by Stephen Hunt
‘Let no one think,’ boomed Thomas Gale, ‘that returning without a sky mine for the imperium is the easy option. The Vandians do not give festival days to idle slaves. This is the emperor’s response to laziness and inadequacy.’
Cries and shouts rippled around Willow. Shock. Anger. Revulsion. Even the men from Northhaven booed, many of them still nursing fractured bones and missing friends taken during the fight against these sky miners, rivals who’d tried to steal the rock out from under their feet.
‘Is it just hitters, or are there sorters standing over there?’ mewled Adella.
‘Everyone in the station takes their place,’ said Kassina. ‘And hopes that the lottery of the count throws the person next to them off the edge while missing them. Even pilots draw lots to see which of them are to haul the station and which must take their chances on the edge. If you fail to work hard enough, that could be you standing there.’
Willow held down the meagre contents of her stomach. And they call us barbarians? She shivered from the lesson’s horror, even as she recognised the cold, terrible logic of the act. Fewer mouths to feed. And the Vandians never had to fear that failure to return with a strike was due to the slaves’ desire to slack off between eruptions.
‘Our work keeps us alive,’ said Kassina. ‘And if you’re lucky, it helps you forget too.’
With the decimation of the rival slave force complete, the rival warship, station and squadron of transporters withdrew, but Willow could still hear the terrified cries of falling slaves shoved over the edge. And she knew the sound would come back to her every time she gazed into the torrid, gassy sky. That was the point of the demonstration. The slaves returned to their work, many with tears in their eyes, others stumbling back like zombies, a few shaking as though they’d caught cold even in the febrile atmosphere. She marched back to her position on the grading line as it began to rumble back into action. Old Kassina was wrong about one thing. The work didn’t help Willow forget.
NINE
THE BARON’S CONSORT
Carter angrily entered the station’s refectory, an oblong eating chamber separated from the food preparation area by open serving hatches through which to pass metal plates. There wasn’t much preparation that went into the cooking, as far as Carter could see. But with the imperium primarily delivering sacks of grain, there was little to do beyond pouring it into vats, adding water and letting it steam up. Carter never dallied here. Too hot to be comfortable, even by the station’s humid standards. If there was one small consolation, it was that the canteen was cooler than labouring inside the sky mine. Carter stared around the long iron tables and found the bench he was looking for – Duncan, Willow, Kerge, Owen and Anna seated heads down, spooning up the contents of their bowls. Carter stormed up to the table and banged its surface in front of Duncan.
‘Where is she?’
The heir to the House of Landor glanced up, surprised. ‘What are you going on about now?’
‘Adella! Her bunk’s being cleaned out. What have you promised her to move back to your barracks?’
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
Carter grabbed Duncan by his slave’s tunic and pulled him off the bench. ‘You lying piece of—’
Willow leapt up; Owen and Kerge restrained Carter from shaking the truth out of the man. ‘Adella isn’t bunking in our barracks,’ said Willow. ‘I swear it.’
‘What, you think I’m hiding her under my billet?’ said Duncan. ‘Maybe she’s got tired of you treating her like a hunting hound, fit only to lie at your feet when it suits you.’
Carter resisted the urge to plant his fist in Duncan’s face. ‘Where is she?’
‘I have seen the female,’ disclosed Kerge, the gask rubbing the quills around his neck. ‘Two hours ago. She was walking with our owner’s ally… the Vandian baron and his guards.’
‘Baron Machus?’ asked Willow.
‘Yes.’
Willow groaned, her face turning pale.
‘What is it?’ asked Carter. ‘What do you know?’
‘The baron came inspecting the sorting line a couple of days ago,’ said Willow. ‘He noticed Adella while he here. He suggested he should buy her to Princess Helrena.’
‘What!’ Carter felt a wave of foreboding fill his gut.
‘But the princess refused,’ said Willow, hurriedly. ‘She told the baron we worked too hard for us to be sold off. Called us dirty barbarians.’
‘That’s not a refusal!’ said Carter. ‘That’s haggling.’
