//------------------------------// // Cloud Ceiling // Story: Cold Light // by Scramblers and Shadows //------------------------------// Ominous clouds on the horizon? Well, you know, sometimes these things really are literal. Chapter 21 Cloud Ceiling Blueberry could almost believe that her new ship was stationary: A fixed palace somewhere, solid and eternal. Even at these speeds, all she could hear was the sussuration of her own breath and the faint whirring of the chevaloid waiting behind her. Resplendent, she called it; the second ship, the one she'd given to her bodyguards, still lacked a name. The bridge – if it was a bridge – was a dome suffused with soft light that cast no shadows. The walls were smooth but uneven, mapped with ridges and indentations. In the centre of the room, a pillar like a stalactite of lapis lazuli threaded inside with silver hung from the ceiling. Aside from that it was featureless. Standing in front of the pillar, she could connect to the ship through her horn. Just like a repository. Then it was immediately clear how fast they were moving. Everything was available: Full visuals in any and all directions (the desert hurtled past her and the second ship), air speed, temperature, pressure, thaumic field strengths, internal sensors – everything in as much detail as she could handle and no more was piped directly into her consciousness. Her power over the ship was immediately evident: She could fly, shoot, scan. She could bring up real visual displays on any of the walls and manifest control consoles for those benighted creatures lacking her access. This was her taster, she supposed. A hint of the power she would soon have. She could see, in a way, why Sombra would have settled for this. But the ship wouldn't be enough. It could build an empire; it couldn't save the world. Outside, the desert gave way, first in patches then entirely, to a smooth surface of mottled blue, shimmering greasily in the dawn. She called up the second ship, piloted by Cannons and Sorghum. “Hello boys. We're nearly there. Are you ready?” Part of her visual feed jumped to a view of the other bridge, where Cannons prodded at a crystalline console in the wall and Sorghum looked up at her. “I think we've got it all figured out down here.” “Wonderful. You're so clever, I knew you could do it.” She rang off and turned her attention to the ships sensorium. There was the ratty little chemical mine where Sweetie Belle had escaped her the second time. She began to slow. The deceleration, at least, was something the ship couldn't shield. Thaumic and sonar pings peered into the sulphate mire and located her targets, between two and three hundred metres under the surface. In full view of the mines, a little over a kilometre away and close to the surface, she came to a halt. “Aim your main cannon down at these co-ordinates,” she told the other ship. “And fire on my mark. Ready?” “Ready.” “Fire.” Beams lanced out from the two ships. The surface of the mire erupted, sending up splashes of viscous sludge. The open cavity left behind began to collapse as the surface of the mire flowed back in. From Blueberry's vantage point, the process was silent. “Again.” The cavity erupted, this time sending up solid ground: Corroded-looking lumps of stained greyish-brown. “Again.” After the third shot, a patch of the mire beside the excavation site began to bubble slowly, releasing yellow-ochre gas. “Again.” Resplendent called for her attention. Something had left the mining facility and was heading towards them. It was a beast of a thing, bigger than Resplendent, its belly a landscape of weapons. And, on its nose, a line of five long spikes underlined the Ilmarinen sigil. A battleship of the Ilmarinen navy. It must've been stationed there after her first attack. “Let it come,” she said to Cannons and Sorghum. “Fire again.” The hole continued to grow. A ridge of torn-up solid ground blocked the mire from falling back in. A continuous stream of opaque gases bubbled to the surface and rose into the sky. When the battleship was close enough, it hailed them with its lamps. Blueberry ignored it. It hailed again, then again, more aggressively. Something about how the mining facility had claimed this area and she didn't have the right to go digging around in it. She kept digging. The battleship fired a warning shot. Blueberry registered the bullets through her ship's sensorium, but in the bridge itself everything remained silent. No damage, Resplendent told her. “Should we return fire?” asked Sorghum. Blueberry let a sense of the ship's armaments wash over her and counted the number of ways she could swat the battleship aside. “No,” she said. Leave it alone.” She smiled to herself, then spoke added: “The crew are ignorant of the tale they take part in. Forgiving them is our act of beneficence.” The battleship, having fired once more, seemed uncertain of what to do. Blueberry let it be and fired into the ground again. The mire around them roiled and