The Aeronaut's Windlass (40 page)

“The time, Mister Kettle?” Grimm asked as he emerged.

“Sixth bell,” Kettle replied. “Three o’clock, sir.”

Grimm strode to the ship’s starboard rail and scowled up into the misty night sky at the vessel that was making its descent to the landing slip beside
Predator
’s.

She was a large armed merchantman, a third again
Predator
’s size, flying a Dalosian flag this night. She’d been painted smuggler-black all across her hull, though there were sharp white marks painted on her decks to show the way to her crew in darkness. Like
Predator
, she had masts for raising sail when the use of her web was not possible, though Grimm knew her sails to be stained storm-cloud grey and smudged with black smoke. A blazon of garish red paint at her prow named her the
Mistshark.

“There, you see, sir?” Kettle growled. “What’s
she
doing here?”

“Whatever it is,” Grimm mused, “I think we can safely assume it is unlikely to make our sleep more restful.”

“Could be we have a problem with that new number three gun, skipper,” Kettle suggested darkly. “Maybe it goes off completely by mistake. Blows that bitch clean out of the sky. Terrible accident, sincere regrets, we all go to the funerals.”

“Now, now, Mister Kettle. You know I would never condone such an action.” He glanced aside and added in a whimsical undertone, “At least, not when it could be traced back to
Predator
.” He narrowed his eyes, scanning the decks of the
Mistshark
for familiar faces. “Still, you know she took that slip intentionally. Make ready a side party if you would. She’ll be here to gloat in a moment.”

“There could be a horrible accident with a gauntlet,” Kettle growled.

“If you please, Mister Kettle,” Grimm said, keeping a firm note of reprimand in his tone.

“Side party, aye, aye, Captain,” Kettle said, and stomped off, muttering under his breath.

Grimm nodded and went back to his cabin. He picked up his nicer bottles of liquor, his cutlery, his gauntlet, and a number of small, valuable objects, placed them all in his heavy cabinet, and locked it. Then he made the bunk neat and turned up his crystal lamps to their brightest levels. By the time he had finished, he could hear men on the deck of
Mistshark
shouting. Her captain would be on the way.

Grimm went back out on deck and eyed the other ship. A lean woman of an age with him but half a foot taller was coming down the gangplank onto the pier.

“No,” she said firmly to the burly one-eyed ape of a man walking beside her—
Mistshark
’s first mate, Santos. “I absolutely forbid it. Unless you can find a way to make it look like it was someone else’s ship that had the accident.”

Santos spat out a curse, scowling, and put his hands on his hips. He glowered at his captain and then up at the deck of
Predator.

The woman took notice of Santos’s reaction, and turned on a low, heavy bootheel to gaze up at Grimm. Her expression turned into a perfectly amused smile. She wore an aeronaut’s dark leather pants, a white blouse with roomy sleeves, and a tailored vest bearing intricately embroidered designs. She swept a hand up to her head and doffed her cap, giving him a formal bow, her arms spread at her sides.

Grimm scowled.

When she straightened again, the woman replaced her cap and said, “My dear, dearest, lovely Francis. You look absolutely delightful.”

Grimm folded his arms and continued to scowl.

The woman laughed. “Francis, I do hope that in your usual charmingly predictable and courteous way, you have prepared to receive me. I’m coming aboard. With your permission, of course.”

“Kettle keeps asking me to let him shoot you, Captain Ransom.”

“But you never would,” Ransom replied, smiling. “Not Francis Madison Grimm of the Albion Aetherium Fleet. Even though he isn’t.”

Grimm gave her a sour smile. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

Ransom put a hand to her chest and made a sad face. “Oh, sweet Francis. You wound me with your lack of enthusiasm.”

“I shall certainly wound you if you try to take anything that isn’t yours while you’re here.”

“Everything’s mine, Francis,” she replied in a merry tone. “The only question is whether or not it
knows
it is yet.”

Grimm jerked his head toward
Predator
’s gangplank in a peremptory gesture, and walked toward it without ever quite turning his back entirely on Captain Ransom.

The woman strode down the pier and around to
Predator
’s gangplank with steady, quick strides, and came up the ramp like a visiting monarch.

“Side party,” Kettle snarled. “’ttention!”

