Free-Wrench, no. 1 (6 page)

She waved off the cloud of smoke that carried
his words and coughed a bit. “Game, Captain? I thought I’d been
quite clear about my intentions.”

“A pretty young girl from a well-to-do family
kicks up a fuss and buys herself onto my rust bucket of a ship for
a king’s ransom and for darn near no real reason. All that after a
couple of generations of no one having a mind to so much as go
sightseeing off those islands of yours. Either you’re up to
something, or you’re not quite right in the head. Could be a bit of
both, I reckon.”

“My mother suffers from Gannt’s Disease, and
we’ve no way to treat it properly. At worst she could be weeks from
death; at best the treatments will preserve her for a few years
more. She is a young woman, Captain, no older than you. If there is
even the smallest chance to cure her, I don’t know that there is
any other choice to make.”

“Even if you’re speaking the God’s honest
truth, I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

“I’ll admit I tend to be a bit impulsive when
things look desperate, but the choices I make tend to be the
correct ones. I stand by what I’ve said. I don’t know that a person
in my position could have, in good conscience, acted any
differently.”

“Don’t you, now? Well, let’s see how a man in
my
position ought to act. This is all idle musing, mind you.
Just for the sake of for instance and such. Here’s the way I see
it. I run a floating black market, so I’m clearly not an angel. A
wealthy heiress falls into my lap. Seems to me like a nice healthy
ransom would be in order.”

Nita stiffened in her seat.

“Most of the folk in my line wouldn’t think
twice about it. Hell, if I were ten years younger, I might have
tried it myself, but those guns round the border would make it a
mite tricky to deliver the demand, and I’m just not up to the
effort. No, ma’am, ransom isn’t what I’ve got in mind. The easiest
thing to do would be to kill you, keep what’s worth keeping from
that bag of yours, and heave the rest in the sea, you along with
it.” He picked up the coil box. “This here? A lot of men have
spilled a lot of blood for a lot less, and as I understand it, this
isn’t the half of it. You want my honest opinion, Ms. Graus? I
don’t see a lot of ways this comes out right for you. What’s to
keep me from just picking these boxes apart and not giving your
medicine no never mind?”

She took a slow breath. “Well, Captain, and
again for the sake of ‘for instance’ as you put it, if you were to
try pulling one of these apart, I don’t think you’d be doing much
else ever again. I’ve seen these boxes being built. I apprenticed
under their maker, in fact. It takes a hell of a lot of force to
get that trith coiled. If you give it the chance to uncoil without
the proper care, it will straighten itself out, and something that
thin moving that fast won’t slow down much on its way through wood,
steel, flesh, or bone. In case you haven’t noticed, those cross
pieces holding that box together are
also
made of trith,
because anything less couldn’t withstand the stress. Once I’m
satisfied you’ve done all you can to keep your end of the bargain,
I’ll be happy to show you how to take one apart and maybe even help
you cut it up. But not before.”

“And if I decide to sell it intact?”

Nita sat quietly, trying to keep her
expression steady and hoping that it came across as steely resolve
rather than panicked realization. The captain let the silence hang
in the air for an uncomfortably long time before he saw fit to
break it.

“Don’t worry yourself, miss. I did a fair
amount of mischief in my younger days, but I haven’t got the
vinegar for that anymore. Better or worse, I’m a businessman now,
and I pride myself as a straight shooter. It’s cost me a fortune, I
reckon. Plenty of men I could have swindled good, if I’d had the
mind to. But being honest also kept my head off of the chopping
block and out of the noose more than once. I’ll take that trade ten
times out of ten. Heavy pockets don’t do much more than weigh you
down when you’re swinging from the gallows. Far as I’m concerned,
we’ve got a deal.” He puffed the cigar once more. “But I want to
make sure you understand what sort of a deal it is. First, tide’s
got to be pretty low for us to make use of those mooring stones,
and it’s got to happen at night, so we only make stops in your neck
of the woods roundabout once a month, if we can manage. That’s how
long you’ll be with us, at the very least. Acceptable?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“And things won’t be easy. I ain’t made a
single trip between Caldera and Keystone—that’d be our home
port—without at least one good, hard bump in the road along the
way. Pirates, marauders, authorities, and rough weather. You ain’t
seen
a storm until you been up in the teeth of the thing.
You think you can handle that?”

