Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) Read online

  “Our patience can outlast even yours, captain,” the woman said.

  Jaren met the Mithgarder lieutenant’s steady gaze. “Is that right?” he asked. Yet she refused to take the bait. When her resolve showed no sign of cracking, Jaren wondered again if any job was worth this much trouble. “Everyone back on the ship,” he said. “Stow your gear.”

  When Jaren and his senior crew debarked for the second time, the Mithgarder officer greeted them as cordially as before. “Please follow me,” she said. “Mr. Vernon is waiting.”

  Jaren took in his surroundings as he followed the lieutenant through the stations’ sterile corridors. He’d seen military bases before, but Caelia's astringent air carried a strange heaviness, like a hospital or a morgue. Laughter—even common decency—had no business there. This place has seen its share of wickedness, he thought.

  Jaren’s ruminating was cut short when the officer stopped beside a set of lacquered wooden doors the color of dried blood. She pulled the right door open and motioned the pirates into the room. “Mr. Vernon will debrief you on the operation,” she said.

  The doors gave onto a spacious room with a panoramic view of the broken planet beyond. A conference table of highly polished black stone dominated the chamber. Jaren, Teg, Nakvin, and Deim took their seats, leaving most of the chairs flanking the imposing slab empty.

  “Welcome, dear friends,” Vernon said as he glided from the window to the head of the table. “Our humble facility is honored to host such illustrious personages.”

  Jaren hadn’t seen the stick-thin fellow framed against the blackness outside. Now that he had a better view, Vernon reminded him of a scarecrow in a charcoal grey suit. His hair seemed to have been painted on his skull with shoe polish. His eyes were so sunken that the whites were barely visible.

  “You’re clearly a man whose time is valuable,” said Jaren. “So I won’t take offense if we skip straight to business.”

  Vernon bowed like a chastened servant. “I am more than happy to oblige, captain,” he said. “We have followed your crew’s exploits with great interest, and we are proud to offer you key places in our operation.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” asked Teg.

  Vernon folded his black-gloved hands in a conciliatory gesture. “We are the Arcana Divines,” he said.

  Teg nodded sagely. “Never heard of you.”

  “It is well that you haven't, Mr. Cross,” said Vernon with a smile like a skull. “Our fraternity gives discretion pride of place. This rule was adopted to protect our interests, and it has been successful thus far.”

  While Jaren mulled this statement over, Deim seized the opening. “What exactly do you want from us?”

  “Your expertise,” Vernon said. “We desire your exclusive services for a project of supreme importance.”

  “Important to who?” Jaren asked. His words trailed off when the changing view through the window drew his attention outside.

  The station's orbit must have been synchronized with Bifon's rotation, because Jaren saw a narrow golden line limning the sphere’s eastern curve. What the dawning light revealed stole his breath away.

  The rising sun was cross-hatched by a rambling scaffold encasing a monstrous form. At that distance it was hard to discern the exact shape through the tangle of girders, but from the window it appeared to be a huge, stretched-out pyramid whose angular surface shimmered with the luster of black crystal. That can’t be the hull of a ship, Jaren thought.

  The grin on Vernon's face broadened. “That is Exodus,” he said with near-religious awe.

  Jaren’s cohorts gasped at the dark spectacle. He himself struggled to make sense of what he saw. Even with the scaffold breaking up its profile, the hulk brooding in the distance easily spanned fifteen hundred feet. “No ship that size has ever flown,” he said.

  “One of our reasons for seeking you out,” said Vernon.

  “What makes you think I can help?” Jaren asked, never taking his eyes from the window.

  “The fact that Falko Peregrine was your father.”

  Jaren rounded on Vernon. “You're saying that my father—“

  “Helped us build it.”

  Jaren fell quiet, and Vernon took the floor. “History is a succession of regimes that rise from the ashes of their predecessor’s books. The Arcana Divines are devoted to preserving knowledge that some would rather see lost. We once worked with the Guild and even counted high-ranking Steersmen as members, but the Brotherhood has stagnated. As always happens, we must part ways with the current order.”

  “We tried to ditch the Guild,” said Teg. “Didn’t work out. Unless you know a sphere they don’t own, I call it wishful thinking.”