Tension indeed, Grimm thought. Half a dozen armed men, three on either side of the gangplank, snapped to attention, and every single one of them kept his hand on his sword, his gauntlet primed and gently glowing. Kettle faced the gangplank and gave his best glare to Captain Ransom as she came up to the deck.

“Sweet Kettle,” Ransom said. Something quite predatory came into her smile. “Does your knee still ache when it rains?”

“Aye,” Kettle snarled. “And I make it feel better by breaking the noses of mouthy, sucker-punching, welching, treacherous Olympian bi—”

“Mister Kettle,” Grimm said, his tone hard. “Captain Ransom is my guest. You will maintain courtesy and discipline aboard my vessel or I shall terminate your contract. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

Kettle looked over his shoulder at Grimm sullenly. He grunted. Then he turned and snapped off a textbook salute to Captain Ransom.

Ransom returned it genially. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Granted,” Kettle said through clenched teeth.

Grimm stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Conditionally, Captain Ransom. I believe you are familiar with my terms.”

Ransom beamed and unfastened her gauntlet. Kettle stepped forward, warily, to accept it. Then she unbuckled her sword belt and passed that over as well. “Satisfied?”

“And the knives in your boots, if you please,” Grimm said.

She reached down and withdrew two slender copper-clad blades from the tops of her boots, smiling without a hint of shame or repentance as she surrendered them. “I only put them there to give you an excuse to gaze at my lower half, Francis.”

“How thoughtful,” Grimm replied, his tone disinterested. “What’s that at the small of your back?”

Ransom reached behind her, and every man in the side party rattled their swords to make sure they’d come clear of their scabbards if need be.

Her smile widened and she produced a small silver flask. “A lovely drop I picked up in Ethosia. You’d like it.”

“Fool me twice, shame on me,” Grimm said. “You won’t be needing it.”

She rolled her eyes and passed the flask over as well. “Don’t you touch a drop of that flask, Kettle.”

“No worries there,” Kettle growled. “I know where it’s been.”

Ransom ignored the comment loftily. “Anything else, Francis?” She bobbed an eyebrow at him. “Should I strip out of my clothes as well?”

“That shall not be necessary,” Grimm replied stiffly.

Ransom winked at him. “I do so appreciate the courtesy that is always shown me when I visit the second-fastest ship in the sky.”

Grimm felt a flicker of utterly irrational annoyance at the mention of the race, and had to fight to keep from clenching his jaw. “It is how decent, civilized people behave, Captain Ransom. Though I suppose that to someone of your level of moral fortitude, it must seem remarkable.”

She barked out a quick laugh. “I would say you’d scored a touch, Francis, if I had the least shred of desire for your good opinion.” She strode across the deck breezily. “Don’t bother to show me the way to your cabin, Captain. I’m sure I’ll find it in the same place.”

Grimm watched Ransom walk away, and permitted himself a slow exhalation and a narrow-eyed glare. Kettle stepped up next to him, his eyes wary.

“That woman,” Grimm said quietly, “drives me quite insane.”

Kettle grunted. “Why’d you marry her, then?”

*   *   *

G
rimm followed her to his cabin and shut the door behind them. He leaned his shoulders back against the door and folded his arms over his chest, mostly to use his right arm to support his wounded left. “All right, Calliope,” he said. “What are you going to make me regret this time?”

She tossed her hat casually onto his writing desk, settled onto his bunk, and stretched out along it with a smug assumption of the space. “Perhaps I missed you. Can’t I pay an old friend a social call?”

“Friend,” he said, his tone carefully devoid of emotion. “Empirical evidence suggests that you cannot.”

She smiled, the expression impish, her green eyes sparkling in her strong, square face. Had an artist painted Calliope, no one would accuse her of extraordinary beauty, but somehow it was present in any case—in the way she held her head, the glitter in her eyes, in her sheer physical confidence. A still-life image of her was something of an oxymoron. Calliope was never still. Even when she was seemingly motionless, he could see her mind at work, sorting ideas, seeking solutions, cataloging the space around her. To see her beauty, one had to see her in motion.

“You’ve grown so cynical since the Admiralty cashiered you for obeying orders, Francis,” she said. “It’s most unbecoming.”

Grimm simply stared at her.

