by Rabia Gale
“Tell me you have copies of your research somewhere safe.”
For answer, he tapped his temple. Lovely. The fragile organ in a body now suffering from altitude sickness.
“Gondola,” he managed. “Outside my shroom. Powered.”
Rainbird brightened. Gondolas skimmed the surface of the sunway on magnetized skids. They weren’t common, but of course a wiz would have one. He’d build one if he didn’t.
“I’ll get it.” She squeezed his arm. “You stay right here.”
Rainbird crept back to the shroom and peered over the edge. It looked like a pustule growing out of the side of the sunway. Her estimation of Sanders’ courage went up a few notches. Or maybe he didn’t look out of his windows very often.
The wiz’s gondola was held clamped in two arms that extended from under the shroom. A short walkway jutted out from the shroom’s second hatch, but the extension that led all the way to the gondola was drawn up.
Right.
Handholds went down the side to the shroom’s roof. Rainbird drew in a deep breath. It was one thing to know she was limber and agile, quite another to prove it by climbing down the side of the sunway without a safety line.
Rainbird climbed down until the shroom’s roof was within reach. This close, it was made of some sort of poly stretched over a wire mesh frame. When Rainbird dipped a toe into the material, it gave slightly but held.
If anyone was inside, they’d be able to hear her walking on the roof.
She’d have to be quick.
Rainbird judged the length of the gap between the farthest edge of the domed roof and the gondola. She’d have to jump that whole length and drop into the gondola. She peered at the dark bulk of the engine, visualized where the starter was.
How long would it take for the engine to heat up? She should’ve asked Sanders.
Her fingers were numb from her tight grip on the holds. She couldn’t sit here all night. Sanders was waiting for her. The knowledge in his head was waiting for her.
Rainbird kissed her hand to Glew and the rest of the stars, but it was to the red wanderer that she spoke. Watch me now. Watch me fly—or fall. This is as good a show you’ll ever get from me.
She braced herself against bone, then drove off, like a runner. She bounded across the shroom’s roof in one, two, three strides. Her heel clanged against a metal rim as she leaped. The walkway flashed below her, then the gap.
The big horrible gap.
She was falling straight for it.
Rainbird fixed her eyes on the gondola and reached. Her hands bit into its side and she clamped on tight as the rest of her body finished falling. Gravity dragged at her.
Lights snapped on from behind. Rainbird scuttled over the gondola’s edge and pooled into the bottom.
A shout. “Someone’s at the boat!”
Rainbird lunged for the controls, fumbled in the dark. The heel of her hand struck the starting lever. She pushed so hard, the metal left a dent in her skin.
The walkway shuddered with footsteps. The engine coughed into life, a weak whirring life.
“Oh, come on!” muttered Rainbird, eyeing the display. She pushed the throttle, but the gondola didn’t even budge. Engine was too darn cold still.
Rainbird grabbed for one of the two arms. Cold metal stung her bare fingers but she wrestled the claw open. The gondola listed to one side.
Metal whined, board thudded. They were lowering the extension bridge. They were going to board her, those two hulking shadows rimmed with light.
Rainbird ran to the other arm, began unscrewing the claw. Once it was loose, that engine had to be ready. There’d be nothing else holding them up.
The bridge unfolded, slammed into the gondola’s side. The craft jolted. One man ran for the arm she’d already worked on to reclamp it. The other came straight for her.
A heavy screw dropped into Rainbird’s hands. Without thought, she threw it into the man’s face. He ducked, hands up.
The delay cost him. Rainbird flung the clamps off the gondola just as the man lunged for her. The gondola dropped like a rock, leaving him windmilling in the air. Rainbird watched as he teetered on the edge. For a moment, he seemed to get his balance.
Then he fell.
Rainbird acted without thinking. She leaned overboard, the edge of the gondola biting into her abdomen, hand outstretched.
She missed.
The man’s fingers didn’t even brush hers, but she felt the wind of his noiseless passage as he fell. As he turned to a speck in the darkness.
Inspector uniform, inspector face. She knew that man.
