Dieselpunk: An Anthology (9 page)

“
I’m Missy Gin,” she said aloud as they cleared up an cleaned up an set her in her craft. “I’m Missy Gin, an I am everything you ever wish you been. I’m more man than man, an I ain’t even man at all, I’m more than you could be or see an that ain’t even half of me! I’m twice more clever than ever you thought, fast as an adder an madder than a bear dropped into the sea — Mr. Smith, you watch out for me! I’m more Hell than Hell after you, you take one step wrong an I’m well after you! I am Missy Gin, an I am the trouble that you are in!”

Life-water flared, an off the
Tonic
dropped from the
Don’t Look Back
, an then up like a swallow! Dipped an swung under its lifts, then steadied, letting the
Don’t Look Back
fall forward of them, Missy Gin tinkering the panners till they cut the flare a bit an let the
Tonic
down a little an watched the
Don’t Look Back
shove forward past puffs of cumulostratus against the Great Blue sky, pushing an humming away from her in a great serene lump.

An she watched Mr. Smith’s small schooner drop away from following the
Don’t Look Back
an float back on down to her. It was a little old hydrogenium model with a single lift an two swiveling rotor engines for up-an-downing as well as yaw, an a long, closed cabin, whose windows were shut an curtained closed.

An while she watched it near, Missy Gin took her revolver an re-loaded it. It was loaded already, but she took out three of the plain bullets an filled them places with three fireshot, those being filled with the fire that you get out over the swampy parts of the Deep Blue; she loaded those in because you never could know what would be necessitated. Then she put her gun back in its shoulder holster an waited for that schooner to approach.

Well, it did, an once it did an Mr. Smith appeared for’ard of the cabin, she took her iron chain out an thronged it out to him an he caught it an fixed it to his prow. Then he touched his hat to her an went on back inside.

An Missy Gin, she went into the wheelhouse to steer through the clouds.

For clouds was what they was after now. Anyone on a flight in the Great Blue looking to fly to a Yesterday needs to find themselves an itinerus cloud, an that could be any type: itinerostratus, boring an easy; itineronimbus, tricky since they damped the panners; altoitinerus, higher up, those fishscales you floated up on through; or cumuloitinerus, great puffs of cloud haloed round with pale prisms, that you flew on into, hung on against the battering winds an flew out of into a different sky, the blue a different blue an that ocean below you no real Deep Blue at all, but just a couple-miles-shallow little sea, hardly worth spitting into.

Now you may have been out in the Great Blue one time or two, or you may not have, so just in case you ain’t been, let me tell you what you see. You look round out there, an you might see a lot, but first an last, you see clouds. They proliferate like all wrath, piling up an spinning out an growing, layering, billowing, blowing round wherever they might please. They don’t follow the clouds of a here-an-ago, where you only find altocumulus at such-an-so a place, or cirrus highest an nimbus down low, no. No, the clouds of the Great Blue is the most capricious ones you’ll ever see. You’ll be flying there down low, low enough to see rays flitting through the water, an suddenly you’ll find cirrus round you, thin an frozen arms reaching out for your engines. Or you’ll be way up in the heights, where by rights there shouldn’t be no clouds, but the clouds don’t agree with that no how, since there’ll be stretched above you the huge fat incus of a cumulonimbus all aproned out before you an a pileus sitting nice as you please on top. Or you’ll be in the middle, admiring what’s both above an below an you’ll find yourself skimming under mammatus that peters out into long lovely mare’s tails that finally grow fast an wet an, as waterspouts, spiral down, far down, into the Deep Blue.

An all over all, you’ll see nacreous clouds — finger-thin layers, layer after layer, until there ain’t no more layers, an you’re staring deep into the great, Great Blue.

Let me tell you, you ain’t never seen clouds till you have seen the Great Blue, an after that there ain’t a cloud that could impress you elsewhere. In the Great Blue, there’s the crescerus clouds, they take any of your other types an grow them huge. There’s crescerostratus, that you get lost in for hundreds of days, flying in fog that seems it’d never end; crescerocirrus, long winding tails of frozen cloud that wind up an down an back round like ivy from above you right across the horizons. An I don’t think I even need to tell you of the cresceracumulonimbus, which puts supercells to shame: that’s a cloud where if you see it on the horizon, you find the closest itinerus an you dive through, or you head to the Shelf an go here-an-ago, else no matter how strong your ship, that storm’ll pummel you to jelly faster’n you can say “help.”

