Ganymede

Four

Captain Cly closed the enormous door behind himself and kept his head low as he descended the stairs. Two floors deep, beneath the initial bank basement where the door was located, the “vaults” remained one of the safest corners of the city — the deepest, most secure, and most like a collection of ordinary homes. This bunker-within-a-bunker also served as storage for the most direly needed essentials: clean water, ammunition, gunpowder, gas masks and their accoutrements, and grocery supplies to keep the population fed.

Over in “Chinatown,” nearer the wall’s edge on the far side of King Street Station, the oriental workers kept stores of their own, as their food preferences did not strictly overlap with the doornails. But in the last year, some of the doornails had taken to wandering toward the Chinese kitchens in search of unfamiliar food — while likewise some of the Chinese had shown an interest in dried salmon, occasional fruit tarts, and intermittent baked sweets.

Food was a language all its own. And it was in no one’s best interest for anyone to starve.

The halls were not particularly mazelike, and they were as well lit as anything else beneath the city’s surface. The ceilings were lower than Cly might have preferred, but this set the vaults apart from few other places in the world; so he watched his forehead and made his way along the first corridor without complaint, silent or sworn aloud.

From the stairs at the other end he heard someone approach, moving with an uneven gait. Before the other man’s head could rise into view, Cly called out a greeting. “Swakhammer, is that you?”

Jeremiah Swakhammer appeared with a lopsided grin and a cane. “Yeah, it’s me. You heard this thing tapping, did you?”

“You’ve never been too light on your feet,” Cly said, extending a hand, which Swakhammer shook. “But now that you’ve got a third leg to bang around, sure enough. I know the sound of you.”

“I won’t have it much longer, maybe. That crackpot Chinaman doctor Wong says if I’m careful, my leg will be right as rain within another few weeks. I might not even have a limp to show for it.”

“That crackpot Chinaman doctor saved your lousy ass, Jerry. Don’t act like you don’t know it.”

“I do, I do,” he said. The grin stayed put, even spreading. “But he puts the most god-awful muck on me — these salves and creams — and he makes me drink teas that taste like tobacco simmered in horse piss.”

Cly was not altogether unfamiliar with Chinese medicine himself, having spent time in San Francisco and Portland with his first mate, Fang. “Do they work?”

“Mostly. I think.”

“Then quit your bellyaching, eh?” The captain slapped Swakhammer on the back, just to make him wobble. Jeremiah was a big man in his own right, but built wide — whereas Cly was built tall. “You ought to buy him flowers, next time you see the topside!”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what my daughter said.” The words came out of his mouth a little funny, like he wasn’t accustomed to referring to anyone that way. “But she’s a tyrant of a thing, just like that doctor. Must be common to medical folks.”

“It’d shock me silly if any child of yours was a pushover. Speaking of her, how’s she doing? Is she settling in here to stay, or thinking of heading home?”

Swakhammer shifted his shoulders and gave half a shrug. “She’s doing good — she gets on great with Dr. Wong, and helps him out down in Chinatown, and around here, too.” A note of pride crept into his voice when he added, “She’s as tough as me and twice as smart — so she fits in all right with the other women we got down here.”

“When am I going to meet this kid, anyway?”

“She’s no kid, not anymore. But you can meet her right now, if you want. I think you’re headed right for her. You’re looking for Briar, aren’t ya?”

Captain Cly’s perennial flush bloomed around his collar. “I was … well, sure. Headed over to see her, I suppose. But I’m looking for Houjin, too. And he’s usually clowning around with her boy.” Suddenly it occurred to him to wonder, “But what’s your girl got to do with it? Did somebody get hurt?”

“Briar’s all right, since that’s what you’re really asking.” Swakhammer said, “Come on, I’ll walk with you, and introduce you to my tyrant offspring.”

Cly fell into step beside Jeremiah, and together they strolled around the next corner, down to the next flight of stairs. “Is something wrong with one of the boys?”

“Zeke got himself scratched up. Those kids were out in the hill blocks — they’d gone through Chinatown and let themselves up near one of the pump rooms, poking around at the big houses up on the hill, or what’s left of them.”

“Scavenging?”

“Playing around, is my guess. Boys do dumb stuff. Anyhow, he fell on something — or fell in something. I’m not too clear on the particulars, but they can give you the story.”

“Will he be okay?”

“Looks like it. He’ll be walking around like me for a while, dragging one foot behind him. But he didn’t break anything, so he’ll wind up with a scar and not much more for his trouble. As long as it doesn’t fester.”

