Cruel Zinc Melodies

53

This wasn’t my first time out before the sun hit the meridian. Mine is a life of sorrow and misfortune. More often than I like I’ve had to be out with the early worms. Back when I was one of the Universe’s Elect, a Marine, I had to be up before the sun dragged its sorry ass over the horizon every freaking morning. So, though it was unnatural, I could take it.

I didn’t like the looks of the snow in Macunado Street. The slackers on the crew before mine wouldn’t do anything but make a show. Tomorrow would be hell. As in the realms of the cruelly used dead in religions where the abode of the fallen is an icy waste and the souls there do hard labor for having been too milquetoast in life.

I gave it all a second look, shrugged, sucked it up, and headed out.

It was time for an off-season New Year’s resolution. I spend too much time grumbling and anticipating all the ways that life will jump up and bite me. I should become more positive. And more active. I should drink less and get up earlier.

I’ve told myself the same thing at least once a week for the last five years. Along with, I need to get more exercise and to shed ten pounds. Or maybe twenty, these days.

So far it only takes for a few days at a time before the relapse sets in.

‘‘I ain’t seen you out this early in years,’’ Saucerhead told me.

‘‘A gross exaggeration, sir.’’

‘‘Possibly an exaggeration. But not gross. What’s all this stuff? What’s going on?’’

‘‘I’m doing a two birder. These guys are going to build you a guardhouse. Complete with a charcoal stove and a garderobe. They’ll do it fast and efficient, right here, in broad daylight, while Weider’s contractors watch.’’ My workmen were breeds who were eager to work. ‘‘How many showed up today?’’

‘‘Almost all a’ them, what Luther says. They’re getting scared a’ being outta work.’’

‘‘This ought to give them a little extra incentive, then.’’

‘‘Or start a riot.’’

‘‘I see four Relway tin whistles without even trying. Anything starts, there’ll be a bunch of guys donating skilled labor to the Crown.’’

Desultory work continues round the seasons on the Marcosca aqueduct. Someday—maybe even during my lifetime—it will improve dramatically the quality and quantity of water available to the city. The system is a long, slow project because the labor is almost entirely convict.

Saucerhead watched the breeds unload carts and a lumber wagon. I suggested, ‘‘Show them where you want the shack put up. That one with the growth on his face is the top kick. Goes by Rockpile.’’

There was a story behind that name but Saucerhead wouldn’t care. A guy called Saucerhead all his life don’t much care how somebody else got hung with an oddball nickname. Unless they hit it off and decided to go get drunk together.

Tharpe had definite ideas about the optimum size for his guardhouse. He and Rockpile began jabbering.

Bill appeared. So suddenly I jumped. ‘‘What the hell?’’

‘‘You ought to keep one eye open.’’

I’d started thinking about Tinnie and where my life was headed. ‘‘Maybe I ought to. What’s on your mind?’’

‘‘I spent part of the night here with your thugs, last night. Mr. Tharpe mention that?’’

‘‘Not yet.’’

‘‘Well, whatever is down there is getting stronger. Putting an end to the damned bugs would probably turn that around. They weren’t all the time chewing on it, it could go back to sleep. But they just keep hatching out.’’

‘‘And?’’

‘‘Just saying. Do something about the bugs. The rest could follow.’’

‘‘We’ll see some action on that today.’’

My partner had plans afoot. Numerous plans. Some of them he’d let me in on. Plans were why he’d recruited so many messengers.

‘‘That’s good. Me, I don’t mind the bugs. But the music could drive me nuts.’’

‘‘Music?’’ I hadn’t pursued that. I hadn’t dismissed it, either. I’d heard something myself, though calling it music would be a stretch.

‘‘They’re bad melodies,’’ Bill said. ‘‘Very bad melodies. In several senses of bad. But mostly just awful as music.’’

I waited. Bill was one of those guys who has to fill a silence. And had a gift for making himself understood.

‘‘This’ll be hard to explain, Garrett.’’ We were old pals now. Brothers of the sword. ‘‘You’ll understand after you hear the music. Which you’ll do for sure if you hang around here after dark.’’

‘‘All right.’’ How would a thing buried down deep know when it was dark? ‘‘Give it a shot. Sometimes I can figure things out. Wow. Look at those guys go.’’

Rockpile and his gang had a frame going up. Workers from the contract crew were watching. They didn’t look happy.

‘‘All right. But I need to digress. When I got back from my five in the Cantard, the first job I got was working for my uncle. He was a specialty founder. A small operation. We made custom alloys, especially latten and electrum. Exotic stuff, but useful to people who can’t afford solid gold and silver. And to some specialist operators on the Hill.’’

‘‘Latten? Electrum?’’

‘‘Electrum doesn’t matter here. Nor does latten, either, really. Except that I used to help make it. It’s an alloy of nickel, copper, tin, and zinc that takes gilding well. It isn’t easy to make. The zinc part is where I was headed with the metals and music notion.’’

‘‘You were moving too fast and light for me, Bill. You lost me way back.’’

‘‘Which explains why I live in a loft over top of a third-rate tavern. Lack of polish in my communications skills.’’

‘‘I’ll buy you a jar of the finest. Do your best to make me understand now.’’

‘‘All right. Metals make music. They ring. Like wind chimes? You use strips or tubes of copper. Or silver, if you’re too rich to be allowed to live.’’

‘‘Sure. I’ve seen them made out of glass and ceramics, too.’’

‘‘Good on you, boy. But let’s stick to metal. Zinc. When you mix up latten you feed in small, flat strips of zinc, after your other metals have melted. Strips like you could use to make wind chimes. If you made one out of zinc, though, all you’d get is a lot of clink-clunk. Zinc don’t sing.’’

We were getting somewhere. On a long road winding up a tall hill. ‘‘Are we getting somewhere?’’

‘‘Considering your slick-talking ways, it’s a wonder you’re still alive, let alone successful.’’

‘‘So I’ve heard. My social skills get the best of me sometimes. Zinc wind chimes.’’

‘‘Exactly. The music is like the sound of the world’s biggest zinc wind chime.’’

Really? I stood there trying to trap random snowflakes with my open mouth.

‘‘Let me take that back, Garrett. I thought of something it’s more like than wind chime music. Only I don’t know what you call it. One of those music things where you hit little pieces of metal, all different sizes, with little wooden hammers.’’

‘‘Chimes,’’ I said.

‘‘That’s the kind that hang off a rail. Yeah. But I mean the kind where they’re laid out on a little table.’’

I could picture what he meant. Only place I ever saw one was in the orchestra pit of one of the World’s competitors. ‘‘I don’t know, either. But I know what you mean.’’

‘‘Good. Because the music is like from a band of those, all with zinc chimes.’’

‘‘If the racket is that bad, how come you think it’s music?’’

‘‘You have to hear it to get it.’’

‘‘If I must, I must.’’