Beneath Ceaseless Skies #139 Read online

  I was alone in the building, except for Elijah and whoever he had spoken to. I needed answers, even if it meant I had to risk him beating the tar out of me to get them. So I slipped through the door and tiptoed up the narrow stairs. Dim light from Tesla tubes inset into every riser lit my way.

  Up and double back; up and double back.

  I found myself on a small landing. I worked another latch, eased onto the balcony, and tiptoed along the back wall. Elijah’s voice grew louder, behind the door I had seen Tanner use the day before. Then I heard another voice.

  “—king, queen, jack and ten of clubs are forty. That makes eighty-three, and I knock with two.”

  The Kid. So he was still alive.

  “You?” the Kid asked.

  “Fifty-three,” Elijah snapped.

  They were playing gin rummy, a card game the Kid had tried to teach me once. After the first few games, I had refused to play with him. It seemed too much like one of his flim-flam schemes.

  “Another thirty dollars. You owe me two hundred now.”

  “Like you’re ever gonna see it.”

  “That saddens me, Elijah,” the Kid said. “I figured you for many things, but not a welsher.”

  “You sure you told me the rules straight?”

  “Just the way my friend, Elwood, explained them to me.”

  “Uh huh. I get my hands on Elwood, he ain’t seeing any of my money, either.”

  I couldn’t stand there, listening all day. I had to take the chance the two of them were alone. I drew the derringer, and a deep breath, then turned the door-knob. Luck was with me. It was unlocked. The door swung in and I followed.

  “Hands up, Elijah,” I barked.

  They were seated at a small table. The Kid faced me, his back to the far wall, wearing nothing but a union suit. He had been tied to his chair, but his hands were free.

  Three bodies lay stacked like cordwood against a side wall. Right off, I recognized the rigging foreman. The other two wore long-johns, too. They had to be the missing hopper cops.

  Elijah never turned around. “London, you promised me. You said you wouldn’t give me trouble.”

  “Things change,” I said.

  He lunged across the table, grabbing for the Kid’s throat, but my friend wasn’t having that. He fell backwards; rolled with the chair still tied to him. Elijah slapped a hand on the table to catch his balance and it collapsed beneath his weight.

  Right off, he came to his feet facing me and charged. Hands out, teeth bared, and roaring.

  I roared right back, firing both barrels. With the first shot, Elijah’s left ear exploded in a spray of red. The second bullet tore away a big flap of his cheek.

  Just like a runaway engine on the rails, he never slowed.

  I slipped out of his grasp and scrambled through the door down the balcony’s center aisle. On the way, I juggled my two extra cartridges from my vest. I had practiced the move over the years, so I managed to slid in the second shell as I reached the bottom rail.

  I turned, fighting to control my breath and my quivering hands, and aimed the pistol. “Stop right there!”

  He did. He stopped halfway down the steps and studied me. “You ain’t got it in you, London,” he said. “You meant to kill me, you should’a done it when my back was turned.”

  He started toward me.

  Before I could pull the trigger, the Kid hurtled down the aisle, broken pieces of the chair still tied around him, those long legs of his extended, and planted both his boots into Elijah’s back. The big man toppled toward me.

  I ducked; he dropped over me, landing with his belly on the rail. Before he could grab ahold, I jammed my shoulder into his thighs and heaved.

  His legs lofted and he tumbled from the balcony.

  A man can walk away from a fall on the Moon that would have killed him back on Earth, but the balcony was high and Elijah carried too much extra weight. I swear the building quivered as he slammed into the wood-and-metal seats and regolith below.

  “Mary, mother of Jesus,” the Kid muttered.

  He sprawled on the steps above me, picking at the tangled rope around him.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “About to ask the same of you,” he said.

  We both snickered, the sort of sound a man will utter when he’s grateful to have survived some awful thing. Then I heard a noise from below.

  “Is he still alive?” the Kid asked.

  We crept to the railing and peered over the edge.