By way of announcing himself, Swakhammer leaned forward and knocked on a door that was halfway open. He poked his head around it. “Everybody decent?” he asked. It was a joke between him and his daughter, after she’d walked in on him while the doctor was helping him bathe. Ever after, he’d insisted that she knock and confirm decency before entering.

But she usually didn’t.

“Decent as we’ll ever be,” Mercy Swakhammer Lynch called back her father’s own favorite response. “Didn’t you say you were headed topside?”

“I did,” he confirmed as he stepped inside. “But then I ran into this guy, and I realized you hadn’t met him yet — so I figured I’d show you off.”

“Show me off?”

Andan Cly followed Jeremiah Swakhammer inside, doing his best to make himself look smaller. An exercise in futility, given that he could’ve reached up and placed both elbows flat on the ceiling, but he hunched anyway.

The room was large and quite bright, due to Mercy’s insistence that she couldn’t work in the dark, goddammit, and a place with so much potential for injury and illness ought to have some kind of clinic … or if nothing else, a room that could serve as one in a pinch. She’d picked the empty “apartment” next to her own sleeping quarters and stocked it with every gas lamp, oil lamp, candle contraption, and electric lantern at hand, and with the help of Dr. Wong, she’d gotten the place more or less serviceable.

Now she was staring intently at Zeke’s leg as he lay flat on a table, grimacing for his life. She wore a set of lenses strapped to her face, helping the light show her what the trouble was. When she looked up at her father and his friend, her eyes were as big and strange as an owl’s.

“Hi, there,” Cly said to her. “It’s … not Miss Swakhammer, is it? Jerry said you were married, once.”

“Widowed,” she said. “It’s Mrs. Lynch if you like, or Mercy if you can’t be bothered.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Cly. I have a ship, and I swing through every now and again. If you ever need anything, you can let me know, and I’ll try to pick it up for you.”

“Thank you for the offer. I’ll likely take you up on it one of these days.” She used the back of her hand to shove a stray bit of hair out of her face. Her locks were lighter than Jeremiah’s, on the dark side of blond and worn in a braid that was knotted at the back of her neck. Even though she was seated, Cly could see that there was something of her father in her shape. She was too sturdy to be called slender, and her strong, straight shoulders were a direct inheritance.

Zeke made a muffled umph noise when she dived back in with the needle, stitching a long, jagged gash with swift, sure strokes. He said, “Sorry.”

Mercy said, “You’re doing just fine. I’ve seen bigger, older men be worse babies than you by a long shot.” It was probably true. Before coming to Seattle at her father’s behest, she’d worked in a Richmond hospital, patching up wounded veterans.

Zeke knew this, and he said between gasps, “I could be a soldier, you know.”

“What are you now, sixteen or seventeen?”

“Sixteen.”

She nodded, and squinted. “Old enough,” she said, but something in her tone suggested she’d seen younger. “I don’t recommend it, though.”

“I ain’t looking to join up,” Zeke assured her, then bit back another yelp.

Cly noted that Zeke’s mother was not present, but he assumed she’d return before long. He went over to a seat — in the form of an old church pew someone had hauled down to the underground — and made himself comfortable. Swakhammer joined him. Between the pair of them, they occupied almost half of it.

“It’s just as well you’re not interested in fighting,” Cly told the boy. “You’d give your momma a fit.”

Zeke gave a pained laugh that ended in a gulp. “Shit, Captain. You know her. She’d probably sign up and come to war after me.”

“I do admit, there is a precedent,” he said. He leaned back and made a halfhearted effort to get comfortable. “What happened to you, anyway? And where’s your partner in crime?”

Mercy answered the second question before Zeke could unclench his jaw again to answer the first. “Houjin went back to Dr. Wong’s to pick up some balm for the bruising that’s going to come with this cut. Mostly I needed him out from underfoot. He was hovering like a hen.”

“Feeling guilty,” Zeke mumbled. “He’s the one who dared me.”

“Dared you to what?” asked Cly.

Zeke sighed, a ragged sound that was drawn in time to the needle threading through his skin. He craned his head around to look at the men on the pew, giving himself an excuse not to watch what was happening to his leg. “We went hiking up the hill, where there aren’t so many rotters. Hardly any of them, really. But there are a lot of big houses, where the merchants and sawmill fellows used to live — and Houjin said some of them hadn’t been bothered since the blight.”

Swakhammer shook his head. “I find that unlikely.”

“You never know,” the boy replied, a hint of his opportunistic optimism shining through even now. “And even if someone had already gotten inside, people miss things. So we thought we’d go take a look.”

Mercy murmured, “And how’d that work out for you?”

