Tolls at the Gate

Steam bled through the floor grating of Lock Roto'uri's maintenance tower, smelling of sulfur lime and boiled river mud. Ta'ani kicked open the oak door with his scorched boot, dragging the twenty-pound firing lever across the threshold until the iron head struck the stone floor with a dull ring. He wanted twenty heavy forged mounting bolts, three pots of welding carbide, and an iron-plated pontoon barge with a reinforced timber knee before Gunner Pari's scout cutter reached the channel bend.

Old Tu'u dropped his copper gauge-rod into a bucket of water. The rod hissed and spat white bubbles. The harbor administrator backed against a wall rack lined with brass tide-clocks, his faded oilskin cloak trembling around his withered shoulders. Mercury shakes from thirty years in the canal gauge-pits rattled his knobby fingers against his belt buckle.

"The dredge was scuttled at dawn," Tu'u whispered, his voice thin as kettle steam. "The High Fire cutter cleared the channel. You are dead men walking on my stone, Ta'ani. If Commander Vaea's runners find you here, they will open the flues on all forty repair cradles."

"The dredge is at the bottom, but the gun is on your float," Ta'ani said. He dropped the heavy iron lever against Tu'u's timber desk, splintering the dry pine edge. "And Pari is not coming to pay your dock toll."

He drew the wax-sealed dispatch slate from under his leather jerkin and shoved it into the old man's chest.

Tu'u took the slate with both hands. His rheumy eyes darted across the black wax seal bearing Gunner Pari's iron brand. As he read the stamped glyphs, the blood drained from his flabby cheeks, leaving his skin the color of curdled tallow.

"Midnight," Tu'u croaked. "The basalt sluices. They are going to bleed the whole trough into the void."

"They are killing the canal," Ta'ani said. "They take the heat cores up-trough to Ka'anua, and every cradle hand in Roto'uri freezes before tomorrow's third bell. Give me the carriage bolts and the carbide torches, or I throw you into the lower bypass pipe right now."

Tu'u clutched the slate against his ribs. His knees knocked beneath his oilskin hem. "The cartel left two men in the fitting basin. Ha'ata is down there with the boiler-wrights. But he will not help you. The man hates every deckhand who ever pulled an oar."

"He will weld where I tell him," Ta'ani said.

Down in the submerged dry dock beneath the sluice gate, the air was dense and suffocating. Boiling brine dripped from the overhead aqueduct arches, sizzling where it hit the cold flagstones. Moana and Cook Kele had already hauled the captured salvage skiff into the fitting pen beside the maintenance pontoon, tying off the mooring bitts with hemp line while Boy Tane watched the dark canal mouth with a grease-smeared boarding hook.

Beside a cold hearth stood Ha'ata, leaning his full weight on an iron knee brace bolted across his oil-soaked trousers. A massive, soot-blackened stoker named Rua stood behind him, cradling a sixteen-pound sledgehammer against his bare, scarred chest.

Ha'ata spat a brown wad of dried brine-weed onto the flagstones. His eyes, yellowed from flue gas, ran over the forty-pound sulfur-iron breech resting on the pontoon's timber baulks.

"You brought me twenty sacks of wet Ka'anua coal and forty pounds of split scrap," Ha'ata said in a dry rasp. "You want me to mount a shattered dredge cannon on a flat-bottomed maintenance barge. Why not lash a boiler directly to your groin and jump into the void? The fall is quieter, and it smells better."

"The coal is dry," Ta'ani said, gesturing to the burlap bags stacked high under Kele's watchful glare. "And there are three primed lunar sulfur cartridges in that iron locker. You bolt the breech to the barge's center knee, or Pari turns this dock into charcoal."

Ha'ata limped forward, his left leg dragging with the harsh clink of iron rivets. He dropped to one knee before the breech, running greasy calloused fingers over the fractured housing. When his skin touched the pale frost needles crusting the iron lip, he jerked his hand back with a foul oath.

"The thermal jacket is cracked three inches below the trunnion," the wright snarled, glaring up at Ta'ani. "The alloy is already thirsty. It drinks the room's heat while we stand here talking. You smeared dogfish lard over the seal, didn't you? What idiot taught you how to pack a pressure ring?"

