Dieselpunk: An Anthology by Craig Gabrysch Page A

never live nowhere else again.
    So find him an empty Silver Mountain, leave him on it alone. That would just about fit him.
    She neared the cloud. It weren’t discernibly itinerus from this side; only a little edge of iridescence round the corners led you to tell it could lead you out. (All iridescent clouds’ll do that, dear reader, if only you have a ship to go up in.) Missy Gin looked back to check up, an yes, there was Mr. Smith, at the prow, fixing something. Missy Gin suspicioned he was up to no good again, but well, she had her gun, an she had her threats, an she was Missy Gin.
    So she turned round an entered the cloud.
    It was right airish this time round: wind had jumped up at the border, hissing on through the cracks an siphoning into the cloud from outside of Yesterday. It bloomed the cloud up big, an Missy Gin shut her eyes agin an navigated through the billows, searching for the feel of the Great Blue, an turning the ship towards it.
    An so she was thrown off her feet when the whole ship jerked an yawed, an there was a whine in the engines an a hiss in the panners an mechanica groaning all round her. They passed from Yesterday into the Great Blue an then out of the cloud as she looked back an found Mr. Smith had shot a grappling cable into her shrouds, the wire hooking in them an tangling them, his ship dragging hers back an down, her engines protesting with an irritated whine. Missy Gin went aft an turned them lower an fiddled her panners higher an turned back to the wire to see Mr. Smith climbing across it, hand over seven-fingered hand, up to her ship.
    Well, Missy Gin didn’t have much time. She looked round the Tonic , but that wire would take time to cut, an cutting the engines would only let Mr. Smith’s ship fly into hers. The panners on high burn would let her ascend, slowly, pulled round an off-course an yawing into a slow spiral, but at least it would be an up-spiral an not a down-one.
    So she turned them up an pulled her revolver an ducked into the wheelhouse for her other gun as Mr. Smith clambered over the gunwale an into the Tonic .
    “ Well, girly,” he said, climbing the slope of the deck, “that was a right smart bit of cleverness from you down there in that Yesterday. You have seen my kind before, I’ll warrant. Though that won’t help you agin me in the slightest, since, as you remember, I’m nigh invulnerable, an you?” He grinned as Missy Gin stepped out an braced herself. “You’re just Missy Gin.”
    Missy Gin fired.
    Fireshot exploded as it hit Mr. Smith. He clambered his arm over his face an fell to the deck, his clothes aflame about him, but he didn’t panic nor run about. He just knelt there, a-flaming an a-waiting, till that fire burnt out an left him sooty an smudged an cloth-burnt all over, an not a mark on his person. Then he stood back up, pulled his arm off his face.
    “ You see,” he said, advancing agin. “That’s all. I’ve been drinking life-water since before you was born, girly, an it’s got to me in all my bones. I’m strong as a bear an there’s nothing alive could kill me.”
    “ Excepting the sea,” Missy Gin said, thinking fast. He drank life-water, didn’t he? That changed a man. It changed him forever. But there had to be something left of the man, else there’d only be a life-water figure in front of her, an those didn’t have will nor want with humans. So this was a man. Where was that man kept? What parts were left full-human?
    “ Excepting maybe the sea,” Mr. Smith said, in high-good humor. “You know, I ain’t finished my dinner. An I see two eyes before me, an no one but you to stop me.”
    Ah, there.
    An then Mr. Smith reached her. He’d backed her up agin the wheelhouse wall, an now he put one hand either side her, leaning over her. “Two eyes, but then there’s the rest of you, isn’t there?”
    Missy Gin raised her gun.
    “ Now, you’d never kill yourself,” Mr. Smith said, misunderstanding. Those blue-blue eyes looked