Second Veil Read online

  He reached the air lock, pulled himself up the last few feet, and closed the hatch. Immediately, fresh air, purified and drawn from beyond the lower veil by his own pumps, flooded the chamber. A moment later he popped his head up through the main hatch and called out without preamble.

  "Cast off and get me away from this place."

  He closed the hatch, sealed it carefully, and turned toward the bridge. The Vector was a large, sleek craft, the largest of its type ever built. His father had begun construction before his death, and Euphrankes had completed the work, adding a number of improvements to the initial design.

  The ship worked on very simple principles. The main structure was surrounded by a thick membrane similar in function to the veils on the planet. These membranes were filled with a gas his father had named "Freethion," which was considerably lighter even than the thin air beyond the First Veil. The lightness was caused, in some arcane manner, by a reaction to gravity itself rather than physical weight. The lift was so powerful, in fact, that it was only through the employment of electromagnetic "anchors" that they were able to prevent the ship from shooting skyward and bursting through the upper veil. The magnets also provided steering, as the surface of the planet was rich with iron.

  Euphrankes settled into the pilot's seat as Aria made her way around the bridge releasing each anchor in turn. He watched her, and his mood lightened again. She was a slender woman, tall and lithe, dressed in the loose, comfortable clothing of an engineer. She hadn't accompanied him into the city for a number of reasons, not the least of which was her disdain for any attire The Council or temple would deem “appropriate.” Her hair hung in dark rivulets over one shoulder, where she'd tied it in the center with a strip of leather.

  The two had been companions for more than a decade, ever since she'd come to him to learn the science of the airships. Her family had been cut off from Urv when one of the roadways began losing pressure. Both ends had been sealed, and the only way left between the two cities was through the veils. She'd been a quick student, and though they'd made several trips to visit her parents in Mancea, each time she'd returned. It was the best business arrangement he'd ever made.

  The Vector was as different from the Chamber of The High Council as Euphrankes could make it. The crew seats were leather. The benches were wood, but though it was sanded smooth and carefully tooled, it was utilitarian. The metal was polished, but it served a purpose. Nothing was frivolous or wasted.

  They could fly the ship with only the two of them, but it was designed for a crew of six on extended trips. They had only a couple of hour's flight to and from Urv, so they'd come alone. Aria crossed the bridge, watching the lines and positioning magnets. They steered by the stars at night, and by landmarks by day. The damaged roads between the cities and outposts were easy to spot, even from a great height, and made navigation a simple matter of connecting the dots. The Vector was tuned to their habits and their comfort, and the two were more at home on her bridge than they'd ever been in their laboratory, or the city.

  Aria set the course, and turned back to him, coming to stand by his side. The front of the ship was a great, thick window, round and spoked with metal reinforced beams. As they gained speed, leaving the city and The Council behind, she said, "So, I take it things did not go well with The Council."

  Euphrankes swatted at her playfully and she darted away, laughing.

  "I think," he said, settling back, "that The Council and I have finally parted ways."

  "It's about time," she said, returning to lean in and kiss him deeply. "I was afraid you were getting boring."

  "That," he said, "is the one thing you never have to worry about."

  She settled into his lap, and he held her, enjoying the closeness and the warmth, and staring up and out of the domed glass portal into the distant stars.

  Chapter Two

  The Outpost appeared first as a bump in the flat, monotonous land ahead. Just to the right, Euphrankes could make out the glowing length of one of the great roads. The Vector had no need to follow the old paths, but this particular road had once led to his father's home, now his home. There was a dark stretch down the center they'd passed over an hour back. That length of road marked the break in the veil that had resulted in The Outpost being sealed off from the city. Only the airships traveled between, and no ship other than The Vector had reason to make a landing there. Not since Euphrankes had been exiled.

  The hypocrisy of The High Council was such that they saw no problem in banishing him to The Outpost and requesting work of him whenever the need presented itself. The banishment was a mostly symbolic gesture, as they were well aware he would not have moved back into the city if they'd paid him to do so. They were also aware he'd take the work when he could get it, because it allowed him to trade for the food, supplies, and equipment he needed to sustain himself and his crew.

  Over the years Euphrankes had made improvements that allowed The Outpost to be more self-sustaining. He'd brought his own pumps online for oxygen, and since the place had once been a manufacturing facility, it was equipped with its own well and processing plant for water. When the city handed the place over, that plant had been inoperable, but Euphrankes had gotten it working again, and they'd managed to store a great deal of extra water in one of the huge, old holding tanks.

  On top of this, they had created a small agricultural pod and begun growing their own food. Euphrankes was under no illusions. The High Council could tire of him at any moment, and when they did, he intended to be ready to survive.

  Their landing tower was wider than most. It had been constructed atop one of the great buildings, anchored to the flat stone of the roof. This gave it more stability, and also allowed work crews easier access to when making repairs or modifications. There was a second ship docked at the tower, the Tangent. It was larger than the Vector, but only about half of the construction was complete. The Tangent was the project Euphrankes had been about to broach to The Council. They would not be pleased to know she was half finished before he bothered to mention her.

