The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) (6 page)

             
Gideon bristled. “I—”

             
“I said
take a walk
.”

             
After a pause, Gideon slammed his cap back down over his hair, stabbed his revolver through the loop on his belt, and slid down the hatch-ladder into the lobby. His footsteps faded as he stomped away from the ship.

             
The hold was heavy with the awkwardness that always follows an argument. Reece turned to face the rest of the crew, who were scattered across the dim cargo bay, clearly trying to blend into the walls, and smiled wearily. They relaxed.

             
“The boy's killed a lot'a Vees,” Mordecai said in his quiet, grizzled voice. He stared at the hatch with glazed eyes, as if seeing some ghost of his past. “Think it's easier for him to believe there weren't anythin' good in them. That they couldn't'a been saved.”

             
Slowly, Reece nodded. He'd killed Vees too. Thinking of them as real people was by no means comfortable. “I'll talk to him. Keep working on the auxiliary lighting…let's try to get it done by midnight.”

             
Gideon was sitting with his elbows on his knees on the bench facing the dome and the opaque fog, fiddling with the green military ribbon he sometimes wore on his jacket. Reece sat down beside him and stretched out his legs with a groan. He waited.

             
“Sorry,” Gideon grunted finally, folding his big hand over the ribbon and stuffing it into his pocket.

             
“Don't lose sleep over it.”

             
“Can't lose something you don't have.”

             
Reece looked at him questioningly, head tipped.

             
Gideon shrugged. The harsh white light of the fog threw sharp shadows across his angular face. “Haven't slept well lately. Thinkin' too much about the mission.”

             
“Thinking what?”

             
“Dunno. I just have a feelin' about it. Sometimes…” He hesitated, voice trailing off, and made a face. “You really ask Po to come along?”

             
Guessing what was coming, Reece simply nodded.

             
Gideon thoughtfully scrubbed his chin, making a scratching sound. “Think that's a good idea? You could'a asked one of her brothers.”

             
“And chance them knifing me in the back while I sleep?”

             
“I just don't think she knows what she's gettin' herself into.”

             
Reece closed his eyes for a second. The cold air prickled his skin like tiny pincers, cheerful voices drifted from Aurelia, singing a carol, and the mist continued flowing over the domed museum like a river of milk. Outside, an unsuspecting planet and her three moons slept.

             
And somewhere in the galaxy, The Kreft were prowling, waiting.

             
“Sometimes,” Reece said, “I worry none of us really do.”

III

Reece Sheppard, Captain Umbrella

The week sped by, as weeks had a bad habit of doing lately. Time tended to move faster or slower depending on what you
didn't
want it to do. It was an underappreciated science.

             
Hayden dressed in front of the four-paneled mirror in his and Reece's suite, tucking in his shirt with undue concentration. Dawn's cold purple light checkered the floor and crawled slowly across Reece's lumpy bed. One of Reece's bare legs was sticking out of the pile of his blankets as though bodiless.

             
Any day now, Po would deem Aurelia flight ready, and then Hayden's friends would be gone. He tried not to think about that much, instead focusing on his schoolwork, blotting out his emotions with harmless, risk-free, painless numbers. He would miss them, that was all. His friends.

             
Sighing, he dropped his hands from fiddling with his collar and looked down at his scuffed shoes. Once, his wants had been the simplest things to compute. He wanted to help people. He wanted to provide for his family. He wanted to be happy. The first two things should have been the means for the last—but they weren't enough anymore. What did that make him?

             
In the mirror, Reece stirred and groaned.

             
“It's nearly seven,” Hayden told him, turning his head. “What time are we meeting the others at the Dryad?”

             
Reece rose to his elbows and looked around blearily. “Fifteen minutes ago.”

             
Sighing, Hayden walked to Reece's wardrobe and pulled out a fresh black uniform, throwing it at him. “You need to start winding your watch. It's not fair to make the others wait.”

             
“I usually depend on my internal clock, but lately, it's only been so-so reliable. It was probably damaged when I was stabbed at the masquerade. You've seen my scar.”

             
“Yes. Several times, in fact.”

             
“I never really notice it anymore. Sure, it still twinges now and again, but I try not to make a fuss about it. Even if I am more or less maimed.” Reece grunted, trying to dress without getting out of bed but only succeeding in tangling himself in his blankets. Eyeing Hayden, he added, “You could have woken me.”

             
“I was getting breakfast.”

             
Smiling, Hayden picked up a plate from his desk and pulled back the cloth napkin covering it. He steered the plate under Reece's nose, letting the smell of biscuits and sausage links waft behind. Reece's eyebrows climbed up his forehead, and he sprang out of bed, spry and shirtless, not seeming at all bothered by the thin white scar on his left side.

             
He made a grab for the plate, but Hayden held the bartering chip behind his back. “We'll eat on the way. Come on. Shirt on.”

             
Nivy, Gideon, and Po were waiting beside The Owl's reedy lake. Hayden couldn't help but marvel at how healthy Nivy looked in the wan daylight as she watched Gideon juggle for Po. Her confinement to Mordecai and Gideon's house in Praxis had turned into a permanent living arrangement, and living off of Mordecai's robust cooking had done her good. Her color looked better, her long straight hair was clean and brushed, and she was just skinny now, rather than bony. Mordecai, generous host that he was (generous, Hayden reminded himself, because he had recently come by way of some black market Glaucan beans that he'd pawned for twice their value) had bought her a few changes of clothes after the Pantedan fashion. She now wore a pair of baggy brown trousers that tied above her boots and a hip-length, flaring black coat.

