Jack clears her throat, an exaggerated harrumph. She’s standing by the open door, one arm extended like a faithful servant welcoming the master home. I turn away from Meroe, certain she’ll follow. Where else does she have to go? And, indeed, after a few moments I hear her footsteps on the deck.
I’m prepared for a lot of weirdness when I step outside—if Soliton has taught me a lesson so far, it’s to be ready for strange things. What I’m not prepared for, apparently, is sun, and I take a half step back, eyes watering. As my vision clears, I discover we’re standing in the center of a slanting shaft of sunlight, streaming down from an irregularly shaped hole in a metal roof several hundred feet overhead.
In front of me there’s a—street, I guess you’d have to call it, if you can have such a thing aboard a ship. Sister Cadua’s doorway is embedded in a wall that stretches off in either direction. Ahead is a much larger space, cluttered with small, ramshackle buildings that are definitely not part of Soliton’s original design. They’re made of anything and everything—sheets of rusty metal, draped cloths, pieces of chitin, even slabs of what looks like dried mushroom. Some could be dignified with the title of “shack,” while others are barely more than tents or lean-tos. The “street” is just a long, crooked area kept clear of obstruction, leading roughly from Sister Cadua’s to a huge tower rising in the middle distance.
Overhead, a metal roof is supported by curved girders. Big chunks of it have rusted out, leaving ragged-edged holes that look up into a bright blue sky. That sight makes my throat thicken, just a little—it’s surprising how quickly you get to miss the sky, when you’re stuck in darkness. Patches of sunlight slide gently over the makeshift city, dappled by clouds.
“Where are we?” I ask, as Jack beams in the light and spreads her arms like an eager impresario.
“These are the Upper Stations,” she says. “The highest deck. Home to the market, the officers, and the most successful packs.”
“Where do the rest live?”
She glances at the floor. “Down below. There’s the Middle Deck, and then the Drips.”
The Drips sounds about right for where Pack Nine is locked up. I have a dozen other questions, but Jack is already moving again.
“Come, come!” she shouts. “We are expected, slayer of crabs. It wouldn’t do to be late.”
Jack caroms down the street like a puppy, rushing from one source of excitement to the next. In front of the shacks, people have set out sheets covered with small items, and I realize this is the market she mentioned. It’s not much of a market, truth be told—the morning fish market in Kahnzoka would have swallowed it a hundred times over—but, again, not something I expected to find on a ship at all.
The items for sale are a curious lot. Some I understand—meat, mushrooms, plants that might be seaweed, armor plates and polished bones and a hundred other pieces of creatures worked into useful objects. But there are also things that could not possibly have been made aboard ship: china plates and crystal goblets, jade statues and silk dresses, fine things from all over the world. They’re strewn around, casually, with no regard for their actual value. A delicate silver-inlaid egg with the gleam of real gold sits amid coils of seaweed rope and broken pieces of metal decking; a purple kizen fringed with pearls worth a king’s ransom sits unfolded and unregarded beside a pile of carved bones.
“Where does it all come from?” I mutter.
Jack, to my surprise, answers. “Offerings,” she says. “The Captain just wants mage-born children, but not every port knows he’s so choosy. So they put their treasures in the boats with the sacrifices, and the angels leave them lying around topside. Our scavengers creep out and collect them in hopes of making a trade.” She gestures at a young boy sitting by a collection of polished chimes. “The officers get their pick of the lot, of course. This is the dregs.”
The dregs: gold and silver and silk. But, of course, it made sense. If you truly accepted that you were stuck aboard Soliton and were never going to leave, what good was a fortune in gems and precious metals? I wonder how much treasure there is aboard the ship, and whether Kuon Naga knows it’s here. All the more reason for him to send me to claim it all for the Empire. Anger flares hot and bright in my chest, and I pause for a breath to get it under control.
