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Intrigued, Andan Cly nodded. “So what are we talking about?” he asked. “Pitch and the like, for seals? Masks? Pump equipment?”
“All that and more. We need canvas, lumber, charcoal for filters, coal for the furnaces, and that’s just the beginning. ” He sighed. “Last week we ran out of coffee, and I thought the chemists would start an uprising. ”
“It can be a lifesaver,” Cly acknowledged. “Sharpens the mind, and the hands, too. ”
“That’s what they tell me. ” Yaozu abandoned the beer glass, now more empty than full. “This will be an enormous undertaking, and I’m happy to finance it. Minnericht was an able tinkerer, but some of his works are not so stable or permanent as one might wish. ”
The ensuing silence in the saloon was so thick, you could spoon it into a bowl. Cly realized that everyone had been listening in, but he was still startled to feel the eyes of everyone present glued to himself and Yaozu.
In a normal speaking voice, intended to be overheard, his companion added, “For now, things are as safe as always, of course. But there’s room for improvement, don’t you think? Here—” He pulled out some coins, one of which appeared to be pure gold. Placing them on the counter, he added, “Let us take a walk. We can discuss your fee. ”
Andan Cly wasn’t sure how he felt about taking a stroll with Minnericht’s former right-hand man, but there was more to be said, and Yaozu was unwilling to say it in front of an audience. The captain couldn’t blame him, so he shot Lucy a two-fingered wave and followed the Chinaman out the sealed door, into the dark, mulch-smelling spots beneath the city.
Both men carried gas masks for convenience or emergency, but the masks were not required in the unfinished basement wonderland. There, forests of brick created a dank labyrinth that unfolded with bends, kinks, and curves under the streets as far as the Seattle wall extended, in every direction. It would have been an impenetrable place, blacker than any night without a moon, except that lanterns were hung on hooks at the spots where corners crossed, and at the mouths of the tunnel entrances.
Yaozu unhooked a lantern and turned the knob to raise its wick. He offered the lamp to Andan Cly, who lifted it above his head. Courtesy of his prodigious height, the whole quarter was bathed in a yolk-yellow glow.
“This way, Captain. Toward the vaults. If we take the long way around, I can show you what I mean. ”
The corridor was wide and flanked by the exposed wet bricks that characterized so much of the underground’s topography. Its floor had been packed, but it was not paved in any way; the surface was soggy from the atmospheric moisture—seeping rains above, drizzling down long-dead tree roots and filtering past the houses and businesses of the polluted city.
The air captain and the oriental man walked side by side, their feet struggling slightly with the mu
cky path. And as they pushed onward, back farther and deeper away from the buried saloon called Maynard’s, Yaozu explained.
“I am fond of this particular passage. It sees little travel, partly because”—he gave his dirty boots a rueful gaze—“no one ever installed flagstones or slats. And up ahead, one of the walls has crumbled across the path. ”
“Then why do you like it so much?” Cly asked, doing his best to keep the lantern steady. But with every step, shadows danced and kicked to the sway of the light, up and down the moss-covered walls and along the black-mud footway.
“Because it very nearly connects our Chinatown to your vaults, and to the storage quarters back beneath Commercial Street. ”
Andan Cly said, “Huh. I can see why that would be useful. So you want to clean it out? Shore it up?”
“I do. However, two walls will need to come down in order to make the way passable by track and mining cart,” he replied, referencing the handcarts and buckets by which some of the residents moved supplies and toted important items. “And above those walls, new sections of street-level buildings must be sealed against the blight. ”
“Gotcha. ”
“Also, if we expand and fix this passage, we could turn one of the offshoot basements into another pump room. ”
“Do we need another pump room? The air’s plenty breathable down here. ”
“So far,” Yaozu agreed, “but in the last few weeks, the workers have been keeping longer hours, and more coal is being used to power the pumps. My engineers suggest that it’s a maintenance issue. Therefore, I wish to invest in maintenance procedures. I want to clean the pump tubes, all two to three hundred feet of them, one after another. ”
Cly made a low, worried whistle. “That sounds like a big job. ”
“Yes—a job that will require the pumps to be shut down for cleaning, one at a time. But before we can begin such a chore, supplementary pumps must be operational. Do you understand?”
“I do,” he said thoughtfully. Then he stopped and said, “And this must be the brick pile. ”
Yaozu nodded. “You first? Since you’re holding the light. ”
They scaled the bricks and slid down the other side. Cly dusted off his pants and observed, “The kind of thing you’re talking about … big renovations, big improvements … is going to take time. And money. ”
“Money we have, and time, too—though less of the latter than the former. ”
The path split before them, and Yaozu urged Andan Cly down the right fork.
“How much time?”
