Reciprocity Page 6

  I jerked my chin at the window, and words started falling out of my mouth before making the usual stops at my brain. “Well, if you want to know more about the Lower, I can play tour guide a little bit. We just passed by the Grindstone, where a lot of the factories are. Damned miserable place to be—can’t breathe worth a damn down there. Next to it, that blunt wedge of slums and its rat’s nest of streets is the Pestle, where all the good people live who work in those factories. I used to live there, when I was a kid. Nice place. Better than some, anyway. Not too many tulip gardens, though.”

  “You are no factory worker now. Do you feel as if you’ve moved up in the world since then?”

  I chuckled. “Sometimes I wonder. I got lucky, I guess. Got shipped off to Saint Alessandra’s School for Unfortunate Girls when I was six. Probably would have wound up an actuary-nun or something if . . .” I smiled a little brighter, and it probably looked as phony as it felt. “If events didn’t push me out of there a little early.”

  “Events?” she asked.

  When I didn’t answer right away, she shook her head, clearly embarrassed. “Your pardon; I’m prying. You have been displaced from not one but two childhood homes, and you have landed on your feet nonetheless.” Her voice became small, almost inaudible over the racket of the train. “I had hoped to learn something about how one does that.”

  “Well, if you find out how to do it right, tell me. But by gods don’t do what I did.” I spread my upturned hands. “Life of crime. Perpetual debt. Brawling in the streets.”

  Maria folded her arms, prickly wool scratching against itself. “You do meet some rough characters.”

  I couldn’t help grinning. “Not all of them are so rough.”

  She smiled back at me, and I felt my pulse kick up to a three-espresso tempo.

  Something briefly blotted out the sun, and I blinked into the glare when it went away.

  Maria must have noticed the shadow cross my face. She turned to look out the window, and then pressed her hands to the glass again, like a kid might. “Upon my word, Kaeri, would you look at that!”

  I didn’t mind leaning a little closer so I could look over her shoulder. The musty robe couldn’t quite spoil the clean, grassy scent of her skin. I squinted past the dirty window and saw a United Mercantile Air Corps ship hanging in the sky a couple kilometers away, attended by a pair of smaller ships, somewhere over the water of the Great Socket Bay. From this distance the sailors, or whatever you called them, were ant tiny, scurrying over the decks and climbing the masts and doing air-sailor things. The ships looked just like their seagoing brethren from a hundred years ago, all mizzenmasts and poop decks and three thousand kilometers of rope that did gods knew what.

  “Oh. Yeah, uh, the airships. There’s a military base close by, one of the smaller islands.” I watched Maria lean closer to the glass, her two hands now forming a shield against the sun’s glare. She looked a little like a street urchin hungrily looking into a patisserie window. “The sailors come to the Lower to get their ashes hauled sometimes and lose their money gambling.”

  “Flyers.”

  “Huh?”

  “Flyers,” Maria repeated. “Sailors sail, and flyers fly. That looks like a Comptroller-class frigate—thirty-six hundred tons of wood and steel, complement of five hundred flyers, plus room for a hundred Marines. Redundant Vrijdag engine nacelles by House Weijden, capable of hauling an additional twenty-five hundred tons of cargo as far as two thousand kilometers before refueling. Three thousand square meters of sail on three vertical masts and two wing masts. Dozens of two-person ornithopters, three troop-carrying skiffs.” Maria chewed her lower lip like what she was saying was the most interesting thing. “She’s escorted by two smaller corvettes, eight hundred tons each, Agile-class. Only two fighters each, carried outboard to port and starboard. Aren’t they grand?”

  She looked back at me, and her expression changed from childlike glee to something more guarded. “You are looking at me strangely.”

  “Yeah, you could say that. I’m about eighty percent sure you made all of that up. You did say about one word I recognized, so I’ll wait and see how you answer this simple question: What the hell?”

  “Which word was that?” she asked, one eyebrow arched.

  “Um,” I replied, abruptly off-balance. Why did I suddenly want to be careful with what I said? If this was anyone else, I’d roast them to medium well about being in love with airships. “Vrijdag spheres. They’re what gives an ornithopter lift. I, uh, guess big damn ones keep a battleship like that floating?”

