The rapport Arlo had built with Moriah had been utterly decimated by the events at the captain’s table. She still brought him his food every day, and still smiled at him and made polite conversation, but there was a certain withholding of cheer. No more playful flirtation or jokes that could be interpreted as such ever infiltrated their conversations, and she never lingered in his room for an extra few minutes as had been her practice before. J’zan would duck in and visit him throughout the day instead, and the wolf-headed captain always seemed to have some question for him about Imperial society. In time, Arlo was able to summon enough decency to have deep and meaningful conversations about landmarks he’d learned about in school and seen in his childhood. They covered the topic of fine art and once more Arlo found himself aghast at the splendid taste J’zan had in paintings and sculptures, both antique and contemporary. Sometimes he would catch himself endeared by the captain again and wanting to spend more time in the man’s company. Then, another ‘incident’ would always occur. Once, the captain had introduced Arlo to a dog-eared man he shared a cigarette with before and explained, “Arlo, this is Marlow. Your name is Arlo, his name is Marlow! Isn’t that wild? Isn’t that fun?”
And the entire exchange had been almost as awkward and unpleasant as the exchange that had ruined his friendship with Moriah. Another time, J’zan had cornered him on his way back to his room from the head and insisted that Arlo pet him like a dog.
“I’m not ashamed, it’s not humiliating or weird!” J’zan had insisted, with a firm vice-like grip around Arlo’s wrist, “I know you’ve got to have been looking at me and asking yourself what this feels like, so I want you to give it a try!”
These little events would happen once or twice a week, some were just brief instances and others became minutes-long prisons of politeness and shame that left Arlo overall feeling repulsed and oppressed by the other man. He was bitterly ambivalent about it as well, for many of these incidents would occur on the heels of a fantastic time. They’d been on the deck at dusk, with J’zan holding up his methcycle while Arlo sat astride it, J’zan teaching Arlo the way of idling the bike forward using the clutch instead of the accelerator when all of a sudden a little ship would be on the horizon and J’zan would be asking if Arlo thought they should rob it, or if they did would Arlo like to shoot the big gun to put a shot across their bows, or had Arlo thought about how fun it would be to kill a bad person if he knew they were bad– no good memory of J’zan would be complete without a moment where it seemed like the wolfman was as excited as the dog he resembled to offer something Arlo simply did not want. This on top of Moriah’s new coldness had turned Arlo sadly against J’zan, and by some extension against forgiving Dragil as he had in his heart. Dragil, on the other hand, was quite a different person with J’zan on board. The lumbering bear was always smiling every day, and he made extra sure to greet Arlo when he saw him. The watch chain and boots never reappeared, alas, but Arlo suspected that Dragil had long forgotten those items and asking about them would make him angry enough not to return them again. But this new Dragil was at least kind enough to bring Arlo extra snacks. He’d seen the dog treats and the Havenite dried fish in the cabin and would bring Arlo copies of these things he had ‘found’ in the back of the ship, or just leave little presents on Arlo’s desk in the form of albatross feathers and old playbills that had come from goddess-knew-where.
But it was Moriah’s emotional retreat that had struck the deepest wound to Arlo. He supposed on some level he had come to like her and think of her as a woman, and now it just seemed like she was little more than a passive shipmate. Not to mention the portions of his meals seemed to shrink somewhat minutely. Then, finally the morning came when she brought in his mess kit and said, “Here you are, Mister Arlo, probably the last meal you’ll eat on the Lemur. I’m told we pull in to Peppernuts today and the crew will most likely have lunch on land.”
Arlo set the mess kit on his desk and turned his chair, grasping her wrist so she wouldn’t leave. “Please, Moriah, before I leave will you forgive me?”
Something seemed to drain out of her when he asked, but Moriah kept her smile on and asked, “Forgive you for what, Arlo?”
“Whatever I did to stop making you like me.” came his answer, sincere and heartfelt. Arlo got to his feet and put his hands on her shoulders, peering into her face and staring longingly at her red gold eyes, “I have felt heartbroken since the day I dined with the captain and he said those things, and you… stopped.”
Moriah melted slightly in his grip and reached up to pet down his hair. “You know we’re probably never going to see each other again after today, right?”
“I can’t leave with things being like this.” he argued, “I think…”
Moriah patiently waited while Arlo nervously gulped. She watched him benevolently while he nervously shifted, moved his hands from her shoulder to her forearms and then back up to her bicep.
