Clockwork Dream

xii Hunters of the Sky

The first new thing she learned about airships was that something was always, always dirty. At first she had been assigned to help in the kitchen but she had had to admit that she was clueless when it came to cooking. The most complicated dish she'd ever made was a cup of tea. Matthew had given her an odd look, but he hadn't pressed any further. The man could talk about anything but he was surprisingly sensitive when it came to personal matters, which was only good for her.

In the meantime, for the past two days she'd been assigned to an endless stream of petty chores. Each one was mind-numbing and took an eternity, yet the moment she finished Matthew would materialize out of thin air with a new task in hand and an obnoxious sunny grin. His timing was uncanny.

She didn't complain though, didn't dare even to rest. One week, that was all she had to prove that she was worth keeping around, and if it took blindly following dull orders, that was what she would do. If she wanted to have a shot at getting to the automaton before her father it was her only hope.

The chisel felt rough like sandpaper against her hand as she scraped up the last bits of an unidentified brownish grey goo out from the ridges in the floor of one of the cargo bays where a crate had split open. Right on cue, like clockwork, a set of heavy boot steps approached her. Didn't he have something better to do than watch her all day? That or he just had stunning intuition.

"Did you ever figure out what that gunk was?" Matthew asked.

"Something that smells like a skunk that died in a sewer two weeks ago." It was true, the stench rose in foul waves from the sack she'd used for the waist. It had sunk into her clothes and woven its way through her hair, though at least her nose had gone numb to it after the first few minutes.

"Why do you think this place is a ghost town, everyone's been trying to pass the job on to someone else. Of course, working your arse off to impress the captain doesn't leave you that luxury. Good thing too, because the stink was getting worse by the day."

"I guess you're here to give me my next job."

"You'll be cleaning the wasp scorpion's cage. Nasty little things, they have three rows of razor sharp teeth and sting with enough poison to kill a grown man with a touch so make sure you grab them by the back of the neck when moving them."

She stared at him in disbelief. "You're trying to get me killed."

His smile widened. "Nah, I'm just messing with ya. The beast master is the only one allowed to deal with anything more dangerous than the Shiiki flowers, though for the record those blasted things are vicious. One nearly melted my eyes out with its ruddy acid spit. I came to tell you to take a break, you worked straight through lunch."

"I thought you'd never ask."

Alice stood despite the complaints of her knees which had locked in place, glad for even a brief respite. She had to pry the fingers of her right hand off the scraper from where they had frozen still. Heat from the engines was pumped around the ships living areas to keep the chill of the upcoming winter and high altitude at bay, but the cargo bay's didn't qualify. It didn't hep that she was woefully unprepared for manual labor of any sort.

Matthew held open the door to the interior of the ship with a mock bow and a wave of his hand. "After you, my Lady," he said with a horrible exaggeration of an upper class accent.

"Why thank you kind sir," she replied in the same fashion, careful not to be too accurate in her speech. "If you aren't careful someone might mistake you for a gentleman and then the captain would have to be rid of you."

He laughed. "True enough, no room for honest men in a house of thieves. If you ask me though, the nobility is just sneakier about it than we are."

Alice just smiled, knowing how right he was.