The Half-Made World Read Online Free PDF

moved herself from Buffo’s lap to Creedmoor’s.
    Buffo sneered in disgust and spat on the floor.
    “I’ll ask you not to do that,” Creedmoor said. “Lowers the tone.”
    Buffo’s bloodshot eyes narrowed and his leg started to twitch. He appeared not to have slept in days. He stared at his cards and muttered old fool and whore, the latter presumably addressed to the girl. He repeated it: whore, whore, whore. The girl laughed, high and cheerful. Creedmoor liked her. She had an unfortunate black wen on her lip but was otherwise lovely, and Creedmoor put his arm around her and was happy.

    When he woke the next morning in his cabin, his head hurt so dreadfully that for a moment he thought his old masters were Calling to him. That was how they announced their presence: with pain, and noise, and the smell of blood and fire. He began to plead and make excuses. He was answered with silence, and it quickly became clear that he was experiencing nothing more extraordinary than a hangover.
    The boat lurched. The girl was squeezed into his bunk, and her arm with its fine dark hairs was draped across his own scarred chest. Her green eyes looked at him curiously. He hoped he hadn’t spoken out loud.

    He passed the day in a deck chair with a romantic novel. He pulled his hat down over his eyes and warmed in the sun like an elderly alligator. The river shone white behind and blue ahead, and the broad plains were baked brown and encircled in the distance by dark pines and blue mountains. A few farms, no towns. No Line—not yet. The plains were a hazy emptiness, uninhabited land, a vast and vague beauty, not yet shaped or Made by anyone’s dreams or nightmares.
    He ate no lunch. Sometimes he forgot.
    A shadow fell over him and woke him. It was the girl, blocking the orange haze of the afternoon sun. She looked pale and nervous, and Creedmoor quite forgot what he’d liked about her. He also forgot her name.
    “John,” she said, “I’ve been thinking. . . .”
    John was his real name. He didn’t recall giving it to her, though admittedly he’d been drinking lately. He sure didn’t see how it was any business of hers to be using it. His face set into a scowl.
    “This boat stops in Aral,” she said. “And from there it’s not too far north to Keaton, or even Jasper. And there’s work on the stage there, and everyone says I’m pretty enough. And I know you got money. And I know you’re smart, smarter than any of these boys here, and I don’t know what you do for money, but I know it ain’t regular, and what I mean is if you wanted to travel together . . .”
    “I’m not going to Keaton. Or Jasper.”
    “Wherever, then. I’m sick of working this boat, John. I want to see the world.”
    “The world’s a bloody awful place,” he said. “This boat is as good as it gets.” And he pulled his hat down again, so he wouldn’t have to see the hurt look in her eyes.
    Once she’d stormed off, he went back to his novel. He saw a happy ending coming, but he didn’t believe in it.
    He dozed in his deck chair. He woke again in the evening, disturbed by the distant whine of ornithopters. Every one of his old muscles tensed, and a sour taste of fear rose into his mouth. He lifted his hat just enough to examine the red evening sky; otherwise, he was still. After a few moments he saw them, miles off, six black specks moving in formation high over the plains. Advance scouts for the Line. They bled smoke—they scored black lines across the sky. The whine became a drone then a clattering whir of iron wings as they passed overhead, and Creedmoor quietly pulled his hat down over his face. The drone faded again and he untensed.
    He ate alone in his room, worrying boiled meat from the bone with his teeth.

    Buffo put on a kind of show in the bar that night. The young man had slicked back his hair and pressed his suit and cleaned the blood from his boots, and looked quite handsome. He leaned on the bar and shouted over the noise