It made little difference to the outcome. Seven captains were not only convinced of Spatha’s guilt, but that his crimes merited execution. Two recommended administrative restraint pending further investigation. One abstained on the grounds that it could not be proven beyond all doubt that the incriminating photographs were genuine. The minority voices clearly pained Ricasso, who had been hoping for unanimity.
But seven were sufficient. Under Swarm law, Spatha was deemed guilty of material sabotage, the murder of four citizens, perversion of the course of justice by attempting to shift blame onto both Quillon and Ricasso, and, almost as an afterthought, attempted mutiny. The weight of the other crimes would have been sufficient, but mutiny carried an automatic death penalty.
Sentence was carried out promptly, with surprisingly little ceremony. The court moved to one of Purple Emperor′s boarding platforms, where Spatha was strapped into a leather harness of obvious antiquity. The harness in turn was fixed to a line, and the line to a winch. Spatha was swung out over empty sky and then lowered to a distance of about one hundred and fifty spans under the airship. Armed airmen took up station and directed pedestal-mounted machine guns at the barely recognisable form on the end of the line. With his arms and legs trussed, Spatha was incapable of visible movement.
But the gunners didn’t open fire immediately. Instead they waited for the winch line to be swung gently back and forth. What was a relatively small motion at the platform level soon became a wide, pendulous arc at the other end of the line. Spatha’s motion gradually took on the form of an ellipse, moving back and forth as well as sideways. It took Quillon a moment to realise that all this was deliberate, to make the target harder to hit. At a signal, the machine-gunners let their weapons roar, aiming not at the gyring figure but at the point in the sky where the figure was likely to be a fraction of a second later. It turned out to be much more difficult than it looked, and the winch operator only complicated things by adjusting the length of the line and the amplitude of the swing. It was probably only seconds, but it felt to Quillon as if minutes passed before any of the bullets found their mark. Even then, the shots did not look to have been decisive. The gunners seemed to be wilfully prolonging Spatha’s execution, chipping away at him rather than going for the lethal shot.
‘Don’t judge us too harshly,’ Ricasso said, straining to make himself heard over the chug of the guns. ‘It would have been far easier just to have shot him at point-blank range. But then we’d be denying him the right to contribute something useful to Swarm.’
‘Wouldn’t a sack of dirt serve much the same purpose?’
‘Dirt’s useful,’ Ricasso said. ‘You never know when you’ll need it for ballast.’
Quillon was glad when it was all over, when at last the hanging form had been deemed to have served its purpose. It was winched back up, the ragged, bloodstained form extracted from the harness - itself peppered with bullet holes, but essentially repairable - and tossed overboard.
‘You don’t approve,’ Ricasso said. ‘I can see that. But then, you don’t really have the option of not dealing with us, do you? We’ve got the medicines.’ He smiled and nodded, as if in his presence Quillon had crossed some threshold of moral complexity, leaving the naive world behind. ‘Welcome to politics, Doctor. We don’t get to pick our allies. The best we can hope for is that we don’t despise them quite as much as our enemies.’
After the execution Quillon and Ricasso returned to Painted Lady. Curtana’s ship was provisioned and ready to resume its position at the head of Swarm, equipped and armed for the final approach to Spearpoint. A day after Spatha’s execution, they picked up Radial Nine again and received the first news from the city since before the crossing.
A day later, they could see it.
‘From Tulwar, sir,’ the airman said, handing Quillon the thin sheet of transcript paper.
‘You’re already in contact?’
‘Yes, sir. Via the semaphore line so far, although we’re close enough now that we should be able to establish a continuous heliograph exchange, provided the visibility keeps up. Which is good, because no one expects Radial Nine to hold out much longer. The Skulls are chipping away at it station by station.’