“We found a whole drawer full of viewing glass.” He referred to glass that had been polarized, so even trace amounts of blight gas could be detected. This glass was helpful to have around for the sake of detecting leaks, but it was worthless aboveground — given that the gas was absolutely everywhere. “And we found some canvas, a whole bunch of it folded up inside a wagon.”

“Would this be the same wagon you fell through?” Mercy asked.

“I thought it’d hold! It was one of the old covered kind, abandoned back behind a real tall house near the wall’s east edge. Someone had been using it to store junk, but junk is sometimes useful. Houjin said he wouldn’t climb inside it, and I said he was chicken. So he dared me to do it instead, and I did. But the floor didn’t hold, and—” He gestured at his leg without peeking at Mercy’s activities.

The nurse paused and reached for a rag inside a bowl of water. She wrung it out with one hand and wiped at the wounds, which had mostly stopped bleeding. “And congratulations, fearless explorer. For your reward, you get thirty stitches.” She lifted his leg by the ankle and turned it over to get a better look at his calf. “Maybe more than that.”

He groaned. “My mother says she’s going to kill me, but she’ll wait until I can run again, so I can have a head start.”

“Mighty generous of her,” the captain said. “Considering all the times she’s told you not to go exploring on the hill.”

“Exploring on the hill by myself. I wasn’t by myself. Momma said I was obeying the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Apparently that ain’t good enough.”

“Speaking of your mother, where’s she at?” Cly said with all the nonchalance he could muster. “I thought she’d be here, pacing around you.”

From the doorway, Briar Wilkes responded. “I went to hit up the bottommost storage room, looking for a pair of pants no one wanted so I could cut off one of the legs.” She held up a pair of Levi’s that had probably once belonged to a logger. “They’ll swim on you, so you’ll have to belt ’em. But I don’t think anyone will miss these things, and if anybody does, he can take it up with me. Hello, Jeremiah.”

Andan Cly stood up, but Swakhammer only nodded in her direction. He figured she wouldn’t begrudge him the gesture, since his leg was still on the mend. But the captain couldn’t stop himself, and didn’t try.

“Weren’t you down here just last week?”

“It’s a slow season, and I felt like coming back.”

“You must be the strangest man alive,” she teased.

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just looking for the company of my own kind.” He smiled, and since he was up, wandered over to Zeke’s leg to take a look at the damage. The boy’s skin was snagged and torn, but his muscles were intact, and Mercy Lynch was a formidable seamstress.

Zeke winced as the curved needle dipped again, and shuddered as the thread slipped through his skin.

Cly said, “Before long, you’ll have one hell of a scar to show off. Girls love scars.”

“They do?”

“They’re always a conversation-starter.”

“I just bet they are.” Briar only half stifled her smile as she added, “Except, come to think of it, I don’t believe we’ve ever heard any stories about your scars. I assume you have some, somewhere.”

Cly tried not to look at her and mostly failed, his gaze darting back and forth between the morbid sight of Zeke’s mangled leg and the petite, curly-haired object of his truer interest. “None of mine are very interesting.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” she pressed. Her eyes followed him as he shuffled from foot to foot.

“Captain,” Mercy Lynch said sharply. “You’re standing in my light. Am I going to have to send you errand-running like your junior crew member?”

“Um—”

Before he could form a smarter reply, the nurse declared, “All of y’all, this is silly. I don’t need an audience, and neither does my patient. Everybody out, except you, Miz Wilkes, if you’d care to stay and look after him.”

“Funny thing is, I don’t care to,” she said. She brought the pants over to Zeke, who stretched out his hand and took them. “I’m glad he’s all right, and I’m glad you’re here to take care of him — but I’m still none too pleased with him, and anyway I don’t think he needs the comforting.”

“I could use a shot of whiskey,” Zeke tried, because hope springs eternal.

“You could use a boot to the rear end, but you’re not going to get that, either. Yet.”

Mercy said, “I’m sorry I don’t have any ether or anything. I know this doesn’t feel very good.”

“It’s not that bad,” Zeke fibbed.

“You’re a liar. Still, I wish I could give you something for the pain. I think I’ll put that at number one on my wish list, Captain.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You offered to make a supply run, and I’m telling you about a supply I could use.”

“Oh. Sure. Just put it down on paper, and I’ll take it with me when I leave.”

“You’re leaving right now,” she reminded him. “But come back in an hour. I’ll have him finished up by then, and I’ll start considering my inventory. Now, what’s everyone standing around for? Didn’t I ask for peace and quiet?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Swakhammer said to his daughter with exaggerated deference. “I’ll pick up my sorry old bones and be on my way.”