  “Frigate.”

  What did you call just me? was the obvious joke, but it died in my mouth, and the easy, careless grin didn’t come. I stared at her lips instead. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “And yes, you guess correctly. Eight such spheres in each frigate nacelle; two in each corvette nacelle. All of them a good deal larger and more powerful than the Vrijdag spheres on a commercially available ornithopter.”

  “I’m sure,” I said, and swallowed, my throat dry. “Is your family in the airship business?”

  “No,” she said, and finally laughed, a rich and buttery sound. Her eyes glittered like a rare, clear sky. “No, no. Have you heard of Cantabile Vineyards?”

  “Yeah, actually. We have a case or two at the hotel.” In truth we had a great deal more, but time would come soon enough to tell her about all that. “I’m not a wine girl, but it’s pretty good.”

  A wry smile pulled at her lips. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “So what’s the story with you and the floating death traps?”

  “My father served as a cavalry officer for twenty years and secured an estate in the north in exchange for his long service and victories in the field. I think Father would have rather joined the Air Corps than the Army, but he grew up a vaquero’s son on a horse ranch, and so I suppose he was destined for cavalry. We—that is, my siblings and I—grew up hearing fantastic stories of heroism about the Air Corps. It’s only natural that we’d learn something about the ships.” Maria looked up, like she was recalling something pleasant. “If you think I’m mad about airships, you should meet my older brother Josef. Now, he is in love with them. I remember him building scale models of every kind of ship when we were children. He would love nothing more than to take a commission, command his own ship of the line, and have all sorts of adventures out on campaign. It’s a pity that he’s the eldest.”

  “A pity.”

  I wasn’t sure what being eldest had to do anything, but I could wait on learning that. I’d met Josef once or twice. He was about my age, but that was where the similarities stopped. It was hard to square the reality of that severe, cruel-eyed man with Maria’s fanciful notion of a boy wanting to captain his own airship. The Josef I knew seemed mostly occupied with scowling and doing his damnedest to keep Henriette from setting the city on fire.

  We were quiet for a minute or two. I thought of a few things I wanted to say to her, but they all sounded crazy. Regardless, some little voice in the back of my head was telling me that she could be my ticket out of the life, that maybe I could get away from Lange’s grasping fingers.

  Maria broke the silence. “Kaeri, what can you tell me about Rademaker?”

  “They’re a family business, you could say. Not as prestigious as Cantabile or your peers up in the Middle.”

  She shrugged. “Yes, I don’t think I’ve read of them in the society pages.”

  “Yeah. Lange and Rademaker are old families in the Lower Terrace, but not too respectable. They’ve got their fingers in brothels and back alley gambling joints and forgery studios and lots of other things. Short version is this: they don’t get along with each other, and one family is always looking to get a step ahead of the other and keep clear of the law at the same time.”

  “I understand,” she replied, looking down. She twisted her hands in her lap. “I suppose even unsavory things like that have a market. What is your . . . what is your affiliation with
Lange?”

  “Just exactly that—affiliat.” Part of my brain screamed at me to shut up. There was no reason she needed to know anything about me and Lange. The words spilled out anyway, like a busted-open wine cask. “Entry-level position, you could say, and never mind that I’ve been with the family ten years.”

  “Ten years,” she repeated, astonishment flashing in her eyes. “But that must be most of your life! Your working life, in any case.”

  “Yeah. I stumbled into Lange’s loving grasp when I was sixteen. So there was childhood, the parochial school after my parents died, and then this thing with Lange. Real sad story.” I didn’t want to linger on any of this. My words came tumbling out faster now, like I couldn’t wait to shut up. “Anyway, being an affiliat means I run errands, among other things. This package came from the hand of Kasper, the number-two guy in the Lange outfit and the Boss’s only son. Kasper knows I’m fast on my feet and can handle myself in a fight, so he gave me this errand. Whatever this thing is, it’s important enough that he singled me out, and valuable enough that the Rademakers sent an important someone to snip it.”