  Elijah lay twisted on the seats below, bent and broken, to be sure, but very much alive. He fumbled about him, trying to get back to his feet. A sound came from him, a deep-pitched wheeze, as if a steam fitting was about to blow. It set my teeth on edge.

  I made my way downstairs and through the seats. The Kid followed.

  Elijah looked up at us. His augment whined. Gears clashed, chewing at each other. His left arm quivered, but nothing moved. When he spoke, his words weren’t much above a whisper.

  “Help me out here, will you, London?”

  “Not a thing I can do,” I said. “You’re stoved up awful bad.”

  He tried to move again, without success. “Yeah... Can’t feel nothin’ below my shoulders.”

  He coughed; blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth. “Go on,” he said. “Shoot me.”

  I shook my head. “I never killed a man in cold blood.”

  “Damn you, London. Don’t leave me laying here like this.”

  My hand shook so much I didn’t think I could do it, but I set the double barrels of my derringer into the hollow of his brow, just where it met his nose.

  Then Elijah closed his eyes and whispered, “Go on. You’d do it for a dog.”

  “You’re right,” I whispered back, and pulled both triggers.

  * * *

  In the alley, the Kid, still in his union suit, pointed to the abandoned hopper.

  “They take the other one?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I saw them fly away.”

  “We got to stop them,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Tanner and—” He hesitated. “—and Sweetwater. I heard them talking. She knows how to fly a hopper.”

  “What kind of hold does Tanner have on her?” I asked.

  The Kid shook his head. “It ain’t like that.”

  “What?”

  “She come and talked to me, up there in that room, after Elijah snatched me. Jack, she laughed at me. It’s all been an extended con, these past few days. She’s a part of it.”

  “A part of what?”

  “She said what you said she would. That twenty years was a long time. That I was a fool if I thought we could have what we had all those years ago. She said the three of them come here to teach us all a lesson; to put Goodkind in his place.”

  “Damn it, Kid. What have they got planned?”

  He stepped closer. “They’re gonna plant some bombs. They want to kill the President. Goodkind, too, if they get lucky, and scare folks away from Tycho City.”

  “They’ve got bombs?”

  The Kid just kept on talking. “I expect they figured to kill me when they finished and make it look like I done it. And ain’t I been the perfect patsy?”

  It finally came together. Tanner hadn’t been worried about the rigging because he knew there would be no show.

  “How many bombs?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Enough to blow a big hole in the dome.”

  “Sweet Jesus,” I said. “Everyone in town’s out in the open, waiting to see Roosevelt.”

  The Kid stalked to the abandoned hopper. “You know how to fly this thing, don’t you?”

  “I only ever been up the once. I’ll kill us both.”

  The Kid climbed onto the pinion saddle and slapped the seat in front of him. “I sure as hell don’t know how to, and it’s the only way we got to stop them.”

  “We’ll get the coppers.”

  “There ain’t enough time, Jack.
Come on.”

  “Kid, don’t make me do this.”

  “You don’t, there ain’t no stopping them.”

  He was right, even if I didn’t care for it one bit. Three steps to the hopper. I climbed aboard, hit the power switches for the Goodkind disks, and slid my toes beneath the safety bars.

  “You conniving bastard,” I said. “You best hang on.”

  * * *

  We climbed in silence the first few seconds, then the Kid stretched his arm across my shoulder, pointing. “There they are.”

  They were up near the center ridge of the dome, close to the crater rim. There was no missing the green plaid of the Kid’s suit. Just what Tanner was counting on, I expect. I goosed the throttle and we gained speed. Too much. The hopper wobbled and almost over-turned; the Kid jerked his arm back and snatched at the panic bars. “Damn you, Jack. Hold it steady.”

  “Don’t you think I’m trying!”

