The Invisible City

by Brian K. Lowe

  "Where—?" I panted and gulped down air. "Where did you come from?"

  "I flew," she grinned, and pointed upward. The Dark Lady floated almost directly above us. From her railing hung a rope which dangled a man-length above our heads.

  "You dropped from the rope!" I accused her. "You could have been killed!"

  "Hey, if you could swing, I can climb," she said impishly. "We just had to get the Lady directly overhead so I could get between the force fields. They don't cover the whole boat, you know."

  "But how did you get out of that cabin? I had you locked in!"

  "Oh, please… It's my ship.”

  Later I would have to ask her what she meant by that, but now my eyes went wide as a Nuum topped the stairs behind her. Without missing a beat Maire spun, caught him under the chin with her open hand, and pushed him head over heels back down the way he had come.

  I had written off Maire's fight against the Vulsteen as a combination of desperation of their own reluctance to kill valuable hostages, but I could see now that I had done her a considerable wrong. By way of hiding my reaction, I said: "We should help."

  "No need," she replied. She pointed out across the ship and upward. "Look."

  I did. Fully a dozen lines now hung from the Lady's flanks, with Nuum crewmen and former rowers alike dropping to the decks like rain. The balance had shifted once more. The battle was over before I could decide where I might be needed.

  Maire signaled the Lady to descend and come alongside us once again. As I painfully climbed down the ladder to the Eyrie's bloodstained deck, already cleaning itself, I racked my brains for the solution to a brand-new problem:

  I now had two ships and crews. What in heaven's name was I going to do with them?

  In the short term, this question presented less of a dilemma than I had feared, although its solution left me none the happier. Both ship's crews had taken losses. Obviously, the Eyrie had fared the worse; its crew had fought until almost the last man, and most of the survivors were among those Maire had herself batted away from me. Captain Stoshi was dead. Likely none of his officers had lived.

  Among our men who remained had to be parceled the tasks of securing the new boat, tending wounded, stacking the dead, rooting out any stragglers from the Eyrie's crew hiding below, and, not the least important, freeing the rowers. I tried to give the orders while Maire propped me up and urged me back to my cabin. Neither of us had much luck; I was near to fainting from blood loss and she was almost overwhelmed by my sudden and frequent tendency to become dead weight in her arms.

  Relief came from a reliable source. Timash left off his own organizing to trade places with Maire. While she handled the clean-up crews, he bundled me back to the Lady.

  "I didn't see you over there," I whispered half-jokingly, after we had made the crossing.

  "I was up in the rigging most of the time." He stopped to tuck me over his shoulder while he mounted a ladder. Apparently Maire had never felt the need to connect a powered lift to her own quarters. Perhaps she thought the men would see it as effeminate. I wished she had thought again. Surely she had not dragged Harros up here like a sack of rice…! "I took a lesson from the tiger spiders."

  He tried to lay me on the bunk as gently as possible, but it was a lost cause.

  "You weren't the only one," I hissed, hoping to hide the pain. "Did you see how that crazy woman dropped from the sky?"

  He chuckled. "I missed it. All of a sudden there were a lot more guys up in the lines with me, and I almost knocked a couple of them silly before I realized who they were." He left me for a few moments and returned with a box from which he removed a variety of tools, drugs, and plasm for bandages.

  Dr. Chala’s training and Nuum medicine worked so well together that even Timash was able quickly to staunch the bleeding and numb the pain. Wounds which would have lain me up for days back home would trouble me no more by tomorrow, and infection was not even a dot on the horizon. I was one of the lucky ones.

  "I suppose I owe Maire my life."

  Timash shrugged. "So now you're even. Or probably not. Who's counting?" He started to stand, but I put my hand on his arm.

  "And I haven't thanked you yet, either. Every time I turn around you're playing nursemaid to me."

  "Unless I'm rescuing you from psycho time-travelling killers… But like I said, who's counting? Without you I never would have done any of this."

