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  “See, Coop says doing any more than titillating costs more’n he’s willing to spend.” She finished her plate of food and her coffee. “Say hi to your mama for me. Once we get to Lock, if the captain asks you to take a look at somebody’s ship, give me a holler. I reckon if I’m going to be practicing, may as well be on a ship that ain’t ours.”

  “Certainly,” Nita said.

  Lil stood and handed her plate to Butch. “A fine meal as always, Butch. I always say I don’t worry about dying, because every one of your meals is fit to be my last.”

  “What are you off to do now?” Nita asked.

  “If we’re going to be spending a mite more time on deck, I reckon I’ll top off the firebox, then head down for a nap until we hit port. You might want to do the same, since if Coop and Gunner are up there now, you know you and me are going to be stuck on the night shift.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Nita said.

  Lil trotted away, and Nita, as seemed to happen rather frequently, found herself the first one to begin eating and the last to finish. She’d picked up a great deal of very necessary habits from the crew, but the two she’d never seemed to get the knack for were choking down her meals and drinking the syrup-thick sludge they called “coffee.” It was a wonder that Butch, who could make month-old smoked fish into something that would make you ask for seconds, couldn’t seem to make a proper cup of coffee. Nita was thankful for water, which due to the boiler was never in short supply, and tea. The only alternatives were alcoholic… though she was somewhat ashamed to say she was beginning to develop a taste for Westrim ale.

  She finished her meal, taking every moment of the five minutes allotted to her by the captain, then thanked Butch for the fine cooking and made her way back to her room. As she pushed open the door—thanks to its draftiness, her room was one of the few that actually had a door rather than a curtain—and stepped inside, she heard a peculiar scratching noise. It was followed by a crunch. Nita frowned and clapped her hands.

  “Wink! Wink you get out of there right now!” she scolded.

  The crunching suddenly stopped and there was silence.

  “You don’t think I know where you are?”

  She lightly stepped through the maze of crates and boxes to one at the opposite side of the loading bay. It was tucked under one of the two gig winches, and the lid was askew. She moved the lid aside and saw a single eye gleaming out from the darkness inside. Nita reached up and twisted on the nearest phlo-light, revealing a cat-sized creature that was simultaneously the ugliest and cutest thing Nita had ever seen. It was ghost gray and had formerly worn a bandage until Nita had fashioned an eye patch for it. The creature was technically known as an aye-aye, though, due to the effects of the fug, it had a few unnatural characteristics, including a batlike nose and its peculiar coloring. They called the beast Wink, and it was intended to be the ship’s inspector, but lately it seemed to have taken on the unofficial role of designated pain in Nita’s backside.

  It looked up at her innocently, completely ignoring the large, half-eaten macaroon it clutched in its creepy little hands. The half-open and half-empty tin at its feet in the crate suggested this was not the first time it had committed this particular crime.

  “Come out of there,” Nita said, lightly nudging the box.

  Wink darted out and spiraled around Nita’s body to just under her arm, keeping the cookie in one spider-fingered hand as it did. She leaned down to shut the tin, then secured the crate and heaved a heavier one on top of it before returning to her desk. Wink crawled to her back, peering over her shoulder and munching away on his ill-gotten gains as she read through her letter. Once the words were fresh in her mind, she picked up where she’d left off.

  I’ve just had to step away from this letter for a bit. There was some ship business I had to attend to. Nothing unusual, but the sort of thing that can’t wait until I’m done writing.

  In the past I’ve mentioned that I’d like for you to meet some of the crew. I know that father is doing his best to get them a special exception to the rules about outsiders docking at Tellahn, but perhaps you can convince Drew to take you down to Moor Spires next month so that you can say hello. Hopefully by then Captain Mack won’t be quite so out of sorts. As you’ll no doubt remember we…

  Nita paused for a moment, considering the correct word.

  … acquired some goods from the people in the fug, and the captain seems certain he can trade them for a high enough price to finally secure a comfortable future for himself and his crew. The problem is everyone knows we have them, and some fellow airmen are making it difficult to lay the groundwork for the captain’s plans. He hasn’t shared what those plans are yet, but the crew certainly trusts him, and I’ve learned to do the same.

