Lithe twisted around to look toward the other end of the ship and squinted against the wind, her face a grimace of effort. Then she dropped back into Kethel’s hand. It lowered her to the wheel and opened its fingers so she could climb out. She pointed toward the far end of the ship. “I saw a raised chamber that way. It’s the only thing that looks like a steering cabin!”
The people who had built this thing might be sightless and steer it from somewhere deep in the hold, they had no idea. But this was worth a try. Moon said, “Shade, you take Lithe; we’ll follow you.”
Shade swept Lithe up and crouched, then made a leap down to the next wheel. Shade had to partially extend his wings to make it, and slipped sideways on a harsh gust of wind with an easy competence. Moon glanced at Chime to make sure he was all right. Chime moved his spines in assent, and said grimly, “I can do it.”
Moon dove after Shade. He landed on the next wheel and looked back. Chime fought the wind awkwardly through the leap but landed next to Moon with spines flared in tension. Kethel followed, swinging easily down.
After more jumps made dangerous with the increasing wind and motion, they reached the lee of the next giant metal sail. Moon spotted the big globe that Lithe had identified as a possible steering cabin. It sat just atop the center of a cone-shaped web of heavy metal cables and struts, and the light caught glints off large curving crystal windows. Moon felt a spark of hope. It looked as if it was connected to a large part of the ship, reminding him of the connecting tendrils of a Kishan water boat’s motivator. Lithe was right, this might be it.
Shade reached it first and landed on the rounded top of the globe. Moon hit the side and slid down to hook his claws on top of a wide window. He pressed his face against it, trying to see in, but the interior was heavily shadowed. Chime landed on the side and scrabbled for a hold on the big cable just below the curve. He called, “Hey, I think this is the door!”
Moon pushed off from the window and dropped down to the cable. It was made of braided skeins of metal, jointed like armor, and attached to a conical base beneath the globe. Clinging to his cable, Chime pointed. Below was an elaborately twisted piece of metal that Moon realized was a staircase, very like the one inside the flower pods at the first ruin. He swung down to it, landed on a step, and saw the stairs led to a round doorway in the base of the globe. The stairs blocked the wind a little, and must be firmly anchored; Moon couldn’t feel the movement of the ship nearly as much.
Moon retracted his claws to run his hands over the door’s surface. “There’s no lock.” He dropped back down to a lower stair so Lithe and Chime could examine the door more closely.
“Wait, there’s one of those forerunner flower locks here, but it’s tiny.” Chime clawed carefully at something set deep into the door frame. “Maybe we could pry it open . . .”
Lithe stepped aside. Shade dropped down and reached past Chime to put his hand on the lock. Moon craned his neck to see, but nothing happened.
Chime grimaced. “That would have been easy. We need a long metal rod—”
Then deep inside the door, something groaned. Chime twitched uneasily but Lithe said, “I think that’s metal.”
Moon snapped, “Chime, Lithe, get back from the—” and then the door opened.
Shade shoved his body in front of the opening, shielding Lithe and Chime, but nothing surged out of the door but a wave of cold stale air, scented of rust and rot.
Lithe dug in her bag and pulled out a glowing handful of Kishan moss. Shade took it and held it out as he stepped inside. “Here’s another stair. And I think we’re in the right place.”
Moon pulled himself up and slipped inside after Shade. Instantly the motion seemed to cease. This chamber was protected somehow, stable no matter what was happening to the rest of the ship. The light gleamed on the dark blue of the walls and the flowing figured shapes of curves that might symbolize wind and water. In the center another set of the oddly-spaced stairs curved up toward the globe above. Even Moon could tell this was forerunner.
The cessation of the wind and the dizzying motion made Moon shake his spines and frills out in relief, shedding ice crystals. Lithe stepped in behind him.
Then Chime twitched. “Uh, I felt something.
Heard something.” Shade stopped with his claws curled around the raised steps. He peered warily up into the chamber above. “Something dangerous?”
Moon asked, “Voices?”
Lithe touched Chime’s arm in encouragement. Chime tilted his head, concentrating. “No, just . . . There’s definitely something here.” He hissed in frustration. “I’m not sure.”
“Then we are in the right place,” Moon said. And they couldn’t stop now. He stepped onto the stairs and started up with Shade.
Moon carefully poked his head up into the next chamber. The discolored crystal windows had cracked and clouded. Only a little light shone through and the view out was barely discernible. It was oddly quiet, though Moon heard the howling wind through the open door below. The narrow sections of wall between the windows were blue and deeply figured. Moon climbed up onto a floor grooved with wave patterns, and looked for something like a steering lever, or a wheel, or anything.
Shade stood beside him, staring around, baffled, as Chime and Lithe climbed up. He said, “But there’s nothing to steer with.”
“This was built by forerunners to control this ship,” Moon said, groping for a solution, “so . . . we don’t even know how forerunners do anything.”
“There has to be something here,” Lithe said, and she started to feel the carvings. Chime hurried to help, poking at the crevices and angles.
Kethel, in its groundling form, appeared in the stairwell, startling a yelp out of Chime. Shade, crouched to search along the floor, growled but didn’t object to its presence.
After what felt like a short eternity of searching, Moon knew this wasn’t going to help. And the others could all be dead down inside the dock somewhere and he had to find out. He shook his spines and said, “I need to go back to the dock and get down to where the others are. You all stay here.”
Chime looked up, appalled. “No, you can’t—”
Shade turned away from the wall he was searching. “You can’t make it alone. We barely got away from there alive. I’ll go with you.”
From the ripping shriek of metal outside, the ship might possibly be tearing itself apart. Moon wanted Chime, Shade, and Lithe up here where escape would be easier if the ship broke up. “No, stay with them. They need you. And you might be able to do something to help here.”
“I’ll take you there,” Kethel said. Its dark eyes were stark against its pale skin, red bruises forming on its jawline from being thrown off the docking stalk. It looked frightened and that was almost more disturbing than anything else.
Shade hissed at it, then said to Moon, “We should stay together.”
Moon flared his spines and snarled, “I don’t have time to argue.”
Shade bristled at him. Moon held his gaze and said, “The warriors and Bramble and the groundlings on the wind-ship are going to need you, and Chime, and Lithe.” If they’re still alive after Vendoin uses the weapon, he thought, and didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t need to. “You might be their only chance to get away from this place. If it gets worse, don’t wait, get back to them.”
Shade tried to stare him down. Moon had been in staring contests with queens and Stone; Shade wasn’t nearly angry enough to win. Shade flicked his spines and subsided reluctantly. He said, “If it’s too late, come back. Don’t—” He stopped.
Don’t die with the others, he meant. Just so Shade would let him go, Moon said, “I’ll try.”