Rising Tide (21 page)

“What?”

“Infrared.”

“I heard you. I don't know that that means.”

“Oh.” She pats me on the back in a really condescending way that I hate. “Thermal imaging. It reads heat signatures.”

“Really?”

“Really. The lighter colors are hotter signatures, the darker ones, cooler. I would guess they used this at night when they couldn't get a clear optical picture. Or they might have even used it through walls. People would show up hotter than their surroundings.”

“Fires,” I say.

“What?”

“They could spot fires, too.” I have a sudden image of people aboard the
Dumah
, a crew of them, several manning the monitors. Shifting cameras, maybe. Communicating down with the ground. “I'm thinking of when the shit went down. There were probably a lot of fires.”

“Probably,” Miranda says.

“So it's functional then. Partly at least. The cameras.”

“Looks like it,” Miranda says. “And you just pushed a few buttons. More of them might work.”

“Maybe someone at Tamoanchan can look at it. Work something out.”

Miranda nods. “Maybe.”

I'm trying to think what we could use this for. It begs the question, of course, what we're going to be doing in the future. I guess it comes down to what's going on with Tamoanchan. I look at Miranda from the corner of my eyes. “Do you ever see us going back to the way things were?” I ask.

“What do you mean?” Miranda asks.

“Me flying you to Feral nests, you going down to the ground, taking samples. That kind of thing.” I'm thinking that this ship would give us a better sense of where Ferals might be hiding. And how many. This kind of ship, back then, would have made things a lot easier.

Miranda bends down over the monitors, tracing something on the screen with her finger. “There is no back,” she says, echoing something she said to me long ago.

Once more, I have to agree with her.

I've been keeping track of our position on a map that Mal had handy. Actually, a series of maps. Luckily there's enough of the sea and coast, which is no real surprise considering the course he was taking. According to the position I charted, Tamoanchan should be in sight soon. I already have the radio lit and set to the frequency that Tamoanchan uses. They don't know this ship, so they might see us as a threat.

If they're still there.

By blowing up the
Cherub
, I managed to take out the ships that were heading there from Gastown. Those ships intended to drop infected Ferals onto the island. I assumed they were only the first wave. That more ships would be coming. What I'd been hoping for was that my sacrifice could buy them time to get the island evacuated.

So I don't know what I'm going to find. One of the best-case scenarios involves an abandoned Tamoanchan, all the people off somewhere else, pissed and unhappy, but safe and alive. The worst-case scenarios are, well, worse. For all I know, we could be flying to a ruined city. Or one that's been taken over by Gastown. That's the scenario I fear the most. That we'll fly into sight and raiders will be all over us like flies on a carcass. This ship has neither the speed of the
Cherub
nor the armaments of many others. Don't get me wrong—it's a sleek, impressive ship, but not much good against a group of raiders.

It's difficult to know why Gastown does what it does. When the raiders took Gastown—free, independent Gastown, I mean, the city in the sky that was—they kept it. Which made sense. It was a trading city. Valuable. Strategic. And of course it had the only dependable source of helium around. Of course you keep that. But they don't always keep things. When they hit the Core, where Miranda and her scientists had set up camp, a place they called Apple Pi (that's a dumb name—Miranda's going to give me shit about the name of the
Cherub
when she worked in a place called that?), they didn't take it. They torched it. Gutted it. But then left. I guess there wasn't anything there worth holding on to.

Have I mentioned that I hate those raiders?

Miranda comes up behind me and rubs my arm. Somehow it helps. I guess I know that I'm not facing this alone. I hope that Sergei's okay. He's like a surrogate father to Miranda, of course, but I really like the guy myself. He was the first of Miranda's boffins that I met. He's not the liveliest of guys but . . . I care about him. I'd hate to lose him.

By now I can make out the dark spot of land that's Tamoanchan, an island far enough off the coast that it doesn't get stumbled upon very often, but large enough and flat enough that a settlement could set up there, a real city with wooden buildings and, because of the water surrounding it, security. Ferals can't just wander in. Only the Bug. Infected people. Which is why the island's secrecy is carefully guarded and they vet everyone who goes there.

I kinda . . . . skipped that vetting process. I helped out two of their people, a man named Diego and his sister, Rosie. They were out looking for ship captains to help keep them supplied. I helped them escape from some raiders, and they figured that was a good-enough audition. Later, after the Core was sacked, I took Miranda and Sergei and Clay there (though Clay was not my idea). It didn't go as well as I expected. That was mostly due to the fact that Miranda, Sergei, and Clay insisted upon bringing a live Feral with them.

Batshit crazy, of course. But they were studying it. Miranda calls it Alpha. It has some kind of mutation. Some alteration of the Bug that helps her studies. So she brought it with her, and it got us all thrown into cells (something I'm developing a talent for) and almost got us killed. But I was able to convince the Tamoanchan Council that Miranda was onto something. That she had the best chance of working out the Bug. Of building something like a detection system, if not a cure. They set her people up on a nearby island that would hopefully help protect the main island from contamination. I thought that meant Miranda would be safe, but then she decided to come with me to Gastown while I chased after the
Cherub
.