Rainbird threw herself at the controls again. Thrust the throttle. The engine whined, high-pitched, protesting. The gondola nosed up like a rearing horse, soared into the sky. Rainbird looked down, as the remaining man, the walkway, the shroom, dwindled into nothingness and the craft burst up over the softly-gleaming bone of the sunway.
“The alloy,” was all Sanders said when she picked him up. He huddled in layers of emergency blankets, beaming in a grandfatherly sort of way. “I refitted the whole craft with it. Made the engines come on quick, didn’t they?”
Rainbird remembered the drop. The gondola as it slipped away from the inspector’s clutching fingers, as it started to fall, several hundred pounds of deadweight headed for downside. The man who’d lost his balance and plummeted—unlucky, because he had not been refitted with a motor and a pair of wings. She saw his eyes, wide and blank with terror. Like Marvelo when she stabbed him, turned unthinking in his shock at what had happened to him. But she said, simply, “Yes.”
“You keep saving me.” Sanders, doped up from the anti-altitude sickness shot she’d given him and the brown ringsnake around his wrist, was remarkably chatty. “I keep forgetting how many times. But I remember the first time.”
“Yeah. That bomb was today, Sanders.” Even though this morning felt like it was an eternity ago.
“No. That first time, on the sunway, when I thought the cargo was going to take me over the edge. You saved me.”
“That was you.” She was too tired to summon up incredulity.
“Yes. I had to get equipment up to the lab. I couldn’t bring it on the elevators. The Company would know soon enough what I was working on and I’d already been told to focus on high-altitude bioluminescence up here. I arranged with a friend to send it up to me via balloon.”
“Remarkable,” said Rainbird, flatly. And they thought you were smuggling bomb-making material. Someone had trapped them both in their plot.
A pause. “Um, Rainbird? Where are we going now?”
Up. Past the wings, past the Perch. To Glew. Anywhere. Just away from here. But Petrus. “Somewhere safe.” She didn’t know where that was, but she’d think of it. She was good at running away, good at hiding. Sanders was just like a…backpack. A talking, walking, breathing, eating, warmth-needing backpack.
The radio beeped, loud, warning.
Rainbird and Sanders stiffened, looked at each other. Said nothing.
Beep. And again and again.
A message coming in on the gondola’s private channel. From someone who knew that the gondola had been reclaimed.
Finally Rainbird reached out a hand—it felt like it belonged to someone else—and pressed the button.
Static cracked through the air. Rainbird covered her ears against the high-pitched buzz that wavered through the static. Sanders fiddled with the knob. The whine abruptly cut off, though the static remained.
A clipped voice spoke. “Rainbird. We have Petrus.” Turnworth, though the voice didn’t identify itself. “Bring yourself and Sanders to Marker 55 in six hours.” The voice lowered, lost a touch of its briskness. “Don’t make a foolish decision, Rainbird. You have no other protectors.” The voice cut out and the crackle of empty airwaves resumed. Sanders flipped off the radio.
“Well,” he said. “That sounded like a nasty threat.” He looked at Rainbird, in a distantly worried sort of way. “Bad luck about Petrus,
your—?”
“Father,” returned Rainbird abruptly. She put her forehead on clenched fist. Need to think!
“Well,” said Sanders again, at last, sounding lost. “I suppose I’ll see what that voice wants from me. Sounds like a Company man, at least. Can tell by that bureaucratic accent. They give them speech training, you know. We techs don’t get that. We aren’t allowed out much anyway, you know.” Babbling. Volunteering.
Darnit. He was volunteering to go to Turnworth. Rainbird ground her teeth, hating his nobility. He and Petrus. Two peas in a pod. Riding to the rescue of hapless—or not—damsels. She pulled her fists down, glared at him. “Of course you’re not going, dummy. They almost took out the sunway to get to you! Put goons at your shroom. No, we’re not going to them!”
“We don’t know he was responsible for any of that,” said Sanders reasonably. “Besides, he’s Company.”
“The same Company that doesn’t want you working on the alloy that’s going to strengthen the sunway and make the bonerot go away. The same Company that’s framing you for setting the bomb. The same Company that’s holding Petrus captive. Why would they do that? Why sabotage the sunway?” Rainbird struck her knees with each question. “Isn’t that the only reason the Company exists? Who would want to destroy the one thing that makes human life possible on this world?”
