Airborn (2 page)

Just then Captain Walken strode in. He was the kind of man everyone felt safer being around. If he’d been wearing a velvet robe and crown, he’d be the very image of a great king; if he were in a doctor’s jacket, you’d trust your life to him; if he were in a carpenter’s smock, you’d know he’d build you the finest house imaginable. But I preferred him in his blue captain’s jacket with the four gold stripes on the sleeve and his cap encircled with thick gold cord. His beard and mustache were trim, and he had steady, kind eyes. He was approaching sixty, with a full head of gray curly hair, and wide in the shoulders. He wasn’t a particularly big man or even tall, but when he walked into the room you could almost sense everyone exhaling in relief and thinking, There now, things will work out just fine.

The captain needed only to glance at the situation.

“Mr. Rideau, would you please return to the control car and assume my watch. I’ll take over here, thank you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Rideau, but I could tell he didn’t much like that.

“Ready the davit, please, gentlemen,” Captain Walken said.

Centered before the bay doors was a davit, a small crane with an extendible arm that swung out and raised and lowered cargo when we were docked. The crew sprang to it at once, manning the lines and wheeling out the davit’s arm to its full length.

“Let’s see if she’ll reach,” the captain said. “Swing her out, please.”

Breathless, I watched, wondering if it would be long enough. I knew what the captain had in mind.

I kept looking down at the man on the gondola floor. He was deathly white in the flare of the
Aurora
’s spotlight. But then I saw him stir slightly, a hand twitch.

The davit’s arm slowly swung all the way out, as far as it would go.

It was still at least six feet shy of the gondola.

“Pity,” said the captain calmly. “Bring her back in, please, gentlemen.”

I looked down and saw the water close below us. The captain had vented a little hydrium to keep us level with the balloon, but now we had gone as low as we safely could. Any nearer was foolhardy, for you never knew when a sudden gust or rogue front might clutch the ship and thrust her down into the drink.

“Well, gentlemen, we’ve not much time,” the captain said. “The situation is simple, and our course of action clear. Someone’s going to need to hook themselves to the end of the davit and swing across to the gondola. It’s the only way to get to her before she goes down.”

He looked across at Mr. Kahlo and Mr. Chen, and the machinists and sailmakers, their faces gray in the starlight, none relishing the idea of careening out over the ocean.

I held my breath, hoping.

The captain stared straight at me and smiled.

“Mr. Cruse, I look at you, and of all the men, you’re the one who shows not the slightest hint of fear. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir. I have no fear of heights.”

“I know it, Mr. Cruse.” And he did, for I’d served aboard his ship for more than two years, and he’d seen the ease with which I moved about the
Aurora
, inside and out.

“Sir,” said Mr. Chen, “the lad shouldn’t be the one. Let me go.”

And all at once the other crewmen were vigorously offering themselves for the job.

“Very good, gentlemen,” said the captain, “but I think Mr. Cruse really is the best suited. If you’re still willing, Mr. Cruse?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll not tell your mother about this. Agreed?”

I smiled and gave a nod.

“Is your harness snug?”

“It is, sir.” I was glowing with pride and hoped the others wouldn’t see the flush of my cheeks. The captain came and checked my harness himself, his strong hands testing the straps and buckles.

“Be careful, lad,” he told me quietly, then stepped back. “All right, Mr. Cruse. Hook yourself up to the davit, and we’ll swing you over.”

He said it as if he were proposing a stroll up to A-Deck to take in the view. He hadn’t chosen me just because he thought I was least fearful. Any of the other crew would have done it. But I was light too, the lightest here by sixty pounds. The captain was afraid the gondola might be too flimsy to carry her own weight once she was hooked and reeled in, and he didn’t want anything heavy added to her. Above all, he needed someone light. But I was still honored he trusted me with the job.

The davit’s cable ended with a deep hook, and onto this hook I shackled the ends of my two safety lines. They winched me up a little so it was like sitting on a swing. Up close, the davit’s arm seemed a frail enough bit of metal to hang your life upon, but I knew she could carry fifty of me.