  "Without me you'd be home safe with your mother, sipping tea with Uncle Balu."

  "Without you," he said, gently removing my hand from his arm, "that tiger spider would have killed me. Get some rest."

  He sounded just like his mother.

  I took an inordinate amount of pride in the fact that I was up and about before Maire came in to see me. Knowing she would come, the idea of greeting her as an invalid proved so abruptly and overpoweringly distressing that I nearly tripped over the furniture in an incipient panic that she would open the door to discover me not only dishabille, but disabled as well.

  Pulling on my boots, I fell wildly sideways, windmilling in a vain attempt to preserve my balance and succeeding only barely in finding a chair with that part of my anatomy built for the purpose when the door opened. I smiled, the picture of careless ease.

  "Didn't I lock that?"

  She smiled lightly. "Even if you had, it wouldn't have made any difference. How do you feel?"

  I waved off her question, intending to ask instead about the men, but the sight of her had temporarily numbed my tongue. Cleaned up, somewhere she had found another outfit, a deep red blouse tugged tightly into midnight black leggings. Where she kept her omnipresent baton was an enigma I hoped not to unravel. How she had waltzed through the men on deck without causing a riot was likewise a mystery I thought better left alone. Why she had done herself up like this was enough of a concern, although I thought I knew the reason.

  She sat down across from me, rushing into the vacuum with her own report, taking my tongue-tied silence as an invitation—or perhaps simply as her due. Her recent adventures aside, she was a pampered princess from a master race.

  "We lost a handful of men, not nearly as many as we should have, but we had the element of surprise—thanks to you. I've never even heard of a sky barge being hijacked before, let alone by someone swinging in over the force fields and climbing down the mast to deactivate them by hand while fighting off the ship's crew with a sword in one hand and pistol in the other." I started to protest but she waved me off. "Don't get mad at me. That's what they're saying…"

  "That's ridiculous!" I burst out. "Where did they ever get an idea like that? They saw me, for heaven's sake!"

  "Use it," Maire advised. "The more the men think you walk on air, the easier it is. Believe me, I know."

  I shook my head. "What about the Eyrie's crew?"

  "About eight of them are still alive. None of them are officers. We checked the crew manifest and accounted for all but one. We think he may have fallen overboard in the fighting, but we're checking belowdecks. The survivors're all locked up, but I don't know how long they're going to stay that way."

  "What do you mean?"

  Maire took a deep breath without seeming to notice its effect on me, and slumped in her seat.

  "Remember how I told you conditions on other barges were worse than here?" I replied that I did and Maire continued grimly: "I wasn't kidding. The rowers on the Eyrie were half-starved, and beaten daily. They're weak now, and confused by what's happened, but they won't stay that way. When they're rested and fed, their minds will turn to revenge."

  "Do you have a guard on the door?"

  "Of course. But they won't let that stop them."

  I turned her words over in my mind. I couldn't spare enough men to guard the prisoners effectively, even if I had that many. And I couldn't very well allow them to barricade themselves inside…

  "Bring the prisoners over to the Lady. We can lock them up here. If we do it now, before the Eyrie's rowers feel up to anything, we should
avoid trouble."

  Maire's eyes widened in admiration. She saw me as a vagabond, a renegade wanderer smiled upon by Fortune and placed in a—temporary—position of authority. As Maire used the annunciator to relay my orders to Timash, I smiled back at her; I hid mysteries of my own that I had no intention of disclosing. She had no idea that I had commanded men in battle eons before her forebears' planet had even been discovered by Man.

  I wonder, if in all those millennia over which I skipped, any bigger fool was ever born than I.

  "Have you decided to tell me yet what your plans are?"

  What I had decided was not to tell her what she really wanted to know.

  "Right now my plan is to find someone who can take command of the Eyrie. We can't sit here like this forever. Somebody is going to notice that it's missing."

