Philip Reeve - Infernal Devices

“It is not for us to question her orders, Zhao.”

That came from the expedition’s second-in-command, General Naga. Oenone saw the junior officers stiffen and bow their heads at the sound of his voice. Naga had been with the Green Storm since its foundation. There was a famous photograph of him, young and handsome, raising their thunderbolt banner over the wreck of Traktiongrad; Oenone had had a poster of it on her bedroom wall when she was a girl. But Naga was not young anymore, and not handsome either: His hair was gray, his long ocher face seamed and scarred. He was thirty-five, an old man by the standards of the Green Storm military. He had lost an arm at Xanne-Sandansky and the use of his legs at the air siege of Omsk, and he could walk and fight only because the Resurrection Corps had built him a powered metal exoskeleton.

“I don’t like this mission,” he admitted, the segments of his mechanical armor scraping as he leaned across the table. “Brighton is no threat to us, and I hear it’s spent the summer hammering those parasite brigands up in the North Atlantic. I was a cadet at Rogues’ Roost when they attacked our air base there. I lost good friends to those devils, and I’m glad Brighton’s sorted them out. But orders are orders, and orders from the Fire Flower…”

He stopped suddenly, sensing Oenone standing in the doorway. “Surgeon-Mechanic,” he said gruffly, turning toward her. His mechanical hand clamped on his sword hilt; his exoskeleton clanked and hissed, making a clumsy half bow. Behind him, Oenone saw fear on the faces of the junior officers as they recognized her. She knew what they were thinking. How long has she been there? How much did she hear? Will she tell the Stalker? Even Naga was afraid of her.

“Please, forgive me,” she said, bowing formally to the general and again to the officers at the table. She went into the mess, poured a glass of jasmine tea that she did not want, and drank it quickly, in silence. Everyone’s eyes lingered on her. They were almost as wary of her as they were of the Stalker Fang herself, and she felt glad of that, because it proved that they did not suspect her real motives.

But someone aboard the Requiem Vortex suspected her. As she left the mess and climbed the companion ladders to her cabin high among the reinforced gas cells, Grike watched from the shadows, and waited patiently for her to make her move.

Afternoon was turning into evening as Tom walked toward the Pepperpot through streets filled with carnival. A procession was moving slowly along Ocean Boulevard, with pretty girls and boys dressed up as mermaids cavorting on electric floats, giant dancing puppets of the sea gods, paper lanterns shaped like fish and serpents twirling on long poles, and drag queens in enormous feathery hats showering down confetti from low-flying cargo balloons. Through gaps between the white buildings, Tom kept glimpsing the sea, and once, with a scream of engines, a patrol of those unlikely flying machines came hurtling low over the rooftops. Tom clapped his hands over his ears and turned to watch them pass. He would have been thrilled by them when he was younger, but now they just reminded him of how dangerous the world was, and how much it had altered while he’d been away. The more he saw of it, the more he longed to find Wren and return to the peace of Vineland.

He pushed on through the crowds, heading for the address that the girl at the aquarium had given him. He knew that Hester would be cross with him later for going without her, but he had been far too anxious to wait any longer for her at the Pink Café. Besides, he kept remembering what she had done to Gargle, and it made him feel uneasy about how she might react when she learned Wren’s fate. He wanted to talk calmly to this Shkin fellow. He might turn out to be a reasonable man who would give Wren back to her parents when he learned the truth. If not, Tom would arrange to buy her back. Either way, there should be no need for violence.

When he saw the Pepperpot, he felt even more optimistic. Most slavers’ dens were dingy places, tucked away on unmentionable tiers of savage salvage towns, not elegant white towers. Outside the glass front door, a guard in smart black livery politely stopped him and ran a metal detector over him before letting him into a reception area as calm and tasteful as a hotel lobby. There were soft chairs, and hard metallic-green potted plants, and a plaque on the wall that read THE SHKIN CORPORATION, and underneath, in smaller letters, AN INVESTOR IN PEOPLE. The only real clue to what sort of place it was were the angry, muffled shouts and clanging sounds that came up faintly through the sea-grass carpet.

“I’m sorry about the noise,” said a well-dressed woman sitting behind a black desk. “It is those filthy Lost Boys. They were very meek when we first brought them aboard, but they are growing more troublesome and contumelious by the day. Never mind. The autumn auctions begin tomorrow, so we shall soon be rid of them.”

“Then you have not sold them yet?” cried Tom. “I’m so glad. I’m looking for my daughter. Wren Natsworthy. She was with the Lost Boys, and I think you might have taken her by mistake…”

The woman had penciled-on eyebrows as thin as wire, and she raised them both in surprise. “One moment, please,” she said, and leaned across her desk to whisper into a brass-and-Bakelite intercom that Tom thought very futuristic. The intercom whispered back, and after a moment the woman looked up at Tom and smiled and said, “Mr. Shkin will see you in person. You may go up.”

Tom moved toward the spiral staircase that led up through the ceiling, but the woman pressed a button on her desk, and a narrow door slid open in the wall. Tom realized that it was a lift. It looked nothing like the huge public elevators he remembered from his boyhood in London; it was just a posh cupboard, paneled in mother-of-pearl, but he tried not to look too surprised, and stepped inside. The door slid shut. He felt his stomach lurch. When the door opened again, he was in a quiet, luxurious office where a man was rising to meet him from behind another black steel desk.

“Mr. Shkin?” asked Tom, while behind him the door closed softly and the lift went purring down.

Nabisco Shkin bowed low and extended a gray-gloved hand. “My dear Mr. Natsworthy,” he said softly. “Miss Weems tells me you are interested in one of our slaves. The girl named Wren.”

It made Tom angry to hear Wren called a slave so calmly, but he controlled himself and shook Shkin’s hand. He said,

“Wren is my daughter. She was kidnapped by one of the Lost Boys. I’ve come to get her back.”

“Indeed?” Shkin nodded, watching Tom carefully. “Unfortunately I had no idea of the girl’s history. She has already been sold.”

“Sold?” cried Tom. “Where is she? Is she still aboard Brighton?”

“I shall have to check my files. We have processed so many slaves this month…”

The elevator door opened again, and the room began to fill with men, armed guards in black livery. Tom, taken by surprise, barely realized what was happening before one of the men slammed the handle of a truncheon into his side and two more caught him as he doubled over, breathless and choking.

Nabisco Shkin moved around the room, pulling down canvas blinds to hide the long windows. “A lot of pleasure craft in the sky today,” he said conversationally. “Wouldn’t want any happy holidaymakers peeking in on us, would we?” The room grew shadowy. He returned to his desk and spoke into the intercom. “Monica, send the boy here. Let’s find out if this wretch is really who he claims to be.”

Tom’s captors twisted his arms painfully behind him and held him tight, but they need not have bothered, for he was in no state to stand, let alone try to overpower four strong guards. He felt his heart flutter and thump, pain twisting through his side. Shkin came closer, pulled up Tom’s sleeve with a look of faint distaste, and removed his wedding bracelet.