And now we're full circle, back to Tamoanchan. It's not a large island, but not really tiny either. It's . . . medium.

And growing larger in the window by the second.

So far, it looks the same. I mean, I think it looks the same. “Does it look the same to you?” I ask Miranda.

She presses herself against the window, trying to see.

I look over to the monitors, but none of them are currently showing the island.

It slowly grows larger.

Then, as we're both watching, both of us tense and unwilling to even guess what might have happened, the radio crackles to life. “Passcode,” a voice says.

“Shit.”

Someone's down there. But friend? Or enemy?

I grab the microphone. “Tamoanchan, this is Ben Gold and Miranda Mehra. We don't have a passcode. We're just returning to the island. We came to see if you were okay.”

After a brief pause, the voice, male, comes back. “Ben Gold?”

“Yes.”

Another pause. It seems like they recognize the name, but because I spent time on Tamoanchan, or because I fucked with a bunch of Gastown raiders?

“You know the eastern landing ground?” the voice asks, after a moment.

“Yes,” I say.

“Proceed there. Someone will meet you.”

I look at Miranda. “What do you think?”

We both look out at the island. There are a few bright spots that are probably airships low down the way that Tamoanchan used to keep them, but they could be anyone's ships.

“I think we have to go,” Miranda says, resigned.

“Me, too.”

So I bring the
Dumah
around to the eastern landing ground. Keeping the ships down low means that they can't be spotted easily from the sky. They have a hydrogen operation, several, actually, that help refill the ships and let them lift off if grounded. I see the usual assortment of ships, but have they just been captured? I try to see the
Osprey
, Diego and Rosie's ship, but I don't. Which doesn't necessarily mean anything—there are several places they stash ships.

On the
Dumah
's belly cameras I can see a small crew near a securing station, a place where they've made it easy to anchor. I try to make out what they're wearing. Valhalla raiders favor furs and leathers. As good as the cameras are, I can't seem to get that level of detail. I drop our anchor, and the crew helps secure it. I lower the
Dumah
closer to the ground, then send Miranda to drop the ladder.

Before we leave the hatch, we face each other. “I wish you'd kept the gun I gave you,” I say.

“I still have the dart gun,” she says. A pistol that shoots small tranquilizer darts. It's better than nothing.

She straightens my jacket, presses lightly against the star still affixed to my coat. “Let's go.”

I go first, figuring if they take a shot I'd rather it get me than her. But none come. I lower myself to the ground, then approach the crew. The way the sun is coming down through the trees, it's hard for me to make them out. My fingers itch for my revolver. I stay close to Miranda.

Then I can make out the crew. Three people, two men and a woman. I think I recognize one of them from my time here before. From the original Tamoanchan. Part of me relaxes, unclenches. I suddenly realize that I'm holding Miranda's hand. I give it a squeeze now that I am starting to realize that we're among friends.

Then one of the men pulls a gun on us, because of course he does.

I have that kind of luck.

They treat us better than Mal did (or at least better than Mal treated me; Miranda seems to have fared just fine). And much better than those Navy assholes. They take our weapons, but they put Miranda and me in the same place—not a cell, but something slightly cozier. But bare. There are guards outside.

“What do you think is going on?” I ask.

Miranda smiles. “The usual Ben Gold charm.”

I laugh. We don't wait long. The door opens and four people walk in. I recognize one of them. Brana. Short blonde hair, hard face. She's the leader of the Tamoanchan Council. She was the one who questioned us the first time we came to the city. With her is a man with Asian ancestry, a scar on the left side of his jaw. Looks almost like a burn. They're flanked by two Tamoanchan peacekeepers wearing their brown and green and carrying rifles. None of them are smiling. None of them look happy to see us.

Brana shakes her head. “I knew you would be trouble the first time you came here.”

I should feel apprehensive about all of this, but I don't. I feel calm, somehow. Relaxed. I think it's partly because we're here.
They're
here. Tamoanchan survived.

“You were the one who let us stay,” I say.

She nods. “A mistake that I'll no doubt continue to pay for.”

“You know,” I say, “I get the feeling you're not too happy with me right now.”

“Should I be?” Her face twists as if in disgust. She points a stiff arm at me, first finger extended. “You were supposed to stay here. Instead you convince Diego to take you to Gastown, risking our location.
Compromising
our location. All for what? To get your ship back? I notice you didn't bring it with you. Did you find something better? Does anything really matter to you?”

“You have no idea what you're talking about,” Miranda says, moving forward. There's a faint flush in her face, the kind that she gets when she's excited about some data, or when she's angry. “Ben got his ship, and then he sacrificed it. We almost sacrificed our lives—we were ready to—to save all of you.”

Brana's still frowning, showing no reaction.

“Ben took out the raiders that were headed here. He was trying to do right by you.”

I'm not surprised that Miranda has my back, but it still feels good. Brana's tough, but Miranda's tougher.