  Maria tapped her chin. “That boy Tommy was someone notable? He was very poorly attired.”

  “Well, he hasn’t made much of a name for himself yet. He’s an affiliat like me, right? But he dropped hints about his big sister. If I’m right, he’s Vedette Sforza’s kid brother, and I might have stepped into a world of trouble.”

  “Ah,” Maria replied. She frowned thoughtfully out the window, regarding the ships again. “Then so have I, I must conclude. I take it Mevrouw Sforza is quite the thing among your circles?”

  “You can say that. Vedette is raadsman of the Rademaker family. She’s young for the job; our own raadsman Ludo is fifty-something, and Vedette can’t be older than thirty. But she’s cruel, efficient, ruthless, and loyal to her boss. I heard she once gutted one of her own soldaten from navel to neck because he was skimming a few guilders off some Rademaker racket. She makes things happen for Rademaker; she’s their rising star. Tommy would have to do something big to outshine her.”

  “It can be difficult to live in a shadow like that.”

  I sucked my teeth and thought of Wolfgang. “Ain’t that the sorry truth?”

  “And now I have crippled the boy.” She sighed.

  “Don’t feel sorry about that. He would have killed one of us. Anyway, it’s not like he’d have an easy time getting even with you.” I wiggled the fingers of my right hand.

  “Yes, but I now have made an implacable enemy of his sister. She will want satisfaction. If she is truly as terrible as you say, then I will either become famous in your circles for destroying her, or she will kill me in some truly embarrassing manner.”

  I wanted to tell her that things didn’t work like that. There were no formal duels, no impartial judges, no cheering crowds paying for the privilege to watch one noble kill another. Even so, Maria wasn’t wrong. She might have been green, but she knew about vengeance and vendettas well enough.

  “Sometime soon you shall have to tell me all you know of this person. How does she fight; what weapons does she favor; is she large and strong, or small and quick? ‘Know your opponent, and know yourself,’ my father says. He also says . . .” She trailed off, her face suddenly still, her eyes cast down.

  My hand opened and reached out like it was going to take hers or touch her shoulder or something. But then the bells chimed overhead, and the tiles on the sign at the front of the car spun and clattered for a few seconds before settling on next stop: beachside station, zuider strand. The train slowed, and passengers started moving toward the doors.

  * * *

  Midday commuters bustled in and out of Beachside Station as the Cirkel rattled overhead to its next stop. The usual assortment of pickpockets and prostitutes was thin on the ground in these parts, which was fine by me. Less chance of being spotted by a passing Rademaker thug. I could only see two aerostats aloft, and neither was blinking all that urgently. A passing pair of cops strolled by, scarcely giving us a second glance.

  We made our way through the press of bodies in the station and stepped out onto a boardwalk on the beach, where seagulls and scavenger dactyls wheeled and whined overhead, ever eager for a bite. Behind us lay the Zuider Strand beach, where scores of good people with their folding chairs and big umbrellas streamed forward to get a bit of relaxing in on a sunny Restday. I couldn’t remember the last time I got to lounge on the beach, and this Restday didn’t look likely for that kind of thing, either. Before us was the embankment of the seawall, some six meters high, and the Lower Terrace lay beyond that.

  Stoplights chimed as we reached the top of the staircase, stopping traffic to let a streetcar cross. Commuters of all kinds hustled to wherever they were going—factory workers, accountant-monks, clerks, and delivery girls—all the good people who still had to work on a Restday. The low hum of a city at work soaked up through my boots and into my bones.

  “Ah, commerce!” Maria said, quiet and breathless. “How delightful it is to see all these workers at their business and consumers taking part in the Great Economy. Isn’t it delightful, Kaeri?”

  I almost laughed, but stopped when I saw Maria’s beatific smile flashing at the whole street. “Pipe down, Mother Superior. You’re laying on the acolyte routine a little thick.”

  She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and spoke behind her hand. “Am I not playing the part correctly?”

  “Mother Kaiaa, no.” A momentary flash of guilt flickered through my guts at taking the Mother God’s name in vain, but it passed. “You talk a little high-class and pious for this part of town, is all I’m saying. Come on, just a few blocks this way.”

