Salvage

by R J Theodore

  “Tips don’t get divvied up till tomorrow.” He looked ready to scuff his toe on the ground and start blushing again.

  “This should be enough for the order. You do your part. Working three jobs? No one’s saying you don’t, so don’t you think it.”

  He nodded. “Not that, Cap. Just . . .”

  When he trailed off, she held out the envelope and finished the thought for him, lowering her voice to risk fewer echoes bouncing off the corridor walls. “This part for Sophie’s barrel.”

  As part of their caper, Sophie had designed a pile of devices to give their crew of four the coordination and force of an entire posse of robbers and thieves. All had come together, one component at a time. Talis, Tisker, and Dug had each gone to different shops on her behalf to purchase lists of mass-produced parts where Sophie could specify such, both to save money and avoid suspicion.

  But eventually, the contraptions taking shape got to the inevitable point when the gears had to be just so. They couldn’t rehearse their plan or playtest things like gunpowder-propelled grappling hooks, so the moving pieces had to work the first time. That meant custom machined cogs, rods, and pistons.

  Tisker nodded and tucked the envelope back into his shirt, where he’d sewn a hidden pocket beneath the collar. His movement was a bit too hurried, as though the meager day’s earnings were worth more than they were. “We’ll be down to pretty much nothing.”

  He was whispering too. They’d gotten so used to plotting less-than-legal machinations that the volume adjustment was natural.

  Talis hardly wanted to think about the cost, or what the cost would be if this last part needed reworking a fourth time. “I hope this one’s got the gremlins worked out of it.”

  “She’s done amazing so far, Cap. It’s not her fault she can’t fine-tune it herself more than what a metal file can adjust.” One thing that hadn’t changed in two years was Tisker’s tendency to defend any one of his fellow crew against criticism.

  Tisker put a hand on her arm to stop her in front of one of their favorite shops, at the edge of Avurindo, in the tourism district. The art gallery’s owner thought ‘Gusting Art,’ in the Cutter Silski tongue instead of a Rakkar translation, was a nice, exotic name for a collection of imported sculptures and textile works. It was Tisker’s favorite joke to ask Talis if she wanted to check out ‘some gusting arts’ every time they passed.

  Tisker skipped the usual joke tonight. He shifted his bucket to the other hand. “I know we’re just about there, but I can’t help thinking, if we had saved up for a salvage rental—”

  “The answer to that ‘if’ is: we didn’t.” She took the second dinner bucket from him, balancing her load and giving his hands a break. “We made that decision together, and now the money we spent is either an investment or sunk cost.”

  “But what’s in Wind Sabre’s hold already belongs to us, Cap. That carries less risk, doesn’t it?”

  Risk, like a heist with a missing getaway vessel. “We’ve never shied away from risk before.”

  “Never tried to pull off a job underground before. Nowhere to run to if this doesn’t work.” Tisker ran a thumb over the divot the bucket handle had left in the scars of his hand. His nerve endings still hadn’t fully recovered from the burns.

  Talis looked into the shop. The featured display had changed since she last paid it much attention—unusual with the Cutter borders closed of late. Or maybe the shop owner had rearranged the existing displays to give the impression they were new. Today, hand-thrown porcelain pots sat atop simple black pedestals of varying heights across the full width of the front window, each glossy design a depiction of Peridot’s glow pumpkins, airships, or islands. The largest, central pot was entirely green, its sides rounded until only its flat bottom and open top broke the impression of a perfect sphere. The intricate circular patterns pressed into its surface, a darker emerald where the glaze had gathered in the tooled impressions, were too familiar, like a secret whispered back by a stranger. Green glass was embedded into perforations in the porcelain, and a five-wicked candle burned inside. One wick was unlit.

  “Okay. You’re nervous. I get it. Any other plan looks good when you’re lining your sights on something that looms right in front of you. But you trust Sophie, don’t you?”

  In the gallery window, Tisker’s reflection blinked in surprise. “Course I do, Cap.”

  She patted his elbow to get him moving again. “Come on, focus on the moment. We’re one part away.”

  Talis was made for life on an airship. Accustomed to waking up every day in different skies. She’d left home without a goodbye when she was barely a teenager, and she’d never gone back. Two years at one job, in one city, in one room . . . Well, Tisker knew.

  She chewed on the uncomfortable silence as they rounded the next few tunnels. It wasn’t like Tisker to lose his nerve. Unless he was feeding off the anxiety she wasn’t expressing. The crew was more like that, more sensitive to each other’s moods, than ever.

  The smell of machine oil floated across the street like a perfume from the shop where the last of Sophie’s custom machined parts awaited.

  Inside, Tisker handed over his earnings for the day, plus a second envelope he’d taken from their hiding spot that morning. That was it. The last of what they had.

  Tisker tucked the brown paper parcel under his arm, and they left, out of the promenade of shops and into the ramshackle neighborhood where their tenant building was carved into the cavern walls.

  The main entrance was secured against unauthorized traffic by a barred door and a heavy lock. The hinges were rusted from some past attempt to break them with ice or heat, which left a crack to one side of the welding, but the iron door worked almost as well as it ever had, which was not saying much. The door was framed in graffiti, and litter swept up against the wall to either side.