  Without support from The Council, the point was moot in any case. The Tangent would require further a lot of time, equipment, and materials to complete. His crew was too small to maintain The Vector and finish the monumental task of bringing The Tangent to life, and without a considerable influx of Freethion there was no way she could be made stable.

  There were other cities he could approach. It would take a good bit of travel, but he thought that he might reach a few of them before The High Council's latest pronouncements rendered him persona non grata. He hated the delay. It would mean months of lost progress. There was Sparana to the east, and along the west road were Kymenae and Bethes. He had contacts in all of them, and in those he had not visited, his father's name would still be known. There was something to be said for being born to a famous parent.

  Aria maneuvered the Vector into position beside the Tangent expertly. Below, five or six ground crew members scurried about. They didn't really need a ground crew to dock, but when Euphrankes returned, his people liked to acknowledge him. The High Council of Urv might not approve of him, but those he supported, and who assisted him in his work adored him. It was yet another trait, along with his talent for engineering, that he'd inherited from his father.

  Euphrankes rose and helped bind the anchors, three to a side. They cranked the steering magnets back in until they clamped onto the outer hull and powered down the consoles. When in flight, the Vector drew power from solar panels, aided by a charge developed as the forward rotors spun. It was a very efficient system, recharging itself as they moved through the thin, upper air. The batteries were nearly full, but he didn't like to run them down unnecessarily. He never knew when he might have to take off with little notice, and he liked to be prepared.

  A few minutes later they dropped through the airlock and climbed slowly through the veil to the tower below. They were greeted by a pair of young men with dark hair and darker eyes.

  "Welco
me back, sir," the first called out.

  "It's good to be home, Myklos," Euphrankes answered. "Lyones, I hope you have something good in line for dinner? I'm starving."

  "I'll see what I can do," the man said, grinning. They all shared duties at The Outpost, but Lyones had proven particularly adept in the kitchen, and as such things do, workloads had adjusted to keep him there.

  "Where are the others?" Aria asked.

  "Bonymede is in the garage, and Slyphie is calibrating the west pump," Myklos said. "It was working fine, but you know how she gets. She said she heard something ’funny.’"

  "Then she probably did," Euphrankes said. "One of these days you're going to ignore her and something will blow up in your face."

  Myklos laughed. "Did I say it was good to have you back?"

  "I wish I'd returned with better news," Euphrankes said. "I'm afraid we won't be going forward with the Tangent any time soon, unless we find some miracle supplier of Freethion, and a way to get back into the good graces of The High Council, we'll have to make some long trips to get everything we'll need."

  "And when we do," Aria added, "we'll have to make it look like we're trying to find a way to repair one of the great roads. I wasn't there, but from what Frankes says, the idea of piercing the Second Veil in any form sits poorly on The Council table."

  "They haven't got the vision of a child," Lyones growled. He finished adjusting the last of the anchors for the Vector and turned toward Euphrankes. "Will we leave soon, then? Should I start gathering supplies?"

  "Whoa," Euphrankes said, clapping the younger man on the shoulder. "First, we'll have to do some serious planning. We have some communications channels still open, and we'll need to take advantage of those as soon as possible, before The Council can spread their poison too far. They'll be watching for us to ignore their directive. They'd like nothing better than to put a squad of their goons out here to watch us and force us to do their work for them."

  They opened the top hatch in the roof of the building supporting the tower and descended into the airlock. They sealed the door, pressurized, and exited at the top of a steep stairway leading down.

  The Outpost was set up to support a crew of twenty men and women. They had nine in total. In its heyday, the factory had produced machinery for many of the great cities. Pumps, airlocks, anything requiring mechanical parts or machined metal. Metal was the one resource no one lacked. The planet was veined with it, and there was a wide variety available. One type of ore actually served as fuel for the furnaces that drove the super-heated forges.

  When the roads had begun to erode and leak, a lot of time, effort, and technology had been thrown at the problem. Euphrankes' father, and then he himself, had contributed significantly to patches; systems of airlocks that repaired bad stretches of road, and then, when the failure of the roads became too much to combat, they'd been among the pioneers of the science of lighter-than-air travel that had helped replace the failing highways. It didn't take a genius to see that it was a battle that could not be won. They simply did not have the resources to recreate the sealed roadways, and those in place were not sustainable. Though it would take lifetimes to fail completely, the system of protections that sustained them was dying.

  When Euphrankes had brought this argument before The High Council, he was sent back to The Outpost in exile. Then the road between Urv and The Outpost failed, The Temple proclaimed it a sign from the Gods. Euphrankes proclaimed it a relief. He had no need of the road since he had the Vector, and the less accessible his laboratory and his home was to those living and working under the influence of The High Council, the better.

  They passed through a second airlock and stepped onto a high walkway like a metal scaffold overlooking the main laboratory. Euphrankes stopped, leaned on the rail, and stared down into the workspace that represented so much of his life.

  They had resurrected one of the old forges, and they had the dies and molds necessary to create pumps and many components of the airlocks used in the cities. When they weren't working on the Tangent, or upgrading the Vector, they spent their time perfecting and creating products they could trade for the things they needed, and for the technology and machinery they couldn't manufacture themselves. The Vector could carry a good cargo, and though Urv would not allow large items to be passed through their airlocks, there were other cities with bigger, more liberal docking facilities. Trade had been good.

