Sun of Suns

CHAPTER NINE

"THERE'S NO SIGN." muttered Slew, the head carpenter. Hay-den shot him an incredulous look. There certainly was no garish, brightly colored sign over the entrance to Warea. "You mean one that says 'Loot Me'?" he asked.

"How does it work?" Mahallan climbed down from one sidecar of the bike as Hayden reached out to clip a line to the nearest strut of the entrance framework. They floated just outside the dark shaft that led into Warea; nobody had come out to greet them. Mahallan's question was unnecessary, though. The scaffolding of the entrance shaft stuck ten feet out of the water, far enough to make it plain how it was constructed.

"Look, it's simple," he said, slapping the translucent wall of the shaft; it made a faint drumming sound. The builders of Warea had taken a simple wooden skeleton, the sort the Rush docking tubes were made of, and wrapped it in wax paper. Then they'd stuck the assembly into the side of the sea, like a needle into the skin of a giant. Up this close, he could see faint striations of tangleweed matted under the surface of the water. Warea probably cultivated the stuff—which was an animal, not a plant—to provide structural integrity to the vast ball of water in which they lived. Without it, a stiff breeze could tear the sea apart.

The shaft made an impenetrably dark hole in the water, unlit, possibly leading nowhere—except that a tickle of air teased Hayden's brow, and his bike was slowly being sucked inward.

"We're wasting time." Carrier kicked forward, his foot-fins driving him quickly into the dark. Hayden flipped off the bike and gestured for Martor to follow. Mahallan was already inside the tunnel, flanked by the carpenters.

Inside there was little to tell they were entering a world of water. The tunnel was a lattice of beams, like those of any freefall scaffold. The surface stretched between them could have been stone in the dimness of lamplight. Only the clammy chill suggested the nearby presence of the sea.

"I would have thought the walls would bulge inward or something," said Mahallan. "But of course they don't. No gravity, no pressure."

"I've heard that word before," said Martor in an overly casual way. "Gravity. Spin makes it, right?"

Mahallan had been doing a hand-over-hand walk along the struts. Now she stopped to look at Martor, and in the dim light he saw her eyes had gone wide. "Sometimes I forget," she murmured, "that the strangest of things here are the ones I talk to."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" But she had turned away already. Ahead, Carrier shouted for them to be quiet.

He was silhouetted by flickering lamplight from a number of fan-driven lanterns. Beyond him the tunnel opened up into a broad space—a cubic chamber walled in wax paper and about forty feet on a side. This was a hangar, Hayden realized, for it was filled with bikes and other flying devices. The air here was cold and damp but the six men who were pointing their rifles at the newcomers didn't seem to feel it. They were uniformly dressed in dark leathers, and their narrow pale faces had the sameness of kin. It seemed like a small welcoming committee, but Hayden was sure that the faint motion of the paper walls next to him indicated more men hiding in the water outside.

"State your business," said their leader, who was clearly the oldest. The father of the others, perhaps?

"Trade," said Carrier. "Carpentry supplies. We can pay you whatever you think is appropriate."

"We're not trading," said the older man. "Be on your way."

There was a momentary silence; Carrier hung perfectly still. "What now?" Mahallan whispered to Hayden. "Does he threaten them?"

Hayden shook his head. "It's hardly worth our while to fight a pitched battle for some nails and wood, and they know it. I don't know what he'll—" He stopped, because Carrier was speaking again.

"As you can plainly see," he said, "our charting expedition is well-enough supplied that we don't need your help. But it'll shorten our stay if you do help us."

"Charting?" The older man looked alarmed. "Charting what?"

"Oh, just the various objects in this part of winter," said Carrier with a negligent wave of his hand. "Forests, rocks, lakes—anything that might drift into our space someday. Or that might be useful or militarily significant."

"We're of no use to nobody," said the leader. He was visibly tense now. "We want to be left alone."

"Well, then," purred Carrier, "I'm sure our captain could be persuaded to leave one or two objects off of the charts. If, that is, we received something in return."

"Wait here." The man turned and left through a prosaic-looking door that opened out of the hangar's far wall. A few minutes later he returned, looking unhappy. "Come ahead," he said. "You can trade."