“I think J’zan was right, that I did wish you would kiss me. But I thought that was improper of me, and that you wouldn’t want me.” he eventually said. “I hadn’t really thought much further than that, about the- the, uh, spines and so on. But I do think I had a bit of a crush. If you realized that, and that’s what made you mad at me, I’m sorry.”
A rush of air tickled Arlo’s beard as Moriah sighed through gritted teeth, and then brought her hands to Arlo’s cheeks.
“If you felt that way, Arlo, all you had to do was say something.” she told him, meeting his eyes with her own.
“But, you know I wasn’t going to be here for long, I think maybe I thought you would think I was just using you to pass the time.” he protested.
Moriah petted down Arlo’s hair again. “You-Think-I-Think-You-Thought, listen to you. You could have just said something to me. I have to pass the time, too, Arlo… And by the way: I was mad at you because you didn’t stand up for me, not because I thought you liked me or didn’t like me. Just… When you didn’t seem to understand that, I felt like we’d lost our connection.”
Arlo didn’t cry, but he looked like he was going to cry again. Moriah made a sideways face at this and scolded, “Such a spoiled crybaby. But you are sweet.”
At this, she pressed herself against Arlo and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around her as well, and winced when he felt her quills digging into his wrists. Patiently, Moriah backed out and grasped his arms, then directed them down. She put his hands on her waist, and then her hips. Next, she inched closer to him and drew his hands around towards her rump, making firm eye contact all the while. Then, finally, she drew his hands together and slid them up her rump and onto her lower back until they were crossed beneath the bottom most chevron of her quills. She slid her arms under his and grasped his shoulder blades, letting him pull her in instinctively so they could kiss.
Love, shame, and regret flowed into Arlo when their lips locked. Love for her kindness to him when he was so wretched, shame for his failure to repay it, and regret over his inability to seize his opportunity to be with her sooner. Truly, it could have been a sweet reprieve just to lie in bed with her and just to be hugged by her. He had needed somebody to hug him for months now, and only upon drinking a sip did he know how thirsty he had been. He never moved to break the kiss, just held her there until she backed out on her own and let his hands drop sorrowfully to his sides. Moriah raised herself up on her toes and kissed his forehead next before saying, “Thank you for not letting us part as things were. The captain is having me make you what he calls a doggie bag, and yes the pun is intended. I’ll put an address where you can write to me inside, it’s my parents home in Council waters. I welcome any letters, and once you know where you will be staying I will happily write back.”
Arlo bittersweetly touched his lips with the tip of one hand and turned his eyes to the floor before murmuring, “Thank you, Miss Moriah. I will miss you.”
He comforted himself in the depths of his shame and regret with the joyful knowledge that he’d felt, as his hands had been moved across the curvature of her backside, the soft shape beneath her dress of a warm, fuzzy tail.
The Lemur sounded its fog horn and fired a single wave-shattering blast from the cannon on its deck that awakened Arlo from the nap he’d taken once Moriah had left him and he’d finished his packing. He sat bolt-upright in bed and whipped his head over to the porthole in a flurry of long, unbrushed hair. Peering out to the sea beyond he found his view was mostly taken up by an expanse of endless powder-grey steel. He had to blink a few times before he realized what he was seeing and leapt out of bed to hastily grab his bag and dash out the door.
He shaded his eyes from the harsh light of the golden sun when he emerged onto the weatherdeck to gaze at the display of raw power around him almost entirely unshaken by the rumble of the Lemur’s fog horn and the boneshaking crash of her gun going off again. Arlo felt a vague tremulous force welling up in his chest that came upon him so suddenly it was hard for him to understand what he was feeling as he stepped carefully to the taffrail and held onto it with both hands. As his eyes adjusted and the ships came into focus, his emotions resolved themselves as well and he realized he was feeling something like simultaneous awe and pride.
A great dreadnought occupied most of his direct sight line, four heavy triple turrets sprouting from her deck and more guns seated in comfortable sponsons below. This beautiful ship was a masterpiece of green paint with a swooping gold line trailing across her long, sleek hull. An Imperial moonburst in brass was affixed to her prow with brilliant scrawling waves of scrollwork blown back like a bird’s wings on either side. Lesser ships, frigates and destroyers, clustered around likewise with their hulls painted green and gold in the colors of the Corovokian Empire; each flying the Imperial Standard high from the tall antennas of their conning towers while they threw gentle bow waves on the calm and even Seas. And yet, they were all miniscule in the shadow of something even larger.