vomited gas from a dozen spots. And there it was. Outside, the ship told her, the air was all but unbreathable. The pit gaped like the mouth of the soon to be extinguished Tartarus. And at the bottom, grimy and corroded, lay a ship's hull. Blueberry positioned her ship over the hole and lowered the grapple. No ugly salvor grapple, this: More of a thread than a rope, it lowered smoothly and quietly into the pit and, without any visible means of holding, stuck to the buried hull. As soon as the grip was firm – the tip of the grapple thaumically held the entire piece of salvage – she pulled. The line went taut. Now she could hear something: A faint but clear hum as the engines worked to keep Resplendent flying. After a few seconds of calm, the mire bulged. Syrupy fluid ran over and off thicker sludge. At the edge of the bulge, the roiling surface burst open: Poisonous gas came up in opaque sheets several metres wide, joining a growing cloud above. At last, the ground split open. The corroded hulk came to the surface. It might've born a family resemblance to her own ship, but its time below had scoured away whatever elegance it started with. Its skin was pitted, scarred, grimed. Amorphous lumps of indeterminate substance slid from its hull and fell. The overturned mire below sagged. “Help me drag this thing this thing to solid ground,” Blueberry told Sorghum. “And prepare for a salvage operation.” The poisonous cloud kept growing. After she woke, Sweetie Belle lay staring at Dignity's shadowy ceiling and listening to the hatchlings murmurations and Scootaloo's irregular sleep-whickering beside her. That was it. She was Scootaloo's saviour, like she'd planned to be. Everything was (very nearly) fine. And when they got back … “Saviour,” whispered a daemon in her ear. She ignored it and shifted closer to Scootaloo. She shifted and moved closer to Scootaloo. She could tell when Scootaloo awoke because she suddenly and briefly went tense. Next moment she was on her hooves. Sweetie Belle looked up at her and smiled. “Ready to go home?” She murmured. The reply came after a pause: “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” Sweetie Belle rolled over and stood. Her tail flicked. “Still got my half of the bargain to fulfil.” She'd told them both about Saffron to explain her ability to map Amaranth's magic. Now came another trip into the skull, to make a map of possible salvage points for Millie and Lucille. Worth the effort, at least. A door at the far end of the cabin clanged open, and Millie stuck her head out. “You three up now? I thought I were going to have to get t'water bucket.” “Tom's still asleep,” Scootaloo said loudly. “If you still want to give it a try.” A paw came up, accompanied by a bleary voice: “I'm up. I'm fine.” Then, “Though, actually, a shower would be nice.” “Can't really spare the water,” said Millie. “I've got plenty of dust though. You want to try dust?” “Actually,” said Tom, standing and blinking. “I think I'll be fine.” Chardonnay nuzzled at him, nearly knocking him over; he patted its neck. “Good,” said Millie. She looked over at Sweetie Belle. “Come on, then. Job for you.” The four of them went up to Skulltown's cheekbone port together, stretching silently in Dignity's gondola as the sheet of bone moved past the window. The port seemed at once more crowded and quieter than usual. Stepping out, Sweetie Belle heard some of them mutter in a way that reminded her of the daemons. Others were silent. No-one seemed to be doing any work. Millie pushed her way to the next available space on the docks, where the crowds, looking out at the sky, were thickest. Clouds. On Amaranth. And not normal clouds. They looked like ragged bits of stuffing torn from the inside of an old chair cushion. Ugly yellow-brown against the pure white Scar, they left islands of shadow on the desert. They were a long way away, yet – nearly at the horizon – but seemed to be moving closer. “Unsolved,” whispered a daemon. Sweetie Belle pulled away from the edge and let someone else take her place. “You're seeing this, aren't you? Please tell me you have an explanation.” Saffron manifested beside her. “Nothing I can be certain of.” “That hasn't stopped you speculating before.” Saffron looked at her. She exhaled slowly. “It's Blueberry, isn't it?” said Sweetie Belle. “Seems likely,” Saffron admitted at last. At that moment, she was interrupted by Lucille, who stood ahead of the rest of the group. “I'm almost scared to ask,” she said, “but do you know anything about what's going on here?” “I … I think so,” said Sweetie Belle. They moved away from the docks to the main road running down Skulltown's muzzle. It was emptier than usual – those who did remain moved in small groups and seemed uncertain or even suspicious. Sweetie Belle was struck by the absurdity of it: You live on a skull beneath a giant hole in the sky; what worries you is a cloud. The others gathered around her. Her audience, she supposed, small but attentive. Except