by Philip Reeve
Feeling sick, the old kriegsmarschall pushed his way out of the council chamber. The sounds of cheering and booing and furious arguments followed him all the way down the corridors of the town hall and into the park outside, but at least out there the air was fresh and the breeze was cool. He hurried down the steps and ducked under the security barriers that Browne’s people had erected to keep sightseers at bay. The crowds had gone now, except for a few picnickers on the lawns. Paper hats and placards lay strewn among the fallen blossoms on the metal paths. A discarded newspaper blew past, Nimrod Pennyroyal’s photograph on the front page. Ridiculous! thought von Kobold. The whole world tilting back into chaos, and all the papers were interested in was the latest gossip about that absurd writer fellow…
He strode across the grass to an observation balcony. Standing against the railings, he breathed in deeply, gazing eastward toward the armored ramparts of his own city, and then east again, to no-man’s-land. It was three weeks since Wolf had left Murnau. What was he doing now? Where was that nasty suburb of his? What would become of it if the war began again?
“Von Kobold?” asked someone close behind him. “Kriegsmarschall von Kobold?”
He turned and saw an impertinent, overdressed stranger with ginger whiskers. The young man looked slightly demented. Kobold almost regretted that he had left his staff officers behind in the council hall. But he was not going to let himself be scared by a ferrety little scrub like this, so he drew himself to attention and said, “I am von Kobold.”
“Varley.” The stranger held out a hand, and he could think of no good excuse not to shake it. “Napster Varley,” said the man, beaming at him. A gold tooth blinked like a heliograph. “I popped down here, hoping to speak to your little conference, but they wouldn’t let me in. So I was hanging about, waiting for it all to finish so I could buttonhole one of you on your way back to your airships, and I noticed you wandering about. Stroke of luck, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Oh, it is indeed, Herr Kobold!” (Hair Kobold; his pronunciation made the kriegsmarschall wince.) “You see, sir, I’m in the air trade. A dealer in curiosities. And curious is the word for the little item I’ve got aboard my ship, sir, just waiting for the right buyer. So when I saw you, sir, walking through the park here, all alone, like, I said to myself, ‘Napster,’ I said, ‘the Gods of Trade have sent him here so you can go and tell him what a bargain is waiting for him, up at Airhaven.’”
“Airhaven?” said von Kobold, and glanced to leeward, where the flying town was drifting above a haze of city smoke a few miles away. Nobody was going to lure him to a place like that! A free port, probably a nest of Mossie spies and assassins. He stepped away from Varley and started walking back toward the town hall, calling over his shoulder, “Whatever you’re selling, Mr. Varley, I am not interested.”
“Oh, yes, you are, sir!” said the merchant, hurrying to catch him up. “Least, you will be when you find out what it is. Could be important, sir. For the war effort, like. I’m only trying to do my bit, sir.”
Von Kobold stopped, wondering what on Earth the man was talking about. Shady scavengers were always emerging from the Out-Country with bits of Old Tech that they claimed would end the war. Most of them were charlatans, but you could never be sure… “If you think it might be important,” he said, “you should take it to the authorities. Either here in Manchester or in Murnau. They’ll know what to do with it.”
“Ah, but I don’t suppose they’ll reward me for my troubles, will they, sir? And I’ve taken considerable trouble to acquire this item, so I shall want a considerable reward.”
“But if you are a good Municipal Darwinist and you think this thing can help us—”
“I’m what you might call a Municipal Darwinist second, sir,” said Varley, “and a businessman first.” He shrugged, and muttered, somewhat perplexingly, “Scatter cushions! Grandma had the right idea! I never thought it’d be so hard to find a buyer…”
Von Kobold turned away again, but before he could walk on, the merchant’s hand closed on his sleeve. “Look, sir!” he said. He was holding out some sort of photograph. Von Kobold, who was too proud to wear his reading glasses in public, could not make it out. He pushed Varley away, but the merchant stuffed the photograph into the breast pocket of his tunic and said ingratiatingly, “I expect you’ll want to come and arrange a price, sir. You’ll find my ship on Strut 13, Airhaven Main Ring. Varley’s the name, sir. And the reserve price is ten thousand shineys…”
“Well, of all the infernal—” von Kobold started to say, but he was interrupted by the voice of his aide, Captain Eschenbach. The young man was hurrying down the steps of the town hall, and Varley, seeing him, ducked between some nearby bushes and went scurrying away.
