A City Called Smoke: The Territory 2 (11 page)

Squid sat behind Mr. Stownes on the bio-cycle, his arms wrapped around the large man’s waist. He hung on desperately, burying his head down to keep the red dust that billowed up in a cloud around them from stinging his eyes. Mr. Stownes was leaning forward, his thick hands gripping the handlebars, his right hand twisted down at the wrist to open the throttle to full and send the cycle plowing forward into the night. A sidecar attached to the cycle rattled and bounced along on its single wheel beside them. Nim sat inside the sidecar, gripping the metal handle in front of him with white knuckles. Squid didn’t know what Nim was worried about – he wasn’t the one who could fall off the back of this crazy thing. Next time they rode on a bio-cycle Squid would insist that he ride in the sidecar. It had been meant for him anyway. That’s how Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes had planned to take him east. Squid had seen steamcycles when he was in Alice, but those seemed to putter along the winding streets not much faster than walking speed. In comparison these bio-cycles sped over the rough ground at what Squid considered unnatural and horrifying speeds.

On their left, and a little in front of them, Mr. Stix blasted along on his own bio-cycle. The large tanks attached to the side of his bio-cycle for carrying extra fuel for their long journey rattled as the bike bounced over the uneven ground. Mr. Stix had removed his bowler hat, leaving his black hair to flutter free in the wind. Both Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes had goggles on, presumably to keep the dust from their eyes as they rode. The goggles had a second pair of lenses, dark tinted, that could flip down against the glare of the sun. Those lenses were in the raised position now that it was night.

Though he wasn’t comfortable with the situation, Squid knew that it was only because of Mr. Stix and Mr. Stownes’s intervention that he and Nim had made it out of Red Plains alive. Plus, so far they were keeping their promise about saving Lynn, and that was Squid’s first priority. They had tracked the dirigible slowly for the rest of the day, not wanting to ride close enough to draw the crew’s attention. A few hours earlier the dirigible had dropped its anchor, the huge metal thing falling to the ground and digging itself into the sand, pulling the dirigible to a stop and holding it hovering in the air. Now that night had fallen they rode toward the stationary airship.

Around two hundred yards from the pirate dirigible Mr. Stix lifted his right hand off the handlebars and held it in a raised fist. Both bio-cycles slowed, and Mr. Stix looked over at them as Mr. Stownes pulled up beside him and cut the engine.

“Best if we approach on foot from here, don’t you agree, Mr. Stownes?”

Mr. Stownes nodded and all four of them climbed off the bio-cycles and looked toward the shadowy balloon hanging soundlessly in the moonlight. Lynn was on there somewhere. Squid was filled with a sudden sense of dread. He hoped she was all right. He should have stayed with her. He never should have stormed off in anger even if he still felt it had been justified. Whatever trouble they got into they were supposed to get into together. If the pirates had done anything to hurt her he didn’t know what he’d do.

Mr. Stix turned to Squid and Nim. He held his mechanical pistol in one hand and, though the sun had long since set, he slipped his bowler hat on with the other. “You two wait here. We shall retrieve Miss Hermannsburg.”

“No,” Nim said, stepping toward them. “I’m coming with you.”

Squid looked in the direction of the dirigible. He remembered the pirates he’d seen in Red Plains, all of them dirty and rough with sharp swords and vicious looks in their eyes. He didn’t much like the idea of going aboard a ship full of them, but Lynn was their prisoner and he had to try to save her, especially if Nim was going. He didn’t want Lynn to think that Nim was braver than he was. Not that it was about proving anything.

“Me too,” Squid said as he moved to stand beside Nim. The Nomad looked at him but Squid avoided his gaze.

“You are too important, Master Blanchflower,” Mr. Stix said. “I don’t much care what happens to the Nomad but you must be kept safe.”

“If you want me to cooperate then you’re not going without me,” Squid said. “Lynn needs me.”

Nim made a quiet sound that Squid thought might have been a scoff.

Mr. Stix looked at them and then turned to Mr. Stownes. The big man lifted his enormous shoulders in a shrug. He pointed to Squid and then made an upward walking motion with his fingers.

“Yes, Mr. Stownes,” Mr. Stix said, rubbing his chin. “I don’t like it, but if he’s going to be so pushy then he might as well be of use. He’ll have to go alone at first, but it’s still safer than all of us chancing a climb over the side.”

“What are you talking about?” Squid asked.

