Airborn (6 page)

“Twenty.”

“They really are huge.” She sniffed. “Is that mangoes?”

“You’ve got a good nose, miss. That’s the hydrium itself. You can always smell it very faintly, but if it gets any stronger, you know there’s a leak somewhere. In the control car, there’s a special board that tells you the pressure of all the gas cells. But the sailmakers’ noses are even more sensitive. They patrol the corridors and shafts twenty-four hours a day to make sure every square foot of sail is shipshape. Look.”

I pointed up through the web of support beams and bracing wires.

“That’s the axial catwalk up there—do you see it? It runs directly overhead the keel catwalk, right through the ship’s center, from her nose all the way back to her tail. The gas cells hang past it on both sides, like walls. It’s a bit like walking along a tunnel up there.”

Seventy-five feet above us, through the metal mesh of the catwalk floor, you could see the small silhouettes of a couple sailmakers. I wondered if it
was Lunardi’s boy, up there learning his duties.

“And higher still?” Kate wanted to know.

“The gas cells go all the way up to the top, and there are vents to the outside, in case we need to lose some hydrium.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked, head tilted inquisitively.

“Well, either to lose some altitude or because we’re beyond pressure height.”

“What’s that?”

“Pressure height? Oh, the higher we get, the lower the outside air pressure, so beyond a certain height, the hydrium is at a higher pressure than the air.”

“Ah, so the hydrium would expand,” said Kate, understanding.

“Yes, which would rupture the gas cells, so we sometimes have to vent some.”

“And the outside of the ship, what’s it made of?”

“Fabric, stretched tight across the alumiron skeleton.”

“Fabric? That’s all?”

“Cotton actually. But it’s been specially treated so it’s waterproof and fireproof too.”

“That’s reassuring, I suppose. And where does that go?” she asked, pointing at a companion ladder.

“The axial catwalk,” I told her. “There’re three ladders that go up. And from there, you’ve got ladders to the crow’s nests, one fore, one aft.”

“Really?” she said, intrigued. “What a view that must be.”

“Especially on a clear night, with the stars and all.”

“You must know all their names by now.”

I laughed. “Maybe so.”

“Can we go up?”

“Afraid not, miss. It’s crew only up there.”

“Oh.” She seemed to sag a little. I wished I could have said yes.

“Are those the engines?” she asked, as the sound of propellers became louder.

I nodded. “You probably saw them when you boarded. There’s two on either side. I’ll show you.” I turned off the keel catwalk, down a lateral passageway that ended at a hatch in the ship’s hull. The hatch was open, revealing a rectangle of blue sky and sea. We came closer and looked out at the forward port engine car, a large metal pod suspended outside the ship by struts and wires. From the open back of the car whirled an enormous propeller. Like the other three that powered the
Aurora
, this car was about twenty-five feet long and ten high. A ladder
led down to it from the
Aurora
’s hatchway. It had railings but no protective cage around it.

“Very noisy!” Kate shouted at me.

“Imagine working inside,” I hollered. “The machinists have special leather helmets to block the sound.”

I’d been inside several times, and it was not a job I ever coveted. It was cold, deafening, boring work, doing watch by the props. I could have told Kate more about the engines themselves, how they ran on Aruba fuel, what horsepower they were and how many rpms they were capable of, but I thought that might bore her.

“It looks like it could just snap off,” Kate remarked as we walked away from the noise of the engine car back to the keel catwalk.

“The engine cars are welded on,” I said with a shrug, “as much a part of the
Aurora
as what we’re standing on.”

“I won’t think about that too much,” she said. “It doesn’t bother you at all, does it! You seem born to this.”

“You’re right there,” I said. “I was born on an airship.”

I’d never been so familiar with a passenger before; I suppose it was because she was so young.

“You weren’t,” she said, delighted. “You’re pulling my leg!”

“I’m not,” I said proudly. “My parents came over from Europe during the Great Immigration. Not on a ship like this, mind you. A freighter it was, all of us crammed in one atop another. My mother was pregnant, but I wasn’t due for another month, so they thought it safe. But I came early, halfway over the Atlanticus.”

“Your poor mother,” Kate said. “Was she all right?”

“She was, lucky for her. And I was too. One of the other passengers was a midwife and another a medical student, and together they managed things. Tiny I was, light as a feather.”