Captain Cly stood aside to let Swakhammer pass, which also allowed Briar to slip out underneath his arm on her way back to the door. He stopped her by saying her name the way he always did. “Hey, Wilkes.”

“Cly?”

“Suppose I could have a word with you? For a minute, if you can spare it.”

“I was headed down to Chinatown to scare up some supper. You care to join me?”

“Yes,” he said quickly. “I mean, sure. Fang’s probably down there anyway, and Houjin will wander over once Mercy shoos him away again — or that’s my guess. I’ll be leaving for a long trip soon, and if he wants to come, he’ll have to get himself ready.”

“A long trip?” Briar repeated. “How long, and are you taking off soon?”

“Might be gone a few weeks, but I’ll stick around until morning. Everybody and his brother wants to add something to my shopping list.”

“Have you been offering?”

“I suppose I might’ve been.”

“Then it’s nobody’s fault but your own.” She bumped her shoulder against him, and he pretended to recoil — as if she’d knocked him so hard, she’d sent him off balance.

They made a funny pair, walking together back up the way Andan had come. Him so tall, he had to duck at every doorway. Her so comparatively small that the top of her head barely reached his chest. The captain felt conspicuous beside Briar Wilkes; he felt his height more acutely than usual when he had to crane his neck to look down at her, and she had to twist herself to look up at him.

But he liked it when she did.

Once upon a time, she’d been a notorious girl — a pretty teenager who’d run away from home to marry a man twice her age. But sixteen years, widowhood, hard work, and raising a son alone had taken away the imperious tilt of her nose. (Cly remembered it from a drawing he’d seen, a wedding announcement he recalled from ages ago.) The intervening time had worn away her wealth, her softness, and her youth — but not the symmetry of her face. And for everything the years had claimed, they had given something in return.

At thirty-six, she was a patient and confident woman.

She was also the sheriff of Seattle, insomuch as the walled city had one. Her father had been a lawman who died a folk hero, obeying the spirit of the law if not the letter.

She’d never intended to replace him. She’d intended to live and die a rich man’s wife in a house with expensive furnishings and silver cutlery, pampering a brood of well-dressed children who played the piano and learned to ride horses with perfect posture. But time had had other ideas, and now she wore her father’s hat, his badge, and his belt buckle engraved with his initials, MW. And even the underground’s newcomers knew who she must be, whether they recognized her as Maynard’s daughter or not.

Cly lifted the big vault door and held it up while Briar climbed past it, into the subterranean underworld that passed for “outside.” He followed her, asking, “What’s the fastest way to get where we’re going? I’m still learning my way around down here.”

She paused with her hands on her hips, checking the signs and finding her bearings. “This way’s fastest in the long run. The other two ways I know are roundabout, and I don’t know the tunnels so well myself. Every time I think I’ve got my directions figured out, I turn around and wind up lost.”

“You’ve been lost down here?”

“Sure. These days I carry one of Frank Creat’s compasses and it helps me a lot, but sometimes I just have to find my way topside and look around to figure out where I am.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Cly said. “All those rotters up there. All that gas.”

“That’s what the masks are for, and the rotters aren’t so hard to avoid, once you know what lures them. As long as you stay off the streets, it’s not so much trouble to stay out of their way. Nobody’s seen any down here since Minnericht died. No coincidence, if you ask me.” She started off down a wood-slat trail with a sign that said KING STREET on it. Chinatown was shortly beyond the train station. “You worry too much,” she told him.

“Do you take Swakhammer’s Daisy with you?” he asked, meaning the sonic weapon that could stun the rotters into submission, if only for a few minutes at a time.

“Lord, no. I can hardly lift that thing.”

Falling into step beside her, Cly argued, “Then it sounds like I’m worrying just the right amount. I don’t like it, you all alone up there.”

“I could show you the topside way, if you want,” she offered. “We could go left at the fork instead, and come up through the old Continental Hotel. From there, we could go rooftop to rooftop all the way to Chinatown, almost. You’d see it’s not so bad.”

“You’re only trying to make me feel better.”

“Is it working?” she asked, looking up at him with a gleam in her eye.

“No. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather stick to the underside. I don’t like wearing gas masks, and I don’t like rotters.”

“Then you took a terrible wrong turn someplace, because you’re sure as hell in the wrong city, Captain.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. The surface here isn’t much to look at, but the underground is a sight to see. And…” He stopped himself from saying more.

“And?”

“And I know plenty of great people down here,” he finished weakly. Then, to change the subject while he still could, he said, “By the way, there’s a shorter way to Chinatown.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“I only just learned about it. Yaozu told me about it on the way from Maynard’s.”

