Dieselpunk: An Anthology (10 page)

That girl breathed shallow an fought to close her eye an Mr. Smith wouldn’t let her. His last two fingers went down an took the eye by its sides. Then they plucked.

Missy Gin got there as the girl screamed. She’d anchored to a tree, didn’t even bother with the ladder but clumb down the chain an pulled foot over to Mr. Smith an the girls. She saw the one girl, still an quiet on the sand. Then she saw what Mr. Smith was doing.

“
You stop right there!” she roared, pulling her gun.

Mr. Smith leaned up, lifting the eye. That girl screamed again, her whole body bucking, but it wasn’t anything Mr. Smith hadn’t done before. “Why, pray tell?” he asked.

Missy Gin looked at the eye, then at the girl, an then at Mr. Smith. “That was your warning,” she said, an shot Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith rocked back, losing his grip on the girl. She clawed away from him, up to her sister, an Missy Gin didn’t look down, only watched as Mr. Smith stretched back up, still kneeling, eyeball in his fingers.

“Well now, that wasn’t very civil of you, was it?” he asked.

Missy Gin looked at him warily. There in his shoulder was that hole the bullet made through his clothes. That was all.

“In fact it was right disagreeable,” Mr. Smith continued, raising that eyeball, “interrupting my dinner.”

He put that eyeball in his mouth, bit down. An at that Missy Gin shot twice more, this time to kill if she could, but both times them bullets just hit Mr. Smith’s skin an slid off hot onto the sand. Mr. Smith just kept chewing, unconcerned, an then stood up.

“Well, that was very sweet,” he said over his shoulder, an to that side, the one-eyed girl halted, sister in her arms as she tried to creep away. “But you know,” Mr. Smith said, “that was only half.”

An he turned round to them.

Missy Gin thought quick, then pulled her gun back. “Mr. Smith!” she called out. “You follow me back!”

Mr. Smith looked at her. “Why in all creation would I do that?”

“Because,” Missy Gin said, aiming again, “if’n you don’t, I’ll make sure you never get out of Yesterday agin.”

Mr. Smith looked at her. Then Mr. Smith looked where her gun was aiming — right at his ship, at them hydrogenium lifts.

“You study on that a bit, Mr. Smith,” Missy Gin called. “You finish your eating an I’ll leave you here Yesterday. You might eat, maybe, but there ain’t a drop of life-water in miles of here, an after you drunk one drop, you cain’t never stop drinking it, am I right? So you’ll be craving for it, just get thirstier an thirstier, am I right? You won’t even make it long enough for Tomorrow Syndrome, that thirst’ll do you till you only wisht you could make a die of it. So you let them girls be an get back in your ship an come with me, or you won’t have no ship to get back into, you hear?”

Mr. Smith looked at her long. Then he grinned, teeth stained red in between.

“Well, girly, you’ve calculated it pretty well, haven’t you, that about the life-water. Seen others like me? Or maybe — maybe you’ve taken a sip as well?”

Missy Gin frowned. “I’ve been Sky Club all my life, Mr. Smith, I ain’t got need to outlive my ship. I’ll die when it’s proper an not after. But I’m waiting on your answer.”

Mr. Smith watched her for a bit, those blue, blue eyes steady on hers. Then he said, “Well, I reckon I’ll follow you back. I’ll finish my meal later.”

Like hell you will, Missy Gin thought, but didn’t say, only watched him board his ship. Only once he’d clumb up the ladder an unmoored did she relax, looking round for the girls. They had already vamoosed.

Well, they’d live. She went on back to the
Tonic
, clambered up the anchor-chain, then flipped the capstan’s automation. Anchor up, she turned the panners on full blast an swung the wheel round.

“
I am Missy Gin,” she growled to her ship. “I am Missy Gin, an I am tired-sick of sin. Mr. Smith, you try that agin, you ain’t got nothing I can’t take away, you fly up behind me an leave them girls today. You might drink life-water but you ain’t forever, I’m twice as man as you, an four times as clever! I’ll drop you on a Silver Mountain, drop you in the sea, you shoulda been a pianist, since you can’t match up to me! You’re ornery an mean, but you ain’t never seen a thing as quick an keen as me, as Missy Gin!”

