Nebula Awards Showcase 54

by Nibedita Sen

  “In Haiti, the weapon is named for other gods of storms—like Hevioso from Dahomey and Nsasi of Kongo,” the captain relates. “But in Trinidad we name it for Shango, the Yoruba orisha of thunder. Name seem to catch on.”

  Oya grumbles with indignation across my thoughts: something about haughty Dahomey and upstart Kongo gods. Wasn’t just them or Shango. She was there too, dancing in the whirlwind, dashing those Frenchie ships to bits and sending thousands of men to lay with Yemoja beneath the sea. Them Frenchies still down there with her mother now, she says, their bones and spirits held close.

  “Only a few know its secret code name,” the captain goes on. “‘The Black God’s Drums.’”

  “Well, that scientist is going to give your secret weapon to some Rebs,” I say.

  Her face goes grim. “That’s no good,” she murmurs. “That’s no good for nobody.”

  That last part I already know. Anything that helps those Rebs is bad trouble. I was born after the Armistice of Third Antietam, when the Union and Confederates, all battered up and starving from eight years of war, had called a truce. Might have been good for the white folk, but it doomed those blacks what hadn’t made it to the Union. I’ve seen the tintype photographs from inside the Confederacy. Shadowy pictures of fields and factories filled with laboring dark bodies, their faces almost all covered up in big black gas masks, breathing in that drapeto vapor. It make it so the slaves don’t want to fight no more, don’t want to do much of nothing. Just work. Thinking about their faces, so blank and empty, makes me go cold inside.

  “So what you want trade with me for this, lickle gal?” the captain asks.

  I frown. Who’s she calling lickle? No longer under the gun, I move to sit in a chair and lean back—trying to look casual and at ease. “I want to go with you when you leave,” I say.

  That makes her eyebrows rise. “Go with me? Go where?”

  “On your airship, the Midnight Robber. I want to be crew.”

  She screws up her face, looking at me as if I’ve jumped out my skin and done a bloody jig around the room—then laughs. The sound makes me bristle. “What I want with a lickle gal on me ship?” She gives a brief, sharp suck of her teeth. “You think I want pickney to mind?”

  “I don’t need minding,” I snap, my temper getting the better of me. Oya disagrees, whispering a lullaby. I push it away.

  The captain leans forward, pinning me with her gaze. Those large eyes are as dark as Madame Diouf’s. “You ever been on an airship?” she asks gruffly. “Know one end of it from the other?”

  That wasn’t fair. “I learn fast!” I counter.

  The captain shakes her head, pursing her lips and this time sucking her teeth for a long while—the way old Creole women and Madame Diouf do. “What schupidness is this? Girl like you should be in school, learning your maths and letters, not gallivanting about on some airship! What your mother and father would say?”

  “Nothing,” I retort, biting each of my words so they’re forced out. “They’re dead.” This sends her quiet. “Papa died in one of the tempêtes noires.” You took him, Oya, I accuse. The goddess don’t deny it. Just keeps humming. “I never knew him. The yellow fever took ma maman three years back.”

  The captain searches my face for truth and decides she’s found it. “I sorry for that,” she says at last. “Still—”

  “You knew her,” I break in. I take off my cap and step further into the light. “Ma maman. She used to work here, for Madame Diouf. And the two of you…” No need to say the rest.

  The captain looks puzzled for a moment. But when she sees my face fully those already large eyes go even bigger.

  “Rose,” she whispers, speaking my mother’s name. She stares, as if only now truly seeing me for the first time. “That same little nose and small eyes! Oh gosh, you Rose’s daughter!” Then, more subdued, “I didn’t know she had a child.”

  “Ma maman kept me away from her customers.” This makes the captain flinch, but I just shrug. “It was work. She didn’t have no shame in it. And I don’t have no shame for her. I used to see you, though, coming here as crew with other Free Islanders, before you had your own airship. You couldn’t have been much older than me.”

  “And how old is you now?” she probes.