Quillon read the transcript. Rather than the general report that had been picked up by the Skullboy airship Lacerator, this was a direct communication to Swarm, in response to an earlier announcement sent to Spearpoint along the faltering semaphore network. Swarm had informed the city - taking particular pains not to mention Tulwar by name - that it was responding to the earlier call for help, with the intention of bringing sufficient antizonal supplies - albeit in concentrated form - to treat millions of citizens. Swarm requested guidance for offloading the cargo and ensuring it reached the right hands. It also mentioned that any direct medical queries should be addressed to the physician aboard Painted Lady, without mentioning Quillon’s name. The response had come back six hours later, suggesting that lines of communication, both in and out of Spearpoint, remained fragile. This time it appeared to be directly authored by Tulwar. Digesting the transcript, Quillon was left in no doubt that it was the same man they had dealt with before his escape.
Meroka agreed. ‘The place where he’s suggesting we offload isn’t too far from his part of Steamville. Too much of a coincidence, Cutter.’
‘You think so?’
‘Yeah. Looks like our wheezing friend really is running the show now, probably out of the same bathhouse.’ Meroka gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘But if the man can get the job done, ain’t no skin off my nose.’
‘Although you’d rather it was Fray.’ He nodded. ‘I feel the same. But we can’t go asking what happened to him. If we do that, anyone who reads our signal will know we had some prior connection with Fray. And if that’s someone who happens to be looking for me—’
‘You don’t have to say it, Cutter. I know what you mean.’
‘It also means we can’t let Tulwar know that we know who he is either. At least not until we’re face to face, and we know there’s no one listening in. The other thing we can’t mention is Nimcha. Not until we’re sure she’s going to be safe.’
‘Maybe we should cross that bridge after we’ve delivered the drugs, don’t you think? Ain’t gonna be no walk in the park, just getting to Spearpoint. Just so you’re clear on that, Cutter.’
‘Under no illusions,’ he said, forcing a stoic smile.
Meroka fell silent, and for a moment he thought she had said all that she meant to. Then she started speaking again. ‘Gave you a pretty hard time, didn’t I?’
‘No more or less than I deserved.’
‘Because of you being an angel?’
‘There’s no escaping it.’
‘No, I guess there isn’t. But I was wrong all the same. Not wrong to hate them for what they did, but wrong to take all that out on you. So you lied. I guess you did it with Fray’s blessing, though.’
‘I lied to almost everyone I ever met in Neon Heights. Fray was the only one who got anywhere near the truth. And there were still things I didn’t even tell Fray.’
‘Guess we all have our little secrets.’
‘All of us,’ he affirmed. ‘Doesn’t make it right or wrong, of course - it’s just the way we are. For what it’s worth, I’m glad Fray put us together. I know it meant dragging you out of Spearpoint, I know it meant you getting shot ... but, as selfish as it sounds, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.’
‘Can’t say I was sorry not to be back in Spearpoint when it all turned to shit.’
‘You’d have done well, I suspect.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes it’s just how the dice fall. Look at Fray. Look at Tulwar.’
‘I see what you mean.’
‘I’m glad I met Curtana. Glad I met the kid, as well. Gotta say, mother still creeps me out a bit. But the kid’s all right.’
‘Thank you for reading to her. I think she liked the stories.’
‘The stories?’ Meroka laughed. ‘
I hate those fucking airship stories. But she seems to like me reading them, so I guess we’re stuck with each other.’
‘All of us,’ Quillon said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Less than twenty leagues separated Swarm from its destination. The fleet had been on a survival footing as it crossed the Bane. Now it was at war-readiness, and with impeccable justification. Long-range observers had peered through leagues of trembling, smoke-wreathed air, mapping Skullboy positions all the way to the dusty margins of Horsetown, where Spearpoint commenced its soaring climb from the plains. Swarm had no option but to cross that occupied terrain.
‘There are no airships in the air or on the ground,’ Agraffe said, looking from face to face as he delivered his news, ‘but that doesn’t mean the Skullboys haven’t been busy, or that we’re not going to encounter moderate resistance on the way in. We’re too far out to detect artillery or gun emplacements, although you can be sure they’re there. At our usual cruising altitude, they won’t pose us any great difficulties, and in any case we should be able to take out most of them with our long-range guns before we’re anywhere near them. But our observers have seen balloons. They’re tethered to the ground, laid out in concentric lines all the way back to Spearpoint, most of them already inflated - big, obvious targets.’
