Airborn (17 page)

“Oh, Lord,” I said, feeling hopeless, “look at her. Look at our ship.”

“The condition of our ship is doubtless no mystery to you,” Captain Walken said.

It was standing room only in the officers’ mess, all
the crew assembled for an emergency meeting. We were a dispirited-looking bunch, with our sodden uniforms and sand-crusted faces and hair. I slouched at the very back, feeling I had little right to be here.

“The ship’s frame is still intact,” the captain said, “and the chief sailmaker and I believe we have enough lifting gas left to support the structure and allow the passengers back on. We’re solid. But that, sadly, is an end to the good news. We’ve lost too much hydrium, gentlemen. We can’t fly.”

“Is there no possibility of lightening her some more, sir?” asked Mr. Chen.

“We could remove every crate of cargo and stick of furniture, and every passenger for that matter, and we’d still not have enough lifting power to hop across the lagoon. In our current state it would take the hand of Zeus to lift us. So now we must investigate our options.” He turned to the second wireless officer. “Mr. Chaudhuri, what is the state of our radio equipment?”

“Well, sir, the pirates were quite thorough. The transmitter was pretty much destroyed.”

“What chances of repairing?”

“I’ve been working on it, sir. But even with a fully functioning transmitter, I don’t think we’d be able to send a signal very far from down here.”

“Continue to work on it. A radio can only be an asset to us. We did send out a distress signal when we were about to be boarded by the pirates, but we heard no reply. So I fear we were out of range of any other vessel.”

“We’ll be reported missing by now, sir,” said Mr. Torbay.

“They’ll not have much luck finding us along our route,” said the captain. “The pirates were careful to drive us far off course. Grantham?”

“It was hard to keep track, sir,” the navigation officer replied. “They led us on such a firefly run, but I calculate we are more than two hundred miles off our flight path. We’re in an obscure little corner of the Pacificus here. Chances of seeing any other air traffic are close to nil. And we’ll have no joy waiting for a rescue, I’m afraid. There’s too much ocean. They’ll think we crashed and sunk without a trace.”

This was not a cheering bit of news, and I could see the shoulders of some of the crew visibly sag.

“Well, then,” said the captain, “I believe this may be a good time to organize a party to explore the island.”

“There may be inhabitants, Captain,” said Mr. Rideau.

“Precisely what I am hoping,” said the captain.

“They may be a savage lot, sir, with no love of visitors.”

“We shall have to be exceptionally charming, then,” said the captain. “It may be that they have a means of transport that we can use, perhaps not to carry all of us, but at least to carry a message for help. Who knows, perhaps they even have a wireless. We must make it our business to find out.”

I could see the captain’s eyes trawling the crowd. I looked away.

“Mr. Cruse, you’ve seen something of this island, I believe.”

“I have, sir.”

I could hear a few quiet snickers.

“Have you seen any signs of habitation?”

“No trace of other human beings, sir, not on the eastern slopes of the island and up to the central plateau. But the island is large and stretches miles to the west.”

“There may be a settlement on the windward side of the island, then,” said the captain. “Mr. Cruse, you’ll be with the exploratory team we assemble.”

“Yes, sir.”

I felt my heart lift a bit. I could still be useful, and the captain did not mean to confine me to the ship—
a fate I had fully resigned myself to. But perhaps I was fooling myself by thinking the captain wasn’t displeased with me. We were truly shipwrecked now, and our situation was dire, and if he had need of me, he would use me. It did not mean he trusted me.

“There are life rafts,” Mr. Levy suggested. “Some of us could go for help.”

Mr. Grantham was shaking his head. “No. It’s more than a thousand miles to the nearest port, and you’d be working against the trade winds.”

“Too risky, I think,” said the captain.

“Sir?”

I recognized Bruce Lunardi’s voice among the crowd.

“Mr. Lunardi?”

“We studied a similar case at the Academy, sir,” he said.

A few of the crew made little impressed titters at this, and the captain’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Gentlemen, there is no one in this room who is too wise to learn. Mr. Lunardi, please continue.”

