Aloft (Petronaut Tales)

by Ben Rovik

  “If you’ve brought a work list from the Petronauts, friends, just pass it over and we’ll get cracking on the gear,” he said.

  He extended a hand towards the carter closest to him, and she hesitated. She looked back towards the door just as a tall, lean man sauntered through the door behind them.

  “I’ve actually got that work list here, Mister…?” Sir Tomas said, holding up a folded piece of paper between two fingers.

  Upforth blinked. This man wasn’t a carter, that was for sure; nor was he just a messenger from the Petronaut side of Workshop Row. This was a ‘naut. He had to be. His confident carriage, and the fine fit of his expensive jacket and tall rider’s boots, marked him as a person of true quality. There was a lazy superiority in his face that allowed him to take status instantly, as certainly as if he’d had a crown on his head and royal fanfare announcing his arrival. Upforth would have done anything to be able to radiate the casual disdain of command half as well as this man.

  “Upforth, sir,” he said, making a showy genuflection. “William Upforth Junior the Second, General Manager of Upforth’s Hydraulics. To what do I owe the esteemed honor of your calling?”

  Sir Tomas blinked, and a dark canine amusement settled on his face as his smile deepened. He tipped his head in a barely perceptible bow.

  “Sir Tomas Frissande, senior Petronaut in the Aerial squad. I’m here because you’re doing some work for me. Tell me—William—what do you know about this box of mine?”

  Upforth’s face froze. The Aerials. Carper had been keeping him briefed about the ‘Flicker’ project, of course, but Spheres help him if he could remember a single thing the man had said. Carper’s voice was so boring it was impossible to stay focused.

  “Fine craftsmanship,” Upforth said, nodding and rapping a knuckle on one of the silvery coils. “Just goes to show what we can work up when civilians and ‘nauts put their heads together.”

  “Worked on it yourself, have you?”

  “I’ve played a close advisory role throughout. Very close oversight. One of my top men—a protégé, really—has been on it day in, day out. By Worktable C, please,” he said, directing the carters across the workshop. Having them in earshot too as he ran his mouth was making him nervous.

  As the carters pushed their dolly away, Upforth grinned up at Sir Tomas. “Don’t want to waste your time; we’ll just get it set up for your work list immediately.”

  Sir Tomas was just looking straight down, arms crossed over his chest, work list still folded in his fingers. The ‘naut had a disconcerting habit of not making eye contact. “Where’s your man?”

  “Special assignment. Truly urgent, required his immediate attention out in Lethton. They asked for him by name. It put us in a delicate position, but what could we do?” Upforth folded his fingers together. “Sir Tomas, I know that you’ve come to see Mister Carper as the face of Upforth’s, but I promise you that anyone in the workshop can take care of your needs just as effectively, and I hope you’ll believe me when I say you can trust the work that any of us does as much as you’ve come to trust Mister Carper’s performance.”

  “I’m glad he’s not here.”

  “So am I,” Upforth agreed automatically. His eyes widened. “I mean…”

  He looked up at the ‘naut, feeling a sudden thumping in his chest. What had Sir Tomas just said? What had he just said?

  Sir Tomas smiled and clapped a long-fingered hand on Upforth’s shoulder, resting the toe of one boot on the ground as he leaned forward. Upforth stopped, his lips parted, hypnotized by the languid familiarity of the man’s pose.

  “Will, you’re a manager,” Tomas murmured down to him. “Have you heard the one about the employee who follows every order, never talks back, and works day and night for nothing more than your approval?”

  “And if I could just get her to stop wagging her tail, I could get a uniform on her,” Upforth finished the joke breathlessly.

  Tomas’ eyes crinkled. “Good man. No such thing as the perfect employee, is there?”

  “No sir.”

  “There are times when a leader just needs to take charge himself, aren’t there?”

  “That’s what I’ve always said—”

  “Will, this is one of those times.” Sir Tomas pointed across the workshop to the ranine box that the carters were shifting from the dolly to the floor. “Your man Carper and my two techs have been making all the decisions about what’s best for this project so far. I’ve been happy to let my ladies have that freedom. You know? Sometimes keeping your distance is the best thing a manager can do.”