Owen placed a calming hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘Let me have a word with Thomas Gale. If a worker’s transferred off the station, he will know.’
The old hand ducked out of the canteen chamber, leaving Duncan glowering at Carter. ‘She was in your barracks, pastor’s boy. You were meant to be looking out for her.’
‘If Adella’s been taken as a house slave, there’s nothing Carter could’ve done,’ said Anna. ‘We’re no more than chattels to the empire. Property gets exchanged all the time.’
‘She’s not property to me!’ shouted Carter.
‘If you’d been there when Machus and his guards turned up, if you’d tried to stop them taking Adella, they would have beaten you to death, Northhaven.’
‘It’s not right,’ said Duncan.
‘We’re slaves,’ said Anna. ‘We don’t have rights. If you greenhorns keep thinking like free Weylanders, all you’re going to get is dead.’
Owen returned after ten minutes. From the weary look on his face, Carter knew the truth before Owen opened his mouth. ‘Her ownership papers have been transferred to Baron Machus. I’m sorry; he’s already left the station with her…’
Carter scooped up one of the bowls of gruel and flung it to the floor. ‘She is not a piece of property!’
Willow had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Carter, it’s partly my fault. I crushed Adella’s hopes. I told her how far from Northhaven we are; how long it would take to travel back home.’
‘What?’ Carter stared incredulously at her.
‘It’s four hundred years travelling overland by merchant caravan. Two decades flying on a merchant carrier. That’s how long it’d take to reach Weyland even if you escaped the empire.’
‘Listen to the woman,’ urged Anna. ‘We’re trapped here, Northhaven. We’re marooned and that’s the truth of it. If you’ve got to serve as a bondswoman, being a house slave for a Vandian celestial-upper caste is as good as it gets for us. Adella won’t die in a cave-in or be blown up by a misfiring blasting charge. She’s never going to be lined up at the edge of the station waiting for some imperial son-of-a-bitch to signal how many have to die for their failure to bring home a rock.’
‘As good as it gets.’ Carter repeated her words. They were bitter ashes in his mouth.
‘I thought Adella was going to talk to you,’ said Willow. ‘Convince you not to try to escape.’
Duncan had slumped back down to the table, all the fight departed from him. ‘Adella can’t be gone. She can’t.’
Carter was spared any more accusations of failing to protect Adella. From the look on Duncan’s face, it was clear she had meant something more to the man than just the opportunity to deprive Carter of a victory. Maybe I’ve misjudged him? Carter felt a twinge of guilt over the shallow depth of his feelings for Adella. If it was a competition of true love being run here, then Carter Carnehan had been outpaced.
‘I was going to take her with me,’ said Carter. Hollow words of comfort for the heartbroken heir to the Landor acres.
‘Then perhaps it is better she escaped as she did,’ said Anna. ‘Because your way would have led to her grave.’
At least my way goes to an end of my own choosing.
Duncan trudged down the stone passage alongside Owen. Since Adella had been stolen from his life, the days seemed to blur into each other. Duncan’s numbing workload barely seemed to register on his body. Whether he was hunched down in a tunnel swinging an axe against a rockface, hau
ling ore out of the tunnels, or pushing carts down to the station’s supply chambers with Owen, without Adella he was just going through the motions of living. Duncan knew Willow was worried about him. The change in him was there for everyone to see. Maybe I should be more like Carter – hard, selfish, indifferent, uncaring? Adella’s disappearance had just seemed to make Carter even more determined to break out of the sky mines. But what about Duncan Landor? Adella had been the ballast for his life at Hawkland Park. He’d been planning to escape his confined existence with her by his side – and in that foolish, childish act of whimsy, he had succeeded. Now he was stranded millions of miles from Northhaven. Duncan thought he was in a prison before, but now he knew what true servitude was. Without Adella, he drifted, lost and aimless. He might die here now, but he would never try to escape. Not without Adella by his side. He would never abandon her, not as long as he clung on to the slim hope that they’d be back together again, somehow.
‘You need to get your mind off her,’ said Owen, interrupting Duncan’s misery. ‘People leave, people die. That’s our life.’
