Dials spun. Red lights
flashed. The siren he hadn’t known existed had roused itself and was making a
maddening weewooweewoo noise that
bounced around inside his skull. He kicked the useless rudder pedals in
frustration, shouted every curse he could think of at the little flying gits
that had just chewed through his airship’s outer envelope, and prepared to
crash into the Limpet air harbour.
Failing that, he would
aim for some other part of the town.
Failing that, he would
plummet three thousand feet into the abyss and die screaming.
* * *
“A parrot-chew? What the
hell’s a parrot-chew?”
The girl straightened a
strand of sweaty hair. “It’s for saving your life. You pull this handle here,
and then you survive.”
“Why’s it called a
parrot-chew then?”
“It’s Latin.”
“Oh.”
The shopkeeper regarded
the girl suspiciously. She was a Forester, you could tell from the harness and
the jangling assortment of items that hung from her belt. There was a large
coil of rope slung over her shoulder. Wiry and tired, she didn’t look like she
had much time for negotiating.
“It’s made by the Yanks,
you won’t get a better one anywhere in the Basin,” she prompted. She looked
over her shoulder at the crowded market - there were plenty of other stalls she
could sell to.
The shopkeeper felt the
deal slipping away. “Ten bucks, I can’t give you any more, no parrot I know
would chew on that.”
“Twenty.”
“Twelve. Absolute
maximum.”
“Twenty.”
“Now look here—”
“Eighteen - do you want
me to sell it to someone else?”
“Alright, alright, but I
can’t go above fourteen.”
“Eighteen.”
“You’re cutting my
throat—”
“Forget it.” She turned
to move into the crowd.
“Finefine, eighteen,” he
said, grabbing her arm. He peeled a few notes from a roll in his pocket. “Hope
it chokes you…”
She took the money and vanished.
At that moment a little
dirty face appeared at his stall.
“What do you want,
Veejay?”
“What’s that?” the boy
asked.
“It’s a parrot-chew,
idiot. Don’t touch it!”
“What’s it do?”
“You pull this and it
saves your life.”
Veejay nodded sagely.
“How much if I find a buyer?”
“One buck.”
“Deal!”
* * *
Limpet was always doomed
to be a shithole. There are three principal reasons for this.
Reason 1: it’s a hundred
miles further than the arse end of nowhere.
Reason 2: it’s a shanty
town that grew up around a coal mine.
Reason 3: it’s run by
the Syndicate.
The Syndicate are the
local crime lords. They run a whole festering heap of illegal operations
throughout the Vertigo Basin.
The Vertigo Basin is
called that for a reason: enormous cliff formations rise out of the steaming
jungle, and the only way to get around without dying of horrific jungly
diseases or being eaten by horrific jungly creatures is to take an airship.
Towns cling to the sides of the cliffs, scratching a living out of whatever
blood they can squeeze from the local stones. Mostly this involves mining.
Limpet is the biggest
town of them all, even though its mining days are over. Its central position
meant it quickly developed from a cluster of mining shacks tacked onto the
cliffside into a full-blown air harbour. No one knows how it sticks to the
vertical rock face and still manages to accommodate a good ten or twenty
thousand scumbags, but it does. Massive struts hold the bulk of the town in
place, and then extra bits just get piled on top and hung underneath.
One of the many problems
that plague the smugglers, drinkers, gamblers, whorers, whores and layabouts of
Limpet is the wildlife. The fauna are varied and unpleasant, but relevant to
this particular story is the Snaggle-Toothed Garklebeast, a leathery-winged
nasty that has a fondness for sinking its teeth into the smooth, vulnerable
sides of airship envelopes. This causes the precious hydrogen inside to whizz
out into the surrounding air, and the unfortunate aeronaut to plummet onto
whatever happens to be beneath him, which is often dense jungle or solid rock.
In short: bastards, they
are.