The
Tonic
caught her mood an dove up, flying fierce an furious before the wind. Missy Gin had to check her panners an turn them down again so as Mr. Smith’s small, sputtering hydrogenium craft could keep up. He’d let out a tolerable amount of the gas to land, an so right now he was hanging heavy in the sky, eating fuel at a crazy rate, rotors full-on an swiveled to motor him forward, all his ballast gone.

Which was good, for once they reached out of Yesterday, Missy Gin intended to set the law on him. Where there’s no here-an-ago, there’s no law but what might be made, so Sky Clubs an others had to be the law however they saw fit. Missy Gin had seen enough to know certain that Mr. Smith could do with the rest of his life on a Silver Mountain. Once there, he could drink all the life-water he pleased, an it would do him no help — Silver Mountains changed your body in sick, fast mutations, that life-water climbing in your veins an working into your bones. Now, judging from his fingers, Mr. Smith already had life-water in his veins, but a Silver Mountain’d make sure he couldn’t never live nowhere else again.

So find him an empty Silver Mountain, leave him on it alone. That would just about fit him.

She neared the cloud. It weren’t discernibly itinerus from this side; only a little edge of iridescence round the corners led you to tell it could lead you out. (All iridescent clouds’ll do that, dear reader, if only you have a ship to go up in.) Missy Gin looked back to check up, an yes, there was Mr. Smith, at the prow, fixing something. Missy Gin suspicioned he was up to no good again, but well, she had her gun, an she had her threats, an she was Missy Gin.

So she turned round an entered the cloud.

It was right airish this time round: wind had jumped up at the border, hissing on through the cracks an siphoning into the cloud from outside of Yesterday. It bloomed the cloud up big, an Missy Gin shut her eyes agin an navigated through the billows, searching for the feel of the Great Blue, an turning the ship towards it.

An so she was thrown off her feet when the whole ship jerked an yawed, an there was a whine in the engines an a hiss in the panners an mechanica groaning all round her. They passed from Yesterday into the Great Blue an then out of the cloud as she looked back an found Mr. Smith had shot a grappling cable into her shrouds, the wire hooking in them an tangling them, his ship dragging hers back an down, her engines protesting with an irritated whine. Missy Gin went aft an turned them lower an fiddled her panners higher an turned back to the wire to see Mr. Smith climbing across it, hand over seven-fingered hand, up to her ship.

Well, Missy Gin didn’t have much time. She looked round the
Tonic
, but that wire would take time to cut, an cutting the engines would only let Mr. Smith’s ship fly into hers. The panners on high burn would let her ascend, slowly, pulled round an off-course an yawing into a slow spiral, but at least it would be an up-spiral an not a down-one.

So she turned them up an pulled her revolver an ducked into the wheelhouse for her other gun as Mr. Smith clambered over the gunwale an into the
Tonic
.

“
Well, girly,” he said, climbing the slope of the deck, “that was a right smart bit of cleverness from you down there in that Yesterday. You
have
seen my kind before, I’ll warrant. Though that won’t help you agin me in the slightest, since, as you remember,
I’m nigh invulnerable,
an you?” He grinned as Missy Gin stepped out an braced herself. “You’re just Missy Gin.”

Missy Gin fired.

Fireshot exploded as it hit Mr. Smith. He clambered his arm over his face an fell to the deck, his clothes aflame about him, but he didn’t panic nor run about. He just knelt there, a-flaming an a-waiting, till that fire burnt out an left him sooty an smudged an cloth-burnt all over, an not a mark on his person. Then he stood back up, pulled his arm off his face.

“
You see,” he said, advancing agin. “That’s all. I’ve been drinking life-water since before you was born, girly, an it’s got to me in all my bones. I’m strong as a bear an there’s nothing alive could kill me.”

“
Excepting the sea,” Missy Gin said, thinking fast. He drank life-water, didn’t he? That changed a man. It changed him forever. But there had to be something left of the man, else there’d only be a life-water figure in front of her, an those didn’t have will nor want with humans. So this was a man. Where was that man kept? What parts were left full-human?

