Crystal Rain (29 page)

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Authors: Tobias S. Buckell

BOOK: Crystal Rain
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A faint frost had formed on the rigging. Oaxyctl pressed his fingers to a railing and let the cold seep into the palms of his hands. His fingernails were black and he stank. Black grease and dirt clung to his clothing. He’d been in the deepest bilges of the ship, moving pump hoses around to suck water out. They kept taking in water from leaks. Leaks from the shot taken to the front of the ship, and the explosion in the rear. Even the massive stuffing box where the propeller came in through the hull had started to leak.
Now he had a moment to rest, and he chose to clamber up the deck to the bowsprit. He shimmied out along the long pole and dropped onto the netting just below it.
Hard work was good. It had kept him from thinking about the attack. It had shaken him. He still wasn’t sure if it was an attempt to capture them all or kill them all. Remember, he told himself, your god seems to think different than some other gods.
There was a thought that could keep a man up late into the night.
And it was best not to think about.
So the work was good, it kept his mind away from such things.
The sea remained calm tonight. The days had been getting shorter, it seemed to him. The moons seemed to be out more often. And the air was getting colder.
It was like climbing a mountain. The higher you got, the colder it got. And this was the second week of it.
Oaxyctl lay back in the netting and watched the stars, occasionally catching a bit of lighthearted spray on his back as
La Revanche
pushed farther north on the large, almost infinite ocean, until the last faint bits of orange evening succumbed to the gradual night.
How could someone obey the gods when the gods themselves couldn’t agree with one another?
 
 
Oaxyctl held up the bight of a line, the loop flopping over, and tied a sheepshank.
“You still know your other knots?” John asked. He limped over with the aid of a cane. Oaxyctl noted that the bandage around John’s thigh was stained with blood from his injury, and John winced in pain as he moved.
“Yes.” Oaxyctl pulled the knot apart and demonstrated the bowline, the sheepshank, a simple square knot, and a sheet bend.
John grunted and sat down next to him. He set the quickly cut wooden cane next to him. “Isn’t there enough land on the other side of the mountains? Why do the gods think the invasion is necessary?”
Oaxyctl looked down at the rope between his hands. “They do not do this for land.”
“Then what for?”
John was looking for answers. Oaxyctl could hear it in his voice. John will die, he realized. That bullet wound, it was a killer. Not then, but in the near future. And John wanted answers before he died.
But
when
would John die? Oaxyctl wondered. Before or after they found what they were searching for? The mythical
Ma Wi Jung
that all seemed to desire. More important, could he get the codes out of John before that time?
“They need more blood. They need more land. More servants. They tell their people, go here, move over the mountains. Most cannot make sense of these orders. But gods are gods, and who are we to know what they direct in the long run?”
John rapped his hook against the deck. “I don’t believe in gods.”
The declaration didn’t surprise Oaxyctl. He’d been around Nanagadans too long, he thought. Too many different ideas, religions, and peoples.
The thought of living a life without the threat of sacrifice seemed pleasurable. Though he’d once thought dying for the gods the greatest honor, at the gut level dying still scared Oaxyctl. He’d confirmed that heretical survival instinct
to himself, shaking and scared in the mud, on the outskirts of Brungstun.
But then, without the direction of the gods, how could someone live his own life? There would be no certainty in anything.
It was just as scary as facing the eagle stone.
“How can you not believe in gods?” Oaxyctl asked. “You see them walking the ground! The gods of Capitol City are there for any to see.”
John pulled his good leg up to his chin. He looked tired. “If I were the only black-skinned man to appear in Aztlan, and no one had ever seen such a thing, and I called myself a god, would you believe me?”
Oaxyctl shook his head. “You would have to prove it.”
John smiled. “Your priests. They have a lot of power?”
“They control all. It is the greatest position in society.” Oaxyctl cocked his head. “Why do you ask?”
“Because.” John looked through the scuppers at the sea. “After this, we will have to go into the heart of Azteca land and stop this at the source.” His face hardened. “One must understand the enemy to effectively combat him.”
It sounded both like John, and unlike him. The man was changing. All this stress. Before he seemed content to follow, and now he was thinking of other things.
“Am I your enemy?” Oaxyctl asked.
John shook his head. “You are a friend.” He craned his head back. “It is getting very cold. Look.” He exhaled; a faint puff of his breath hung in the air for a second.
Oaxyctl nodded. “I think soon we will see … what is it called?” He struggled to translate the words for a second. “Crystal rain?”
John smiled. “That’s a nice description. It is snow. Not a word we use often at home, but you see it in books sometimes. Stories. Tales of brave fishermen going far north, some disappearing.”
Oaxyctl leaned back and exhaled to see his own breath. “Yes, sometimes you can see it on the mountains. At their very tops. I’ve seen it a few times, when out scouting.”
When he stood up to help John struggle to his feet, the
wind shifted, and it blew right through his clothes. It was cold enough to make him shiver. Like going up a mountain, he thought.
 
