Airborn (29 page)

“They’re coming,” said Bruce, and with a horrible jolt I saw them, two pirates, still just dark shapes three hundred feet in the distance, charging aft. They gave a shout. They seemed none too sleepy.

That was our plan scuppered. I’d taken too long at the controls, and now we’d been spotted.

“This way,” I said.

We ran for a few terrifying moments straight toward them. I was fumbling with the keys in my pocket, knowing them by feel, for each had a unique shape to my fingertips. At the landing bay doors I slipped the key into the lock and swung the door wide.

“In, in,” I said to Kate and Bruce. Bruce was slow; he could not run quickly. He would not be able to play this game for long. I locked the door after us. This was where Kate and Miss Simpkins had come aboard in their ornithopter—it seemed impossible it was just days ago. In the middle of the floor I saw the seam of the twin landing bay doors. All around were stacked enough crates and cargo and gear to provide shadows and hiding place aplenty.

“Hide,” I told them. “Over there.”

“What about you?” Kate asked.

“I’ve got a bit of an idea,” I said.

“Tell me.”

“It’s a bad idea,” I told her. “You two just hide. And stay quiet.”

“What are you going to do?”

There was a banging at the door, and then the even more ominous jingling of keys. It would take them a few seconds to find the right one, but only a few.

“Go,” I hissed to Kate and Bruce. They disappeared behind some high crates on the far side of the bay, and I backed up toward the hull, looking hurriedly at the controls clustered there. It was a mad, half-baked scheme I had, and I was afraid that just hearing myself say it to Kate would make me give up. I crouched down behind a row of crates. I fixed my eyes on the hatchway. I heard a key slip into the lock and turn.

Slowly the hatch swung open, and the doorway was filled with the dark bulk of the two pirates. They came through cautiously, their pistols and eyes sweeping the room. They paused, then took a few steps in, and started toward where Kate and Bruce were hiding.

With my fist I knocked against the deck and made a dull but clearly audible clang. I saw the two pirates turn.

“Out where we can see you! Or we’ll have to flush you out!”

They were both coming toward me. A few more footsteps.

Come on, now. Come on, you great lumps. Walk!

I kept my eyes on them and reached back with my hand for the lever.

“I see him now!” said one of the pirates and let fly with his pistol. The bullet hit the metal floor and ricocheted about before whispering through the ship’s skin. There was a sharp, precise hiss of air.

Keep coming, I told them in silence.

They would kill me. They would kill us all. I did not like doing it, but I had no choice.

They came closer, and I pulled the lever.

The landing bay doors split apart with startling speed. The two pirates lurched in horror as the floor beneath them parted and the air sucked at their bodies. The first stumbled and plunged into open air, his screams quickly swallowed up by the sky. The second pirate grabbed hold of the edge of the moving bay door, but as it rolled flush with the ship’s underbelly, he was forced to let go, or have his hands severed. He let go and fell. I moved forward cautiously and looked down into the water. I saw their two dots, bobbing on the blue surface. I ran back to the controls and pulled the lever up. The bay doors rolled back together.

“It’s all right!” I called out to Kate and Bruce. “They’re gone.”

“Just stepped out for a moment, did they?” said Kate with a shaky laugh. Her face was very pale. “That was a clever plan.”

“Well, I wasn’t sure it would work.”

“Well done, Cruse,” said Bruce.

“That’s two down,” said Kate. “Six left.”

Six was better than eight, but still too many.

“What now?” Kate said.

“We wait. Until the sleeping elixir kicks in.”

“They didn’t seem too sleepy,” said Bruce.

“No, they didn’t.”

Anything could have gone wrong. “Maybe they didn’t eat the soup. Maybe it got too diluted, or maybe there wasn’t enough or they found out when they tasted it.” I didn’t like to think of that; I could imagine what they’d do to Vlad if they thought he was trying to drug them.

“No, they ate it,” said Kate. “I could smell it on them as they came into the room. Couldn’t you?”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“It’s extremely fishy.”

“We just need to give it more time, then,” I said. “I say we wait.”

