Infernal Devices (25 page)

Fishcake was about to reply, but Shkin said, "Don't answer him, boy." One of the guards hit Tom again, knocking the air out of his lungs in a loud, wordless
woof.

"Fishcake has learned obedience," said Shkin. "He knows that if he disobeys me, I shall put him back in the holding

cells with his friends, and they will rip him to pieces for betraying Grimsby." He tore open Tom's waistcoat, pulled up his shirt, and traced with one gray-gloved finger the scars that had been left by Windolene Pye's amateur surgery. There was something like a smile on his face.

"The mayor of this city is a very irritating man, Mr. Natsworthy," he said. "I believe that you may be able to help me expose him as a fraud and a liar. But first your daughter will help me to retrieve something he has stolen from me. Who knows--if you cooperate, I might let you both go free." As he turned to his desk, he tossed the bracelet up into the air and caught it again. Leaning down to the brass mouthpiece of the intercom, he said, "Miss Weems, arrange a cell on the midlevels for Mr. Natsworthy, and have a bug ready to take me to the Old Steine at seven thirty. I think I shall be attending His Worship's ball after all."

Hester had already looked in through the front door of the pretty little tower once without seeing any sign of Tom. She had looked for him everywhere else that she could think of, hoping that he might have gone back to the
Screw Worm
before attempting to talk to the slavers, or circled back to the Pink Café. Now she was back outside the Pepperpot, feeling angry and faintly scared. She was sure Tom was in there, and that something bad had happened to him. The blinds had been drawn across the windows on one of the upper stories, and there was a bunch of black-overalled guards in the reception area, chatting to the snooty-looking woman there. Hester wondered if she should barge in and confront them, but she did not want to walk into the same trap as Tom.

The man outside saw her peering in again and stared, so she walked quickly past as if she were just a curious tourist and went into a coffee shop on the far side of the square, where she drank iced coffee through a straw and thought. This Shkin character must have decided to take Tom prisoner for some reason. Perhaps he thought Tom was connected with the Lost Boys. Well, that was not so big a problem. She would go and rescue him, just as Tom had come to rescue her when she had been a prisoner at Rogues' Roost.

But how to get inside that tower? The guard at the door was already wary of her, and with all these carnival crowds about she could not just shoot her way in. Oh, poor Tom! Why had he come here alone? He should have known that he couldn't cope on his own with people like this Nabisco Shkin.

She paid for her iced coffee and asked the waiter, "Is that Shkin's place? The tower? It looks too small to hold many slaves."

"It's got hidden depths," the waiter replied, glancing happily at the tip she put down on the table. "The cells and stuff are down below. That's where they're keeping all those horrible pirates."

Hester thought again of Rogues' Roost, and of how she had led Tom to safety through the confusion of a Lost Boy raid. Then she left the café, walking quickly, glancing down once to make sure that the gun in her belt didn't spoil the cut of her new coat.

***

AS THE SUN SANK red and fat into the haze above Africa, the breeze stiffened. Brighton began to rock gently on the long, white-capped, shoreward-rolling combers. Undaunted by the heaving pavements, parades of children trooped round Ocean Boulevard with bright banners and huge moon-shaped paper lanterns, and a thousand self-styled artists held private viewings in one another's houses.

"Keeps 'em busy, I suppose," said Nimrod Pennyroyal, gazing down philosophically at it all from one of Cloud 9's many observation platforms. "There are so many tenth-rate painters and performers on this city, we need a good festival every week or two to make them feel their silly lives are worthwhile." Drifts of bubbles swirled past him, vomited into the evening sky by an art installation in Queen's Park. The breeze brought carnival noises gusting up too: guitars

and cacophoniums jangling in the streets of the historic Muesli Belt, premature fireworks banging and shrieking on the seafronts.

On the blue-green evening lawns of the Pavilion gardens, between the shadows of the cypress groves, the guests were starting to gather. All the men wore formal robes, and the women looked wonderful in ball gowns of moonlight silver and midnight blue. Paper lanterns had been strung along all the walks and between the pillars of the bandstand, where some musicians were tuning up. The Flying Ferrets had arrived, looking terribly dashing in their fleece-lined flying suits and white silk scarves, talking loudly about "archie" and "bandits" and "crates" being "ditched in the briny." Orla Twombley, her hair lacquered into backswept wings, hung on Pennyroyal's arm.