“Was that fellow bothering you, Kriegsmarschall?” asked Eschenbach, drawing level with von Kobold.
“No. A crackpot; nothing.”
“You should come inside, sir,” the young man said. “They are discussing battle plans. Deciding which city attacks which sector of the enemy’s territory. Browne has bagged the static fortress called Forward Command for Manchester; Dortmund is to take everything on the east shore of the Sea of Khazak. There’ll be nothing left for us, sir, if you’re not quick. We don’t want to lose out…”
“Lose out?” Von Kobold narrowed his eyes, scanning the park for Varley. There was no sign of him, unless he was aboard that balloon taxi lifting off from a platform at the tier’s edge. “Is this what it has all been for?” he asked. “Just so men like Adlai Browne can turn the Storm’s lands into one enormous all-you-can-eat buffet? Why can’t we let them live in peace?”
Eschenbach frowned, trying hard to understand but not quite managing it. “But they’re Mossies, sir.”
Von Kobold started to walk toward the town hall. “Poor Naga,” he said. He climbed the stairs and went inside to fight for his city’s corner, forgetting all about the photograph that Napster Varley had pushed into his pocket.
Chapter 25
Theo in Airhaven
By late afternoon the sky around Airhaven was humming with traffic. Everyone knew that Adlai Browne had brought Manchester east for the sole purpose of getting the war started again, and the air traders were eager to do as much business as possible before they took off for safer markets farther west. To and fro between the cities and the flying town went the freighters and the overladen balloons, while high above them, ever watchful, the Flying Ferrets wheeled like flocks of starlings. But Orla Twombley’s airmen were on the lookout for Green Storm attack ships, and they paid no attention to a greasy little Achebe 100 that came puttering out of the west that evening to slip into a cheap berth on Airhaven’s docking ring.
She was called the Shadow Aspect, and she had been captured from the old League long ago and converted into a merchantman. She was not much, but she was the best that Hester had been able to afford after selling her sand ship. All the way from Africa Hester had grumbled about her leaky cells and racketing engines, and cursed the used-airship dealer who had sold her such a death trap. But Theo, who had been doing most of the flying, had grown used to the Shadow’s little ways; he secretly thought she was a fine old ship, and in the quiet of the night watches he had whispered kindly to her, urging her on her way, “Go on; just a little longer; you can make it…”
And now she had made it; the long voyage was over, and the sight of all those cities arranged on the earth below him like monstrous chess pieces filled Theo with anger and fear. Cities were his enemies. They had been the enemies of his people for a thousand years. What was he thinking of, coming into the heart of this vast cluster of them? He had no hope of rescuing Lady Naga from whatever prison the townies had penned her in. She would not have expected him to try; she would not want anyone to die for her sake…
The Shadow’s docking clamps clanged against the strut. Theo cut her engines, and the sounds of Airhaven spilled into the gondola: shouts of merchants and stevedores, rattling chains, a hurdy-gur
dy playing somewhere, a trader maneuvering at the next strut. A boy with a bucket and a long-handled squeegee came running to clean the Shadow’s windows, but Hester waved him away, and a glimpse of her angry, hideous face was enough to send him scuttling off.
Hester was in a foul mood. She had hoped to overtake the Humbug in midair, where she thought she could board it and rescue Lady Naga with ease. But although the Shadow Aspect had no cargo, and four engines to the Humbug’s two, it had taken Hester too long to discover where Napster Varley was going, and he had beaten them to Airhaven. Boarding the Humbug would be difficult here, where there were harbor officials and security men and passersby who would interfere. She looked around at Grike, standing statue still in the shadows at the rear of the flight deck. “Better hide yourself, old machine,” she said. “YOU MAY NEED ME.”