  Inside, chipped tiles and moisture stains marked an otherwise unremarkable lobby, with a wobbly luggage stand near the door and a grid of rusting metal mail lockers. The doorman sat across from the entrance in a sagging canvas folding chair. He looked up from a book only long enough to nod at them. No need to identify themselves. They didn’t exactly blend in.

  Up the narrow front staircase and past an elbow in the hall, they reached their door. Talis started to turn the key in the lock, but Tisker put his hand flat on the door to pause her again.

  “You know what’s on the other side of this door, Cap?”

  She pictured the little space, with nothing worthy of an answer. When she didn’t speak, he continued. “Two hundred square feet of biding our time and skimping on everything. We’re exhausted, and we haven’t even done the hard part yet.”

  She pushed a large breath past the cold grip of anxiety in her chest. “The last two years have been the hard part.”

  “That’s it, though, Cap. You’re wearing yourself to frayed ends, and the rest of us are too. I think my fear is . . . I’m afraid of what happens if we put our plans into motion while we’re stretched so thin. We’re not at our best. We’re obsessed with getting out of here, but will we even know what to do with ourselves or for the Empire, for everyone in the world, if it works? We’ve been focused on one point in the sky, to take the fight to the Yu’Nyun and Veritors, but what’s our plan when we get out?”

  “We’ve got the journey back to figure that out. Bill will be part of it, he’ll give us the latest about what’s been going on since we left. You know this. What’s really bothering you?”

  He was silent for a moment. “You know what today is?”

  Talis sighed. “Wind Festival.”

  “Not just Wind Festival. The second since we lost Wind Sabre. We spent the first one in a dinghy and barely noticed. We need to slow down. Just for a moment. If we let this place drain who we are, what’s the point?”

  He took his hand away, and Talis took another breath, then pushed the door in on
their small, rectangular room.

  Inside was one bed, pushed into a corner, and three rolled cots tucked under the head of it. A sideboard with a hot plate and a kettle. A small dresser, which was more than enough as they’d only arrived with the clothes on their backs and hadn’t done much to add to their wardrobe. A trunk at the foot of the bed held everything else they owned. One table, two chairs in the center of the remaining space, a tablecloth draped to hide the boxes of Sophie’s gadgets beneath it. The room’s tiny closet held Sophie’s work uniforms, to keep them away from the rock dust Dug trailed back from the mines each day. No decorations. No windows.

  Talis didn’t want to slow down because slowing down meant staying in this tomb of a space. She set the aluminum bucket down near the sideboard, on the floor.

  “So, you want us to do what? Celebrate Festival, when we’re in the middle of a Rakkar city and the god we’d be celebrating is dead? Shall we go shopping for presents?”

  He looked sheepish. “I already did, actually. But just one!”

  He held his hands out as though to block her from rushing him. It was tempting.

  She gestured to the bare stone walls around them. “What ‘one’ gift can make all of this bearable?”

  So he told her. And she had to admit, it was a fine idea.

  Chapter 5

  Em was supposed to be in charge.

  That’s the way the line of succession worked in an empire. Her parents were murdered, and she was next.

  Next.

  She was scared because she might be next to get killed. The adults told her so and encouraged her to stay in her rooms and practice her needlework so no one could hurt her.

  But they’d already hurt her.

  She was in charge, and it was her job to make things okay. Not just to make herself safe.

  But what if she got something wrong? Before he died, Faw’n made decisions all day, every day. Little things, he told her, made a big difference. He was mostly talking about being nice to people, listening, and being fair.

  But she knew, from her and Annie’s lessons with Catkin, there was a lot more to it than that. A lot of little decisions about more than being kind that added up to big changes.

  But her parents were gone. Annie was gone. Catkin was gone.

  The palace servants who helped her dress and who kept her rooms were different. Everything was different. There was no one who could help her understand how, but everything had changed.

  But maybe, as the new ruler, she wasn’t supposed to have someone to tell her what to do. Maybe this was part of it. She couldn’t stay in her room and wait for someone to send for her. They didn’t. Maybe they never would.

  If people who were safe and trustworthy, people who supported her parents once, were gone, then everyone who remained was probably happy to have her stay in her rooms, frightened and crying.

  She wiped her face with the sleeve of her soft cotton nightgown and pulled back the thick covers. At the sound of her opening her bureau, a young woman—Em didn’t know her name—appeared at the servant’s door to her chamber. “Princess? Is there something you need?”

  She’d seen in the mirror that her eyes were red. She looked very small. And her hair was a mess from the pillows.

  So, she lifted her chin to make herself feel a bit taller, a bit more like she could tell people what to do. “Help me dress for court. Please. What is your name?”

  “Oh, Your Highness! Lita, if you please.” She looked uncertain for a moment, twisting her index fingers around one another. “Did someone send for you?”

  “No, Lita. I’m tired of waiting for that to happen.”

  A nervous look around the room. “Perhaps it would be better if you sat by the hearth to read? Your breakfast should be coming along in a little while. I could send for it now if you like.”