“I know you’ll not falter,” the captain told me. “Here. You’ll need this to cut the balloon’s flight lines.” He passed me up his knife. I slid it through a buckle of my harness. “If you’re ready, we’ll send you over.”

“Ready, sir.”

With that the crew swung the davit’s arm out. I saw the deck of the cargo bay give way to the ocean’s silvered surface, dark and supple as a snake’s skin, four hundred feet below. The arm swung to its farthest point and stopped. The gondola was still out of reach, its rim about six feet below me now. Inside, the man shifted again, and I thought he moaned, but that might have been the wind, or the creak of the cable unwinding, or maybe some whalesong out to sea.

“Lower me some, please!” I called over my shoulder.

Looking back at the ship did give me a moment’s pause. It wasn’t fear—more interest, really. Just the oddness of it. I’d never seen the
Aurora
from this angle, me dangling midair, the crewmen standing on the lip of the deck, staring down at me through the open cargo bay doors.

They paid out more cable until I was at the same level as the gondola, not six feet away.

I felt no fear. If someone had put an ear to my chest, he’d find it beating no faster than it had in the crow’s nest. It was not bravery on my part, simply a fact of nature, for I was born in the air, and so it seemed the most natural place in the world to me. I was slim as a sapling and light on my feet. The crew all joked I had seagull bones, hollow in the center to allow for easy flight. To swing across this little gap, four hundred feet aloft, was no more to me than skipping a crack in the pavement. Because deep in my heart, I felt that if I were ever to fall, the air would support me, hold me aloft, just as surely as it did a bird with spread wings.

There was a bit of a breeze building now, twirling me some at the end of the cable. I grabbed both my safety lines and started pumping my legs, a youngster on a playground swing. Back and forth, back and forth. At the forward end of my arc, when I looked down, I figured I was almost over the rim of the gondola. Just a little more. Back I went, legs folded tight.

Then: that moment when you’re almost motionless, just hanging there for a split second before you start swinging forward again.

“Let run the line!” I shouted. I kicked forward, body flat, legs shooting out, and felt myself drop suddenly—and keep dropping. I sat up quickly as the cable paid out, and I was slanting down toward the gondola fast but—

Falling short.

I flung myself forward, stretching, and just hooked my forearms over the gondola’s lip. My body slammed into the side, scratching my face against the wicker and knocking all my breath out. It took a moment to suck some air into me. My arms sang with pain. I heard the crew above in the
Aurora
, cheering me. I heaved myself up, scrabbling with my feet for purchase, and then crashed over into the gondola.

Beside the man.

But there was not time to tend to him. I stood, grabbed hold of the davit’s hook, and unshackled my two safety lines. Then I cast about for somewhere secure to attach the hook—it had to be something strong, for it would be bearing the gondola’s entire weight once I cut the balloon free. Above my head was a metal frame that supported the burners. The frame had four metal struts that were welded to the gondola’s iron rim. It all seemed a little rickety, but it would have to be good enough; I saw nothing better. I curled the hook around the burner frame, as close to its center as I could manage.

“Reel her in!” I bellowed up at the
Aurora.
I saw the line quickly swing up and become taut. The hook grabbed. The gondola shuddered. A long, nasty squeal came from the burner frame. I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I stared, breath stoppered in my throat, at those four bits of metal that tethered the burner frame to the gondola. They were never supposed to support the gondola’s entire weight. That’s what the balloon was meant to do.

But now the balloon was coming down, slowly collapsing toward the gondola—and the burner. The whole lot might go up in flames, with me and the pilot caught beneath.

Flight lines. Flight lines.

I’d never sailed a balloon, and the rigging was unfamiliar to me.

There were eight lines holding the balloon to the gondola, two stretching up from each corner.

“Take care, Mr. Cruse!” I heard the captain shout down at me.

I glanced overhead. Despite being hooked to the davit, the gondola was dragging the great balloon ever closer to the
Aurora
’s hull and engines. In a few minutes they’d collide. I had to be quicker.

The knife glinted in the starlight as I sawed away at the first flight line. It was thick braid, and my heart sank when I began, but the captain’s sharp knife bit deep and kept going. Snap went that first line, and the gondola didn’t even shift. I did the line opposite, not wanting the gondola to start hanging crooked.

