sharkey said, but Everett could see that Sen had scored a point and that he was eager to get back to the fight. “Here's the deal. Find a safe place and watch and say nothing to no one and I'll say nothing to no one.”

  Sen solemnly shook hands. “Deal.” The same hand took Everett's and led him at a run to the steps of a container loader. As they clattered up to the gantry by the driving cab, Everett saw Sharkey break into a run. He launched himself into the pack roaring, “For Dundee, Atlanta, and St. Pio!” and a battle cry like a yip with a twittering fox yelp that was the most uncanny thing Everett had ever heard from a human throat.

  “That old Confed yell,” Sen said. “I still don't know who or what Dundee is. Or was.”

  From the gallery they could see the whole of the action. Every man in Hackney Great Port, and some of the women, had turned out to watch the spectacle. They formed a jostling, shouting ring of bodies ten deep. The empty space at the centre changed shape constantly, spectators reeling back or surging forward as the men in the ring reeled and charged at each other. The noise was incredible. There were three men at the centre of the voices. Two of them were big, dark haired, cast from the same mould as Seth Bromley. They moved slowly, heavily, circling round the third man. He was Mchynlyth. His orange flight coveralls were unbuttoned to the navel and tied around his waist. His body was bruised and bloody; he shone with sweat under the streetlights of the cold December evening, but his eyes were on fire. They never stopped looking from one Bromley to the other, one to the other, one to the other, and he was skipping, dancing, dodging, ducking, slipping under their blows, bouncing out of their reach. He had the maddest grin on his face as he glanced from one to the other.

  “Come on you bassards, no fair no fair…I can whup any one of youse, but two? Make a proper fight of it, ye bassarding Bromleys.”

  “Who are they?” Everett asked.

  “Albarn Bromley and Keir Bromley,” Sen said. “Seth's bijou brothers. Younger and thicker. Not Kyle. He's the kid of the family. It's his fight, but Kyle Gorgeous Bromley'll never risk his eek in that ring.”

  The two Bromleys came to a nonverbal agreement and charged Mchynlyth. He ducked under their combined assault easily and came up dancing like a butterfly on the other side of the ring. The crowd cheered. Everett had fought this kind of fight hundreds of times. It had been on the Xbox, against Ryun, in the warmth of Ryun's room, not on the cobbles of Hackney Great Port with the frost settling out of the air, but the principle was the same. It was the classic of speed versus power. Everett's analysis favoured speed. It was how the great Ali had won all his classic fights, back in the ‘70s, when boxing was cool. Keep moving, that butterfly beat, tire them out, take their best shot and survive and t
hen come back. One two, out. But the Bromleys were a lot bigger than Mchynlyth, and he was looking almost as tired as they. And there were two of them.

  “How did Mchynlyth get himself into this?”

  “Oh, he'll have started it. He gets a meese fighting head on him when there's drink taken. Or when there isn't drink taken, now I come to think of it. He'll have seen them all down the Knights and told them Annie'd sooner marry a ground-pounder than Kyle Gorgeous Bromley.”

  “Captain Anastasia's engaged?”

  “Ma Bromley thinks she is,” Sen said. “It's all sorted, according to her. Kyle Bromley marries Anastasia Sixsmyth, thus bringing Everness—which as everyone knows is the sweetest ship in all Hackney Great Port—into the family fleet. Rejoice rejoice! Only problem is—”

  “No one's told Captain Anastasia.”

  “Correct, Everett Singh. Well, they have told her. Proper proposition and everything. I heard Annie's reply. I ‘spect Ma Bromley heard Annie's reply all the way over at Pylon 22. Those Bromleys, they reckon they're right Hackney aristocracy, and no one can say no to them. It's an insult. Noblesse oblige and all that. Insult Kyle, you insults ‘em all.”

  Sen's knuckles went white on the rail as Mchynlyth walked into a sly rabbit punch to the ribs. He went down on one knee, wincing, winded. The Bromleys grinned at each other and closed. Then Sharkey forced his way out of the press of spectators. He crossed the ring in three steps and with a well-timed kick tripped up Albarn Bromley and sent him crashing to the ground. The big man roared and rolled and found himself looking up at Sharkey's face along the barrel of a shotgun.

