Beneath Ceaseless Skies #27 (6 page)

       
“Yes.” He unlocked the mittens. Agnieska flexed her fingers. His were swollen and bruised, the nails blackened. “Executioner isn’t my style, either,” he said, and dropped the mittens beside the tongue clamp. “A person should know what they’re doing to others.”

       
She met his eye. Carrick looked away first.

       
He pulled the magazine out of her carbine and shucked the remaining shells into his palm, then slotted it back into place and offered her the empty gun. Her ammunition belt was no longer around her waist. Ah well, she thought. If nothing else, the gun would do for a crutch. Her ankle throbbed.

       
He watched her, elbows on his knees, weighing the cartridges in his palm. “I want your oath, that you won’t come after me again.”

       
Agnieska shook her head. “My oath’s already been given, years ago.”

       
He nodded, had probably expected the answer. His eyes were amused. “Then promise me that you won’t come after me
today
.”

       
She considered her sprained ankle, and their horses. “Reckon I can manage that,” she said.

       
He smirked, then stood and flung the carbine shells out across the scree. Agnieska craned to see where they landed.

       
Carrick’s lips twitched, almost another smirk, or a laugh. He offered her a slight bow. “Good luck, Sheriff.”

       
She sat silently as he walked over to rejoin his companions. He said something to LeMay as he mounted his horse. The witch’s scowl broke into a reluctant smile.

       
The animals whinnied their displeasure at being dragged away from their feast, but they responded obediently enough. Agnieska hauled herself up on the barrel of her carbine and hobbled over to retrieve the scattered shells.

       
Sunset painted the sky on the far side of the hills. The True Moon stood low in the east, alone for now, shining gold in the last of the day.

       
She wondered what Carrick’s republic would be like, as she dusted the shells on the front of her shirt and clipped them back into the magazine. Would it be any better? Her imagination failed her.

       
Would she hunt him again, tomorrow? She didn’t know the answer to that, either.

       
She spied her pack, ammunition belt, and canteens a short distance away and gave a snort. “I might be a while yet, Olly, after all.”

Copyright © 2009 Ian McHugh

Ian McHugh is a 2006 graduate of Clarion West and the 2008 grand prize winner in the Writers of the Future contest. His recent publications include stories in
Asimov's
,
Clockwork Phoenix 2
,
Greatest Uncommon Denominator
, and
Andromeda Spaceways
, as well as podcasts at Escape Pod,
Pseudopod
, and
The Drabblecast
. His full list of publications, along with links to read and hear stories online, can be found at
http://ianmchugh.wordpress.com/
.

http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

SIX SEEDS

by Sara M. Harvey

       
My mother’s brothel was called “Mrs. D------’s Orchard,” and was said to have the ripest fruits around. It was all marketing, inspiring images of a lush and fleshy harvest, but really the house was stocked with gleaming clockwork Dollies. It had been my job, for as long as I can remember, to rouse them every morning, winding them up with the great gold key that Mother kept at the bottom of a barrel of salt water.
 
I wound them everyday, just enough to get a full shift of work from them before they ran down. She named them clever things like Apple and Cherry and Nectarine, Almond and Hazelnut and Cashew, Papaya and Quince and Persimmon, after all the wonderful things that grew in orchards. And every morning it was like Spring coming as I moved among them and brought them to life.

       
We catered to all sorts at the Orchard, from businessmen to airship pilots.
 
Dollies are splendid things, they come in just about every shape and size from tall and statuesque to wispy and waifish.
 
Some have quicksilver skin of hard, cold, chrome and they hiss with pneumatic sighs.
 
The ones made of bronze seem to glow as they catch the light and reflect it with a golden cast; they have some of the tiniest, most intricate gears what whirr and
clickclickclick
and sometimes chime softly.
 
Deluxe Dollies look like any human, with plump padded skin and real hair and makeup that never smears and hand-set eyes faceted like jewels that weep real tears.

       
Dollies had been such a boon to male and female relations.
 
The men loved them, for they came in all shapes and sizes and types.
 
They were always clean and so easy to care for.
 
They were not prone to diseases and they were always eager to please. It left women with precious idle time away from the voracious cravings of their men.

       
Of course, this was very nice for all the
other
women of the world, but not for me.
 
For me, Dollies were the chore of my life: winding them, bathing them in oil, mending gears and joints, and keeping good care of their pricier parts which pleasured the men.
 
I cannot say that I hated it, nor that I was fond of it, only that it was my task every single day to care for these immortal metal beauties.

