Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion (34 page)

“Remember, I’m the information specialist, Benton. No point lying to me. Not that I’m that curious but trying to hide it is somewhat offensive, you know?”

“What on Earth are you talking about, man?”

“The contact your ship made with the object that matched your trajectory and remained on a parallel course for six months? You’re not trying to tell me the crash damaged your memory?”

Benton looked at Sally for a moment and then laughed hysterically.

“You’re insane, man. What are you on about?”

“Hmm.” Sally jumped down from the desk. “If you really don’t remember, it means there will be more work than I’ve anticipated. But first we need to sort out a transport for you, and grab a pint at the Shakey.”

“It’s still standing?” Benton was surprised.

“Yeah, and I have a feeling you’ll like it.” Sally went to a coat hanger in the corner and picked up a brown leather coat, covered in pockets and pouches.

“You look ridiculous.”

In reply Benton received a sarcastic look from above the tinted glasses.

“You’re all the fashion too.” Both men laughed. Benton decided he liked this arrogant little man. Wrapped in a similar coat borrowed from Sally’s collection, he followed the information specialist downstairs.

“What about my identity?” He suddenly remembered the card given to him by Stubbings.

“Let me take a look.” Sally hastened back upstairs and returned after about a minute. “All done and active, it was a neat job anyhow. Should fool any patrols we may hit on our way, at least the regular ones. Come, I’m dry as a bone.”

To Benton’s surprise the pub was full of people. Most wore the current fashion, though mainly limited to plain, functional clothes. A few had jeans and colourful t-shirts and there was one man in a leather biker’s outfit. Tobias led him to the back room and sat them both at a free table in the corner box. Before Benton managed to say anything a wonderful phenomenon walked over to their table, holding three pints of lager. She was a mulatto, with that gentle beauty often given to people of mixed races. Her brown curly hair cascaded around her slim but gracious shoulders, flowing down her back. She wore a white blouse with a red pendant round her neck, brown leather trousers, and a matching vest and coat. As Benton sat there dumbstruck, she put the glasses on the table and slid one to Sally. She winked at Benton, pushing the pint towards him, and sent him a smile.

“Hello handsome.” Her voice had a soft timbre, though something in the way she intoned her words told Benton she was used to giving orders. She turned to Sally. “How’re things, Toby?”

“Reasonably well, under the circumstances… we had a loss.”

“Ezra, I’ve heard.” She grimaced.

“He will be hard to replace,” Sally agreed. “Let me introduce you. Benton Hermaszewski, Crash. Crash, Benton Hermaszewski.”

“Pleased,” said Benton and seeing Crash’s raised eyebrow added, “Benton will do.”

She nodded and asked, “So what’s the plan now?”

“We still need the transport. Can you manage?” Sally’s tone suggested he already knew the answer to his question.

“Do pigs fly?”

“Is the Pope a catholic…” Benton cut in. Crash raised an eyebrow again, and her smile caused Benton’s heart to speed up a little. He had to admit, he liked her.

“I know, honey. It was deliberate.”

Benton suddenly felt out of balance, which annoyed him, so he didn’t say anything, but took another long gulp of lager. It had a pleasant bitter aftertaste. He couldn’t make out the name from the distance. Someone had switched the jukebox on, letting out Gilmour and friends. He saw few people quietly singing the words of “Another Brick In The Wall’ shook his head in wordless amazement over his situation and took another sip.

“It won’t be easy but I should manage. The payment will have to be doubled. Sniffers are getting expensive to pay off.”

“That won’t be a problem. Our client here,” Sally smiled and pointed at Benton, “has a substantial credit with a few independent banks, sufficient to cover the necessary costs.”

“Now I do feel like I’m being plucked,” threw in Benton.

Seeing Sally stir in his seat as if to start explaining, he raised his hand. “It was a joke and even so, I don’t mind that much. From what you’ve told me money is not the issue, at least I hope it isn’t?”

“No, chap, it’s not, not for you anyway.”

“Good. I would like to know the plan then.”

“The plan is simple, handsome. We’ll take a short trip together. We fly low and fast and with a pinch of luck, we get out of the whole thing alive.”

“A little sketchy, don’t you think?”

“Worked many times before.”

“And your nickname has no underlying cause, I hope?” he asked, smiling.

“Nope, I don’t crash things I’m flying.” She frowned. “Unless I’m with a really annoying client…”

“Fine, fine.” Benton gave up, laughing. “So when do we leave?”

“Want another pint first?”

They slipped out into the early morning air, leaving Sally to finish another glass. The city was filled with the smell of sea water and damp, and was quiet and drowsy in the late spring mist. Crash led him to the canal, reached the ladder and disappeared below. He stood for a moment, unsure if he should follow.