“
Excepting maybe the sea,” Mr. Smith said, in high-good humor. “You know, I ain’t finished my dinner. An I see two eyes before me, an no one but you to stop me.”

Ah,
there.

An then Mr. Smith reached her. He’d backed her up agin the wheelhouse wall, an now he put one hand either side her, leaning over her. “Two eyes, but then there’s the rest of you, isn’t there?”

Missy Gin raised her gun.

“
Now, you’d never kill yourself,” Mr. Smith said, misunderstanding. Those blue-blue eyes looked at her real close, that mouth grinning like he’d planned what come next. “That’d be a criminal waste, pretty as you might be, if you ever stopped being a man.”

“
I ain’t no man,” Missy Gin said, putting the gun to Mr. Smith’s forehead.

An Mr. Smith smiled. “Now, girly, didn’t I tell you? That won’t do me no harm.”

Missy Gin nodded. “No, but this might.”

An she whipped the gun down to his eye an fired.

Mr. Smith reared back, screaming. He clapped his hands to his eye, falling to the deck, writhing an curling like a maggot on a hot pan. An the life-water in the panners heard an felt an burned up high an hot, dragging up the
Tonic
higher into the Blue.

That criminal was in pain, though. He cursed Missy Gin an scrabbled out towards her, but she just stepped out of his reach, waiting, an he moaned an thrashed an cussed, water leaking out between his fingers an smudging the deck in large black curves of soot.

He finally quietened, back up against the inside of the rail, legs curled up, back hunched an heaving. Missy Gin judged it was her time, an so she come forth an crouched.

“
Now, you may have some notions of coming back after me,” she said to him. “I aim to make sure that don’t happen.” She hefted the revolver. “I got another shot in here, an six more in the other, for your other eye an agin any other surprises you have for me, you hear?”

“
No!” Mr. Smith was shaking. His fingers was clutched to his dead eye, water leaking out all along his face. His other eye looked at her aghast. “You can’t!” his voice cracked hoarse. “I’ll die!”

“
Well, that didn’t seem to bother you none with those girls,” Missy Gin said. “I seen what you done to them, don’t think I don’t know there’s others.”

“
But I’ll
die!”
Mr. Smith said, like it didn’t make no sense. “You can’t do that!”

Missy Gin stayed looking at him. Then she stood, still aimed at him. “You get back on your ship. You go. An I’m taking you to a Silver Mountain. You don’t want to die, well, fine. But you ain’t gonna
live
no more either, you hear?”

Mr. Smith peered up at her through the cage of his fingers.

“Git,” Missy Gin said, gesturing with the gun.

Mr. Smith stood. He limped down the deck, down to the grappling-wire. He gripped it with his fingers, hauled himself onto the gunwale, an started to heave himself away.

“An Mr. Smith?” said Missy Gin.

That man looked back.

“I ain’t no girly, I’m Missy Gin,” she said. “I’m Missy Gin, an I am the trouble that you are in!”

Mr. Smith’s face flushed. He turned an clumb down the rope down to his own ship. Missy Gin turned to the panners to turn them down, then back to the stern just to keep an eye on Mr. Smith’s ship.

An well she did, for Mr. Smith come out of that cabin with a shotgun. He loaded it walking an cocked it as he reached the prow, an Missy Gin dropped down behind the gunwale an drew her revolver out. He aimed, looked at her through that one blue, blue eye, an grinned, an fired.

An so did she.

Hydrogenium went up in a huge fat cloud that crystallized instantly into fat puffs of cirrocumulus. That Deep Blue was far, far below, an Missy Gin peeked her head over the gunwale to watch the parts fall.

“
I told him,” she said, aloud, so the panners could hear. “I’m Missy Gin, an I don’t stand for no sin. I ain’t gonna kill if I can stop me, but put a gun to me an no man can top me. Mr. Smith, I was ready to let you live, I never shoulda been, for all the trouble you give. I ain’t afraid of no man who can count to fourteen without using his toes, but how many eyes you took? I shoulda counted those, I shoulda put you away a year for each, see if that could teach you what you did, how much you did . . .”

An there Missy Gin ran out. That weren’t a boast no more. What else was there to say about Mr. Smith?