“They’ll send more,” said Kate, “when your two skydivers don’t come back.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“They can’t send too many,” Bruce pointed out. “They’ll need to keep some with the hostages.”

They’d be nervous now, I realized. The ship was moving. There were people on board flying her. And their numbers were dwindling. I just hoped they didn’t start killing crew in panic. Why wasn’t the sleeping elixir working faster? I tried to calm myself. We’d just dumped two pirates into the drink—that was good. The ship was aloft and steaming away from the island at a steady clip. That was good. Now all we had to do was wait another fifteen minutes or so, and then I’d get back into the vents and see if our pirates were asleep. At which point I would hardly be needed, for, without guards, the captain and crew could quickly free themselves and truss up the pirates.

I looked up suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” said Kate.

“Ship’s turning,” I said. I’d been afraid this would happen. “Szpirglas must be in the control car.”

“I feel it now too,” said Bruce.

The ship’s arc tightened. We were heading up into the wind. I needed no compass to know our course. “He’s taking us back to the island.”

“He’ll be out cold soon,” said Kate.

“If he ate the soup,” I said, then I remembered. “He doesn’t like fish! He said that when we ate with him. He wouldn’t have touched it!”

“Can’t you switch back to the auxiliary control room?” Kate asked.

“No, his controls override ours. We’ve got to stop him.”

“Or stop the engines,” said Bruce.

I looked at him, nodding.

“Close off the fuel lines,” said Bruce. “We just need to get to the engine cars and shut the valves.”

“And the wind will keep carrying us away from the island. Good.”

It wasn’t ideal, to be blown along, powerless, but if the wind continued light, we wouldn’t have too rough a ride. It was far better than letting Szpirglas take us back to the island and his waiting crew of pirates.

“Can you do the two aft cars?” I said to Bruce. I figured we had some time before Szpirglas sent anyone else to check on his first two pirates. “Kate and I will go forward for the others.”

“Watch out for kitty,” said Bruce and hobbled aft along the keel catwalk. Kate and I went forward until we reached the lateral gangways down to the two engine cars.

We started with the starboard. At the hull, I opened the hatch. Air swirled about us. A twelve-rung ladder led down through open air to the pod-shaped engine car. The ladder had only a railing on either side. It wasn’t caged. If you fell, you fell.

“You want to wait up here?” I asked her.

She shook her head, pushed past me, and started climbing down, sensibly hooking one arm round the railing. There was little actual wind, but the ship’s wind was considerable, as we were moving along at quite a clip. Kate’s tunic and harem pants were plastered against her. At the rear of the engine car, the four-bladed propeller whirled a pale brown circle in the air.

I started down after her. She was waiting for me inside the din of the engine car, looking a little breathless but pleased with herself. The car was big enough to stand upright in and was mostly taken up with machinery. A huge motor spun the propeller shaft, which jutted out the open end of the car. I looked all about. There were a lot of cables and rubber hosing. Of all the parts of the ship, this was the one I was least familiar with. I hadn’t spent much time here. It was hideously noisy, for one thing, and the machinists didn’t really like sharing the cramped quarters with anyone else. It wasn’t what you’d call a social job. They wore leather helmets so they didn’t go deaf and crazy.

Kate was watching me, which made me more flustered when I couldn’t figure out which was the fuel line. The noise made my brain feel about as useful as scrambled eggs.

“It would be this one, I think,” she shouted, pointing. I looked at the hosing coming in through the roof of the car. It fed through the inside of one of the struts that connected the car to the main hull. Kate traced the line with her finger until she came to a circular tap. The shutoff valve.

“I think you’re right,” I shouted gratefully. “Thank you.”

I reached up and started turning. It took about ten full turns before it stopped. But the engine didn’t. Kate looked crestfallen.

“There’ll still be enough fuel in the engine to keep it going awhile,” I said hopefully. “I just want to wait to make sure.”

“I’ll go do the other one,” said Kate, and before I could stop her she was climbing out of the engine car, up toward the ship. I had to give it to her. She wasn’t one to sit idly by; she wanted a part of everything. I liked that about her.