Drinks and snacks were being served before the dancing began, and Wren was one of the people doing the serving. She felt pretty and conspicuous in her MoonFest costume-- baggy trousers and a long tunic made from some floaty, silvery fabric that she could not name--but the guests seemed not to notice her at all; they were interested only in the tray she carried. As she wove her way through the gathering crowds, hands reached out without a thank-you or a by-your-leave to snatch at her cargo of drinks and canapés.

Wren didn't mind. She was still tired and uneasy after the events of the night before. All day there had been an odd atmosphere in the Pavilion, with militiamen coming and going and security being tightened up. The other slave girls kept coming to ask Wren if she had really seen the body, and had there been ever so much blood? To make matters worse,

Mrs. Pennyroyal smiled knowingly at Wren every time she saw her, and kept finding excuses to send her into rooms where Theo Ngoni was, or Theo into rooms where Wren was, as if she hoped someone would write an opera about them one day and there would be a part for a soprano of a certain age as Boo-Boo Pennyroyal, the thoughtful mistress who made their love possible.

Strangely, all this kindness made Wren like Boo-Boo less: It was one thing to keep slaves, but quite another to try to arrange their love affairs. She felt that the mayoress was pairing her and Theo off like a couple of prize poodles.

So she was glad to be invisible for a while, to look and listen. And everywhere she looked, she saw someone she recognized from the society pages of the
Palimpsest.
There were Brighton's leading painters, Robertson Gloom and Ariane Arai. There was the gorgeous Davina Twisty, fresh from her triumph in
Hearts Akimbo
at the Marlborough Theatre. That man in the hat must be the sculptor Gormless, whose ridiculous artworks clogged the city's public spaces like barbed-wire entanglements. And wasn't that the great P. P. Bellman, author of atheistic pop-up books for the trendy toddler? Wren wondered how they would all feel if they knew that a man had been murdered, right here on Cloud 9, less than twenty-four hours ago.

She met Cynthia and asked her softly, "Is there any news?"

"News?" echoed Cynthia, as bright and brainless as sunshine.

"About poor Mr. Plovery? Have they found out who did it yet?"

"Oh!" Cynthia's golden ringlets jiggled as she shook her

head. "No. And Mrs. Pennyroyal says we ain't to talk about it. But what's all this I hear about you and Theo?"

"It's nothing. Just Boo-Boo's imagination."

"You're blushing, Wren! I knew you fancied him! I saw you talking to him that day at the pool, remember?"

Wren left Cynthia giggling and pressed on through the crowd, asking, "Would you care for a drink, sir? A canapé, madame?" and gathering up empty glasses and fragments of still emptier conversations.

"Just
look
what La Twisty is wearing!"

"You simply
must
meet Gloom, he's 50 amusing!"

"Have you read Bellman's latest? Quite brilliant! Some of the finest literature of our age is being written for the under-fives...."

Dusk deepened. Davina Twisty was persuading some friends and admirers to venture with her into Cloud 9's insanely complicated box-hedge maze. The band played "Golden Echoes" and "The Lunar Lullaby." Soon the moon would rise, and everyone would watch the fireworks before retiring to the Pavilion for dancing and more food. Wren, already exhausted, paused in a quiet part of the gardens near the deck plate's edge. It felt nice to be alone at last. She looked across the sea at the armored cities and thought how melancholy they looked, crouching there upon the dunes like the temples of a vanished race.

A hand crept onto her shoulder like a gray silk spider. Turning, she looked into the expressionless face of Nabisco Shkin.

"Enjoying the view, my dear?" he asked. "I hope none of His Worship's other guests has noticed you loafing here. The

Shkin Corporation has a reputation as a purveyor of only the most hardworking slaves."

Wren pulled away from him and tried to return to the light and laughter of the party but Shkin barred her way. What did he want with her? He must have been stalking her through the busy gardens, waiting for a moment when he could catch her alone. She felt cold and frightened. Raising her empty tray, she held it in front of her like a shield, but Shkin only laughed. She didn't like his laugh. She'd preferred it when he was silent and icy.

