Stars and Steam: Five Victorian Spacepunk Stories (Victoria Eternal) Page 5

  “Psst.” Tipper waved at her from a shadowy ruin ahead.

  When Diana joined him beside the crumbling wall, he gave her a grin full of mischief.

  “Lookit this.” He nudged a crumbling piece of pressboard aside with his foot to reveal a dark shaft disappearing into the ground.

  She leaned over and peered into the blackness. The edges were perfectly straight, the hole just big enough to admit a body. Provided that a person was not afraid of closed-in, dark places. She shivered.

  “Where does it go?”

  “I waited for you, to find out.”

  Diana shot Tipper a look. It wasn’t just the rough fondness of the streets that had made him wait, but the sense of self-preservation every alley rat needed to survive. It would be sheer foolishness to disappear down that black shaft without anyone knowing where you’d gone, or waiting up above to pull you back up if necessary.

  “You’ve got a rope?” She glanced around the ruin, the two partially-standing walls not providing nearly enough cover for what they were about to do.

  “Sure. And lights. And water and some brat bars, just in case.”

  He went to the corner and rummaged beneath a piss-scented tarp, emerging with the described items.

  “Here.” He handed one of the foil-wrapped bars to her.

  “I don’t want that.”

  B-rations, brats for short, were the lowest-level foodstuffs. Even at her hungriest, she could barely choke down a mouthful of the gluey substance.

  “Toff,” Tipper said.

  “Ain’t.”

  Despite hazy memories of silky dresses and mathematics lessons and a pony of her own. That was half a lifetime ago, or more. It didn’t matter now. She tucked the brat bar into her trouser pocket, planning to give it back to Tipper after they… well. After they found whatever it was they were going to find down there.

  “Probably just leads to the sewers,” she said, taking a sniff of the air over the shaft.

  It wasn’t as foul as she expected. Dry, not rank, with a whiff of fuel. A jagged shard of hope sawed at her. Could this possibly be a tunnel into the spaceport?

  Rumor was the Yxleti had used a network of tunnels when constructing the port. But they had all been filled up again. Even if this was a former passage to the spaceport, it surely ended in an impassable wall of rubble.

  Still, her heartbeat pumped up with possibility.

  She helped Tipper secure the rope to the sturdiest beam they could find. He wrapped it around his chest and under his arms, then donned a pair of stained leather gloves two sizes too big.

  “Are you sure you want to go first?” She glanced into the hole. “It looks deep.”

  “I found it, I get to explore it. And I dropped a lightstick down there yesterday. Bottom’s not too far.”

  He grinned at her. She had the feeling “not too far” had a different meaning, once you were dangling at the end of a rope.

  “Speaking of light…” He held a battered lightstick out to her, then tucked a second one into a makeshift headband and settled it over his filthy hair.

  Before she could wish him luck, he scrambled over the edge of the shaft and let himself down.

  Diana knelt and watched him go down. The shaft was small enough that he could brace his legs and back on opposite sides and control his descent. Once, he slipped, and she swallowed back a cry of dismay as he slid a full meter down the hole before catching himself.

  Sooner than she would have liked, all she could see was the lightstick attached to his head. It bobbed up and down, sparking dull reflections from the sides of the shaft. After a while, the light stopped, and the rope jiggled wildly.

  “Tipper?” She leaned over the hole, fear clenching her gut.

  Something was down there, and had eaten him. The rope went slack.

  Dammit. Without com devices—which no alley rat could ever afford—she had to guess at what was happening.

  Hands shaking, she pulled the rope back up and inspected the end. No blood, no fraying.

  “Di.” Tipper’s voice echoed softly up.

  She blew the stale air of fear out of her lungs. “Now what?” she hissed down into the hole.

  “Going to explore. Sit tight.”

  The roar of lift washed over the silvery spaceport walls. Diana glanced up as the Volux V-class freighter lumbered up into the lower atmosphere. Bound in-system, she’d guess; one of the outlying Jupiterean moons, or maybe just Mars.

  “Tipper?” She leaned forward at the flicker of light from below.