More interesting than the trinkets for sale, now that I’m looking, are the people. There are quite a few around, sitting by the displays, visible in their small dwellings, or walking up and down the street. By Kahnzoka standards, it isn’t a crowd—I could swing my arms without hitting anyone, which is unheard of on a busy street in the Sixteenth Ward. But the crew of Soliton make up for their lack of numbers with sheer variety. As I’d already observed, they come from every nation around the Central Sea—Imperials, Jyashtani, icelings, southerners, and still others I can’t place at all. There seems to be no accepted standard of dress. Everyone simply wore what they pleased, either re-creating their native style from the strange blend of trash and treasure or making up something new with what they had at hand.
The one common element is that there are no kizen, nor the billowy robes wealthy Jyashtanis sometimes wear, or any other costume that might get in the way in a fight. Almost everyone carries at least a knife, which isn’t so different from back in the Sixteenth Ward, but a good number have larger weapons, too. No one seems to throw a second glance at a sword, hatchet, or even battle-axe. And, I remind myself, there’s every possibility that many of these people, like me, don’t require a weapon to be dangerous.
Seeing them all sends my thoughts in an unpleasant direction. Small as the market is compared to bustling Kahnzoka, it’s still more people than I’d imagined—hundreds, maybe thousands, living here long enough to build something like a city. The sheer number gives some credence to Zarun’s claim that escape from Soliton is impossible. If there was a way, surely someone would have found it.
No. I grit my teeth. I’m not giving up yet. Tori is waiting for me.
And even if escape is impossible, I’ve already learned something critical. Soliton has a Captain. That means it can be controlled, which means it can be stolen.
If going through with Naga’s mad plan is the only way to get back to Tori, then I’ll do it. Crazy or not.
Then, once Tori is safe, I’ll come back for him.
I brood for a few moments, then shake my head. Whatever the plan is, I need more information. As we walk in Jack’s erratic wake, a few more common elements come to my attention. In spite of their differences in origin and dress, the people of the great ship are very similar in age. There’s no one who looks much younger than twelve, and no one older than their mid-twenties. There also seem to be more women than men. While costumes might vary, groups who walk together often share a color or a look, which reminds me of Kahnzoka street gangs.
Packs. Or clades, I remember. The personal gangs of the officers. I make a mental note to learn the colors and symbols, so I can tell who’s a friend and who’s an enemy.
From time to time I look back over my shoulder and make sure Meroe’s still with us. She’s staring around as wide-eyed as I am, fascinated by the market and its people. When she catches my eye, though, her open face goes cold, and she looks away.
I ignore the little twist in my gut. She’ll get over it.
“No lollygagging!” Jack says, waving to us with both hands. “Come, come. Time for shopping later. Now is the time for drinking!”
She spins on one heel and gestures ahead. A wider clear space on the deck is set up with dozens of tables and chairs, ranging from battered hardwood antiques to makeshift bits of decking and scrap metal. A small crowd of crew are eating and drinking from similarly mismatched plates and mugs, while a few younger children in gray tunics hurry back and forth fetching more. The rough street we’d been following intersects another here, and a large shack apparently serves as bar and kitchen.
“Welcome to the Crossroads,” Jack says. “Best watering hole on Soliton. Only such, in truth, but ‘best’ has a better ring to it, I think. And now for the promised drink, and introductions.”
Bemused, I follow Jack, feeling oddly at home here. It reminds me of Breda’s, where everyone went armed, but there was a vague agreement that serious fighting should happen elsewhere. Meroe follows a few steps behind, torn between her anger at me and her desire to stay close. Before long, I’m attracting attention, crew whispering and pointing in my direction. Apparently my fame precedes me.
A bulky Jyashtani man at a table near my path gets up, glowering down at me. His lip twists into a dismissive sneer I find all too familiar.
“You’re the fresh meat,” he says. “Killed a blueshell all by yourself, did you?”
I pause, shrug.
“She killed it,” Meroe says, to my surprise. “I was there.”