At three-hundred leaps of length, both of the Dawnstorm’s twin hulls were so massive that they would’ve dwarfed the dreadnought by themselves, but side-by-side all ninety thousand tons of the great homeship was at once both impossible and crystalizingly real. Her gigantic grey double-hull was not like a ship so much as it was two grand long pillars holding up a pure slab of untouched stone looming over the sea. From this distance, it was only through remote knowledge that Arlo could know they were things of metal and rivets and not some mystical creation hewn by The Goddess herself. The thought of the amber bubble turrets on Viola, how two of the terrible weapons served to protect an entire city-state, made it as dreadful as it was impressive to see those same turrets lined up like orange pips along the side of the Dawnstorm with six on each side. The numerous other alcoves, hardpoints, and sponsons scattered across the side of the hull alone displayed innumerable other guns as well as devices of such varied purpose that the crew for the impossible ship numbered in the thousands.
Not only was it a symbol of the might his queen commanded, it was in a very small way, partly his.
Well, that was coming at it a bit high. The smallest share of the Homeship alone, not to mention the wealth of the company that was operated to maintain it, would be more than enough to put Arlo far beyond the Imperial Wealth Limit. At least thirty-eight people, many of whom Arlo had never met, would have to die before he would even be considered worthy of inheriting the Royal Decree that itself only permitted the ownership of such vast resources. Considering how badly he’d made a pigs’ ear of his last posting and the way it seemed to be received on Viola, Arlo imagined he’d been moved down in the standings and he absolutely shuddered to think of what sort of people were lower than him. These were tiny things, however; in the grander light of the fact that he was almost certainly assured safety and a certain standard of living if he could just get onto the Homeship and report to his Clannarch. Not wanting to get his hopes up too high, Arlo banished the fantasies he had of being offered a buy-out. It had been rumored that other of the great clans had made Limiters out of many of the less desirable heirs to keep them from contesting the will of their Clannarch after his or her death. Arlo had even met a lad in college whose parents were cleverly-invested cousins of a smaller Clannarch simply living off the dividends of a thousandth-share of their family’s own company.
But Arlo told himself he would be satisfied if he could only just wear silk again, maybe taste fine cheese on occasion. He leaned on the rail with his chin in his hands and sighed contentedly just imagining a little slice of toasted soda bread with a smear of some long-aged soft and pungent cheese. He could recline in his chair with a book of poetry and read his favorite passages aloud in his most courtly voice while Valentena sat at the harpsichord and laughed in her gauzy dress of chiffon and lace while they basked in the reflected majesty of J. M. Callings’ ‘The Mother and Her Cat’ mounted above the fireplace. It was such a peaceful image that it almost hurt when the Dawnstorm seemed to shatter reality itself returning the Lemur’s salute. One-by-one the six powerful batteries facing them spake and the muzzle flash alone was as large as the impact of a lesser shell would’ve been. Seeing the massive telescoping barrels slowly scissor in and out in recoil from this great distance drove home the enormity of the ship as much as the pulsing gust that whipped back Arlo’s loose hair and brought with it a little crest of foam atop the gentle swell of the sea.
“Yeeeaaaah!”
While Arlo was blinking the salty spray from his eyes, he was surprised to hear how many voices were raised in cheering behind him. He turned while drawing his sailcloth strip from his pocket to bind his hair and saw that nearly twenty or thirty Lemurs were on the deck cheering over the sight. He had never seen more than two or three of them at a time on his entire voyage, but now it seemed the entire crew were gathered on the deck to see the homeship. Again, Arlo felt some tiny swelling of pride in him that even a single drop of his blood could be tied to the grand sight. The Lemurs jumped up and down, whooping at the grand display until they all rushed to silence so Dragil could shout to Marlow in the seat of their snubbed turret, “Again! Load sand cannister and fire!”
The great gun on the Lemur’s weather deck barked again and Arlo found himself cheering along with them. He saw Moriah between Skrivens and a man with lizard-scales for skin, holding a cloth-wrapped box against her chest while she bounced on her heels cheering, and when she noticed him watching she put the parcel under her arm and waved at him before sticking out her tongue and flicking up one side of her skirt to make him blush and cover his mouth. He was on the cusp of going to her when he felt a heavy claw rest on his shoulder and heard what sounded like J’zan muttering on the other side of a thin wall. When he turned to find the captain puffing on a cigar right next to him, Arlo realized his ears were ringing from the Lemur’s gun. He held a finger up to J’zan while pointing to his ear and saw the wolf man laughing. Eventually the volume of the laughter began to grow to his hearing and when he was sure he’d understand Arlo leaned in and asked, “What did you say!?”
