“This is the last thing the Father says. He says:Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?”
I shut my eyes and tried to be saved. It never worked.
“What’s he saying there, friends? He’s saying to Jonah, he’s saying to Jonah,Why’re you sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, when I’m trying to give you so much more?He’s sayingWhy’re you—and again I’m sorry for my ungodly speech—why’re you bitching about some plant when there’s a city full of people, full of cows, full ofopportunitythat I’m trying to guide you to. He’s sayingSon, get off your butt and go get you them cattle.”
As far as I understood, that was orthodoxy. Plutonian orthodoxy at least. It had never quite sat right with me, but I’d never been able to work out why. Then again, that was true of a lot of things.
“Because, friends, that’s what the Father wants for you. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to be free. He wants you to get those cows. To get that promotion. To get that house on Ganymede. To get that private ship. But he can’t give it to you if you close your heart to him.
“Friends, I’m going to show you how to open your hearts now—”
The subscription details popped back up on the screen and the minister began to lead those members of the congregation with the means in premium prayer. I tipped a nominal amount for the betterment of my immortal soul and, trying not to draw the eye or the judgment of the other celebrants, I slipped out the way I’d come in.
I always felt after church the way I sometimes felt after sex: wishing it had been more, not knowing why I expected it to be. I swallowed the hollowness and set back out into the city, hoping for better fortune.
CHAPTER
SEVENThe Ship
I had come to Cthonius Linea with no friends and no real plan other than to walk around and hope that some hunter-captain caught sight of me and said,You, girl, you look like you know your way around a kinetic inductor, come sign on with me. Then by purest chance I’d met somebody who actually knew the area and the industry and we’d agreed to go job-searching together. Then I’d dumped her because some atavistic religious whim made me want to listen to a sermon. I was a fool in so many ways.
It wasn’t a complete loss, mind you. I could go back to the Coffin, tell her I’d had no luck, ask if she’d done any better and, assuming she had, if she could pretty please book me on as her plus-one. My pride, though—actually, who was I kidding? I had virtually no pride and I was trying to shake what was left of my shame as well, although that last one was a work in progress. Faith, it turns out, does a number on you.
Still, I was just about motivated enough and it was just about early enough that I felt I should at leasttryto find gainful employment. Besides, maybe the preacher had been right, maybe the Father had a whole field full of cows just waiting for me and all I had to do was go to Nineveh.
In fact, fuck it, that was as good a start as any. I decided to wander the docks and see if I could find a ship called Nineveh.If I did, I’d take it as a message from the Almighty and sign on with them immediately.
I did not find a ship called Nineveh. Nor Jonah, nor any other scripturally significant name I could think of. If a higher power was intending to guide me, it wasn’t going to make things quite that easy.
My search to that point had been taking place at ground level. Every landing tower had the name of the ships that docked there displayed in orange lights around the base. And if I’d known which ship I was seeking, that would have been all I needed. But without divine grace to light my path I needed some other way to make my choice. I needed, if at all possible, to actuallyseethe vessel I’d be living aboard for the next three years.
And that meant going up.
About half the towers were conglomerate-owned and I wouldn’t be allowed into any of those without a lot more paperwork than the none I had on me, but that wasn’t an issue. The observation platforms were all public and they’d give me as good a view as anywhere else. So I jumped in an elevator and took a ride to the upper stratum.
I’ve been in a lot of dome cities in my time. Every colony that isn’t underground or underwater or an actual space station relies on them. Not every city arranges its docks like Cthonius—on spires reaching up into the black like the spines of a sea urchin—but enough do that I knew what to expect. As I passed through the roof of the dome in a capsule that I really hoped was airtight, I emerged into a reinforced cryoglass bubble and looked down on a dazzling array of ships’ lights and landing lights and office lights. It was like there were stars below me as well as above me. And if my head had been in a different space, that might have been enough. I might have remembered that it’s not only in the sky that things come alive. I might have walked away.
But I didn’t.
Spread out before me was the real business of CthoniusLinea. The people living below were just lubricant. Above the domes was where the hunters came and went, where cargos were loaded and unloaded. Where if I didn’t fuck things up royally I would findsomebodywilling to take a chance that some random girl from nowhere wouldn’t be a complete liability on a hunting voyage.
Once again I shut my eyes and took in the scent of the place, because this was effectively a different city. This was the city that flew. That looked up and up and out into the void forever. This was the city I’d have lived in if I could.
If I didn’t have to do awkward things like breathing.
My eyes are good, and they’re the eyes I was born with so that’s one thing Aphrodite Pharma State can’t take away from me. As I stood as close as I could get to the edge of the platform, my hands pressed to the atmosphere screen, I had as fine a view as I could hope for of the ships coming in, or leaving, or waiting to be crewed.
I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. But all my life I’ve lived by the motto that I’ll know her if I see her.
And I saw her.
Every ship in the docks was different—that was what I loved about hunter-barques—but most were variations on a theme. Matte black hulks or sleek silver cutters; brutal, regal crafts that knew what they were about and made sure you knew they knew it.
But she was different.
She was bone white. And not from paint, not from galvanic plating or dust-scoring. From bone. Actual bone. Whatever visionary, whatever dreamer, whatever force of incarnate chaos had designed this ship—the ship that arrested all my attention and took away all my breath and made my heart skip like I was looking at a lover—had decked every part of her with the bones of the Leviathan.
It was strange and it was beautiful and it called to me like few things ever had. I made up my mind there and then that unless Q was dead set against it—and maybe even if she was—Iwould ship on that impossible ossuary vessel if it was the last thing I did.