  “Exactly, exactly—”

  “But there is such a thing as too much distance.”

  “I—that’s just so true, I know.” It was amazing to Upforth that he could have so much in common with a titled Petronaut commander. I’m an even better leader than I realized, he thought proudly.

  “And, clearly, I’ve let my techs have too much of a free hand this time. Because when I gave them a specific item to add to this work list—” he lifted the paper under Upforth’s nose—“they didn’t do it.”

  Upforth blinked. “They didn’t… what do you mean, they didn’t do it?”

  Tomas shrugged sadly. He removed his palm from the shorter man’s shoulder and unfolded the work list. “I specifically asked them to crank up the tension in this ranine box so it could power higher jumps.” He handed Upforth the piece of brown paper. “See for yourself, Will. Is that item in this list?”

  “I don’t typically...” Upforth looked across the charts, codes, and bullet lists on the creased piece of paper, and his eyes started to blur. “My staff usually processes the paperwork—”

  “No, Will,” Tomas said, looking up to the ceiling with regret etched onto his face. “The answer is no.”

  “But… you gave them a direct order!”

  “Oh, it’s not about that,” the Petronaut said, brushing Upforth’s indignation aside. “This isn’t about my ego. It’s about what’s best for the project.”

  “Certainly. Of course!”

  “And my techs seem to think that they know what’s best for it. So much so that they’ve actually shut my ideas out of a project that’s about to be exhibited in the fifteenth annual Petronaut Exposition. A project, incidentally, that has my name on it as team leader...” And here, for the first time, Sir Tomas actually locked eyes with Billy Upforth. “… and yours,” he finished.

  Upforth drew himself to his full height. “We can’t let them get away with this,” he said.

  “And we won’t,” Sir Tomas said. “Because who’s in charge?”

  “We are.”

  “When this thing is showcased in forty-eight hours, whose good names will be on the line?”

  “Ours!”

  “So if I tell you, no matter what’s on this work list, that our ranine box needs its tension ratcheted up fifteen percent—?”

  “Then I will flaming do it myself!” Upforth crowed, his eyes shining and zealous.

  The Petronaut beamed down at him and clapped him on the shoulder again. “I hoped you’d say something like that,” Tomas said.

  The lean man turned to go. “The carters are on call to deliver it back to Aerial central at 3 o’clock this afternoon. Will you have it done by then?”

  “Done, checked, and double-checked, Sir Tomas,” Upforth said, saluting. He was caught up in the spirit of the thing. “I will ratchet the tension up exactly fifteen percent!”

  The Petronaut spread out his fingers in a lazy, casual wave and sauntered out the door. Upforth turned around and looked at the ranine box across the room, an enigmatic coffin of a machine lurking next to Worktable C.

  “…as soon as I figure out how,” he whispered, tapping his index finger against his leg.

  “You’re welcome. No trouble at all! Thank you.”

  Cooper waved a last goodbye and ducked out of the mill more quickly than was polite. He knew that. He also knew that the ‘technicians’ of Lethton Flour and
Feed would keep him around to hold their hands for the rest of their ten-hour shift if he let them. It was already pushing noon as it was, and he was burned if he was going to miss Ensie’s test flight two nights in a row.

  Tool satchel in one hand and day bag in the other, he pounded his way through the muddy street, catching strange looks from the residents as he ran. The smell of rice bogs and drying fish filled the air. His uncomfortable carriage was at the far end of the street. The driver looked up from his horses, cocking his head slightly at the sight of the mountainous machinist barreling towards him.

  “Let’s go, please. Thanks,” Cooper called out as he ran. His breath was starting to hurt his throat with each pass it made from lungs to mouth.

  As he clambered into the rickety carriage, the driver gave him a sidelong glance. “Never seen someone so eager to rattle around a coach for six hours,” he said in a smoke-ravaged voice.

