Free-Wrench, no. 1 Read online

  The hull of the ship dangled below the sack, stretching to forty feet in length and trailing back from the front end of the sack, following a slightly narrower profile. Like the sack, it had signs of obvious patching, strips of blond, unstained wood standing out against the rich brown of the original planks. The overall structure of the ship put one in mind of a yacht-sized pirate ship that had been hauled out of the sea. It had a flat deck on top, separated into a main deck and an elevated tier toward the front to better follow the lower curve of the sack. Below the railing at the edge of the deck was a row of glass and brass portholes running the length of the ship, and below those were a second and third row. Jutting to the left and right from the front of the ship was a pair of cannon clusters, three each, with a single cluster sticking out of the back. Where it departed from the pirate ship motif was the piping, which jutted out of and into the hull with little rhyme or reason, and here and there escaping steam hissed and spat. Black smoke huffed out the back of the ship from three soot-covered metal chimneys. Thick black rubber hoses ran up a wooden runner from the deck to the central band of the sack, leading one by one to the nacelles.

  Directly below the ship, a small dinghy hung attached to it by a pair of slackened chains. In the dinghy was a mound of sacks and chests and a young man, who, in the process of relieving himself off the opposite side, had his back to the approaching skiff. The man whistled to himself and, based on the trajectory, was attempting to amuse himself by creating as high an arc as possible. Linus gave the steam whistle a quick pull, startling the young man into what was nearly a messy conclusion to his little interlude.

  “Well, that wasn’t a very neighborly thing to do to a fella!” called out the young man once he’d managed to finish up and make himself decent again.

  “Just wanted to give you a little warning. There’s a lady on board today,” Linus said.

  “Is there? Well, ain’t my face red! How do you do, ma’am! I hope you don’t mind if I wait until you all are a mite closer before I introduce myself proper, just so’s I don’t have to yell quite so much.”

  There was an odd twang to the man’s voice, but an earnest quality to his words. He also had a peculiar manner of dressing, at least from Nita’s point of view. In Caldera, unless one’s occupation dictated otherwise, a certain formality applied to even the most basic outfits. Clothes were tailored, carefully selected, and properly displayed, but no sign of similar care stood out in this man’s ensemble. His pants were of a black canvas, faded to gray at the knees. He wore a long brown coat, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing a tan shirt with long sleeves that were similarly rolled. The coat was open, and beneath it was a black vest and a loose-fitting belt weighted heavily down on one side. Now and again a gust of wind pushed the coat open enough to reveal a pistol. The man himself was rail thin, with sandy-blond hair cropped short and a face with a few days of stubble. He had a friendly but incomplete smile and more than a few scars on both his hands and face. Compared to the dark skin of most native Calderans, his skin was very fair, though the sun had baked it a bit brown.

  The Triumph pulled close to his little dinghy and threw across ropes to tether them together.

  “I apologize for what you seen me do, ma’am. Sun’s nearly up and all, which is our cue to skedaddle most days, so I didn’t see no harm in heeding to nature’s call. Figures you all would show up and make a fool out of ol’ Ichabod. That’d be me, by the way, ma’am. Ichabod Cooper. Pleased as punch to meet you.” He held tight to the dangling chain and leaned out over the water, extending a hand for a shake.

  Nita obliged him. “Amanita Graus.”

  “Pleasure, Miss Graus. Now, before we get to business, I got to get this out of the way.” He reached into a pocket inside his coat and pulled a rough sheet of paper out, staring at what was written upon it as though it was a particularly challenging puzzle to unravel. When he spoke, it was with the slow and unnatural diction of someone who was unaccustomed to reading in general, and completely unused to doing so aloud. “Hel-lo. Dear. Sir. … Do. You. Have. The. Time.”

  “The time is bright and early,” Drew recited.

  Ichabod furrowed his brow, then turned his face upward and bellowed. “That right, Cap’n?”

  “Just get on with it,” rumbled a reply from somewhere inside the ship.

  “Well, all right. So, what are we after today?” Cooper asked. He rubbed his hands together and flipped open some of the chests. “Gunner said you were interested in the girlie pictures last time.” He pulled out another portfolio. “We’ve got some more of those.”

  Drew cleared his throat in embarrassment. “I was interested in the fashion.”

  “Oh.” Cooper flipped through the portfolio. “Then you probably won’t like these. No fashion as such.”

  “Oh, uh, not so quickly,” Drew said as Cooper began to tuck the portfolio away again. “There’s an inherent artistic beauty to the female form. I’ll trade you a quarter bag of Calderan sea salt for it.”

  “Sold. Anything else I can do you for today?”

  “Last month I’d asked about that device for making these pho-to-graphs.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Gunner said something about that. You’re in luck. It took some doing, but we managed to get our hands on one for you.” He unearthed a leather-wrapped box with an odd, pleated sleeve emerging from the front. The front of the sleeve was affixed to a lens and mounted to a runner. Knobs and buttons littered the top of the box. “As I understand it, this here box, along with some fancy paper and some bottles of fancy chemicals, are all you need to make them pictures, so long as you follow the instructions. You get the box and enough paper and chemicals for a hundred pictures or so. What’s your offer?”

