The Airship Aurelia (The Aurelian Archives) (32 page)

             
Hurrying to a chair, Nivy sat down and leaned her nose out over the table, inhaling with her eyes closed. Shadows from the streamers Po and Gideon had successfully hung in a canopy over the entire ceiling crisscrossed her contented face.

             
“Good Sterling Eve,” Reece agreed as he sat. “What
is
this? It smells amazing.”

             
“Ain't nothin' special,” Mordecai chuckled, gingerly setting down a lidded platter. “Afraid anythin' would smell good after the mud we've been eatin'.” Nevertheless, he looked pleased with his work, setting his fists on his hips and smiling down at the platter like a proud father.

             
“Cap'n?”

             
“Ow!” Nivy had slapped Reece's hand down from reaching to pick at a piece of steaming bread. Rubbing his hand sourly, he looked over at Po, who was exchanging significant looks with the others. “What?”

             
“Um. We agreed that maybe, seein' as you're, you know,
the cap'n
and all…” Biting back a grin, she brought a floppy green
something
out from behind her back. “You ought’a be the one who gets to wear the Sterlin' Cap.”

             
Reece groaned. The
one
tradition he could have hoped had been left behind. “Who brought that?” In the same beat, he said, “No. Mordecai should wear it. He's the closest thing we have to a patron.”

             
“But we voted, Reece,” Scarlet said, her eyes twinkling at the long-tailed hat held reverently across Po's hands. Beside her, Hayden was staring intently at a speck on the table, apparently using all his concentration not to burst out laughing.

             
“I didn't get a vote! No. No! I'm not wearing it!”

             
The others raised their voices, but it was Gid, arriving with the last steaming tin plate balanced on his callused fingertips, who surprisingly waved them down. “Lay off. If he don't wanna wear the bleedin' thing, he don't wanna wear it. Give it here.” Po meekly handed it over so he could put it away. Only on his way to the coat tree in the corner, he calmly unfolded it and not-so-mercifully thrust it down over Reece's head till it covered his eyes and nose. The crew cheered. Traitorous cretins.

             
Maybe Mordecai was right, and the food only tasted so good because it had been so long now since they'd eaten anything with real flavor, but Reece would have sworn it was the best spread he'd ever seen, let alone tasted. Greens beans, sauced potatoes, moist dumplings, beef. It was impressive they found room for talking between the considerable face-stuffing that was underway, but as they ate, they told stories that made them think of other stories that made them think of
other
stories, until slowly, as the food dwindled, so did the talking, into a warm, comfortable quietness. Even wearing the ridiculous hat of the Sterling Patron, Reece felt full and happy, ready for bed. But the girls, at least, had different ideas.

             
“Did everyone bring something?” Scarlet asked as she presented them with the empty rucksack that was their makeshift Patron's bag. Usually, the Patron's bag was something fancy, velvet or silk in silver or gold. Apparently their resources had only stretched so far.

             
“Yeah. But I still don't get the point'a it,” Gid complained, rooting around in his trouser pockets. His hand came up with a clean white sock with something weighing down its toe. As he passed it off to Scarlet, she carefully placed it in the bottom of the bag, on top of the plain box she'd already contributed.

             
“Well, we all put in something of our own,” she explained overly slowly, as if to a child. He scowled. “Then we draw from the bag and keep what we get. Everyone gives up something for someone else.”

             
“Yeah, I know what we
do
. I just don't get the point. It's not like we're actually gonna get somethin' we
like
.”

             
Holding up a tin bound in more strips of red and green, Po said cheerfully, “Well, someone ought’a like
mine
.” She shot Gideon a pointed look, making him smirk, and stood, picking up the plate that she'd been gradually loading with leftovers.

             
“Where are you going?” Reece asked over the rim of his raised cup.

             
She hesitated, glancing at the winding iron stairs. “Just takin' Owon some food.”

             
Reece very nearly sprayed his cider everywhere—which would have been a real waste, because it was good stuff. He uneasily eyed the railing of the loft and thought he heard a low, raspy chuckle. “He's up there?”

             
“Well, yeah, where did you think he was?” Po rolled her eyes and started for the stairs. Gideon rose to escort her, one hand resting on his revolver as his other snatched up a dumpling, which promptly disappeared into his mouth.

             
Floating out in space
, Reece was tempted to say. At least, that's what he'd been hoping. “It's just creepy.”

             
His mouth still full of dumpling, Gid mumbled, “He don't eat, you know.”

             
“That doesn't mean we can't be nice.” Meeting everyone's incredulous looks, Po tossed her hair and started climbing the stairs. “It's
Sterlin' Eve
, you guys. What would the Patron say if he were here?”

             
“'What's that creepy bald guy doing up in the loft'?” Reece ventured. He gave the tasseled tail of his hat an irritable tug. “Can I put
this
in the bag?”

             
“No,” at least three voices said. He sighed.

             
When Po and Gideon returned from upstairs—Po sighing sadly as she set the plate of rejected food on the counter—Scarlet gave the contents of the bag a quick jumble, and passed it to Hayden to do the honors.

             
“Alright, here I go,” he said, grinning self-consciously as his hand fumbled around in the belly of the bag. He pulled out a nondescript rectangle wrapped in coarse brown paper. “Okay. This doesn't look so bad. It's a…oh.” He blinked, and showed them all what he'd plucked from the wrappings. “It's a fountain pen. A really nice fountain pen. Who…?”

             
Reece pointed a thumb at himself.

