Boneshaker

The princess didn’t quite stop, but she jerked and shuddered, like she’d seen a ghost or a murder. Something in her posture tightened and coiled. She looked like a ski

She said, “That ain’t his name.”

And she turned around to him, again almost hitting him with her lantern, for she didn’t know how close he trailed in her wake. Even inside the mask her face was a shadowbox of canyons and peaks; her hawk’s-beak nose and deep-set, slightly slanted eyes made a map of someone’s anger.

With her free hand she grabbed Zeke’s shoulder and pulled him close, until the warm white light was almost a burn against his face. She shook him and pulled him near, and she said, “If something goes wrong, perhaps you ought to know — we’re in his land, in this part of the city. If hell comes for us with a handbasket and a one-way ticket and you don’t make this ship, or if you fall, and if he finds you, you may as well be prepared for him.”

Upstairs the men were swearing louder, speaking in English with a world’s assortment of accents. Zeke tried not to hear them, and tried not to see the cavernous wrinkles in the princess’s leather face. But he was transfixed by her rage, and he couldn’t move, even to disentangle his stare from hers.

“He’s no doctor, and he’s no German — though that’s the name he’s taken. No Hessian, no foreign man and no local man, either. That’s what he likes to say,” she said. And then she started as if something new and horrible had occurred to her.

Her eyes caught fire and she hissed, “Whatever he tells you, whatever he says, he’s no native of this place and no man he ever claimed to be. He’ll never tell you the truth, because it’s worth his trouble to lie. If he finds you, he’ll want to keep you — and the more I think of it, the more I’m sure that’ll be his way. But nothing he tells you is true. Assume that, and you’ll survive an encounter with him, as likely as not. But…” She withdrew, and the boiling fear in her face cooled to a small, simmering pot.

“But we’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said, and patted him on the head, ruffling his hair and making the straps on his mask tug at his irritated skin. “So let’s get you upstairs, onto that ship.”

She released him and, smiling again, took the lead up one more interminable flight of stairs until the top came and fresh air spilled into the stairwell.

Ezekiel had to remind himself that the air wasn’t really fresh. It was just cold, and it came from outside. But that didn’t mean anything, and it surely didn’t mean he could yank his mask off — though he would’ve given anything to do so. He was shaken by Angeline’s tirade and unsettled by the rough, noisy men who worked on the floor above.

The princess led the way with her light, and she saluted the airship men with a swear word that made Zeke laugh.

They turned to watch the old woman glow with her wild, white lamp and the ski

Zeke saw five of them, scattered around the room doing such useful things as patching holes and swinging mallets against bent bolts protruding from the hull of a ship so big that the boy couldn’t see the end of it. Only one small part of the hull had crammed itself against the row of windows, which had been broken into dust by the impact of the ship’s collision.

The Clementine had either stuck there or forcibly docked there, and Zeke didn’t know the difference — or if it mattered.

Lashed against the wall’s support beams, the floating ship was drawn almost inside the building, where the five men worked on its more battered parts. A large hole was coming closed under the sweaty, leaning force of a man with a crowbar the size of a small tree, and a tall white man in a dark orange mask was restringing a web of ropy nets.

Two of the five saluted the princess back with more profanity. One of them looked like he might be in charge.

His hair was bright red under the straps of his mask, and his wide, burly body was marked with elaborate inkwork and scars. On one arm, Zeke spied a silver-scaled fish; and on the other he saw a dark blue bull.

Angeline asked him, “Captain Brink, you almost ready to fly off again?”

“Yes, Miss Angeline,” he replied. “Once this split in the hull is all smoothed shut, we’ll be able to take off and take a passenger or two. This your friend?”

“This is the boy,” she said, dodging the implication, if there was one. “You can set him down anyplace outside, just take him outside. And on your next pass-through, I’ll give you the rest of what I promised.”

He adjusted his mask while he looked Zeke up and down, like a horse he was thinking about buying. “That’s fine with me, ma’am. But just so you know, our next pass-through might be some ways off. We’re in a bit of a rush to get going, and get going far.”

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“Just chasing the market,” he answered vaguely. Then he said, “Nothing for you two to worry about, no problem. Boy, you come on inside. Angeline, you sure you don’t need a wing out of the city?”

“No, Captain, I don’t. I’ve got business to attend to here. I’ve got a deserter to shoot,” she added under her breath, but Zeke heard her.

He asked, “You’re not really going to shoot him, are you?”

“No, probably not. Like as not, I’ll pin him.” She said it offhandedly and watched the airmen work their repairs. She said to Brink, “This don’t look like the last ship of yours I saw.”

He’d picked up a mallet and was beating down another pinched plate. He stopped and told her, “Matter of fact, she’s new. You’re a sharp-eyed woman to notice.”

“And her name’s Clementine?”

“That’s right. Named after my momma, who ain’t lived long enough to see it fly.”

She said, “That’s sweet of you,” but there was doubt in her words, for all she tried to keep Zeke from hearing it.

He whispered, “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she did not whisper back. “It’s all fine. I know these fellas,” she assured him. “That there is Captain Brink, as you’ve done guessed by now. Beside him there’s his first mate, Parks; and over there with the nets is Mr. Guise. Ain’t that right?”

“That’s right,” the captain said, without looking over his shoulder. “And the two you don’t recognize are Skyhand and Bearfist. They’re brothers. I picked them up in Oklahoma, last time we kicked through there.”

“Oklahoma,” Angeline echoed. “You two brothers of mine?” she asked them.

Zeke frowned. “You’ve got brothers you don’t know?”

“No, you dumb boy,” she said without any real venom. “I wondered if they was native, like me. Or maybe what tribe they hailed from.”

But neither of the men answered. They kept working, elbows-deep in a boiler-shaped engine that was blackened at one end and steaming ominously from the other.

Brink said, “They aren’t out to disrespect you, Miss Angeline. Neither one of them speaks English too good. I don’t think Duwamish would be clear to ’em either. They work as hard as mules, though, and they know their way around machinery.”

Under the straps of their masks Zeke could see dark, straight hair. Their forearms were browned, but it might have only been ash or soot that darkened them. Still, he could see they were Indians like Miss Angeline. Neither of the men looked up, and if they knew they were being discussed, they didn’t care about it any.

Zeke asked Angeline, very quietly, “How well do you know these guys?

“We’re all acquainted.”

The captain said, “Anyway, we’ll be able to lift off in a few minutes.” Zeke thought he sounded like a man who was trying not to sound agitated.

First Mate Parks glanced out the window, or he tried — but of course his ship was in the way. He exchanged a look with the captain, who made rushing gestures as if everyone ought to hurry.

He asked, “How close are we to done?”