  Some crumbs fell on the page as Wink finished his stolen macaroon. He’d crept up to her shoulder, too nosy to settle for anything but an unobstructed view of what she was doing. The creature then reached down and tapped its long, thin middle finger on one of the wrenches in Nita’s tool sash. The result was a quick, clear, and complex pattern of taps. To anyone who had never heard it before, and most people who had, it would have seemed like the random, nervous tapping of a timid creature. Through a bit of sleuthing and a lot of careful listening, Nita and the rest of the Wind Breaker crew had worked out that it was actually a method of communication not unlike the one she’d used to tap out messages through the pipes of her previous career in the steamworks. Wink and the other ship inspectors were a good deal more intelligent than anyone had realized, and their mandatory inclusion on the fug folk–made ships was not a safety decision, it was an act of espionage. Fortunately, they had convinced Wink to stop sending reports on them, making the Wind Breaker possibly the only ship in the sky that had the benefit of privacy and surprise when dealing with the fuggers.

  Nita wrote a letter to her mother, Wink tapped.

  He had a peculiar way of phrasing things, as the tap code was only ever meant to provide reports of the activities on a ship, so he “spoke” in past tense, and even questions were phrased as statements.

  “Yes, Wink, I’m writing home, like I always do at the beginning of the week.”

  Nita told her mother to send more good foods.

  “Now why should I tell her that?” Nita asked. “I never gave you permission to eat my macaroons, you know. I think I liked you better when you spent your time staring at me like I was a criminal.”

  Nita told her mother to send more good foods, Wink repeated.

  Nita sighed and resumed writing.

  The ship’s inspector would like me to inform you that Marissa’s coconut macaroons are very tasty, and he would appreciate if you send some just for him. Though to be honest, if I don’t hurry up and eat some, this batch will end up being just for him anyway.

  In a few hours we’ll be tying the ship up at a place called Lock. I don’t know if you remember me mentioning it in the past, but Lock is the only major city that will let us openly make port these days. The fug folk aren’t pleased with us right now, because of the aforementioned acquisition of some of their goods. Unfortunately, since they keep most of the rest of Rim on a fairly short leash, that means that most other people aren’t willing to deal with us for fear of making the fug folk angry. Officially, no one in Rim actually knows how to maintain their own airships or technology, since if the fug folk find out a crew has been tinkering with their machines, they’ll ban the entire ship from further trade and maintenance. The presence of the inspectors, who report all relevant activities on the ships, means the fug folk will always find out. So much of modern life in Rim revolves around fug technology that losing it would be ruinous. That’s not a problem in Lock, though. Lock is where most people who have already been banned end up. Almost every airship in the sky absolutely refuses to do business with the residents of Lock for fear of earning the same fate. It is as though the whole city has the plague. These people have nothing to lose, so they are more than willing to have us visit.
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br />   It has been a while since we had any shore leave, and while the captain has made some changes to our responsibilities for the time being, I’m hoping I can get a few hours on shore to see about those music boxes.

  I think I’ve rambled long enough. There’s plenty to do, and if I don’t stop myself, I’ll spend the whole day scribbling away. I shall write to you again next week, and I look forward to reading your letter.

  Love always,

  Nita

  She stowed the pen in its sleeve and made ready to close the book when she spied a corner peeking out from between the last page and the back cover.

  “Oh! I nearly forgot!” she said.

  Quickly she pulled the book open again.

  P.S. Honestly, if it wasn’t attached, I’d forget my own head. I’ve spoken in the past about Drew purchasing one of those cameras, the ones that produce images of whatever you choose. Well, it turns out there was a broken one in the corner of one of the Wind Breaker’s storerooms, and I was able to repair it.

  She tugged the stowed picture free and laid it on the opposite page.

  Enclosed is a photograph of the crew. It takes a minute or so for the image to form, so I was able to set up the camera and get in front of it without too much blurring. Let’s see if you can work out which member of the crew is which based on what I’ve told you!