“And you’ve been aloft ever since?” she said, those dark eyes on me, as if I was telling the most fabulous story from a fairy-tale book.

“Well, only the last three years, really. But I grew up hearing all about it from my father. When we got to North America, it was hard for him to find work. We went all the way across the country till we landed in Lionsgate City, and he got a job there with the Lunardi line, started out on one of their cargo ships.”

“Oh,” she said. “But he must’ve been away a great deal.”

“He was. But he wrote us, and on shore leave he would be home with us. And he’d tell stories.”

“Like what?” she asked.

I took a breath. “He went everywhere. Saw all the wonders of the world it seemed. All I could think about when he came home was how much I wished I could go away with him.”

“He must’ve been a good storyteller.”

“A grand one.”

“My parents weren’t much for stories,” Kate said. “I got all mine from books. And my grandfather. He told me stories when I was little, made-up ones when I was young and then real ones when I got older. He was a traveler too.”

“Your parents aren’t?”

“No. They gave me this trip as a birthday present. But they were both busy, so they sent Miss Simpkins along with me. Aren’t I lucky?” she said brightly.

“She seems very dedicated.”

“Yes, she’ll make a dictator a fine wife one day.”

I laughed.

“Mercifully, she does sleep a lot. The whole thing’s ridiculous anyway. Not that I needed a chaperone! What could happen to me on an airship? And I’m
only in Sydney two weeks before I come back home.”

She didn’t sound altogether happy about these arrangements. We were making our way slowly back toward the ship’s bow and the passenger quarters. Neither of us seemed in any hurry for the tour to end.

“Tell me,” Kate asked, “at what altitude does the
Aurora
sail?”

“Varies, miss. Right now we’re cruising at six hundred fifty feet.”

“And will we keep to that for the entire crossing?”

“If the winds hold. We might climb higher if the currents are more favorable elsewhere.”

“How high?”

“As much as four thousand feet. But the captain likes to fly so the passengers have a view.”

How attentive her eyes were, taking this all in. It was rare I had such a keen listener, and I found it almost disconcerting.

“And our speed?”

“Seventy-five miles an hour when I last checked.”

She nodded absently, as if pulling open drawers in her mind, searching for something.

“Does the ship always follow the same route to Sydney? More or less?”

I nodded. “We’d shift only for the winds or storm fronts.”

I wondered if all these questions were brought on by fear of flying. I couldn’t quite believe that someone like her, with all her money, had never been on an airship before. Some people never do get used to their feet leaving earth.

“You needn’t worry, miss,” I said. “The
Aurora
’s as fine a ship as sails the skies. We’ve circled the globe a thousand times without mishap.”

“Oh,” she said, “no, I’m not worried. Just curious. But the ship’s course is essentially the same?”

“Well, it varies quite a lot, actually.” I liked to pore over the navigators’ maps during a crossing. Sometimes our course might resemble a series of zigzags as we rode the winds of high and low pressure systems and skirted storm fronts.

She nodded thoughtfully.

“Is there something particular you’re anxious to see, miss?” I said. I thought maybe she wanted to catch a glimpse of some volcanic island or maybe pods of whales.

She looked at the floor as she spoke. “Were you aboard the
Aurora
last year, about this time, when she rescued a damaged balloon?”

I stared at her, feeling unsettled, as if it were about to thunder.

“I spotted it on my watch.”

She touched my hand with hers. It was so cold a shiver went through me.

“You were the first to see it? From the crow’s nest?”

So I told her, and I must admit, I enjoyed telling her, feeling the thrill of it all over again as I explained how we came alongside and tried to winch the gondola in with the davit. How I had to swing across and hook it to the frame and cut the flight lines.

“You were the one who jumped aboard?”

I nodded.

“The cabin boy?”

I bristled a bit. “The captain asked me, so I did it. He knew I could do it.”

“You’re very brave, Mr. Matt Cruse.”

I felt my face warm. “Not brave, miss. It was no hardship for me. I have no fear of heights.”

“In the report, they just said it was ‘a crew member.’ They didn’t give your name.”

“You read about me in the newspaper?”

“No,” she said, “in the Sky Guard report.”

She paused long enough for me to wonder why
on earth she would be getting special reports from the Sky Guard.