“Not here. There are a lot of townies aboard, and if they see you stalking about, they’ll think we’re Green Storm. Anyway, somebody might remember your last visit, when you tore the place half to pieces looking for me and Tom. Wait in the hold; if I need you, I’ll call you.”
Grike nodded and climbed the companion ladder into the envelope. Hester pulled up her veil, slipped on dark glasses, and opened the exit hatch. “Coming?” she asked Theo.
The tavern called the Gasbag and Gondola had survived through all Airhaven’s changes, and still occupied the same sprawling assemblage of lightweight huts that Hester remembered from her first visit to the free port. But in the intervening years the air trade had split, like the world below, into townies and Mossies, and the Gasbag and Gondola had become a townie haunt; NO DOGS, NO MOSSIES read a scrawled message in white paint above the door. The traders clustering around its small, dirty tables came from Manchester and Dortmund and Peripatetiapolis, from Nuevo-Mayan steam ziggurats and Antarctic drilling cities. Framed posters and cartoons on the walls mocked the Green Storm, and the dartboard was printed with the bronze face of the Stalker Fang.
Hester stopped at the shrine to the Sky Gods, just inside the door, and sighed irritably as Theo cannoned into her. She rummaged in her coat pockets and found a few pennies, which she dropped into the airship-shaped charity box of the Airman’s Benevolent Fund. A fat waitress bustled over, eyeing them roguishly, as if she thought that Theo was Hester’s boyfriend, and that Hester had done rather well for herself. Hester felt suddenly proud, as if it were true.
“We’re looking for Varley,” she told the woman. “Trader. Lately in from Africa. Heard of him?”
“You’re in luck. He’s by the window there. Watch out, though; he came back from Manchester in a nasty mood.”
Outside the circular window that the waitress pointed at, the evening clouds were glowing as the sun began to set, but the young man who sat at the table beside it was not enjoying the view. He was reading a book and reaching out from time to time to pick halfheartedly at a bowl of chargrilled locusts.
“Napster Varley?”
“Who’s asking?” Varley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, looking Hester up and down. He closed his book. It was called The Dornier Lard Way to Successful Haggling, and a dozen pages had been marked with mean, grubby stubs of paper. When he saw Hester looking at the title, he hastily turned it facedown. “I don’t know you,” he said. “What ship you from?”
“Shadow Aspect,” said Hester.
“Never heard of her.” He studied Theo, and asked him, “What city do you come from? What’s your business?”
“We’re from—,” Hester started to say. Varley cut in. “I asked the boy.”
Theo, who was not a good actor, wished Wren were there instead of him. He still remembered the way she had run rings around old Pennyroyal and Nabisco Shkin with her stories back in Brighton. Doing his best to emulate her, he lied, “We’re from Zanzibar.”
“We heard you had something that we might want to buy,” said Hester.
Varley looked interested but still suspicious. “Sit down,” he said, pushing a chair out with his foot. “Have a locust. So what have you heard about my business, and where did you hear it?”
“Grandma Gravy,” said Hester.
“You trade with Grandma?”
“We’re old friends. She told me you had a very important prisoner aboard.”
“Shhh!” hissed Varley. He leaned across the table and said in a smelly whisper, “Don’t talk about my merchandise that way, lady. I don’t know who’s listening. The Airhaven authorities don’t like the slave trade. If they thought I was trying to shift a live cargo on their patch, there’d be hell to pay.”
Theo felt so angry and disgusted that he could happily have hit the man. He still bore the scars and bruises of his time in Cutler’s Gulp, and the shame of his captivity on Cloud 9 had never completely faded: He knew all too well what that harmless-sounding phrase “live cargo” meant.
Hester seemed unmoved. “Found a buyer yet?”
“I opened negotiations with the kriegsmarschall of Murnau a few hours ago,” said Varley. “Nothing’s been finalized.”
“I’m interested in buying,” said Hester.
Varley snorted, shook his head, and returned to his locusts, eating greedily now, as if talking business had brought back his appetite. “You couldn’t afford what I’m asking,” he said through a crunchy mouthful.
“Maybe I could.”
Varley looked up sharply, and spat out a wing case. “You ain’t from Zanzibar,” he said. “Your fancy-boy might be pretty, but he’s a lousy liar. Who are you?”
