Boneshaker

Mr. Guise, a meaty man in rolled-up pants and an undershirt, said, “Done enough to fly now, I think. Let’s load up and hit the sky.”

Princess Angeline was watching the scene with worry, which she painted over with optimism when she caught Zeke looking at her and saw that the worry was catching. She said, “It’s time. And it’s been nice to meet you, Zeke. You seem like a nice enough boy, and I hope your mother doesn’t beat you too bad. Get on home now, and maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”

For a moment Zeke thought he was in for a hug, but the princess didn’t squeeze him. She only walked away, back down to the corridor, where she disappeared down the stairs.

Zeke stood awkwardly in the midst of the windblown room with the broken windows and the battered warship.

Warship.

The word fluttered through his brain, and he didn’t know why. The Clementine was only a dirigible, patchwork and piecemeal stuck together to make a machine that could fly across the mountains to move cargo of any kind. So perhaps, he told himself, there was some segment of something rougher built into that matte black hull.

He asked the captain, who was stuffing his tools into a cylindrical leather bag big enough to hold another man, “Sir? Where should I—”

“Anywheres fine,” he answered hastily. “Princess paid your way, and we won’t do wrong by her. She’s an old lady, for sure, but I wouldn’t double-cross her. I like my insides right where they are, thank you much.”

“Erm… thank you, sir. Should I just… go inside?”

“Do that, yeah. Stay close by the door. The way things are going, we’ll probably have to kick you out a little higher up than we’d like.”

Zeke’s eyes went huge. “You’re just going to… throw me out of the ship?”

“Oh, we’ll put a rope around you first. We won’t let you splat too hard, all right?”

“All right,” Zeke said, but he didn’t think the captain was joking, and he was going weak with fear.

Just like Angeline’s worry was contagious, the impatience and nervousness of the swiftly working crew was knocking against the boy’s psyche, too. Something about their movements had become even more frenetic and hurried when Angeline had left the room, lending Zeke the impression that they’d been putting on a front for her. He didn’t like it.

Jammed against the building’s side and wedged quite firmly in place, a portal in the hull had been propped open for the crew members to come and go. Zeke pointed at the portal and the captain nodded at him, encouraging him to let himself inside.

“But don’t touch anything! That’s a direct order, kid, and if you disobey it you’d better grow wings before we take air. Otherwise I’ll leave out the rope,” he promised.

Zeke held up his hands and said, “I hear you, I hear you. I won’t touch anything. I’m just going to stand inside, right here, and…” He realized that no one was listening to him, so he stopped talking and stepped gingerly through the portal.

The interior of the ship was bleak and cold, and not completely dry; but it was brighter than Zeke would’ve expected, scattered throughout with small gas lamps that were mounted to the walls on swinging arms. One was broken, and its pieces were ground into the floor.

He straightened and peered from corner to corner, being careful to keep his hands from even brushing past the complicated controls and dangling levers. His mother used to have an expression about avoiding even the appearance of evil, and he stuck to it quite firmly as a matter of self-preservation.

The cargo hold was open and gaping. When Zeke poked his head inside he saw boxes stacked in the corners, and bags hanging from the ceiling. His old buddy Rector had told him a little bit about the way Blight was collected for processing, so he could guess what the bags were for; but the boxes weren’t labeled in any way, and he had no idea what they might contain. So the Clementine wasn’t moving gas; it was moving some other cargo instead.

Outside someone loudly dropped a wrench.

Zeke leaped back as if he’d been struck, though no one was near him and no one seemed to notice that he’d left the doorway where he’d been ordered to stand. He retreated quickly and planted himself beside the portal, where Mr. Guise and Parks were carrying their tools back inside. Neither man gave him a second look, though the captain complained when he tried to follow them. “You’re staying there, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir, I am.”

“Good lad. There’s a strap above your head. Hang onto it. We’re shoving off.”

“Now?” Zeke peeped.

Mr. Guise pulled a jacket off the back of a chair and shrugged his shoulders into it. “Twenty minutes ago would’ve been better, but now will work.”

“It’d better,” Parks complained. “They’ll be on our tail any minute,” he said. Then he saw Zeke out of the corner of his eye, and stopped himself from saying more.

“I know,” the captain agreed with whatever abbreviated thought had been on Parks’s tongue. “And Guise is off by about forty minutes. Damn us all for blowing the hour’s head start.”

Parks gritted his teeth so hard that his jawline, visible outside his mask, was as sharp as granite. “It’s not my fault the thrusters were marked wrong. I wouldn’t have hit the goddamned tower on purpose.”

“No one said it was your fault,” Brink said.

“No one had better say it, either,” Parks growled.

Zeke laughed nervously and said, “I’m not, that’s for sure.”

Everyone ignored him. The Indian brothers came on board and immediately began yanking the portal shut. The rounded door stuck, then succumbed to the force of four arms pulling and popped itself into place. A wheel on the door was spun and locked, and everyone assumed a position in the crowded, cluttered deck.

“Where are the goddamned steam vents?” Mr. Guise threw up his fingers and flexed them into a fist.

“Try the left panel,” the captain urged.

Mr. Guise sat down in the main chair and it swiveled and rocked. He braced his feet down beneath the console and tried to draw the chair closer to the control panel, but it wouldn’t budge.

Zeke retreated against the wall and leaned there, his hand tangled in the strap that hung down above his head. He caught one of the Indian brothers — he didn’t know which one — looking at him, so he said, “You uh… haven’t been flying this ship long, have you?”

“Shut that kid up,” Parks said without turning around. “I don’t care how you do it, but shut him up or I’m going to shut him up.”

The captain glowered back and forth between Zeke and Parks, and he settled on Zeke, who was already blabbering, “I’ll be quiet! I’ll shut up, I’m sorry, I was just, I was only, I was making conversation.”

“Nobody wants your conversation,” Mr. Guise told him.

The captain agreed. “Just keep your mouth closed and you’ll be fine, and I won’t have to answer to that deranged old lady. Don’t make us throw you out without a net or a rope, boy. We’ll do it if we have to, and I’ll tell her it was an accident. She won’t be able to prove otherwise.”

Zeke had already assumed as much. He made himself as small as he could, crushing his bony back against the boards and trying hard not to choke on his own fear.

“You got that?” the captain asked, looking him straight in the eye.

“Yes sir,” he breathed. He wanted to ask if he could remove the mask, but he didn’t want to take the risk of angering anyone else. He was pretty sure that any given man on board would’ve shot him in the head as soon as told him “hello.”

The mask’s seals scrubbed against his skin, and the straps constricted his skull so hard he thought his brain would come out his nose. Zeke wanted to cry, but he was too afraid to even sniffle, and he figured that was just as well.

Mr. Cruise fumbled with a row of buttons, smashing them almost randomly, as if he didn’t know what any of them did. “There’s no release latch for those miserable clamps. How are we supposed to disengage from the—”