An cresceracumulonimbus ain’t even the half of it. There’s lentus clouds; these are not to be confused with the lenticularis, that as grows over the Silver Mountains, but what I’m referring to is lentus, the clouds that grow so slow you’ll be flying by years later an they’s still growing — there’s storms that ain’t moved for years, an waterspouts still round that your grandsire has seen. An there’s tigris clouds, long stripes from way up high right on down to the water, where rain falls like icicles an the hail’s like grit. An there’s dulcis clouds — them clouds as taste, when you fly through them. There’s many an airfolk gotten stuck in a dulcis that never will come out again, as all they have to eat is vapor, but that vapor tastes the sweetest imagineable. An I haven’t even told you of the sonitus clouds, that you need to fill your ears with cotton an wax to even fly past, or the secutus clouds, that will not leave a body alone, nor of the requinus clouds, made of life-water themselves, that are always hungry an that’ll eat you right on up like you might eat a cherry.

So in that Great Blue there’s clouds up there to beat the sun, an well there might, since there’s no sun above the Great Blue, only air an air till there ain’t even that. An I won’t even tell you of what else lives up there an out there in the Great Blue, as Missy Gin is flying now very close to an itinerus cloud, an you came here to hear about her, didn’t you?

So there was Missy Gin, an there was that cloud. It was a beautiful little cloud, a lone bright cumulus floating some thousand foot up from the Deep Blue. The prism round it was like the pale rainbow round the splash of a waterfall.

How did Missy Gin know which itinerus cloud held which Yesterday? Well, there was a special compass for that: you had one needlepoint pointing to the Yesterdayers or to the Yesterday-thing you had, an then that clever machine’d point the second needle straight to the Yesterday that thing come from. The gal who invented that machine — well, she lived years an years an years past, not that years are much of anything outside of here-an-ago, an she was a Silver Mountain Girl. She made it for herself, made it for to sell, to get off that Silver Mountain, an I’d tell you about how she did, an how she finally went aloft but that machine was stolen, an her life she spent in getting it back — I’d tell you, dear reader, but it’s Missy Gin an the trouble she was in that I’m telling you about now, an it wouldn’t be fair not to finish, as Missy Gin did finally use them fireshots, an as for them girls — well, they did get Yesterday, but I should tell you how.

They was on the schooner with Mr. Smith, for certain, but Missy Gin hadn’t seen them since Mr. Smith had brought them back off the
Don’t Look Back.
He was inside, too, an it felt sometimes like she was tugging a toy ghost, there being no sign of nothing aboard. But then them windows was darkened enough to hide anything, an they had curtains besides. Missy Gin thought she best see those girls alive an kicking at the end of the trip, else she’d loose the iron chain an sail off with no Mr. Smith behind.

(I oughtn’t tell you what Mr. Smith was doing just then, but you just wait a bit, an you’ll find out.)

But now: there was that cumuloitinerus. It was a shining beauty against the Great Blue, its prism a halo around it, scudding along fancy-colorful against a background of altotigris. It loomed up a white an bright wall in front of the
Tonic
. An then they were in.

An everything went grey an empty. Water dewed up the ropes an wires, made little drops on the lifts that gathered up big an then rolled slowly down, dripping. The panners hissed an sputtered like they was about to go out. Missy Gin went round an reached up an turned them up brighter. Then she went back to the wheel.

An then she shut her eyes.

For there weren’t no way you could see through that fog, anyhow, which you’ll know, sweet reader, if you’ve ever been in a cloud. There ain’t nothing to see but grey-white an white-grey. An anyhow, you don’t need sight to get to Yesterday.

An this was that thing Mr. Smith had never learned, an why he’d hired on Missy Gin: going Yesterday was a feel. There never was an instrument built that could take you there — though I calculate there might be one built soon — you had to do it your ownself, reaching out for a When that wasn’t your’n, an holding that whilst you held course towards it.