I watched to make sure she was safely inside, and then turned back to the propeller. It was still whirling as fast as before, but then it gave a cough, and its ghostly circle became darker as the prop faltered and slowed. The pitch of the engine deepened; it was shutting down now for certain. Done!

I hurried over to the ladder, grabbed the rungs and when I looked up, a pirate was standing above me in the hatchway. His pistol rose. The bullet shrieked off the metal railing. I pulled back inside. It was a trap; and I was a fool not to have seen it. Szpirglas must have known we’d come to the cars to shut the engines down.

I peeped through a porthole and saw the pirate coming down the ladder. He came down face forward, one arm crooked round the railing, the other arm free so he could keep the gun trained on the engine car’s hatch. My heart was beating so quickly I thought I might pass out. That hatch was the only way out—

Or maybe not. I looked out the open end of the engine car. The propeller was slowing, though still spinning vigorously as the motor starved for fuel. There was not much of a gap between the roof of the engine car and the spinning blade, a couple of feet maybe. I could see the shadow of the pirate growing in the hatchway; he was almost down the ladder now. I climbed up on the casing of the propeller shaft and started to haul myself up out onto the roof of the engine car. The propeller spun, inches from my head, sucking at my body. It wanted to pull me in and spit me out. On the roof there was not much to grab on to so I dug my fingernails into the metal seams and pulled and kicked with my legs, but not too much for I didn’t want them to get chopped off by the propeller. Below, I heard the pirate in the engine car, looking for me. It would not take him more than a few seconds to figure out where I’d gone. I dragged myself farther onto the roof and hurriedly brought my legs up, the propeller blades whistling past the soles of my bare feet. I was flat on my belly, no handholds, no railing. I started to slither, arms and legs spread for grip. The air pulled at me. The ladder was five feet away. I stood in a low crouch and jumped for it. I caught the rungs with my hands and started to climb like a crazed orangutan, my eyes fixed on the hatchway of the
Aurora
.

I was reaching for the next rung when I was yanked down. My hands lost their grip and I slid, the rungs slamming against my ribs. I caught hold and turned and saw the pirate. He was at the base of the ladder—he had me by the ankle with one hand, and with the other was taking aim at my head. I let go and slid right down at him, kicking like a twister. I was lucky, and my foot caught his hand and knocked the pistol from his grip. I saw it go spinning toward the sea.

“Bastard!” the pirate roared, and I kicked again and got him in the teeth this time. He let go and I climbed furiously. At the top of the ladder I got one arm hooked round the handhold inside the hatch. But the pirate had me again by the leg and started pulling. I held tight, the metal handhold digging into my bone, and I knew he’d break my arm clean off. My eyes skittered around inside the ship. I saw an oil can within reach, grabbed it with my free hand, then reached down and squirted the pirate in the face and all over the rungs. Cursing, he let go to wipe his eyes and lost his grip. He fell heavily, crashing in a heap in the engine car. I hauled myself into the ship, lungs burning.

I slammed the hatch shut and locked it with my keys. With luck maybe the pirate would fall asleep and not mess with the engine. I leaned against the hatch to catch my breath.

That was another pirate down. Five left. Just five.

A finger of cold metal knocked against the side of my head.

“Hold up there, lad.”

I turned slowly.

Crumlin’s pistol was against my skull.

20

AIRBORN

Crumlin had his free hand clenched around Kate’s arm. He’d got us both. We stared at each other mutely, and in her eyes I saw all that I myself felt: a terrible weariness; self-reproach that I’d been foolish enough to be caught; and fear too, not yet at a full boil, but on the brink. I hoped they didn’t have Bruce as well.

“Well, isn’t this an unpleasant surprise,” Crumlin said. He reeked of fish soup. It seemed to be steaming from every pore of his great sweaty body. “When the captain’s done with you, you’ll wish you were back in that pit.”

He blinked and took a breath as if to steady himself. For just a moment his grip around the pistol faltered, and then he came back on full alert. The sleeping elixir must finally be starting to work. I glanced at Kate but couldn’t tell if she’d noticed.