I heard the tremor in Lunardi’s voice, and felt sorry for him. “Well, sir, in this case the ship was grounded from loss of hydrium. But the crew managed to stitch together a crude balloon from her gas cells and vent the remaining hydrium into her. It
was enough to carry a gondola and three or four crew.”

“I remember this incident,” said Captain Walken. “Only one made it back to shore.”

“Yes, sir. But I was wondering if there might be some way we could balloon back into the shipping lanes, wait there for a passing vessel, and signal for help.”

“Very good, Mr. Lunardi. It is an intriguing idea. Again, riskier than I would like. I have little confidence in air balloons.” I saw the captain sigh, and for the first time, there were obvious traces of sadness on his face. “And your plan means cutting open our hull to extract the gas cells. I am loathe to cannibalize the
Aurora.
But if she truly is of no use to us, perhaps your idea is the best we have so far. I thank you for it. Let me consider it.”

The idea of the ship being sawed up like a cadaver made me feel faint. My home, left in ruins, never to fly again. But even I could see it might be our only chance. I wished I had some brilliant idea to win the captain’s praise—and save the
Aurora
from such an undignified end. But I had nothing to offer.

“If I might interject, sir, there may be another use for such a balloon,” said Mr. Bayard, the junior wireless officer.

“Let’s hear it,” said the captain.

“If Mr. Chaudhuri and I are able to salvage a transmitter, we might be able to send a distress signal. If we could rig an antenna to the balloon and float it high above the island, our range could be considerable.”

“Good,” said the captain. “It looks as if we all entered the wrong profession, gentlemen. We were destined to become balloonists. Very well. We will turn our hands to it. Now, then, immediate concerns. I know that we’ve located an ample stream, not far from the ship, but as for food, how are our supplies, Mr. Vlad?”

“We will not starve!” cried Vlad, and some of us laughed gratefully at his good cheer. “The lagoon alone holds enough food for all.”

“Not all the passengers like fish,” Mr. Lisbon pointed out.

“I am very sorry, but this I did not understand,” Vlad said to the chief steward.

“I merely said that not all of our passengers enjoy fish.”

“Fish, yes, fish is what I am conversing about.”

“Not everyone likes it!” shouted Mr. Lisbon.

“I will teach them to love it!” Vlad said fiercely. “I will make many dishes and soups and delectable
things—that is a word, yes? delectable?—and make us all fit and harmonious. Some of our passengers, yes, could lose a little weight, I think you will concur, Captain.”

“Thank you, Mr. Vlad. I’m sure they’ll be very grateful.”

“Our supply of fresh meat is almost out,” Mr. Lisbon remarked.

Vlad glared at him. “Meat! Yes, yes, yes, meat is fine, it is delicious, I agree, but what is meat when we have fresh coconut and breadfruit and mango and bananas! Better fruits they did not have on Mount Olympus!”

“They’ll be without bread within two days,” the chief steward told the captain. “We’ll have no more flour or yeast by then. That will have them howling.”

No fresh croissants, I thought with a smile.

“This is a blessing,” Vlad shouted. “Can you not see this? This is opportunity for a culinary rebirth!”

“We look forward to it, Mr. Vlad,” said the captain, eager to stem an all-out battle between his chef and steward. “I am encouraged to know that we will not go hungry with you in charge.”

Vlad stalked off, shooting a serrated look at Mr. Lisbon and muttering about breadfruit and jackfish and crabs and how unappreciated he was. He’d go
off and lay out all his sharp knives and feel better.

I wished I could feel better.

We were shipwrecked and discussing how best to get rescued, how best to survive. And it seemed our only course of action was to skin and gut our beloved ship and fashion a balloon.

I was on water duty, hefting buckets back to the ship from the stream. The winds had calmed since the typhoon but were still stiff enough to make me curse as I trudged against them, a heavy sloshing bucket of water wobbling in each fist. I wondered if this was some sort of punishment, or at least some way of keeping me solitary and busy and out of trouble. The captain had said nothing to me after the meeting; it was the chief steward who had glanced at me and said simply, “Mr. Cruse, we’re getting low on water. See to it, please.”