“I said: Your folks are sending something they’re calling a ‘buzzer’ to pick you up.” J’zan repeated, well-inured to the hearing loss caused by repeated cannonfire.
For some reason, Arlo felt a little hurt to hear this. J’zan seemed concerned to see it, so Arlo went ahead and explained, “I had kind of hoped some of you could come aboard with me. Surely my uncle would want to thank you for bringing me. And I know you would love to see the reliquary room– if it’s unchanged in the twenty years since I’ve been there it once housed some great pieces.”
J’zan had a sort of sad, knowing smile while rubbing his nose in the first show of awkwardness Arlo had ever seen. He turned Arlo by the shoulders to face not his homeship to the starboard, but the tiny green wisp of land ahead of the bow on the horizon. His claw pointed at the little tuft that could still be mistaken for green fuzz or perhaps another Imperial warship and he spoke in the tones of a person who was talking to a child. “We have business on that island we got to take care of fast. What your Clannarch is about to do, and what’s about to happen to this archipelago– well, bud, it’s a good thing in the end because a bunch of bad men are gonna die. But let’s just say that shells can’t tell the difference between a Khaldonite bunker or a fish market. So there’s gonna be a lot of people looking for free traders around here right now. Our kind will pay more to ride with their own people, and they’ll want off more than anybody else.”
Arlo deflated a bit more, less out of disappointment that he’d be separated from J’zan and much more out of sadness that he wouldn’t get one last chance to talk to Moriah.
“What’s more, I don’t want to get anywhere near that much Imperial steel.” added the captain more jokingly, “Trigger happy little Imps might blow me out of the water for my ship being a shade too close to red.”
Arlo looked back at J’zan somewhat confused. “I thought you only had two spare cabins and this was not a passenger ship.”
J’zan’s smile somehow grew even sadder. “Well, it used to be. And besides, we can clear a lot of space in the hold if we care to actually work for a change around here. Once we get some cots and hammocks set up I promise you other beastfolk are going to pay premiums for berths on the Lemur.”
“If they’re that desperate, is it right to charge so much?” Arlo asked next, one eyebrow climbing his forehead.
J’zan clapped him on the shoulder and laughed as though to shatter the grim air. “Of course it ain’t right! I’m a scoundrel, remember? But the others can find berths on one of you guys’ ships! It’s not like there won’t be tons of scalpers out there, and we’re just offering people a chance to flee with their own kind, is all. We mutants gotta stick together, kid.”
Arlo left it at that and turned back to the rail to consider the rolling wake of the Lemur in the sea beneath him. Soon, he saw an approaching shape in the distance. The craft they’d dispatched to get him lived up to its name as a buzzer, for it was merely a flat skiff with a plow-like nose splitting the waves as surely as the enclosed paddlewheel in its rear was churning the water behind it. On one side of the hump that concealed the paddlewheel was a guttering methsel engine belching smoke with a tinny whine, while on the other was a uniformed man seated at a sort of control lectern with one hand in front of him on said lectern and the other behind him holding the handle to a tiller. A pintle mount for a machine gun was in the center of the buzzer, but no gun was present and instead the interior of the boat was a long semi-circular bench that could’ve seated five or six people; perhaps eight if they loved one another. The man at the tiller waved at him while he was still quite a way out, but Arlo made sure to wave back. He sighed again, but soon felt the warmth of fingers sliding up his back and onto his neck. Arlo turned to see Moriah there, still holding her cloth-wrapped parcel. She presented it to him with a smile and said, “Your doggy bag, Mister Arlo.”
Arlo took the parcel and lowered it onto the deck next to his feet so he could wrap his arms around her lower back and pull her close. To his joyful astonishment, she squeezed him back. This time, he didn’t kiss her, not with other Lemurs watching. Instead, he pressed his head against hers and flattened the quills that acted as her hair with his temple before whispering, “I’m sorry if Captain Bloodfang makes fun of you for this later. I just wanted to hold you one last time.”
“One last time?” she panned at a whisper of her own, “Two times is good, but three times is overdoing it, huh?”
This only made Arlo squeeze her harder. “If I ever get back on my feet, if I’m ever established enough to have my own space or to travel; promise me you will meet me again.”
He could feel Moriah’s cheeks wrinkle and he knew she was smiling as she replied, “If you promise me reasonable accommodations, I’ll take shore leave to come and visit you anytime, Arlo. I look forward to receiving your first letter.”