  “You are correct in one regard, Mr. Cross,” Vernon said with a pedantic gesture of his index finger. “The Steersmen have laid claim to every inch of the Middle Stratum. Your error, however, lies in assuming that the Middle Stratum is the only place left to look.”

  Jaren exchanged glances with Nakvin while Vernon paused for effect.

  “Recall that my order has spent millennia gathering forbidden knowledge,” the Arcana Divine said. “The guildsmen pride themselves on their learning, but they nurse prejudices which do not deter us.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Jaren said.

  “The popular model of the cosmos features a number of layers, or Strata,” said Vernon. “According to this view the universe is sustained by energy flowing out of the White Well, through the ether, and into the Void. Prana loses potency as it descends. Thus the Fire Stratum—the most energetic—is located directly below the Well, the Stone Stratum lies above the Void, and our Stratum—where all elements coexist in balance—constitutes the central layer.”

  “Every Guild Novice knows that,” Nakvin said. “What’s your point?”

  “Is it not obvious? The Steersmen dominate the Middle Stratum, so we shall seek freedom in another.”

  “Fantastic,” said Teg. “I’ll have the freedom to choose whether I burn or drown.”

  “That is the Steersmen's propaganda, Mr. Cross,” Vernon said. “And they have trained you well. Nevertheless, this universe does have other hospitable regions.”

  “The Guild spent millennia searching the ether,” said Teg, “and they didn’t find a damn thing worth keeping. Who says you can?”

  “Your error this time, Mr. Cross, is presuming the Exodus to be a mere ether-runner.”

  Teg regarded Vernon coolly. “Mr. Cross was my father,” he said at length.

  “Of course it's not an ether-runner,” Jaren said, more to himself than to the others. “The fuel line would be bigger than the ship.”

  Vernon nodded like a tutor well pleased with his pupil's answer.

  “If it's not an ether-runner, how can it fly?” Nakvin asked.

  “The Exodus employs a dual-engine design,” Vernon said. “The main power plant is a large but rather ordinary prana siphon. The rest of the tonnage is offset by a supplemental power source that also allows the ship to travel beyond the known Strata.”

  “What do you expect to find there?” Nakvin asked with more excitement than skepticism.

  “New vistas, my dear!” Vernon said. “New frontiers of trade, unspoiled by the Guild and awaiting exploration.”

  Nakvin regarded Vernon with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief. “You convinced the Mithgar Navy to fly you there?”

  Vernon chuckled like an amateur stage actor. “I was rather hoping that you and your protégé would,” he said, eliciting wide-eyed looks from Nakvin and Deim. “I mean no offense to navy steersmen. Their standards are quite high, but still fall short of the Guild’s. Of course, finding a Guild-trained Steersman sympathetic to our goals carries inherent challenges, and affords you a singular advantage.”

  The double doors slammed open, admitting a stocky, nervous-looking fellow who hurried across the room without acknowledging the pirates. The man walked right up to Vernon and whispered a curt statement.

  Jaren’s eyes wandered ove
r the Exodus. The ship’s every line and angle proclaimed it his father’s work. That he’d known nothing of the ship till now didn’t argue against Falko’s involvement. Surely he’d taken much of Jaren’s legacy to the grave.

  But not this, Jaren assured his father’s ghost. You’ll get your recognition, and I’ll get my revenge.

  “Please excuse me while I confer with my colleague, Mr. Braun,” Vernon said. No sooner had he spoken than the officer who‘d seen the pirates in was holding the door open in a not-so-subtle call to vacate the premises.

  Jaren rose with the others but lagged behind to eavesdrop on Vernon’s meeting, however briefly. Someone entered as the pirates were filing out. Jaren only caught a glimpse of the figure who brushed past him: a girl in a grey hooded sweater. Her eyes gleamed like rose quartz, and wavy locks the color of wheat under an overcast sky framed her pale face. The scent of a passing storm followed in her wake.

  Jaren only managed to overhear Braun's reedy voice complaining about sympathetic transference affecting containment.

