Gaia's Brood

Chapter 2

Fernando, frowns and glares daggers at the slim girl with the blond bob, who has just seated herself at our table. She looks nothing like me, though we are related.

"What do you want?" Fernando demands.

The girl glares right back, unfazed by Fernando's rudeness. She has keen hard eyes: green.

I smile at Fernando's unease. "This is my cousin, Izzy. She's crewing for us." Izzy's mother, Auntie Jean, would have brought me up, but unfortunately, my Uncle Felix, my mother's brother, failed to officially marry her. Besides, the city authorities wanted to get their hands on my mother's fortune, so they consigned me to the orphanage as fast as they could. As for Uncle Felix, he runs a trading post outside the city limits and is pretty elusive himself. I have never forgiven him for not coming to rescue me from the orphanage, but Izzy has many more reasons not to forgive him.

Scud looks past Izzy, but smiles. He has met her many times before. "Hi, Iz."

Fernando bites his lip and concentrates on the steaming mug of coffee in front of him, unconsciously imitating Scud when he's agitated. "We've met," he mutters.

Oh no, Izzy isn't one of his conquests is she? Just like Fernando to hook up with a waitress then dump her when he tires of her. Anyone he considers below his social class, which is most people, he treats with contempt when it comes to matters of the heart.

"Why thank you, Ferny," Izzy says with mock sincerity, confirming my worst fears. "It's great to have you along for the ride." Fernando's head snaps round. No one calls him Ferny—except his girlfriends. But Izzy's attention has already shifted to me.

She nods towards Fernando. "Where'd you pick this one up, Nina?"

"Same place you did by the sounds of it," I quip. Izzy knows how to handle herself. Maybe she dumped him. Whatever happened, she is now back to haunt poor Ferny. I have the sudden feeling these three could be more difficult to manage than I ever imagined.

Izzy is from the slums of the underdeck, that other city hanging precariously beneath the pleasant streets of New Frisco. Most suburban dwellers avoid the Underdeck at all costs, but not me. Izzy and I hit it off from an early age, and every spare minute I could escape from the orphanage I spent roaming its narrow ramshackle streets with her. The underdeck is a vibrant, noisy, colorful place, full of life, excitement, and energy. I am as at home in the chaos of the underdeck as I am in the rarefied boulevards of the suburbs.

I change the subject quickly. "If my mother were here–"

"Which she ain't," Izzy murmurs. She always does that.

"—she would toast this endeavor. So let's raise our glasses to a successful trip." We all raise our steaming mugs. "May the winds be kind," we say, quoting the old Guild toast.

Scud leans forward and stares over my head, a sudden eagerness lighting up his face. "Tell us about your Mother, Nina."

"There's not much to tell that you don't already know. She was an archaeologist. She was well connected and became Mayor of New Frisco for a few years then resigned without warning. Then she disappeared." I wrack my brains for new information that may help them understand my desire to retrace her last steps. "She was this kind of free spirit—never satisfied in one place for long. As if she were still searching for her purpose in life." Though she always knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it, I could have added.

"I remember watching her sail off on that last trip. She never hugged me, kissed me or even looked back. It was like I had already ceased to exist in her life. I was six." I spot the rotund cafe owner behind the bar. "Bernard, you were here in my Mother's day, what was she like?" The door tinkles as another customer enters.

"Your Mother, Nina?" Bernard polishes a mug while he thinks. He's a believer, but he still chooses his words carefully. "Your mother was smart and beautiful—like you, Nina." He grins—he fancies himself as some sort of Romeo. "When your Mother said to do something, we did it without question. She was a great leader—everything ran on time when your Mother was Mayor." He polishes the mug some more, staring into the distance for the right words. "Beautiful and terrifying, that was your Mother, Nina. Beautiful and terrifying."

"She was a tyrant. The city's better off without her," a voice calls from the doorway.

We all spin round to observe the new entrant. Jack McGraw, police constable and son of the current Mayor of New Frisco, and with him Lieutenant Borker of the Police Guild, who's turned up nose always reminds me of a snout.

It is Borker who is speaking. "Some of us remember Eve Swift differently. No one liked her. Everyone was afraid of her. We're well shot of her. And as for your Father–"

I jump to my feet. "You leave my Father out of it." I'm ready to defend my father's honor.

"I don't need to," Borker drawls. "He seems to have left himself out of everything since the day you were born."

I feel my face reddening up at the thought of my wayward Father taking to his heels at my birth and never returning. Abandoned by both parents—so humiliating.

The others are on their feet now too—I feel like we're a crew already.

"This is a private conversation," Fernando snaps, "Go back to your guild and mind your own business. No one likes you either."

I feel immediately grateful to Fernando for taking my side and saving me from further embarrassment. He always has just the right phrase for any occasion, bless him.

Jack McGraw pushes in front of Borker. He's ok— dark, wiry, intense; handsome in the gleaming buttons of his navy-blue uniform. "Actually, Lieutenant Borker and I are here on official business."

Borker's eyes had fixed on me the moment he entered the cafe and haven't shifted. I feel uncomfortable, like a trapped animal. A shiver runs down my spine— Borker is creepy. He's also dangerous, I don't know this for sure, it's just an instinct I have about him: very dangerous. Slowly, we all settle into our seats under his withering gaze. He has that effect on people.

McGraw straightens his official peaked cap. "We are looking for the owner of a decrepit pile of junk masquerading as an unlicensed airship called the Shonti Bloom." McGraw raises his eyebrows insinuatingly.

Borker looks as if he's sniffing out the ship's owner, like a boar searching for rotten apples.

I glance guiltily at my crew, but I'm not about to admit anything, certainly not something that will prevent me searching for my mother. "Are you suggesting," I bridle, "that I'm the sort of person who would attempt to pilot an unlicensed airship?"

"You are a slippery, untrustworthy, trickster," McGraw declares to the whole café.

Inwardly I smile, pleased with McGraw's description –– except for the untrustworthy tag, of course. Outwardly, I concentrate on frowning.

"You are your Mother's daughter," Borker growls, "anything is possible." More complements. His strangled voice reinforces his boorish image. I can just imagine him rooting through fallen leaves searching out his next victim.

"Her cast-off daughter," Borker adds.

Now I frown for real—how dare he.

McGraw comes between us again. "Don't worry, Borker, she won't get far with this crew." He indicates my comrades at the table. Borker doesn't look in the least bit worried.

"You're a trouble maker, Swift," McGraw continues, "and I have special orders to keep an eye on you." He winks, opens the door to leave, then turns back. "By the way, I have impounded the Shonti Bloom, under guard, just in case someone takes it into her head to claim it."

Borker's piercing eyes remain fixed on me as the pair make their exit.

Fernando's chair scrapes back as he stands. "So that's the end of that then."

My chair crashes to the ground as I jump up. Izzy grimaces at the eruption of sound and Scud cowers. Anger seethes inside me. "Like heck it is. We'll just have to steal her back from McGraw."