Hester said nothing and kicked Theo’s ankle under the table, warning him to stay quiet too.
Varley grinned. “Gods almighty!” He lowered his voice to a whisper again. “You’re the Storm, ain’t you? I been wondering if any of you lot would turn up. Don’t worry, I’m broad-minded. Gold is gold to Napster Varley, whether it comes from the coffers of a Traktionstadt or the treasure houses of Shan Guo. So what’s she worth to you, your empress? You’ll have to hurry, mind. Everyone’s saying the fighting’ll break out again in a day or so. You’ll want to get her safe in Mossie-land before that happens, won’t you?”
“What are you asking?” said Hester.
“Ten thousand in gold. Nothing less.”
“Ten thousand?” Theo had a hollowed-out feeling in the pit of his stomach. For a moment he had let himself imagine that it might just be possible to buy Lady Naga back, but… ten thousand in gold! Varley might as well ask them for the moon!
“I’ll think it over,” said Hester calmly, pushing back her chair. “Come on, Theo.”
Varley waved a locust at her. “You do that, honeybunch. My ship’s the Humbug, over on Strut 13. Just bring me the money, and hand it over nice and polite.”
“We’ll want to see the merchandise first,” said Hester.
“Not till I’ve seen the money. And I’ve got three big lads on watch, so don’t think about trying anything funny.”
Out on the High Street, electric lamps were being lit. Large moths zoomed about in the twilight, pursued by enterprising boys with nets who planned to roast them and sell them as tasty snacks. Some lingering maternal instinct made Hester flinch each time one of the urchins darted close to the unfenced edges of the quays. She told herself not to be so soft; these kids were born in the sky, too canny to fall; even if they did, the Airhaven authorities had stretched safety nets between the mooring struts to catch anyone who stumbled overboard.
She leaned against the handrail on the outer curve of the street and pretended to be watching the last smears of sunset fading in the west. She was actually studying Strut 13, where the black-and-white striped bulk of the Humbug lay at anchor. There were indeed three men loitering on the quay outside her single hatch. They were, as Varley had promised, quite big.
“He’s out of his depth,” Hester said.
“Who?” asked Theo. “Varley?”
“Of course Varley! He’s got the biggest prize of his career and he doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do with it. He’s terrified that someone’
ll get wind of his prisoner and try to take her; hence all the hired muscle. But he daren’t approach the Traktionstadts directly for fear they’ll just swipe Lady Naga off him and give him nothing but a medal for his troubles; and when he tried doing it privately, they gave him the brush-off. That’s why he came back from Manchester ‘in a nasty mood.’ That’s why he’s hunting for new ideas in books. Us turning up is like an answer to his prayers. He’s an amateur, Theo.”
“But he still wants ten thousand in gold,” said Theo.
“He’ll settle for less. Half, even.”
“That would still be an enormous lot of money, and we don’t have anything at all! We’re here to rescue Lady Naga, not buy her! We can handle Varley and his three men easily. You rescued me, didn’t you? And I heard what you did at Shkin’s place last year…”
Hester glanced away, remembering the men she had killed to free Tom from the slaver’s tower in Brighton, and the shocked, betrayed way that Tom had looked at her afterward. That had been their last evening together. “It’s not just a question of getting Lady Naga out,” she said. “We have to get her away, right away, past all these fancy cities and safe across the Green Storm’s lines. If we cause a fuss getting her off Varley’s ship, we won’t get half a mile before those flying machines catch us and—”
She reached out and snatched a passing moth, dropping the crumpled body into the net of one of the urchin boys, who said, “Thanks, missus!”
“Are you saying we should give up?” asked Theo as the boy moved on.
Hester was silent, staring across the High Street.
“Mrs. Natsworthy?”
“No,” she said quite softly. She did not look at him. Her attention was fixed on a man who had just emerged from the doorway of a large, shabby building called the Empyrean Hotel. She reached back, found Theo’s arm, and squeezed it encouragingly. “No,” she said again. “We don’t have to give up. We just have to find someone who can give us an enormous lot of money.”