“We’re looking for Varley,” she told the woman. “Trader. Lately in from Africa. Heard of him?”
“You’re in luck. He’s by the window there. Watch out, though; he came back from Manchester in a nasty mood.”
Outside the circular window that the waitress pointed at, the evening clouds were glowing as the sun began to set, but the young man who sat at the table beside it was not enjoying the view. He was reading a book and reaching out from time to time to pick halfheartedly at a bowl of chargrilled locusts.
“Napster Varley?”
“Who’s asking?” Varley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, looking Hester up and down. He closed his book. It was called
“Never heard of her.” He studied Theo, and asked him, “What city do you come from? What’s your business?”
“We’re from—,” Hester started to say. Varley cut in. “I asked the boy.”
Theo, who was not a good actor, wished Wren were there instead of him. He still remembered the way she had run rings around old Pennyroyal and Nabisco Shkin with her stories back in Brighton. Doing his best to emulate her, he lied, “We’re from Zanzibar.”
“We heard you had something that we might want to buy,” said Hester.
Varley looked interested but still suspicious. “Sit down,” he said, pushing a chair out with his foot. “Have a locust. So what have you heard about my business, and where did you hear it?”
“Grandma Gravy,” said Hester.
“You trade with Grandma?”
“We’re old friends. She told me you had a very important prisoner aboard.”
“Shhh!” hissed Varley. He leaned across the table and said in a smelly whisper, “Don’t talk about my merchandise that way, lady. I don’t know who’s listening. The Airhaven authorities don’t like the slave trade. If they thought I was trying to shift a live cargo on their patch, there’d be hell to pay.”
Theo felt so angry and disgusted that he could happily have hit the man. He still bore the scars and bruises of his time in Cutler’s Gulp, and the shame of his captivity on Cloud 9 had never completely faded: He knew all too well what that harmless-sounding phrase “live cargo” meant.
Hester seemed unmoved. “Found a buyer yet?”
“I opened negotiations with the kriegsmarschall of Murnau a few hours ago,” said Varley. “Nothing’s been finalized.”
“I’m interested in buying,” said Hester.
Varley snorted, shook his head, and returned to his locusts, eating greedily now, as if talking business had brought back his appetite. “You couldn’t afford what I’m asking,” he said through a crunchy mouthful.
“Maybe I could.”
Varley looked up sharply, and spat out a wing case. “You ain’t from Zanzibar,” he said. “Your fancy-boy might be pretty, but he’s a lousy liar. Who are you?”
Hester said nothing and kicked Theo’s ankle under the table, warning him to stay quiet too.
Varley grinned. “Gods almighty!” He lowered his voice to a whisper again. “You’re the Storm, ain’t you? I been wondering if any of you lot would turn up. Don’t worry, I’m broad-minded. Gold is gold to Napster Varley, whether it comes from the coffers of a Traktionstadt or the treasure houses of Shan Guo. So what’s she worth to you, your empress? You’ll have to hurry, mind. Everyone’s saying the fighting’ll break out again in a day or so. You’ll want to get her safe in Mossie-land before that happens, won’t you?”
“What are you asking?” said Hester.
“Ten thousand in gold. Nothing less.”
“Ten thousand?” Theo had a hollowed-out feeling in the pit of his stomach. For a moment he had let himself imagine that it might just be possible to buy Lady Naga back, but… ten thousand in gold! Varley might as well ask them for the moon!
“I’ll think it over,” said Hester calmly, pushing back her chair. “Come on, Theo.”
Varley waved a locust at her. “You do that, honeybunch. My ship’s the
“We’ll want to see the merchandise first,” said Hester.
“Not till I’ve seen the money. And I’ve got three big lads on watch, so don’t think about trying anything funny.”
Out on the High Street, electric lamps were being lit. Large moths zoomed about in the twilight, pursued by enterprising boys with nets who planned to roast them and sell them as tasty snacks. Some lingering maternal instinct made Hester flinch each time one of the urchins darted close to the unfenced edges of the quays. She told herself not to be so soft; these kids were born in the sky, too canny to fall; even if they did, the Airhaven authorities had stretched safety nets between the mooring struts to catch anyone who stumbled overboard.
She leaned against the handrail on the outer curve of the street and pretended to be watching the last smears of sunset fading in the west. She was actually studying Strut 13, where the black-and-white striped bulk of the
“He’s out of his depth,” Hester said.
“Who?” asked Theo. “Varley?”
“Of course Varley! He’s got the biggest prize of his career and he doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do with it. He’s terrified that someone’ll get wind of his prisoner and try to take her; hence all the hired muscle. But he daren’t approach the Traktionstadts directly for fear they’ll just swipe Lady Naga off him and give him nothing but a medal for his troubles; and when he tried doing it privately, they gave him the brush-off. That’s why he came back from Manchester ‘in a nasty mood.’ That’s why he’s hunting for new ideas in books. Us turning up is like an answer to his prayers. He’s an amateur, Theo.”
“But he still wants ten thousand in gold,” said Theo.
“He’ll settle for less. Half, even.”
“That would still be an enormous lot of money, and we don’t have anything at all! We’re here to rescue Lady Naga, not buy her! We can handle Varley and his three men easily. You rescued me, didn’t you? And I heard what you did at Shkin’s place last year…”
Hester glanced away, remembering the men she had killed to free Tom from the slaver’s tower in Brighton, and the shocked, betrayed way that Tom had looked at her afterward. That had been their last evening together. “It’s not just a question of getting Lady Naga out,” she said. “We have to get her away, right away, past all these fancy cities and safe across the Green Storm’s lines. If we cause a fuss getting her off Varley’s ship, we won’t get half a mile before those flying machines catch us and—”
She reached out and snatched a passing moth, dropping the crumpled body into the net of one of the urchin boys, who said, “Thanks, missus!”
“Are you saying we should give up?” asked Theo as the boy moved on.
Hester was silent, staring across the High Street.
“Mrs. Natsworthy?”
“No,” she said quite softly. She did not look at him. Her attention was fixed on a man who had just emerged from the doorway of a large, shabby building called the Empyrean Hotel. She reached back, found Theo’s arm, and squeezed it encouragingly. “No,” she said again. “We don’t have to give up. We just have to find someone who can give us an enormous lot of money.”
Chapter 26 Ruined!
The conference aboard Manchester had dragged on and on, as the leaders of the Traktionstadtsgesellschaft hammered out the details of their new offensive. And “offensive” was the word, thought Kriegsmarschall von Kobold
