Cyber Circus

bladder in a hot tight spill of urine, he strode off a short way and knelt down in the sand.

His voice was strong, his devotion faultless. The events of a few hours earlier preyed on his mind though, in particular thoughts of the monk – or as he knew her now, the girl who did speak. He retained a sense of her in the small relaxing of his shoulders, the release of sex having eased the burden of everyday living some. He could still smell her too. Perfume of sweat and womanness layered him.

Jaxx concluded his prayers and stood. The sun was molten, risen clear of the horizon. He started to walk, measuring out the advance of dawn with every step.

The camp was busy by the time he got back. Men sluiced themselves down with the contents of clothhod water bladders. Others sat around, devouring flatbread or a bowl full of the starch porridge the wives had cooked up over a charcoal pit.

Jaxx saw D’Angelus duck out from beneath the flap of one of the smaller tents. The pimp positioned his trekker’s hat on his head and strode over to the cooking pot. In his wake, a couple of the wives emerged from the same tent, blinking against the day and tidying their hair and garments.

D’Angelus spotted Jaxx.

“Hi! Hi! Over here, Jaxx!”

The pimp beat his hands and shrugged his shoulders, shaking off the exertions of his night-time pursuits. He’d a manic glaze to him that morning, prompting Jaxx to wonder if it really paid him to stay in the man’s service. Sure, he’d a better standing in D’Angelus’s little army than most – even more so since D’Angelus’s right-hand man lost his life to the wing of a hopper. But Jaxx felt no personal desire to pursue Herb or any other in Cyber Circus. Even the swine man was just another face in a long list of those Jaxx would murder one day. When the fates prescribed it.

You and I, we’re in the wrong place. The girl’s words haunted him.

“You Sirinese and your prayer rituals! Dawn, dusk, and probably all hours in-between.” D’Angelus accepted a small bowl of steaming tea, gesturing to the woman who brought it to bring another for Jaxx. “Well, I’m hoping your prayers will keep us on the right side of the Saints – and, yeah, I know they’re not the recipients of your praise. But it’s the will that matters, ain’t it? Either way, it’s all we got now the monk’s gone.”

“Gone?” Jaxx recalled the terrible visions he’d seen when the girl had lain with him. His ears played tricks. There was the small murmur of a breeze. Dust seemed to coat his tongue suddenly.

“When did the monk go?” he asked, careful not to betray the true sex of the monk while uncertain who he was protecting. He suspected himself. The tears that had flowed after she’d finished with him were born of some great sorrow which wasn’t his own. He suspected their coupling had brought about a queer osmosis of emotion – one which both sated and drained him.

“Wouldn’t know. Must’ve taken to the desert before dawn because there’s no sign of the bastard now. He was a lousy conversationalist anyway.” D’Angelus slapped Jaxx on the arm. He screwed up his eyes as the sun grew in strength, reflecting fiercely off the Sirinese’s metal butting plate.

Jaxx liked how the pimp was blinded by the light coming off of him. Partly, he wanted the sun to keep beating down and burn up the pimp. But he’d no reason to feel so. Other than a dull headache, a dry throat, and the stench of sweat over his body.

One of the women brought him a bowl of tea. Jaxx raised it to his lips. The tea was sweet and laced with hot mint. His mind freshened.

“We’ll drill a shallow trench from here today to Deralisee east of Zan City,” he said between mouthfuls.

D’Angelus got animated. “Good man, Jaxx. You got the scent of those carney bastards, huh?”

Not really, Jaxx wanted to say. They weren’t far enough from Zan City yet for him to track the dirigible based on scent alone. But he’d a hunch the troop was on the move again. It was akin to a physical tug, as if some invisible thread connected him with the movement of the ship.

D’Angelus fed a smoke stick between his lips. “Since we’ve lost the Zen monk, I guess you’ll serve as our good luck charm. Watch you steer us right now, Jaxx.” The pimp cracked a smile. Smoke oozed between the tics of his teeth.