  The lieutenant closed the doors again, cutting off all sound. “I apologize for the interruption,” she said. “The meeting will resume tomorrow. In the meantime I’ve ordered your ship fully repaired and arranged quarters for your crew. Please follow me.”

  A short walk saw Jaren and his senior staff to a common hub adjoining a ring of staterooms. “There’s plenty of space,” said the lieutenant, “so I’ll leave the cabin assignments to you. The station staff can be reached by sending at all hours if you need anything.”

  “Thanks,” Jaren said. The lieutenant excused herself with a brief nod and departed.

  “Anyone else think that was weird?” Teg asked, breaking the otherwise total silence.

  “I don’t know,” Nakvin said. “Vernon’s plan is unorthodox, but it has merit in theory.”

  “My mom had a theory that two gods made the world on a bet,” said Teg, letting himself fall back onto a tan sofa that looked to have been recently unpacked. “Just because people believe something, that doesn’t make it true. Deim’s with me on this, right?”

  Teg turned to Deim, who seemed captivated by something only he could see. “What?” the junior steersman asked like a boy caught daydreaming.

  “It’s not a matter of belief,” Jaren said. “It’s a question of fact. Here’s what we know. Our plan to liberate Tharis went down in flames, thanks to Malachi. All that’s left of the resistance is one ship and a skeleton crew. Vernon’s offered us a way to start again somewhere else. Let the Guild keep this godforsaken Stratum. We’ll make our own world. By our rules.”

  “That sounds great,” said Teg, “unless Vernon and his friends are psychotic.”

  “Put it this way,” Jaren said. “Even if they are crazy, they’re crazy enough to offer us safe harbor, military support, and large sums of money.”

  Teg pursed his lips. At length he said, “I think I can play along.”

  15

  In the morning, Jaren and his crew joined the naval officers for breakfast. A single table accommodated the whole gathering. That several more tables remained empty told Jaren that Caelia’s present complement came nowhere close to its full capacity. The bare walls of the officers’ mess echoed with a susurrus of tinkling flatware and banal conversation.

  The regular yellow mass on Jaren’s plate purporting to be eggs gave off a pleasant though synthetic smell. He sampled a forkful, but his taste buds failed to convince him that the substance qualified as “egg”.

  The urge to distract himself from the general assault on his senses prompted Jaren to ask, “Why did the Mithgar Navy throw in against their own sphere?”

  A welcome hush fell. It lasted until a lieutenant-commander with bristly brown hair set down his fork and said, “We rather think we’re fighting for it.”

  “Vernon told us that you’re working to undermine the Guild,” Jaren said. “Mithgar is their First Sphere.”

  “The Guild may have started on Mithgar,” said Lt. Wald, the woman who’d met the pirates at the dock, “but our sphere was great long before they came along.”

  “They’ve made us their glorified thumb-cutters,” another sailor said. “We want to be explorers again.”

  “The Exodus will see to that,” said Wald.

  Nakvin turned to the female officer. “How can you be sure?”

  “Ask me again when she’s finished,” said Wald. “Her keel will span sixteen hundred feet, and her beam fourteen hundred. She’ll be able to outgun a fleet of Guild corvettes and outrun a frigate—not that she’ll need to.”

  “Who's the girl aboard this station?” Deim interrupted.

  “Which girl?” Wald asked.

  “The one who passed us when we left the meeting yesterday.”

  “She’s no girl,” a beady-eyed ensign said. The commander shot him a glance.

  “What he means is that she's hardly a girl anymore,” said Wald, who timed her laugh a bit too precisely for Jaren’s liking. “Elena is already sixteen.”

  “That's below enlistment age,” Teg said through a mouthful of leather strips posing as bacon.

  “What's a teenager doing at a secret naval base?” Nakvin asked.

  “She's Braun's daughter,” the commander said. “We bend some rules for the administrators, especially when it comes to family.”

  The other officers gave assent with their silence, but Jaren recalled Braun's squat, flabby frame and found the image difficult to reconcile with his daughter's ethereal beauty.

  “She came to my room last night,” said Deim.

  All eyes fell upon the young steersman. “She spent the night at the shipyard,” the commander said. “You must have been dreaming.”

