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He didn’t respond, except to slowly blink his angled brown eyes.
Cly’s big head poked up from the portal in the floor. “Sorry about that,” he said to Briar. “I should’ve warned you. Fang’s all right, but he’s just about the quietest son of a bitch I ever met. ”
“Does he…” she began, and then feared it might be rude. She asked the man in the loose-fitting pants and the mandarin jacket, “Do you speak English?”
The captain answered for him. “He doesn’t speak anything. Someone cut out his tongue, but I don’t know who or why. He understands plenty, though. English, Chinese, Portuguese. God knows what else. ”
Fang stepped away from Briar and placed a cloth satchel down on a seat off to the left. He pulled an aviator’s cap out from the bag and put it on his head. There was a hole cut out of the back of the hat so that he could thread his ponytail through it.
“Don’t worry about him,” Cly emphasized. “He’s good people. ”
“Then why is he called Fang?” Briar asked.
Cly scaled the steps and began crouching. He was too tall to comfortably stand in his own cabin. “As far as I know, that’s his name. This old woman in Chinatown, down in California—she told me it means honest and upright, and it doesn’t have anything to do with snakes. I’m forced to take her word for it. ”
“Out of the way,” demanded another voice.
“I am out of the way,” Cly said without looking.
From below came another man, grinning and slightly fat. He was wearing a black fur hat with flaps that came down over his ears, and a brown leather coat held together with mismatched brass buttons.
“Rodimer, this is Miss Wilkes. Miss Wilkes, that’s Rodimer. Ignore him. ”
“Ignore me?” He feigned affront as he failed to feign disinterest in Briar. “Oh, I should dearly pray that you wouldn’t!” He seized one of Briar’s hands and gave it a dry and elaborate kiss.
“All right, I won’t,” she assured him, reclaiming her hand. “Is this everyone?” she asked Cly.
“This is everyone. If I carried anyone else we wouldn’t have room for cargo. Fang, see about the ropes. Rodimer, the boilers are hot and ready to spray. ”
“Hydrogen check?”
“Topped off over in Bradenton. Ought to be good to go for another few trips. ”
“So the leak’s patched?”
“Leak’s patched. ” Cly nodded. “You,” he said to Briar. “You ever flown before?”
She admitted that she hadn’t. “I’ll be all right,” she told him.
“You’d better. Any spills are your own, and you clean them up. Fair deal?”
“Fair deal. Should I sit down somewhere?”
He scanned the narrow cab and didn’t see anything that looked comfortable. “We don’t usually take passengers,?
?? he said. “Sorry, but there’s no first-class in this bird. Pull up a crate and brace yourself if you want to see outside, or”—he waved an enormous arm toward a small, rounded door at the back of the craft—“there’s sleeping spots in the back area, just hammocks. Not one of them is fit for a lady, but you can sit there if you want. Do you get sick from moving?”
“No. ”
“I’d ask that you be damned sure before you get too comfortable back there. ”
She cut him off before he could say any more. “I don’t get sick, I said. I’ll stay out here. I want to see. ”
“Suit yourself,” he said. He grabbed a heavy box and pulled it over the floor until it was next to the nearest wall. “It’ll be an hour before we get to the wall, and then it’ll take half again that long to set up for the drop and catch. I’ll try to set you down someplace… well, there’s no place safe in there, but—”
Rodimer sat up straight and jerked his head around to look at Briar. “You’re going inside?” he asked in a voice too deliberately melodic for a man his size and shape. “Good God almighty, Cly. You’re going to dump the lady off behind the wall?”
“The lady made a very persuasive case. ” Cly watched Briar from the corner of his eye.