I wondered how Kate was getting on in the Topkapi stateroom. Would Miss Simpkins have her locked in the bedroom? Would she dare? Kate would tell her nothing. But if the chaperone discovered what was in Kate’s carpetbag, what could Kate possibly say? My goodness, how did those get there? Marjorie, do you have any idea what these are? Even if Miss Simpkins didn’t see the bones, sooner or later
she would notice some of her undergarments missing: Kate, have you seen my beige petticoat? I can’t find it anywhere. How odd, Kate would say, trying not to smile. How very unusual.

It made me smile, thinking of it, though mostly all I felt was angry with her. But I’d gone willingly enough. Now was no time to be undone by a girl. Maybe Baz was right. I’d let myself become foolish. Had I just been another one of her servants, temporarily useful.

A bucket slammed against my shin and I swore. Surely there was a better way to get the water to the ship than this. Then I remembered the crates we’d unloaded, the heavy ones marked as rubber hosing. I wondered if the captain would agree to cracking them open and running a pipeline between stream and ship. I’d mention it to him when I had a chance; maybe it would help redeem me in his eyes.

It was clearing overhead, sunlight slanting through from the west, making the trees and silver airship glow against the dark clouds. Suddenly there was a rainbow, the biggest and most complete I’d ever seen, looking like it had been constructed by the bridge builders of Eden. It was stupendous, with all the colors a rainbow is supposed to have but never does. I stared at it, arching over the island. It
made things seem not so bad.

Then my smile faded. Two sailmakers were rappelling down the port side of the
Aurora.
I knew what they meant to do. I did not want to see this. The very thought of it sent a razor’s shiver across my belly, as though it was me about to be slit with a knife. Captain Walken had emerged from the control car with Mr. Rideau and was standing back to supervise the work.

I was quite close to the ship now, and I realized I’d stopped walking, was just standing there, staring. I tried to look away but couldn’t. They’d chosen a section where the skin was already limp against a punctured gas cell. I saw the sailmakers take out their knives, their blades flashing. In went the tips. I felt myself flinch. No. No. I couldn’t bear it. I was close enough to hear the tearing fabric and the hiss of the last escaping hydrium. The wind carried the distinctive scent to my nostrils.

And I suddenly remembered the cave: the hiss of the snake, the smell of mangoes.

“Stop!” I shouted up at them. “Don’t!”

The sailmakers paused and looked down at me. The captain and first officer turned.

“What’s the matter, Cruse?” Mr. Rideau said irritably.

“You don’t need to!” I cried out.

“What?”

“There’s hydrium!”

“What’re you on about, boy, we’re busy!”

“Don’t cut the ship! There’s hydrium here on the island!”

“Sir, the boy’s fast becoming a nuisance,” said Rideau.

“Let him speak,” the captain said. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier, Mr. Cruse?”

“I thought it was just mangoes at first, sir, but when I looked there were no trees anywhere around. And it wasn’t mangoes—hydrium smells a bit sweeter. Getting a whiff of it just now made me realize.”

“Where was this?”

“We took shelter in a cave, sir, during the typhoon. I could smell it then, and later when the storm was shushing down I heard a hiss. I thought it was a snake, and we hightailed it out. But it wasn’t a snake at all. It was hydrium, venting from the cave!”

The captain said nothing. The two sailmakers were poised overhead against the ship’s hull, looking down and listening. Mr. Rideau glared at me.

“Be sure of this, boy, for it would be a terrible thing to raise all our hopes.”

“Truly, I’m almost positive,” I said, though I felt less sure now under Rideau’s steely gaze. “The cave went way back, and deep. It must’ve been coming from a vent.”

“This is remarkable news you bring, Mr. Cruse,” said the captain.

“I can take you there, sir.”

“I think that would be a good idea.”

“Even if it’s there, what use is it to us?” said Rideau to the captain. “It might be a crude variety, unrefined. And in any event we’ve no way of transporting it through the forest to the ship.”

“But we do!” I said. “We’ve got miles of rubber hosing! I helped shift it from the cargo hold yesterday. We could run a line from the cave to the ship. With one of the ship’s pumps to draw the gas along, we could easily refill the cells once they’re patched!”

“Should we proceed with our work, Captain?” the sailmakers called down.

