The effect was all he could have wished for. Their closed faces opened up instantly, and the fact that he was a halfbreed, which had caused their noses to wrinkle a moment before, was now forgotten.

The Sky had three engines, but the big central one, mounted in cast iron over the stern, was just a standard oil-burning propeller that gave the ship her speed. Totho was far more interested in the guiding props set out on pontoons. They were something quite new, quite different. He watched with fascination as the two engineers hauled chains and levers to bring heavy, dull-looking blocks into place around the propeller vanes, and saw the blades start to spin, first slowly and then faster and faster, all with no more sound than a faint hum. Soon the speed was enough to tug and swing the Sky about as she hung still anchored to the airfield. The engineers then exchanged a few satisfied words and began changing the configuration of the blocks to reverse the angle and direction of the blades.

Magnets, all done with magnets, the cutting edge of the artificer’s trade. This took the sort of precision engineering that would not have been possible ten years earlier, but magnetic force could do almost anything with metal components. A few years ago one of the College Masters had produced the first magnetic crossbow, simple induction sending an all-metal bolt further and faster than any tensioned string. Totho had coveted that weapon, or any of the expensive copies that trickled into the arms market afterwards, but the price had been vastly beyond his wildest dreams.

‘You’d better go within now,’ said one of the engineers. ‘I reckon the master’s going to have us aloft any moment.’

But before Totho could ask to remain, to watch the airfield and Collegium dwindle, the scrubby countryside become like a tattered map, the other engineer put in, ‘No chance. Always someone that has to pitch up late. You’d think it’d be different on a ship as swish as this, but look.’

And Totho looked, and there, practically beneath his feet, were the Wasps.

There were a half-dozen of them, a couple in gold-edged tunics that passed for civilian dress, but the rest in their banded armour, and they were stepping onto the winch-platform to be lifted aboard.

A jolt of alarm went through him, and he nearly lost his grip on the gantry, but a moment later he was going handover-hand as fast as he dared towards the far end hatch. His Ancestor Art came to his aid, making his feet sure, his hands cling tight, but still he knew that he would not get to the others before the Wasps had seen them. When he finally made the common room, the Wasps were just entering, and he was able to see, in all the detail he could have wished, his companions’ reactions. Che twitched and stared at them helplessly and, though Salma’s smile did not slip, even Totho could see how tense he was. Tynisa, however, seemed all ease as she reclined back in her seat, even sending the Wasp leader a smile of invitation. After that, Che’s evident panic went unnoticed.

The Wasps were clearly searching. They were foreigners here, and doing their best to be restrained, but from the way their soldiers passed about the common room it was clear that they were looking intently at every face. The other passengers frowned at them or ignored them. They were mostly Beetle-kinden merchants whose business activities were strung between Collegium and Helleron, and the bustling Wasp soldiers attracted a lot of comment on how outlanders did not know how to behave. Of the other passengers, a well-dressed Spider with his small entourage fixed them with a narrow look that did not invite questioning, and the trio of card-playing Fly-kinden remained hunched over their drinks and bets and did their best to remain undisturbed. In the corner a Fly musician picked at a dulcimer, making a great show of ignoring everyone else.

The leader of the Wasps, a tall and lean man with a face that smiled both readily and shallowly, stopped by the table that Tynisa and the others had picked out. Across the common room Totho hung back in the shadows, trying to envisage some desperate rescue he could assay. There were just a few words exchanged, though, with Tynisa, and then the man moved on. Totho saw one of his soldiers come to him and point very obviously at Salma in his finery, but the officer had a harsh word for that kind of talk, whatever it was, and the soldier slunk back, his barbed fists clenched.

As soon as the way was clear Totho made a hasty journey of it over to their table. ‘What happened?’ he demanded. ‘Why didn’t they-?’

‘They didn’t because we weren’t looking as guilty as a rich Fly, which is exactly the way you’re looking right now,’ Tynisa reproached him. ‘Sit down, Toth.’

Totho did so, hands folded together in his lap. ‘So what-?’

‘We think they must be looking for Uncle Sten,’ Che explained. ‘They certainly had a very good look at all those traders over there, all Beetles and all around his age. They’ll have his description, but obviously not ours. Uncle Sten must have done his best to make sure there was nothing linking him to us. He must even have got someone else to make the bookings.’

‘But one of them was… pointing at Salma.’

‘Must be a veteran,’ Salma said carelessly.

‘We should be all right now. We’ll just keep our heads down by staying in our stateroom,’ said Che.

‘Why?’ Tynisa countered. ‘If they’re not looking for us, they’re not.’

The floor beneath them, indeed the walls around them and the ceiling above them, flexed a little, and began to vibrate gently. Just at the edge of hearing there was the heavy, cavernous sound of the main engine. The Sky Without was now underway.

‘It’s going to be a long trip,’ said Salma, rubbing at his forehead, the vibrations obviously bothering him.

‘And I’m certainly not going to spend it in hiding,’ Tynisa replied firmly. ‘In fact, I’m going to start, right away, what we’ll all be doing in Helleron. If we’re spies, let’s be spies.’

Che’s face twisted. ‘I’m not sure…’

‘What did you have in mind?’ interrupted Salma.

‘That Wasp officer seemed like the talking type,’ Tynisa said idly. ‘You could see it in his face. He’s been posted down here, miles away from anywhere he knows, with nothing but a pack of dull blades for company. I think he’d be glad of a little diversion.’

‘But… he’s the enemy!’ hissed Che.

Tynisa laughed at the horror on her face. ‘I’ve got his measure, Che. I can keep him strung out until we reach Helleron, and anyway, he looks the type who likes to impress. How better to impress a lady than to boast about the size of your empire?’

After she had left them, Salma leant over to Totho and said, ‘I assume you’re going to burrow right into this vessel’s organs, or whatever they’re called.’

‘Engines,’ Totho corrected. ‘But yes, I had thought…’

‘I may not know much about this boat-thing, but I see how you might get to see a great many places on board by simply going where the servants go. So go keep an eye on her, if you can.’

Totho looked over at Tynisa, who was now approaching the Wasp officer. ‘Depends where she decides to go, but I’ll try.’

His name was Halrad and it was easier than Tynisa had imagined. Here was a captain who should, in his opinion, have already been a major, which she gathered was a higher rank. He considered himself a clever man, a strategist and a sophisticate, and he was annoyed at being dragged away from Collegium before he could fully learn and understand it. He had wanted to see the Games and watch the (undoubted) victories of the Wasp-kinden team (the Wasp race as he put it). He disliked and disdained his underlings, who were never far from him, and she could see clearly how they disliked him right back. In short he felt misused and under-appreciated and within a brief while, she could play him like a kite in a good breeze.