 “Take these,” Mr. Stix said, lifting the seat of his bio-cycle and pulling out two daggers that had been strapped beneath it. He passed one to each of them. “It’s not as good as having a sword but you can still stick them with the pointy end if you get close enough. I’ll explain the plan once we get there.”

Squid looked at Nim as they crossed the dimly lit desert. The Nomad’s eyes were fixed on the airship in front of them. He looked determined. Squid may not have been good at interpreting people’s emotions but, as much as he didn’t like the idea, he could guess that Nim felt much the same as he did.

“We’ll get her back,” Squid said, hoping that would make them both feel better.

Nim looked at him. “Yeah,” he said. “I will.”

When they were almost directly beneath the dirigible Mr. Stix motioned for them to huddle closer together.

“The deck is quiet,” he said, keeping his voice low. “There’s someone in the crow’s nest but I’ve been watching and they haven’t moved for some time. I’d say they’ve fallen asleep. It’s a stroke of luck but it seems we’ve managed to approach unnoticed. The ship is a modification of a simple transport dirigible. Not easy to access from the ground uninvited. Unless you’ve got someone small.” Mr. Stix looked at Squid. “Master Blanchflower,” he said. “You want to be involved in the rescue of your friend?”

Squid nodded, hoping no one, especially Nim, noticed the gulping sound he made as he swallowed.

“You can climb the anchor chain and fit in through the hawsepipe. That’s the hole where the anchor comes out.”

Squid looked up at the dirigible, following the anchor chain to where it entered the hull near the back of the ship. Sure enough, the chain entered through a small hole.

“I’ll hazard that you can fit,” Mr. Stix continued, “although only barely. That will lead into the aft hold. There should be a cargo cage in there that lowers to the ground by rope and pulley. If you can climb in and lower the cage, the rest of us can use it to board.”

“I’ll do it,” Nim said.

“I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Stix quickly. “As I said, I’d much prefer to risk your life than Master Blanchflower’s, but I’ve seen the hawsepipe on these dirigibles, and you won’t fit.” Mr. Stix looked back to Squid. “If we’re lucky the aft hold is where they’re keeping Miss Hermannsburg. That’s where I would keep a prisoner.”

“Then couldn’t I just get her and we’ll come down in the cage?” Squid asked.

Mr. Stix shook his head. “I’m afraid the cage needs to be lowered manually. One of us will have to stay behind while the others make their escape. I don’t intend for that to be you. I want to get you out of there as quickly as possible.”

“There is a small chance the anchor may lead you directly to where the crew sleeps, depending on the layout of the ship. You’ll need to be careful going in, and if it looks like trouble, climb back down as quietly as you can. No matter what happens, we really don’t want to alert them. I didn’t get a good count on the crew in Red Plains but I don’t imagine there are more than thirty. Still, if it comes to combat in close confines, with some added encumbrance,” he looked at Squid and Nim, “then I don’t much fancy our chances. We will go in quietly, find Miss Hermannsburg, and exit quietly.”

Mr. Stix turned to the anchor chain. He turned to look back at Squid and Nim. “If we do encounter any pirates and you happen to be closest, you need to dispatch them before they can raise the alarm.” He ran his thumb from ear to ear over his throat. “Do you think you two can handle that?”

Nim nodded. Squid did the same, though not quite as enthusiastically.

“Because if you can’t,” Mr. Stix said, “we’ll all end up walking the plank, and by that I mean they’ll cut our heads off and drop us over the side.”

Squid swallowed. He realized he was holding his mother’s key. He hazarded a glance at Nim and was partially relieved to see him looking sideways at him in much the same way.

“Are you ready, Master Blanchflower?” asked Mr. Stix.

Squid nodded. “I’m ready,” he said, though he could tell his voice wasn’t exactly as confident as he had wanted it to be.

“All right,” Mr. Stix said, “remember to check the hold is clear before you climb all the way through. Then go straight to the cage and lower it down for us.”

Squid walked to the anchor and began to climb. The links in the chain were big enough to allow the ends of his boots to fit. This made the climb easier than he thought it would be. He began counting the chain links as he continued up, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. It was good to count. The counting distracted him and kept him from looking down. He refused to listen to his brain as it tried to get him to check how high he was. It just wanted him to see how far away the ground was, so it would know how much a fall would hurt and could decide whether to be incredibly scared or not. Squid knew the outcome would be overwhelming fear. He just had to resist the temptation.