“Absolutely not,” said the captain. “Hold off until we’ve visited this cave and seen if Mr. Cruse’s hunch is correct.” The captain laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. “I have a lucky feeling it is, knowing you, Mr. Cruse. Was there ever a more remarkable cabin boy?”

The chief sailmaker, Mr. Levy, had only to take a sniff at the cave’s mouth and a huge smile soared across his face. “Mr. Cruse,” he said, “this is more welcome to me than striking gold.”

I smiled too, as much in relief as anything else. A terrible thing it would have been if I’d been wrong, if I’d led them to a particularly smelly mango tree and a nest of vipers.

We crawled into the cave on our hands and knees, the sailmaker and I, our flashlights splashing light over the walls, looking for the source. The hiss was loud and insistent, and I was amazed I had not heard it sooner, in spite of the wind’s wailing. As we went deeper, I started to feel a little queasy with the smell. The hydrium was forcing out all the air. There wasn’t enough oxygen to breathe. The roof of the cave slanted down into a dead end.

“There she is,” said Mr. Levy, fixing his circle of
torchlight on the back wall. I could see a narrow gash in the stone. I was closer, and I scrambled toward it. I put my hand over the crack and felt the gush of escaping hydrium, rushing up from beneath the ocean floor.

“We can fit a collar to the stone,” Mr. Levy said, “and lock the rubber hosing to it.”

From his belt he took a small sack made of goldbeater’s skin, the same material the gas cells were made of. He held the opening of the sack against the crack in the stone. The sack filled quickly, and Mr. Levy gathered the bottom in his fist. We awkwardly backed out of the cave. Captain Walken waited with Mr. Rideau. I took deep breaths, glad to be out in the open.

“It’s the finest hydrium I’ve ever smelled, sir,” Mr. Levy announced. The sack of goldbeater’s skin ballooned from his hand, straining skyward. He let it go, and it shot up into the trees like a rocket. The sack flared open at the bottom, releasing its hydrium to the sky, and then fell back down into the sailmaker’s hand.

“This stuff’s purer than what comes from the refineries in Lionsgate City.”

“Well done, Mr. Cruse,” the captain said. “Well done once again.”

“Two miles back to the ship is my guess,” said Mr. Rideau, managing to look put out despite the good news. “We’ll need all that hosing.”

“We’re losing the day now,” said Captain Walken. “We’ll work through the night, patching, and by first light we should be ready to lay the pipeline.”

I was nodding and smiling.

They wouldn’t have to butcher the ship.

She would fly again.

The news spread through the ship faster than hydrium through air. I walked into the crew’s mess to grab a quick dinner before I went on duty, and suddenly everyone there was on their feet.

“Here’s to Mr. Cruse!” one of the mechanics said.

Dozens of glasses were lifted high into the air.

“To Mr. Cruse, the finest ship’s boy you could have!”

“Lighter than air, that’s our Mr. Cruse.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just smiled and looked down at the table and wished they would put down their glasses and go back to their meals.

Chef Vlad came in from his kitchen with a steaming plate of smoked Muscovy duck, scalloped potatoes, and asparagus. He put it before me.

“Your favorite, Mr. Cruse.”

“How did you know?”

He looked insulted. “You do not think I watch people as they eat my food? I am a chef! I could tell you the favorite foods of everyone in this room!”

“Thank you, Mr. Vlad,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

“You have saved us, I understand,” said the chef. “Really, I should be angry. I could have dwelt here. I could have cooked fish for these people. It would have been a marvelous thing!”

“We can always leave you behind Mr. Vlad!” one of the crew called out.

“And who would cook for you, imbecile!” Mr. Vlad looked at me and smiled. “You’re a good boy, Mr. Cruse. You understand food, not like some of the lunkheads in here!”

I set to my dinner, and I can’t remember a time when I’d enjoyed my meal more. It was like I’d never tasted these things before. The rich savory flavors filled my mouth, and a tremendous sense of well-being spread through me as my stomach filled. I’d been missing meals, with all my time in the forest. I paused and took a deep breath. My head was aswirl: the crippled cloud cat leaping through the trees, the storm hurtling branches
through the air, the ruined ship.

I’d been holding myself in so tightly the past few days, and now I could feel a little tremor going through me, and I suddenly felt like I was going to bawl if I wasn’t careful. I was unfit, really. This island had completely undone me.