  I’ve got an appointment to keep. Cooper kept the rejoinder to himself as he ducked inside. With any luck, he’d be back in Delia before six.

  Skye rotated her shoulder in its socket as she came in from the shopyard. She raised an eyebrow at the sight of a small confrontation brewing around Worktable C.

  Upforth had his shirtsleeves pulled up to his elbows as he bent double over top of that ranine box Cooper was building with the Aerials. Two carters stood a short distance away, one leaning her elbows against the metal pushbar of their wheeled dolly. Upforth had a long-handled pair of tongs in both hands and was fiddling around inside the machine.

  “Sir Tomas said 3 o’clock,” Upforth fumed. “It’s extremely unprofessional of you to show up before the appointed time—”

  “Petronauts said they wanted it delivered to them by three,” one of the carters corrected. His voice was calm, but he had his hands on his hips as he watched over Billy Upforth’s shoulders.

  “That… is absolutely not… what he said. Spheres!” Upforth’s hands jerked backwards as the tongs slipped. There was a delicate clattering noise from inside the machine as something small and metallic bounced its way through the tubes and gears all the way to the bottom.

  Upforth straightened himself up with a grunt. His eyes lingered nervously on the base of the machine before he shot a glance at the carters.

  “There,” he said, with transparently manufactured confidence. “Finally got… finally got that thing free. I’ll just retrieve it through this panel, and the box will be on its way.” He knelt down next to the machine, pressing his fingertips against a side access panel, and fumbled in his vest for his socket wrench heads.

  “Take all the time you want,” a carter said, resettling herself against the dolly.

  “We’re on call all day long. It’s just the ’nauts who are waiting.”

  “We have chairs, you know!” Upforth snapped, jabbing his wrench towards the waiting area.

  The carters looked towards the chairs by the front door, across the shop. They looked back towards him, unconcerned. He attacked the bolts savagely until the panel was loose enough for him to yank it open.

  Upforth bent in close to the ranine box and carefully slipped the tongs past the high-pressure tanks. He clasped onto the side of a metal fragment with rounded edges, smaller than a pocket watch, with an articulated latch on one side for a tiny spring. Upforth palmed the metal piece and peered into the box as closely as he could. There was no sign of the spring.

  The back of his neck went cold with sweat as he searched fruitlessly for the missing coil. He’d be in trouble if Sir Tomas found out he’d broken anything, but it was impossible to focus with those two carters looming over him. It was just like having his father watching over his shoulder, never knowing when Upforth Senior would snap out a command or a rebuke as his trembling hands worked the soldering iron, demanding perfection from him when he wanted nothing more than to just call it done, to relax, to have something, for once, be good enough…

  “And there we are,” he said heartily, trying to keep his heart rate down. Upforth lifted the side panel back into place and finger-tightened the four bolts before taking his socket wrench to them. He slipped the metal fragment he’d found into his vest pocket. As for the spring, the Aerials would just have to do without it for now. They can’t expect me to keep up the hunt forever when my nerves are already shot. What about my health?

  “All done, then?”

  “And early, I should add.” Upforth stood up and slipped his tool in his belt. “Take it away,” he said, gesturing grandly.

  “It’s 3:04,” one carter whispered to the other.

  “Take it away,” Upforth said again, glaring. He pulled the rumpled work list out of his pocket and turned to the worktable. Hurrying, he checked item after item off with a charcoal stylus and thrust the paper at the carters. “And give Sir Tomas my compliments.”

  The movers mumbled something to him and touched their caps as they bent down to heft the box onto the dolly. Skye finished pouring herself a dipperful of water from the barrel and sat sipping from her mug, shaking her head. She watched Upforth hovering around the box as the carters went about their work.

  Glad that’s not my project, Skye thought, smacking her lips.

  Iggy and Ensie loitered in the workshop while they waited for the delivery from Upforth’s. They couldn’t go any further with reassembling the Flicker until its propulsion system was back in their shop. Iggy jokingly offered her a draw from her flask, and Ensie declined—not sure I want to be Delia’s first tipsy test pilot. So the senior tech just shrugged and took two of her own instead.