Briar was silent for a moment. Their feet made conspicuous and uninterrupted stomping sounds on the hollow sidewalks, until she finally said, “Yaozu, eh? I didn’t know you two were buddies.”

“Not buddies,” he was quick to counter. “I don’t know him hardly at all, and I won’t lie — it was plenty odd. He came up to me in the bar, and said he wanted a word.”

“And what did he really want?”

“He wanted to hire me,” he explained, and then he told her about Yaozu’s plans for civic improvement.

By the time he was finished laying it out, carefully choosing his words and how he presented the situation, they’d hiked to the outer edge of Chinatown. “Where do you want to stop?” he asked. He knew of only three eateries in the Chinese district.

“How about Ruby’s? She made me something last time I was there that filled me up all day. Back before I came inside,” she said with a gesture that suggested she meant the city, and not merely indoors, “I never wondered what oriental people ate or how they made it. But Houjin got Lucy eating some of his uncle’s meals, and she started spreading it around.”

Cly nodded vigorously. “One day, I’ll take you to San Francisco. They have a big Chinatown there, and there are dozens of places to stop for a bite. Hundreds, maybe. And all of it’ll knock your socks off.”

“Really? You’d take me to San Francisco? I always wanted to see it.”

The captain cleared his throat. “Sure. I’d love to get you out of here, even if it’s only for a few days. We could go flying if you like.”

During their walk to Chinatown they hadn’t seen or heard anyone coming or going; but now they detected the pump rooms roaring a few blocks away, drawing fresh air from over the wall down into the city and forcing it through the airways that laced through the entire underground. Chinatown had three of the biggest pumps, which between them provided the majority of the fresh air to the sealed spaces below. Three other rooms were scattered elsewhere, operating in shifts night and day to keep the bad air out, and the good air in.

Two men in work clothes, fresh from a shift at the pumps, came rushing down the walkway. They nodded at Andan and Briar, who nodded back — keeping the communication simple, for the language barrier was not insignificant. Many of the Chinatown residents and vault residents recognized one another on sight, but very few of them could share a conversation.

Ruby’s place was not so much a restaurant as a storefront stand with benches and tables, and no counter separated the eating area from the kitchen, where there were several fires heating strange round pans, filled with vegetables and fish, and chicken or pork when they could be found. It took ten minutes of careful enunciation and gesturing, plus a moment with a pencil on a piece of paper, but eventually the proprietor understood what they wanted.

Cly paid for both meals, then he and the sheriff sat on a bench outside to wait for their food. Together they watched the men come and go, some of them in coal-stained leather aprons from stoking the furnaces. Around their necks hung the goggles that protected their eyes from the white-hot fires that powered the air-bringing bellows.

“Hey, Wilkes,” he said, nudging her gently with his elbow. “I’ve been thinking.” He gazed down at her and felt very big and very silly. He knew the flush was back; he could feel it curling up his neck and around his ears. “It’s about these transports, and this … this next job, in particular.”

“For Yaozu.” She said the name quietly, lest it be heard over the sizzle of the cooking fires.

“I think he does want to improve the place. He’s a criminal and a mystery, and I don’t trust him. But at the end of the day, being crooked doesn’t make him any different from the rest of us down here. Not in any way that matters.”

Briar peered up at him. “Us down here?”

Cly cleared his throat again. “I was thinking maybe it’d be good to have a station out at Fort Decatur — an official station, not just a place where people drop by and park for an afternoon. With the kind of money he’s offering, I could do it,” he told her, leaving out the part about the extra money he’d pick up from the New Orleans summons. There was no reason for her to know about that. It’d only make her wonder about things that didn’t matter, and hadn’t mattered for years. “I could build a pipework dock without too much effort, and keep it as a home spot for the Naamah Darling, between supply runs and deliveries.

“Fang and Houjin spend plenty of time down here already, and my new engineer, Kirby Troost, probably won’t mind it. He’s a weird one — you haven’t met him yet, but I think he’ll work out fine, and maybe you’ll even come to like him. Anyway, it’s a lot of money, and all I have to do is head to New Orleans and pick up a few things.”

“New Orleans?” She sounded worried. “That’s where you’re off to tomorrow?”

“Yep. And in New Orleans, I can hit up one of the Texian machine shops and get the Naamah Darling refitted — or unfitted — so it’s better for moving real cargo instead of sap and gas.” He made that part especially clear, because he knew how well she’d like the sound of it. “While I’m there, I can pick up everything everybody needs, and a few other things besides. In particular, I was thinking…” He finished the rest in a rush: “Once it’s all sorted out, my ship and the Decatur dock, I could come back to Seattle and maybe I’d just … stay. And run the dock. Out at the fort. For good.”

