Airborn (21 page)

We burst from the trees and were in a field of tall grass. Before I could even check to see if the cloud cat was following, the sun was blotted out and I heard a droning sound behind us. I spun and saw the belly of an airship passing overhead, so low I could feel the powerful wash from its propellers and smell its engine fumes. The ship cast a great shadow over the field. In the trees at the forest’s edge, I caught a glimpse of the cloud cat cringing against a branch, watching the ship, watching us.

I whirled back to the airship. It took my mind a few seconds to catch up, for at first I thought it was the
Aurora.
But how could it be? This ship was much smaller, only a third its size. It came in for a landing in the field, nose to the wind. It must be a rescue: someone had been searching for us and now they’d found us! She slowed herself swiftly, and crew were hopping out from the hatches and taking the
lines and holding her down. In the center of the field was a tall mooring mast, and there atop its peak were two men catching hold of the nose lines as the ship nudged up against the locking cone. Then I knew.

I pulled hard on Kate’s hand, trying to turn her back to the trees. I recognized the ship’s night-colored skin, the complete absence of any markings on her rudder or belly, and I knew what she was and who she carried.

“What’re you doing?” Kate demanded, trying to pull free. “We’ve been rescued. Hello! Hello!” she shouted out, waving.

“Shut up!” I hissed. “It’s the pirates!”

But it was too late. One of the landing crew had turned in our direction. We’d been sighted. Now it was Kate’s turn to tug at me, but I stood stock-still, grasping her hand tight.

“Matt? Come on! Run!”

“Keep waving,” I told her, and I lifted my hand and waved at the pirates. “Hello there!” I hollered. “Hello!”

“What are you doing?” Kate sobbed.

I kept waving. “If we run, it tells them we know they’re pirates. It means we might have friends to warn. They’ll chase us; they will search and find the
ship and all will be lost. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“There’s nowhere to run anyway,” I said. “The cat is still in the trees.”

I saw her take a glance; I’m not sure if the cloud cat was still there at the forest’s edge. It didn’t matter.

We jogged toward the pirate ship, still waving.

“Here’s the story,” I told Kate, inventing as we ran. “We were bound for the Hawaiis in a small airship out of Van Diemen’s Land. We got caught in that terrible typhoon and were sunk. I’m the cabin boy. You’re a passenger. We are the only two who survived. All others were lost, including your mother. We washed up here on the island. Smile. We think we’ve just been rescued by nice friendly people.”

“But won’t they recognize us from the
Aurora?
”

“No.” I was gambling they wouldn’t have had the time or interest to notice what we looked like; they’d been intent on other things.

If we could lie, if we could make them believe we were castaways, perhaps we would have a chance. After our run through the forest, we looked bedraggled enough, our faces sweaty and streaked, our clothes rumpled and torn in places. It was good luck that I was not in my ship’s uniform to give us away,
and that Kate had decided on a streamlined outfit rather than a sundress. A proper dress would have sunk her to the ocean floor in heavy seas and made our story a farce. In harem pants, though, it was possible she could have swum. Thank heavens we were not carrying the camera equipment and spyglass. Now I only prayed that Bruce would not come running out after us and give us all away.

My belt.

“Run ahead of me for a second,” I urged Kate. “Block their view.”

I pretended to stumble in the tall grass, and as I hit the ground, I ripped my belt out through the loops and left it. On its buckle was the Lunardi Line insignia.

I scrambled back up and continued running. We reached the landing field proper, where the grass had been scythed low. The pirates, I saw, had laid down a rail track in a great circle around the mooring mast, so that the airship, fixed at her nose, could pivot with the wind, her stern rolling along on its set of landing wheels. It had taken a great deal of work, and it had been done well. The field’s placement was ideal for keeping the ship hidden, ringed around by hills and forest on either side. It would make a difficult approach and landing, but the ship was small
and maneuverable as a tiger shark. I remembered her agility as she’d stalked us through the night skies.

“Thank goodness!” I called out when we were near the crew. “We worried we’d never be found! Are you from the Sky Guard?”

Their eyes were on us, and I prayed again we would not be recognized.

“Who the feck are they?” I heard one of the pirates mutter to his comrade.