Now, returning briefly
to the history part of this lesson, Limpet’s coal mine was originally powered
by the booming slave trade, which is why the Syndicate moved in. They still
have some slaves down in the darkness somewhere, but these days they spend most
of their time organising the smuggling operations.
And that’s where
Two-Plank the smuggler comes in. He got his name when people observed that he
was as thick as two short planks. His real name’s Barry or John or something.
Crashing into docking
bay nine didn’t do much to help his reputation.
* * *
“You absolute plank,”
Bill Gumpy said. Bill was the local inn-keep.
Two-Plank was standing
with the small crowd that had gathered to admire the wreck of his airship. One
thing you could count on in Limpet was amusement commensurate with the scale of
the fuck-up, and Bill was always the first to express his deep lack of
sympathy.
“Fuck you,” Two-Plank
observed.
“You know, on a scale of
one to royally, rip-snortingly fucked you are totally, completely and utterly
off the scale.”
“Did you not hear me the
first time?” Two-Plank said.
“I mean,” Bill
continued, “the only thing I can think of that’s worse than crashing into
docking bay nine is crashing into docking bay nine with a hold full of
priceless stolen two-thousand year-old bone china vases. So it’s lucky you
didn’t do that.”
“They’re actually only
about a thousand years old,” Two-Plank said.
Bill ignored him. “But
wait - there is something worse,
isn’t there? It would be really bad
if those vases were owned by the Syndicate. That would be very, very bad
indeed.”
“They’re probably fine.
Vases cope well with sudden impacts.”
“You are going to need
to find a whole shit-load of cash.”
“I suppose some of them
might need a bit of glue."
“I reckon you should
have at least, oh, half an hour to find it before they chop your balls off.”
Two-Plank returned to
reality. “Do they do that?” he asked.
“Oh yes, if you’re
lucky. The Syndicate have been known to—”
“Known to what, Gumpy?”
A slender figure dressed in black appeared beside them. His pale face twisted
into a sneer. “Do you speak for the Syndicate these days?”
Bill swallowed hard.
“Bye!” he said, and scuttled away across the harbour to his inn.
Two-Plank watched the
crowd evaporate, leaving the two of them on the windswept apron of the
air-harbour. “Francis. So good to see you.”
“Likewise. Now, young
master Plank, I’d have to check the bill of lading to be sure, but don’t you
have a hold of vases that belong to us?”
Francis was almost
whispering. Syndicate lieutenants command attention at any volume.
“Well, there might be a
slight complication—”
“We’ll be lenient. You
have one hour to get the money - or the cargo - to us at the Nest. Failing
that, as ever, blood is an acceptable substitute.”
Two-Plank found himself
alone, the wind whisking his coat around his ankles.
“What a testicle,” he
said.
* * *
Having made a brief
examination of his cargo and confirmed that no amount of glue would fix it,
Two-Plank resolved to spend the remaining 54 minutes looking for a way to save
himself from his impending painful death.
Hitching a lift on a
departing airship was the obvious choice, but since the Syndicate inspected
everything going out or coming into the harbour, he crossed that off the list.
Running away wasn’t an option either, because Limpet was about 1,000 metres
above ground level, and ground level was inhabited by large number of toothy,
poisonous, hungry creatures.
That left two options:
finding thousands of dollars lying about in a suitcase, or somehow surviving
his encounter with the Syndicate. He plumped for the latter and headed for
Limpet’s market, hoping to find some inspiration.
The market sprawled in a
disorganised heap around the outskirts of the air harbour, situated so
smugglers only had to haul their cargo a short distance before it could be
sold. The dense network of stalls was populated with all the scum the city
could muster - mostly smugglers, whores and pirates.
There were also bands of
feral children roaming the aisles, little hands deftly relieving the less
careful stallholders of their stock. Veejay was one of them, and he scooted up
to Two-Plank.
“Can I help ya, mister?”
he said.