  I arrowed upward and made a sloppy stop behind and below the other hopper, not fifty yards from the windows of Goodkind’s residence. Sweetwater was bent over the controls, doing a damned fine job. Tanner was standing on the pinion seat, his hands above his head, fiddling with a lumpy package the size of a loaf of bread. I knew enough about explosives to know a bomb that size could open up a nasty hole.

  Folks stood behind the glass panes of Goodkind’s residence, watching us. I spotted Goodkind, holding an acoustical up to his ear. He would call for help, no doubt of that, but it would come too late.

  I eased my hopper away and leaned back to the Kid. “That goes off, it’ll punch a hole in the dome big enough to fly a shuttle through. What’s your plan?”

  “Get in close,” the Kid said. “We got to keep them in the air until the coppers get here. I don’t expect they’ll risk their own hides, so they won’t set off the explosive while they’re still in the open.”

  “And if that don’t work?”

  “If we got to, we’ll knock their hopper down.”

  “That’s your plan?”

  “You got something better?”

  I didn’t. So I crabbed in close again, near enough we could have reached out and touched the other hopper’s Goodkind disks. Right off, I saw Tanner had the safety straps hooked to his belt, but he had done them up wrong.

  “You got your straps on?” I asked the Kid.

  “What?”

  “The safety straps,” I said. “Do it now!”

  Sweetwater must have heard me. She looked toward us. “You two again!”

  In that instant, she lost focus.

  Her hopper slide sideways and bumped into mine. Tanner flailed his arms, trying to keep his balance. As he twisted, one of his straps pulled free from its bindings and he tumbled from the pinion seat. The second strap held, so he wound up dangling above that awful drop.

  His weight and movement pulled at the hopper. Sweetwater fought the controls, trying to compensate for the imbalance; she couldn’t manage it. Her hopper rolled away from us, wallowing like some floundering dinghy caught in heavy waves.

  “Help me, woman!” Tanner shouted. “Pull me up.”

  “I can’t fly this thing and pull you up, you fool!” she shouted back. “Show some gumption. Pull yourself up.”

  “I can’t. Damn it, help me.”

  The hopper continued to roll. Sweetwater stretched out one arm, all the while battling the controls. “Give me the detonator.”

  “Not until you pull me up.”

  “Very well then.” Cool as can be, Sweetwater drew a slender flensing blade from inside her jacket and slashed at the strap.

  “What are you doing?” Tanner screeched.

  The Kid shouted, “Sweetwater!”

  She slashed again; the strap parted with a high-pitched crack and Tanner dropped away, screaming as he fell.

  Without his hanging weight, the hopper rolled back into place. Sweetwater dropped the knife after him, drew a breath, and steadied the controls.

  “You murdered him,” I said.

  She turned then, and I saw that gleam of playfulness in her eyes again. “He was an evil man,” she said.

  “Even so.”

  She grinned, as much a wolf as Tanner. “I only did what I had to do.”

  The Kid held out his hand. “Come on, Sweetwater. Let’s go back down.”

  She shook her head. “No. They’ll have questions I can’t answer.”

  “I’ll help you,” the Kid said. “Me and Jack will tell the coppers it was either you or Tanner.”

  She glanced up at the bomb. “His name wasn’t Tanner, nor was he my husband. And none of us knew a thing about trapeze.”

  “Say what?” the Kid stammered.

  “It was just one more part of the con, Kid,” I said. “A way to get them to the Moon.”

  “Very perceptive,” Sweetwater said. “Do you also know how long I have wanted to blow up this wretched place?”

  And it came to me why she was admitting everything. “You’re trying to work up the nerve to finish this alone. I don’t think you have the sand.”

  “It was my idea from the start, Mr. London. I can finish it.”

  “You set it all up?” the Kid asked.

  She laughed. “George, you aren’t the only one with brains enough to run a scam. Did you really think I came back so you could save me, after all these years?”

  “I had hopes,” he said.

  She pointed to Goodkind’s window. “Surely you understand, Mr. London. That man created his own fiefdom here; you are all his vassals. I’ve come to set you free.”

