“That was an earthquake, that’s all. Don’t make a mountain out of a shaky little molehill.”
“I’ve never been in one like that before.”
Rudy said, “And now you have. But that one wasn’t so bad. Maybe it just felt worse because you’re all high up. Anyway, we ought to get running. There’s always a chance that the shaker knocked the tunnels up, and we might have to improvise a path. We’ll see.”
He patted himself down, checking his cane and straightening his overcoat. Then he said, “You can leave the lantern here. In fact, I recommend that you do so. We’ve got lights scattered everywhere, and you’ll just lose that one or leave it someplace. Besides, we’re going to have to hit street level soon, and it’ll only draw the kind of attention that we most definitely do not want.”
“I’m not leaving my lantern.”
“Then put it out. I’m not asking you, boy. I’m telling you that I won’t take you down there until you let that go. Look, stick it over there in the corner. You can pick it up on your way back home.”
Zeke reluctantly complied, leaving the lantern stashed in the nearest corner and covering it with some scraps he found there. “You don’t think anyone’ll take it?”
“I’d be astounded,” Rudy said. “Now come on. We’re burning daylight, and we haven’t got any to spare down here. It’s not a short jaunt over to your parents’ old place.”
Zeke carefully scooted onto the ledge to follow. He worried about a man with a limp tackling the fragile bridge, but the odd assortment of boards and strips of scrap creaked and held beneath their collective weight.
Zeke was glad he couldn’t see very far below, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “How far up are we?”
“Just a couple of stories. We’ll go up higher before we go lower, so I hope the heights don’t bother you.”
“No sir,” Zeke said. “I don’t mind the climbing.”
“Good. Because we’re going to do plenty of it.”
They stalked across the bridge and up against a window next door. The wood seemed to dead-end against it, but when Rudy shoved a lever, the window opened inward and they both stepped inside, into darkness that was profound and wet—just like the bakery when Zeke had first let himself into the city’s interior.
“Where are we?” he whispered.
Rudy struck a match and lit a candle, although technically the sun was still up. “As I understand it? We’re in hell.”
Nine
When Andan Cly said “now,” he actually meant, “When the rest of the crew returns”; but Cly assured Briar that the delay would be no longer than an hour—and anyway, if she could scare up a better offer she was welcome to take it. He invited Briar up to the cabin and told her to make herself at home, though he’d appreciate it if she didn’t touch anything.
Cly stayed outside, where he busied himself with the checking of gauges and the fiddling of knobs.
Up the rough rope ladder and through the porthole, Briar climbed into a compartment that was surprisingly spacious, or perhaps it only looked that way because it was nearly empty. Huge, flaccid bags hung from the ceiling on tracks that lowered and adjusted with pulleys; and in the edges at the stern and bow there were barrels and boxes crammed to the ceiling. But in the middle the floor was free, and hurricane lamps hung on hinges like ship lanterns from the crossbeams and from the high spots up on the walls where they were unlikely to be rocked or jostled. Inside them, she could see small bulbs with fat, yellow-glowing wires instead of flames. She wondered where Cly had gotten them.
Over on the right side, farthest from the ladder, there was a short set of wooden slat steps built against the wall.
Briar climbed those, too. At the top, she found a room packed with pipes, buttons, and levers. Three-quarters of the wall surface was made of thick glass that was cloudy in places, scratched, scraped, and dinged from the outside. But there weren’t any cracks in it, and when she flicked her nail against it the sound it made was more of a thud than a clink.
At the main control area there were levers longer than her forearm and bright buttons that flickered on the captain’s console. Pedals arched out of the floor to foot level, and hanging latches descended from the overhead panels.
For reasons she could not explain, Briar felt the sudden, fearful certainty that she was being watched. She held still, looking forward out the front window. Behind her, she heard nothing—not even breathing, and no footsteps, nor the creak of the wooden stairs—but even so she was positive that she was not alone.
“Fang!” Cly called from outside.
Briar jumped at the shout, and turned around.
A man stood behind her, so close he could’ve touched her if he’d tried.
“Fang, there’s a woman in there! Try not to scare her to death!”
Fang was a small man about the same size as Briar, and slender without looking fragile or weak. His black hair was so dark it shone blue, shaved back away from his forehead and drawn into a ponytail that sat high on the top of his skull.