“Hi Veejay,” said
Two-Plank. “Unless you have a way of saving my life, I don’t think you can.”
“Life saving! Of course I can do that. What you need
is a parrot-chew.” Veejay beckoned.
Two-Plank assumed he
hadn’t heard correctly, and followed Veejay through the throng to a stall that
looked even more likely to collapse than the ones surrounding it.
“Still got it?” Veejay
asked the shopkeeper.
The man behind the stall
wiped his hands on the yellowish vest that was stretched over his belly and
shuffled to his feet, lobbing a chicken bone into the neighbouring stall.
“Still got what?” he said.
“The parrot-chew.”
“Oh, that.” He picked
the package up from under the counter and chucked it in front of Two-Plank.
“Parrot-chew,” he said. “Made by the Yanks. For you, 50 bucks.”
Two-Plank examined it
suspiciously. It looked like a plain old rucksack, made from canvas, with a
metal handle dangling from one of the straps.
“What’s it do?” he
asked.
“You pull this handle,
and it saves your life.”
“Why’s it called a
parrot-chew then?”
The shopkeeper rolled
his eyes. “It’s Latin. Now do you want it or not?”
Two-Plank looked at his
watch. 20 minutes left until his meeting. Lateness was inadvisable with the
Syndicate.
“I’ll take it.” He
stuffed his last $50 into the surprised stallkeeper’s hand and put on the
rucksack. It had a sort of harness arrangement which he stepped into and
tightened up gingerly around his groin. Then he put his long overcoat back on
over the top. The hunchback effect was perhaps a little suspicious, but it
would have to do.
* * *
The Nest was the
Syndicate’s base of operations. Cut into the side of the cliff it leered over
the sprawl of the city below, reminding everyone who was in charge. A large
gate with a watchtower guarded the entrance, and beyond that tunnels and
chambers honeycombed the cliff face, winding up to the summit and down deep
into the dark bowels of the slave pits.
Two-Plank knocked on the
small door to the side of the main entrance. A toothy face appeared at the
grille.
“What do you want?”
“I’m presenting myself
for my execution,” Two-Plank said.
The teeth grinned and
the door opened.
“Go on through.”
Two-Plank crossed the
rubbish-strewn courtyard and stepped into the cave entrance on the far side.
Francis was stood beneath a harsh electric light, waiting for him.
“Two-Plank,” he said
softly. “You don’t appear to have the cargo.”
“I seem to have
misplaced it,” Two-Plank said.
“That’s too bad. Follow
me.”
Francis led the way into
the darkness, the tunnels punctuated at intervals by the electric lights.
Two-Plank wondered if it would be possible to find a way out if he made a run
for it, but the labyrinth seemed to go on forever. He shivered.
“Where are we going?” he
asked.
“To see the master of
smuggling. He doesn’t like it when his shipments are interrupted.”
Two-Plank swallowed.
Down two more passages
and across an antechamber they emerged into a sort of throne room, with some
natural light filtering in from a balcony that looked out over the city below.
The room was filled with a cross-section of the Syndicate’s nastiest thugs, and
two heavies installed themselves on either side of Two-Plank as he entered. The
master was hunched over a chart table in the middle of the room, where two
lieutenants were updating him on the most recent movements of smugglers around
the Basin.
Francis led the way over
to him. “Sir. I’ve brought you the smuggler who destroyed his shipment.”
The master turned,
annoyed at being interrupted. “Ugh.” He went over to Two-Plank and inspected
him as if he was some sort of overgrown maggot. The man’s face was pale from
too much time spent underground, rather like Francis, and his eyes had a sharp
gleam to them.
“What do you have to say
for yourself, maggot?” he said.
“Uh. Not much.”
“Why do you not have my
shipment for me?”
“Because it’s in pieces
in the hold of my airship.” Two-Plank felt his fear changing into shaky
adrenaline-fuelled anger. “I could have died you know!”