So it was that they entered Warea and learned how the cast-out and the fugitive lived in the empty spaces between the nations. The walls of the short corridor between the hangar and the town complex glowed from distant lamplight; long shadows cast on the paper walls suggested some sort of layered barrier between the cold of the sea and the town. In fact as they passed through the next door the temperature rose and the dampness receded. The silhouetted bodies of the people in front of Hayden split off one by one, opening more and more of the space to his view until he was there himself, gaping about at the cave that was Warea.

Mostly it was just a cube like the hangar, but several hundred feet across. Floating in this space in a disorganized jumble were various multisided houses, each one tethered to its neighbors or the space's outer struts. Numerous openings led off from the main cube, some terminating almost immediately in walls of gelid water, others twisting away, their lamplit outlines faintly visible through the paper walls of the cave. The place reeked of burning kerosene and rot but it was reasonably warm, and the big industrial lanterns with their grumbling fans at least prevented an aura of total gloom from overtaking the citizens.

Some of these were staring in open hostility as Carrier led his group into their crowded airspace. The town elders who had decreed that they could enter had discretely retreated, or chose to remain anonymous within the mass of people. Carrier stopped to ask directions and while he did, Hayden examined the people. They had a familiar look: sallow, overstretched, and glum. For the most part they were exiles who remembered growing up within the light of a sun. Unhappy they might be, but few of them showed the signs of weight-deprivation.

In a few minutes he saw why. The far wall of the cube was moving—swinging up and to the left with a constant rumble that quivered the walls. The cube was only part of Warea. An entire town was embedded in the sea, and on part of its rotation the wheel passed through the cube like a giant saw cutting into a block of wood. Hayden watched houses, shops, and markets pop out of the cube's wall and swing up to vanish through the ceiling in steady and relentless motion.

"It's not a small place," muttered Carrier. "There's two markets. Dry goods on the wheel, Armorer. Building materials here."

"We'll split up, then," said Mahallan helpfully.

"I'll join you in a few minutes," said Carrier with a disapproving frown. "Watch yourselves."

Hayden, Martor, and the armorer watched the others vanish into a cloud of people in the building market. The place was crowded with huge baskets filled with white bricks and beams. "Looks like they'll find what they need right off," said Mahallan worriedly. "Let's hurry, we wouldn't want to keep them waiting."

Hayden shrugged and turned to coast in the direction of the wheel's axis. "I didn't see any wood back there," he commented.

"But what was all that white stuff?"

"Same as these houses are built with." He did a course correction by slapping one on the way by. Its white brick surface undulated slightly. "Paper. They fold origami bricks and beams in triangular sections and then fill them with water. You get beams and bricks that are stiff and incompressible."

"Really?" She seemed inclined to stop and admire the buildings. Hayden pressed on; now that he'd escaped Carrier's roving eye, he could run an errand of his own.

Mahallan and Martor caught up to him as he was entering the big barrel-shaped axis of the wheel. A sullen local flapped by on ragged foot-wings, and the armorer watched him go. "Who are these people?" she asked. "They don't seem happy to see us."

"Refugees, most of them," he said. "A lot of them will be from Aerie, which was conquered by Slipstream about ten years ago. And some are pirates."

"This is a pirate town?" Mahallan laughed in apparent delight as they hand-walked down the top few yards of the yin-yang staircase that led to the rim of the wheel.

Where the curve of the staircase began to flatten out the rungs of the staircase were replaced with steps, at first improbably tall ones. As Hayden flipped over and began using his feet he said, "You asked who these people are. Can I ask who you are?You don't seem to know the first thing about how the world operates, and yet you're our armorer. That's more than a little…"

"Odd?" Mahallan shrugged. "It's a fair question. But I'm surprised nobody told you. I'm not from Virga."

"Told you," mouthed Martor behind her back.

"Then where…?"

The nearly vertical staircase rapidly leveled out as they descended past the town's rooftops. Weight and the familiar, homey sensation of vertigo increased with each step. As she entered gravity, Mahallan seemed to shrink. Her normally cheerful face was clouded by unhappiness.

"Where is a difficult thing to answer," she said. "My world isn't like yours. Oh, I expect you'd think I mean that I come from a planet, with land and mountains and so on." Hayden had never heard either of these words before, but he kept his expression neutral as Mahallan went on. "But the rules… of reality… you might say… are different in my world. Identity and location are very fluid things. Too fluid. Too arbitrary; I prefer it here."