  “By blowing up the city. Killing thousands?”

  She shook her head. “By showing everyone the folly of this place. It’s unnatural.”

  The sirens wailed, and not too far away.

  Sweetwater grinned again. “Shame on you, Mr. London. Trying to keep me talking, until the cavalry arrives.”

  She pulled a pistol from the uniform belt, drew a bead on the bomb, and fired off a shot. The bullet ricocheted from a girder.

  “If you don’t stop right now, you’ll kill us all,” I said.

  “I’m ready to die for my beliefs. Are you?”

  Sweetwater fired another shot; this one struck home. The bomb began to smoke, but it didn’t detonate.

  “Land now,” I told her. “Don’t make me knock you down.”

  She laughed again. “I don’t think so. You can barely keep your hopper in the air.”

  She pulled away, maneuvering to get nearer to the bomb. She lined up a third shot.

  “Get closer,” the Kid said in my ear, his voice so calm you’d have thought we were sitting on the bench in Goodkind Square.

  “I can’t knock her down,” I said. “I’m not good enough.”

  “Get closer!”

  “I told you I’m not good enough!”

  “Goddamn you, Jack, do what I say!”

  I twisted the controls. We jittered sideways.

  We were a good twelve feet from her when the Kid kicked off the pinion saddle.

  He soared from one hopper to the other, in as elegant a dive as I have ever seen. His long arms wrapped around Sweetwater just as she fired again. The shot went wide and she cursed him for the fool she thought he was, even as his momentum carried the two of them away.

  He never made a sound; just hugged her to him as they fell together from the heights.

  * * *

  The coppers dismantled all four bombs. City fathers wanted to erect a monument in Center Park. I argued for something simpler; told them the Kid would have been embarrassed by a twenty-foot-tall statue. The Pole agreed, even though we both knew that wasn’t so.

  So a sculptor worked from a mug shot the Pole provided, as well as a penciled sketch I made. It took six weeks to finish.

  Life-sized, and cast in brushed aluminum. All but his jaw and chin hidden by the bowler, as if he might be napping. One long leg cocked at the knee, with his spat-covered shoe perched on the other knee; sharp elbows out and ready.


  Every minute of those six weeks, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if the Kid hadn’t done what he did. So many people would have died; Tycho City might have been destroyed. What scared me most was although we stopped it once, it still could happen. There are always angry people, made crazy by what they think is right.

  I took to sleeping in the deepest hole I could find. One morning, someone pounded on my door again. When I opened it, I found the Pole. Miller Borden stood behind him.

  “What do you two want?” I asked.

  “You can’t stay in here forever,” the Pole said.

  “And you can’t run away,” Borden added. “The citizens of Tycho City need both their heroes. Besides, where would I find a columnist who can draw an audience as well as you?”

  I promised them I’d stick around for the unveiling, and I kept my promise. I smiled through the speeches, let them take my photograph with Goodkind and the mayor. And then that afternoon I climbed aboard a shuttle back to Earth.

  These days I live on a ranch in northern California. The income from my books pays my bills, and most days I am content. But on new-moon nights I’m drawn outdoors to train a telescope on the twinkling lights of Tycho City.

  And as I watch, I can’t help but imagine the first-time visitors climbing from the shuttle to bounce and wobble through the raucous crowds, under the ever-present scrutiny of a life-sized statue sitting on a wrought-iron bench in what now is known as Hallelujah Square.

  Copyright © 2014 K.C. Ball

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  K.C. Ball is a one-time news reporter, media relations coordinator, property manager, mail carrier, postal supervisor, corrections officer, and improvisational comic who lives in Seattle. She has sold almost fifty short stories, to various print and online magazines including Analog, Lightspeed, Flash Fiction Online, and Murky Depths. Her novel Lifting Up Veronica was published in January 2012 by Every Day Publishers as an online serial, and her first short-story collection, Snapshots from a Black Hole & Other Oddities, was published in January 2012 by Hydra House Books.