             
“Thanks. It's great. Actually…I used to have one just like this…”

             
“So, Nivy's turn, then,” Reece interrupted, taking the rucksack and plopping it in Nivy's lap.

Nivy ended up drawing Mordecai's gift—a long-stemmed wooden pipe, the edges of its tub charred and well-used. Then it was Reece's turn, and he ended up with what had undoubtedly been Scarlet's donation to the pool, a soft silver pin in the shape of a swan. He pinned it to his hat to dress it up a little; the others laughed. Mordecai got a physics book from Hayden, Scarlet conveniently drew the white gloves Nivy had worn to the masquerade at Emathia, and Po got Gideon's small flip-knife…which Gid took back just long enough to break the strips from around her tin. Po was right; her gift took the prize. She'd actually baked sweet chocolate biscuits and frosted them white.

              After the gift giving, Mordecai did a retelling of the Sterling Patron's story, wearing Reece's hat and speaking in a low, eerie voice as he stood on his chair and narrated. After a great deal of badgering, Hayden got out the uncanny Lousbard the Pirate imitation he used to use to scare Sophie and had them all in stitches in short order.

And then…the dancing. It started with Mordecai and Po waltzing around the table as Scarlet turned up the wireless; it ended with Hayden, Reece, and Gideon competing to see who could to the Jolly Man's Jig the fastest, and Hayden almost falling flat on his face. In between, Reece danced a few times with each of the girls, though, as he'd never had the chance to discover at the masquerade…Nivy had no idea what she was doing. It was a good thing his boots were stout, because she seemed to think stomping on them really hard might help her on her way to learning the Cakewalk.

              After the Jolly Man's Jig had worn him down, Reece sat on the back of a chair and contently propped his chin on his fist to watch the others. Po finished a dance with Gideon and stumbled over to sit on the table beside him, her face flushed.

             
“Nice work,” he congratulated her. “This was a good idea.”

She breathlessly pushed her white hair back from her face, beaming at the others.
“You think so?”

             
Reece nodded. “I’d call
The Aurelia
's first Sterling Eve a success, Head Mechanic Trimble.”

             
They watched in amused silence as Mordecai tried to teach Hayden and Nivy what he called a Pantedan Clap Dance, and Gideon guffawed and accused him of doing it all wrong. Reece didn't know if there was a right way to execute a dance that seemed to involve clapping your hands to your feet while you hopped.

             
“Hey, Cap'n?” Po asked over the noise of Hayden realizing there actually
was
no such thing as a Clap Dance. “There was kinda…kinda somethin' else I wanted to ask you. Well, kinda somethin' I wanted to do, I guess.”

“
I told you, Po.” Reece laughed as Scarlet gave an unladylike exclamation at Gideon and Hayden's spontaneous wrestling match nearly plowing her into the wall. “I trust you. Whatever you want to do, just do it. His leg, Hayden, his leg! Don't let him—” Hayden squeaked as he went to the floor under a cackling Gideon.

             
“Alright,” Po said in a small voice.

             
When Reece turned to look at her, it was an effort not to let out an unbecoming squeak of his own. Her nose was so close to his, he probably could have counted its each and every freckle. He wondered in a blind panic if maybe he'd missed one of Mordecai's holly traps, because why the bleeding bogrosh would Po ever,
ever
be looking at him like she was—

             
Suddenly, a few things that probably should have made sense to him before…did.

             
He abruptly leaned so far back from Po's approaching face that his chair went up to its hind legs, teetered, and then toppled him backward to the floor. At the exact same moment, the ship gave an unsettled rumble, rattling the dishes on the table.

             
“What was
that
?” Reece's voice cracked as he staggered to his feet like a drunk. He shot a frenzied look at Po, but he could only see the tip of her bright red nose, as the rest of her face was curtained by her hair as she bent over to tie a conveniently-undone bootlace. The others were all staring at him, frozen in the midst of their last actions.

             
“A hiccup?” Hayden suggested. His voice was slightly strained; Gideon belatedly remembered to let him out of his headlock.

             
“No,” Po said from behind her hair. “That wasn't the Afterquin. It came from outside the ship.”

             
The others looked at Reece again, and he realized they were waiting on him to take charge. “Uh,” he blinked hard a few times and then made himself look away from Po, “right. It could've been a small asteroid hitting the hull. I'll go check the green.” He thought he might be compulsively twitching as he walked towards the door.

             
The view from the bridge hadn't changed since Reece had left it, although Oceanus had grown significantly in size. He frowned out the canopy window and swung into his chair, bowing his head over the green graph radar. There would've been readings if they'd encountered another physical object; a gravity assessment, damage report, and change-of-course projection. But according to the green…their bump in the night had never even happened. He ran a hand over his jaw, thoughtful. Then he switched the radar from the readings screen to a heat-sense view.

             
There was a ship directly behind them.

             
Reece stared unblinkingly at the blip on the radar as it closed in on them, a thousand things speeding through his head, but none of them sticking long enough for him to latch on to. He almost managed his second undignified tumble from his chair in less than ten minutes as the com box gave a sharp
beet
. The speaker crackled, and then a voice came through, “
Fae vous vene dans lamité
?”

             
Blowing out an obnoxious breath of relief, Reece slumped back in his chair. They were speaking Northern, the ancient dialect Plain Speak had replaced on most modern planets. The people of Oceanus, however, considered the use of Northern a sort of art form, and learned it as their second language. He'd just been formally greeted by an Oceanun ship, unless The Kreft had suddenly found their manners.