Chapter 27
Strut 13
Low cloud, blowing in from the west on the night wind, spread like a white carpet fifty feet beneath Airhaven, hiding the Earth below and all but the uppermost tiers of the largest cities there. An air yacht in the midnight-blue livery of Murnau came gliding through the cloud tops, curving toward a berth on the far side of the docking ring; probably some toff from the Oberrang come up to risk his inheritance in the casinos. As she leaned over the handrail of an observation deck on the High Street, the smell of mist reminded Hester of a night at Rogues’ Roost, long ago.
Beneath her was Strut 13. The Humbuglay alongside, the three guards lounging at the foot of her gangplank. A light showed in her gondola, another in a window low down in her envelope.
Hester turned to Theo. “Go back to our ship. Get her ready to pull out. If all goes well, I’ll be coming aboard with Lady Naga in a few minutes.”
“You can’t go down there alone!” Theo protested. “What if something goes wrong?”
“Then you’ll leave without me. Go east and tell your General Naga what really happened to his wife.” Hester was eager to get Theo safely out of the way so that she could start doing what she did best. She leaned over and kissed his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin through her veil. Everything was so intense in these moments before action, as if her brain wanted to drink in everything—every sound, every smell.
Theo nodded and started to say something, then thought better of it. He walked away fast along the High Street, dodging the crowds of aviators who meandered between the bars and cafes. Hester watched till he was out of sight, thinking how badly she would have fallen in love with him if she’d been twenty years younger. Then, cursing herself for a sentimental goose, she ran down the stairway to Strut 13.
The men on guard were as bored and dozy as she’d been hoping. They were the sort of shabby, down-at-heel aviators who hung around the High Street bars looking for work. Varley must have hired them to guard his precious cargo, but they would rather have been off drinking than standing out here in the cold. She considered just killing them, and keeping hold of Pennyroyal’s gold for herself, but she couldn’t take them all down without a fight, and she didn’t want to risk that yet. She called out, “Where’s Varley?”
The men came to life, trying to look hard and competent.
“Who’s asking?” said one, pointing a spring-loaded speargun at her.
Hester shook the bag she was holding and let them hear the chinkle of Pennyroyal’s gold. Is chinkle a word? she wondered. She always grew very calm at times like this, and small questions like that became intriguing. Tom would know… But she mustn’t think about Tom.
One of the guards was backing up the Humbug s gangway, calling through an open hatch to someone inside. After a moment he jerked the speargun at Hester, and the others stood aside to let her go aboard.
In the Shadow Aspect’s gondola Theo was warming up the engines, testing the rudder controls, and hoping that no one aboard Airhaven would notice, for he had not asked anyone’s permission to depart. Behind him Grike paced to and fro, his heavy footfalls shaking the deck. “she should not have gone alone,” the Stalker said. “I told you—”
“you are not to blame, theo ngoni. but she should not have gone alone.” He let out a grating, mechanical noise that Theo supposed was the Stalker equivalent of a Sigh. “i should be helping her to free dr. zero. in other times i would have done it easily. taken out the airhaven power plant, sown confusion, and gone aboard the HUMBUG while the once-born were looking elsewhere… but i could not do that without killing.”
“You wouldn’t get far afterward, either,” Theo pointed out.
Grike didn’t seem to hear him. He stood at a porthole, staring out at the night and the silent, tethered ships, “I AM GOING TO HELP HER.”
“But you can’t! If you’re seen …”
“I WILL BE CAREFUL.”
Before Theo could stop him, Grike opened the hatch and jumped down onto the docking strut. No one was about. He crossed the strut in two long strides and dropped over the edge, his armor rippling with reflections from the harbor lights as if he were made of quicksilver. The underside of the strut was in shadow, hatched with girders. Grike crept along them until he was beneath the docking quays, and waited while a puttering dirigible balloon taxi passed beneath him on its way to the central ring. Then he began to pull himself along Airhaven’s underbelly toward Strut 13.
The dirigible taxi pulled in against one of the docking platforms in the center of Airhaven, and its wicker gondola creaked as Sampford Spiney scrambled out, followed by Miss Kropotkin and her enormous camera. The journalist had been at a dinner on the Oberrang when he received the message from Airhaven, and he had not had time to change out of his formal robes. He swayed slightly as he made his way across the mooring platform to where the clerk from the Empyrean was waiting.
“Well? Are you the one who claims to have seen Pennyroyal?”
“He’s been staying in my hotel, sir.”
“Is he there now?”
“No, sir. He ran out not long after I sent word to you…”
“Ran where?”
“I don’t know, sir. Some people came to talk to him. Then he went running off. I can show you his room, sir…”
“His room? His room? Great Thunderer! I can’t interview a room! Find me Pennyroyal himself, or you’ll not see a cent out of The Speculum.”
The clerk hurried toward the stairs that led up to the High Street, and Spiney went with him, snapping at his photographer to follow. “And make a note, Miss Kropotkin,” he added as they climbed. “I’m pretty sure that was the kriegsmarschall’s sky yacht we passed as we came in. What’s the old man doing in Airhaven? Gambling? Seeing a woman? Could be a story in that…”
The Humbug’s gondola reeked of wet nappies. The living quarters at the stern were full of them, draped on lines strung above the heating ducts. Poorly made bookshelves covered the walls, sagging under the weight of Varley’s self-help books. In one corner a slimy-nosed baby snuffled and started to cry. “Hush, hush, hush,” his mother said, looking up nervously as one of Varley’s heavies pushed Hester in.
Varley was waiting for her, looking more feverish and ferrety than ever, a half-eaten supper on the table in front of him. He’d taken off his jacket. His trousers were held up by snakeskin braces. “On your own this time?” he asked Hester. “Got my ten thousand?”
“Five,” said Hester. “That’s all we can get hold of.”
“Then I’ll be selling your Lady Naga to another buyer.”
“Oh, yes, I noticed the enormous queue all up the gangplank when I came aboard,” said Hester. “That was sarcasm,” she added as Varley sprang up to peer through a porthole.
“Face it, you haven’t got any other buyers. You’ll have to do business with me, before someone bigger and tougher hears who you’ve got stashed in your hold and comes to take her off your hands for free.”
Varley glared at her and said nothing. She opened her bag on the kitchen table, and shook out a pile of small, plump money bags. They jingled loudly, as well they might; two were full of Pennyroyal’s savings, and the other eight were stuffed with nuts and washers that she and Theo had bought at the all-night chandlery on the High Street. “Ten bags,” she said, opening one and tipping out a stream of gold. “Two hundred fifty shineys in each. Captain Ngoni will be bringing you the rest when I can assure him your cargo is alive and well.”