As he passed link twenty-six he found himself getting into a rhythm. But the higher he got the more the chain moved, swinging from side to side and undulating forward and back as he shifted his weight. He had to slow down as the chain began to twist, threatening to roll around enough that in spite of his efforts he thought he might fall. He wished Lynn were there, but then that was the point, wasn’t it? He was doing this to get Lynn back because he needed her. He didn’t think he could make it to Big Smoke without her. Squid steeled himself and kept moving.

Once he drew closer to the dirigible the chain didn’t swing and sway as much and Squid covered the rest of the distance quickly. When he reached the hawsepipe, he saw that Mr. Stix had been right. It was a tight squeeze around the chain, but the pipe was set horizontally in the hull, and with the anchor hanging down the chain was pulled taut against the bottom of the pipe, leaving space for Squid to maneuver over the top of it. He pulled himself head first into the pipe, grabbing the links in front of him and wriggling forward. The pipe pressed in on him from all sides, compressing his shoulders and making it difficult to move and hard to breathe. The chain beneath him pushed painfully up into his ribs and stomach. He began to panic. He wanted to take a deep breath but his chest was too constricted. He wanted to hurry, to drag himself forward and burst out into the open space at the end of the pipe, but he remembered what Mr. Stix had said. He had to make sure he wasn’t coming out right in the middle of a crew of sleeping pirates.

The pipe wasn’t very long and once he’d calmed down, or at least pushed the thought of being trapped in the pipe forever from his mind, he found he could pull himself through. The room that lay beyond the opening of the pipe was dark. When his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, Squid cautiously poked his head out just far enough to look around. In front of him was a large metal wheel, positioned on its side and notched like a cog. On top of it was a wooden wheel with four large handles extending out. The anchor chain extended out from the pipe and wound around the cog. Squid guessed that was the apparatus used to raise and lower the anchor. It looked like it would take four large men to turn it. He hoped the mechanism for lowering the cargo cage was easier.

The rest of the space seemed empty. There were a few scattered barrels and wooden crates around the walls and a large box in the center, but certainly no sleeping pirates. Squid wriggled forward, sliding out of the hawsepipe like a snake from a hole in the ground. Though it was awkward coming out forward, he used his grip on the chain to swing himself around and lower his feet to the floor as quietly as he could. To his right was a wooden wall, the end of the lower hold. From seeing the ship as they approached across the desert he knew that on the other side of that wall were the mammoth propellers that powered the dirigible through the air. They must have been driven from somewhere above. To his left, some distance away, was another bulkhead with a door through to the next section of the hold. Taking a few steps toward the door, Squid saw that what he’d thought was a large box in the space between himself and the bulkhead was actually a cage. A complex arrangement of ropes and pulleys attached it to the roof above. This must be the cargo cage. The other end of the rope traced down from the roof to a rotating handle on a spindle a short distance away. Unlike the mechanism for raising and lowering the anchor, this was much smaller, seemingly designed to be operated by one person. He was in luck. As Mr. Stix had suspected, the anchor chain had led into the correct section of the ship, and he should be able to lower the cargo cage and bring up his reinforcements waiting below. Squid didn’t want to waste another moment. Being up here was bad enough, but being up here alone was even worse.

As Squid approached the cargo cage he saw that the barred walls of the cage were connected directly to the floor. A faint line traced the outline of the cage, a split that separated the floor of the cage from the floor around it. The entire wooden section of floor must lower down, Squid realized. He looked at the pulleys and tackle blocks strung above. If he’d had more light, and more importantly more time, he would have followed the rope through its twists and turns and investigated how it worked. Right now, though, he grabbed the handle and started to turn.

The handle squeaked, but Squid was dismayed to see that all that happened was the rope running from the spindle up to the roof grew slack and sagged down. He scrutinized the cage again, and this time saw the four metal handles, one in each corner. They held hooks that were locked in place through metal rings on the floor of the cage. They were holding the cage in place. As Squid unlatched the first of the locks he heard the very faint sound of footsteps in the next section of the hold. A chill ran through his body. He froze for a moment, listening for further sound. He could hear the muffled bass of a voice on the other side of the door. He considered going back into the hawsepipe and risking the climb back down, but he couldn’t abandon Lynn up here. The voice didn’t seem to be growing any closer, so he moved as quickly as he could, unlatching the three remaining corners of the cage. When he unclipped the last hook, the cage gave a jolt and the floor dropped away slightly, taking up the slack in the rope. Squid hurried back to the spindle. This time as he rotated the handle the pulleys above the cage rattled gently as the rope ran through them, and the cage began descending out of the dirigible.