As I suspected, the French leaving set the world back to normal, or at least to a configuration I had a better handle on. The mess was once again merely awkward rather than mortifying, we had our fields back, and even the temperature was more agreeable. In place of the bitter, icey chill, the temperature had settled to something closer to freezing, and the day begun with gentle snowfall.
That morning, while the other officers were getting breakfast, I made my way to the mechanic's station, a low brick building near the carriage park that the enlisted always sort of dreaded. There wasn't really ever a good reason to go there, after all, even routine mechanical inspections were a bit embarrassing. I told myself that was why I was reticent, it was just leftover nerves from a different part of my life, and not reluctance to face the associated costs.
// It was okay to spend money on myself. I deserved it.
I pushed through the door and was unsurprised to find the floor mostly quiet, just rows of empty work tables and racks, with tools and spares of every description in shelves lining the back walls. A field mechanic in a yellow coat was busily sitting at a table in between two piles of steel components, humming cheerfully to himself as he assembled two pieces together and dropped them into the pile. He seemed utterly oblivious, caught up in his work.
I walked over to the small unmanned desk at the front of the room and peered over it: sometimes machines would buy extra spares beyond what was issued, for peace of mind or to loan out. Thea bought her boyfriend Fusilier-grade joint pins once so he'd never have to worry about replacing them; they might be broken up now, but I imagine his knees would still hold for another decade at least.
Sure enough, there was a little handwritten list of prices for common parts against the wall, and near the very top were replacement knee joint pins. Twelve shillings three pence. A pound four shillings six pence for the set. And I properly should get spares. Two pounds nine shillings.
// It was okay to spend money on myself. I deserved it.
All I needed to do was get the attention of the mechanic, but he was working. Looked like he was having a good time. Though this was his job too…
It was ridiculous how anxious I was about such a comparatively small sum. Why was it so easy when it was somebody else? Why was it so hard now?
It was okay. It was okay to spend money on myself. I deserved it.
With my deliberations, I'd lingered too long to go home and have Tom install them. But I'd left with four new composite joint pins in my cartridge pouch and a palpable sense of relief that this absurd battle with my own brain was finally over. At least until my hip gave out or something and I ran out of money entirely.
Well, one step at a time.
---
It wasn't exactly a surprise that Théa was absent from the mess, but I couldn't help but feel strangely disappointed in her. Still, I'd done the same, so I didn't really have a leg to stand on. It was certainly a much more welcoming space now, with the French officers absent and the tables feeling less crowded. The comparatively muted murmur of dinnertime conversation, listening to Henry wax lyrical about his fiancée while Miles mocked him every step of the way, was familiar and even strangely comforting by contrast.
It was still a little awkward around Miles, yes, but to my great relief he said nothing, gave no indication that things were different, and so neither did I. I did briefly wonder if I was the first person he'd invited along on such an outing… had Henry ever gone? He didn't strike me as the type, but how would I know?
Thanks to the artificially shortened day, it was dark when we stepped out, large fluffy snowflakes coming down gently, the fresh snow crunching under my feet. I made it perhaps a dozen feet before somebody fell in beside me.
"Fusie, can I talk to you for a moment?" Miles asked, uncharacteristically seriously. "Quietly, as we walk?"
Had I blood, it would have ran cold. I wasn't entirely sure what this could be about, but absurdly, my mind jumped to the possibility that I was in trouble for our visit to a brothel. If it were illegal for machines to pay machines for sex, they'd have to lock up most of the damned army, but it had certainly felt illicit…
"Of course, what is it?" I asked, and he pulled me along distinctly away from the quarters and the stream of other officers.
"What's your thoughts on our missing machines, then?" he asked, glancing around conspiratorially as he spoke. Seemed a little strange of him to be acting so nervous about it.
"It's a shame, to be sure, and I do hope they find them, but I imagine the Board of Trade must be involved at this point at the behest of the Army. They'll get to the bottom of it," I said. Reading papers every morning had paid off in the form of a vague understanding of the workings of government.
Miles scoffed.
"Oh, I'm sure," he said, shaking his head. "Look, I don't like this, and I don't much trust they'll have their best men on the case, you understand?"
"This has got you really concerned, hasn't it?" I asked, a little astonished, and he looked at me with such confusion.
"Fusie, imagine if you were told that yesterday, sixty human babies had been kidnapped and shipped off to God-knows where, you'd be scrambling to offer help-"
"That's different!" I protested. "These Fusiliers haven't even been booted up yet. They're not people, and they certainly aren't human. And if there are returning veterans among them, I'm sure they can handle themselves."