“That would have been to
your advantage as it happens.” The master turned to Francis. “Is Agatha
available?”
“She is, sir. I think
she’s been a bit bored lately. And hungry.”
The thug to Two-Plank’s
right chortled. Two-Plank paled.
Bill Gumpy liked to tell
stories about Agatha, a slave who had been tortured until she went insane. The
Syndicate, he said, kept her alive down in the darkness because she had a
talent for inventing creative ways of administering painful deaths to any prisoners
that were chained up in her cell. Then she ate them. Sometimes the eating came
before the death.
Two-Plank had assumed
Gumpy had been making it up.
“Excellent,” the master
said. “We’ll give Agatha an hour to extract her pound of flesh. That ought to
be sufficient.”
Two-Plank’s head spun.
Francis was turning towards him. To his left the tunnel beckoned darkly; a
route to freedom, or perhaps a route to Agatha.
He made his decision. He
was quick, and in a spare millisecond he seized his only option and leapt at
the exit. Voices cried out and a hand grabbed his overcoat, but he spun out of
the grasp, leaving the coat behind. Somehow he made it to the tunnel and
pounded blindly into the dark.
Footsteps hammered off
the walls around him, close on his heels, as he took passages at random,
vaguely aware and relieved that the route seemed to be heading upwards.
He burst through a door
and found himself in a bare circular room with a ladder in the centre. Behind
him the footsteps stopped, and he heard Francis’ laughter bouncing off the cave
walls.
“We’re coming for you,
Plank!” he said gleefully. The footsteps resumed, walking now.
Two-Plank seized the
ladder and scrambled upwards until he reached the roof, which was closed off by
a trap door. It was padlocked, but he battered a panicked shoulder into it
until the lock splintered and he shoved the door upwards, immediately blinded
by the sunlight that flooded in.
Below him Francis was
looking up from the square pool of light, two figures flanking him. “Where are
you going, Plank?”
Two-Plank ignored him
and scrambled out into the open air, shielding his face from the sun as his
eyes adjusted.
He then saw why Francis
had slowed down. He had emerged onto a rocky outcrop near the top of the
cliffs, and the only exit was back the way he came. He wandered hazily to the
edge, where someone had built some sort of lookout post extending out over the
void below. They had forgotten to fence it off.
Limpet was down to his
left, twinkling in the sunlight. He could see a bean-sized airship docking at
the harbour.
Francis emerged behind
him and sauntered forward. “You going to walk the plank, Plank?”
Two-Plank hardly heard.
He felt sick. Stars were exploding across his vision and wouldn’t stop.
“Shall I help you
decide?” Francis said, drawing his sword.
Two-Plank turned. He was
about halfway along the wooden platform.
He met Francis’ gaze.
“No need. I’ve decided.”
He stepped slowly
backwards.
Francis realised what he
was doing at the last second and leapt forward, snarling. He was too late -
Two-Plank fell backwards in slow motion and tumbled into the abyss.
For a second Two-Plank
felt an overwhelming sense of serenity. He saw Francis’ face peering over the
edge, and was pleased at how angry he looked. He turned to his right and saw
Limpet flash by in a blur, and saw the cliff whizzing past beyond his feet.
Then the fear kicked in.
I’m falling to my death, he realised.
He plunged through the
clouds head-first and the trees leapt eagerly up to meet him.
In his last few seconds
he became aware of a sharp pain in his testicles. Great last words, Two-Plank, he thought. “My testicles hurt.”
My testicles hurt.
He looked down, which
was actually up at this point, and saw the harness. Images flashed through his
head; harness, Veejay, pull the handle and it’ll—
The parachute whacked
open above him as he yanked the ripcord with all his might. Quickly the plummet
changed into a fall and then into a gentle downward drift. He laughed out loud
at the thought of Francis’ face, and tears of relief prickled his eyes.
Then he crashed through
the jungle canopy and the real battle for survival began.
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