It was quite something to be running toward a group of pirates, trying to look as overjoyed as a child unwrapping Christmas presents. They were a motley bunch. Many of them wore little more than cut-off trousers and undershirts, their muscled bodies greasy with sweat. Their faces were whiskery.

“Where’d you two come from, then?” one of them asked, striding forward.

This was the one Szpirglas had called Mr. Crumlin, and I assumed he was first mate, if air pirates went by such titles. He was a great grizzly of a fellow, his bare shoulders and arms sprouting more hair than seemed decent or practical in such heat.

We stopped before him. I was puffed as I began my story, and glad of it, for it made it harder to feel nervous about the lies I was spewing. As I talked, another conversation started its chatter in my head.
What good could come of this? These were the wretches who had murdered our officer, who’d been happy to leave us to a watery grave after their ship slit us stem to stern. What chance had we of getting away alive from them? Maybe we should have taken our chances in the forest with the cloud cat; we should have run until our lungs burst. But I kept all these worries imprisoned in my skull and finished my tale of storms and shipwrecks and castaways.

“We’d better let the captain hear this,” said Crumlin.

But he had no need to summon him, for down the gangway came Vikram Szpirglas himself, looking dashing, I had to admit, striding toward us as though he had a mastery of all four elements. He was a handsome man; he should have been someone admirable and good, but all I could see in him now was the murderer who’d held a pistol to Mr. Featherstone’s head and pulled the trigger.

“They say they were wrecked in the typhoon,” Crumlin told his captain.

“Good heavens!” said Szpirglas, all concern.

And so I repeated my story for him. “You’re from the Sky Guard, aren’t you?” I asked, trying to appear dim-witted.

Szpirglas smiled benevolently. It made my skin
crawl. “Of course we are, dear boy. I’m Captain Anglesea. It was a bit of good luck that you happened to be swept to this island where we have a large station. It’s quite an establishment, really. You two are very fortunate indeed.”

Almost every second I thought, He is playing. He knows.

“Mr. Crumlin,” he said to his mate, “take them to the village and make them comfortable. I’ll be along shortly after I oversee the docking.”

Village? I thought.

“Are you hungry?” Szpirglas asked us. “You poor creatures must be ravenous.”

“We found some banana trees,” Kate said quietly.

“Very good. Clever children. But you’ll still be wanting a proper meal after so long. I’m ready for a good meal myself. We’ll have a feast together, and I want to hear about your mishap.”

Szpirglas strode off to oversee the berthing of his ship. His crew were already smartly getting on with the business of unloading and loading and refueling, inspecting her skin for wear and tear. It might have been a scene from any harbor around the world, but it did not comfort me now. From the cargo bay doors and gangplanks came metal barrels of Aruba
fuel, crates of food, a squealing pig, and other unmarked crates that surely must contain the pirates’ despicable loot.

Crumlin smiled at us, but it came out like more of a grimace. He did not share Szpirglas’s talent for malignant fakery.

“This way, then,” he said.

As Kate and I followed him, a plan came to me. The
Aurora
wasn’t ready to fly yet. But by tomorrow morning she should be fully refueled and airworthy. We would have to bide our time today with the pirates, making sure they believed we were the two sole survivors of some shipwreck. They would not be suspicious of two grateful and gullible children. And tomorrow, in the early hours of the morning, while they all slept, we would make our break, cross the island, and warn the
Aurora.
By the time the pirates noticed us missing, they would have little time to launch a search of the entire island, and by then we’d be airborne.

Crumlin led us to the edge of the landing field and onto a well-maintained path into the forest. Of all the islands in the Pacificus, we’d had the misfortune to crash on the one Vikram Szpirglas had made his secret base. But this was no makeshift hideaway. At my first glimpse through the trees, I saw that
village
was indeed the right word for it. There was a large bamboo lodge, with a generous, wide verandah on all sides, lots of proper windows, and a high-pitched roof of palm fronds. Arranged all around it were well more than a dozen smaller bamboo huts and houses. There were fenced pens with chickens and pigs snuffling about, and more people milling around than could have come from the airship just now. With a start I realized there were women here too. They were dressed in saris and sarongs and all manner of loose-fitting clothing, their arms and necks and ears bejeweled, and they ran to embrace their pirate mates and were hugged and kissed and swirled around through the air. And children! Some of the women carried babies in their arms, and toddlers ran about underfoot.