"Why would I harm you, child?" he asked. "I just want you to do a job for me, the simplest and smallest of jobs. Do you know where your new master keeps his private safe?"

Wren nodded.

"Good girl." Shkin held up a neat square of paper with a number written on it. "This is the combination. I'd like you to fetch me the Tin Book. I sent a friend for it yesterday, but I hear he met with an accident."

Wren lowered her tray, thinking of poor Mr. Plovery.

"Don't look so glum!" Shkin told her. "You've stolen it before. Young Fishcake told me all about it."

"I won't do it!" Wren said. "You can't make me!"

"Your poor father," said Shkin. He twirled the square of paper back into an inner pocket of his graphite-colored evening robe and shrugged faintly. "What a pity, after he came all this way to rescue you!"

Wren couldn't imagine what he meant--not until he reached into another pocket and brought out a bracelet, which he laid on the tray between them. By the light of lanterns in the nearby trees Wren recognized Dad's wedding

bracelet. She had known it all her life, that loop of red gold with the letters HS and TN entwined. But what was it doing on Cloud 9?

"It's a trick!" she said. "Fishcake must have described this to you, and you had a replica made...."

"Don't you think it's more likely that your dear daddy has come to Brighton to fetch you home?" asked Shkin. "He is a guest of the Shkin Corporation. If you fail in the task I have set you, he'll die. Rather slowly. So be a good girl and run up to Pennyroyal's office."

The gardens were falling quiet. Some of the guests were organizing a search party to look for Davina Twisty, who was lost in the maze. The others shushed them. Moonrise was only a few moments away. The thought of Dad so near made Wren start to cry. How had he come here? How had Shkin found him? And where was Mum? She reached for the bracelet, but Shkin's conjuror's hands whisked it away and set the square of paper in its place.

"Do this little thing for me," he soothed, "and you will be reunited. I'll send you both home to Vineland in one of my own ships."

Wren didn't believe that, but she believed the rest. Dad was in Shkin's power. If she didn't do as Shkin asked, he'd be killed. And the worst of it was, it was all her fault: If she hadn't taken that book in the first place, he would still be safe in Anchorage. So if stealing the book again was the only way to keep him safe a little longer, that was what she would have to do.

"But why me?" she asked. "You must know all sorts of people better at breaking into safes than me...."

"You should have more faith in yourself' said Shkin. "You are an accomplished burglar, from what I've heard. Besides, if you are caught, the crime cannot be connected to me. You were the one who brought the Tin Book here; Pennyroyal will believe that you were simply trying to retrieve it for yourself."

Wren picked up the paper. The darkness was growing deeper as her fellow slaves moved between the trees, snuffing out the lanterns, but the white square seemed to shine in her hand with a light of its own.

"All right," she said, her voice shrunk down to a whisper; then, as she put down the tray, "What is it? I ought to know. What is this Tin Book, and why does everybody want it?"

"Not your business," said Shkin, looking past her toward the horizon. "I can make a profit from it. What more reason do I need? Now go; you have work to do."

Wren went, running away between the trees as the sacred moon peeked over the horizon. For a few seconds, perfect silence settled over Brighton, for according to the old tradition, wishes made at moonrise on this sacred night were often granted by the Moon Goddess. Pennyroyal's guests were far too sophisticated to believe such fairy tales, of course, but they bowed their heads regardless, some with shrugs and smiles to show that they were just being ironic but were moved in spite of themselves, remembering the magical MoonFests of their childhood. They wished for love and happiness and yet more wealth, while down in the city Brighton's artists wished for fame, and her actors for long runs in successful plays, and on the underdecks their slaves and indentured laborers wished for their freedom. And then

the silence was ended by a single firework, then another, then a great broadside of rockets and bangers and a clamoring of gongs and bells and kitchen pans loud enough that the goddess herself might hear it as she strolled among her porcelain gardens.

Even if the Green Storm fleet had not already picked up the signal of Brighton's wireless beacon, they would have been able to home in on the fireworks leaping into the sky above the raft resort. Feathering their steering vanes, the warships swung toward their target, spreading out across the sky while their crews prepared rocket projectors and machine cannon, Tumbler bombs and flocks of raptors, and their fighter escorts, went prowling ahead.