  Maria nodded and pulled her hood over her head. As we walked the two blocks to our destination, she drew the occasional stare from the newsboys and shoeshine girls and assorted passersby. Fortunately, her stiff, noble carriage came across as the businesslike righteousness reserved for the clergy.

  I hopped up the stairs leading to the door of C. D. Lewis Engineering, an unassuming brick box on the corner of Barrier and Wheelwright Streets. The door was locked, predictably enough. I knocked, and a thick, squashed-face slab of a man in an ill-fitting black suit answered the door. I knew the man: Jurgen Penders, an uncomplicated soldat who either scowled at everyone out of long habit or was just really ugly. Maybe both.

  “Help you? Oh,” he said, the scowl changing a little. “It’s you.”

  “Morning, sunshine. How’s your mother doing?”

  “About the same,” he replied, his face softening just a bit more. “Rot-lung is doing her in, but what can you do?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and gave him a sympathetic grimace. “The city air is no good for nice old ladies like that. Give her my best, huh?”

  “Thanks.” His voice was a thing felt through the bones. “Did you need the little guy for something?”

  “Yeah—delivery from Kasper for Lewis. He around?”

  A minor sort of thunderclap shook the air, and the stoop under my feet vibrated. Jurgen rolled his eyes and jerked his head in the direction of the workshop. “Give you two guesses.”

  We had a good laugh, and I said, “Anyway, I’ll just take it to him.”

  “Sure. Hey, what’s this, though?”

  Maria, for all her height and bearing, had somehow made herself scarce. She was standing right behind me the whole time, but she had this funny way of not being noticed until a body couldn’t help but notice her.

  “Her? Oh, she’s all right.”

  “Yeah, but what is she? I ain’t seen her ‘round before.” Suspicion creased his forehead, and I knew the cogs would turn the wrong way soon if I didn’t talk fast.

  “She’s, you know. A friend.” I leaned on the last word and let him draw his own conclusions from it. “Wants to see the life, like they do. Nothing serious.” I winked and let him see my tongue touch my front teeth.

  “Oh,” he said, and after a few moments, realiz
ation dawned on his face. His eyes got wider by about a millimeter, and they raked over my body, dressed in the ill-fitting school uniform. “Oh! Right, right, I got you. But, uh. A church mouse? And you in that? That’s all, um. Different.”

  I ground my teeth; Maria didn’t make a sound or shift her feet. “You’ve probably heard that my tastes don’t run the same as most of the other girls in our outfit.”

  He nodded, his eyes glassy with whatever wild imaginings his tiny brain could manage. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “So you heard right. But listen.” I lowered my voice so he would have to focus on me. “I ain’t exactly ready to show her off at the club, if you catch my drift. So I’d take it as a personal favor if you kept it under your hat.”

  Jurgen’s monumental mind worked that over for a minute, and he finally came to a conclusion. “Yeah, all right. Just between you and me.”

  “Thanks, Jurgen. I’ll drop by and visit your mom soon, all right?”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, smiling for once. “You know, you got too good a heart for this business.”

  * * *

  We were in the foyer when Cornelius Dominic Lewis burst in from his workshop, a coil of smoke following him. The ladoni was the size of an underfed ten-year-old boy, but cursed like the saltiest sailor alive. Soot blackened his face and hair; only two pale circles around his eyes were clean, and the goggles around his neck were filthy. Lewis coughed, and tears cut streaks down his sooty cheeks. Under all the grime, I knew, was a silver-haired prodigy of an engineer. I didn’t know the full story, but I knew he and the Boss’s mother were tight from way back.

  From the corner of my eye, I could see Maria holding the back of her hand to her nose, and I couldn’t blame her. Lewis did smell like rotten eggs and burnt metal. I waited for his coughing fit to subside.

  “Blasted nuisance, that mercury fulminate! I don’t know why I b—” He caught sight of us. “But what’s this?”

  “Delivery for you, Meneer Lewis,” Jurgen said, settling himself behind a desk two sizes too small for him.