Driftmetal by J.C. Staudt Page A

that
dotted the blue as far as we could see. Against all odds, we’d
reached the stream.
    I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. It was Chaz,
standing behind me, unsteady on his feet. Vilaris was supporting
him on the other side. There were tears in his eyes. “I never
imagined it could look like this.”
    “Yeah, it’s pretty great, isn’t it,” I said.
    “It’s a whole ‘nother world.”
    “Looks can be deceiving,” I said. “Especially for
you guys.”
    Vilaris was in a similar state, his eyes wide and
shining with the reflection of the sky. “So… what do we do
now?”
    “We pick one.”
    We let Chaz pick. He chose the closest, easiest
landing spot, a massive floater I recognized as Mallentis, home to
the twin cities Hibantya and Eulaya. Each city sat high up on its
own plateau, the two joined together by a series of colossal steel
bridges that spanned the canyon running between them. We got
bluewave clearance from the crow’s nest and touched down in the
wide valley that ran out from the canyon like a river delta, a
grassy field strewn with airships.
    Travelers too poor to afford accommodations in the
cities were camped out at their ships, chatting and carrying on
like the attendees of some big peace festival for land-huggers.
Multi-bagged helium dirigibles sat beside sleek hoverships and
small, lightbulb-shaped hot air balloons with brightly-colored
skins. There were sleek streamboats of every size, copters and prop
planes, and even a few gliders. The Secant’s Clarity looked
like a greasy rag in a sea of silk robes, its hull sundered, its
plain envelope sagging over the two ballonets within.
    “Someone should stay with the ship,” I suggested,
after we’d secured the mooring lines and located the hole where the
crossbow quarrel had pierced the skin of the balloon.
    “I’ll go with you,” said Vilaris. “Gareth and
Chester should stay here and get some rest. Stay on the bluewave,
Gareth. And be sure to listen in on Muller’s sub-signal, too.”
    Neither of the men objected, so Vilaris and I made
our way toward the canyon as the afternoon shadows lengthened on
the cliffs. A set of elevators ran up each side, bullets of
gleaming brass rocketing hundreds of feet through open shafts lined
with pulsing blue lights. The elevators on the left took passengers
to Hibantya; the ones on the right, to Eulaya.
    “Which way?” asked Vilaris.
    “Depends. You want to buy a streamboat or rent
one?”
    “What’s the difference, price-wise?”
    “That’s like asking how much food costs. How much of
it do you want? What kind? Do you want to wash your own dishes?
There’s no simple answer unless you can be more specific.”
    “We charter a fifty-foot ship, complete with captain
and crew. Or we buy that same ship and hire each crewmember
separately. How much of a difference are we talking?”
    “Okay… roughly? About a year’s salary. Now, if it
takes us longer than a week or two to find Gilfoyle, your rental
costs go up. And this is all assuming we don’t let slip that you
three are… who you are. It costs extra to keep mouths quiet, you
know.”
    “Right. So you know some people? Some sailors, I
mean? What do you recommend?”
    “I say we go both ways. That sounds bad—let me
explain. Eulaya is where the rich folks live. The smaller of the
two cities, the less crowded, and the more exclusive. Anybody who
owns a streamboat worth buying will be there. Once we have our
boat, we cross over to Hibantya and round up a crew of the most
despicable, cutthroat sailors we can find. And we put an ear to the
ground for information about Gilfoyle’s whereabouts while we’re at
it.”
    We veered to the right at the edge of the airfield,
where a handful of gypsies was dancing around a raging pit fire,
while a dozen more sat in the shadows of their airships looking
on.
    Vilaris gave the gypsies a wide berth. “I hope you
don’t plan on hiring anyone too despicable. No… pirates, or
anything.”
    I scoffed.