‘We’ll cut them to ribbons,’ Curtana said.
‘Perhaps.’
‘You’re not convinced?’ Ricasso asked, glancing up with heavy-lidded eyes from the heliograph report that had been handed to him a few minutes earlier.
‘Skullboys may be insane, but they’re certainly not stupid. They know our capabilities, what they can and can’t get away with. If they want to stop us, why aren’t they putting airships in the air?’
‘Maybe they’re all out of airships,’ Meroka said.
‘Skullboys are a self-organising rabble,’ Agraffe said patiently. ‘We may have shredded one part of the organism, but that doesn’t preclude it from growing another limb. Weaker, perhaps - but still capable of hurting or slowing us. Perhaps they just couldn’t get any other ships here in time - that’s a possibility, I admit.’
‘But not one you’re inclined to go with,’ Ricasso said.
‘They have the means to organise those balloon lines, but not to get a single ship into the air? I don’t buy it.’
‘Nor do I.’ Ricasso put the heliograph report down on the chart table, setting it under a skull-shaped paperweight, some captured, shrivel-headed trophy from an earlier glory. ‘I don’t have to, either. We’ve just heard from Tulwar again. He was brief and to the point, as needs must. It isn’t good news.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Quillon asked. ‘We’ve come this far; Spearpoint’s practically within spitting distance. We know Tulwar’s still in some kind of control, or he wouldn’t have flashed you. All we need to know is where exactly to land and who to give the medicines to.’
‘Tulwar isn’t the problem,’ Ricasso said. ‘It’s the zones around Spearpoint.’
Curtana groaned. ‘What’s the matter now?’
‘It used to be possible, at least in theory, for us to fly Swarm right up to one of those ledges. In the old days there were even docking towers. It was probably still possible before the zone storm, although I suspect the towers were long gone. But now there isn’t a navigable path through the air: not one we can use, anyway. The Skullboys know that, of course. That’s why they haven’t put any ships into the air. They wouldn’t work.’
‘It took Tulwar until now to tell us this?’ Meroka asked.
‘Tulwar didn’t know,’ Ricasso replied. ‘Surveying the airspace around Spearpoint hasn’t exactly been the highest priority - not when people have been dying in droves, and Spearpoint’s been under attack on two fronts. They’ve only just been able to make some measurements out there. Unfortunately, they’re bad news for us.’
He pressed his belly to the chart table and ran a finger over the map of Spearpoint. It was an old one that Quillon and Meroka had done their best to bring up to date, their annotations a scribble of bright-red ink over faded black and sepia.
‘At our preferred altitude,’ he continued, ‘we’ll hit a boundary ten leagues out. Beyond the boundary, wrapping Spearpoint from all directions, is a low-state zone, roughly equivalent to the old Horsetown.’ He met Quillon’s eye. ‘You’ve been through it, so you’ll know exactly how much works in Horsetown.’
‘Almost nothing that isn’t made of meat.’
‘Simple machines, that’s all. Iron clocks, waterwheels, flintlock pistols. Internal-combustion engines, air-cooled or gas-powered machine guns, sensitive navigation devices - not so much.’
‘Could we race through and hope it doesn’t affect our engines before we get out the other side?’ Quillon asked.
‘Doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. There are some latency effects, so we wouldn’t lose all power immediately after crossing the boundary. But even if we hit the boundary at maximum speed, we still wouldn’t get more than a few leagues into it before we lost engines. Guns would follow shortly afterwards.’
‘Does it reach all the way to the ground?’ Curtana asked.
‘No,’ Ricasso said. ‘At least not according to Tulwar’s information, which even he admits isn’t necessarily accurate. We could come in very low, and still retain engines. But then we’d be at the mercy of those ground emplacements. They’d rip us to pieces.’