“Oh.” Sanders was silent for a moment. “Actually, the Day Sun may not be the only thing. The Cooperative’s been boasting they have an alternative to the sunway. ”
“How can you just have an alternative to the sunway? It’s the sun, for Glew’s sake! Besides, Petrus doesn’t think they have a viable solution.”
“Ah, well, they’ve gone away from biochemical reactions entirely. Their sun is powered by reactions at a sub-microscopic level, basically splitting apart dense atoms. They want to send it into orbit inside a framework of…” He launched into a highly technical discussion of the processes involved, of which Rainbird understood about every third word.
Someone wanted to replace the sun? That was…was…blasphemy, almost.
Now she knew how the eiree felt when the humans put the Day Sun on the track, replacing Glew, their own cold star, as the primary celestial body of their world.
“They’re putting everyone in danger by pushing this untried technology,” she said over Sanders’ explanation.
“Well, on paper—” he began.
“And they’re the only ones I know of who have a motive for destroying the sunway. Glew! Turnworth must be working for them.” Now I know why the eiree are helping Turnworth and the Cooperative. They’d love to have the humans off the sunway so they could have it back to themselves.
“Rainbird?” Sanders eyed her warily. “What are you going to do?”
“Get Petrus back. And thanks to you, I know just how we’ll find him.” She gave him a hard-edged smile.
“Oh dear.” Sanders leaned his head back. “I think I’m getting dizzy again.”
“Here’s the deal.” Rainbird leaned back against warm bone and talked into a mouthpiece that smelled of sweat and onion. “I’m not going anywhere until I know Petrus is alive and safe. I want to talk to him first.”
Silence. Then Turnworth said, “I don’t think you want to waste too much of my time. Or his. He’s really not doing too well, you know. Lungsickness, you see.” He sounded sad, as if he had nothing to do with kidnapping Petrus and subjecting him to additional stress.
“I have Sanders and the knowledge in his brain. How much is that worth to you?” said Rainbird, bluntly. Across from her, Sanders’ mouth crooked into a self-mocking twist.
“Very well. I will call you back in—”
“No. One hour. And I’ll call you. Goodbye.” She cut the connection before Turnworth had the brilliant idea of tracing it back to this location.
After all, that was her brilliant idea.
“And now we wait,” she told Sanders. He nodded, still hunched over the machine he’d cobbled together from spare parts. They’d raided three inspection huts to find enough gear to create a device that could plug into the spinal cord, and send a tracking signal to Turnworth’s callbox. If she could keep Petrus and Turnworth on the line for long enough, Sanders would be able to pinpoint the location they were keeping Petrus at.
Rainbird had made sure that Turnworth would talk to her on his personal callbox, and she was fairly certain that he would go to Petrus, rather than moving him around.
She had a plan. It would work. She’d get Petrus back.
“Snack?” Rainbird offered to Sanders, rummaging in her pack for a sunway mix of nuts, raisins and bits of dried beef. He shook his head, his face pale and intent in the soft glow of the light they’d hooked up to cables twisted around the spinal cord.
“It’s good. Fresh. You should eat. Keep up your strength.” Rainbird popped a handful into her mouth. Full-bred eiree subsisted on moss and Glew-light, it seemed like, but her body burned a lot of fuel. Human metabolism trying to power eiree systems.
She was also talking too much. Sanders seemed quite at home in this bizarre closed place, this macabre amalgamation of tissue and bone and current and cable, but she didn’t like seeing that parts of the dragon were still alive. Bone was good and dead, but it made her skin crawl, keeping nerves and tissues going this long.
Rainbird leaned her head back, tiredness settling over her like a soft down comforter. The clicking of Sanders’ device as he tinkered with it, the hum of electric current, the dim light and the warmth all combined to make her aware that she hadn’t slept in a long time.
Speeding through vast spaces…light pinpricking darkness…music growing louder as gaseous spheres turned…hurtling straight towards a star that turned, thin-slitted, to LOOK at her. I am coming for you.
