“But it must be broken?”
“Yes,” she whispered again.
Alain looked at the butt of his rifle, then at Mari. “Is there anything else you must do in here?”
“Um, I need to check the message log to see if they’ve reported my capture and see if any special orders have come in regarding me.”
“Do that,” Alain said.
With another sick feeling inside, Mari walked over to a desk near the bound apprentice. As she opened the message log, Mari heard the sound of breaking glass and snapping boards. She had to pause, breathing deeply to calm herself, then nerved herself enough to glance back and see Alain energetically pounding his rifle butt into the openings beneath the access panels.
Shuddering at the destruction, Mari quickly scanned the message log. There’s the report of my capture, then right after that the report about Alain. A far-talker specialist from Umburan? How did he convince them of that? And here I’ve got him smashing this far-talker. But no orders received back yet. I guess the Guild Masters in Palandur are too busy celebrating my capture. She glanced over at the apprentice. “I’m sorry. I really am. I’m not doing any of this because I want to. Please remember that we didn’t harm you. We’re going to put a gag in your mouth, but if you breathe calmly you won’t have any trouble.”
“Are you Master Mechanic Mari?” the apprentice asked hesitantly.
Here it came, a young Mechanic trainee already terrified of her because of the lies her Guild had told. Mari nodded. “Yes.”
To Mari’s shock, the apprentice turned pleading eyes on her. “Take me with you.”
“What?”
“Please. I want to join you. Whatever you’re doing.”
Mari had to think for a moment before answering. She had never expected to receive such a request from someone she didn’t even know. “Listen, it’s too dangerous. My friend and I have very little chance of getting off of this ship alive. Stay here and you’ll be all right. Come with us and you’ll probably die very soon or be captured and treated as a traitor.”
The apprentice shook her head. “But—”
“There’ll be another time. Somehow. Please don’t risk yourself now.”
She nodded to Mari. “How will we find you?”
We? Mari stared again. “There are still some things I need to do, but after that I’ll find a way to let the right people know.”
“And we’ll be able to build anything we want? The Guild won’t be able to tell us not to anymore? The Senior Mechanics won’t be able to do anything they want?”
“That’s what I hope for.”
The apprentice nodded. “Put the gag in my mouth. Good luck, Master Mechanic Mari. You’ve got a lot of friends.”
“I do? More than I realized, it seems. But I’ve also got a lot of enemies, and I don’t want people like you hurt by those enemies. Good luck to you, Apprentice… ?”
“Madoka.”
“I’ll be seeing you, Apprentice Madoka.” Mari gently placed the gag in the apprentice’s mouth, then stepped back and nodded farewell. Then she grabbed Alain and rushed from the room.
Closing that door behind her, Mari paused again for a moment. “Now the engine room. That’s the last thing we need to do. We need to take out the boiler.”
“The boiler?” Alain asked, his eyes showing a most unmage-like level of alarm. “You are going to destroy a boiler? Like the one in Dorcastle?”
Mari glared at him. “No. Not like that. Why is it whenever I talk about a boiler you think I intend exploding it?”
“That has been my experience.”
“I am a Mechanic! I am trained to fix things! I only break things under the direst necessity!” Mari paused. “Like now. But I won’t blow up this boiler. That would kill a lot of the crew. I have to disable it some other way. Come on.”
Alain followed Mari as she hurried back down the ladder. “It’s going to be low inside the ship,” she told him. After taking some more turns and ladders down, they ran into another lone Mechanic, who gazed at them in surprise.
“The captain has told us to take these packs down to a place near the boiler,” Alain said, surprising Mari.
“You mean the armory?”
“Yes,” Alain agreed with a readiness that awed Mari. She suspected that he had no idea what an armory was, but Alain still acted completely self-assured.
“You took a wrong turn, then. It’s quicker if you go back to port, two ladders down and then you’ll see it just aft.”
“Thank you,” Alain said, then paused just long enough for Mari to nudge him to the left as the other Mechanic went about his business.
Sure enough, when they reached the bottom of the second ladder Mari could feel the heat from the boiler room and easily found the hatch leading into it. She put her hand on the lever to open the hatch, looking back at Alain. “There’ll be more than one person tending the boiler even at night. I need to handle this one. Stay back and follow my lead.”
She could tell Alain was shocked when they entered. What would a Mage think of this, a world made entirely of Mechanic creations? Heat pulsed through the boiler room. Tubes of various sizes led everywhere, snaking around the room like a forest of straight, curved and bent vines which had overgrown the room and then somehow been turned to metal. In the center, the huge squat metal cylinder that was the boiler radiated the heat which filled the air and brought sweat springing out on their skin.
Mari walked toward the boiler as it rumbled with the fires and steam within, for the first time really understanding why Alain thought of boilers as a sort of creature like a Mage dragon. She held her weapon casually, as if not planning to use it.
Another Mechanic sat near the boiler, his face flushed with the heat, staring glumly at various dials and other objects in the age-old attitude of someone standing a boring and routine watch.
This watch wouldn’t be either boring or routine, though. “I have a message from the captain,” Mari explained as the Mechanic turned to look at her. She had to speak a little loudly to be heard over the growl of the broiler and the hum of the vent fans driving air. “I need all the Mechanics on duty here to listen to it.”
“Sure.” The Mechanic looked backwards and yelled. “Hey, Yon and Gayl, we got a message from the captain!”
A few moments later the other two Mechanics came walking up from different directions, both wearing clothes marked by sweat. One was a girl not much older than Mari and the other a man who seemed close to the captain’s age.
Mari waited until the three were all together, then brought her rifle to bear on them. “I’m sorry to report that the prisoner has escaped and is threatening to shoot anyone who makes any noise. Which one of these lines is the fuel feed for the boiler?”
The three Mechanics stared at her, but none of them spoke. “All right, have it your way.” She gestured to Alain. “Keep them covered.” Alain gazed back, his expression controlled but betraying confusion to her since she knew him well. “That means point your weapon at them,” Mari hissed in a low whisper.
“But you told me not to—” -“
“Until now! Point it at them now!”
He nodded, somewhat clumsily pointing his rifle in the direction of the three Mechanics, none of whom seemed to doubt Alain’s capability to use the weapon. Mari bent down, studying the labeling on the many pipes running by. Fortunately, the labels were as standardized as everything else the Mechanics Guild maintained. She quickly spotted the right pipe by the color and its code. The pipe was down low, just above the deck gratings and about as big around as her finger.
Now what? She needed to break this in a way that couldn’t be easily or quickly fixed, yet not threaten the lives of every other Mechanic on this ship. Mari beckoned to Alain, then pointed to the pipe. “That’s the fuel line feeding the boiler. Can you make part of it disappear?”