  Maire sat up straight in her chair. "Why don't you take it? I'll take back the Lady, and you can go wherever you want. I won't say a word."

  I had to laugh. "That's very generous, but I was thinking of Skull. He's the logical choice."

  "For what?"

  "For—"

  "Captain!" the annunciator interrupted tersely. Upon my response, Timash said: "We're trying to transfer the prisoners off the Eyrie, but the rowers are putting some up trouble. I don't want to hurt them, but…"

  "Understood. I'm on my way."

  The other barge was deceptively calm when we came outside, floating a few feet away with its shields still down to accommodate the inter-ship traffic. Now that both were under common control, we had tied their computers together with the result that their relative positions were fixed and we had installed a short footbridge between them. The ingenious little device was completely collapsible right down to the handrails. Its magnetic attachments were incredibly strong, but if the ships were violently wrenched they would snap like sticks. We crossed quickly.

  You could feel the tension aboard the Eyrie as soon as you stepped on deck. My men stood stiffly on guard, nervous and uncertain as to their loyalties if their fellow Thorans tried to rush the Nuum ostensibly under our protection. The rowers had been unchained; many were shedding their filthy rags and washing themselves where they stood. Instinctively I tried to shield Maire from the sight, but she seemed not to notice, and I realized belatedly that there were more urgent issues here than those of propriety.

  I collared one of my own sailors. "Why aren't these men below? They shouldn't have to wash themselves here."

  "Sorry, captain. Skull says there's no room below. He told us to give the rowers whatever they needed to keep them quiet."

  "No room?" I turned to Maire. "What does he mean, no room? There's got to be room…!"

  Maire took me firmly by the arm. "No, there doesn't. I keep trying to tell you that. Now let's get moving. I've been in two battles in two days and I'm not going for a record."

  Any sensible man—nay, any sane man—would have let her lead him wherever she wanted to go. But I have always been cursed with a mulish stubbornness disguised as principle. The same condition which had lead me to France under a foreign flag now rooted my feet to the deck. It got me into several fights as a child, and probably will get me killed some day. It almost got me killed right then.

  "I'm going down below. I want to see the rowers' quarters."

  Maire's fingers dug into my skin, and the sailor cleared his throat.

  "Uh, captain, I've been down there. Maybe you don't—"

  I stopped him with a glance. Perhaps my emotions were beginning to boil over, because he just stood there with his mouth open. Even Maire's grip relaxed.

  "Go see Timash," I ordered her. "See if you can make transfer. Heaven knows that outfit of yours should distract the rowers."

  I left her gasp behind as I strode toward the double doors leading to the companionway. I must still have been radiating my feelings, because the rowers actually looked up as I passed. A slow buzz rose about me, travelling first behind, then with me, and finally preceding me down the rows.

  "It's him! It's the Ghost!"

  I halted in my tracks, half-turning to look at those dirty, smelly wretches who rose unsteadily to watch me with too-bright eyes in their smeared and tired faces. I turned about, and the other side of the ship showed the same rows of beaten and haggard men's eyes unblinking upon me. But it wasn't fear, nor hostility, nor anything that I should fear—it was worse. To a man, they were almost worshipful. I knew without reading their thoughts that every poor devil on that ship saw me not just as his rescuer, but as his savior—and I had not the slightest idea why. And then one called to me.

  "Keryl! Keryl Clee!"

  I was at his side in an instant. "Bantos Han!"

  And that was when the man next to him tried to kill me.

  44. Return to the Dead

  The attack was so clumsy and hurried I was in little real danger of being hurt. I saw the knife blade glint in the sun as the assassin drew it from his shirt; had he been clever enough to dull its shine with the same grease he used to disguise his own face he might have stood some small chance of success.

  As it was, in immersing himself among the freed slaves he had taken a spot next to the rail, the better to conceal himself, but putting him in the position of having to strike at me over Bantos Han. I don't even know why he even tried, unless he believed that I possessed some superior telepathic ability that would eventually unmask him. His mistake cost him dearly.