Calliope rolled her eyes. “I’m almost certain that I remember you having a sense of humor sometime in the murky past, at the dawn of history.”

“We used to have a lot of things,” Grimm said in a neutral tone. “What do you want?”

“I want to make you an offer. An easy job with an excellent profit margin.”

“How believable,” Grimm said. “But I’m afraid I’d rather not lose another year’s earnings to your amusements.”

“It isn’t about money,” she replied.

“Since when?” Grimm said mildly.

“I’m doing quite well for myself now,” Calliope replied. “Why, not a month ago we stumbled upon a damaged
Cortez
-class merchantman. She’d had a battlecruiser escort, but apparently it went haring off in pursuit of some dim-witted band of amateur pirates who had made a mess of attempting to take her. Her entire belly was as naked as a newborn. Took the ship and her cargo, sold them, and ransomed back her crew. I’ve enough money to bathe in at the moment.”

Grimm snorted and opened his door. “I believe I’ve heard enough. Good day, Captain Ransom.”

“No,” she replied, her eyes hardening. “You haven’t heard enough. Not yet. Hear me out. Give me one minute. If you don’t like the offer, I’ll go.”

Grimm twisted his mouth into a frown. “We’re done here.”

Calliope sat up, her brows knitted, her gaze intense. “Mad,” she said very quietly. “Please.”

Grimm stared at her for several seconds. Then he shut the door again. “One minute,” he said.

“Due to a clerical error, I find myself double-booked,” she said. “I’ve half a load of vatsand bound for Olympia and the other full of medicine bound for Kissam. I can’t make both deliveries in time. Help me out by taking the Olympia run, and I’ll split the net profits with you.”

“In theory, I should think a ninety-ten split would be more reasonable,” Grimm said.

“You want ninety percent of
my
cargo?” Calliope asked.

“Ten percent and a solid reputation is a great deal more than nothing and a broken contract,” Grimm said. “Theoretically.”

She narrowed her eyes. “There’s no point in trying to argue with you over this.”

“None whatsoever. I’m not the one who needs help.”

She pressed her lips together and then nodded once. “You leave me little choice, it would seem.”

“In fact, I leave you none at all. I’m not available. That battlecruiser you mentioned gutted
Predator
. It’ll be days before we can put sky under her again.”

Calliope frowned. “What? She’s not skyworthy?”

“Yet,” Grimm said.

Those green eyes slipped into calculation and seemed to reach some sort of conclusion. She rose abruptly and reached for her hat. “Then I suppose I should seek help elsewhere. I’m sure someone would like the work.”

Grimm nodded and opened the door for her. Captain Ransom strode out of the cabin and over to the gangplank, where Kettle warily returned her effects. She glanced back over one shoulder at Grimm, just for a second, and then departed the way she had come.

Kettle came over to his side. “What did she lie about?”

Grimm shrugged. “I’m not certain. All of it, likely. Said she had an easy-money job for us.”

Kettle snorted.

“Precisely.”

“And you told her no,” Kettle said, rather carefully.

“Of course I did.”

The pilot sagged a little with evident relief. “Ah. Fine. It’s never good news when she shows up.”

Grimm found himself frowning thoughtfully. “No. No, it isn’t.”

“Sir?”

“
Mistshark
arrives just as the Spire comes under attack?” Grimm asked. “Are we to think it a coincidence?”

Kettle grunted. “What do you mean?”

“The Spirearch sent us down to Landing to smoke out an enemy force,” Grimm said. “And it just so happens that by chance, the fastest ship in the sky is docked in the Landing Shipyard?”

Kettle scowled. “
Predator
only lost that race because Santos sabotaged our main Haslett cage.”

“Regardless of how it happened, she won,” Grimm said. “She claimed the fame and glory. Such renown is a marketable commodity.”

Kettle’s frown deepened. “You think she’s enemy transport?”

“I am disturbed by the presence of inordinate levels of coincidence,” Grimm said. “I want eyes on
Mistshark
at all times, reporting anything, no matter how trivial. See it done.”

Kettle nodded. “Aye, sir.”

Grimm narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “And after that . . . send Misters Journeyman and Stern to my cabin, please.”

Kettle’s concerned frown twisted up into a little smile and his eyes glittered with a sudden malicious light. “Ah. Yes, sir. I’ll be delighted to.”