“Walk,” Crumlin grunted, shoving me with his gun.

We turned onto the keel catwalk. Forward, near the door to the passenger quarters, waited another pirate. I could see that it was the one-handed fellow, Rhino Hand.

“I’ve got the both of them,” Crumlin called out to him. “Rathgar’s got himself locked in the starboard engine car. Go back and get him out. And make sure both those engines are fired up again.”

Rhino Hand started walking toward us. He kept tilting off balance against the railing, even though the ship was flying steady.

“What’s wrong with you?” Crumlin barked. “Too much juice?”

Rhino Hand said nothing, just waved his hand dismissively and muttered inaudibly to himself. He almost tripped again.

“Cripes, man, you’re a disgrace!” Crumlin roared, but when I looked back at Crumlin I saw his own eyes flicker. He lifted his pistol hand to his temple and jerked his eyes wide, as if trying to clear his blurry vision. I wondered when we should make our break for it.

Rhino Hand was still about thirty feet away when something dropped down onto the catwalk between him and us.

It was a sleek beautiful bundle of misty fur and teeth and claws. It was the cloud cat, nostrils flaring.

“You little monster!” hissed Crumlin, squinting and blinking as though he’d been confronted with a ghostly apparition. He stopped walking. Rhino Hand had stopped too. The cat was looking from one to the other. I could see its shoulder muscles tense and its rump drop, and I knew it was about to lunge.

“I’ll have you on my wall!” Crumlin roared and raised his pistol.

The cloud cat jumped up into the rigging above the catwalk, the wires and alumiron struts enough like branches that I wondered if it felt at home here after all. It leaped nimbly to the other side of the corridor then back again, coming at me and Kate and Crumlin, shrieking. Even then I thought, It’s magnificent.

Crumlin shoved Kate hard to the floor and tried to take aim with his pistol as the cloud cat bounded for us. But the pirate was unsteady on his feet, his vision misted by drink and sleeping elixir, and the pistol trembled in his fist.

He fired.

He missed the cloud cat, but hit Rhino Hand down the corridor. The pirate clutched at his neck, and a dark stain of blood seeped between his fingers as he sagged to the floor, cursing his life away. Crumlin fired again and again missed. I threw my whole weight against him, and he was dopey enough to stagger off balance. His gun clattered to the floor.

“Come on!” I yelled at Kate, grabbing her hand and hauling her up.

But it was Crumlin the cloud cat wanted. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the pirate sluggishly scrabbling about for his gun as the cloud cat leaped at him. Maybe it remembered Crumlin from the island and was hungry for revenge. Maybe it just liked his fishy odor. The creature engulfed Crumlin’s head and torso with its own body, a whirling bundle of fur and claw. Crumlin roared and threw up his arms to pound the creature off, but the cloud cat nimbly retreated into the wiring overhead, escaping the bludgeoning force of Crumlin’s fists. He was bleeding badly from the shoulder and neck. Then the cloud cat lunged in again, quickly slashing with its claws and teeth before again retreating beyond Crumlin’s clumsy blows. He turned and lumbered off, but the cloud cat launched itself at his back and knocked him over. He scarcely tried to get up.

After that, I stopped turning back to look, and Kate and I just ran as hard as we could along the keel catwalk toward the ship’s stern. I did not know what the cloud cat would do when it was finished with Crumlin. I couldn’t imagine it still being hungry after feeding on him, but maybe this was not simply a matter of hunger. Maybe it was like those wild bears or lions who, after a taste of human blood, cannot forget it and go on craving it madly their whole lives.

I wanted to get back to Bruce. I shouldn’t have sent him off alone. He was supposed to meet us in the port cargo bay. In my head I counted pirates. Five were gone now, that left three, two probably in the starboard lounge keeping guard but getting sleepier by the second, if Crumlin and Rhino Hand were any guide. I hoped it wouldn’t be long until Captain Walken and the officers could make a move and overpower the guards.

But Szpirglas, who would not eat fish, would be in the control car, wide awake and steering us back to the island. I could only hope that Bruce had managed to shut down both his engines.