  I pulled back even as he lunged at me. He tripped over Bantos Han, who fell heavily to the deck with a painful noise, but something must have warned him about the man, for he twisted hard as he went down, arms flailing to spoil the attack. As they tumbled in a heap, he seized the assassin's arm, and before I could help, Bantos Han was forcing the knife into my attacker's side.

  The entire incident lasted no longer than it takes to tell. I was already helping my old friend out from under his dead burden by the time Maire dashed up from one end of the boat and Skull appeared from nowhere.

  "Are you all right?" both of them demanded.

  "I think I found your missing sailor." I took in all the other rowers, frozen in place by the sudden violence. "You're sure there was only one?"

  Skull glanced at Maire, started to say something, then thought it over and started again.

  "Get the captain and the prisoners back to the Lady right now, before something else happens. I'll search the ship."

  I was helping support Bantos Han, who was looking from one of us to another to the next, vainly struggling to follow the conversation.

  "Bring this man with you," I said to Maire. "I still have to see belowdecks." Both of my officers instantly protested, and I as quickly silenced them. "I'm just going to take a look. I want to know what's so terrible that none of my crew thinks I should see it."

  I was being stubborn again. I should have listened to them.

  Less than a century before I was born, European "traders" had trafficked in African slaves kidnapped and dragged to the New World in the hot, stinking bellies of ships upon whose decks walked creatures whose own souls mirrored the hellish conditions below. Hundreds of men and women and children were shovelled into dark holds until there was barely room to stand, let alone sit or lie down on the weeks-long voyage.

  Nearly a thousand millennia later, Man still had not learned. Accompanied by Skull and another sailor (who would not let me go on alone despite my direct orders), I climbed down a narrow ladder to a short, dim passageway ending in a tiny, square chamber whose walls were damp and stained. Before I could unravel this mystery—having seen first-hand the marvelous technology with which Nuum kept the decks of their sky barges dry—Skull pulled open the thick door on the opposite side of the chamber and I gazed into the seventh circle of Hell.

  I literally staggered from the stench, so foul that for a moment I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again I saw why my men had not let me wander hither alone. The wretches stacked in that hold like so many cords of kindling surged weakly forward; it was more
of an easing of pressure than a concerted effort, but in their glittering, feverish eyes I could see the animal hunger for freedom. They would have overwhelmed a man alone and run amok up above.

  "We don't even know how many there are in there," Skull said from far away. "As soon as we can figure out how, we're going to start letting them out and clean them up, but I don't know where we're going to find the room." He began to push the door closed again, and a mad moaning issued from beyond.

  "We'll have you out soon!" I called to them, but they surged forward again and the other man had to put his shoulder to the portal before they stormed the opening. I felt faint and had to lean against a wall for support, but I jerked away from its slimy feel.

  "What is this room?"

  "It's a shower," Skull answered. "They stink so bad they're lead through here before they go up to row. The water pressure hoses them off so their masters can stand the smell of them."

  I waved the two of them back with me. It felt like hours since I had seen the sun and breathed fresh air.

  "How do they live down there?"

  Skull looked none too well himself. "They have food," he said at last. "That's what the rowers have told us. And somehow the Nuum removed the dead ones. Nobody knows how. But there's no rotation, no set shifts. If you're lucky enough or tough enough to fight your way to the door when it's time for new rowers, you get to go up. If not, you could stay down there forever."

  I walked back toward the bridge through the rowers who had been either lucky or tough. They lined both sides of the ship. I could see now why Timash had called for help getting the Eyrie's crewmen back to the Lady; it was a wonder to me that he been able to do so, even with Maire's help. There were hundreds like them down below; how were we to get them free?

  My first mate had only one answer, and it was unwelcome: "We have to land."

  I shook my head. "We'd be sitting ducks. Any Nuum airship within miles would see us and come to investigate, and that would be the end of that."