“I’ll check Das has stoked the boiler with dung cakes and water. Then the men can board.”

“You do that,” said D’Angelus dreamily, staring out at the expanse of desert. “Stupid bastard monk. If the jackal dogs don’t get him, the dust storm will.”

Jaxx glanced over his shoulder. A thin brown line had appeared at the horizon.

“We need to get on our way,” he said.

* * *

“Dust’s getting up,” said Herb, staring out the grimy glass on the bridge.

Asenath signalled one of the pitch crew to relieve her from the frilled ship’s wheel. She joined Herb inside the viewing pit. Framed by gilt pipes and lumpen green matter, the window gave out onto the endless dustbowl of the Garenga Stretch, south of Zan City. The area was vast and barren. When the Hamatan hit, it blew in hardest over the Stretch.

“I see it.” Asenath felt a dark space open up beneath her ribs. Herb would never turn around, not with D’Angelus pursuing them anywhere north of the Stretch, not when there was money to be made across the desert in the township of Deralisee.

“Want me to turn her around?” asked the crewman at the ship’s wheel.

You haven’t been with the circus long, thought Asenath. She noted the man’s dust handler stoop. He’d worked that thankless job longer than most, hauling great quantities of dust out of the mines, only to have the storms sweep the mess back in inside the week. If future generations dug up the man’s remains, they’d find his backbone a perfect curve.

“Try it and I’ll have you keelhauled,” replied Herb succinctly. “Turn Cyber Circus around?” He gave a short, sour laugh. “Like she’d let you anyways.”

“It might be prudent to set the ship down though.” Asenath didn’t like the look of that dust cloud. She known the circus buffered by some mighty storms. But they’d never flown directly into the Hamatan over the Stretch before. She suspected a storm that fierce would sweep clean everything in its path.

“Maybe. Maybe.” It was always Herb’s standard answer to the suggestion they delay their arrival to a destination any. Asenath knew it meant diddley squat.

She felt the first small buffer of swirling air. Herb was right, she thought. The dust was getting up. And pretty soon they’d be in the heart of it.

* * *

Installed in the cockpit of Wanda-Sue, the glass hood left up to provide airflow, Jaxx concentrated on tracking Cyber Circus. Having shaken off the haze of his strange slumber, he felt newly invigorated. Loudest of all was the flight path of Cyber Circus. He could taste it on the air – rancid, caramelised.

“Take us south-east,” he told Das.

“Yes suree.” The navigator pressed the steering rod away from him and, reaching to flip a couple of valve switches, enveloped the cab in steam. Wanda-Sue got hot under the collar and bucked as if straining against a dropped anchor.

Das glanced back. D’Angelus slumbered under his trekker’s hat. He glanced over the other shoulder at Jaxx.

“You know the dusts getting up, dontcha?” The navigator’s voice sounded anxious. “We wanna dive below when we can, but this part of the Stretch is the crust above the old Rongun mines. Tales of swarms aplenty around these parts.”

“Just keep her steady,” said Jaxx, adding softly, “Where the prayers fall, the spirits lead.” A Sirinese proverb. Because just then he’d got the strongest whiff of their prey. And, yes, there it was, floating in the sky off to the west! The circus blip, candy coloured lights streaming from it like a welcome flag.

* * *

The stowaway climbed the steps to Herb’s private quarters. Of all of the circus’s interior she had encountered so far, the pustule was the most fantastical. Composed of the same fibrous green as the bulk of Cyber Circus, the pustule sat in its own egg cup of brass filigree, with five ornate steps leading up to a circular door. A pumpkin palace, she decided, hollowed out to house a fairy or a shrivelled nimblejack.

She knocked gently – and was relieved when the sound went unanswered. The handle was a brass gnarl. She tried it. The door clicked open. She stepped inside, and instantly imagined this was how it would feel to step