“The man in the balloon,” she said, “was my grandfather.”

“Oh.” I now understood that feeling of thunder in my bones, like a weather change coming. Somehow I’d had a premonition of this, from the way her face was when she started asking about it. And I felt a bit of a dolt now, enjoying telling the story like it was a moving picture, wanting to impress her with my aerial stunts.

“I’m very sorry, miss.”

“Thank you,” she said, “for helping him.”

“I wished we’d found him sooner.”

“They said it was a heart attack.”

“That’s what Doc Halliday thought. When I first saw him he was unconscious, fallen on the floor of the gondola.” I hesitated, not knowing how much she wanted to hear, but she nodded. “Anyway, we got him inside and took him to the infirmary, and the doctor tended to him. He woke up for a bit.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“Yes, but he seemed confused.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, I guess he thought he’d seen something.” I heard the old man’s voice in my head, as I always
did when I went back to it. Which was often. On my watch, gazing at the sky, I’d remember his words, the intensity in his eyes. “He asked me if I’d seen them too.”

She didn’t seem surprised by any of this, as if she was expecting it.

“And what did you tell him?”

“I lied and said yes. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. Some kind of winged creature, I gather. He said they were beautiful. Then he said”—I shivered a little bit, finally understanding now—“He said, ‘Kate would’ve loved them.’”

She nodded. Water spilled from her eyes.

“You’re his Kate,” I said foolishly.

“What else?” she said, wiping her face.

“It seemed to calm him down a bit, me saying I’d seen them too. But then he just sort of looked at me hard, like he knew I was lying. And he told me so. And that started him coughing again. I guess it wasn’t long after that he died. After that the captain took care of things, contacted all the proper authorities and so forth.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

She looked drained, and I felt wrung out too, as if I’d swung across the air to board the sinking balloon all over again. We had reached the end of
the keel catwalk, and I opened the door to the passenger quarters and led her inside to B-Deck.

At the base of the grand staircase, I asked her, “Do you know what it was your grandfather was talking about?”

She nodded. “That’s why I’m here. To see what he saw.”

Kate could tell me nothing more, for Miss Simpkins was teetering down the grand staircase in her high heels, looking like she’d just been electrocuted.

“Kate, you gave me the worst fright!”

Kate rolled her eyes at me before turning to face her chaperone.

“I’m sorry, Marjorie, but you were sound asleep, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you. I thought I’d just go on the tour by myself.”

Miss Simpkins looked at Kate then at me.

“This is the tour? Just you and…him.”

She said
him
like I was something oozing from the bottom of a trash can.

“That’s right, Marjorie. He
is
the tour guide, after all.”

“Well, I can only say it’s most inappropriate. Most inappropriate indeed. Your parents will not be pleased to hear of it.”

“You’re quite right,” Kate said. “They’ll be most distressed that their trusted chaperone fell asleep and left their little baby girl helpless.” She tilted up her chin ever so slightly as she said this, and her nostrils narrowed disdainfully. I’d never seen anything quite like it. Plenty of times I’d seen people flare their nostrils when they were angry; Mr. Lisbon did it all the time when he and Chef Vlad were arguing. But Miss de Vries somehow made her nostrils smaller, so they were almost little slits. It was really something, the effect it had on Miss Simpkins. The chaperone hemmed a bit and patted her hair, taking little sips of air. I hoped I never got a look like that from Miss de Vries.

I was busting with questions about Kate’s grandfather, but there seemed no chance of continuing the conversation with the chaperone hovering around. So I thought it best to take my leave.

“Thank you so much,” Kate told me. “I do hope we get a chance to talk some more.”

I smiled at her and set off toward the crew quarters. As I neared my cabin, I felt an unaccustomed tiredness descend on me like a cold drizzle. Probably just the bad news I’d received earlier. Normally I would’ve gone to the control car and asked if I might watch and take notes. But right now I didn’t
have the heart. Baz was sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk, kicking off his shoes and socks, whistling. He was just getting off duty too.

“You look shattered, mate,” he said.

“I’ll tell you all about it later.” I climbed up to the top bunk and fell asleep the moment my cheek touched the pillow.

My alarm clock clattered me out of sleep. 7:00 P.M. Baz was already up, ironing his shirt. We both had lounge duty from eight till midnight, serving tea and coffee and cognac and whatever else the first-class passengers might desire.

