No other ships lurked anywhere close, so he could either seize that unknown hunk of metal and canvas or stay there by himself in the dead outpost.

Hoisting one bag over his shoulder and counter-balancing with his cane, he did his best to cross the landing quietly; but his metal foot dropped each step with a hard, loud clank-even though the leather sole at the bottom of the thing was brand new.

He leaned the bag of mail up against the ship and caught his breath, lost more to fear than exertion. Then he moved the mail bag aside to reveal the first two stenciled letters of the ship’s name, and reading the whole he whispered, “Sweet Marie.”

Two more mail bags, each moved with all the stealth he could muster. Each one more cumbersome than the last, and each one straining his bum leg harder. But he moved them. He opened the back bin of the Sweet Marie and stuffed them into her cargo hold. Every grunt was loud in the desert emptiness and every heaving shove would’ve sent ol’ Stanley into conniptions, had he been there.

Too much noise. Got to keep your head down.

Walter breathed as he leaned on the bin to make it shut. It closed with a click. “This ain’t the war. Not out here.”

Just like me, you carry it with you.

Something.

What?

A gusting. A hoarse, lonely sound that barked and disappeared.

He leaned against the bin and listened hard, waiting for that noise to come again.

The Sweet Marie had been primed and she was ready to fill, but no one had switched on the generators. She sank so low she almost tipped over, now that the mail sacks had loaded down her back end.

Walter McMullin did not know how hydrogen worked exactly, but he’d seen the filling process performed enough times to copy it.

The generators took the form of two tanks, each one mounted atop a standard-issue army wagon. These tanks were made of reinforced wood and lined with copper, and atop each tank was a hinged metal plate that could be opened and closed in order to dump metal shavings into the sulfuric acid inside. At the end, opposite the filler plate, an escape pipe was attached to a long rubber hose, to which the Sweet Marie was ultimately affixed.

There were several sets of filters for the hydrogen to pass before it reached the ship’s tank, and the process was frankly none too quick. Even little ships like these mail runners could take a couple of hours to become airworthy.

Walter did not like the idea of spending a couple of hours alone in Reluctance. He was even less charmed by the idea of spending all night alone in Reluctance, so he found himself a crate of big glass bottles filled with acid, and with great struggle he poured them down through the copper funnels atop the tanks. Shortly thereafter he located the metal filings; he scooped them up with the big tin cup and dumped them in.

He turned the valves to open the filters and threw the switch to start the generators stirring and bubbling, vibrating the carts to make the acid and the metal stir and separate into hydrogen more quickly.

It made a god-awful amount of noise.

The rubber hose, stamped “Goodyear’s Rubber, Belting, and Packing Company of Philadelphia,” did a little twitch. Sweet Marie’s tank gave a soft, plaintive squeal as the first hydrogen spilled through, giving her the smallest bit of lift.

But she’d need more. Lots more.

There.

Another one.

A sighing grunt, gasped and then gone as quickly as it’d burst through the night.

Walter whirled as fast as his leg would let him, using it as a pivot. He moved like a compass pinned to a map. He held his cane out, pointing at nothing.

But the sound. Again. And again. Another wheeze and gust.

At this point, Walter was gut-swimmingly certain that it was coming from more than one place. Partway between a snore and a cough, with a consumptive rattle. Coming from everywhere, and nowhere. Coming from the dark.

Up against the Sweet Marie he backed.

He jumped, startled by a new sound, a familiar one. Footsteps, slow and laborious. Someone was walking toward him, out of the black alleys that surrounded the landing. Nearing the ladder to the refueling platform. And whoever this visitor was, he was joined by someone else-approaching the edge near the parked Majestic.

And a third somebody. Walter was pretty sure of a third, moving up from the shadows.

Not one single thing about this moment, this shuddering instant alone-but not alone-felt right or good to Walter McMullin. He still couldn’t see anyone, though he could hear plenty. Whoever they were, lurking in the background…they weren’t being quiet. They weren’t sneaking, and that was something, wasn’t it?

Why would they sneak, if they know they have you?

Reaching into his belt, he pulled out the Colt and held it with both hands. His back remained braced against the slowly filling replacement ship. He thought about crying out in greeting, just in case-but he thought of the dead cows, and his desperate eyes spotted no new lights, and the sound of incoming feet and the intermittent groaning told him that no, this was no overreaction. This was good common sense, staying low with your back against something firm and your weapon out. That’s what you did, right before a fight. If you could.

He drew back the gun’s hammer and waited.

Lumbering up the ladder as if drunk, the first head rose into view.

Walter should’ve been relieved.

He knew that head-it belonged to Gibbs Higley, the afternoon station manager. But he wasn’t relieved. Not at all. Because it wasn’t Gibbs, not anymore. He could see that at a glance, even without the gaslamps that lit up a few blocks, far away.

Something was very, very wrong with Gibbs Higley.

The man drew nearer, shuffling in an exploratory fashion, sniffing the air like a dog. He was missing an ear. His skin looked like boiled lye. One of his eyes was ruined somehow, wet and gelatinous, and sliding down his cheek.

“Higley?” Walter croaked.

Higley didn’t respond. He only moaned and shuffled faster, homing in on Walter and raising the moan to a cry that was more of a horrible keening.

To Walter’s terror, the keening was answered. It came bouncing back from corner to corner, all around the open landing area and the footsteps that had been slowly incoming shifted gears, moving faster.

Maybe he should’ve thought about it. Maybe he should’ve tried again, trying to wake Higley up, shake some sense into him. There must’ve been something he could’ve done, other than lifting the Colt and putting a bullet through the man’s solitary good eye.

But that’s what he did.

Against a desert backdrop of dust-covered silence the footsteps and coughing grunts and the buzzing patter of the generators had seemed loud enough; but the Colt was something else entirely, fire and smoke and a kick against his elbows, and a lingering whiff of gunpowder curling and dissolving.

Gibbs Higley fell off the landing, flopping like a rag doll.

Walter rushed as fast as he could to the ladder, and kicked it away-marooning himself on the landing island, five or six feet above street level. Then he dragged himself back to Sweet Marie and resumed his defensive position, the only one he had. “That was easy,” he muttered, almost frantic to reassure himself.

One down. More to go. You’re a good shot, but you’re standing next to the gas. Surrounded by it, almost.

He breathed. “I need to think.”

You need to run.

“I need the Sweet Marie. Won’t get far without her.”

Hands appeared at the edge of the lifted landing pad. Gray hands, hands without enough fingers.

Left to right he swung his head, seeking some out. Knowing he didn’t have enough bullets for whatever this was-knowing it as sure as he knew he’d die if any of those hands caught him. Plague, is what it was. Nothing he’d ever seen before, but goddamn Gibbs Higley had been sick, hadn’t he?