  “We are not hungry.” Sometimes, when Em shifted to royal pronouns, people took her more seriously. At least, it used to work when she wanted biscuits from the kitchens.

  It worked now, too. Lita dipped her head and hurried to help her get ready.

  Em chose the simplest dress she had. No childlike frills or gathered lace. The darkest silks, like Maw’n used to wear. She had Lita twine her many thin prayerlocks around her loose hair, wrap the braid into a tight coil at the nape of her neck, and arrange the loose hairs around her forehead with styling wax.

  She considered her coronet, the simple silver dressing of a young princess who might break something more intricate. But she needed something to show her authority and could not wear her parents’ crowns until she was Empress, so she lifted the coronet off its velvet-lined tray and, as Lita pinned it carefully into place, studied her reflection with a critical eye.

  Her eyes were still too red and watery, the tip of her nose pink and irritated from her handkerchiefs; it was obvious she had been crying. Sad was okay. Her parents were dead. She didn’t want to be happy again yet.

  But she liked that she looked different. The plain dress and pulled-up hair made her look like a stranger. Someone older. Smarter. Hopefully the members of the court would think so too.

  Lita followed her into the corridor. Em got the feeling Lita was given specific orders not to let the royal princess out of her sight. Servants and guards looked at her strangely, and it felt as if it were miles and miles to the grand audience hall.

  When the door opened, the sound of the latch echoed across the bare marble floor and high arched ceilings. The room silenced, and dozens of heads swiveled to watch her enter.

  She nervously scanned the faces of those gathered there, looking for Catkin. Looking for someone who might serve as a friendly anchor in the loneliness and fear that threatened to sweep her back up to her chambers.

  A bright point caught her eye. At the head of the hall, the polished surface of Uncle’s prosthetic arm caught the light and winked at her.

  Em thought her heart might burst, and she nearly stepped on the hem of her petticoat. Uncle was back. She wasn’t completely alone.

  Uncle seemed to be having some sort of unhappy discussion with Patron Demir and the Yu’Nyun representative. The Cutter men’s heads were bent together in quiet discussion as the alien stood straight, a step apart from them. They turned, mid-sentence, to look at her. Uncle’s expression flashed through several gradients of happiness and concern. The other two clearly disapproved—though Demir was the only one of the pair that was capable of frowning.

  She took a deep breath, brought her chin up, and walked, pleased at how the heels of her slippers clacked on the floor. Maw’n’s had sounded a bit like that. Sharper, but hers had taller, harder heels than Em’s own.

  Emeranth. She couldn’t be ‘Em’ anymore.

  “Your Highness, what can we do for you?” Demir stepped forward. He should not have been the highest-ranking member of the court in the room. She glanced around, careful not to turn her head, and saw no one else she recognized from her parents’ court of counsel.

  “We have come to uphold the traditions of the court and tend to the needs of Our people.” This late in the day, Faw’n would have been receiving supplicants for hours already.

  There was a light chuckle throughout the room. They thought she was playing!

  Demir at least, didn’t laugh at her, but he smiled in a way she did not like, and he looked amused all the same. “Ah, yes. Well. Thank you, Your Grace, but that is not necessary. You may return to your chambers.”

  “We will decide what is necessary, Patron Demir.”

  The light murmur of amusement silenced. Demir looked extremely uncomfortable, and Emeranth was certain he was going to have her dragged off. He looked like he wanted to. She didn’t know how she, a child, was supposed to break the spell of his disapproving gaze and make him let her rule.

  Uncle moved, stepping half in front of Demir and opening the way to the empty thrones at th
e head of the hall. “Your Grace, please allow us to help you.”

  The heavy, ornate seats were draped in dark purple gauze, a sign of mourning.

  Emeranth knew she would be ever grateful to Uncle for his encouragement in this moment.

  She had gotten what she asked for, and there was no going back now. If she sat in one of her parents’ thrones, she would take responsibility for the Imperial court, and everyone would be watching for her to make her first mistake. Her heels sounded offensively loud in the silent hall as she ascended the dais. She did not let herself hesitate as she pulled the gauze off her father’s seat, turned, and hopped up onto the throne as gracefully as she could.

  The seat was worn from years of use. The hollow from her father’s weight was wider than her hips, but her skirts rumpled up and filled the space.

  How did Faw’n always look when he sat? She rested her elbows on the padded arms, but folded her hands in her lap, and ignored the urge to play with the simple ribbon at her waist. She also resisted the urge to pull up her legs and cross them on the seat. She let them dangle awkwardly. Pretended she didn’t care that she was a child in an adult’s seat.

  Without a word, Uncle took a place at her side. He probably should have waited for her invitation, but Emeranth was grateful to have him there. Patron Demir was staring at Uncle with barely concealed annoyance.

  The well-dressed Yu’Nyun representative had barely moved, except to turn xist head to watch her cross the room. She couldn’t tell what xe was thinking. Did xe wish xe had finished her off too?

  “Patron, you and your guest may have a seat. We would confer with Our counsel.”

  A murmur passed over the room like a breeze on wild grass. Yes. Emeranth had just promoted Uncle. No. She was not yet coronated, and no one had to do what she said.