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

"Good," she said with a sad smile. "That means we can still be friends."

They had reached the street. Down had made itself forcefully known, and if it wasn't quite perpendicular to the decking but heavily skewed in the direction of the town's rotation, it was still comfortable to Hayden. "That looks like the market up there," he said, pointing.

"Excellent." Her smile was back. "Let's look for some chemicals I need.They'll likely be lurking in ordinary household materials—"

"Listen, I'll catch up to you," said Hayden. "I need to, uh, use the privy."

"Oh, well, whatever. We'll just be up here." She and Martor walked away, heads leaning together in intense dialogue. Hayden watched them go for a minute, then paced in the opposite direction.

He'd had time to scribble a few lines while fetching his coat. The folded scrap of paper in his pocket seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. Even now, as he hurried to find the local post office, he doubted the wisdom of his decision.

The paper read:

The Occupants

Strut Fourteen, Trorap L'oeil Elevated Platform

Quartet 1, Cylinder

Rush, Slipstream th Recession, Year 1580 A.V.

Seven Ships of the Slipstream Expeditionary Force split off from the main party near the diametric border of .Aerie on 1st of Recession. The ships are the Severance, the Tormentor, the Unseen Hand, Rush's Arrow, the Clarity, the Arrest, and the Rook. ADMIRAL FANNING IS COMMANDING THE ROOK.*

These ships continued on a diametric course outward from Aerie for four days before stopping at the winter town of Warea. Their destination after this is UNKNOWN, but they are all equipped for winter navigation and well supplied.

The expedition appears urgent. Also aboard are Lady Fanning and an armorer from outside Virga named Aubri Mahallan.

Regardless of the ultimate purpose of this force, its absence from the main body of the fleet may make for a strategic advantage.

Yours,

A reluctant recruit

Mail was an adventurer's game in winter. There were no regular lines, just bags exchanged by ships and the occasional courier who flew dedicated runs, dodging pirates, weather, and the beasts of the void. These men were used to hand-deliveries—and to not asking questions. Provided Hayden paid well enough, he was reasonably sure his little envelope would get through.

The town didn't have a post office as such, but after asking a couple of locals he was directed to the mendicant's lodge. The bartender there handled what little mail came out of the town.

He had just found the place and was tensely walking up to the doors when a hand fell on his arm.

"You're a bit late," someone snarled.

Hayden whirled to face the man. "Do I know…" But he did know him.

Bright gray eyes in a pasty-white face stared up at him. "You were due to meet us at the docks, what… a year ago, was it? Just come to trust you, and the first day we let you loose on your own, you fly."

"I got detained, Milson," said Hayden as he backed away.

"Detained, sure." Milson sneered. "Desertion's a crime, little rat." He loosened his sword in its scabbard. "You better come with me."

"Excuse me," said Carrier, who had appeared out of nowhere. He smiled vapidly at Milson then turned to Hayden. "Where are the others?"

"Er, just up the street. Listen, I—"

"Come, then." Carrier took Hayden's elbow and turned him about, smiling at Milson in a dismissive manner.

"Oh no you don't—" Hayden heard the scrape of a sword being drawn behind them; then suddenly Carrier wasn't at his side anymore. He heard a swishing sound and a faint "urk" but in the second it took for him to turn he missed all the action. Carrier and Milson were walking together toward an alley; Carrier had one arm around Milson's greasy shoulder and only an observant man would have noticed that Milson's feet weren't quite touching the ground.

The two men entered the alley. One, two, three, four… Carrier emerged, dusting his hands, every bit the mild bureaucrat again. He smiled at an old woman as he passed her and fell into an easy stride next to Hayden.

"What was that all about?" he asked. His voice was flat, completely belying his jovial expression.

"Uh… apparently they resent the presence of battleships outside their doors," Hayden improvised. "I think I was about to get mugged. Thanks."

"I'm not here to clean up your messes," hissed Carrier. "Understand this: if there's a next time, I'll laugh along with the crowd when they stick you." He smiled. "Now, let's make sure the other two aren't being similarly harassed."

Hayden put a hand in his pocket. Before they'd gone twenty feet he'd balled the message into a tight wad; when Carrier turned his head away for a moment, he angrily flicked it onto a pile of trash.

So much for joining the Resistance.