A faint tapping woke him up. Oaxyctl blinked, looking for the source. His hammock shook as someone brushed against it.
“
Quimichtin?
” a voice asked.
The word made Oaxyctl shiver. Spy. He swallowed. If he answered yes, would he die?
“Azteca-man, you here?” the voice whispered.
“Yes,” Oaxyctl said.
The sailor he had met in the rigging looked over into his hammock. He looked scared. “Come with me.” The man carried an old, hooded electric lantern. A small, single beam of light broke the darkness, then flicked off again.
“It came aboard during the attack,” the man explained. “Them attack, just a diversion to place it aboard. Seen?”
Oaxyctl didn’t. He hesitated, not sure what the man was talking about. The man grabbed Oaxyctl’s hand. It was slimy, greasy with bilgewater. The faint smell of decay reached Oaxyctl. A familiar smell. Rotted flesh.
Together they moved down through the holds of
La Revanche
, careful not to wake anyone. The man popped open a hatch. Oaxyctl smelled dead flesh and heard water slopping around below.
“Come.”
Oaxyctl lowered himself into the brackish sludge, holding his nose. It came up to his knees. The water shifted around as the ship plunged into the rough waters, and tiny wavelets splashed the nasty water up against his crotch, making his privates shrink behind his cotton pants.
It was ice-cold enough that it hurt to breathe while wading through.
He bumped against the back of the man. The lantern flicked on, its single, concentrated beam flashing against dull, pitted metal and slimy water.
The beam of light rested on a giant lump of egg-shaped, black flesh hanging from the side of the hull.
“It speak to me,” the man said.
The egg stirred. Oaxyctl thought he could just see through it, to some familiar-edged shape beneath.
His heart almost stopped. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the pain of cold water around his waist.
“It tell me,” the man said, “we close to the northern land, where
Ma Wi Jung
lie. It say it waiting for you to deliver it the code because it changing for the cold weather. It waiting. If you do the job before it finish it change, it go reward you. If you fail again, it say you go suffer like you never suffer before and it go get the code anyway.”
“I understand,” Oaxyctl said. Either this was his god, and it had followed them all the way here, or it was another that knew about Oaxyctl and the plan to get the codes.
“Soon it go be free from it recovery here. So waste no time.”
Oaxyctl stood up, water draining from his pockets. “I will go at once.”
“Good. We done. Come.” The man shut the light off, plunging them back into the dark. The hair on the back of Oaxyctl’s neck rose. He struggled to turn around, leaving the god behind him. He rubbed his throat, remembering the feel of the claws around it, not so long ago.
Before they climbed back out of the hatch, Oaxyctl grabbed the man’s arm. “What is your name? I need for you to do something.”
“What you need?”
“We need to take control of this ship. We need to get John deBrun to ourselves.”
The man thought about it. “Okay. One of we high up in command here. We can throw enough doubt to turn this ship back around.”
“Who?”
The man sighed. “High up enough. Don’t ask.”
“Why not?” Oaxyctl asked, frustrated.
“The less who know, the better. I ain’t taking no chance.”
The man moved again. Oaxyctl took one last look at the dark water beneath the hatch, the ship’s bilges, then walked away. Behind him the hatch closed, squeaking as the wheel tightened it shut.
Still not enough metal between him and the incubating god. Oaxyctl would not be able to sleep knowing what rested in the lowest depths of the ship. You cannot escape the gods, he thought to himself.
 
 
Someone considered killing Pepper. Half of Pepper’s conscious mind heard them walk toward his hammock, then pause. Pepper waited, welcoming the attack, his nerves fired, senses tuned to every clink and squeak.
Then the would-be assassin changed his mind and ran.
Pepper let the rest of himself come up out of the resting state. The steamship was taking a pounding. His hammock swung from side to side and someone mewled and retched, scrunched up against the side of the flexing bulkheads.
Pepper crossed his arms over his chest and dropped back down toward sleep. His steely eyes could see his warm breath in the air, though no one else could discern anything but the failing oil lantern swinging at the center of all the hammocks.
Three days of this storm. A break before that. Another storm. They were crossing out of the warm waters into the cold. An abrupt and miserable transition.
The moment of alarm had passed. Pepper returned to his half-sleep without further thought, conserving energy for whatever lay ahead.
 