Miles looked honestly somewhat disappointed.
"Fusie, they're our soldiers. Our Theos and Doras, the 7th. Maybe not officially yet, sure, but we have a responsibility all the same," he explained. "Don't you think?"
I shrugged. I wasn't sure.
"I suppose." He didn't look quite pleased with that, but he nodded. "Why bring this up, though? What can we do?"
"We can take some initiative on it, just a little. Probably won't help, but it might be something. So, you mustn't judge-"
"Miles, we are well past that!" I pointed out.
"Fair. I happen to like some foreign spirits which are a bit above my pay grade with the import taxes. Normally Jim takes care of the particulars, but I thought maybe we could pay my supplier a visit ourselves. If anyone knows why something isn't moving on the spacelanes, it'll be a smuggler."
"A smuggler?" I asked incredulously. "Miles, this sounds dangerous!"
"I was just going to pay him a visit, but I realized if you found out I went after the fact you'd lose your mind at the risk," he explained. "So I thought I'd invite you along. Besides, I think it's tradition to show up with muscle."
"... well I wouldn't want you to go yourself…" I agree reluctantly. "I don't think this will be very useful, though."
"Probably not, no, but maybe it'll point us in the right direction," he said. "Besides, it's doing something, you know? Better than just sitting about waiting for the Lords of Trade to sort it out for us, don't you think?"
That, at least, I couldn't argue with, and if he was going to go, I'd have to.
"Alright. I'm in."
"Good. Go get changed into civvies and meet me-"
"Out of uniform? Miles, you shouldn't go without armour." I pointed out.
"I'll have my screen gorget, and I'll have you. Safe as houses," he assured me. "Two hours, meet me at the carriage park."
Conscious of the possibility of damage, I wore the old brown dress, and snuck out with it hidden under my coat. Miriam would be scandalized if she knew I was going out in public wearing it.
---
While the docks ringed the entirety of the station, a circumference of some thirty miles, some areas were much busier than others. There was the more scenic areas with stacks on stacks of airlocks for the private yachts of the human gentry, the protruding harbours for the machine liners, and the cavernous links for the bulk traders and factory ships unloading or taking on hundreds of thousands of tons of goods every day. It was easy to forget from the placid base that the city was the largest producer of textiles, clothing, dyes, and chemical goods in Great Britain, but the endless trains and swarms of workers around the docks made it clear as day.
But there were other docking areas as well, for small traders, passenger ships, and other specialty vessels, and that's where we were heading. We crossed the train tracks and left behind the artificial planetside of the station's dome, replaced with baffled airlocks and zero-g berths for a dizzying variety of ships. Great doors opened and shut between berths as the airlocks worked, a constant churn of vessels being emptied and refilled to keep the city working. These berths were strictly for the loading and unloading of goods: time was a premium.
At the nearest ship, dockworkers and sailors were busily offloading enormous crates of something or other, heaving them over the side. Free of the gravity generated by the decks, the goods floated weightlessly the short trip to the dock, where the grav plating reasserted themselves and they crashed down onto the wagons waiting there.
"This the right place?" I asked, as Miles set us toward what looked like a leisure hall of some variety for the sailors and dockworkers. "Not exactly an office, is it?"
"He's a criminal, Fusie, he's not going to have his name on the door," Miles responded. "He's a sailor, old one. Look for gold eyes, lots of chrome, Jim said we'd know him when we saw him."
"Descriptive."
We pushed the door open and came into a rough looking space, all hewn timbres and rough tables around which a dizzying variety of machines were seated. The centre of the room was dominated by a quartet of pool tables, and a music cabinet in the corner was playing an upkeep dance song, fast and distorted drums for the listeners crowded around.
Most of them were sailors, Wills and Wendys, recognizable through the steel hands and bare feet with magnetic pads as well as their stocky climber's builds, but they were far from the only machines. Some of them were from so far afield I couldn't quite recognize their make on-sight, from all over the Concert.
Miles wasn't wrong though, we did know him when we saw him. At the nearest pool table was a Will in an open vest, no shirt, showing off chrome plating with twisting anodized patterns. Cutouts along his exaggerated artificial musculature showed bubbling coolant, backlit with green lits that danced as his fans whirred.
All glowing eyes turned to us. Turned to Miles, probably the first human to have stepped foot in the place in years. Miles stepped in confidently, indicating to our machine.