             
“Look at my sorry crew,” Reece said, fork poised to stab the last of his sausage. The others glanced up, Gideon's juggled rocks falling and riddling the snow at his feet with holes. “Lounging around when there's work to be done.”

             
Po sniffed the air. Hayden noticed she was wearing a new pair of boots. It was hard not to; they were the same poppy shade of red as the wool coat she was wearing over her jumpsuit. “Biscuits, Cap'n?”

“
I'm a man of simple needs. Come on, let's get to the docks. Raft is expecting us.”

“
Why isn't Mordecai coming?” Hayden asked as the two groups melded and began circling the frozen lake. On the far shore, a pair of skinny-legged gursa were nosing a pock in the ice while a class of bundled-up students studied them under the supervision of Tutor Watsby, the Animalogy instructor.

“
He's watching Owon,” Reece said, careful to use the Vee's nickname. “We don't need him along, now that we're done bargaining. Gid wanted to take his turn going planetside anyways—he hasn't seen the others in a while.”

The others
being the rest of the Pantedan refugees, most of whom lived in Caldonia. Gideon and Mordecai knew almost all of them, which had made finding a place to have covert dealings—that is, a place to buy and pack months' worth of supplies without attracting notice—as easy as picking up bread at the market. Reece and Mordecai had spent their last three days off in a refurbished warehouse behind the lumber houses of Caldonia, working with Raft, a Pan with resources of no mean size who they were paying to organize their purchases. Hayden would rather avoid him. He'd rather avoid most Pans, come to think on it.

This was the last time they'd be visiting the warehouse. The goods had already been stowed neatly on
The Aurelia
—cans of broth, dehydrated meat and gruel, a dozen casks of clean water, medical supplies, photon wands with back-up charges, blankets, and enough guns and ammunition to outfit a small army. Reece's wardrobe back at The Owl was mostly empty; he'd had his clothes packed for days now. Nothing was going to delay them once Po finished her tweaks on the Afterquin.

             
Except for maybe a short goodbye, if Hayden was lucky.

             
Despite the nippy weather, Caldonia was crawling with people. Even the muddy back roads the crew took to the warehouse were bogged, both with Easterners—who usually stuck to the nicer end of the city and dressed in suits and high-necked dresses—and the Westerners, their opposites. The only reason the different classes blended in the streets was the looming holidays and the selection of shops Caldonia alone offered. Sweet emporiums, clothing stores, antique book corners, art and automata galleries…

             
Reece led the crew past all of these, maneuvering between ladies with parasols and bulging gift bags and grubby-faced Westerners smoking cigars on corners. He hung a left down an alley dripping with clotheslines, heading towards the lumber houses, where the air around the yard stacked with logs, planks, and crates was dusted with equal amounts of snow and sawdust. The workers in the yard—most of which had dark hair and the telltale white Pantedan skin—waved to Gideon and whistled at Po and Nivy. Po smiled shyly; Nivy merely looked curious.

             
The warehouse itself was a plain brick building with black smokestacks and boarded-up windows. Raft met them at the scrolling door where wares would have once been unloaded from the beds of wagons. He was built like the smokestacks above, tall and as solid a block of cement. His black hair was short like Gideon's, but he wore a straggly goatee braided at his chin and was missing an eye, or so his black patch suggested. It could just be putting on intimidating airs, Hayden supposed.

             
“Get in, then,” Raft said gruffly, jerking his head. “You're lettin' in a draft, and we've a fire goin'.”

             
Hayden stepped up onto the elevated hardwood floor of the warehouse, holding his satchel, and winced. His broken ankle had been out of its straightener for more than a month now; it shouldn't still be bothering him. Sighing, he shifted his weight and looked around.

             
The interior walls of this part of the building had been knocked down so the room sprawled like a king-sized lounge. There were two hearths on opposite walls, one for cooking, one for comfort. The collection of battered armchairs and couches clustered around the latter was occupied by a group of Pans who looked openly hostile until Gideon stepped up after Hayden and nodded to them.

             
“Raft,” a voice whined from the hearth. A pointed-faced Pan stood up, scowling. “You really think it's a good idea to have them all here? What if one'a them blabs? Then what?”

             
“Then you'll be runnin' scared with your tail between your legs, Kayl,” Gideon said evenly, helping Raft slide the door shut with a bang. “Shouldn't matter to you either way.”

             
“Besides,” Raft added. “You think they'd rat on us after payin' us for goods? Be a right waste of money, wouldn't it?” Turning to Reece, he prompted in a quieter voice, “Well?”

             
Reece and Gideon simultaneously reached into their jackets and pulled out a stack of rectangular paper shields. They'd divided the money in two to cut the risk of loss in half. Raft took the stacks, glanced his thumb over their edges, and nodded approvingly. It was like something out of a story, Hayden thought with interest, wondering if Raft would lick the shields to taste them for bad ink, like the characters in those stories always did. But all Raft did was catch him staring and glare suspiciously. Hayden shrank back, embarrassed.

             
“Got those maps you asked for,” Raft said to Reece.

             
“Good. But I'd like to look over the supply lists first and double-check them with your estimates.”

             
Raising his dark eyebrows, Raft growled, “Don't trust me, boy?”

             
“You, I trust,” Reece said dryly, glancing towards the hearth with meaning.