At first she said nothing, her face unreadable. It always unnerved him when she made herself so blank like that. He prided himself on his ability to read people, and he wanted to read her — he needed to read her — but he had no idea if she was about to endorse the idea or call him an idiot.

“How would you, do you think … I’ve got to ask, Wilkes. How would you feel about that?”

She stood up, and she stepped in front of him — facing him almost eye-to-eye, since he remained seated. Her inscrutable expression cracked into confusion, surprise, and something sweeter. “Captain,” she said. “Would you be doing that for me?”

He swallowed hard, knowing that the uncontrollable blush was truly getting the best of him. “Yes, ma’am, I believe I would.”

“Are you sure it’s what you want? To make that kind of change? I didn’t even ask you to. Shit, Cly. I’m old, and I work too much, and I can’t remember the last time I wore a dress, and I run around in the dark with my daddy’s gun all day, and I … Are you sure?”

Without thinking, he slipped his hands around her waist, drawing her closer until her knees knocked against the bench. “I don’t care if you’ve never cooked a meal. I don’t care if you never wear a dress, and I’d be proud as hell to have a woman who can shoot as good as you. And as for old, well, I’m older than you. And I’m too big to walk down the street without people staring and pointing — and even if I wasn’t, I know I’m not much to look at. All I can tell you is, I’ve known ever since you stomped up to me on Bainbridge and demanded to hitch a ride.…” He did not know what to add. It was too hard, too dangerous to say out loud.

Gently, she took his face in her hands. She leaned forward until their foreheads touched, and he could feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek. She whispered, “You’ve known what, Captain Cly?”

“That I wanted a chance to prove I’m worth your trouble.”

* * *

Even when he was standing at street level on Seattle’s topside, Andan Cly still felt like he was underneath something. A long shadow covered much of the contained city, cast by the two-hundred-foot wall that surrounded it, and the sky above was gray like usual. Even at the very height of noon, any light that managed to make it past the shadow was filtered and dim. Direct sunlight, on those few days of the year when it appeared, was never quite brilliant within the wall, either. Every speck of illumination — from the sun, from the ever-present lanterns — was rendered thick and watery by years of accumulated blight gas, which filled the blocks with a thick, yellowish fog.

Watery, yes. That was it.

It felt like being underwater.

The gas mask he wore underscored this impression. The lenses rounded off the edges of his vision, creating a very slight fishbowl effect, and the charcoal filters through which he breathed made the air feel stuffy and taste strange. He didn’t like to hear the sound of his lungs working, and even the faintest whisper of a stuffy nose reached his ears as a hearty whistle. The straps were rubbing a groove into the back of his head, and the rubber seals made his face itch.

But all in all, it was better than breathing the blight. A few thousand of the walking dead would have attested to it, if they could.

Most of the ships that came or went from the city did so over at King Street Station, half a mile away. Decatur was more often considered a pit stop of last resort or desperate straits.

But Andan Cly saw potential.

He saw a sturdy protective barricade thirty feet high around the main compound, and a large shelter that could serve as a depot for goods and airmen and had an entrance to the underground through its basement. Conveniently located — almost triangulated — between Chinatown, the train station, and the vaults, it was within easy reach for the three main populations. All it needed was a framework of lead pipe sunk into the ground, so hydrogen ships would have something to dock against, rather than the present method of hitching down to an enormous fallen totem pole that grew softer and more rotten by the month.

Well, it’d also need a set of tanks for hydrogen manufacture and fill-ups, and some tubing to pump everything up. Cly had a feeling the tanks would be best positioned underground, since untreated metal corroded so quickly in the blight, and there was no telling how, or if, that pervasive gas would interfere with hydrogen production.

But he was getting ahead of himself.

It was difficult not to, when he thought about the possibilities. The underground could have a real, honest-to-God dock inside — where people could reliably send and receive goods and messages … maybe even mail! It’d make Seattle something like a real city again, despite the rotters and the toxic air. It’d mean easier access to the outside for people who wanted it.

Cly put his hands on his hips and watched as the Naamah Darling prepared for takeoff. His ship was full of fuel and had hundreds of miles to go before it’d need a fill-up, but his crew members were checking the last-minute details, running down the list of things that needed attention before a cross-country excursion.

Hydrogen stores: check.

Thrusters and hydraulics in good repair: check.