“Again, if that’s what it takes.”

“Good. Now, since you’re new to this sort of
thing, let me explain a few things. This here ship is what we’d
call a zephyr. Meant for a crew of sixteen. Of course, it’s also
meant for short trips along the coast of the mainland. To make room
for the extra fuel and to make space for the cargo we need to make
it worth the trip to places like Caldera, we’ve been running it
with a crew of six. Everybody doubles up on tasks and then some.
Long and short of it, we don’t have room for tourists. You’ll need
to pitch in. For most Calderans I’ve met, that’d be a problem, what
with their delicate clothes and fancy colognes and their dainty
hands that ain’t never seen the handle of a shovel. You look like
the sort who knows how to put in a decent day’s work, though. You
know how to use them wrenches?”

“Some artists use a brush; I use a
wrench.”

“That’s fine. You’ll be working with Gunner,
then. He’s our armory officer. Let him know you’re under him, and
that I’ll be taking the helm back shortly. Make sure you get
introduced around, too. Maybe in your neck of the woods you can
jump unescorted onto a ship of strangers and not have to worry your
pretty head about it, but not where I come from. Best to show a
friendly face in a hurry. It’ll make it easier for us to do good by
you and harder for us to do bad. Things are rough out here, and
you’re going to need someone to watch your back if you don’t want
to wake up with any knives sticking out of it. That means having
some friends. You can start with me.” He stood and held out his
hand. “Cap’n McCulloch West. The crew calls me Cap’n Mack.”

She stood and returned the favor. “Amanita
Graus. My friends call me Nita.”

“You look tired, Ms. Graus.”

“It’s been a long night, Captain. I work the
night shift.”

“See Lil or Coop about stringing up a bunk
someplace, but see Gunner first. You’ll find him at the wheel, back
up on deck. He’s the fella without the full complement of fingers.”
He picked up the coil box and handed it to her. “You’ll want to
keep this and the rest of the payment well hid. I vouch for my
crew, but even so, you don’t leave a steak out around a hungry
hound dog.”

“Um… where should I hide it, Captain?” she
asked, stowing it in her belt again.

He puffed on his cigar. “That’s another thing
you should have thought of before you came aboard. As of now, you
are the lowest-ranking member of my crew. You’ll follow any orders
they give that don’t conflict with mine, and you’ll have all the
privileges they have, which is a mighty short list. Roundabout
suppertime we’ll all meet up in the galley, and we’ll discuss the
particulars of our little agreement, as well as how and when things
are likely to happen. Until then, get good and acquainted with the
Wind Breaker
and her crew.”

Nita stepped out of the
captain’s quarters. She felt dizzy, and there was more to it than
simply the pitching and swaying of the ship. Now that the impulse
and certainty that had driven her to embark on this insane mission
had begun to wear off and the captain’s words had begun to sink in,
doubt reared its ugly head. This ship and its crew couldn’t be less
like the world she was accustomed to, and while she certainly had
been seeking something new, this was a good deal more than she’d
had in mind. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this, so she
defaulted to what she always did when things seemed out of control:
calm down, focus on one thing at a time, and look for someone who
knows what’s going on. If she was to assist this Gunner fellow,
then for now she would simply find him. Easy enough.

She pushed open the doorway to the deck and
climbed the stairs. A chilly rush of air slapped her in the face,
stinging her eyes enough to compel her to pull her goggles into
place. When she could see again, she immediately noticed something
very wrong.

The ocean was missing.

Minutes ago they had been just a few dozen
feet from the churning blue waves below. Now there was nothing but
the gray haze of morning above, below, and all around. The sun was
only just beginning to rise in earnest behind them, providing a
single point of reference in the form of a fuzzy red blob of light.
It was profoundly disorienting, elevating her dizziness into
stomach-turning vertigo.