  They descended slowly.

  "It's going to be tough to find buyers now," Euphrankes said. "They know what I'm working on, or what I've been working on. They will alert the outlying cities to watch for particular technologies."

  "They can't exist without us," Myklos said. "And you haven't seen what we came up with while you were gone. I think maybe we've upped our value a notch or two."

  "The patch?" Euphrankes asked, whirling to his assistant. "It works?"

  Myklos grinned.

  "Like magic. We have already repaired about a hundred yards of road on this side. We didn't go any farther because we didn't know how your audience would go. If we need to, we can get to Urv by land. It is fast, and strong, maybe stronger than the original veil."

  Euphrankes stood very still and thought fast. He'd forgotten that the testing would move ahead while they were gone. He'd focused on The Council, but now? If he'd known the patch would work, he might have used it as a bargaining chip. Then his head cleared.

  "That's wonderful!" he said. "We could open the road to Sparana. If we do that, we'll be able to open a more serious trade. They have almost everything we need, including one of the largest, fully functional agricultural pods."

  "I want to see!" Aria cried in delight.

  They hurried down the rest of the steps to the main floor of the laboratory and out through a long passageway to the main grounds. Unlike Urv, there was no need for airlocks on all the buildings. They were in place, but left open. If something serious went wrong, they could be closed quickly, and if the pressure outside the laboratory and the other complexes dropped too far, too quickly, the buildings would seal themselves automatically. For the moment, The Outpost was one of the safest places on the planet.

  They crossed the grounds, which were littered with small garden pods, and came to a huge, arched gateway. The largest airlocks in the compound sealed the entrances to the great roads. When they'd begun to fail, portable locks had been placed between the main locks and the bad stretches in the hope that, eventually, they would be able to open them and repair the damage. That had never happened – the technology just didn't exist…except, now maybe it did.

  "We used a very thin layer of Imperium," Lyones explained. “We created a membrane and filled it with Freethion. Slyphie calculated the exact energy of the magnetic field, and we put it all in place remotely. When we expanded the membrane and activated the magnets…"

  "The roadway pressurized," Myklos completed the sentence. “We ran tests for two hours, before we entered, but it was as clear as any street in Urv. The patch covers about three meters – the rift is only a meter and a half. We've been monitoring steadily for about eight hours now. It's as stable as when it was new.”

  "And powered by magnetism," Euphrankes said.

  He stepped through the airlock and waited as they pressurized it, then stepped through on the other side and walked onto the surface of the road. He turned in a circle, and he started to laugh.

  "Gentlemen!" he cried. "Ladies! Pay attention. We have changed the world."

  Chapter Three

  In one of the only structures in the city of Urv that rivaled the airship towers in height, a young man named Ozymandes stared through the lens of an ornate silver-plated instrument into the darkness of the night sky. He jotted notes in a large, leather-bound book, and then pressed his eye to the lens once again.

  The viewer was an intricate construct designed around layers of magnifying lenses and a sequence of mirrors. Each needed to be adjusted carefully every evening. It was part of the ritual. Ozymandes was p
articularly careful with the adjustments, and with the rituals, because he truly loved this part of his duties. In fact, it wasn't his night to gaze at the stars at all – he'd traded with one of the older priests who complained of back problems when forced to stand for extended periods.

  As he gazed into the viewer, Ozymandes' heart raced. There was no mistake. Something had changed in the face of the never-changing sky. It was a sign – the first in his lifetime. He pulled back, made a couple more scribbled notes, marking positions carefully.

  The lens he gazed through was criss-crossed with markers denoting distances and positions. When he glanced into the viewer for the third time, his face drained of all color, and he had to step back to avoid jostling the viewer and disturbing the fine-tuned adjustments he'd spent hours checking. The object had moved, and not a tiny movement, but a significant movement. An entire hash mark on the graded lens.

  He marked this quickly in the book, then, without thinking of what might happen to him for defacing the record, he scrawled a set of figures in the margin of the ledger and performed a quick calculation. With a soft cry, he turned – abandoning his post for the first time in his young life, and fled the Chamber of Stars in search of Myril. The High Priest would know what to do, and if he did not, at least the burden would lift from Ozymandes' shoulders.

  He took the stairs three at a time, ignoring the danger of slipping, and gulping in the slightly stale air. They only vented the hallways and stairways once a day. The cleaner, more filtered air was reserved for The Temple, and for the sleeping chambers of the priests. Under normal circumstances it was only a minor annoyance, a dryness in the throat as one climbed, or descended, the stair to the Chamber of Stars. At a dead run, the air rasped in his lungs and chaffed his throat. Before he reached the bottom, he'd begun to feel light-headed, and he hesitated. He leaned heavily against the wall and fought to steady his breathing.

  It only took a moment for the immediacy of his mission to wash through him once again, and he worked the crank on the airlock so quickly that it made a loud clang when it hit the stops. The sound reverberated from the walls of the narrow stairwell like the voice of a great gong.