This place was a proper home. It must have taken years for the pirates to establish it. They had cleared as few trees as possible, and I realized that even if you were to fly low overhead, you would not see their habitation. Beyond their buildings the forest thinned, and I saw that we were high on a promontory overlooking the island’s windward shore.

It looked as if the village had taken a bit of a beating in the typhoon, even sheltered as it was behind
the trees. Men were up on the roofs, repairing the thatch. One shed was tilting over crazily, and there were palm fronds strewn all around the village. Despite all that, the place had an undeniably trim and tidy look to it. Clearly there was a ground crew who stayed on the island when the others were out pillaging. A little kingdom Szpirglas had created for himself here. The thought made me go all queasy, for I knew how the pirates would guard the secrecy of this place. What were the chances of them letting us escape, even if they did think us harmless children?

My plan seemed a paltry thing now. We ought to have run when we had the chance. I thought of Bruce limping wounded through the jungle. I thought of the ship filling, but not yet ready to launch. I felt as close to despair as I ever had in my life. But when I looked at Kate, I pulled myself together. It had been my plan, and she was playing along with it, and I must do my best.

Crumlin led us to the main lodge and up the steps to the verandah, which was veiled all round, most civilized, with mosquito cloth. We sat at a large table, and Crumlin told us we could wait here for the captain to return. There followed a great deal of grunting and satisfied moaning as he unlaced his great black boots and set them thunking on the
bamboo deck. He had the biggest, hairiest toes I’d ever beheld, and it made me quite ill just looking at them. His big toe alone could squash a coconut. I wondered that any airship would support a man with his bulk.

The late-afternoon breeze off the water blew among the trees and cooled us. I longed to talk properly with Kate, but we had no chance with that great hulk Crumlin there, massaging his feet. I was glad we were upwind. Looking through the doorway into the lodge itself, I saw a large hall that was obviously meant for a dining room, arranged with tables and chairs. Then I caught sight of something on the wall and stared in amazement.

“What’re you looking at, then?” said Crumlin suspiciously, turning to follow my gaze. He chuckled. “Oh, that. Never seen one of them before, I’d wager.”

Kate had seen it now too, and I shot her a look so she wouldn’t say anything.

It was the head of a cloud cat, mounted on the wall like a trophy. Its wings had been nailed up on either side.

“What is it?” I made myself ask.

“Freaks of nature is what they are. You only see them in these parts. They fly over the island a couple
times a year. Shot that one meself, right out of the sky. They’re fast. Damn hard to hit, I can tell you. We all have a go at them whenever we can. Good sport. Four or five we’ve brought down over the years.”

I pictured Crumlin, a rifle to his face, and suddenly understood why the cloud cats had been afraid of Benjamin Molloy’s spyglass. When he’d raised it to his eye, they must have mistaken it for a gun.

“I don’t think it’s very sporting at all,” said Kate. “They’ve done nothing to harm you.”

Crumlin gave a low growl of laughter. “Not so, young miss. There’s one that lives here on the island. He used to come slinking around our village sometimes. He’d throttle our chickens, and gut our pigs alive. Had a go at me once too. Look here.” Crumlin rolled up a trouser leg to reveal a long red crescent of scar tissue on his hairy calf. “He’s curious as a cat, with as many lives too. Don’t know how many shots we’ve taken at him. The winged devil’s learned his lesson, though; he stays away from the village now.”

“Well, it’s lucky we didn’t come upon him,” I said, looking at Kate. I was worried she might say more, but she just grunted, looking faintly ill. I wondered if the cloud cat was naturally vicious, or
whether it was the pirates who had taught it to attack people. I couldn’t help thinking of Bruce and his own injured leg. I hoped he was all right, and that he was well on his way back to the
Aurora.

More and more men and women were filing into the lodge, and there were a good many celebratory whoops and clinking of mugs. It seemed a merry time was going to be had tonight, which suited me just fine. It would be all the easier to sneak away from pirates sunk in a drunken sleep.