‘How can I?’ asked Duncan.
‘You lose everyone in the sky mines, eventually. It has always been that way. Perhaps a sixtieth of the workforce I started with are alive now. Of those I count as good friends, only Anna Kurtain survives from the original slave raid.’
‘How do you cope with that?’
‘You must discover your duty to those around you – help them. Once you’re easing others’ pain, it becomes easier to forget about your own woes. I’ve heard what the others from Northhaven say about you… your family has a name that means something.’
‘The House of Landor doesn’t count for ore dust up here.’
‘It counts if you count,’ said Owen. ‘What is your house? Is it the walls of the warehouses where your produce is stored? Is it the bricks of your buildings? Is it the mud of the acres that you work? No, it is you and your family, the people you protect in your house. It’s the workers you help and the actions you take. Without people, your house is only empty earth waiting to be reclaimed by the weeds.’
The hue of illumination changed inside the passage. They pushed their empty cart through a series of blanket-like curtains, emerging into a corridor lit a dull crimson; wall lamps protected by armoured glass, cables protected behind strong metal conduits. Precautions to stop sparks from setting off their blasting powder stores.
‘The mine shouldn’t have run out of blasting powder so quickly,’ said Owen. ‘In the princess’s desperation to pay the emperor his tithes, our tunnels are being blown in haste.’
‘Nobody’s died yet,’ said Duncan.
‘Yet. This rock was picked as a base station because of its stability.’ Owen slapped the walls. ‘But we haven’t properly mapped out the new strike’s interior. If a poorly placed charge hits a fault line, it’ll split the sky mine apart and spill us into the volcano.’
They pushed through another curtain of blankets, entering a stone passage with four corridors leading off it. Numbers were painted on the walls, marking out the routes.
Owen lifted a leather satchel out of the cart and passed it to Duncan. ‘The blasting caps are stored in a chamber at the end of that passage. Fill this bag with caps and then meet me back here. I’m going down to pick up the canisters of blasting powder. If you meet a storeman, have them unlock your repository and then send them down to me to unlock the fire doors to the main magazine.’
Duncan slung the satchel over his shoulder and took the passage Owen had indicated. The air was damp here. A four-minute walk down the passage which ended in an anteroom, two storerooms, big thick metal doors that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a bank vault. One storeroom was sealed, but the second’s door had been left ajar. Is there a warehouse man inside, doing inventory? Duncan pulled open the heavy door, a protesting squeal of unoiled metal, just enough to squeeze past. He found an unadorned oblong chamber with a high ceiling inside. It was filled throughout with shelves stacked with mining equipment. Duncan couldn’t see any sign of any storemen, though. Normally, their ranks were drawn from slaves missing limbs and unfit for anything other than light work.
‘Hello? I’ve come for a bag’s worth of blasting caps.’ Duncan heard a moan from beyond an archway in the wall. Duncan walked over. In the adjoining storeroom was a sight that made his blood freeze. Four dead Vandian soldiers, a pile of murdered slaves too – corpses pooling blood across the stone. Duncan moved warily forward. It appeared as if the men had been shot at close range, gaping wounds surrounded by powder burns. What the hell’s happened here? The first thought that leapt into Duncan’s mind was that this was a slave revolt, part of Carter’s madcap scheme to escape. His second thought was that if any Vandian soldiers caught him here, they would hang him as a rebel first and attempt to get to the truth of his presence second. Finishing the soldiers he understood. But why kill the storemen? Had they resisted, too? Did Carter plan to fashion homemade grenades using the blasting powder? Storm the princess’s vessel now it had docked with the station again? Take Princess Helrena hostage and demand passage home? But Carter wouldn’t kill his own people, would he? Dear God, surely he wouldn’t sink that low? And to take on the crew of that imperial war vessel, Carter would need the entire station standing behind him. A moan escaped from the piled bodies. One of the Vandians was alive! As Duncan bent down by the man’s side, he saw the soldier’s pistol holster and sword scabbard were empty.
‘What happened here?’