       
And they were, as any creature with a mind of its own tends to be, kind and cruel by turns depending on the day and governed by the mood.
 
The most elitist of all of the Dollies were the Deluxes, who never missed a moment to remind me that while my skin was taut and supple now, it would grow sagged and gray while they held onto youth for all time.
 
I never played that game, flaunting my soul and my beating heart.
 
But there were days when they were particularly vicious, especially Apple and Peach, and I would be drawn to the parlour where the men would sit and smoke ornate pipes and thick cigars while discussing politics, gossip, or the cost-benefit analyses of switching from faithful gaslight to fitful electricity.
 
I sat still and I listened, eager to always know more.
 
And they were indulgent and allured by the blush in my cheeks and the trembling of my lashes as I opened my ears to such indecent
learning
.

       
Which is how I came to the attention of Mr. H----.
 
He was a handsome gentleman with a smooth, unlined face that was at odds with his black hair streaked with silver.
 
His deep gray eyes tilted slightly downward at the corners giving him a look of profound sadness, even if he was otherwise merry. He was a soft-spoken man with quiet mannerisms who always waited until last to make his point.
 
And that was what struck me most about him: his extraordinary patience.

       
“My darling girl,” he told me once when I remarked upon it to him, “in my line of work, one must be patient.
 
There is never any sense in rushing.”
 
He then smiled at me and sipped his brandy.

       
Later that night, I was able to ask Mother what exactly was Mr. H----’s line of work.
 
She looked quite ruffled for a moment before composing herself and asking if he had spoken to me himself.

       
“Yes, Mother, but only to inform me that his patience was due to the nature of his work, but he declined to mention what that was. Do you know?”

       
“He used to be an undertaker.
 
And you will not engage him in conversation again.”

       
I was shocked by her crisp reply and the silence that followed, which allowed me no more questions.
 
This of course only piqued by curiosity and served to assure that I would plot and scheme to find out everything I could about Mr. H----.
 
This included speaking to him once more, and it had to be without Mother’s knowledge.

       
It proved a difficult task.
 
Evidently, it had gone ‘round that Mother did not approve of my interaction with Mr. H----, nor did she appreciate him being in the same room with me at all. I found that I was stonewalled even by the other men, who met my inquiries with silence and would not risk my mother’s ire by speaking to me of this now-forbidden topic.

       
But while scholars and clerks and scientists and philosophers might have been able to resist the petulant charm of a frustrated girl, I’ve yet to meet an airship captain that could.
 
It did not take me long to encounter a gangly blushing lad with the last hateful vestiges of adolescence on his face.
 
His uniform was still new and sharply pressed.
 
It did not take long to convince him into the hall closet with me.
 
There, amid the cloaks and coats that smelled of damp wool, tobacco, and kerosene, I let him put his sweating, nervous hands on my breasts and steal a kiss.
 
Only then would he tell me the story.

       
Mr. H----, the boy explained, had started his career as a doctor some years ago.
 
It would seem that he had a distinct fascination with the inner workings of the body, most specifically how the soul was attached to the body and the mechanisms that separated life from death.
 
He soon began to attract unwanted attentions when the patients in his care tended to die more often than they recovered. When H---- was removed from the medical practice, he went into the funerary field to further his knowledge of and experience with death.
 
But when he began to go above and beyond the call of his embalming duties, often removing organs and tissues to keep for experimentation, he was relieved of this employment as well.
 

       
“And so, what does he do now?”

       
“Now....”
 
The boy pressed very close to me, hooking his thumbs beneath the neckline of my blouse and pushing it down over my shoulders, sending mother-of-pearl
 

buttons clattering to the floor somewhere below us in the dark. “Now, he is a rogue scientific philosopher, claiming to have cracked the code that binds soul to body, and therefore body to life.”
 
He inhaled the scent of my hair and began to hitch up my skirts.

       
For a moment I was lost and drifting on the elation of that thought.
 
Mr. H---- had found the key to life itself? To the very soul?

       
“How?” I whispered, coming to my senses and my situation with a sharp pang of adrenaline.

       
“Gently, I promise,” he moaned hungrily, intending no such thing.
 
My fragile, tender human life was so much more appealing than any Dolly, Deluxe or otherwise, and I could see his desire building.

       
“How did Mr. H---- come by his knowledge?” He was balanced on a knife’s edge of lust, and I knew I had but little time to press him before he caved into carnality.