“Hello?” she tried.
He didn’t respond, except to slowly blink his angled brown eyes.
Cly’s big head poked up from the portal in the floor. “Sorry about that,” he said to Briar. “I should’ve warned you. Fang’s all right, but he’s just about the quietest son of a bitch I ever met.”
“Does he…” she began, and then feared it might be rude. She asked the man in the loose-fitting pants and the mandarin jacket, “Do you speak English?”
The captain answered for him. “He doesn’t speak anything. Someone cut out his tongue, but I don’t know who or why. He understands plenty, though. English, Chinese, Portuguese. God knows what else.”
Fang stepped away from Briar and placed a cloth satchel down on a seat off to the left. He pulled an aviator’s cap out from the bag and put it on his head. There was a hole cut out of the back of the hat so that he could thread his ponytail through it.
“Don’t worry about him,” Cly emphasized. “He’s good people.”
“Then why is he called Fang?” Briar asked.
Cly scaled the steps and began crouching. He was too tall to comfortably stand in his own cabin. “As far as I know, that’s his name. This old woman in Chinatown, down in California—she told me it means honest and upright, and it doesn’t have anything to do with snakes. I’m forced to take her word for it.”
“Out of the way,” demanded another voice.
“I am out of the way,” Cly said without looking.
From below came another man, grinning and slightly fat. He was wearing a black fur hat with flaps that came down over his ears, and a brown leather coat held together with mismatched brass buttons.
“Rodimer, this is Miss Wilkes. Miss Wilkes, that’s Rodimer. Ignore him.”
“Ignore me?” He feigned affront as he failed to feign disinterest in Briar. “Oh, I should dearly pray that you wouldn’t!” He seized one of Briar’s hands and gave it a dry and elaborate kiss.
“All right, I won’t,” she assured him, reclaiming her hand. “Is this everyone?” she asked Cly.
“This is everyone. If I carried anyone else we wouldn’t have room for cargo. Fang, see about the ropes. Rodimer, the boilers are hot and ready to spray.”
“Hydrogen check?”
“Topped off over in Bradenton. Ought to be good to go for another few trips.”
“So the leak’s patched?”
“Leak’s patched.” Cly nodded. “You,” he said to Briar. “You ever flown before?”
She admitted that she hadn’t. “I’ll be all right,” she told him.
“You’d better. Any spills are your own, and you clean them up. Fair deal?”
“Fair deal. Should I sit down somewhere?”
He scanned the narrow cab and didn’t see anything that looked comfortable. “We don’t usually take passengers,” he said. “Sorry, but there’s no first-class in this bird. Pull up a crate and brace yourself if you want to see outside, or”—he waved an enormous arm toward a small, rounded door at the back of the craft—“there’s sleeping spots in the back area, just hammocks. Not one of them is fit for a lady, but you can sit there if you want. Do you get sick from moving?”
“No.”
“I’d ask that you be damned sure before you get too comfortable back there.”
She cut him off before he could say any more. “I don’t get sick, I said. I’ll stay out here. I want to see.”
“Suit yourself,” he said. He grabbed a heavy box and pulled it over the floor until it was next to the nearest wall. “It’ll be an hour before we get to the wall, and then it’ll take half again that long to set up for the drop and catch. I’ll try to set you down someplace… well, there’s no place safe in there, but—”
Rodimer sat up straight and jerked his head around to look at Briar. “You’re going inside?” he asked in a voice too deliberately melodic for a man his size and shape. “Good God almighty, Cly. You’re going to dump the lady off behind the wall?”
“The lady made a very persuasive case.” Cly watched Briar from the corner of his eye.
“Miss Wilkes…” Rodimer repeated slowly, as if the name hadn’t meant anything to him when he’d heard it spoken; but upon replaying it in his head, he suspected that it was important. “Miss Wilkes, the walled city is no place for—”
“A lady, yes. That’s what they tell me. You’re not the first to say it, but I’d very much prefer that you’ve said your last on the subject. I need to get inside, and I will get inside, and Captain Cly is being kind enough to assist me.”
Rodimer closed his mouth, shook his head, and returned his attention to the console under his hands. “As you like, ma’am, but it’s a damned shame, if you don’t mind my saying so.”