But as we neared the aft engine gangways, I heard the telltale vibration of the port propeller. The starboard one was silent at least. Maybe Bruce was just having trouble shutting down the port engine. I felt a queasy wave slosh through my guts. I stopped, suddenly afraid to turn down the gangway. I made Kate stand back and then carefully poked my head around the corner.

Bruce lay crumpled on the floor. Blood pooled stickily about his head. I rushed to him, bent down, and felt for his pulse along his jaw, but just by the cold touch of him I knew he was already dead.

“Oh,” Kate gasped, kneeling beside me. “Oh.”

At first I thought maybe the cloud cat had taken him, but then I saw the precise bullet hole in the side of his skull. He’d been shot at close range.

From the starboard engine car I heard the propeller suddenly kick back to life. Footsteps rang on the access ladder.

“Run!” I told Kate. “Go to the cargo holds and hide!”

I heard her protest but didn’t wait. I ran down the gangway toward the starboard engine car. If I could get to the hatch in time, I could slam it shut and lock the pirate on the outside. It was Szpirglas himself, and he was nearly at the top of the ladder, about to come through into the ship. He saw me. I grabbed the hatch and swung it, but he caught it against his shoulder before I could close it. I heaved with all my weight, but it was no good, he was the heavier and stronger by far, and with a final powerful push he sent me sprawling backward.

I scrambled up and ran before he could take proper aim and heard the bullet whispering past through the rigging. I careened round the corner onto the keel catwalk and was relieved to see no sign of Kate.

I jumped onto the companion ladder and started crawling up toward the axial catwalk. Szpirglas stood below me. I was an easy target, straight overhead, so I jumped off the ladder and into the bracing wires where I was partially hidden behind cables and the edges of the great shimmering gas bags. Up I went like a spider, Szpirglas’s bullets whizzing past me and slicing through the goldbeater’s skin and releasing small mango-scented geysers of hydrium. I heard him cursing and then his boots on the ladder, and I knew he was coming up too, and just as fast as me, for the ladder was easier work than monkeying through the rigging. Cold hard thin wire bit at my raw feet.

Somehow I reached the axial catwalk first, grabbed a wrench from an open locker, and heaved it at Szpirglas’s head as he came up the companionway. It struck him in the temple and he cursed; it bought me a few seconds more to toss the rest of the contents of the locker at his head, including a pot of patching glue that splashed onto his face and blunderbuss. He clambered onto the catwalk. He was not sleepy. He had eaten none of Vlad’s fish soup. His eyes blazed with a fury I’d never seen in any man before.

He raised his blunderbuss at me and fired, but the gun only gave a thick gluey clunk, for its snout was clogged with glue. Szpirglas cursed and lunged at me. The only way for me to go was up again to the aft crow’s nest. So up I went.

I reached the glass observation dome, flung it open, and hauled myself out onto the ship’s back. I had to squint fiercely, for the sun was ablaze in the sky. Blue sea stretched all round, and dead ahead was the island. We’d reach her in less than ten minutes by my reckoning.

Crouching, I hurried forward, one hand looped around the guide wire. At the midpoint I glanced back and there was still no sign of Szpirglas at the hatchway. I hesitated. Maybe he was coming up the forward crow’s nest in wait for me. I was scuppered, not knowing which way to go.

The forward observation hatch was already flung open, and as I stared in disbelief, a white shape sprung out from it.

The cloud cat was on the ship’s back. It crouched there, fur matted against its body by the wind, looking all around. It hadn’t been in the sky since the day of its birth. It was not interested in me at the moment, perhaps had not even spotted me, hunched down motionless against the ship’s skin. But I dared not go closer. Its muzzle was stained red from feasting on Crumlin. It was blocking my only escape route.

Hurriedly I turned back to the aft observation hatch. Perhaps Szpirglas had given up. He had the ship to fly after all. He needed to land her on the island.

When I was not fifty feet from the aft hatch, Szpirglas climbed out through it onto the ship’s back. In his hand was a knife. The sun winked off its serrated edge. His face was impassive, eyes focused on me, intent on the job ahead of him.