They stood together still, though in a looser embrace until the buzzer was alongside the Lemur, bobbing gently up and down in the water below. Its operator called out to Arlo, “Arlo Haradin-Harkon? Is that you, sire?”
Arlo nodded his ascent and knelt to pick up the box, holding it by the knot that had been tied in the cloth which wrapped it. The boatman half-rose from his seat and asked, “Should I moor up and rig a gangway, sire?”
“No need!” Arlo called back as he strode down the rail until he reached the mooring gap. He cast one last look at Moriah and gave her a sad smile before looking down at the narrow gap between the Lemur and the buzzer. He clambered onto the top rung of the ladder which scaled the side of the corvette and dangled his parcel into the upstretched and waiting arms of the boatman before climbing down the rest of the way, and then timing the roll of the swell so he could drop into the buzzer at the trough of its arc when the two craft were closest. Once he was in, he signaled the boatman to continue and settled into a section of the bench so he could look up and search for Moriah. She watched him go with a gentle smirk on her face and he kept his eyes on her until he couldn’t make out her shape any longer.
“I loved me a beastfolk girl once. Tore me up worse’n you to part with her, but they wouldn’t have me on a Council ship and they had no more need of her here on the Dawnstorm.” remarked the boatman, causing Arlo to turn and really look the man over for the first time. He was a stout man with no hair to speak of save for more eyebrows than any forelock had any business supporting, and when Arlo looked at him he knuckled his bushy eyebrows and gave a bright and cheery smile. “Allo, Arlo.”
Arlo furrowed his brow for a moment, then gasped. “Darwin Huddlestone?”
The toothy grin widened and showed an ugly, huge set of teeth. “I’m surprised you remember me, sire.”
“I can say the same, sir!” Arlo shot back, grinning, then reached up to grab his fluffy black beard and add, “I’m surprised you even recognize me. Last time you saw me I was a four-pace-tall wet rat of a thing and you were an older boy who just wanted to get his work done. Now, look at me, I’m a talking shrub covered in rags!”
“You do look like shite, sire.” agreed Darwin with a dignified chuckle, “I certainly expected to see you better-placed if I ever saw you again.”
Arlo started to explain his apparent low station, but then realized that he was actually stationless and so not well-placed at all. He also realized that Darwin seemed to have the same job as he had twenty years before. “It breaks my heart to say the same, sir. Why is it that such a loyal servant of House Haradin is still a lowly boatman after twenty years?”
Darwin flashed his ugly crooked teeth again, even more charmingly than before as he reported, “Why, back then I was the mere ‘Junior Warrant Captain of Boat Twenty’, but before you now sits the Chief Cocks’n of all House Haradin! Captain of the Boat Captains, so to speak. And at the end of my next cruise, I’m promised adoption into the clan!”
“Indeed!?” for some reason, this filled Arlo with an indescribable joy and pride, as though he’d had anything to do with Darwin’s meteoric rise. He wanted to get up and shake the man’s hand, but the way the buzzer was bouncing even with its plow-prow to break the waves, Arlo was certain that he would go overboard if he did. So instead he just pumped his fists and cried, “Wish you all the joy in the world, sir! And on the day I will be happy to shake my new cousin’s hand.”
This made Darwin seem as proud and happy as Arlo, and he replied with a bashful, “Thankee, sire, I will gladly say ‘well met, cousin’ to you as well.”
The two of them laughed over twenty-year old jokes, reminiscing about the way the Dawnstorm had been laid out in those times. It had only been one summer of Arlo’s early life, and Darwin had lived aboard the entire time since, but it still felt like Arlo had access to a piece of the other man’s heart that others just couldn’t see. Maybe it was just two old shipmates enjoying a reunion, or maybe the familiarity was a salve for the loss of Moriah’s company and the bungling of her affection. The distant shape of the Lemur was naught but a little orange pill floating in the far off sea when Arlo finally turned and was floored again by the mammoth shape of the Dawnstorm towering over him. The buzzer pulled into a sort of netted chain hoist left trailing in the ocean next to the gargantuan hull and Darwin reached out with a gaffer pole to grab one side of it while he killed the engine and then hooked something from the other side onto an eyebolt at his station. Next, he secured the side he’d been gaffing similarly and reached into a pouch on his belt to produce an air horn which he honked twice.
