“No sir, it isn’t. ”
Swakhammer made a sound that could’ve been a laugh, and pointed the way up a corridor. “Not much farther. ”
Rector was glad he’d let it go. “Good. I’m still a little on the feeble side, myself. I don’t suppose there’s an easier way up topside…?” he broached.
“Sure, if you want to get eaten by rotters. ” But something about the way he said it was uncertain.
“Ain’t seen hardly any rotters,” Rector pr
essed. “I heard there was scads of ’em here, but Yaozu said there aren’t as many as there used to be. ”
Swakhammer stopped, and although nothing of his face could be seen inside that amazing mask, his posture suggested that he was thinking about this. “There’s truth to that. At first I figured it was my imagination, but now I’m not so sure. It’s the order of the day, though—things disappearing. People disappearing. ”
“I don’t understand…?”
“Mercy will tell you all about it. It’s not a coincidence, not anymore. ” Swakhammer shook his head, as if this was a subject he’d rather not consider. So he said, “It’s not just the rotters. The population up there”—he gestured with his hands as though he was feeling around for the right thing to say—“It’s changing. The rotters are disappearing, but there are more birds, and the rats are coming back. ”
Rector shuddered. “Rotter rats and birds?”
“No, not exactly. The air’s different for them, I don’t know why. It makes them sick, real sick—like mad dogs. But it doesn’t kill them. It doesn’t leave them roaming brainless and dead. ” He shifted his shoulders and resumed course, waving for Rector to come along. “I don’t know how they’re getting in. ”
“What if they’re getting inside the same way the rotters are getting outside?”
“Who said rotters were getting outside?” Swakhammer asked quickly. Even through the mask, reading between the mechanical lines of his speech, Rector thought he sounded entirely too innocent.
“Nobody. I just thought, if there were fewer rotters, they must be going someplace. And like you said, there’s no place for them to go. Except out. ”
“You’re a real thinker, ain’t you?”
“Not usually. I’m just new here. Still learning the ropes. ”
“You listen: If you ever think there’s a breach in the wall, you speak up, all right? We can’t have these things getting out. And it ain’t particularly good to have other things getting in. ”
“Other things?” The shadow of a long-armed monster flicked through his memory, and he fought the urge to hug himself. “What other things?”
“Like I said. Birds. Rats. Dogs. Whatever. We don’t need ’em here. Don’t want ’em. ”
Rector knew a white lie when he heard one, and he almost asked about the “inexplicable. ” But Swakhammer didn’t intend to share anything further, that much was clear.
Before too long, they were in the tiny antechamber with the ladder that led up to the fort, and Swakhammer bid Rector good-bye, telling him to stay out of trouble. Rector wondered why everyone always told him that, since it never did a bit of good. Maybe they were all just optimists.
Up the ladder he went, and back into the smoky, swirling atmosphere.
One of the airships from his previous visit was gone, but the one called Naamah Darling remained, though no one was anywhere around it that he could see. In fact, he appeared to be utterly alone inside the fort, which unnerved him. The place was beyond spooky with its uniform walls, all vertical, unforgiving lines from the ramrod tree trunks. It was a difficult place to see or to navigate—never mind that it was mostly empty space that went unoccupied by buildings or ships. Foggy air pooled in the corners and misted back and forth, hiding and showing things at its capricious whim. Rector’s breathing was loud inside his mask. It tickled his ears, and he scratched at them, remembering as he did so that he hadn’t found any gloves yet and immediately putting that back near the top of his to-do list.
Hesitantly, he called out, “Hello?” The word came back to him, bouncing off the trunks and echoing around in the moist, dark corners. He tried it again, somewhat louder. “Hello? Anybody up here?”
Nobody answered, not even the groan of a rotter or the chitter of rats. He thought he heard something overhead—the other dirigible?—no, it was the flutter of wings. So there were birds here after all, just like Swakhammer had said. He looked up and saw disturbances in the Blight, tiny eddies and whirlpools of air tangling with feathers. The birds themselves eluded him.
He gave it another shot. “Hello? Hey, anybody?”
A harsh caw replied, startling him out of his skin. It was very close—practically right behind him.
“No,” he whispered to himself. “It’s just the walls. The sound moves funny, in here. ”
As he listened for the uncanny birdcall to ring again, he heard something else—something softer, and more reassuring. It was the sound of tools and then, in one quick bark, the sound of swearing. Rector didn’t catch it clearly enough to note the exact word used, but he knew that tone—even if he couldn’t tell the voice.
It came from the Naamah Darling, docked against the wall’s edge, still clasping the soggy, wet mess of the rotting totem pole. The craft leaned slightly, or so Rector thought; then he noticed it had been drawn up by a cable so that its bottom and rear plates were angled toward the ground. One of those plates was off, and although no one stood beneath it, faint sounds of humanity came from within the ship.