But we had hydrium now, and with hydrium we could fly away.

Everything was going to be all right again.

I fell.

I was a slick wet bundle of bone and hair, and I was in the sky, falling. I knew I should fly, knew I was meant to. But my wings would scarcely open. I tried to flap, but I was so weak I could barely push against the tower of air thrusting past me. Why couldn’t I do this? Every bit of my body was born to do this, so why couldn’t I?

My wings would not move.

But the ground flew up toward me.

I woke myself from my mango-scented nightmare, and it was still dark. With dismay I saw that it was not far past two o’clock. I tried to lure sleep to me, but she slowly shook her raven tresses and would not come back. Despite all the good news,
my weather eye could still glimpse a big black cloud of panic on my brain’s horizon. If I stayed in bed, eyes closed, fretting, I would be engulfed.

Quietly, so as not to wake Baz, I swung myself off the bunk and dressed. Closing the door behind me, I slipped out onto the keel catwalk. One of the things I loved about night aboard the
Aurora
was how the ship never really slept. There were always crew about, sailmakers working their shifts along the axial catwalk and shafts, machinists manning the engine cars. On the bridge, the captain and officers were bathed in the deep orange glow of their controls. Beyond the windows it was dark, but we were always flying toward dawn. The bakery and kitchen staff would be up before long, preparing for the first meal of the day. Listen, and you could hear footfalls; take a breath, and you would soon smell the ambrosia of baking bread. It made me feel better, just being out among it all.

Even airborne, there were times sleep evaded me, though I never panicked then. I liked reading in my bunk, or just dreaming, content to be carried through the night. Or, sometimes, I did what I was about to do now.

I let myself into the passenger quarters, climbed the grand staircase to A-Deck, and slipped through the
dim, deserted lounges and reception rooms to the cinema. With my ring of keys, I let myself into the projectionists’ booth. I fitted the first reel of the movie onto the projector and warmed up the powerful tungsten lamp. I pressed a button, and the curtain in the cinema lifted. When the lamp was ready, I started the film, and hurried back into the cinema to take my seat in a red velvet-upholstered chair.

Baz and I would do this sometimes when we couldn’t sleep, discombobulated from too many night shifts or just too excited after leaving some exotic port. We’d start the movie and sit side by side smack in the middle of the deserted cinema and let the movie just wash over us. And sometimes I’d do it by myself. Once the movie starts, if it’s a good one, you sort of forget if you’re alone or not. The cinema smelled of perfume and cigar smoke and roasted almonds.

Gilgamesh.
I hadn’t seen this yet. Judging by the tall stack of reels in the booth, it would be a juicy long one. The Lumière triplets always made good movies. Light played on the screen and, as always, the story pulled me right in. There was a creature called Enkidu, half man, half animal, who falls from the sky. The cruel king Gilgamesh is jealous of his power over people and animals and wants to kill
him. I sat riveted, except when I had to change reels on the projector. I’d race back, pull off the old one, and slap on the new one and hurry back to my seat. Near the end of the movie, Enkidu travels to the city to confront Gilgamesh, and they start to fight high atop the city’s towers.

My heart was pounding, my hands clenched the armrests, and I was leaning forward toward the screen. The tower was impossibly high. There was a terrible storm blowing, and clouds scudded past—it was almost as if they were airborne. They were fighting closer and closer to the edge of the tower, lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and Gilgamesh slipped. And fell.

I shouted in surprise.

Gilgamesh fell so slowly, arms spread, right off the tower’s edge and toward the clouds, but somehow Enkidu grabbed hold of him. He seized him around the wrist and was so strong he could lift him back over the edge and onto the tower.

I didn’t really see the end of the movie. I was having a good cry in the dark.

My father fell.

But no one could save him. There was no one close enough. He was coming back from Kath-mandu on the
Aurora.
Over the East China Sea
there was a storm, and part of the ship’s skin ripped away near her tail flaps. He was a sailmaker, my father, just a junior one. After years working cargo ships for the Lunardi line, he’d been offered a position aboard the
Aurora.
It was Captain Walken who’d hired him.