A pair of surprised-looking eyes appeared at the winch above them from an alcove in the ship and then retreated. A moment later, with a whining hum, the buzzer was pulled from the water and they started to rise towards the ship. Now that Arlo and Darwin were standing, he could see that the uniform of House Haradin was largely unchanged. Most of the great clans had long since turned to using uniforms as a status symbol and would dress their employees in court attire or churchgoing-best even for daily work; much to the chagrin of the workers involved. But House Haradin, it seemed, still stuck to their tradition of cladding the men in the manner of the Imperial Navy. Bridge officers would wear simple pleated trousers and dress jackets, while the ratings all wore tough and functional side-closing tunics with tool belts around the waist; the one diversion from the Navy being that House Haradin men wore House Haradin grey instead of Imperial green. Darwin spotted Arlo looking him over and said reassuringly, “Not to worry, sire, no need to stand upon ceremony. Everybody ‘as a run of bad luck every now and then. I won’t judge ye for it, and the men won’t neither. By blood, some of the fo’c’slemen look twice as bad as you just after two days on shore!”
“Thank you for saying so, Mister Huddlestone.” returned Arlo benevolently, finally extending a hand for him to shake now that they weren’t sloshing about. “I hope Uncle Treistan will feel the same way.”
Darwin nodded as though this were a good point, but still he said, “He’s a hard-nosed old bugger, to be sure, but he’s reasonable. If you put something in, he’ll put something out. Asides ‘at, the old man talks about your mum like she’s still looking over his shoulder even now.”
As they arrived in the alcove, Darwin stepped off the buzzer, over the chain, and onto the deck plating of an interior compartment that would’ve made for a small storehouse on shore. Arlo tried to ignore how cold it was on his bare feet. There seemed no rhyme nor reason to the numerous other buzzers and mixed little boats hung up on the tall walls, as many empty berths seemed to be scattered among them with no relative order to them. Darwin dug out a shiny sickle coin and tossed it to the twelve year old blonde girl in a midshipman’s uniform next to the winch with the instructions, “You know the drill, Sally, pull it in, spray it down, hang it up, lay yourself out an’ rest. I’ll see you when we next beat to quarters.”
“Thank you, Chief Huddlestone!” she called after them, but Darwin was already power-walking them deeper into the ship so all he offered was a limp wave over one shoulder. The corridors changed shape and size as they passed through a few compartments, and Arlo was surprised to find himself holding his parcel close to his front and cinching the strap of his tubular satchel tight so they could pass by some groups of seamen jogging along from one station to another.
“The ship looks awful busy for larboard hull.” commented Arlo, somewhat concerned.
“Nah.” responded Darwin from ahead of him, briefly stopping to sign some clipboard that had been presented to him by a somewhat older lackey of his who spotted him in a crossroads of two passages. “What you don’t realize, shipmate, is they changed it all up. We’ve been gone to symmetrical layout since year seven. So now it’s dredgehouses on both sides facing in and boathouses on both sides facing out. Services are all fore, berths are all aft, with tactical compartments on the crossbridge athwartships.”
“Gunnery stations?” Arlo probed next, fascinated by the new design scheme.
“The same. Larboard crews and starboard crews have their own messes now, though.” answered Darwin. “And we have more room for services in the starboard hull. They built a squat little larboard tower– more of a sidelong poop deck, really– in the year eight and officers mess and dress over there now, then walk-commute across to the main tower on the starboard hull for work.”
“I couldn’t see it from the Lemur, it must be quite short. Did the new structure increase the tonnage much? What about the engines?”
“Still got six screws total, but the lifestone engines are twice as long fore-n-aft as they were when you were last here. That’s eight total charging chambers, plus we added backup methsel generators large enough to power the whole barkie so long as we don’t all shave and listen to the radio with the lights on at the same time.”
“It’s got to be the biggest homeship on the Ten-Thousand Seas at this point.” Arlo found himself saying, and was surprised that he’d said it out loud.
Still, Darwin didn’t seem to think so.
“Ah, Negative, shipmate. House Lodrin has got the Jade Journey of eighteen batteries, the government has the Lance of the Holy Fensibles on the mainland of nineteen, and I’ve heard that House Vorloch has hired some Guild turncoats to lay down the first tri-hulled homeship.”
Arlo wanted to say it would never float, but he was afraid it would tempt fate.
