of them. He didn’t want to be special. Or sought after. Truth be told he’d rather be back in the Netherlands, flying mundane patrols for the air force, living a good life. But that was a long time ago, in a different world.
“… two, one … mark.”
The aircraft bucked.
Not much, but Skyler felt it. Damn fine timing for a spell of turbulence, he thought. An embarrassed laugh escaped his lips.
Below, out the window, trash fires dotted the city’s edge. Small crowds huddled around the flames for protection more than warmth. The worst-off lived here, so far out from the Elevator, so close to the Clear. Skyler thought it must be like living on the edge of a cliff. “Weird. Did you feel that bounce?” Angus asked. Then, “Oh, shit. Look at this.”
Skyler glanced up. The kid’s voice had shifted from wonder to fear.
Something had changed, ahead of them. Skyler couldn’t decide what—
“Where’d the climbers go?” Angus asked.
The lights on the cord were gone. “What in the world?”
The wireless crackled. “Melville, this is Nightcliff control,” a panicked voice said over a hiss of static. “What the hell did you do?”
Skyler’s throat went dry. He could only stare at the thin strip of sky where the climber’s had been.
“Melville! Answer or be shot down!”
“Angus,” Skyler said, ignoring the radio. “Hover here.”
The kid nodded and tilted the aircraft back, switching to vertical thrust.
“Think, think,” Skyler whispered to himself. He leaned forward in his seat, as if a few extra centimeters would give him a better view. Squinting, Skyler traced a line from the tip of Nightcliff’s tower.
There, against the dim clouds, he saw the black shape of a climber, motionless on the cord. Not vanished, then, just dead.
Loss of power? he thought. It shouldn’t be possible. Something about friction with the atmosphere, he remembered. The Elevator couldn’t help but generate power. In the five years since he first came to the city, he’d never seen Darwin’s skyline without the awe-inspiring sight of climber vehicles gliding their way along the cord, taking fresh air and water up to the Orbitals, or bringing food back down.
“Melville,” came the garbled voice again. “Last warning.”
Skyler absently tapped the transmit button. “Nightcliff, this is the Melville. Don’t fire. We’re holding position. What happened?”
Even as he waited for a response, Skyler saw the beacon lights on the climber cars flicker, then come back on at full brightness.
A few seconds later they turned off again. One by one this time, in perfect sequence from space down to the fortress.
Minutes passed. Skyler felt a trickle of sweat run down the side of his face and he mopped it away with the back of his hand.
A blast of static from the tiny speaker preceded the controller’s voice. “You will reroute to Nightcliff and submit to inspection. Failure to comply will result in the destruction of your vessel. Any delay will result in the destruction of your vessel. You have thirty seconds to acknowledge.”
The order rattled Skyler like a sick joke. The mission had been flawless, a masterpiece, until this. Inspection. He shook his head. All their hard work, dashed with that loaded word.
“What do I say?” Angus asked. He strained against his harness to glance over his shoulder at Skyler.
The young man’s brown eyes pleaded for reassurance. Skyler could only shrug. “Stall,” he said. “I’m thinking.”
He tried to conjure a memory of the last inspection. It must have been two years ago. More than that. They’d claimed fear of a flu epidemic on that occasion. A case of vodka had settled the matter, if he remembered right. He’d been the pilot then, stuck in the cockpit, uninvolved. This time it would be his neck on the chopping block.
The first successful mission in months, since Skyler took over the captain’s chair.
And now this. Inspection. Goddammit.
They probably just wanted a handout. The pick of the litter from a returning scavenger ship. Maybe they’d blinked the climbers’ lights on purpose, now that he thought about it. A clever ploy, really.
He ran through a mental tally of the Melville’s cargo bay. For two days they’d rummaged through the abandoned complex, and they packed the old girl full. There’d be no shortage of goods to bribe Nightcliff with. The trick would be steering them away from the high-value items. The specific requests.
The neoprene sleeve hanging from the back of the pilot’s seat caught Skyler’s eye. He thought of the morbid contents within, and the commune that had pooled their money to have the evidence recovered. A lot