  “'The bows of the mighty are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength,'” Sharkey said. “First Samuel chapter two, verse four. Let's fight nice.” He held Albarn Bromley under the gun as Mchynlyth picked himself up, straightened his neck, popped his knee joints, flexed his shoulders, and dropped into fighting pose. Again the crowd roared. Keir Bromley came at him. Mchynlyth blocked a hook, spun away, and planted a Thai-boxing kick firm in Keir Bromley's ribs. Bromley reeled.

  “Kill him, Mac, kill him!” Sen yelled. Mchynlyth pressed his advantage, driving Keir Bromley backwards as the big man blocked and dodged. The crowd moved with them, moving blow by blow, ooh by aah up Mare Street. Sen beat her fist on the rail. Everett found her naked bloodlust alien and hateful. Hackney Great Port was hard, and applied its own rules quickly and harshly; the Airish way of life was more immediate and passionate than anything Everett knew in his contained, concerned, middle-class London, but girls shouldn't call for blood. They shouldn't enjoy physical violence. Everett wondered again about Sen's background. When he had asked her she had dodged the question, but he had seen the look in her eyes at Seth Bromley's parting jibe. If she could have clawed his lungs out, she would.

  “We're missing it!” The fight had moved under the shadow of the airships and out of the line-of-sight from the crane. Sen grabbed Everett's hand and dragged him off the gantry. “Come on!”

  “What's with the ‘come on's?” Everett muttered. “Everyone's always telling me to come on.” He came on anyway. Sen found a fine vantage point on a gallery that encircled the second floor of the Acheson and Muir Bonded warehouse. Everett felt the rusting metal creak beneath him. The fight moved up the street, a mauling, rolling scrum of bodies. Both Mchynlyth and Keir Bromley were bruised, shambling, shiny with blood. The ring of spectators urged them on, though the combatants could hardly stand, let alone land a blow on each other. Everett felt sick. There was nothing noble in this, there was no honour, just two people ruining each other. The intention to harm, the rage, was the only thing that kept them upright. They stumbled out from under the shelter of Leonora Christine's hull into the clear night air. They reeled; they staggered. The ring flowed and moved and re-formed around them. This was horrific.

  “Stop it!” Everett yelled. “Stop it!” He was a scientist. He didn't believe in magic. But even as his shout flew over the heads of the crowd a jet of water blasted out of nowhere and knocked Keir Bromley and Mchynlyth from their feet. Down they went skidding and spinning under the torrent. Then the jet turned on the spectators, sending them falling and reeling, scattering them like a hose washing dead bugs from a car. Keir Bromley tried to get to his feet, but the water blast turned on him and pinned him to the cobbles. The fight had carried under Everness's shadow. There on the cargo hoist, ten metres above the big brawl, was Captain Anastasia with a control unit in her hand, directing a ballast vent onto the mob. She moved a joystick; the jet of high-pressure water sent the spectators scurrying.

  “Go on, get out of here,” Captain Anastasia cried, sending stragglers scurrying with blasts from her water cannon. “What would your wives and girlfriends and partners think? Shame on you all. Go on, go home.” She shut down the vent. Water dripped from the valve on Everness's hull. Captain Anastasia said, “Mr. Bromley, tell your mother that my answer remains the same. You shall not have me and you shall not have Everness. Good day, sir. Mr. Mchynlyth, I neither need nor appreciate your gallantry. You have sullied the honour of this great ship. And Mr. Sharkey, don't think I didn't see your part in it. Report to the cargo deck. You have two minutes to make yourself spick and airship-shape. And you too, Sen and Mr. Singh. I'll be docking wages. Ballast water's not free, you know.”