  “Di! Come down—it’s a passage through.”

  She didn’t believe it, though Tipper had never been a practical joker like some of the other alley rats.

  “Who’ll guard the rope?”

  “I don’t care.” His voice was jubilant. “Hurry.”

  She pulled the rope back up, and tied it around herself. Unlike Tipper, she hadn’t brought gloves to protect her hands. It wasn’t so far down that she’d burn her hands terribly—unless she fell.

  Diana gave the rope a couple tugs, testing the beam. Solid enough. Gritting her teeth, she lowered herself into the shaft. The coarse rope bit her palms, and the metal wall was cool against her back. Slowly, she inched down, the pale blue sky overhead becoming a smaller rectangle as the dark swallowed her. Only knowing that Tipper was waiting for her with his lightstick made it bearable.

  At last she saw the glow from below.

  “The shaft ends,” Tipper said. “There’s a drop of a few meters to the floor.”

  Jaw aching from clenching her teeth, Diana’s feet hit empty air. She kicked out, the rope slipping too quickly between her hands, and landed painfully on the hard surface below.

  “All right?” Tipper gave her a hand up.

  “Well enough.”

  She straightened and gave an experimental stretch. Other than what would probably be a spectacular bruise on her tailbone, and the rope burns on her palms, she was uninjured. She pulled the extra lightstick out of her pocket and flicked it on.

  The straight, dim corridor was nothing special—except for the immense possibility it represented. Feeling a smile stretch her face, she nodded at Tipper.

  “Lead on, sir.”

  They walked quickly, excitement pushing their steps. They reached the spot that Diana calculated corresponded to the boundary wall of the spaceport overhead.

  “Wait.” She held out her hand. “Did you come this far, earlier?”

  “No.” Tipper stopped. “Just far enough to see the passage was open.”

  She studied the corridor ahead. It appeared safe, but stun currents were invisible until triggered. No alley rat traveled without an assortment of useful items in their pockets. Never knew when one might need a bit of string or graphite piece. Or, in this case, a pebble.

  Diana tossed the stone a few meters ahead of them. It passed the potential hazard point and kept going to clatter down on the floor. Nothing flared or buzzed.

  “Safe enough.” She hoped.

  “Milady.” Tipper swept out his hand in a move worthy of a gentleman.

  “Coward,” she murmured as she strode past him, winking to show she didn’t truly mean it. He’d been first down into the darkness, after all.

  She flinched, just a little, as she passed the place the boundary wall stood, but like the pebble, she passed through untouched. Tipper came up behind her, and their twin lightsticks reflected eerily off the silvery walls, the pale yellow glow barely pushing back the blackness. They walked ten paces beyond the wall, then twenty.

  “Why do you think they built this tunnel?” Tipper whispered.

  She shrugged. Who knew why the enigmatic Yxleti did anything? A hundred years earlier they had appeared from the sky, crowned Victoria Queen Eternal, then stood back. They had allowed humans to use their strange technology to reach the stars, and they never interfered—only watched.

  “Well.” Tipper held his light up, illuminating the sheer wall in front of them, blocking their way. “Now wha
t?”

  “Go back for the rope?” She leaned back, lifting her lightstick high. “I think there’s a trapdoor overhead.”

  “That won’t work. There must be a way to access the hatches. Hidden ladders or something.”

  Made sense. The workers who used this tunnel in the past wouldn’t want to be carrying around ladders as they went about their business.

  “Take that side.” She nodded to the left, then moved to the right and started running her hands over the smooth wall. Soon, her fingers found an irregularity—a long seam running vertically up from the floor.

  “Here,” she said, pulling out her blade.

  Tipper hurried to her side, and together they pried and pulled at the metal. Diana levered it up, then Tipper wedged his gloved hand in the space and yanked. Finally, with a loud creak, the seam parted to reveal a ladder built against the wall.

  She jumped back, dropping her lightstick, but Tipper just stood there, grinning.

  She made him go first, then followed. As they neared the ceiling of the corridor, strange, thumping vibrations filled the air. At first she thought it was drums, but the rhythm was too uneven.