Cargo hold emptied, cleaned, and ready for stocking: check — though in this case it was emptied, cleaned, and ready for the retrofitting in New Orleans. This meant all the gas bags had been dumped, and the bracing crates had been removed. The long ceiling rails with their ball-bearing rollers would be cut off at a machine shop, and the resulting seams would be soldered. Rubber seals needed to be restored and augmented if he was going to carry cargo that he didn’t want tainted by the city air.

“Hey, boss, we’re about ready to fly,” reported Kirby Troost, the Naamah Darling’s new engineer. Troost was a little man, roughly the height of Briar Wilkes and maybe ten pounds heavier. But what he lacked in size, he made up for with a keen intelligence and a willingness to try anything once. He was fresh out of jail. What he’d done to land there, he wasn’t fond of saying.

Cly knew, but he didn’t spread it around. The secret protected them both.

The captain nodded down at the engineer and looked back at the log structure that led to the underground, courtesy of a pair of ladders. “Before we go, I want to make sure nobody has any ‘one last things’ to ask for.”

Kirby Troost bobbed his head. The bob looked heavy, as if his gas mask threw off his balance.

“You doing all right in that thing?” Cly asked, indicating the mask.

“Yes, sir. No trouble at all.”

“Really? Because mine itches like a son of a bitch.”

“Didn’t say it was pleasant, sir. Just said it wasn’t any trouble.”

“If it bugs you, they’ve got a bunch of different models you could try. On the return trip, I’ll take you to the storage center in the vaults, and you can try ’em on one after another, like they’re hats in a shop.” Seeing Mercy Lynch coming toward him, he called out, “Mercy! You think of something else?”

She said, “Yep, and I’m glad you’re still here. I was afraid you’d already left.” She wiggled her hand in a gimme motion.

“Oh, your list. It’s right here.” He removed three of them from his pocket, selected hers, and gave it back to her.

“Thanks. I’ll be right back. Since it doesn’t look like I’m holding you up, or anything.”

“No, ma’am. Take your time.”

Kirby stood beside the captain, watching Mercy retreat to the station house — or the building that would become a station house if Cly had anything to say about it. The engineer said, “Fine figure of a woman, there.”

“How can you tell? She’s wearing a mask.”

“Not talking about her face, sir. She looks strong. I like that.”

“You like them taller than you?”

“If I stuck to the ones who were shorter than me, I’d never have any fun at all.”

Cly shrugged. “She’s young. But not so young that people would talk.”

“Are you saying I should have a word with her?”

“I’m saying if you did, it wouldn’t be a scandal. But there are two things you should know first.”

“I’ll start counting.”

“First,” said the captain. “She’s been married before.”

“Widowed?”

“Her husband died in the war.”

“And what’s number two?” Troost asked.

“Number two is her father. If you decide to have a word with her, you’d best do it while he’s still on crutches.”

“Is he a big man?”

“Yup.”

Kirby Troost said, “Good. They’re the easiest kind to outrun.” And then, as Yaozu strolled into the compound area he added, “Men like that one, on the other hand…”

As was so often the case, the lord and master of King Street Station was dressed in white except for his shoes — making him easy to recognize, even in a mask that obscured his face. He moved ghostlike through the foggy gas, which thickened and thinned in clumps around him, parting for his passage.

“Captain Cly,” he said. “I trust Houjin gave you my requests?”

“Got ’em right here,” he said, patting the vest pocket where all his lists went. “Some of this will take some looking for, but I’ll scare it up.”

“Of that I have no doubt. But there’s still the matter of how you’ll pay for it. I’m certain your credit is good from coast to coast, but money speaks louder than reputation, and some of my requests are expensive.” After reaching into the folds of his long pale jacket, he extracted a pouch. “This should cover everything, with some to spare. And you’ll find the second half of your fee when you return. Now, at the risk of making a sudden shift in conversation, is this your new crewman? I understand that Rodimer died last year.”

“That’s right.” Cly answered both questions at once. “This is my new engineer,” he said, indicating Troost.

“You seem … very familiar to me,” Yaozu said, squinting through his visor at the smaller man, who squinted back through his own.

Troost said, “Can’t say we’ve ever met. It’s hard to tell with these masks.”

“You’re right, of course. Still, there’s something about you. Whatever it is, it reminds me of someone I met years ago, in a desert town called Reno.”

“Never been there.”

“Never once? Are you certain?”

“Well,” the engineer said. His tone oozed contrived carelessness. “Since you’ve asked me to reconsider, I’ll have to think on it. I’ve done a lot of traveling in my time.”

Yaozu said, “It’s possible I’m mistaken. At any rate—” He held out the pouch to the captain.