  “Sixteen,” I declare, trying to sit up a little taller. She frowns dubiously. “Fine, fifteen,” I amend. She frowns further. “Fourteen,” I mutter. I refuse to admit thirteen.

  The captain barks a laugh. “I was well past nineteen before I jumped on any airship! My grandmother would have put licks on my backside if I was even thinking it so young. At your age, all you should be studying on is your schooling and how some boy might like you so and dreaming about when you marry.”

  I make a face. Next thing she’ll have me in frilly dresses and ribbons. “You don’t seem to like boys,” I remark.

  This actually makes her smile. Her teeth are straight and white as pearls. “Don’t think because you playing sneak-foot behind me that you does know my mind,” she reprimands in a firm tone. “I like boys—men. Sometimes. And I get my schooling!”

  “So, you plan to get married?” I say mockingly, folding my arms.

  She snorts loudly. I almost smirk at that. Hard not to admire a woman who’s not afraid to let out a good snort. “Not if I can help it. Eh! Stop with all these blasted questions! I a grown woman, and I don’t need answer to you!” I watch as she swings her legs over the edge of the bed. And it’s then I notice one of them isn’t whole. Her right leg is only a thigh of smooth brown skin fitted snug into a metal casing; the rest is made of twisting copper rods that flex like muscle and bone. There’s a steel ball joint where a knee should be and the calf is covered by a leather brown boot. So that explains the limp. She didn’t have that when she visited before. I open my mouth to ask about it then clamp it back shut. None of my business.

  She looks up to me, noticing my staring—and suddenly there’s light. Gold like the sun, so much it hurts my eyes. She’s bathed in it, all through her twisted coils of hair and covering her skin. I blink and the light’s gone, leaving twinkling stars in her eyes. In my head Oya thunders, pushing words from my lips I don’t mean to speak aloud.

  “Bright Lady!” I blurt out before I can stop myself. The rest blares through my thoughts. Oshun! The Bright Lady! Mistress of Rivers! Oya’s sister-wife! Shango’s favorite! How hadn’t I noticed it before? So that explained Oya’s odd emotions, the jealousy and familiarity. More than one goddess shared this room.

  The captain goes stiff as a beam at my words and her eyes narrow. So she knows about the goddess hovering about her, then. I can see it in her face, in the way her lips are pressed together all tight. But she hasn’t accepted it. Well, that’s none of my business either. I turn my head and say no more.

  The magic of those old Afrikin gods is part of this city, ma maman used to say, buried in its bones and roots with the slaves that built it, making the ground and air and waterways sacred land. Only we forgot the names that went with that power we brought over here. Since Haiti got free, though, those gods were coming back, she’d said, across the waters, all the way from Lafrik. Now here’s two of them in a bordello in New Orleans. Who knows what that means.

  In the awkward quiet, the captain stands to slip back on her britches, then her remaining boot. “I’m going to find my crew,” she tells me finally. “See if they think you talking true or just trying to sell me one big nancy-story. Wait here. I’ll be back.”

  She buttons her Free Isles jacket and walks to the door. “What’s your name?” I call out quickly.

  The captain turns back to me, hesitant before deciding. “Ann-Marie,” she answers. “Ann-Marie St. Augustine.”

  “I’m Creeper,” I reply. She pauses at that. Everyone does. But she nods.

  I wait until she’s gone. Then I disappear through the window into the night.

  Excerpt from Alice Payne Arrives

  by Kate Heartfield

  CHAPTER ONE
/>   Concerning a Robbery and What Comes After

  1788

  The highwayman known as the Holy Ghost lurks behind the ruined church wall. Lurking has a different quality to waiting, she reflects, having time for reflection. Waiting is what she did for the first five years after Father returned from the war in America, much changed.

  That’s how everyone put it, that first year.—How is Colonel Payne?—Oh, people say he is much changed. Now, people use the same tone to say the opposite.—How is Colonel Payne?—Oh, he’s much the same.—No change? His poor daughter.

  Alice grew tired of waiting for change. Colonel Payne’s poor daughter does not fade into the background; she hides in it. She’s quivering in the saddle: rider, hat and gun, all cocked, after a fashion.