  The cargo hatch touched ground. Sharkey slid his shotguns into the tail of his coat. He had somehow avoided the water. Even his hat had regained its proper shape, and he had found a new feather from somewhere. Keir Bromley dragged away, dripping. Mchynlyth wrapped his arms around his saturated body. The heat of the fight had gone out of him; a cold clear night was settling over Hackney Great Port. He was shivering uncontrollably, but he was grinning. Last of all Sen and Everett joined the group on the metal platform. Sen nudged Mchynlyth, a soft shoulder-charge. He winked back. Captain Anastasia pressed the hatch control. Winches whined; cables tautened. As the hoist drew them up into the vast belly of the airship, Captain Anastasia ordered, “Mr. Singh, private supper in my latty, at your convenience.” Her words were stern, but Everett got the impression she was smiling.

  The captain and her daughter were putting up Christmas decorations. Everett watched them through the open galley door as he whipped up seasonal hot chocolate, stirred with a cinnamon stick. There were wonders upon wonders tucked into the corners and crannies of the galley's cupboards. Sen was up ladders with lights and paper garlands; Captain Anastasia handed the decorations up and directed where to put them. They talked. They talked like no one was overhearing them. They talked about Christmas and who had got what for whom and the extra presents they had got themselves. They talked about the cargo that was being loaded and whether they might take time off after Berlin, which was its destination, and have some fun because Berlin was a great city; they talked about how the ship was feeling a bit rough, troubled by the weather; they talked about the news of Hackney Great Port and the stories from Dona Miriam and the other gossips. They talked not like captain and pilot, or even mother and daughter; they talked like two girls together. Everett had to constantly remind himself that Captain Anastasia was younger than he thought, maybe not even out of her twenties. The cinnamon stick stopped in midstir. Everett was overcome by a sudden wave of loneliness so crushing that he had to grasp the edge of the counter with both hands to keep himself up. His eyes filled. This was their home; this was their family. He had a latty, but not a life here. His family was in a room on the twenty-second floor of the Tyrone Tower, and two kilometres up the road in another universe. Broken into pieces. He had to break it to be able to put it back together, but they could not understand that. Tejendra was physically unable to understand; all he knew about the worlds was what Charlotte Villiers allowed him to know. His mum only understood that the two men in her life had vanished in less than a week. And he had to make his move soon, before Everness lifted for Berlin. Christmas was the time. Guards were dropped, vigilance relaxed, holiday moods prevailed. He had worked it out. There was a task for
everyone aboard Everness with their different talents and abilities, and even for the ship itself. Before any of that he would have to make that appointment to see Captain Anastasia in her ready room, without Sen listening at the bulkhead, and say, I need your help. He would have to explain exactly what he intended to do, and how only Everness and its crew could help him. And he knew what she would say: You're asking me to risk my ship, my crew, my daughter? And he could only say, I am. And put like that, not even Everett would say yes to himself. The clock was ticking. Mchynlyth, confined to ship until lift-time along with Sharkey as punishment after the Bromley fight, had spent the day before buying in lift gas from the Gas Office, the government monopoly that controlled the helium supply. He would have to ask soon. He dreaded it. It ate at him. Everett resumed stirring the hot chocolate. He almost dropped the cinnamon stick at the sudden call of his name.

  “Mr. Singh!”

  Captain Anastasia beckoned him. He brought the steaming mugs. Dunsfold Air Traffic weather station reported a high-pressure cell anchored over southeast England with clear skies, low winds, and plummeting temperatures. Everett had cleared frost on his latty porthole when he woke muffled deep in his hammock that morning. Sharkey and Mchynlyth were in five layers but still shivered at their labours. Sharkey was supervising a squad of dockers, shipping containers onto the loading bay and operating Everness's internal gantry crane to distribute them evenly around the ship's centre of gravity. Mchynlyth was under the deckplates, down in the power distribution system, with voltage meters and bypass cables and much of his individual style of language that always sounded as if he was swearing. The cold had even worked its way forward to the crew quarters. Sen was in thick grey woollen tights, a too-big pullover, sleeves stretched down to her knuckles, and a scarf. The only warm place was the steamy galley. Captain Anastasia took a sip of scalding, cinnamon-infused chocolate. She closed her eyes in bliss.