Cly took it and stuffed it into the pocket with his lists. It made a heavy bulge against his chest, but he was layered up against the blight, and it did not show through his clothes. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

“And I’ll appreciate receiving everything I’ve asked for. Make no mistake, this is a vote of confidence.”

“I’ll be back in one piece, with all your goodies.”

“Oh, I know you’ll be back,” Yaozu said, glancing over his shoulder. “I can count on the fact that you’re too smart to come back empty-handed.”

“Thanks,” Cly said, ignoring the unsavory implications — not because he doubted Yaozu’s sincerity or capacity to be unpleasant, but because he had no intention of letting him down. He’d be back, and they both knew it.

Briar arrived, emerging from the station house with Mercy, who had finished making her revisions. The nurse gave her list to the captain, and she told him, “It’s no small thing, you doing this. They trust you around here, don’t they?”

“I hope so,” he replied.

In his other vest pocket, he had an envelope of money from Lucy O’Gunning, gathered from the patrons at Maynard’s, and to that envelope, he’d added Mercy’s contribution — gleaned from Dr. Wong’s patients, and those she’d helped to patch up in the months since she’d arrived.

Briar made a point to stand away from Yaozu. She couldn’t ignore him, but she didn’t have to like him, and she felt no compunction to be friendly. She told Mercy, “Cly’s good for it. And you must be the new fellow, Kirby Troost.”

“Yes, ma’am, and you’re the lady sheriff I’ve heard so much about. I do hope you’ll pardon me if I don’t remove my mask.”

“Why on earth would you remove your mask?”

“I’m not wearing a hat, and it only seems polite to remove something when meeting a lady.”

She laughed and said, “At least you didn’t offer to take off anything else. Where’d you find this one, Captain?”

“Tacoma. I’ve known him for ages, but don’t believe everything he tells you. I like him better than I trust him.” He said it as if it were a joke, carefully devoid of weight. Then he added, “Anyway, I was starting to wonder if you were going to make it.”

“And let you leave without seeing you off? Not a chance. Is everything ready? You’ve got everything you need, and everything’s working all right? I hope you’ve tested everything, and double-checked everything, and—”

“All of it, and some of it twice,” he assured her.

From within her mask her voice was muffled, but he could still hear the worry when she said, “I don’t mean to nag you like you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s just that New Orleans is an awful long way away.”

“You gonna worry about me?”

She admitted, “More than I’d like to. Three weeks?”

“Three weeks,” he promised. “And if I’m running any longer than that, I’ll send word by telegram. Tell Princess Angeline to keep her eyes open at the Tacoma taps, or get a friend to check it. She’s got friends all over the place, anyway. I swear to God, that woman knows half of everyone on the coast.”

“Just about,” Briar agreed. “I’ll flag her down next time she passes through.”

Underneath the Naamah Darling, the retracting steps quivered as Houjin descended. The seventeen-year-old Chinese boy was accompanied by fellow Mandarin Fang, who had served as Captain Cly’s first mate for over a decade. Both were wearing long sleeves, long pants, duster coats, and gas masks, lest the blight cause itching rashes on whatever parts were exposed.

Houjin cried, “Hey! Are we going to hit the skies, or hang around here all day?”

Fang said nothing, because he had no tongue. But his posture echoed the question, feet apart, arms folded, head cocked to the side.

Cly took a deep breath. It was hard to do so inside the mask, where every intake was hauled through the filters that kept the air from killing him. He said, “I think this wraps up all the official talk, and there’s no reason we can’t be on our way. Everybody inside, and buckle up. I’m right behind you.”

“Behind us?” Houjin asked from the foot of the steps.

“You heard me.”

Andan Cly leaned down to Briar and said, “Hey, do me a favor.”

Behind the lenses, her eyebrows knitted. “What?”

“Take a deep breath.”

“What?”

“Just do it. For me.”

“All right?…” Her chest inflated and she held the air, as requested.

The captain did likewise, and snapped one hand out to her mask, and one hand to his own. Faster than lightning, he lifted the filters on both contraptions and leaned in for a swift, sudden kiss. Seconds later, because there was no time to dare more — not on the surface, where the air was made of poison — he popped both masks back into place and exhaled as hard as he could.

While everyone stared and no one spoke, Briar did likewise, adjusting the fit over her face.

“Now what’d you go and do that for?” she stammered.

“For good luck,” he beamed. “Besides, everybody knows by now, anyway.” He wiggled his mask to tighten the fit and added, “Good-bye for now, Briar Wilkes. I’ll be back in a few weeks, you just watch me.”