Black Bottle

vaccinated. So had everyone else on the ship. She turned her wrist in the window light. It shimmered beautifully.

Her thoughts went back to Caliph. She didn’t remember returning to her room … or the details of his room. But she did recall the startling crackle of static as she had pulled his shirt off, discrete electrical ghosts that limned the soft-woven blackness before falling into dark trenches around the bed. Mostly she remembered the feel of the sex.

Her cheeks went through cycles, burning and cooling then burning again. What am I going to do?

What if he acts like nothing happened?

There was a knock at her door. She put her face in one hand and closed her eyes. “Who is it?” she called.

A voice said, “Specks. Are you coming to breakfast, Lady Rae?” It was a lilting impersonation of something almost masculine and chivalrous. She had to smile. But then the implications of going to breakfast sank in. A host of possibilities raced through her head. In the end, she decided not going was far riskier than going.

“Yes,” she called back. “I’ll be right there.” Oh shit! she thought. Then she looked in the mirror.

“Oh shit!”

She cleaned up, pulled her hair back into a tail and pinned it in place. She rummaged for something light and relaxed to wear.

She left her room.

Refracted morning light played designer, painting different colored stripes across the ceiling; pastel bands led her toward an antiseptic blaze at the end of the hall.

She found her way out onto the zeppelin’s port deck where a small crowd of people bantered over breakfast. But it wasn’t actually all that jovial. The more she listened the more solemn and uncertain the mood registered. What laughter seeped out echoed in the aluminum railings, affected and strange.

The witches were seated to Caliph’s right. She noticed the large shape of Sigmund Dulgensen, sitting in his overalls, and the judgmental glare of Dr. Baufent whose short gray hair spiked in the breeze. Baufent was staring at her.

When Taelin looked at Caliph she thought, A hello kiss? Certainly not! She resigned herself to “Good morning.”

He smiled at her but gave no special indication that everything was fine. Instead he seemed as preoccupied as ever, scanning the faces around him.

The witches were talking, their glittering eyes full of tiny geometric designs. Taelin looked beyond the railing, at a landscape that had changed magically over night. Orange dunes with serpentine crests harbored pools of shadow. Miles of sand glittered under daybreak as the sun punched east. For a moment, Taelin watched the Bulotecus’ stretched silhouette passing over the ground.

She looked for Sena’s ship and found it. A fleck of white.

It refused a definable shape: in one moment it resembled the pupa of a tremendous insect, then fantastically, a pale tuber. But they were momentary semblances. It shifted, bulbous portions smoothing out, planing into curious banks of gill-like clefts on some albescent batoid, slipping with mercurial swiftness to the next.

“It’s only a bitch if they find us,” she heard Sigmund say.

“Of course they’ll find us,” snapped Baufent. Taelin turned around. The physician was digging in a halved citrus with a serrated spoon.

“They might not,” said one of the witches. “They don’t have towers in the desert.”

Notably missing from the group was the Iycestokian diplomat and his bodyguard. Taelin sat down in one of the empty seats, hoping for a reaction from Caliph. His indifference was quickly dragging her into a black spiral of depression.

“Well, at least a breakdown ain’t likely,” joked Sigmund.

Speak for yourself, Taelin thought.

“Ship’s in good working order,” he went on, “and we have enough juice to get us quite a ways. I think we’re in good shape.”

“Will you kindly shut up?” said Baufent. She glared at the mechanic. “We are not in good shape, you idiot.” She got up and left the deck.

Sigmund scratched the side of his neck and looked sheepish. “Just trying to look on the bright side,” he muttered.

Taelin’s chair was near but not too near to Caliph. She listened to him talking with the witches—all four of them beautiful and sparkling. They made Taelin feel like a wreck. “Sig’s right,” Caliph said. “We need to stay positive. If she’s headed to Bablemum. That’s what? Another five hundred miles, give or take?”

Taelin tried to absorb the conversation about chasing Sena. She tried to feel its importance. But it slipped past her. She wanted to be one of the grown-ups at the table but instead felt like a petulant child. It was the perfect metaphor, really. And why? Why had her life always been like this? No matter where she went, it was always the same.

The captain’s baritone nearly shot Taelin out of her seat. “Yes,” he said. She hadn’t noticed him standing directly behind her, holding his coffee. His other arm was wrapped around his son. Specks held on to his father’s waist, resting his head against the captain’s body. “No matter what happens, we’ll have to dock in Bablemum. Pick up a charge. Get supplies.”

One of the witches interjected that they might be able to put a glamour on the ship. Taelin sneered at the proposition of witchcraft but didn’t speak.

“I don’t think a disguise is going to be enough,” muttered Caliph. “You’d have to make us invisible. Think about it. An uncharted ship comes out of the desert? Two days after the disaster at Sandren? Everyone’s going to know it’s us.”

“Sena’s will come out first,” offered Sigmund. “Then we’ll see what happens.”

Taelin agreed with that. Hopefully they shoot her down! She watched Caliph massage his temples. What was he thinking about? He had better not be thinking about Sena! She started hating herself again. She poured a bowl of cereal from a box with bright green berries on its front. She dumped milk over top and stared at the drowning mess, feeling sick.

“Do we have any idea what we’re going to do if Sena lets us catch her?” Sigmund asked.

Caliph said, “We need to find out what happened at Sandren and why. That’s my first priority.”

“Do you really expect her to tell you?” Taelin blurted out.

“Yes,” said Caliph, “I do.” He put down his napkin and stood up. “Excuse me. Please enjoy your breakfast.” He wrangled through the chairs to the doorway and disappeared.

Taelin’s face had caught fire but no one seemed to notice.

“We really don’t know what we’re doing, do we?” Sigmund laughed.

No one shared his sense of humor.

“Actually we do know what we’re doing,” said one of the witches. “We’re going save the world.” They too got up and left the table.

“Save the world?” Sigmund chewed the hair under his lip a moment, “Well that’s just a little…” His voice trailed off.

Taelin excused herself. She hadn’t touched her cereal. She pushed past a crewman and found the interior of the ship to be darker, quieter and cooler than the deck. The hum of the propellers resonated, as if the sound—the vibration—were a canvas on which everything else had been painted.

At the ship’s primary intersection she looked and found both directions empty. She went to his bedroom and knocked.

No answer.

She tapped lightly again and a door opened behind her. Caliph stepped out into the hallway. “Oh, I was just…” She smiled, pointing at his door.

He smiled back at her, genial but clearly confused. “What?”

“I was just,” she tried to get her balance, “did you switch rooms?”

Caliph’s head cocked slightly as the mystery for him seemed to deepen. After a pause he said,