  “I’ll give you a half bag of salt.”

  “If we’re talking salt, I figure three bags is more in line with the cap’n’s expectations.”

  “I’ll go as high as a full bag.”

  “Then you’ll be getting your picture box from someone else.”

  “Fine, a bag and a half.”

  Cooper tipped his head from side to side, then quietly said, “I’m not so good with figurin’. How’s that compare to three?”

  “Favorably,” Drew said.

  “It’s half as much,” Nita clarified.

  “Eh, half’ll do. It’s a pain lugging it up and down. Anything else?”

  “Just a bottle of whiskey. Ten year.”

  “The man’s got some fine taste. I keep a bottle of this myself, for toothaches and such like.” He fished out a stout bottle of thick brown glass. “Let’s see. That was a bag and a half for the picture box and all that, plus a quarter bag for the girly pictures. What’s say we just call the whole lot of it two bags, so’s I don’t have to go pouring things out?”

  “Suits me,” Drew said, hefting the two bags across and receiving his goods in exchange.

  “Now, for the lady. What’ll it be, ma’am?”

  “Do you carry medicines?” Nita asked.

  “Oh, we got all sorts of treatments that’ll cure your many ills. This here liniment, for instance, is guaranteed to take care of any muscle aches you might have.” Cooper revealed a familiar brown bottle.

  “That just looks like more whiskey.”

  “It’s got a million uses, ma’am. Treats just about anything that might ail you, particularly if you suffer from what Cap’n calls an ‘excess of sobriety,’ which I’m sorry to say he’s been having quite a bout with of late.”

  “I was hoping you might have a treatment for a specific disease. Something called Gannt’s Disease.”

  “We mostly carry sundry and recreational-type things. Proper drugs are a bit of a chore to get.”

  “Well, do you at least know if such a treatment exists?”

  “I don’t rightly know. I’ll check.” He looked up and bellowed, “Cap’n! You ever heard of something called… what was it, ma’am?”

  “Gannt’s Disease,” she replied, loudly enough for the unsee
n captain to hear.

  “Well now, a question of a medical nature would more properly be addressed to our resident medical practitioner, wouldn’t it?” growled the muffled voice.

  “Good thinking, Cap’n. Butch! You ever heard of—?”

  Before he could finish, a torrent of words in an unrecognizable dialect poured out of a different part of the ship. Cooper nodded thoughtfully.

  “Gives you shaky fingers? Makes you keel over after about twenty years or so?” he asked.

  Nita nodded, trying to shrug off the casual way in which her mother’s plight was described.

  “Sounds like it!” Cooper said. More unrecognizable yelling followed. “Seems they don’t call it that in our parts. Them fuggers got that one worked out, though. Not the sort of thing they’d usually share with the likes of us, though.”

  “Fuggers? Wait, are you telling me there is a cure?”

  “Butch seems to think so, but like I said, we don’t carry it. It’d be a fair bit of trouble to lay our hands on some.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll pay any price.”

  “For a special order like that, it’d be a pretty big price, ma’am.”

  “I am Amanita Graus, one of the oldest daughters of the Graus clan. We are among the most wealthy and influential families in all of Caldera. I can meet any price.”

  Cooper looked her up and down and gave the air a sniff. “I don’t pretend to know how rich folk from your parts usually look or smell, but I gotta say, you ain’t what comes to mind. Not that it matters, of course. Round these parts, cachet don’t mean too much. You’re only as rich as what you brung with you. So how much you got?”

  “I’ve got three bags of salt.”

  “A special order like that? Three bags is a good start, but it won’t get you all the way there. What else you got?”

  She rummaged through her bag and revealed the brooch. It was polished silver, engraved with complex filigree, and set with amethyst and amber. By Calderan standards it was quaint and simple. Judging from how wide Cooper’s eyes had grown, he had a higher opinion of it.

  “Cap’n! She’s got a bit of jewelry here that I think’ll pay for… well, I think it’s… remember back when we had to replace some turbines and you had to sell that ring of yours? It’s about like that.”

  “That’ll do,” the captain hollered back.

  “Right, ma’am. We’ll take the salt and the jewelry and head on out to see if we can’t find that medicine of yours. We’ll be back just about this time next month. The pass phrase is—”

  “Oh no. I’m not giving you this payment just to send you off with the hopes of getting what I paid for. I want some sort of guarantee.”

  “There ain’t no guarantee to be had, ma’am. The fuggers ain’t too keen on parting with stuff like that. We’ll have to meet with our supplier. There’ll be discussions, haggling and such. Might be we’ll be back again next month with empty hands. Of course, we’ll give you your payment back, minus some expenses, but—”

  “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “Ma’am, you can ask your friend. We ain’t gonna just run off with your money. We’re professional.”

  “It is non-negotiable.”

  “We ain’t no passenger liner, ma’am.”

  “I’ll pay extra, but this is very important to me, and if there are negotiations to be done, I want to be present to see that everything in your power is being done to attain the treatment.”