The balloon was sagging now almost to the burner. I didn’t have time to fuss about looking for the gas valve to shut it down, but I was sorely afraid of a fire.

The third and fourth lines went.

At my feet, the man moaned again and his arm twitched and knocked against my boot.

I slashed through the fifth line.

I looked up and saw the balloon slowly billowing down toward me, all but blotting out my view of the
Aurora.
It was awfully close to the engine cars and their propellers.

The sixth line went, and now there were but two lines tethering the balloon to the gondola, attached to opposite corners.

Suddenly the burner came on, triggered by its clockwork timer, and a geyser of blue-hot flame leaped up and scorched the fabric of the balloon. It caught immediately, spreading high. I checked the davit hook, for once I cut these last two lines, the only thing holding us would be that hook and the
Aurora
’s crane.

My wrist throbbed as I began slashing through the seventh line. With a mighty crack the frayed rope snapped high into the air, and the entire gondola slewed over. The unconscious pilot slid toward me and crumpled up against the low side. Without the crane’s cable holding us, we would have been tipped out into the sea. I hauled myself to the high side and the last light flight line. The smell of burning fabric was terrible now, though luckily the smoke and flames were mostly dancing up away from me. But the weight of the blazing balloon was oozing down over the frame now, starting to engulf the gondola.

Frantically I slashed at the last flight line. Something burning hit my shoulder and I struck it off, and then I saw with a panic that a bit of the wicker was alight. I’d deal with it later. That last flight line needed cutting.

Furiously I attacked it with my knife, severed it, then grabbed hold of the gondola’s side as it jerked violently down. The metal burner frame shrieked with stress as it took the full weight. Suspended only on the davit’s hook, the gondola swung out from underneath the blazing balloon, and just in time. Aflame, it seeped quickly downward, cut lines trailing, undulating like a giant jellyfish intent on the ocean’s bottom. I held my breath as it fell past the gondola.

Fire crackled in the wicker, and I grabbed a blanket from the floor and smothered the flames. There was a sharp tug from the cable, and we were being reeled in, rocking. I made sure the fire was out and then knelt down beside the man. I felt badly that he’d been jostled about so roughly.

Gently I turned him over onto his back and put a blanket beneath his head. He looked to be in his sixties. Through the whiskers, his face had a sharpened look to it, all cheekbones and nose. Lips scabbed over by wind and lack of water. A handsome gentleman. I didn’t really know what else to do, so I just held his hand and said, “There now, we’re almost aboard, and Doc Halliday will take a look at you and get you all sorted out.” For a moment it looked like his eyes might open, but then he just frowned and shook his head a little, and his lips parted and he mumbled silently for a bit.

Scattered on the floor were all manner of things. Empty water bottles and unopened cans of food. An astrolabe, dividers, a compass, and rolled up charts. From overhead came a terrible shriek, and I looked up to see one of the burner frame’s metal struts rip loose from the gondola’s rim. We were too heavy. I stared in horror, watching as the frame began twisting from the stress of her load.

“Hurry!” I bellowed up at the
Aurora
. We were getting reeled up fast, but not fast enough, for with a mighty jerk, a second strut ripped clean out. The entire gondola started to slowly keel over as the remaining struts weakened.

We were level with the cargo bay now but still needed to be swung inside, and the gondola was slewing over, about to dump us into the drink. The metal frame was groaning and shrieking. I grabbed hold of the gondola’s side with one hand and the man’s wrist with the other, knowing I had not the strength to hold us both in if the gondola tried to tip us out.

I looked up and saw the hook screeching along the burner frame, sparking, about to come off the ripped metal strut and we would surely fall—

A violent bump—

And we set down onto the deck of the cargo bay. Inside.

I heard the captain’s voice. “Bay doors closed, please! Mr. Kahlo, call the bridge and tell them to take her back to seven hundred feet.”

And then everyone was at the side, looking over into the gondola. Doc Halliday was climbing in beside me, and I stepped back to make room for him. A hand clapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to see Captain Walken smiling at me.