"Say, there, would you happen to be-"
Without warning, the machine behind the table grabbed it with both hands and overturned with force, sending it end over end toward us. Without thinking, I pulled Miles back by the collar and threw my shoulder in the way. The table cracked in half at the impact, the felt momentarily wrapping around me like a cloak.
"Miles, are you-?"
"I'm fine, go!" Miles said, pointing to the back door, swinging closed from his passage. I kicked the table aside and took off after him, smashing the door from its hinges. There he was, running down the docks toward the nearest ship. I didn't know what this was about, but he was running, so he was probably worth catching.
You wouldn't think it looking at us, but Fusiliers aren't slow. This was evidently a surprise to this Will, given the panicked glance he threw behind him as I closed. Looking desperate, he veered into a crowd of dockworkers, weaving between machines and ducking under the crates they were carrying. I was somewhat less elegant with the momentum behind me, bowling over a few unfortunate machines as I brushed past.
"Stop! Stop that machine!" I shouted, but the poor sailors just looked at me while he pushed past, unused to such orders. One of them did have the presence of mind to block the gangplank, and my quarry screeched to a halt and threw himself toward the loading wagons. With a deft movement born of programming for scaling rigging, he pulled himself up the side and jumped. To my utter astonishment, he stepped deftly onto one of the midair crates, then the next, propelling himself toward the ship and grabbing the steel cables of the ratlines.
Adhering soldly with a magnetic grip, he threw a triumphant look in my direction and started climbing, shooting up like a squirrel on a treetrunk. I took a running start for the wagon myself, lept up onto the bed, and jumped with all my strength. The suspension bucked in protest against my legs, hydraulics squealing, and I was rocketing out over the weightless berth like a cork from a bottle. Gravity slowly reasserted itself as I passed over the edge of the dock, but I came within a hair of grabbing the bastard's ankle before slamming face-first into the ratlines.
Desperately, I held firm against them, watching the sailor continue on his way to the tip of the half-retracted mast, and I made my way up as fast as I could. There wasn't a lot of places he could go from there, but he made good distance as I struggled my way up, cursing that I wasn't built for climbing, the screaming of my shoulder actuators and the building temperature under my heavy winter coat in the heated berths.
By the time I made it to the top, he was already halfway across the mainyard, making a beeline for the next ship in the dock. Each of his steps was confident and sure, with an agile leap across to the next ship's rigging taken with no hesitation. I didn't have nearly the same confidence in my own balance, but I set out all the same, just doing my best not to look down.
I very nearly missed my jump and collapsed onto the next mainyard, gripping the wires for the solar sails running underneath it for dear life. He was still making distance, halfway to the mast. I had to get this chase off the rigging if I were to have a chance.
With just a moment of resistance, I pulled one of the power conduits free of the underside of the yard and pulled it up from its root at the mast, sweeping it across at ankle level. Caught mid-stride, the sailor stumbled and tumbled, swinging out under the mainyard and hanging desperately from one arm for a moment. Still, despite that, he was halfway to pulling himself back into place before I made it to him.
Without hesitation, he let go of the mainyard and fell toward the deck a dizzying fifty metres below, giving me a jaunty salute on his way down. I watched him fall with shock and horror, then surprised relief as he touched down gently on the deck. Some safety feature I hadn't been aware of. He landed deftly and started off toward the rear of the ship.
Not particularly wanting to, I jumped after him, and sure enough as I fell I seemed to slow near the end rather than picking up speed. Then, about six feet above the deck, regular gravity reasserted itself rather unexpectedly, and I dropped hard onto my knees with a jolt of sicken pain. The wooden boards under my feet cracked against the steel pressure hull with the force of the impact.
The sailor disappeared through one of the airlocks in the quarterdeck, throwing one last glance my way. I pushed myself to my feet with a groan, sprinting to the door and trying to pull it open, but through the small glass porthole I could see him desperately wheeling the lock closed, eyes desperate.
I took a step back, squared myself up, and kicked as hard as I could. The door dented, leaping against its bolts, and the sailor pulled back in shock. Another kick sent the locking wheel tumbling loose on the other side, and an awful pain up my leg. One more.
The door slammed open on the hinges, taking a significant section of the wall with it, and at the same time there was an awful bang as the aluminum pin in my knee snapped and my leg flopped out from under me, pointing straight forward. I collapsed against the deck with a groan, rolling over onto my back and staring up at the distant steel ceiling. With shocked laughter, the sailor stepped into my vision, a crackling plasma knife in his hand.
It's what I get, really.