So that was what Missy Gin did. She shut her eyes an steered making her course by the air shifting round her an through that When’s spongey shores. She didn’t open those eyes till sunlight shone on them.

An then she did, for there weren’t no sunlight in the Great Blue. But this was not the Great Blue — this was a little ocean, not even half-a-mile deep, with islands all over the horizons an the water shallow an pale teal below her. You could tell it weren’t the Great Blue from the smells — it wasn’t weeds an weather an life-water you smelled here, but salt, fish, an wind. An there was the sound of breakers, small an far below.

Those breakers edged a dead-volcano island, just to her left below. Brown an dead-white trees rimmed the crater, with green spread round below an white sand an black rocks skirting it all. A few houses even stood on it, tucked into the trees an off on the far side of the volcano — roads wound through the woods an side-goggled up the slope. Clouds puffed right above the island an nowhere else.

So this was were those girls was from? Or elsewhere on this Yesterday? They could be from far away. She’d best get a heading from Mr. Smith, Missy Gin thought, an turned from the wheel to do that.

An at that very milli-second, the
Tonic
bucked.

Missy Gin went down on her backside, but was up again in a burnt hurry an run to the stern, where that iron chain was dangling freely down to nothing. Down below, already a good long jump, was Mr. Smith’s ship, going down an downer even as she watched.

“Consarn his picture!” Missy Gin sware, an jumped to the wheel an the lift-rods, an down she turned after him. He was fixing to do someone a mischief, that was certain, an she didn’t aim to sail off an let him. Sure, he’d be deserving of it, but the Tomorrow Syndrome struck gradual, an she didn’t have those hours it took now.

So she turned down after him, letting life-water gas out of the lifts an falling slowly behind him.

When it was sure he was just going down to the beach she did stop an fill them panners to the cap with life-water, just in case she needed to make a straight shirttail out of there. Then she checked her guns an turned back to the wheel, to follow Mr. Smith’s ship to a landing.

An Mr. Smith’s ship? Well what happened on board that ship don’t bear repeating, but I’ll tell you this: after he landed, he took the still-asleep little girl over his shoulder an he motioned to the older girl. “
___,” he said, an opened the door.

That girl sobbed scared, but she did follow.

She followed him down the rope ladder, an stood there on the sand, hands tied before her, nose still bleeding an face still bruised red under Tomorrow-burned skin. An there Mr. Smith told her about the second half of the payment he expected.

An I’ll tell you what they was saying, so you’ll know just what Mr. Smith is.

“No, please!” said that girl, falling down to her knees. “No, you can’t! I can’t! Please don’t!”

An Mr. Smith grinned, looking her up an down with those blue eyes. He didn’t even bother to speak proper. “Well, you say that again, but I heerd that before. You said it earlier an it turns out you did want that. Maybe your mouth’ll lie but something else don’t.”

That girl just cried, holding her mouth.

“
Well now,” Mr. Smith said, stepping up an putting a hand on her shoulder an ignoring when she jerked away, “well now, it don’t have to be like that. You don’t have to lose both.”

The girl looked up.

“No, you don’t. I’ll just take one from you an one from the little girlchild.”

So saying, he dropped the little girl down on the sand. She dropped like a stone. She breathed, but she didn’t move none.

“No!” the older girl cried out, an reached forward for her sister. Mr. Smith stepped in front of her rat-quick.

“
Then it’s both of yours,” he said, not smiling no more. “Both of yours, else I’ll take both of hers an then find out if you can swim tied up like that. Maybe her after you.”

That girl cried an beseeched, but Mr. Smith didn’t move till she finally said, “Yes, yes, but please, don’t touch her—”

“I won’t dream to,” Mr. Smith said, smiling wide an stepping forward. He bore that girl down to the sand, put a knee on her chest, an spread one seven-fingered hand behind her neck to hold her head. His other hand he took to her eye. Three fingers went to hold the top lid up, two to hold the bottom lid down, an she flinched, an Mr. Smith said, “Don’t you move now, or I might take more than I meant.”