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“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.
