Gaia's Brood - Episode 23

While still at Ashcroft Ascent we had prepared for our assault on Newtonsteign. So when the first gleaming white airship of the Newtonsteign patrol hauls alongside, we are able to slip on our long, cheap, but plausible, double---breasted white coats, and present our forged letter of introduction. The letter is signed by the curator of the Ashcroft Ascent museum, who thought he was signing off our bogus school projects.

We are engineering students on a field trip from Ashcroft Ascent to the heart of the engineering guild: the great city of Newtonsteign---a wonder of the modern age. Trent is our teacher.

When constructing a believable fabrication, keep it simple and as close to the truth as possible. Include some genuine artifacts to help smooth over the lies.

I have my doubts about this ruse. It seems too simple, but Trent has visited Newtonsteign before and assures us educational parties visit all the time. Ashcroft Ascent is too close and therefore all too easily checked out for my liking, but I relented when Scud suggested the letter of introduction. At least the signature is genuine.

Grappling hooks pull the Shonti Bloom alongside the Newtonsteign craft. Two guards swing across the gap separating the two hulls on ropes. One attaches a line to our winch---pulley while the other watches with steely cold eyes and covers us with a compression rifle. Once secure at their end, the winch is used to haul across a canvas cradle.

An officer, dressed in the pure white uniform of the Microtough Navy steps gingerly out of the cradle, accompanied by two further guards, both wielding compression riffles. The officer holds out a white---gloved hand. "Papers."

Trent presents our fake identity papers and the letter of introduction. I wait, my heart hammering nervously in the silence. I watch Scud staring out the window counting clouds, he doesn't like strangers or lies. The officer stares intently at our ID's like he knows they are fake, he even holds mine up to the light. I can feel cold sweat running down the side of my face. He spends an inordinate time reading and re---reading the introduction letter, like he's searching for some hidden meaning. Just when I think it inevitable I'm in for a long spell in a Microtough jail, the officer looks up and smiles. "These all seem in order. Pleas enjoy your trip." The officer departs the way same way he arrived, in the cradle device.

We all grin at each other like the conspirators we are.

I can't believe our luck. "That was way too easy. I was convinced he could tell our documents are forged."

"I nearly had kitten," Izzy laughs, "when he held your ID up to the light."

Scud's still looking out the window nervously. "Too easy. Plans never run that smoothly."

"Cut it out, Scud," Fernando is annoyed, he's joined this ruse under duress---he was out voted. "Sometimes things just go the way they were planned. It's all in the preparation. Good preparation delivers a smooth plan." He's right, up to a point, but then you must always plan for the unexpected---the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns.

"I told you it would work," Trent boasts, he hardly looks worried at all. "They love educational trips on Newtonsteign---feeds their big egos."

We get under way again.Two more white ships, containing equally white---clad security forces, stop us on our approach. The engineering guild takes security seriously.

Eventually, the great city itself floats into view. What a sight; nothing in the world looks even remotely like Newtonsteign. The entire floating landmass is covered in glass and sculpted in the shape of a giant lily flower. Other landmasses are linked to the central bloom like arteries to a heart; one even sports six chimneys belching out black smoke, something I have never seen before. "The foundries," Trent informs us with distaste.

No slums allowed to spoil the pristine beauty of this design. In fact, lots of things are not allowed.

The Chief Engineer reaches out from his souring glass palace at the centre of Newtonsteign into virtually every city, town, and platform on the planet. Only Chartered Engineers know the secrets of old world technology that keep the city landmasses afloat. The engineering guild wields an enormous power over other city states. If any city dares to default on its crippling tithe, the guild simply withdraws its engineers, dooming that city to slow technological decline and ultimate destruction. It only takes one city state to fall from the sky for all the rest to get the message. With so many secrets to guard, no wonder security is tight.

"Isn't this place fantastic," Scud enthuses as we shuffle into an arrivals area. "If nothing else, the museum is going to be worth seeing."

Everywhere I look I can see posters of Chief Engineer Smyth, in his white suit and white---lensed shades, espousing the laws of the guild; "No action without Guild reaction; Natural law is fixed and unchanging; All things decay unless maintained by the Guild; Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but flows from the Guild."

The hairs on the nape of my neck prickle. "Shh, don't draw attention to yourself," I advise the others. For all its grandness and inspiring architecture, I can tell that a weight rests heavily on the population here. It isn't just the uniforms and the dazzling whiteness of the place, nor the personality cult of the Chief Engineer. Newtonsteign contains darker forces: a constriction of thought, a subtle control of the mind. This place gives me the creeps. I can't wait to get to the eye and leave.

"My father wanted me to train as an engineer," Scud continues. Strangely, he's completely unfazed by Newtonsteign, maybe the regimented order of the place appeals to his sense of rightness. "But I couldn't get inspired by all those laws." He's certainly clever and diligent enough to have made it in the guild.

Apart from Scud, I wonder if the others can feel the oppression. Trent looks edgy---which isn't unusual, he's scanning arrivals looking for trouble. Fernando is relaxed, but Izzy jumps at every new sound. I bet she can feel it too.

Suddenly, a huge explosion rocks the whole landmass, shaking me to my knees. Frantically, I scan arrivals for danger. At first I don't see anything, then people start pointing towards the soaring glass of the outer window. On a neighbouring landmass, two foundry chimneys are starting to topple. Gracefully, they collapse in opposite directions, bounce on the edges of the island, then slide over the sides, like felled trees, amid a shower of debris, and plummet earthward.

I hope the explosion has nothing to do with me: first the post hub, now Newtonsteign, am I jinxed or something?

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Author note: As this novel is free outside the blockchain, it is also a free serialisation within the blockchain. If you wish to upvote this author, please upvote one of his live blogs posts.