For a moment I just lay there. I loved my cabin, small though it was. On my bunk was the eiderdown quilt my mother had made for me. Stuck with putty to the wall near my pillow were some pictures from home: one of my father in his sailmaker’s uniform, another of my mother and Isabel and Sylvia on the balcony of their little apartment in Lionsgate City. I always thought of it as their apartment, not mine, because I was aloft so much now. Three years ago, after my father died, we’d needed money badly, times being what they were, and I was lucky the
Aurora
had offered me a job as cabin boy. It was Captain Walken I had to thank for that.

My mother had not wanted me to take the position, not after what happened to my father. I’d never seen her so upset. I’d tried to hide how much I wanted the job, but she knew anyway. All my life I’d wanted to fly. What she didn’t know was that I wanted to fly away from her too. I wanted to fly to my father, and I couldn’t do that landlocked in the small apartment with its low ceilings and gray views of rainy city streets. My father had spent so little time there. It was not the place I could be near him.

Built into the headboard of the bunk was a little shelf where I had my library. Crew weren’t allowed many books aboard, as they were just extra ballast, so I only had a few. I’d chosen the ones my father had kept with him aboard the
Aurora.
How I loved having them here, their leatherbound spines and tooled titles like friends waiting for my return. Sometimes I just liked taking them down and holding them between my hands, even if I was too tired to read. I was lucky to have them. Eight I had, and each read many times.

With my cheek on the pillow, I could see straight out my porthole. Sky and cloud—and, if I pressed my nose to the glass, I saw the aft engine car, its propeller awhirl, and below the water of the Pacificus. I squinted at the clear sky.

There was something flying out there.

No, it was just a trick, a little crease of shadow on the cloud’s underside. But for a moment it had looked like something large and winged. I wondered if this is what Kate’s grandfather had seen. Cloud mirages. I wanted to know more and wondered how I’d get a chance to talk to Kate again, without her appalling chaperone.

“You want me to do yours?” Baz asked when I swung myself out of bed. I thanked him and handed over my white serving shirt for him to iron. I was lucky to have Baz Hilcock as my cabin mate. He was kind, funny, and always in a good mood. He shimmied as he ironed, humming some catchy show tune. He was eighteen and from Australia. When we reached Sydney he was off on shore leave for a month.

“Three more days, I’ll be with Teresa,” he said, giving me a wink. Teresa was his sweetheart. Her picture was taped to the wall beside his bunk. She was in a daring one-piece bathing suit, laughing, her skin all tanned, and she looked so womanly that it made me uncomfortable to gaze at it too long—though I wanted to—as though I was peeping at something I shouldn’t. Baz liked talking about her, and I mostly liked listening, glad he confided in me,
reading out bits of her letters.

Baz looked up from his ironing and grinned at me.

“Know what, mate? I’m going to propose to her.”

“You are?” I said, amazed. Getting married seemed big, and more grown-up than I wanted to contemplate. I felt a fierce twinge of sadness, like Baz had just said good-bye to me for good, and was bound someplace I could never follow.

“Sure,” he nodded, buttoning up and checking his hair in the tiny mirror that hung from the back of our door. “We’ve been talking about it, and I figure it’s high time. I’ve got a good job, and in all likelihood I’ll make second steward in a year or two when Cleaves finally jumps overboard. Sooner probably—he looks so frazzled.”

I laughed as I pulled on my blue trousers. I looked at my shoes and decided they could go another night without a polish. I slipped on my vest.

“So, what’s up with you?” Baz asked. “You looked glum when you came in.”

“I’m not junior sailmaker,” I said and told him about my talk with the captain.

“I think I’ve seen the fellow,” Baz said. “Ten to one he’ll fall off the ship before we make land. I’m sorry, Matt. Doesn’t get more rotten than that.”

“The captain says he went to the Academy.”

“Oooh, yes, the great Academy,” sang Baz in a high fluting voice. “The Academy where one learns how to say please and thank you while in flight.”

I chuckled, but the fact was I longed to go to the Academy. A place where I could learn how to be a rudder man or an elevator man, and be certified. But it was expensive. Most of my wages I sent back home to my mother. She and Isabel and Sylvia needed it more than me. I didn’t need money up here—all my meals and clothing were taken care of by the
Aurora.