‘Even if we got through, there’d still be the main formation behind us,’ Curtana said.
Ricasso shook his head. ‘Not a hope. We just don’t have enough escort strength to protect them, or even enough airspace to guard the unarmed ships from below. We have civilians to think of, not to mention the reason we’re doing this in the first place.’
‘The reasons,’ Quillon corrected under his breath.
‘Quite.’ Ricasso nodded.
‘All right,’ Curtana said. ‘If not down, then what about up? Can we come in over the top?’
‘Just as impractical, I’m afraid. The low-state zone extends well above our normal ceiling.’ Before she could raise an objection he said, ‘Yes, I know Painted Lady’s flown higher than almost every other ship in Swarm, and I don’t doubt she could do so again. But one ship’s simply not enough, and I won’t risk all the medicine in one hold. Besides, high altitude brings its own risks. You’d be exposed to angels and anything else capable of flying around up there.’
‘So in other words,’ Meroka said, ‘we’re screwed whichever way we come in. May as well turn tail now and head back to the Bane. Is that what you’re saying?’
Ricasso stood back from the table. ‘No, I’m saying that the only option open to us may strike you as rather unpalatable.’
‘Which would be?’
‘We push on. Three ships go first, with the processed serum stocks divided between them. The unprocessed stocks remain aboard Purple Emperor for now, until it’s safe to bring her in.’
‘Cross the boundary and eventually lose all power and weapons,’ Curtana said.
‘But we’ll still be airborne,’ Ricasso answered. ‘Hydrostatic lift doesn’t depend on any clever gadgetry; the ships will still fly.’
‘Drift, you mean. The whole point of a dirigible is that it’s dirigible. You get to choose which way it goes, and how fast.’
‘That will be decided for us,’ Ricasso said. ‘The prevailing wind happens to be on our side. Even if we lose all power, the ships will keep moving in the right direction.’
Curtana looked offended. ‘We’re pilots, not balloonists. Leave that to the Skullboys.’
‘I’ve done some ballooning recently. It has its attractions.’
‘And look how well that ended.’
He smiled at Curtana. ‘Thank you, my dear, for that frank assessment. I’ll remind you that we’re airmen above all else. And all we have to do is get the laden ships down on that ledge.’
‘You mean crash.’
‘That will depend on the skill of those in
volved, wouldn’t you agree? There are twisty thermals near Spearpoint, which would be a problem even if we had engines. We can also expect to encounter resistance from the occupying elements, not to mention the hostiles around Spearpoint’s base.’ He flashed a challenging smile. ‘But I have the utmost confidence in my captains. The question is, do they have confidence in themselves?’
Curtana rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, don’t start that again. You got me to fly into the Bane. That was bad enough, but at least I stood a slender chance of having a ship at the end of it.’
‘Land her gently enough and you’ll still have a ship.’
‘I’ll have a gutless skeleton, if I’m lucky. No engines, no guns. Just a heap of metal and skin and gas. That’s not the way Painted Lady was meant to go. Down in flames, maybe. But ending up like some paralysed cripple?’ Curtana looked away disgustedly, as if they were discussing the betrayal of a close friend.
‘If we do this one thing,’ Ricasso said, looking around the room for support, ‘then everything changes. Everything. Not just Spearpoint, not just Swarm, but the entire landscape of our world. Who knows if we’ll even want ships when the dust has settled? Maybe we’ll have found something else to care about.’
‘You’d have thrown someone overboard if they’d spoken like that a year ago,’ Curtana said.
‘I’d have been right to. But that was then and this is now. They’ve lost their city. What do a few ships matter, set against that?’
She looked amazed. ‘Fear and panic, you’re actually serious. What did you and Doctor Quillon actually see on that ballooning trip? The face of God?’
‘Very nearly,’ Ricasso said.
‘How long until we hit the boundary, at our present speed?’ Quillon asked.