  It was pushing four by the time the carters actually arrived. “They’re slower than normal over at Upforth’s today,” Iggy said, scanning through the work list.

  “Must be busy,” Ensie shrugged. She bobbed her head in a nonverbal ‘hello’ to the carters as they dropped off the ranine box. They ignored her completely, fixed on their work, and she felt the bubbles of anxiety in her stomach grow a little bigger. It has to be busy over there. Why else wouldn’t Cooper have been in touch?

  “Is there any, uh…” She tried to act casual as Iggy looked up from the folded-up paperwork. “Is there any sort of message, or anything, on that sheet?”

  Iggy flipped the paper over and feigned surprise. “‘Sealed with a kiss!’” she read, planting a sloppy lip-print against the brown sheet. Ensie smiled, a little ashamed of herself for even asking.

  “Sorry, junior tech,” Iggy said, grinning as she handed the paper to Ensie. “No love letters from your beau.”

  He didn’t even sign it, she thought. She ran her fingers over the space where Cooper’s surprisingly dramatic signature usually adorned their work orders. Mister Upforth must have them working like dogs for him to forget something so basic.

  The comforting rhythm of work helped take her mind off whatever Cooper had to be going through, and what his absence was doing to her stomach. They had assembled and disassembled the Flicker half a dozen times now, so the routine of mounting the ranine box in the slender chassis and sealing it in place was second nature. Ensie just went step-by-step on her checklist, trying not to worry about anything past the next item down.

  Don’t let whatever it is you’re feeling get to you, she thought firmly. Getting too emotional will just make you sloppy. And if you or anybody else gets sloppy in putting this machine together, you, Miss Test Pilot, are the one who’s going to pay for it up in the air.

  After the machine was assembled, Iggy came scooting around with the hydraulic lifter, a ‘tum-powered vehicle on permanent loan from the Hauler squad. The senior tech backed up just in front of the Flicker’s nose, so the flatbed was at about the same height as the handlebars on the concept vehicle. Ensie pulled and twisted the metal pin that locked the back edge of the bed in place. The flap swung down, forming a slanted wedge up to the lifter’s bed.

  Iggy pressed a switch by the driver’s seat. With a sustained mechanical moan, the entire bed tilted down until the wedge touched the floor. Ensie picked up a length
of chain that ran from a long spool at the top of the bed, between the two seats, and got down on hands and knees to affix the carabiner at the end of the chain to the eyelet on the underside of the Flicker. Iggy pressed on another switch, and the chain gently pulled the Flicker up into the bed, its skis making an unpleasant scraping sound against the textured bed.

  Ensie clambered into the vehicle and took her seat on the bench next to Iggy. The senior tech kept up genial patter all the way out the double doors and along the konkrii paths to their test site. Ensie’s mind was elsewhere, though, and they both knew it.

  I don’t care that he didn’t come to see me last night. I’d just love to know what he did instead. Or where he’s been all day. Or what he’s planning to do this evening. A strand of hair flopped out of her snood, and Ensie blew it straight up with a sullen gust of air. It was hard to remember why this relationship they had—whatever it was—had seemed like a good idea.

  Iggy drove the Flicker to its mark and tilted the bed to the ground. The measuring pylon rose up out of the earth just a few meters away, a numerical obelisk stretching for the clouds. Ensie looked up at it as the chattering spool of chain lowered the Flicker into place. She flattened to her belly and unhooked the carabiner again.

  “I’ll park this bastard, and we’ll do some jumping,” Iggy shouted from the driver’s seat over the sound of the chains.

  Ensie nodded. She shifted her weight and felt the copper bell slide along her ankle. She had no prayer of hearing it jingle over the sound of the motor and the clattering metal. But the movement of the anklet was like a cool breath against her skin, and for some reason she had to bite back a sob.

  Business, she thought determinedly.

  She set across the test range to fetch her trunk of pilot’s gear. There was only so much daylight left.