they were only interested in her as a conduit for Saffron. She re-iterated what she knew about Blueberry: The Apotheosis Machine, the machine that created Discord, and Blueberry's big plan. “And what about the clouds?” asked Tom. “Where does that lie in her plan?” “She's activated something,” said Saffron. “Or dug something up. I don't know precisely. From the direction of the clouds, and their composition, as far as I can tell, I'd guess they're coming from the waste dump. Where your lot are mining chemicals.” Sweetie Belle recounted this to her audience. “I don't suppose the something she dug up could be the Apotheosis Machine?” continued Tom. “No,” said Sweetie Belle, still following Saffron, “The Apotheosis Machine is somewhere else. In an underground city far south of here.” “You … uh, Saffron … said she can't use the machine?” said Scootaloo. “There are two things standing in her way. First, there's no source of thaumic potential big enough to start the machine. Even qilin tech would struggle with that. Second, the machine is hidden in a … pocket universe.” Sweetie Belle shrugged and added, “I don't know what that is either. Anyway, if Blueberry tries to find the machine, it just won't be there. And she doesn't know how to open the portal, she can't find it. Not immediately, anyway.” “Why are you sure she doesn't know?” “Because,” answered Saffron. “I was there when she was looking through your head. I saw her intentions. There was nothing about a pocket universe.” Sweetie Belle passed this on. “But,” said Tom slowly, “If you don't know what she's doing now, there must be some things about her intentions you didn't see..” Sweetie Belle glanced over at Saffron, who sighed, then nodded once. “And if she does find a way around these obstacles …” Tom let the sentence hang. “Then the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance,” murmured Scootaloo. “Yeah.” Scootaloo stared at Sweetie Belle in silence. Then she said, “It's been ages since since that happened.” “Yeah, I was thinking that,” said Sweetie Belle. “So, uh, what do we do?” asked Tom. “We stick with original plan,” said Sweetie Belle. The others looked at her expectantly. This was it, she realised – now it was her at the centre, and not just as a conduit for Saffron. “I go inside the skull, then we go to Ilmarinen. I still owe you the map, and the skull is the best way to check on Blueberry anyway. Then at Ilmarinen, I'll talk to Proper Order again. He can't ignore her after this.” She smiled at Lucille and Millie. “You get paid. Blueberry gets stopped. Everyone wins.” “Except Blueberry,” murmured Tom. “Yeah, Everyone wins except Blueberry.” Lucille clicked her beak and looked at Millie. “I can't think of a better plan.” “Nowt comes to mind,” agreed Millie. “You'd best get ready, then, lass.” “Will do,” said Sweetie Belle. “I'll meet you at the docks when this is all over.” She waved goodbye, then turned and trotted up the main road towards the crown of the skull. A moment later, Scootaloo fell into step beside her. She smiled at Sweetie Belle. “Thought I'd come with you,” she said. “Thanks,” said Sweetie Belle. “After you've told Ilmarinen … what then?” Scootaloo asked softly. “You still gonna go home?” Then, “I'll come with you. Don't worry.” An attempt at an immediate answer died on Sweetie Belle's tongue. “I don't know,” she admitted. She was sick of fighting, but she didn't say that because a glance at Scootaloo's face said that she wasn't. That was Scootaloo: Always ready to keep trying, keep fighting. Even after being saved, she was looking after Sweetie Belle. The thought came like a sliver of ice behind Sweetie Belle's sternum. She amended her last comment: “If we can do anything to stop Blueberry, we will.” Sweetie Belle realised, as she lowered herself into the black depths of the skull, that she was becoming quite adept at this. Moving in the harness felt almost natural. Up above, the pony in the cabin had greeted her with familiarity underlined with something between condescension and respect. Ponies don't generally go on vision quests so regularly. Right now, he was talking to Scootaloo about the new clouds. A daemon whispered in her ear. With nothing else to listen to, she felt like the odd connectives and particles of qilin grammar were on the edge of sliding into place and pulling entire sentences into comprehensibility. To distract herself, she said out loud, “Question.” “What is it?” replied Saffron without appearing. “Blueberry wants to use the Apotheosis Machine, yeah?” “Right.” “Blueberry is working for this creature called S.” “Apparently so.” “So what's the connection there? I mean, she's a minion. Is she getting it for S.?” “Maybe it's for herself.” “Then what's S. doing?” “I don't know,” said Saffron. “Maybe she was pretending to be S. all along. It's happened a few times in history. Our history, I mean. The big boss wants to do fieldwork, but that's very dangerous if people recognise her, so she pretends to be some