They soon boarded an elevator and were alone again. The shaft was about twice the size of the elevator car, with a mesh separating the car from the other side which seemed to be a series of ladders with ring-like platforms every three or so leaps to keep someone from falling all the way down. The elevator itself was mounted on a rail along the back wall of the shaft, and when Darwin flipped a lever next to the rail they surged upwards as hidden cogs buried their teeth into tracks along the rail. The elevator shot up like a bird, incredibly nimble and responsive until they were near the surface where it progressively slowed. Bright white light above grew and soon they came to a lurching halt. The elevator car still buzzed until Darwin flipped the switch back down and turned a little dial on the wall that seemed to change the elevator’s direction. They stepped off and he took Arlo’s parcel as they strode out onto the deck.
Standing on the surface of a Homeship was something like standing on the surface of a private little world. One had to walk to the edge to see anything other than what was on the ship with them, unless they were moored close-in to a particularly mountainous isle. But it was rare for the homeship to be able to get close enough to any island that its weight wouldn’t cause it to run aground if a special slip hadn’t been prepared for it in advance. On the Dawnstorm, it was like standing on a great field of wooden planks with a grid of asphalt roads. Two towers were built upon the vessel, a long and fat building of two decks on the larboard side and a spire reaching high up into the sky on the starboard side. The roads spelled out the letter H in blacktop and arrayed around them were enough vehicles to land a small army arranged in neat little rows and columns. There were open-topped methrollers with four wheels, the same with a machine gun pintle, then closed-top four-wheelers. Next came six-wheelers and halftracks. Some were made to haul men, some were armed. Finally came the beloved gun trucks, nimble vehicles of both four and six wheels (though the four-wheeled variants had wheels as large as a man was tall) with single-barrelled turrets atop them fielding the smallest of ship-to-ship guns in a portable landgoing form. Sandcycles lined one side on rubber treads, and methcycles lined the other; some with sidecars. Darwin walked to the nearest open-topped four wheeler and put Arlo’s parcel in the bed of it before walking around the right side of it and slipping into the driver’s seat. He pumped the clutch and the brakes a few times, then gave the engine a turn.
Arlo slipped in on the passenger side to the left and shifted his satchel into his lap. Darwin didn’t tell him to hold on, but simply threw the shifter down once he was in and they tore off onto the roadway. It wasn’t much of a trip, maybe it would have taken ten minutes on foot, but Arlo still enjoyed the wind whipping his ponytail and his clothes around him for the short little spurt while they passed the low building and banked in a turn to head for the tall tower on the starboard hull. When they arrived at an open set of sliding double-doors, Darwin shifted the roller into neutral and yanked the parking brake.
“This is where you and I part ways, Arlo.” said the coxswain, though his spirits seemed still high.
“Is the Chief Cocks’n not allowed in the main tower?” Asked Arlo, taken aback.
Darwin shook his head. “Nah, mate, I go in there sometimes when I need to. But I don’t need to right now. I have other duties to attend to, shipmate. But I will find you and we will mess together while you’re aboard, don’t you worry, lad.”
“Thank you, Mister Huddlestone.” Arlo gave Darwin’s shoulder a squeeze and grabbed his parcel out of the back before walking around to the other side of the vehicle and saying, “It was very good seeing you again, sir.”
“Aye’n’you, sire.” replied the coxswain with a smooth smile before waggling his impressive eyebrows and gunning the engine to set off once again. It was much nicer than his parting with Jonah Lately, the man who’d been in charge of the boats at the sea fort on Lost Pip. The thought brought a sigh to Arlo’s lips and he turned to enter the conning tower scratching at his beard. The floors inside the conning tower were tiled in rich marble on the inside, with some sort of satiny-rubbery coating that kept them from being slippery. Similarly, the walls were appointed with wood paneling along the waistline and paisley-patterned wallpaper of Imperial green on a background of House Haradin gray. A reception desk stood out in the center of the ground floor, an odd fixture on a ship that had been so militant thus far; but unsurprising considering the homeship was also the secondary counting house and mobile corporate headquarters of the clan’s trade corporation. A single black-jacketed steward, a dark man with a jade beret and matching cravat was sat at the table surveying the contents of a large, thin hardbound volume that claimed to be ‘Close Renderings of the Art of Saint Tetra’. It was a practically brand new item, by the looks of things, a glossy sheen on the cover and the spine almost entirely uncreased.
“Is that one better than the last edition?” Arlo asked sheepishly while approaching the counter. “I have seen some prints of the tapestries, but I’m told they were quite rough compared to the real thing.”
The receptionist looked up at him with a vacant, fat-lidded stare and replied slowly. “I wouldn’t know. It was left by another visitor.”