  Again she closed the book and carefully stowed it before making her way to the hammock.

  The crew had many quirks and skills that had fascinated Nita upon her arrival. They had a casual distrust and an unapologetically pragmatic view of just about anyone who didn’t belong to the crew, for instance. It had been made clear to her when she’d maneuvered her way onto the ship that if she ever became a liability, she would be removed from it, whether or not it was at port. That, at least, was behind her, but one of the quirks that had initially seemed astounding was the crew’s universal ability to drop off to sleep at a moment’s notice. Sleep was the grout that filled the gaps of their day, squeezing into any place that could hold it. After three weeks on the ship, Nita had discovered this wasn’t a learned skill, it was a consequence of doing physically demanding tasks around the clock for days at a time. For the last two months or so she’d found she was just as capable of stealing a few minutes of sleep whenever the opportunity arose as they were, and life had become a good deal more pleasant as a result.

  She hung up her tool sash and stowed any bits that might fall out of her pockets as she slept, then kicked her feet up into the loop that held one end of her hammock. The very moment she reclined, she began the speedy slide toward slumber. Her lips curled into a grin just before she drifted off as she heard Wink pushing and shoving at the box keeping him from his treats.

  Chapter 1

  On the deck of the ship, Gunner and Coop were standing at the port and starboard sides respectively. Gunner had reluctantly agreed to exchange weapons so that he could take a look at the sights on Coop’s rifle. That left the lanky deckhand handling a weapon that looked like it had eaten two or three lesser weapons. It had likely started life as a shotgun, with a stout, imposing barrel to show for it. Since it was first built, however, Gunner had “improved” it. He’d added not one but two additional barrels, both nearly twice the size of the original one. It now had four triggers as well, and an arrangement of lenses that looked more like something a jeweler would use to study gems than a marksman would use to take aim. In all likelihood the lenses were indeed jeweler’s tools. It wouldn’t have been the first time Gunner had found a way to make something lethal out of something innocuous.

  “How come you got four triggers on this gadget but only three places to put shells?” Coop called to him.

  “All you need to know is that you should never pull the fourth one first,” Gunner replied.

  “Which one’s the fourth one? Is that the one in front or the one in back?”

  “The one in back. And please don’t fire anything unless you actually see a raider or pirate. I hand pack those shells, and I’d rather not waste one.”

  “You hand pack these shells?” Coop said.

  “Yes.”

  The deckhand slowly moved his fingers a bit farther away from the triggers. “Judging by your hands, I’d rather trade back before I do any shooting.”

  “The shells and the gun are perfectly sound,” Gunner said.

  “So you say, but I’m a trifle slow to trust a claim like that from a man who needs to take off a shoe to count to ten.”

  “I may only have seven and a half fingers left, Coop, but unlike you I don’t need them to do my counting,” Gunner grumbled.

  He let Coop’s smaller, less elaborate rifle hang by its strap and reached down into a crate at his feet. Inside were a flexible hook and a pile of clay pigeons. He loaded a pigeon and let it fly with a practiced flick of his arm. As it sailed up and then began to plummet, he stowed the thrower and took aim. A pull of the trigger released a crisp clap of gunfire and shattered the pigeon.

  “Your sights are fine, Coop. Just as I said they were,” Gunner said. “Now get over here and give me back my gun.”

  The deckhand walked over and presented the contraption to its inventor, gratefully taking back his own weapon.

  “So what’ve you been up to these days, Gunner?” Coop asked, reaching into the crate to load a pigeon of his own to test Gunner’s claim.

  “I’ve been doing what any reasonably intelligent person would be doing in the face of an influx of fugger goods. I’m learning how their things work. I think I’ve got that rocket-propelled grenade worked out,” he said.

  “You been monkeying with that thing?” Coop said. “Cap’n! How’s about you letting me move my quarters a bit farther away from Gunner’s?”

  “No one is moving their quarters,” the captain rumbled.

  “What do you mean you’ve almost got it worked out, anyway? I thought we made sure we got them instructions that was in the box with it.”