A team of sailmakers went out onto the ship’s back in the storm. They needed to repair the hull. My father was among them. The wind was fierce, but my father did not falter. The ship’s back was slippery slick with rain, but he did not slip. He was doing some patching when a big panel of ship’s skin tore free and struck him in the head. He was knocked unconscious, and the weight of his fall ripped his safety line from the cleat. The others tried to reach him in time but couldn’t. They saw him fall off the ship’s back and soar down through the stormy sky. They saw him disappear into the low cloud churning above the sea.

They were never able to recover the body; the seas and skies were too rough. They told us that, from such a height, the impact on the water would have killed him instantly. But I liked to think of him sailing clear. I liked to think of him soaring around the world, crossing paths with me.

Morning came and I was on the pipeline crew, guiding them to the cave. It seemed strange to be trudging through the forest without Kate, but I had to admit I was relieved to be free of her. I had not seen her last night in the dining room; Baz later told me Miss Simpkins and Kate had taken their dinner in their stateroom. It seemed the chaperone had Kate under lock and key, and I couldn’t help thinking it was good sense. I knew she would want to go back and see the cloud cat again, and I was worried I would not have the strength to say no to her. A proper weakling I’d become down here.

It was slow, hot work, unrolling the heavy rubber hosing through the forest, like wrestling with some mythological boa constrictor. It was noon before we reached the cave and the sailmakers had attached the end of the hose as best they could to the collar on the hydrium vent.

“Back to the ship!” the chief sailmaker told me, “and tell them to turn on the pump!”

I raced back. The end of the pipeline fed directly into the forward gas shaft in the
Aurora
’s bow. A pump had been rigged to suck the hydrium along the pipeline and into the shaft. From there the captain could fill each and every gas cell simply by opening the valves that connected all the cells.

“Prime the pump!” I yelled to the mechanics. “She’s ready!”

I heard the pump start and then went back out onto the beach to watch.

It was silly, because I knew that it would be a slow process, not like watching a party balloon get blown up. The rubber hosing was thin, and I’d heard the sailmakers say it would take at least twenty-four hours to completely replenish the
Aurora.
All through the night, the sailmakers had been working, once again patching the
Aurora
’s skin. By this time she looked like a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster, stitched together so that both flanks and back were covered with raised scar tissue. That could be fixed. Back in harbor, all that could be taken care of.

I watched. I wanted to see something happen.

Mr. Nguyen, one of the machinists, came out to tell me the hydrium was feeding in just fine.

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“Just watching her, that’s all.”

“You’re crazy, Mr. Cruse. It’ll be hours before you see a difference.”

I went aboard, and no sooner had I set foot on A-Deck when Miss Simpkins came dashing around the corner as fast as her long skirt would allow, waving a bone in the air. I flattened myself against
the wall: she looked to be in a running-down frame of mind.

“How dare you poke about in my room!” Kate hollered, barreling around the corner after her chaperone.

“This is too much!” Miss Simpkins said, rounding on me. She waved the bone in my face. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Give it back!” shouted Kate. “You’ll damage it!”

Miss Simpkins, it seemed, had just discovered our bones.

As luck would have it, the captain was strolling out from the upper lounge, and Miss Simpkins went straight for him.

“Captain Walken!”

“Miss Simpkins, I trust your tropical headaches have eased, under the care of our fine doctor.”

“My head is simply throbbing!” Miss Simpkins declared. “And likely to get worse given recent events!”

“Perhaps we could talk somewhere more private,” the captain said gallantly. “Please, will you all join me in my cabin. You too, Mr. Cruse.”

“Yes, very well,” said Miss Simpkins, turning to Kate. “Come along!”

Kate glared at her chaperone and then turned to me.

“Hello, Mr. Cruse. How are you today?”

“I’m well, Miss de Vries. And yourself?”

“Quite angry.”

We followed the captain down the catwalk and into his cozy cabin, where he offered Miss de Vries and Miss Simpkins the two chairs. I stood.

“Captain,” the chaperone began, holding the bone out before her as if it were the most gruesome and gore-soaked thing imaginable, “to have my charge and your cabin boy cavorting about the forest is quite bad enough, but now I find that they’ve been grave digging!”