“Coming or not?” came a hiss from below. He climbed down and found himself standing on the weirdest boat he’d ever seen. It was about fifty feet long and had a pair of short, thick wings. The top side was covered in fine network of tiny pipes, all seemingly just for decorative purposes. As he was staring he caught a sight of another zeppelin lowering down towards Redcliff.

“Is that really an airship?” he asked Crash. She was untying the hawser, but she glanced up quickly.

“Well it’s a ship and it’s in the air. The conclusion is pretty obvious.” She looked again. “It must be a tanker from the North Pole.”

“Tanker? So it’s not filled with lifting gas?”

“What for?” She looked at him, puzzled.

“To make it fly, of course.”

“No, silly.” She sighed. “The engines make it fly. The hull is a cargo hold. Come inside, we need to leave.”

He bit back an ill-tempered reply and quietly went aboard. The inside consisted of a short corridor with a couple of doors on both sides, and the corridor led to cockpit which looked like everything here, lots of brass and weirdness. A few of the panels looked as if they were cannibalised from other machines and had been screwed to the ribbing in not-so-convenient places.

“What are those?” Benton asked, smacking his forehead unexpectedly on one of the ill-fitted panels. He winced and rubbed his temple with his palm. Crash slid into the pilot seat with lots of grace and zero contact with all the protruding machinery.

“Experimental tech. A friend acquired it for me.” She pulled a few levers and grabbed a steering stick. There was a noticeable tremor transmitting through the hall. “It’s supposed to improve travelling speed, but he didn’t manage to get me the whole specs so I haven’t figured it out.” She gave one of the foot pedals a hearty kick. “Yet.”

The whole ship vibrated harshly for a couple of seconds before dropping into a steady murmur. Crash took them swiftly into the air, raising just high enough to dodge the tops of the buildings, and turned south-east towards Bath. After a couple of minutes they had reached the outskirts of the city. Benton noticed that in place of Keynsham and the surrounding villages stood a healthy forest. If the population had dwindled as Sally said, this was not surprising.

“Which way?” he asked, looking down at the mist-clouded landscape.

“We’ll try to slip through near Bath and then head towards Dorchester village. There’s a hole in the sniffers’ coverage in that area.” She turned down a couple of dials and the temperature rose to a comfortable level.

“You’re a smuggler, aren’t you?”

“Entrepreneur,” she replied with a smile. “A girl has to make a living these days. What about you? Pilot?”

“Engineer, with roughly thirty years lag in technology.” He waved at the shiny cockpit. “Not to mention all that free energy stuff.”

“It’s not really free. The parts can cost an arm and a leg and on top of that paying off the spotters to get you location of holes in the sniffers’ net… it’s all pretty expensive if you’re not part of the corp.”

“I can imagine. Is the net covering the whole of the isles?”

“Yeah, it was put there by Brunel’s Co some five years ago to ensure they control the markets even more tightly. There are holes in it but they are getting harder to find. Luckily there’s no such thing on the other side of the channel. Although I’ve heard the French are thinking of cobbling one together with the German Federation.”

“How long will the flight be?”

“If we’re lucky, about five hours. Once we reach the south of France we’ll be out of the woods. Even if something sticks to us then I’ll be able to lose it in the Alps.”

“It’s all pretty weird. Has the rest of the world gone mad as well?”

“To some extent. The continent is fascinated by cybertech, apart from those places occupied by new age hippies. Africa hadn’t change much, there’s perhaps a little less fighting now that there are less people there. China is sealed. The number of smugglers that run successful operations from there can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And the States have militarized even more after the union with Canada and Mexico.”

“What about Australia and South America?”

“I’ve heard that South America went technologically backwards, but for all I know that’s just a rumour. I have no idea, and not much interest either, in what happened in Australia recently. We usually have hands full with local business.”

They had just cleared the murky outskirts of Bath when one of the tiny holoscreens in front of Benton’s seat lit up. Crash looked at it with a tense expression.

“Shit. We’ve been spotted.” She quickly touched few buttons and the engine’s murmur shifted into a roar.

“Anything I can do to help?” Benton asked as he noticed a series of laser beams sliding past the cockpit, flaring against the glass.

“Shut up and don’t distract me.”

Crash took the ship through a series of tight turns and levelled out over what seemed to be a flooded strip of unused road.

“We’re going to try an old Russian trick!” she yelled over the roar of the engines. She descended slowly until they flew about twenty feet above the surface of the river Benton had mistaken for road. They were gaining speed spraying huge jets of water in their wake and surely scaring the life out of any wildlife in a few mile radius. The problem was that the river ran in straight line, so they were even more exposed to their pursuers. Looking at one of the holoscreens, Benton could just about to make out the shapes of the two units that were chasing them. They both looked deadly enough and soon shells started to rattle at the back of the flyer while some sort of energy projectiles wreaked havoc to the riverbanks.

“They do want you bad!” Crash shouted.” But at least it seems they prefer you alive, more or less!”