  Ah! There it is. A carriage comes rattling around the corner, the horses’ gait slowing as the slope rises toward Gibbet Hill.

  Alice lurks halfway up. Behind her, on the summit, there are no trees but those of the Tyburn sort, swinging with cages and corpses, as a warning to highwaymen. It seems to have worked. She has this section of Dray Road, fenced in with trees and ruins, all to herself. The road here is a hollow way, a track worn into the ground over the centuries, its banks curving up like the bottom half of a tunnel on either side. A trap for her victims.

  What a gaudy contraption the Earl of Ludderworth uses to get around the country in, half-painted in gold as if he were Marie Antoinette, its four lamps lit although the sun is still bloodying the forest. Four horses, plumed. That dark bulk on the seat is the coachman and footman, both liveried like dancing monkeys, no doubt. Inside, it’s big enough for four, but there will only be two. The odious earl will be travelling with his manservant. That makes four men, two of them armed with swords and probably pistols too. Loaded? Maybe, but not cocked.

  Her left calf nuzzles her horse’s belly. Havoc’s withers twitch and he steps quietly to the right, making no sound until she taps fast with both legs and they are out in the open. By the time Havoc stops in the middle of the road, where he has stopped so many times before, she has both pistols in her hands.

  “Stand and deliver!” she growls.

  The first time she did this, she felt exposed, despite the hat low over her forehead, the black mask and green kerchief, the long grey cloak, the breeches and boots and gloves. She and Jane had meant it half as a lark; Jane was not convinced Alice would go through with it until she had. It was revenge, the first time, against a teacher of the pianoforte who preyed on any girl who was not sufficiently warned by her friends. Revenge, and a little much-needed money.

  Now it is a regular affair, this robbery on the road. There are plenty of villains making their way through Hampshire, ready to be relieved of a purse, a blow struck in secret for womankind. Despite the fact that all the victims are men of suspect character when it comes to women, no one has made that connection, or suspected that the Holy Ghost is a woman, much less that it is Alice. All her skin is covered, lest the colour of it call to any local’s mind Colonel Payne’s poor daughter.

  Today, after a dozen robberies, she does not feel exposed. She doesn’t feel like Alice Payne, sitting on a horse in the middle of the road, in a disguise. She is the Holy Ghost, and she is about her vengeful business.

  The coachman moves—reaching toward the seat beside him? A pistol there?

  This would make a convenient moment for a partner to ride out of the woods, up to the side of the coach, a second pistol in hand. But the Holy Ghost doesn’t have a partner on the road, not a human one, at least.

  So she pulls the trigger in her left-hand gun and the lamp nearest her breaks and goes dark. Bullet meeting glass makes a satisfying smash that never fails to frighten cowards.

  The coachman flinches, freezes.

  “Hands in the air!”

  His hands go high.

  This is the dangerous moment. She keeps her distance, watching the windows of the coach. She’s not too worried about Lord Ludderworth himself; he seems unlikely to start a fight with someone who can fight back. He presses his advances on the vulnerable: young girls, girls in service. In any event, he’s a horrible shot. At more than one tedious shooting party, she’s watched him fail to hit pheasants that were practically presented to him on plates. But his manservant Grigson may be another matter.

  “Your money or your life! I’d rather the money, if it’s all the same to you, but I’ll not hesitate if it’s the other.”

  And now, the pièce de résistance.

  Six feet down the road, right beside the stopped carriage, the automaton slides out of the gorse bushes.

  There are a dozen good spots for it, all along the roads of this county. Three of them happen to be near churches, and one near an abbey, which has given rise to the Holy Ghost nickname. A reputation is good for a highwayman. When people know what to expect, they aren’t so afraid as to do foolish things. A well-known robber who puts on a predictable show is an institution, and the good people of England will hand over their tolls with due resignation and respect.

  In the twilight, the sight of Alice’s automaton sends shivers down her own skin. The carved wooden head, painted white with blue eyes and red lips, as still as a Madonna’s. The grey cloak, the same colour as her own, the hood brought over the head. The outstretched hand.

