Jeramie arched an eyebrow. “That so?”
“Sure. Get me Tiffany, and I’ll give you the meds.”
“Sounds like a deal,” Joe declared.
It sounded like disaster, yet every other choice was worse.
It took days for the Massingales’ makeshift airship to catch up with Erotopia, drifting with the prevailing easterlies, between Exhume and Kobol, a thousand haads behind Lesser Helium, currently propelled by the same wind system.
Coming up from the southeast, the Massingales timed their arrival for dusk, so they would hang in the gloaming, nearly invisible, with the pleasure palace silhouetted in the last of the light. Erotopia was a huge inflated raft of hydrogen, divided into cylindrical cells, capped by a gleaming glass superstructure, with shaggy hanging gardens, and long dangling strings of pavilions that stabilized the floating structure. SinBad studied their target. “Where is Tiffany?”
“Where is your cargo?” Jeramie replied.
“I will tell you when I have her.” He meant to pay the Massingales at the last possible moment. Joe nodded. “Fair enough.”
First SinBad got his wings, a borrowed pair, that had belonged to Joe. “Before I outgrew them.” Joe’s girlfriend adjusted the straps, checking the trim, and making sure SinBad’s feet were in the tail stirrups. She was beautiful, but all business, saying without a hint of flirtation, “How firm is it in the crotch?
I can tighten it for you.”
“Feels just fine,” he deadpanned back.
“Good. Otherwise you can get tail flutter.”
Not the good kind, either. In no time he was perched on the airship’s fantail, alongside Joe and Jeramie, surveying the pleasure palace. They had their rapiers, while SinBad was unarmed, afraid he would stab himself in a fast landing. Flying and fighting was not his forte. He asked, “How do you even know she is still there?” Or where Tiffany was being kept.
Both brothers grinned. “We GPS tagged the two of you, on that bluff above the wagon track. Just in case.”
Leave skulking to the pros. They had no trouble finding him, alone and afoot.
“So, let’s go.” Joe gave him a shove, and he was airborne. Instinctively, he spread his borrowed wings, flapping furiously. Automatic trim tabs and power flaps kept him from stalling. Primaries bit into the dark air, pulling him forward with each power stroke.
“Stop flailing,” Jeramie advised.
“Soar.” Joe showed how, diving to gain speed, then climbing with sure steady strokes. SinBad did his best, sculling with his wrists to keep up airspeed, riding the air instead of batting at it. Luckily, Joe’s old wings practically flew themselves.
Thuria was down, so Erotopia had just a small airship on watch, which the Massingales easily avoided, winging their way toward one of the trailing pavilions—which had a flier on guard, perched on a swing above it.
He too was no match for the Massingales. Joe spilled air, perfectly imitating the drunken swoop of a hard partying flier. A part he knew by heart. Brushing the pavilion eves, Joe went into a tumbling spin. That brought the flier off his perch, spiraling after the fallen “patron.” This clueless watch bird had no hope of catching Joe, letting SinBad concentrate on landing. Not easy for a beginner.
But he did it, flaps wide, feathers spread, spoilers out, feet down. With a sudden thud, Sinbad stood teetering on the broad pavilion balcony.
“Come on,” Jeramie called from inside the pleasure pavilion. “This is not a social call.” Too true. SinBad entered, and there was Tiffany, asleep again, in a gilded cage, wearing a crisp new low-cut uniform. At least her owners did not mean to toss her overboard. Yet. Jeramie’s bolt cutters made quick work of the lock. “So, what are your cargo’s coordinates?”
“When we get her outside.” As soon as he gave up those coordinates, the Massingales would be off at near light speed, leaving him with Joe’s old wings. And a stolen air hostess. Or so he hoped. Folding his wings, SinBad eased into the cage, picking Tiffany up off the floor. Her eyes shot open. “SinBad?”
“Good guess.” Nice she remembered him.
“What are you doing?”
“Rescuing you.”
“Just me?” Tiffany seemed underwhelmed.
“Afraid so.” He already had his arms full. “Ready for a night flight?”
“I suppose.”
Taking that as a yes, he slid her bare legs into his harness straps and looped his flight belt around her waist, bringing their centers of gravity snugly together. Delightful sensation. Then he dived off the pavilion balcony, disappearing into the warm dark Barsoomian night.
As SinBad gained airspeed, Jeramie appeared alongside, flying wing-tip to wing-tip with him. “What are the coordinates?”
He rattled off the numbers, and Jeramie dived after Joe, saying, “You owe us a pair of wings.” So much for the Massingales. SinBad pulled up, borrowed wings beating on battery power, now that the sun had set. That too would slow his escape.
Tiffany asked, “What about Jem?”
Jem? “Jem who?”
“Jem from Amour.”
Right. Jem who’d got him thrown off the Jeddara.
“She needs saving too.”
Who did not? “They will not kill her.”
“How do you know?” Tiffany shot back.
He did not. Rather than continue the aerial argument, he asked, “Do you even know where she is?”
“I’ll show you.” Tiffany directed him to another hanging pavilion, below the one she had been in. Live music from a Greenie band drifted out of an open veranda.
“There’s a party going on in there.” From the sounds of it a big one.
“So?” Tiffany did not see the problem.
Setting her down on a corner of the veranda, he asked, “How am I supposed to get Jem out?”
“Use this.” Tiffany handed him a mini sleep grenade.
“Where did this come from?” Raised offworld letters ran around the pin. PEACE CORPS.
“Kept it hidden behind my hostess badge.”
No wonder he’d missed it. “Hi! I’m Tiffany,” and I have a bomb. Triggering the grenade, he tossed it through an open window. Music ceased, as SinBad waited for the anesthetic cloud to dissipate. Then he hyperventilated, held his breath, and stepped inside.
Strewn around him were the remains of a bacchanal, halted in mid-orgy, the blindfolded band, a trio of naked clients, a rainbow of sleeping air hostesses, red, white, black, and green, in various states of undress—all completely comatose. As if the frenzy of enjoyment was just too exhausting. He retrieved the grenade, tossing that tiny evidence bomb out the window. Escapades like this -drugging everyone in a flying cathouse to make off with an enslaved teenage air hostess—were what got him called SinBad.
Next he scooped up Jem, who had lost the top of her air hostess uniform, along with the hip boots, making the young Red girl weigh even less. All this activity hurt his leg horribly. SinBad felt the pavilion tilt, followed by an exchange of greetings outside. Tiffany was saying “Kaor” to someone.
Shit. Some flier had landed on the veranda, and Tiffany was chatting him up. Still holding his breath, SinBad edged over to the window to see.
Out on the starlit veranda, the flier who went after Joe had returned, and somehow tracked them here. He was standing with wings folded, talking to Tiffany, and cradling a repeating crossbow. Which beat the sleeping air hostess SinBad was cradling. He ducked his head back inside. What to do?
First breathe. Setting Jem down beside the window, SinBad slid over to the back of the pavilion, where he stuck his head out a rear window.
Dark, terraformed air never tasted so sweet. Now think. He could wiggle out the window onto the veranda, then come around behind the flier. Assuming Tiffany could keep him talking. Arming himself with a champagne bottle, SinBad climbed out the window and crept along the veranda. At the corner, he hefted the bottle, then stepped around, hoping the flier was still facing the other way. He found the flier stretched out at Tiffany’s feet, as peaceful as the party in the pavilion. He lowered his bottle. “What did you hit him with?”