Arlo perked up. “What did they say about it?”
“Nothing at all.” reported the steward dully. “I believe her to be quite dim, quite slow, and quite stupid.”
“So they’re still here?” Arlo asked next.
The steward sighed and put the book down on the desk, then seeing that Arlo’s eyes darted to the open page he flipped it over and tented it on his inkwell. Looking Arlo over seemed to leave the steward feeling somewhat dubious and sick, but soon he mastered himself and at the most extreme effort was able to ask, “What… is it, exactly, you want?”
“I’m Arlo Haradin-Harkon, Thirty-ninth Heir. I messaged ahead with a radiogram from Viola to say I was coming to seek an appointment with Uncle Treistan.” Arlo tried, though he was feeling less than hopeful. “Chief Huddlestone seemed to think I was expected, or at least he knew enough to come and find me when my last ship radioed directly.”
“Oh, yes? Hm.” The dim, sleepy eyes turned down to some paperwork in front of them and the steward seemed to take a long moment surveying the expanse of notes and names before looking back up and saying, “Just so, sire. I suppose you’ll not know your way around.”
“It’s been twenty years since I was last here.” Arlo explained hopefully, “So it would be nice for an escort.”
With a sigh, the steward disgorged themselves from the table and flicked a limp hand at Arlo. “Come along, sire. I’ll take you to the waiting room with the others and then pop in and ask if he will see you.”
This made Arlo pause, and thinking of his crusty salt-washed body and his untamed beard, he thought to ask, “If accommodations could be spared for me somewhere, I would be happy to wait upon my uncle at a time when he’s less busy.”
Unmoved, the steward continued leading Arlo towards a pair of wooden double-doors at the back of the room. “Come along, sire.”
They entered into a grand reception hall that would’ve been fit to easily seat twenty guests, though the tables were neatly folded away into a sleeve in one corner. Opposite them was a pair of spiral staircases on either side of a small shrine. A likeness of the Jade Queen was cast in emerald-colored resin and lightly daubed with gold paint in the center of the shrine, and a little offering dish had recently been filled with two pieces of shortbread and a beaded bracelet– or at least recently enough that the votive candle was still burning. They climbed the stairs and Arlo found himself among some of his kin, figuratively only for though he was standing there in rags they were there in the form of portraits. His uncle did not appear among these portraits, in fact all were people who’d been lost in recent years. Arlo’s grandparents on his mother’s side, who he had only met once and even then his grandfather had been mad with dementia, scowled down at him from gilt frames. Then there was a great uncle he’d never met and an older cousin he didn’t recognize.
They opened a door into another passage and right in front of them was a six-pace high picture of a woman in a silver bustle dress holding a gold-plated lever rifle under the crook of one arm. Tight raven curls framed her emerald eyes which shone with mirth to match the playful smirk tilting across her face and gently curling a single nip of a scar on her jaw. Beneath the picture was an exquisite brass, pearl, and mahogany plaque with the inscription, ‘Our Most Treasured and Beloved Leliana Haradin, May She Rest Eternally in Her Divine Majesty’s Embrace’.
The painter had captured her perfectly.
Arlo remembered her dress more than he remembered her face, because he had spent so many years hiding behind it and holding onto it whenever the room got too noisy or the grown-ups got too nosey. But he could never truly forget his mother’s playful, confident smile or the way she used to make him feel like he could do anything. He paused in front of the painting and felt paralyzed and ugly. He missed his mother terribly for the first time in recent memory, and felt his hands form a C-shape of a sickle-moon over his chest. He straightened and bowed to her and to her memory, feeling ashamed to imagine her seeing him in his current state but simultaneously wishing he could enjoy her guidance.
The steward waited patiently, but only for so long before saying a little more gently this time, “Come along, sire.”
It wasn’t much more before they worked around a curved hallway and the steward stopped in front of yet another pair of double-doors. Arlo could hear muffled shouting, not from the other side of the door but perhaps from somewhere down the hall. The steward looked him up and down once more before explaining, “There are others here, sire, who also wish to speak with the Clannarch. He has refused to see all visitors today, but these three have remained and insist upon seeing if he may still wait upon them yet. Considering your…”
A distaste seemed to creep briefly into the steward’s voice as they continued, “... Your connection to the House, my master may see you. But you must wait here with the others until he does.”
Then, with no other warning, the steward sighed while he pushed open the door into the chamber beyond. The sound of the raised shouting voice grew louder on the other side, and Arlo recognized it as his Uncle’s.