An alarm beeped, loud and insistent. Rainbird jerked awake, heart beating, ear-tips tingling. A fine film of sweat covered her skin.
“It’s time.” Sanders handed her the ear and mouth pieces.
Did he notice her hands trembling as she took the set? Don’t be silly. It’s only a dream and the dragon is dead. Still, she couldn’t help but cast a baleful eye at the thick twisted cord that ran down the middle of the bony tube. She flexed the fingers of her right hand to shake some feeling back into them. Just do it.
She punched the numbers and listened to the background buzzing, the sounds of millions of excited electrified cells as the current passed through…
A click and Turnworth’s voice, cold and crisp, came through, as though he were standing right next to her. “Turnworth.” Rainbird’s stomach fluttered with nerves.
“Is he there?” Her voice came out a rasp. She hoped it didn’t betray her anxiety.
“Here.” Crackling sounds as Turnworth juggled the set. Then Petrus’ voice, ragged and worn, filled her world.
“Rainbird?”
“Papa! Are you all right? Have they hurt you?” The words tumbled out of Rainbird, rushing like a river in a rainstorm. “Do they—?”
“Listen to me, Rainbird. I forbid you to come. Don’t listen to—” Petrus’ words ended in a grunt, a forced expulsion of air, as if he’d been socked in the gut.
“Papa!” shouted Rainbird, then winced at the clunk! as if the mouthpiece on the other end had dropped. Shuffling noises and muffled cries came to her ears. Turnworth again. “You’ve heard him. Now bring us the wiz.”
Petrus, in the distance, “No, Rainbird! They have a—” His words dissolved into a coughing fit that made Rainbird’s chest constrict with fear.
“He needs medicine,” she told Turnworth, fighting back the tears. “You have to get him some or you’ll be left with a corpse.” Was he listening to her? She forced herself to be calm. “There won’t be an exchange if he isn’t alive, do you hear?”
“Bring the medicine yourself, along with Sanders. Marker 55 in an hour.”
“It’s almost morning,” Rainbird argued. “Thanks to you, everyone’s looking for us. I need until nightfall.”
“Very well. You’ll meet us an hour after Deep Night then.”
“Wait!” Rainbird glanced at Sanders, who was frantically shaking his head, fingers flying over his controls.
“There is nothing else to say, Miss Gallavant.” A final click.
Rainbird dropped the headset. “Did you locate him?”
Sanders groaned. “Headside somewhere, beyond Marker 10. More specific than that…” He spread his hands out.
“I’ll call back.”
“I’d have to trace the call all over again. It doesn’t work that—”
“Do it!” she snarled. “Or I’ll spike you to the marker tonight myself.”
Sanders pressed his lips closed and hunched over the board. Rainbird hit the numbers again. No response. Again.
Nothing. Not even a ringing.
Bastard must’ve unplugged his callbox from the socket.
“Damnit!” Rainbird followed it up with a few more choice curses, picked up from Marvelo’s thugs. She lunged to her feet, stalked over to the spinal cord. Considered kicking Sanders’ useless machinery, but the mulish set of his chin and his protective hunch over it deterred her. Instead, she reached through the mesh of wiring and touched the nerve.
It was covered in a whitish sheath and felt slightly slippery and warm. Within the sheath, currents hummed as they ran through tissue and metal. Her fingers tingled.
Please. Rainbird willed her thoughts into her blood and down to her fingers, along with memory and longing. Where’s Petrus? Tell me where to find him.
And then she was no longer surrounded by bone, sharing cramped quarters with Sanders, his machine poking into her calf, but stretched out and shooting through nerves, buffeted and pricked by zooming particles. She’d have gasped at the speed, but she had no lungs to breathe with—they’d been left behind with the rest of her body. Already she felt herself spreading thin and disintegrating, no longer held in by her skin, bombarded by sound and sensation.
“…play Jacks tonight…” sizzle tingle “…nagging woman downside…” pierce-pain flash-star–glimpse of loading dock, empty and cavernous—“…track’s set, but the bone…” hot hot hot—if she could only shed her clothes, her skin…giant muscles clenched and relaxed, in slow tempo…longing longing for the stars to stretch wings and fly…