Today the storm blew itself out, passing them by with ominous low-sweeping clouds and explosions of lightning that sizzled and exploded into the waves in front of them.
Crew and mongoose-men alike crowded the decks, dressed as warmly as they could, carrying picks and tools to scrape at the elaborate formations of ice that clung to every surface of the ship.
Pepper joined, his fingers numb as he pried sheets of ice
away from the rigging. Right now they treated it as a joke, a novelty, taking their time. By tomorrow, Pepper realized looking around, the ice would begin to weigh down the ship. Then it would become a matter of scraping ice or drowning in the cold water.
He kept scraping. Everyone gave him a wide berth. Which was just how Pepper wanted it.
 
During a break in the scraping Pepper sat at the aft railing, watching the water and small bits of ice churned up by the propeller. To the starboard a large iceberg floated by, reflecting the sun off its clear sides. Mongoose-men and sailors thronged to the side of the ship to watch it and marvel.
John limped to his side. Pepper regarded the bandage around John’s thigh with suspicion. “You’re going to lose your leg.” John grimaced and gripped the aft rail with a gloved hand. The hook rested by his thigh. “Speaking of which,” Pepper continued, “why the hook? I spent some time in Capitol City before stowing aboard. They have the means to make a mechanical hand. Couldn’t you afford one?”
“No, I couldn’t.” John looked down. “Not with a family.” He turned his back to Pepper, watching the iceberg. “We’d better slow down at night, shouldn’t we? Do you think we can afford losing that time?”
“We’re close to land.” Pepper flicked a stray piece of ice over the side with his forefinger. “The icebergs calve big. Better to slow down.”
John nodded. “At least we’ll have access to freshwater soon.”
“And then?”
“Then we have a lot of work in front of us.”
“You up for that?”
“The sooner we find this device, the sooner we can figure out what the hell it does, the sooner we can return and use it against the Azteca.” John crouched in front of Pepper. And for a brief moment Pepper saw a bit of the old John that he knew, in command, fire and purpose in his eyes. “What is the
Ma Wi Jung?
”
Pepper smiled. “If you truly don’t have any of your memories …”
“Try me.”
Pepper thought about it. “I can use words, and make analogies, but they don’t really matter. It is technology. Advanced technology.”
“Everyone wants it. The Loa certainly want it, or control of it. Haidan thinks it might allow us an edge. And you say even the Azteca gods wish to stop us from getting it. Or want it themselves.”
“And you?” Pepper asked, curious.
“Can we attack the Azteca with it? Is it really a weapon?”
“Not really the weapon anyone thinks it is,” Pepper said, half-lying. It made him nervous. John might have amnesia, but was he still good at ferreting out lies? Pepper didn’t want to undo any of the trust he’d built with this new John in front of him.
“Then I’ll drag it from the ice by my own hand,” John said. “If it helps us push them back over the mountains and helps me find my wife and son, then I’ll deliver it to Capitol City.”
“Strange. I still can’t get over it. John deBrun, settled down, raising a family. That’s certainly not the John I knew.”
John stood up. A loud crack split through the air, and the sides of the iceberg they had passed slumped into the water. A small, frothy wave washed toward them.
“That John is gone.” He pointed his hook at Pepper. “You’re the only one who remembers him, and you hardly speak to me about it.”
“Those things will come back, John.” If John had blocked his own memories, then Pepper wouldn’t force anything.
Too dangerous.
There was no context, no way he could even begin to draw a picture, unless John was a willing participant. Pepper wasn’t willing to risk doing anything damaging or dangerous by forcing out things the block was there for. “And nothing is gained by my telling you things right now. I will tell you what you need when the situation calls for it.”
John changed the subject. “You asked me why I want the
Ma Wi Jung
. But a better question is, what do you want it for?”
The steamship rocked as the wave slapped against the stern.
“You and I shared goals and concerns once,” Pepper said. “No doubt, when I help you get your memories back, we’ll share them again. Listen.” Pepper stood up, almost dwarfing the tired, anemic-looking John. “I can still see you, John. Some things don’t change. And one thing is that, even now, you’re the most dangerous man I ever met.”
He could see John calculating what to do with him still. And without the memories … Pepper knew he was an unknown. And a potential liability.
“You can’t throw me off the boat,” Pepper said. “You’ve seen me in action. The cost of life is too high. All you need to know is that I am an old acquaintance, and that you should keep me around. I will protect your life. What greater bargain is there?”
“
Acquaintance?
An interesting word choice.”
“We weren’t bosom buddies, John. People who do what we do don’t have that to spare.”
John shifted on the deck. Pepper saw the pain from walking. A sure sign the wound in John’s thigh was not getting any better.
John sighed. “Will you be able to help me find my family? Push back the Azteca?”
“I can’t guarantee anything, John.” Pepper looked around at the sea, at the coils of ropes on the deck, and not into John’s eyes as he thought for a moment. “But I will say there is something I
can
give you.”
“Yes?”
“Your old life back.” Pepper met John’s eyes. He kept them level, meeting John’s in a silent deadlock.
“You’ll give me my old life back, but not talk to me about my past?” Pepper nodded. “If you were the closest thing I had to a friend, Pepper, I don’t know if I want this old life back without my memories. I can see what you are, and that is just plain dangerous. And I don’t like it.”
No threats, no power games, just the truth, Pepper thought. “You’re right. For now I can’t remember your past for you, only you can do that, so you’re a player in a game you don’t even know the rules of. But if we make it to the
Ma Wi Jung
, you will be given your memories back. I will make it so. Then you will have your old life back, and you will know who you are, and you will know what to do.”
“Suppose I die rather than follow this ‘old life’?”
“I doubt that John. Die, and leave your family? You’re not that kind of coward.” John stiffened, and Pepper bit his lip. Bad choice of words. “Besides, I can’t let you do that.”
“Why?”
“You’re the key to the
Ma Wi Jung
. You are the only person on this planet that has the code to get in.” When Pepper had first stowed away, he’d searched John’s cabin, trying to figure out how they were hoping to get onto the
Ma Wi Jung.
He’d found an artifact from the wars, a device the Loa used to get in and take over ships. But not even that ancient device the Loa bred, and John was hiding from everyone else, would work quickly enough. It would take the Loa several weeks to take over, and even then, then it wouldn’t be of any use to the Loa who’d given it to John.
Ma Wi Jung
had been made for humans, and only humans, to use. That had been the agreement all those years ago when the Loa helped build the ship.
“Why am I the only person? Wouldn’t others have had the codes?”
Pepper cleared his throat. “
You’re
the code. Your skin, your blood. Your voice, your eyes, your fingerprint, your face, and most importantly, your heartbeat.” Because John had to be alive, and not coerced, for the ship to open up to them. And he had to grant Pepper permission to board. John was the only living human Pilot on this planet, and he didn’t have the capacity to realize it. “You’re it, the only person that can save this world.”
John looked at him with obvious incredulity. Pepper shrugged, long and languorously, his shoulders bunching.
“Anyway, right now these things don’t matter. We must first survive to get to the
Ma Wi Jung
.”
He stood up and walked away. Enough conversation. Verbal games annoyed him. It would have been a lot easier to grab John, and for Pepper to put the tip of his right index finger against John’s temple, then link up and shove the information down into his brain.
But that would kill John. The block on his memories would make sure of that.
Another iceberg approached the ship. Pepper watched it from the side rails, alone on the busy deck as people chipped at the ice still accumulating on the ship.
 