operative instead.” “Huh,” said Sweetie Belle. She thought about it for a bit. “All our wannabe-rulers have been openly hooves-on.” “It's a barbarian virtue,” murmured Saffron. “Discord included,” said Sweetie Belle. For a moment there was no response from Saffron, and Sweetie Belle was left with the gentle squeal and clink of her harness. Then the voice in her ears returned, “Yes, well, there are always exceptions. Maybe I should have told you about him earlier, but … 'Hi, I'm a disembodied spirit who's hitching a ride in your head back to her boyfriend who she hasn't seen in, what, thousands to tens of thousands of years.' Doesn't really work.” Sweetie Belle smiled faintly. “I guess not.” She stared out at the glowing circle of desert visible through the eye socket. The clouds weren't visible. Daemons whispered in her ears. “What are you going to say to him when you get back?” “That's the joke, isn't it? It's a tale of romance across two dimensions, spanning the death of a great civilisation and millennia of emptiness, with survival against all odds. We're the last two qilin, except neither of us are really qilin any more. And when I finally see him again, I have no idea what to say.” She sighed. “I feel like a calf again, even after all this. And I don't mean that in a silly, eye-fluttering way. In my memory, I last saw him four or five months ago. He's lived thousands of years, at least, without me, in a parallel world. It's not exactly a quick catch-up over a cup of coffee, is it?” “I'll put in a good word for you,” said Sweetie Belle. Saffron laughed. “And I for you, if I get my body back. Okay, nearly there. Let's get to work.” Again the map of colours appeared before Sweetie Belle, and in a few seconds Saffron picked out all the activity since they'd been here last. Two spots stood out: Tiny embers of deep red. “The most recent is there, just two or three hours ago,” noted Saffron. “That's the same place …” began Sweetie Belle. “As the mining facility, yes. I was right. It's not a spell Blueberry should be able to use.” “And?” “From the signature, it looks like it was cast by a machine. In which case …” “Not the time for dramatic effect, Saffron.” “I'd say it's actually a pretty appropriate time. You see this other spot? It's far to the south. Not far from where you picked me up, actually. That's … that's Tanelorn! She's been to Tanelorn and she's got herself some qilin technology.” “And what does that mean?” “I don't know yet.” Sweetie Belle sighed. “Alright, never mind. Let's get this map done. What do I do?” “Just wait there. Artefact signals take a while to resolve. I'll record them all and you'll be able to mark the places on a normal map later.” By the time Sweetie Belle had finished, the sky outside had darkened. She settled her hooves on the platform outside the skull's eye socket, undid her harness, and looked up. Skulltown was in the shadow of a ragged, faintly crescent-shaped cloud. It was nearly opaque; even the Scarlight that normally haunted the shadows seemed muffled. She climbed the ladder to the cabin to find Scootaloo and the attendant watching the cloud in silence. “Ready?” asked Scootaloo. “Yeah, I've got it all,” Sweetie Belle said. They headed back to the docks at a fast trot, met up with Millie, Lucille and Tom, and boarded the Dulcet. There, in her office, Lucille picked out two large paper maps of Amaranth and unfurled them both across the table. Sweetie Belle took a pencil and set about marking the locations where Saffron thought an artefact might lie. “I talked to Gritstone on the ansible,” said Lucille. “He says the clouds haven't reached Ilmarinen yet. But he also thinks something's spooked the navy: They've sent out two ships early this morning, and the others have been doing local patrols. More activity than he's seen in a while.” “You think they took my warning seriously?” said Sweetie Belle, adding a little graphite circle to one of the maps. “Maybe. Or they've learned about the clouds too. The chemical mines belong to Skulltown, but Ilmarinen makes a point of looking after nearby outposts. A good five or six of their battleships are stationed around other outposts and facilities. One of those might have seen and called in.” “At least they're paying attention,” snorted Sweetie Belle. “Done.” She added one last circle to each of the maps and put the pencil down. Millie and Lucille looked over the two maps, ensuring they were marked identically. “Your choice,” said Lucille, glancing up at Millie. “Aye, this'll do nicely,” said Millie, rolling up one of the maps. She slotted it into its container, and stuck the container in her saddlebag. “I hope we'll get a chance to use the bloody things.” “What about that privateer you captured?” Lucille said. “Give him to me when we get to Ilmarinen,” Millie said. “I'll take him to Aquileona with this lot.” She snorted. “And Sweetie Belle, I hope you ain't forgotten the babbies in my hold? I want you to look after them.” “Sure. Let's get going.”