  “Footsteps.” She tapped Tipper on the leg. “I think this opens onto a walkway.”

  That complicated matters. Spaceport travelers would not stand idly by as two alley rats clambered from a shaft in the floor. Especially not two individuals as soiled and dirt-stained as herself and Tipper. She hadn’t bathed in at least a month. He’d gone twice that long, judging by his rank boy-sweat and matted hair.

  “Let’s get closer,” he said. “I think I see a bolt across.”

  Despite her doubts that the hatch was secured by anything so mundane as a bolt, Tipper was right. She gripped the metal rungs of the ladder tightly as he slid the bolt back in slow, screeching increments. Hopefully the people tromping above would pay little mind to the noise, or think it just another bit of spaceport ambiance.

  Tipper braced his palms against the trapdoor.

  She tugged his ragged trouser leg. “Wait. Not yet.”

  She’d been counting the steps, the ebb and flow, the pattern swirling in her head in elliptical shapes. A rise, a smoothening, a dip as the traffic diminished. Soon, soon.

  “Now,” she said. “Quick!”

  Tipper heaved the hatch open and flung himself out. She was right behind him. The door banged against the floor, and the three people in evidence turned, staring. One, a woman in a long, ruffled gown, began to scream.

  Moving in accord, Diana and Tipper flipped the hatch closed and raced away, deeper into the spaceport. The woman’s shrieks echoed behind them. Unlike the alleys of Southampton’s rookery, there were no side passages, no dark places to duck into. Just flat, straight walls. Diana’s breath burned in her chest, her eyes darting from side to side, barely registering the looks of shock as she and Tipper dashed past.

  They had to find a hiding place. Behind them, she could hear the rough commands of Port Security, ordering people out of the way. Her blood iced as she considered the very real possibility that she and Tipper might get shot.

  “Stop!” a deep voice bellowed. “Stop those two!”

  Diana sidestepped a man in a bowler hat, then wrenched out of an older lady’s grasp. The wild exhilaration of breaching the spaceport had curdled to panic. She and Tipper were in trouble deep.

  “Hey!” Tipper yelped.

  She whirled to see him caught, arms pinned against his side by a tall man wearing tweed.

  “Tip!”

  Could she pull him from his captor’s grasp?

  That moment of hesitation cost her freedom. Before she could dash away, a woman in the blue uniform of Spaceport Security grabbed her wrist and slapped a shackle on it. The man holding Tipper thrust him into another guard’s custody, and their mad adventure came to an end.

  “It’s over,” the policewoman said. “Come quietly.”

  Diana pulled in a deep breath. At least she’d seen the inside of the spaceport—however briefly. She didn’t try to pull away. Though she’d never been in stun shackles before, she knew how they worked, and had no desire to feel that current race through her.

  Tipper shuffled his feet and hung his head low, but Diana looked everywhere, soaking in the sights and sounds. The officers led them down the hallway. Ahead, doors whooshed open and closed, the brighter light of day spilling through.

  The security guards took them outside, onto a partially enclosed walkway, and Diana nearly forgot she was a captive. On the right-hand side of the walkway, ships spread in a half-circle in their berths. She slowed, staring, cataloguing. There—a Xeros Two-thousand, sleek as an arrow. Beside it, the crablike shell of an older hauler bound for the asteroid mining belt.

  On the far left, another freighter rose, engines wheezing, but holding. Overloaded, by the way it listed slightly in the air, and not with legal goods she’d wager. She frowned. Couldn’t the authorities tell when smugglers freighted contraband out right under their noses?

  At the midpoint of the freighter’s arc, a Class A Cruzline ship began ignition. The fore engines fired, and then the aft. Slowly, the ship rose, gleaming and no doubt full of important and moneyed passengers.

  Diana halted. Something was wrong.

  “Keep moving,” the policewoman said. Her name badge simply read Nails.

  “Wait… wait.” Diana leaned forward, listening, watching, calculating the arc of the Cruzline as it began its ascent.