Later that night something else came to his attention. A hatch had opened somewhere, and he caught the faintest whiff. A faint smell. One he was surprised he hadn’t noticed before. Decay.
Teotl.
Pepper left his hammock and followed it. Several times he doubled back, losing it, but found himself moving down into the ship until he came face-to-face with a closed bilge hatch.
He opened it, carefully, quietly, then stopped. He sat next to it for a long minute, holding an internal conversation with himself that even he didn’t recognize.
A casting of the odds.
Would he live if he crawled down into the water?
Not sure.
A Teotl was down there. Damn creature. Probably waiting in molt, growing into a more focused hunter-killer.
The creature’s casing at this stage would be impermeable to gunfire or spears or anything Pepper could muster just now, unless he provoked it into coming out. He didn’t have the tools to pull it off the wall, either.
It would have the advantage, knowing he was there, waiting until he tired before it emerged. Then Pepper would be the one on defense. And he didn’t like that, not at all. Not in this small space.
No, he decided. Better not to let it know he was here. Let
it make its move. He’d been lucky back at Capitol City, with the kids to obscure the fight and confuse the Teotl; he might not be so lucky now.
Better to kill it when it was out of the case, more vulnerable, not aware he was out. Pepper always looked for advantages going against the Teotl.
He hadn’t lost a fight with one yet, but that didn’t mean anything.
They were efficient adapters, and dangerous enemies.
Pepper closed the hatch and dogged it back, aware that the odds of survival had just dropped.

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