Steal the Sky by Megan E. O'Keefe Page B

ship’s deck by large eyelets. The ferry itself had a middling buoyancy sack, just enough to keep its weight from bearing too much on the wires. Aransa wasn’t about to waste a full airship or its selium supply on simple civic transportation. As it toddled along, Detan spared a worried glance at the breadth of his fellow passengers. A little more sel in the sacks probably wouldn’t have gone amiss. It’d ease his nerves, at any rate.
    Despite the lackluster arrangement, Detan enjoyed the opportunity to take in the view. Every landscape of the Scorched Continent was a mishmash of rock and scrag-brush, but they were all still beautiful to him. The geography of the area maintained hints of the lush tropic it had once been, before the firemounts opened their mouths and blanketed the place in death. He couldn’t imagine the verdant wonder of the past, but he could appreciate the rugged charm of the present.
    The closer they drew to the firemount and its adjacent baths, the easier it was to make out the bent backs of the line-workers. Selium-sensitives, born with the ability to feel out and move small amounts of the stuff, were arranged in lines along the great pipeways that ran from the mouth of the Smokestack to the Hub. They urged raw selium gas they couldn’t even see out of the firemount and through the pipes to the Hub’s refinery.
    Some of them – the shapers – could do it without moving a muscle, but most had to lean from side to side, channeling their ability through the motion of their arms. Back and forth, back and forth. A rhythmic dance of servitude all down the line. Didn’t matter who you were, if you were born sel-sensitive you worked the lines. If you were very lucky, you got to be a diviner or a ship’s pilot instead.
    Detan turned away from the scene. As a young man, he had never been very lucky.
    As the ferry bobbed along toward the baths, Detan put a hand on Tibs’s shoulder and turned him about to look back the way they’d come. Aransa was half shadow in the light of the sinking sun, its terraced streets winding down the face of Maron Mountain to the inky sands of the Black Wash below.
    For a Scorched settlement, it was a city of impressive size. Maybe fifty thousand souls packed those streets, nothing like the sprawling island cities of Valathea, but substantial all the same. Most of the denizens were born to it now, but a few generations ago it was filled only with those who came to mine the sel, and those who came to profit off their backs. The population boom was perfect for Detan’s purposes – a man like him could pop in and out without being remembered by too many sets of eyes.
    â€œSee there?” Detan pointed to the easterly edge of the second level from the top, at a rock-built compound which spread down into the next two levels below. At its highest point a great airship was moored, sails tucked in and massive ropes reaching like spider’s legs from it to the u-shaped dock which cradled it. No buoyancy sacks were visible, though it floated calm and neutral. Just a long, sleek hull, like the sea ships of old. Stabilizing wings protruded from the sides, folded in for now. He had no doubt that airship was the Larkspur . “Looks like Thratia is going to be giving tours tonight.”
    â€œI doubt we’ll find ourselves on that guest list.”
    â€œPah. Just you wait and see, old friend. Thratia’s no dunce, she’ll be wanting the company and support of such fine upstanding gentlemen as ourselves.”
    â€œAs you say.”
    The ferry thunked to a stop against the Salt Baths’ port, a jetty of mud-and-stone construction sticking out like a twisted branch from the rock face. A tasteful sign hung above the entrance into the basalt cavern, claiming peace and relaxation for all who entered. From the outside, it looked like the type of crummy dive bar people like Detan were likely to turn up in.
    â€œThought