  “Stop that ship!” She lifted her shackled wrist and pointed at the gleaming passenger ship.

  The policewoman’s hand fell to the stun unit. “Don’t make me use this.”

  “They’re going to crash!” Diana strained forward. “Contact the control center—it’s a direct collision course in… twenty seconds.”

  The policewoman narrowed her eyes, but the edge of panic in Diana’s voice must have convinced her. Her gaze went unfocused as she activated her nano-comm and spoke hurriedly, using lots of acronyms and letters.

  Twelve seconds.

  Diana half-listened, her attention fixed on the gruesome calculation unfolding overhead. It sounded like the policewoman was getting through. The bright ship tried to veer, but it was going too fast. Too fast. Eight seconds. Seven. Six.

  The Cruzline’s engines stalled, and Diana sucked in her breath. Three. Two.

  One.

  The edge of the Cruzline nicked the freighter, then spun out, but beautifully slowly. The pilot was good enough to control the move, steering his craft into a shining silver loop. The freighter wobbled, the collision barley nudging the massive ship off-course.

  Diana watched, heartbeat bumping back to normal as the Cruzline steadied and returned to its berth. A security bugship, lights flashing, buzzed the freighter, leading it back to the customs screening pad.

  She glanced up at the cloud-specked blue overhead. In a different universe, the air would be full of fire and death and a hundred personal tragedies. But not this world. Not this day.

  Diana lifted her hand to rub the back of her neck, the motion cut short by the cuff on her wrist. With a resigned slump of her shoulders, she turned back to the security guard.

  “Right away, sir,” Nails said. Her gaze cleared and she looked at Diana. “Taking you upstairs.”

  “What about my friend?” Diana nodded to Tipper, who stood uncharacteristically silent. “He comes, too.”

  The security guard hesitated.

  “I mean it.” Diana put the steel of truth in her voice.

  Whatever was going on—and she suspected it had to do with the averted crash—she and Tipper were in it together.

  “Very well—the both of you. Don’t try anything.” This last was directed at Tipper, with a narrow-eyed glare.

  He put on his wounded face, and Diana hid her smile. His expression wouldn’t get him anywhere with Nails, but at least the two of them wouldn’t be separated.

  Nails and the other security guard led them through a paneled door that took a special
key code, and then to a grav lift tucked in a corner.

  They stepped inside, and Diana tried not to show the jittery nerves pulsing through her. But this was posh—the marble floor and polished wooden walls of the lift far above the normal trappings of the Spaceport. The smooth, fast rise left her courage sinking to her feet. Tipper shot her a look that showed too much eye, clearly as nervous as she about wherever they were going.

  The lift slowed and halted, the doors slid open, and Diana blinked at the view. She barely noticed the plush burgundy carpeting and wingback chairs, the wide desk or the gray-haired man sitting behind it. Her eyes were drawn inexorably to the huge bank of windows on the wall opposite the lift.

  They were at the very top of the Spaceport. Ships dived and flew, and she could see the near neighborhoods of Southampton spread out beyond the silvery wall. The rookery, of course, was behind them—a view no one wanted to contemplate.

  “And so.” The man behind the desk stood, revealing a portly figure dressed in well-tailored clothing. “Our heroine of the hour. Come, come.”

  He gestured to her, and Diana took a step forward.

  “Wait.” He held up a hand. “Remove her cuffs, Nails, if you please. I would like to shake this young woman’s hand without fear of a shock.”

  He laughed, and the security guards guffawed along with him.

  “Apologies, Director.” Nails quickly took the cuff off, with a warning look at Diana. Her hand grazed the lightpistol holstered at her side, the message clear.

  The luxurious surroundings made Diana acutely aware of her own grime and stink. She lifted her chin. If this director fellow wanted to talk to her, he’d have to take her as she was.

  Somewhat to her surprise, he stepped forward and took her hand, giving it a firm shake.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Diana.” She didn’t think he’d like her street name of Diver. “Diana Smythe.”

  “The spaceport owes you a debt of thanks, Miss Smythe. Are you aware that a very important delegation was aboard that Cruzline vessel?”