It was over. There was nowhere left to run. I didn’t know if Szpirglas saw the cloud cat behind me, for it was hunkered down flush against the ship’s skin, and my body was directly in line with it. I didn’t know which would be worse, being savaged by the creature or stabbed by Szpirglas. It shamed me, but I had to admit I was tired out. I was finished with running, especially when it was all futile. There were two paths, and each took me to my death.

Szpirglas advanced toward me, his balance expert. I noticed the wind picking up some, and realized that Szpirglas must have taken the
Aurora
lower in preparation for landing. The island was still a ways off, but the
Aurora
would surely collide with the central mountain if left unchecked. Even now I didn’t want to see my ship harmed, especially when all aboard might still be saved. It might be just me who was to perish. And Bruce already. Poor Bruce.

“Quite an escape artist, aren’t you?” Szpirglas was only a few paces from me. “You’re an impressive lad. If you hadn’t defied me so, I might have offered you a home on my ship.”

“This is my home,” I told him dully. And I’d never felt it more than now. I’d bundled everything into this ship, all the good feeling I had; all my sense of belonging was beneath my feet, every hope of happiness. And I thought that at least I would die here at home.

“Just tell me, lad, for I’ve got a craving to know. How did you get out of the hydrium pit?”

“I flew,” I said savagely, hating him.

He chuckled darkly. “Then fly again.”

Both his hands took hold of my shoulders and he gave me a mighty shove. My arms windmilled uselessly and my feet left the ship’s back—and I fell.

I fell backward and instinctively opened my arms, spread my legs. I could feel the air pouring over me, feel how it parted for my head and over my shoulders and over my chest and down my torso to trail off my legs. I tucked an arm and rolled my shoulders so I was falling facefirst toward the ship’s stern.

I was not frightened.

This was how my father fell.

It was the most natural thing in the world. I knew it would be like this. It was very smooth and slow. I had time to look down at the sea. I even looked back over my shoulder and saw Szpirglas watching me, and the cloud cat, still crouching farther forward. I gazed ahead and saw the ship’s great fins coming toward me. I would soar clear over the horizontal fin on the starboard side. Then I would fall free of the ship, and it would be just me and the air.

If my father could do it, I could do it. I was born in the air.

Some part of my brain, though, must have known I did not want to overshoot the ship. I needed to go down. I closed my legs, folded my arms back against my sides, tilted my head and shoulders, and plunged toward the fin. Everything was starting to speed up, and for the first time I felt fear. I fanned my legs wide and pushed my arms forward to break my fall. I hit the great flat fin and felt the skin on the palms of my hands evaporate as I tried to slow myself. I was in a scalding skid. The fin’s edge soared toward me. I kept my chin up so I could see.

There was a narrow gap between the elevator flaps and the fin itself, and I drove my hands and arms into it, grabbed hold of a metal strut, and held on. My whole body jerked and buckled, and my arms shrieked with pain as I came to a violent halt. I’d been spun around so I was now facing toward the ship’s bow, my legs and torso flattened against the elevator flap, the wind smacking at my face.

I could not fly. I had crashed. I was not lighter than air after all.

I’d fallen, and a great shame seeped through me.

I was heavy as stone.

All my life I’d told myself I was light and could soar free of things. I was light and could outrun sadness. I could fly away and keep flying forever.

But I could never catch up with my father. He had fallen, like Gilgamesh, and I had not been there to save him with my all-powerful Enkidu hand. He was gone, well and truly gone, and now everything had caught up with me: all the years of sailing away from my family, and my sadness.

I knew I could not hold on for long, and there was no way to scramble back up the fin. My hands would lose strength, my fingers would let go, and I would slide off for one last inglorious freefall to the waves.

Up above me on the ship’s back I could see Szpirglas, standing tall, turned toward me. It would not be hard to see me in the full daylight, my dark shirt against the ship’s silver skin. The cloud cat was there too. I wanted to look at this creature rather than Szpirglas.