“Wouldn’t matter.” He scowled, shook his head. “Any discount I haggle would only get added to my next flight. He has his own bribes to pay, and lotus contracts don’t come cheap. The Guild always get their coin, one way or the other. Even the Shōgun knows that.”
Yamagata fell silent as a Lotusman clanked past, cogs of its atmos-suit whirring. Red sunlight glittered in its eyes as it gazed up at the Thunder Child’s hull. It clicked a few beads across the mechabacus on its chest, whispered something distorted, then launched itself into the sky. The pipes on its back spat out bright plumes of blue-white flame. It flitted about the Child’s underside, spewing smoke and clicking more beads from one side of its chest to the other.
“Always like you to know they’re watching, eh?” Kasumi murmured.
“Comes with the territory,” Yamagata shrugged. “Every ship that hauls lotus has a Guildsman living on board. You get used to them looking over your shoulder.”
“Nice to be trusted.”
“It’s worse since last week. Two of them burned to death when the refinery caught fire.” Yamagata shook his head. “They locked down the whole complex for three days. Nothing coming in or out. You know what that does to the bottom line of a man like me?”
“Didn’t the radio say the fire was an accident?” Kasumi raised an eyebrow. “Seems a lot of fuss over bad luck.”
“What, and that surprises you? When was the last time you heard about a Guildsman getting killed, accident or no?”
“Guildsmen are flesh and blood under those suits, just like everyone else.” Kasumi shrugged. “All men get their day before the Judge of the Nine Hells; Guildsman, beggar or Shōgun. It makes no difference to him.”
Yamagata sniffed.
“True enough, I suppose.”
Kasumi touched her brow, then her lips, muttering beneath her breath, “Great Enma-ō, judge us fair.”
The Lotusman descended from the skies in a rolling cloud of chi exhaust, landing forty feet down the boardwalk. Peasant folk hurried out of the way, knocking each other over in their haste. The Guildsman clomped away over timber and cobbles without a backward glance.
“Is all your gear aboard?” Yamagata asked.
“Hai.” Kasumi nodded, ran her hand across her brow. “The others should be here soon.”
“Good. I want to get off before the day grows still. Wind at our backs.”
“Minister Hideo commanded we were to wait until he’d arrived.”
“Yomi’s gates, I didn’t know he was coming down here.” The captain sighed. “Bad enough that my ship is being sent north to chase a smoke vision in the middle of monsoon season. Worse that I have to sit on my hands waiting for some bureaucrat to kiss me goodbye. My Guild rep is a son of a whore, wasting my time on chaff like this.”
“Well, someone in the Guild obviously thinks this is important, or they wouldn’t have assigned their best captain to the task, no?”
Yamagata scowled. “The Lotusmen might be happy wasting the finest ship in the fleet on the Shōgun’s pride, but kissing my arse isn’t going to make me turn cartwheels about it, Hunter.”
“If it’s so foolish, why waste the finest ship in the fleet on it?”
“You know that as well as I do.” Yamagata spat onto the wooden decking. “Politics. The Shōgun controls the army, but only the Guild know the secret behind chi production. Both sides need to keep the other happy or the whole shithouse goes up in flames. I’m just a commoner who gets paid to lug their product from place to place. If I want to keep my contract, I go where I’m bloody told.”
“Oh, I know the workings of court politics, Yamagata-san,” Kasumi smiled. “I’ve hunted with the Black Fox under the reign of two different Shōgun now— long enough to become well acquainted with the mating habits of vipers.”
“Then why interrogate a lowly cloudwalker about it? What the hells would I know that you don’t?”
“Well, between the lines, I was asking who you’d angered to land this errand?” Kasumi brushed a stray hair from her eyes. “It must have been someone important.”
The captain glanced at her sidelong, a slow, grudging smile forming on his lips. “I don’t kiss and tell, Lady.”
“Ah, so.” She smiled back. “The wife of someone important, then.”
“Daughter, actually. But it all ends the same. An empty hold, a wasted trip, and me cursing the bastard responsible for both.”
“I hope she was worth it.”
Yamagata closed his eyes and gave a delighted little shiver. “You have no idea.”
Kasumi laughed. “Just keep your hands off any daughters you might meet on this trip, Yamagata-san. Master Masaru isn’t as forgiving as some neo-chōnin merchant with a fat purse and a few Guild contacts.”