  After breakfast, Vernon summoned Jaren to a private meeting.

  “Thank you for your patience, captain,” Vernon said. “I offer my apologies for the delay.”

  “No need,” Jaren said. “My people needed the downtime.”

  Vernon nodded. He paced before the conference room window as he spoke. “I thought it apt to inform you of two recent developments. First, I am pleased to report that repairs to your ship are complete. My shipwrights assure me of its restoration to peak performance.”

  “What’s the fee?”

  “Think of it as a signing bonus.”

  “Much appreciated,” Jaren said, “but I want to tour the shipyard before I sign anything.”

  “I’d expect nothing less,” said Vernon. “However, I advise giving priority to the next item of concern.”

  “Which is?”

  “Our navy sources report that your associates in Guild custody are now being transferred from Tharis to Mithgar.”

  “I suppose both items are related,” Jaren said with a smile.

  Vernon flashed his skull-like grin.

  “Will the navy back us up?” Jaren asked.

  “The Mithgar Navy cannot be seen to intervene on your behalf. However, all of the information they've gathered will be placed at your disposal.”

  “That's all we need,” Jaren said.

  Jaren watched the prison transport grow from a tiny speck to a massive hulk that filled the boarding tube’s porthole. The Shibboleth’s speed allowed him only a fleeting glimpse of the modified freighter’s shape—a metal sphere cupped between two truncated cones. Jaren awaited the coming impact with much more eagerness than fear. Though he knew the risks of ramming a larger ship, he trusted Nakvin’s experience. Besides, she looked to be right on target. He braced himself as the grappling arm punched straight into the transport’s airlock.

  Knowing that the prison ship would be well guarded, Jaren sent Teg in first. The salamander Teg carried was little more than a length of pipe, an ether tank, and a pair of hand grips. The two guildsmen who rushed him froze when they saw it. Teg pressed the ignition, and both men died in a cloud of flame.

  Jaren led his other six men out of the tube and surveyed Teg’s work. “Good job,” he said, fighting to keep his voice steady despite
the reek of charred flesh. “You, me, and Deim will head straight for the brig,” he said, drawing his sword. “The rest of you spread out and keep the enemy busy.”

  The pirates received their orders with eager grins. As they turned to go, Jaren added, “We're here because the Guild took our friends prisoner. Don't return the favor.”

  Before grappling the prison ship, Nakvin had steeled herself to battle an ether-runner three times the Shibboleth’s tonnage. Its lack of resistance was a welcome surprise. I must have knocked their Steersman from the Wheel, she thought.

  Nakvin allowed herself to relax, but not to the point of distraction. Jaren might need her at any moment. Still, her role would likely be straightforward. All she had to do was hold the ship steady, make sure the entangled vessels didn't drift apart, and be ready to run when the prisoners were aboard.

  Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed sudden movement through the bridge canopy. The freighter’s ventral doors were opening.

  Jaren and Teg rounded the last corner before the brig and almost ran into a trio of Worked Enforcers. The tin cans' domed cycloptic heads spun toward them in unison, emitting shrill cries of alarm.

  Teg had conveniently kept the salamander's pilot flame lit. He pulled the release valve, forcing a jet of concentrated ether across the tiny spark. The resulting inferno enveloped all three automatons’ gangling forms.

  The flames died as Teg released the trigger, and the stench of a chemical fire filled the hall. Jaren cursed when he saw that the tin cans still stood. Their leather coats had burned away, exposing their twisted rubbery husks. The Enforcers fixed their eyes on Teg. Their scythelike fingers hummed and twitched.

  Jaren charged the lead Enforcer and channeled his forward momentum into a swift downward slash that split his foe’s head in two. He reached the brig doors as the tin can clattered to the deck, its bisected eye gone dark.

  Jaren turned to urge his men on and saw Deim fashioning a Working against a guildsman who was already loosing one of his own. A funnel of diaphanous white honeycombs streamed from the guildsman’s hand with the sound of a rushing gale and a heat that dried out Jaren’s eyes from across the hall. The guildsman sneered in triumph, but his pinched face fell as the desiccating cloud was pulled into the amber talisman on Deim's belt.