The ship melted away at the horizon.
“I can’t take Wanda-Sue under Zan City. That devil’s playground is built on a solar strip.” Das ran his hands down his sunken cheeks, adding to the smears of oil there. “Ain’t a burrower in existence can take on salt laid that thick or the sea of brine beneath.”
“Indeed there isn’t. So it looks like I’ll be following the Spirit Man philosophy today.” D’Angelus glanced across at Jaxx. The Sirinese was slick with sweat from winding the huge winch.
D’Angelus stared back out at the drifting speck. “Cyber Circus is welcome to entertain the masses of Zan City. Meantime, we’ll cross the solar strip and make our way beyond. Herb’ll never double-back. Lose all that tasty revenue by turning up at pitches he’s just worked? A showman like Herb would never do that.” Rotating his hat’s brim between his fingers, D’Angelus settled his mind to the fact. “Yeah, I go with your philosophy, Jaxx, and trust we will encounter that merry troop again before too long.”
EIGHT
The sky was a brilliant blue. Below, the solar strip endured in powdery, still white silence. Dots of movement betrayed the whereabouts of desert tinkers – nomads peddling the contents of patched water bladders, and who travelled the solar strip on sleds pulled by clothhods. The only other sign of life was a large shadow moving determinedly towards the scab of an island. Cyber Circus, her engines set to a low purr as if loathed to disturb the hush of the landscape. Heading for the brown hem of Zan City, where the cacti grew tall and fat.
“Mother of all Saints, I hate Zan City.” Relieved from his post at the ship’s wheel by a member of the pitch crew, Herb was nonetheless keen to oversee their docking and sat pinched into a chair at the front of the bridge. “Give her a wide berth,” he called back to the navigator, who turned the wheel accordingly.
The ship curved around the vast salt column, a lookout tower left over from the civil war. Herb nipped his nose between two fingers and peered down. “They cram the mothers in,” he said softly as they passed over hundreds of lump dwellings. The island looked diseased.
“We’re a day ahead of schedule. What if there’s another troop occupying the showground?” Lulu sucked his bottom lip. While Herb had felt need for a chair, the acrobat had settled amongst the faded floor cushions in the viewing bay. The shock of earlier events lingered in the slight shake of his hands. Every so often, he took a sip from a beaker of Jackogin.
“There won’t be. Only Cyber Circus got acts queer enough to appease the Zan City temperament,” said Herb with bragging emphasis. “Plus, this close to Hamatan, with the dust storms hotting up? My guess is we’ll have a clear run at it.” The ringmaster fed his chubby hands under his armpits. He nodded, as if reassuring himself of the fact.
No one replied, not Lulu, the navigator at the wheel or the Jeridian stood in the doorway... although she wanted to speak. Asenath’s kohl-rimmed eyes flicked between the lookout towers and lump houses, the sprawl of the souk and the colossal salt walls of the prison. She’d no desire to return to Zan City. Things always got ugly.
Asenath kept her thoughts private. Instead, she pointed to a small hill and said, “The pitch site, boss.” She raised an eyebrow at Lulu. “No other tent in residence. Seems we’re in luck.”
Salt. The ritual purifier. Funeral offering. Manna from the Saints. In Zan City, it was the absorber, desiccating all inside its sour ribcage. A small city which seemed to know its days were numbered, Zan oozed salt from every pore – the rag curtained windows of lump dwellings, the patchwork of stone that made up the sidewalks, the prison walls that rose up into the sky.
There was no relief. Hellequin knew that much from a day spent amongst its cacti when he’d headed up his platoon. Having secured the services of a desert tinker to repair a tear to his lung balloon’s envelope, he’d let his men wander the souk. By the time it came to leave, one soldier had already got himself maimed in a bar brawl. Another never returned. “The sirens of Zan City drained his blood,” was the whisper, inviting the dirty reply, “His cock more likely.” In those days, Hellequin had made no allowance for missing men. He was the HawkEye – a role which made him lieutenant as well as lookout. The rest of the platoon? Just muscle with guns. Forgetting the lost soldier at once, he’d taken to the sky in his mended lung basket and steered the platoon away from the city, back out across the solar strip.
Five years on, Hellequin was grateful for Zan City’s bleak nature and overpopulation. D’Angelus was unlikely to follow them here when he could wait it out on the outskirts and not have to bother with Zan’s inhabitants. Plus, if they turned the show around quickly, they could earn the water they needed to fuel the boiler and be back in the air before the sun rose on a new day.
The flap of the circus tent had been hooked aside, letting in the blazing daylight. Hellequin watched Herb strut out of the tent, the thumb of one hand tucked in a waistcoat pocket, trailing his hat with its extravagant plumage in the other. A gang of bare-chested Sirinese approached, clubs in their fists and bodies which had been carved, stitched and re-carved. Prison wardens.
Lesser men might have faltered, but Herb crowed his ballyhoo and looked to all appearances like a djinee granting wishes. Meanwhile, the pitch crew ran outside to peg down guides ropes which whipped either side of Herb in a motion that was almost protective.
There was a strange connection between ringmaster and the wondrous beast of Cyber Circus, Hellequin mused – something that often distorted Herb’s eye to the reality of their predicament. As now. The ringmaster squeezed off a handshake from each warden and strode back inside, announcing with a flourish, “We’re on! We can slake this old gal’s thirst with water from a pumping station out back in exchange for a show. But first, they want a full blown ragamuffin parade, and we’re the fellas to give it to them!”
“I take it the plan to get in and out of Zan City as quickly as possible is abandoned?” Nim stood at the entrance to the ring. Overhead, pitchmen worked to lash the huge iron girders of the tent poles in place. The magnetic paths essential to Nim’s act were exposed in the floor of the ring below; she stepped up onto the rim and walked around the edge, arms folded over her robe.
Hellequin knew the adjustments of his HawkEye gave away his every glance. He concentrated on the ground.
Herb got an empty look. “Business sympathises with no man. Woman of your intelligence understands the way of it. And if the marks are dusting off their dimes at the thought of a parade, well, the least we can do is give it to them.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, Herb, we’re on the run,” said Hellequin. He felt Nim’s exquisite eyes burn into him but refused to meet them.
Herb snorted. “I notice everything, HawkEye, but nothing’s gonna stop Cyber Circus when she’s rolling. Not the pimp D’Angelus, not a whore peddling herself as something finer, not an old soldier with a headful of wires, not the Devil’s own dust storm!”
He slung a squat arm towards Nim. “You – get dressed! Parade, rehearsal, and lights up at seven. And you...” The arm swung in the direction of Hellequin’s breast. The soldier looked up, steel eye truncated. “I gave you a slot because all marks like a freak with medals. But your kind go bad over time, and by bad, I mean your skull’s insides turn to mush. Don’t give me an excuse to dump your ass already.” Herb rolled his eyes towards the upper reaches of the tent. “Meantime, since you’re such pals with Pig Heart, you’d best check on his progress. And tell Rust to get ready to take a ride. It’s time to show Zan City the goods!”