Rising Tide (19 page)

I expect . . . I don't know, something from her. Reproach. Disappointment. Anger. Instead she just carries on as if it wasn't brought up.

“He talked to me quite a bit,” she says. “I think he took a liking to me.”

“Who wouldn't?” As I say it, I look down at the radar and for a moment think I see a blip moving on the edge of the outer circle.

“He brought me up here. Showed the ship off to me. He said it was an old surveillance ship that he found.”

“Mal always was good at ‘finding things,'” I say. There. Again. The hint of moving blip. The engines feel steady but I have no idea how fast they will move us or how quickly we'll be able to accelerate. The shape of this thing is unusual to me. I keep us moving slowly, almost inching us through the sky. Based on the arrangement of blips, I calculate the best exit. I move us up and to the right.

“I've heard of ships like this,” I say. “They used them in the military, I think. Meant to float up in the sky and look down on people. I think many of them were unmanned. Remote operated. I heard of a guy, I think he was called the Hyena. He got hold of one and stripped out a lot of the equipment—the computer stuff that didn't work and the cameras. Fitted it for people. Course they had to make it extra-large for him.”

“On account of he laughed a lot?”

I frown. “No, on account of he was fat.”

“No, why he was called the Hyena.”

“Oh. You got me,” I say. “It could have been because of his hygiene.”

“It's true,” she says. “I read it. Hyenas were known for their laugh.”

“Sure, maybe. I didn't know the man. But he had a ship like this.” The moving blip blinks, then drops off of the radar. So far, so good.

“Malik said that it was used during the outbreak,” Miranda says. “This one was specifically designed for a team. They would chart the progress of the virus over cities—report on any breakdowns in the system.”

“They must have been really busy,” I say.

“Yeah. They camouflaged it, too, though I think that might have been before it was tasked to monitor the virus. It has some special kind of envelope. It's supposed to help it blend in with the sky.”

“Nice trick,” I say.

Miranda takes the moment to put my father's revolver down next to me on the console. “How did you get that?” I ask.

“Malik had it. He kept it up here. I saw it on my visit. I thought you might want it back.”

“I do,” I say. “Thanks.”

“That's two you owe me,” she says.

She holds up two fingers, but my attention is drawn to the radar screen and the blip that's reappeared there. Moving toward us.

“Shit. We've got company.”

“Where?” she asks.

“I don't know.” I can hear my voice getting louder. “That way?” I point in the general direction the blip is moving. “Does this thing have any weapons?”

“He didn't say.”

Shit.

Then I remember that we're running dark and that will help. If this was used when the shit came down, when the Bug scribbled all over the book that was the Clean, it should have automated gas distribution. The controls look familiar, so I start shifting gas and ballast so that we'll drop closer to the ocean. I'm estimating here, and I can't see very well, but I set it for as close to the ocean's surface as I can get without spilling us into it.

Then I run to the opposite end of the gondola.

The thing about gondolas is that you can't always see well out of them. Even if you're surrounded with windows, you typically have this massive structure above of you, blocking out anything that's not on your level or below. In the Clean, they used to use cameras to see where they were going, cameras and instruments like the
Argus
's radar. But not a lot of cameras have survived the Sick. A lot of us get around this by rigging up mirrors and other ways to see what we normally can't, only I can't seem to find any of those and don't even really know where to look. For all I know, some of these screens still work and Mal uses them. Or maybe he has so many escorts when he travels that they help spot for him. None of that helps me.

“There!” Sarah's voice. She's pointing out the side of the gondola, behind the control room. I see lights moving toward us.

“Keep your eyes on it,” I say. “Tell me what's happening.” Then I return to the controls.

We're nearer the water's surface now. I can't tell how close, but closer that I'd usually like to be. “What's she doing?” I call back to Sarah.

“Looks like she's coming after us.”

“Down?”

“Yeah.”

Bastard must be crazy. I suddenly think it must be Whistler, Chang, and the rest of them. Of course they must be used to flying over water. Must do it all the time.

So it's time to get creative.

Mal
, I think,
I hope you kept this ship in good condition.

If that is the
Raven
coming after us, then I know she's got the two large guns on her sides. I don't want to come under fire from those. I don't know how well this ship will stay together.

I get as close as I can to the water and then level off.

“She still dropping?” I ask.

“Yes!” Sarah yells. “Right on top of us.”

I watch the blip advance on the radar. Try to get a sense for the other ship's speed. I keep our speed constant, but I make sure to keep all the engines up and running.

“Miranda, do you know how to turn the lights on? Outside this thing?”

“I think so. But is that a good idea?”

“Trust me. Get ready. All of them.”

“Okay.”

The other ship gets closer and closer. By now they should be able to open fire on us and take us down, but my guess is that they're not so eager to do that. Not this ship. Not the boss's ship.

I hear the report of gunfire. Heavy caliber. And I jump. Maybe I was wrong.

“Any hits?”

“I don't think so,” calls Sarah.

Miranda shakes her head.

“She's right on top of us!” Sarah yells. “Oh my God.”

Then I do it. I signal to Miranda to hit the lights and I push the engines hard, straight up, cutting our forward speed. To give the ship a boost, I dump all of our ballast. In a ship like this, much of the ballast is held in tanks. As water. As we dump weight and the engines push hard, we gain lift and, at least relative to our pursuers, soar above them.