‘Betrayed,’ coughed the guard. ‘We are Cassandra Skar’s bodyguard. Our officer tricked us down here. He told us Helrena was inspecting this level and wanted to see her daughter. The bastard led us into an ambush. He has the Lady Cassandra. The lieutenant’s taking the girl off the station and selling her to Circae.’
Duncan felt his heart sink at the news. More of the imperials’ damn politics. He didn’t know whether he should be glad this wasn’t Carter’s madcap escape attempt, or sad that it wasn’t. Another idea leapt into his mind. He could save the princess’s daughter. Warn Helrena Skar. Her only child’s being kidnapped. If I can foil the scheme, surely she’ll repay me with Adella’s return?
‘How many took her? Where are they heading?’
‘Three of them,’ wheezed the wounded soldier, ‘heading for our shuttle in the hangar, but,’ he grabbed Duncan’s arm and pointed at the dead slaves, ‘they’re going to blow the station, that’s why they killed the storeroom staff. Traitor’s wired the magazine for a remote detonation. Kill the princess, kill everyone here… make it look like an accident or a station mutiny. You have to – take the detonator from the lieutenant!’
Duncan’s head spun with the news. Sabotage. Exactly what was rumoured to have happened to the previous sky mine. Blow the station. Destroy the sky mine tethered to it. Take down the princess and her rocket ship. That bitch Helrena and her Vandian retainers would perish, but every man and woman from Northhaven would die along with them – including Willow.
‘Warn the princess,’ begged the guard. ‘Save the girl.’
Helrena deserves to die a dozen times over for what she’s done to us, but… Duncan jumped to his feet and darted to the shelves, filling his sack with blasting caps. They weren’t much of a weapon. A cup-sized aluminium disc with a rotating timer on top to set a delay for a fused detonation, a magnetic base to stick it to a canister of blasting powder. But they were all Duncan had to save everyone on the station.
Jacob stepped out of the fat cargo plane with his friends and straight into an argument. The crew of the Night’s Pride were in heated discussions with a group of officials from the local authorities. Shouting loud enough to be heard over the shuttle aircraft’s slowing rotors.
‘These new fuel costs are outrageous,’ spat one of the fliers. ‘How do you expect us to deliver cargoes when you cheat us like this? Is it your plan for us to buy rifles and ammunition for your grand duke and transport them to Hangel as a gift for him? Are we here to
trade, or to offer you free samples?’
An ornately uniformed official shrugged. ‘The prices are what they are. The crops used to produce the fuel are being raided regularly now. We need the rifles to protect the farms. Then the cost of the fuel will come down.’
‘We are not a charity! We do not travel the air to finance the wars of rich noblemen.’
‘Then your carrier can fly in circles around Hangel until you run low enough on fuel to reconsider. Perhaps you should jettison your cargo, so you’re light enough to reach your next port?’
‘Criminals!’
Jacob guffawed. It looked like the locals had the advantage over the trading plane and its merchants of the air. This little city state was located in the middle of nowhere. Jacob had gazed down on nothing but endless plains and savannah during the entire journey. The very logic of Hangel’s existence was little more than a staging post between where you were coming from and where you were heading to, and the fuel to make the crossing possible was the only commodity the locals possessed. Is it any wonder that they use it as leverage? Given the willingness of the Night’s Pride crew to gouge them for their passage out of Weyland, Jacob wasn’t too unhappy to see the boot on the other foot.
‘If they decide to fly on,’ said Sheplar, ‘perhaps we can stay on board.’
‘Yes, if they do,’ said Jacob. ‘I think the shouts and threats are just opening negotiations, though.’ He lifted the library seal around his neck. He had already been told by the aircrew that Hangel was in the guild network. There would be a library here, as well as a radiomen’s hold. The light was fading around them now. Darkness falling fast across the plains. ‘Let’s see if this is good for a night or two’s free stay until negotiations play out… or we find an aircraft heading south across the grasslands.’
‘Ah, Hangel,’ said Sariel. ‘One of the wonders of the world. A jewel set in the wide expanse of the savannah. Can you feel the spray of water on your face?’