  “Any fool could determine how to operate a weapon. I want to know how it functions. I can’t very well improve upon it if I don’t know how it functions. That device is fairly simple, though. There’s one gadget we turned up that I’m still having trouble puzzling out. At first I thought it was some sort of lantern, a portable phlo-light. It definitely takes canisters of phlogiston in lieu of ammunition, and there’s another compartment that stinks like fug. But in our haste to pack the thing and escape, we seem to have lost a few pieces, as well as the manual. Nita says she thinks the pieces were just valves, and the fuggers design their components in a fairly standardized way, so it’s taken some testing to find the right ones. It still doesn’t do much, though. More trial and error is called for.”

  “That just may be, but I don’t want to be around when one of those errors makes it so you need to take off both shoes to count to ten. Give it to me straight, now. When’s the last time you had two whole eyebrows?”

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Gunner said.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing blown off, neither.”

  Coop launched the pigeon and fired, easily picking it off. “Guess you were right.” He dug into the pocket of his coat and began to reload the weapon. “So, if I can get off the ship at all once we’re down at Lock, I figure I might spend some money. This is the first time in too long I’ve had two coins to rub together and then some, and it figures I ain’t had no chance to spend it.”

  “The fact you haven’t been able to spend it is precisely why you still have some.”

  Coop ignored the observation. “If I was to look for something nice for Nita, what do you reckon she’d like?”

  Gunner looked warily to Coop. “Don’t tell me you’ve got designs on the Calderan.”

  “Why not? She’s pretty, and she’s been as good as any of us on the ship. I reckon she’s here to stay.”

  “Do you honestly think she would be interested in you? Calderans are refined.”

  “I’m as refined as the next fella.”

 
; “Need I remind you I’m the only one on the ship with a formal education?”

  “Nope, you don’t need to remind me of that, because you say it just about every chance you get. Why? You got designs on Nita?”

  “If anyone on this ship has a chance with her, it is me,” Gunner said.

  “But have you got designs on her?”

  “There is something special in that one, no doubt. Perhaps someday. I certainly wouldn’t shun any advances on her part.”

  “See, that ain’t right. Nita’s the only woman of courting age on the ship that ain’t my sister. Seems to me the gentlemanly thing to do would be to wait until she turns me down before you start making plans.”

  “I’m not making any definite plans. And as I recall, you informed me that if I ever so much as looked at your sister the wrong way, you’d break my nose.”

  “And I meant it, too.”

  “Then she isn’t exactly an option for me, is she? And I don’t think there are any established rules regarding courtship on—”

  “You boys wouldn’t be standing both on the same side of the ship jawing about women when you should be keeping watch, would you?” called out the captain from his place at the wheel.

  “No, Cap’n,” Coop said, shouldering the rifle and returning to his position.

  Gunner shook his head and polished one of the lenses on his weapon. “I’m sure this is going to be a match made in heaven,” he muttered.

  #

  About an hour behind schedule, Captain Mack brought the Wind Breaker into the port of Lock. Like any reasonably sized city on the mainland, Lock was a precarious assemblage of walkways and platforms clinging to the mountaintops. It was anything but a pleasant or simple way to live, but it was a necessity due to the ever-present fug that lapped at the lower slopes of the mountains. The fug was a reeking, toxic purple vapor that hung like a permanent blanket of fog over the bulk of the mainland. It had decimated the continent decades ago, and no one seemed certain where it came from or what it was, but its arrival had claimed the lives of most of the surface dwellers. Nearly all of those who didn’t flee to the skies, mountaintops, and plateaus were suffocated or poisoned by the horrid stuff. The fraction who survived and thrived within the fug had become what polite people called the “fug folk” and most others called “fuggers.” They were emaciated, ghost-white parodies of humanity who held the continent in their iron grasp by being the only providers of a number of inventions and products that had become indispensable in the fug-stricken world. These included the boilers and turbines that ran the ships, the inspectors that checked them for flaws, the maintenance that corrected these flaws, the burn-slow that fueled them for long voyages, and the phlogiston that kept them airborne. In short, they held all the cards.