They're coming in at a steep angle and shouldn't be able to correct so well.

I can only watch it on the radar screen, watch as our two blips overlap for a moment. I steel myself for the scrape and shock of impact, but it doesn't come. Instead we slip through the night as water gushes from our hold and falls beneath us, on, I'm hoping, the other ship. If so, it might help push them into the water, and getting out of that would be chore for anyone.

“Cut the lights,” I say. And as we go black again, I change course and push out back toward the mainland on a different trajectory than before.

I spare a look out the gondola window to see the lights of the other ship remaining where they were, either stuck in the sea or else struggling to regain control.

“Why the lights?” Miranda asked.

I shrug. “I thought our sudden appearance from out of the darkness might give them a moment's hesitation. Slow their reaction time. I think I was right.”

I scan the radar screen. We don't appear to be pursued by anyone else.

“Where are we headed now?” Miranda asks, and I know what she's really asking. We can't really go to Tamoanchan with Sarah. Tamoanchan isn't too fond of strangers, and I'm already on thin ice. Not to mention that Sarah would be trapped there once she knew its location. She seems like a decent kid, but I don't know her. Don't trust her. And that naval base was fucked to all hell. No, not Tamoanchan, unfortunately. Not yet. But I can put her down somewhere safe. Somewhere she can travel from probably pretty easily.

“Lord Tess.”

“Huh?”

“The knowledge broker. She's who I visited to get help for Mal in the first place. I owe her anyway, for the information. Only thing is now some of Mal's people know where she is. They might expect that I'll go back to her.”

“Will that put her in danger?” Miranda asks.

I chew on my lip. It's a good question. “I don't think so,” I say. “Tess is pretty well protected. And she's neutral. But that brings up another reason to go there.”

“What's that?”

“She knows where the island is.”

“What?”

I shrug. “She knows things. Learns things. Finds out secrets. Someone who needed something must have sold out the location.”

“So she can sell it to someone else?”

“Theoretically. But she's not like that. That thing back then. With Mal. Tess was there. I got her out. Her and Claudia.” I think I see something, I'm not sure what, flit across Miranda's face.

“Are you sure about that? Her not being like that?”

“Well,” I say. “I wouldn't mind reminding her of that fact.”

“Then Lord Tess it is,” she says.

I plot our course.

What I told Sarah was that we were going to see Lord Tess and that she traded in information. Also that Tess had asked me for information on the naval base. I figured that if Tess wanted what information I had, that she would pay much more for the information that someone like Sarah had.

“Pay me what?” Sarah asks.

“What else? Information.”

“I don't understand.”

“Information—about settlements you could go to. Ships you could hook up with. Reliable captains to ferry you around. Sources of barter. Whatever you need. It may not seem like it, but that's a lot of value.”

“So she barters. In information.”

“Yes,” I say. “What did you use back on the base?”

She looks at me like I just asked her what direction the sun rises in. “Money,” she says.

“Money?”

“Yes.”

“Paper money?”

“Yes, dollars.”

“Jesus. You're going to need an education if you're going to stay out here. Money went the way of clean streets and running water. It's all barter now.”

“Barter.” She nods.

“The only thing that matters is what you can use.”

“And Tess barters information.”

“Yes. Buying and selling.”

“So I tell her about the base . . .”

“And she gives you whatever information you want. If you've earned it, at least.”

“Do you think she knows about the nuclear weapons?”

My mouth literally drops open. “The what?”

“The nukes.” She looks ashamed as she says it. “They're what we've been protecting all this time. That's what the captain thought you were there to steal.”

“My God,” I said. Actual nukes. Probably within spitting distance from where I was being held. No wonder Danning went all paranoid. I started wondering if Tess did know about the nukes.

“I don't know if Tess knows,” I say. “But I'd say that's certainly worth something.”

“I'm not going to betray my unit,” she says.

“I don't think you'll have to. Just answer the questions that you can. You know more than I do. I'm sure she'll reward you for it.”

She nods to herself. Then she looks up at me. “I didn't . . . it's all so new.”

And you didn't know what you were getting into
, I think.

“You just have to adapt,” I say. Or else the world will chew you up and swallow you down. “You have to change.”

She nods again, then meets my eyes, her posture suddenly straight. “I'm ready.”

She seems less sure as the three of us (Sarah, Miranda, and I) walk up the steps to the library. She seems nervous. I mean, I'm nervous, too, but that's just because I'm expecting Whistler and Chase and Orkney to appear from around every corner, armed to the gills, looking for an excuse to make me a greasy stain. Instead we just see Tess and her man, Rufus. Tess's guards stick to their shadows.

“Benjamin!” Tess says. “You made it back.” She claps her wrinkled hands together and rubs them.

“It wasn't easy,” I say.

Tess holds up a gnarled finger. “I have a feeling nothing is easy with you. Who are your friends?”

This part I've been dreading. I take Miranda's hand, and she steps forward. “This is . . . Miranda.”

Lord Tess's smile is that of someone who just ate a whole bird. Smug and satisfied. “My, my, my. Hello there, Miranda. I've heard so much about you.”

Miranda looks at me questioningly. I ignore her.

“So, you are the woman who's altered Ben's course.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Oh, come now. This one was a by-the-numbers forager. That's all he ever really cared about. But now there's you.”