  “I understand, ma’am, but there’s more to it than that,” he said, vague frustration behind the words, as though he was running through a tiresome and all-too-frequent speech. “Smuggling a few odds and ends back and forth is one thing. Doing the same with people on board looks an awful lot worse to the people who might catch us. You’ll be with us for a month. If people get the idea we took you without your permission, that’s kidnapping or trafficking or some such. Not to mention you might die, which your folks might call war. That’d cost us pretty dear. Ain’t worth the risk.”

  “If it will cost you more, then I’ll pay more. I’ve got this.”

  She revealed one of the smaller coil boxes. Upon seeing it, Drew’s eyes shot open and he snatched the box from her hand.

  “Are you crazy?” he said.

  “What? You said they liked trith.”

  “Did you say trith?” Cooper said, interest piqued.

  “I said a bit of trith. A few washers or something. Not a whole coil box.”

  “How much you got there, ma’am?”

  She snatched it back from Drew and slipped a screwdriver from her tool sash. A few deft twists loosened the face plate, which she twisted aside to reveal the purple-black spiral within. She handed the box across to Cooper. He took it, then fished in his pocket until he found a coin. Clutching the box tight in his hand, he scratched the coin against the coil, then held it up to find a neat little notch had been carved out of the coin without so much as a scratch on the coil.

  “Uh, Cap’n!” he said, his voice a bit shaky. “This young lady here wants to ride along while we look for her medicine for her.”

  “Well, then you explain our policy regarding passengers.”

  “I did. She’s willing to pay with trith. Got a whole box here. Feels like about half a pound.”

  “And there’s more where that came from,” Nita said, loudly enough to be overheard.

  The waves lapped against the boats as all waited for an answer.

  “Did you tell her the whole passenger policy?”

  “Oh, right. Forgot that other bit.” He turned to Nita. “You reckon you’ll be able to pitch in and all that?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “That ain’t the question, ma’am. We all do our best. The question is, do you reckon your best will be good enough to do the job? And to pay the consequences if you don’t measure up?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  He looked her up and down. “She looks like she might be able to lend a decent hand along the way, and she says she’s willing. What do you say, Cap’n? … Cap’n?”

  After a short pause, the splash of a rope ladder unfurling into the water between the boats came as the captain’s answer.

  “Well, all right then.” He handed back the coil box and held out a hand to help her over. “Welcome aboard the Wind Breaker, ma’am.”

  “Nita, you can’t do this,” said Drew.

  “If it means giving mother her life back, or at least her life’s calling for even a few years, then I must.”

  Cooper gave two quick tugs to the chain. “Get ready to haul the captain’s gig once we’re up! We’re running late as it is! Watch yourself, ma’am. After you.”

  Nita tested the strength of the ladder, then slipped the coil box into a pouch on her belt, strapped her bag to her back, and began to climb.

  “You’ve got the passwords for next month, right, Drew?” Cooper said.

  “Yeah, I do. Nita, think about this for a moment. It will be dangerous out there! You’re breaking the law! We’re not supposed to leave the borders of Caldera without permits! What’ll I tell the foreman? What’ll I tell your mother?”

  “Tell them I went on a trip. I haven’t taken any leave in months,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Drew. How bad could it be?”

  Chapter 3

  Nita, still heavily loaded with her tools and the sack that contained her payment and her change of clothes, labored a bit to reach the top of the shaky ladder. Things became slightly easier once the bottom of the ladder pulled taut with a second passenger, but after a moment a realization came to mind.

  “Mr. Cooper?” she called over her shoulder.

  “You can call me Coop, ma’am,” he replied.

  “Very well, Coop,” she said, stopping for a moment to catch her breath and better engage in conversation. “Are you staring at my bottom right now?”

  “Well, ma’am, you’re ahead of me on the ladder. I can’t rightly do otherwise at present,” he sai
d. “I was always taught ladies first, but I don’t think Ma and Pa ever anticipated this particular situation. Could be worse though, ma’am. At least you’re wearing britches instead of a skirt.”

  “True enough. I don’t suppose you could look aside until I reach the top of the ladder.”

  “If it’d make you more comfortable, ma’am, but if its privacy you’re looking for, you’ll find it a bit hard to find on an airship. Close quarters and cramped spaces don’t leave too much room for modesty, and thing’s’ll be a good deal tighter with another soul on board. Looking away now, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Coop.”

  She hurried up the final stretch of ladder and crawled through a small hatch in the belly of the ship. It was wrapped in three sides by a railing and led into a tight, dim little room that smelled strongly of gear oil and burning coal. The roof was low, barely high enough for her to stand without stooping, and the only light came from a handful of bizarre little contraptions arranged along the top edge of the wall. They looked like glass pipes with brass fittings on either end, and they gave off a weakly pulsing glow of sickly yellow-green. At either end of the room was a winch, and manning the lever beside one of them waited a young woman with more than a passing resemblance to Cooper, who was pulling himself into the ship now. In the center of the room was a much larger hatch than the one they’d climbed through, beneath which hung the boat.