"It was hog tallow," Cook Kele yelled from the skiff rail, waving an oily ladle. "Freshly rendered from the galley barrel! Best fat south of the Ka'anua rapids, you lame pipe-pecker!"

"It is garbage," Ha'ata snapped back. "The first time this monster takes a charge, that lard will cook into black tar, the expansion chamber will jam, and the blowback will strip the flesh off every man within ten yards."

"Then fix it," Ta'ani said. He laid the twenty-pound firing lever into the wright's lap. "You have the carbide torch. Tu'u has the forged cradle bolts in the crane house. We have two hours before the cutter turns back into the lock basin."

Ha'ata weighed the sulfur-iron lever in his palms. His narrow mouth tightened, his cynicism warily retreating behind a craftsman's cold calculation. For twenty years the wright had rebuilt the cartel's paddle engines while his own joints rotted in the damp flues. He looked at the heavy lever, then back at the barge's thick oak deck frame.

"Rua," Ha'ata barked without turning his head.

The mute stoker grunted, his massive neck cords bunching as he stepped into the light of the hearth fire.

"Get the heavy timber dogs from the pit," Ha'ata ordered. "Drive two cross-timbers under the barge fore-deck. If we do not double the deck knees, the recoil of this cursed iron will punch the breech straight through the bottom timbers and sink us at the mooring."

Rua gave a single nod, grabbed an armload of square iron dogs, and swung himself onto the barge deck. Within moments, the hollow thud of his sledgehammer rang through the stone chamber, driving iron wedges into the barge's yellow pine stringers.

Ta'ani stripped his sodden leather jerkin and stepped onto the pontoon alongside the stoker. Working together, their muscles straining against the brutal deadweight, Ta'ani and Rua lifted the forty-pound breech into the notch of the newly braced timber carriage. Cold void rime bit into Ta'ani's palms, a sharp, bitter frost that burned deeper than boiler coals. He did not yield. He held the iron steady while Ha'ata, cursing through clenched teeth, aligned the heavy bronze trunnion caps and slid the first forged pivot bolt through the sleeve.

"Hold the bracket, harpooner," Ha'ata muttered, striking a flint against a carbide wand.

A hissing white needle of flame erupted from the torch nozzle. The wright played the white-hot jet against the seam where the breech collar met the newly cut deck plate. Foul smoke puffed into the air, stinking of burned mineral flux and melting zinc.

Moana dropped down from the quay, landing lightly on the barge coaming. Her sharkskin diving vest was still damp, her dark eyes scanning the canal mouth through the steam haze.

"Cutter smoke in the second trough," she said quietly. "Pari is running four paddle bells. He is pushing gray brine ahead of his prow."

Old Tu'u came tottering down the stone steps, clutching his gauge-rod like a walking cane. His face was gray with terror. "The outer gate signal just dropped! Pari's lookouts spotted our forge fire! They are running out the bow guns!"

Ha'ata did not drop the torch. He fed the last brazing wire into the collar, then shut the valve with a sharp click of brass. He grabbed a heavy iron wrench from his apron and threw his entire weight onto the carriage nut, wrenching it tight until the thread groaned.

"She is dogged down," the wright panted, wiping sooty sweat from his eyes with the back of a scarred wrist. He looked up at Ta'ani, his thin mouth pulled into a grim line. "The lever fits the tumbler. The carriage will hold for one discharge. Maybe two, if the gods are drunk."

"And the charge?" Ta'ani asked, tapping the cold sulfur cartridge tucked in his belt.

"That is your funeral," Ha'ata said, leaning back against the timber bulwark with a short, wheezing breath. "The alloy is uncalibrated. You pull that lever on open brine, and it will either freeze Pari's boiler solid or rip our barge into a cloud of boiling blood."

From the mist beyond the outer gate, the deafening shriek of a cartel steam whistle tore through the iron arches of Roto'uri. Ta'ani laid his hand on the cold lever.

"Clear the lines," he said.