Karl Schroeder - Ashes of Candesce - Book Five of Virga

Jacoby pulled himself into a more dignified posture and forced himself to walk steadily over to the entrance hatches. These looked similar to the exits, but he knew that below, on the outside of the town's hull, each was partially sheltered by a ramp-shaped windbreak. There were lookouts down there waiting to open the hatches for incoming craft. That must be cold and lonely shift work, he thought, and he felt a momentary kinship with the men down there.

A hatch thirty feet away fell open without warning, and a small tornado of air blasted Jacoby, making him stagger. Like a strange jack-in-the-box, an airman on a bike popped up out of the hatch. He was standing up in his stirrups, holding up a hook, and at the top of his bounce into the hangar, he clanged the hook over one of the overhead rods. Then he sat down heavily as the bike swung, engine roaring, in the vortex of air that was howling through the hatch below him.

He cut the engine as the doors to the hatch laboriously inched shut. When the last crack had been sealed, leaving only the ominous whistle that all the closed hatches made, he pulled off his leather flyer's helmet and dismounted the bike.

Jacoby recognized him. They met just in front of the bike, whose round maw showed a still-spinning maze of teeth. "Sarto," said the man with a barely respectful duck of the head.

Jacoby took a shuddering breath and said, "Were you seen? Did anyone question you?"

"Naw, it's black air out there, I took the last fifty miles at a hundred 'n fifty miles an hour. Have to be crazy to follow me." He grinned, obviously still exhilarated at his daredevil stunt.

"Good, but you'll have to leave the same way." Jacoby couldn't help but glance around to see if there was anyone but the dockhand working here. If he were Inshiri, he'd put a watch on Jacoby Sarto--and maybe she was about to do that very thing. He had to put his plan in motion before it became impossible for him to contact his own men without her noticing.

He fumbled one-handed in his jacket, then held out a thick envelope. "Here's the orders. Are the ships ready? Fueled and armed?"

His man nodded as he took the package and shoved it into his jacket. He clearly hadn't noticed Jacoby's distress; good. "What's the target?" he asked with a grin. "I might go myself, if it's somewhere nice."

"It's not." Jacoby looked him in the eye. "It's Hell, actually."

"Oh, you've been there?"

"I have. Now on your way before somebody comes." He turned away as the airman hopped back into his saddle; but he was careful to watch and make sure that the jet roared to life, and that the courier rose and unclipped his line and fell into the night.

It was all in the hands of fate now, but he felt a little better at having finally done something decisive.

On the way back upstairs he became dizzy and nearly fell down. He sat in a broad windowsill and leaned his head against the rippled glass. A mile away, the giant can shape of Inshiri's observatory spun slowly in the black air. The structure was turned now so that Jacoby could see down its length. At its core glowed a tiny, human-shaped spark of crimson.

He smiled in angry satisfaction. Inshiri thought she was punishing him by giving him the Fracas operation. It was menial, after all; but she didn't know everything that was going on, nor did she suspect he might have a minor, but effective, fleet of his own.

Once it did what he'd just commanded it to do, he'd have one very big playing piece in his hands. With Fracas, he already had another; and if the bait he'd hung out worked (and he thought he knew the psychology of the person it was aimed at well enough) he would soon have the third.

There was only one more piece in play that mattered, and he didn't yet know how he would get possession of that.

He glared at the tiny figure playing goddess at the focus of her telescope. She thought the little sacrifice he'd given her tonight would make him a falcon on her glove. She was in for a surprise.

But not just yet. He levered himself back to his feet and grimly plodded up the last steps to his floor. In a few moments he could collapse on his room's tattered little bed, and tomorrow he'd send one of his men to locate a good source of painkillers.

Inshiri knew the game board, but he knew which pieces owned the game. With luck, in a few days he would have them all, and then Inshiri would become his pawn.

14

LEAL WAS LOOKINGout one of the yacht's portholes when the ship began braking heavily. She braced her hands on the bulkhead in front of her, as fore suddenly became down .

Her reverie was broken. Leal wasn't even sure what she'd been daydreaming about, but she knew her shattered ambitions had been in there somewhere. Her dream of being a university professor, of achieving tenure and spending her twilight years surrounded by ancient books ... it was all so far from here and now as to constitute a separate life. Once this was all over, could she return to those daydreams? It seemed so unlikely.

The braking eased up, and now she saw the running lights of some sort of way station up ahead. Several ships hulked in the twilight air. Stations and caravansaries weren't unusual in the zones where the light of different suns overlapped. It was too dim here for agriculture, but destinations were clearly visible. You could hang out a shingle and sell fuel and food, and make out pretty well. This particular station seemed even more prosperous than most.

It would be good to get out and stretch, even if there was no gravity to be had here. She climbed out of her narrow stateroom and nearly collided with Keir Chen, who was sailing down the yacht's spinal corridor. "Rest stop?" she said to him.

He shook his head. "Two of those ships are Slipstream cruisers, and I'm not the expert here, but they look pretty banged up."

She went back to her window to look. Sure enough, there were black scars and holes in the hulls of two of the vessels parked by the stop. Returning to the corridor she found Venera already undogging the main hatch. The admiral's wife wore functional leathers and a bandolier, with pistols at her belt. This must be serious.

"What's going on?"

Venera spared her a quick glance. "Those are two of the ships we sent to Serenity."

"Oh!" They all waited impatiently for the dockhands to catch their ropes and haul them in. Before they were even tied down, Venera had hopped off the ship and was pulling herself hand over hand along a rope that led to the station's main building. Leal and Keir followed as quickly as they could.

The station building was a wooden sphere about a hundred feet across, with various blocky buildings crowding its inside surface. There was an administrative shed, two stores, a hotel, a bar, and something that might actually be a brothel, based on the apparel of the women drifting in front of it. The center of the space held a bank of crude electrical lamps, whose flickering light was competing with a bright glow from the bar. Loud music and raucous voices could be heard coming from there.

Venera, Leal, and Keir looked at one another, then sailed in that direction.

Venera perched on the lip of the door and looked in; Keir did so opposite her. Windup lamps in colored paper balls were bouncing around the bar's main room, and all the wicker half-spheres where you could nestle with your drinks and friends were full. Men and women were leaping between the bar itself and various loud conversations; clearly, whatever was going on here was at its height.

One laugh wormed its way through the noise of all the others, and Leal found herself rearing back in confusion. "It can't be--"

She grabbed the doorframe and flipped herself into the room--and there he was, large as life and alive, in fact holding a helix glass of beer and cheering something. "Hayden!"