Nita held tight to the nearest railing and
tried to push the feeling aside. She scanned the deck for the
others. Coop was nowhere to be seen, but Lil was tidying the coiled
up moor line. When she noticed Nita, Lil walked confidently across
the swaying deck. She wasn’t wearing goggles, making do with
squinting to cope with the rushing wind, and had donned a short
jacket. It was clear why she kept her hair as short as she did. An
inch longer and the wind would be whipping it against her face
despite the bow.

“That was a quick visit. Everything go okay
with Cap’n?” Lil asked. She leaned a bit closer and looked Nita in
the face, then lit up with impish delight. “Oh ho! Looks like this
is going to be a blessed voyage, because Nita here is fixing to
make an offering!”

“What? I don’t…” Nita struggled to say, but
her stomach put a quick end to the conversation by making a short
but intense attempt to put her mouth to a more colorful use.

“Come on, darlin’. This way, quick.” Lil took
Nita’s hand and led her toward the edge of the ship. “You’ll feel
better in a minute.”

Nita didn’t have the will to object, simply
stumbling along with Lil in a daze until she reached the waist-high
railing at the edge of the deck. She held tight to it, closed her
eyes, and took a deep breath.

“It’s not lookin’ good for this one,” Lil
said to a crewmate, shaking her head.

“I feel… I feel a bit better. I just needed a
moment,” Nita said.

“You sure? You’re still lookin’ a tad green
round the gills,” Lil said.

Nita intended to assure her new crewmate that
she was perfectly fine, but she made the unfortunate mistake of
opening her eyes before she did so. Her head hung slightly over the
railing, which gave her an unobstructed view off the side of the
ship. Below them, a break in the fog provided the briefest glimpse
of the sea below, but it was enough to make it clear that they
weren’t
dozens
of feet from the water anymore, they were
hundreds
. It was the final straw.

“
There
it is! Oh Spirit of the
Journey, please accept our humble offering of this greenhorn’s
lunch in exchange for your good graces,” Lil said with her head
lowered in mock prayer.

“I’m sorry,” Nita said, when she’d recovered
enough to do so. “This is so embarrassing. I’ve been on a ship a
hundred times, and I’ve never been sick.”

“Airships are a whole different beast.
Happens to everyone on the first trip,” Lil said. “At least you
were outside when it happened. You might want to carry a bucket
around though, until you get your air legs. Were you after anything
up here, or did you just want to feed the ducks?”

“I was supposed to find Gunner,” she said,
pushing up her goggles to rub her eyes. What she wanted most was to
find a corner to crawl into until she could get her head straight,
but nothing was ever solved by being meek. Best to get to work as
soon as possible. She pulled a small bottle of water from one of
the pouches on her belt, rinsed her mouth out, and slid the goggles
back into place.

“Atta girl! That’s him up there.”

Nita looked toward the prow and saw the man
she’d briefly glimpsed during her first visit to the deck. He was
working the controls. That was a mercy, at least. It meant he was
facing away from her and hadn’t witnessed her little bout with
airsickness. She straightened up and took a few plodding steps up
the stairs, trying to judge the roll of the ship and move only when
doing so wasn’t likely to tip her over the side.

“Hello. You’re Gunner?”

“That would be me,” said the man at the
controls in a far more crisp and unaccented voice than the
others.

He was a few years older than the other
crewmembers. If Nita were to hazard a guess, she would place him
within a few years of his thirtieth birthday, though on which side
wasn’t clear. He was an inch or two taller than her, with black
hair, a face full of stubble, and a pair of smoky and charred
goggles keeping the wind at bay. His hands moved with a bit less
confidence across the controls in comparison to his captain, a fact
that may have been due in part to his hands. His right hand was
missing the middle and ring fingers, and his left was missing the
pinky. The injuries must not have been recent, because the brown
leather gloves he wore had the corresponding fingers cut away and
sewn up. He was of average build, dressed in much the same way as
the rest of the crew save for a dedicated gun belt beneath his coat
in addition to at least three holsters strapped across his chest
and legs.

“I’m Amanita Graus. The captain said I should
assist you.”