  The coachman crosses himself.

  The coach window clicks open a crack, wide enough to admit a gun—she breathes, keeps her seat still and remains calm—but instead, out sneaks a purse in pudgy, ringed fingers—the hand of Lord Ludderworth himself. The hand that lifted her skirt when she was fourteen, that has squeezed every housemaid’s breast between London and Bristol.

  The little purse lands in the wooden hand and the automaton stands motionless for a moment, then flips its hand to let the purse drop into the box. The box clacks on the cart rails, a few yards up the hill along the side of the road to where Alice sits on Havoc.

  The automaton lets Alice keep her distance, and it gives the villains a show for their money. A story to tell.

  It is noisy, but it is not meant to fool anyone. Everyone knows it is a machine and that only inspires all the more awe. Ghosts and fairies litter history, but machines that can move like humans are the stuff of dreams.

  Jane’s work never ceases to amaze her. Her darling Jane, working on her gears and springs in her study, believing that one day, her toys and curiosities will bring Utopia. For now, this one brings Alice a living and brings a little justice to the world, and that is good enough for Alice.

  Alice never lets the pistol in her right hand droop, keeps her wide gaze on the coachman, the footman, the open window. At the edge of her vision, she pokes the hook she’s attached to the end of her riding crop into the handle of the box, lifts it by the handle, drops it into her lap. She unties the purse, still watching the coach, lifts a coin to her mouth and bites.

  The automaton nods its head, as it always does after three minutes.

  There is a long silence.

  She shifts in the saddle. Almost done. Almost safe.

  Havoc’s head snaps up, but he’s a steady horse, steadier than his mistress. He stands and waits.

  “That’ll do,” she says, trying not to let the relief into her voice. “Ride on. The toll’s paid.”

  An easy night’s work. The manservant Grigson never made his appearance. She watches the coach rattle up Gibbet Hill for a moment.

  Then she ties the purse to her belt. She jumps Havoc up onto the bank and rides him more or less the same way. She’ll have to ride fast if she’s to beat the frightened coachman to Fleance Hall with enough time to change her clothes and fix her hair.

  And then, after the world is asleep, she’ll return for the automaton. It has slid back into its hiding spot in the bushes.

  She grins as she rides through the paths that she and Havoc know well. The new purse bangs against her hip. That will buy Father a month’s freedom from his creditors, at least.

  At the sound of hoof beats, she snaps h
er head around, as beneath her Havoc’s muscles run taut as rope.

  Behind her, and not very far, a man on a grey horse. He’s hatless, and she recognizes his face at once. Grigson.

  The manservant was never in the coach. He was riding behind, waiting before the bend in the road, waiting to pursue the thief rumoured to haunt Dray Road.

  Damn Lord Ludderworth. So stingy he’d rather risk his right-hand man than lose a bit of gold.

  The bank is easily five feet higher than the road here and she can see the carriage rattling along up the hill, bearing the earl to safety while his servant tries to capture the most notorious highwayman this side of London. Well, he won’t get his chance. Havoc is a fast horse and she knows these woods like no one else does. There’s a deer path up ahead that will take her to a winding, deep creek ford where she can double back without being seen, if she times it well.

  As she steers Havoc’s nose that way, she glances behind her.

  Damn! Two more men, on her right; Grigson approaching behind.

  The one way they won’t expect her to veer is left.

  She pulls Havoc to the left and spurs him to a gallop. The carriage is rattling up the hill, and here on the higher ground the banks flatten out, so that the road is no longer a hollow way. Havoc does not even break his stride as his hoofs hit the dirt of the road, just behind the carriage. She’ll cross behind it and—

  A horse whinnies in fear, up in the team, and the carriage careens off the road, rocks as the wheels hit the grassy banks.

  Alice keeps Havoc at full speed. Her leg grazes an old milestone stuck in the grassy bank. She turns parallel to the road again, heading up the hill, to put the carriage between herself and the three pursuers. Typical of Lord Ludderworth, to wait until he was out of danger before loosing his ambush!