Baz winked at me. “Don’t fret, Matt. You’re a sailor through and through. There’s no keeping you back. I bet my molars and a leg you’ll be flying the
Aurora
within ten years. And remember, you’re still young! The baby of the ship! Why, I remember when we first brought you aboard, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Ahhh, those were sweet days, when I got to bottle feed you—”

“Oh, shut up!” I said, laughing.

“We’re all so proud of how you’ve grown up, young Matt,” he said, dancing out of the way as I tried to bullwhip him with my tie. But his good humor and confidence cheered me up.

“Come on,” he said, handing me my white shirt,
warm and freshly ironed. “Get your tie on and let’s grab some dinner!”

The crew’s mess was on B-Deck, beside the smaller downstairs kitchen and bakery. It was a cozy room with six large booths that sat about a third of the crew at any one time. The officers had their own mess farther along; they got roomier tables and china place settings and napkins—but exactly the same food. Meals were heaven aboard the
Aurora.
Crew and officers ate as well as the first-class passengers—no point in having the cooks prepare more dishes than necessary.

Baz and I sat down after checking out the menu posted on the wall. Tonight it was venison cutlets and Yukon mashed potatoes—so creamy not even the tip of your tongue could feel a lump—and asparagus spears, glazed with lemon butter. There were pitchers of fresh milk and water and ale for those going off duty, jugs of gravy for the mashed potatoes, dishes of butter balls glistening with dew, and baskets of granary bread baked fresh that afternoon.

I went to the kitchen window to collect my dinner and Baz’s. I always liked watching the bustle in there. And I was riveted by the chef, Vlad Herzog, who happened to be cooking downstairs tonight.

“Watch out for that one,” Baz had told me on
my very first day, three years ago. “Chef Vlad, he’s volatile.”

The word had stuck with me. It made me think of nitroglycerin. In my years aboard the
Aurora
, I’d spent plenty of time around the kitchens, and believe me, Vlad was scary. He had some kind of Transylvanian accent, and Mr. Lisbon, the chief steward, had a completely different accent, just as thick. The two claimed they never understood each other. This was a problem, seeing as they needed to communicate pretty much on an hourly basis. It led to some interesting misunderstandings during meal times.

It wasn’t that Vlad was crazy, not in any obvious way. He didn’t shout or clatter pots and pans or yank his hair out by the roots. Not at first anyway. He always started out very calm, and when he was really angry, he got even calmer and quieter and spoke so slowly you thought he was falling asleep between words. A few weeks ago, just as an example, there had been some confusion over the dinner menu.

“You want that I what?” he had whispered politely to Mr. Lisbon. “You want that I cook duck? Duck? Duck?” He muttered the word softly, as though he didn’t know what it meant. Mr. Lisbon began to explain.

“No, I know what duck is, many thanks to you,” said Vlad, giving a terrifying smile. “I make good acquaintance with duck. Little water bird, splash splash, yes? No, that is not my problem. Problem, Mr. Lisbon, is this. Problem is
duck is not on menu tonight
!”

All the kitchen help casually took a few steps back, but pretended that nothing was the matter.

Mr. Lisbon had insisted that duck was, in fact, on the menu.

“Oh,” said Vlad, tossing his hands up in the air. “Well, just let me
double-check
!” He made a big show of looking at a sheaf of papers on the counter. “No. Duck is not on menu
tonight
. That is
tomorrow
. You what? You have
changed
the menu. Without telling me, I think? I see. I understand now that you change menu without telling me. Yes, I see. Thank you very greatly for this. Good.”

Then Vlad had reached over to his block of big cutting knives and started laying them ominously out on the counter, arranged by size.

“Duck,” he muttered to himself. “Duck. But today is Tuesday. And duck was for Wednesday.”

Everyone knew to leave him alone when he got all his knives out like that. He would spend several minutes checking them over, testing their sharpness,
and this seemed to soothe him. Then he had taken the duck from the icebox and started cooking.

And it had been wonderful.

Chef Vlad might be loony, but it would be a sad day if he ever left the ship. Or was dragged off kicking and screaming in a straitjacket, as Baz said was more likely. Tonight he seemed fairly calm, and he even smiled at me when he placed the two plates on the counter. Just the smell alone was enough to feed you.

I often thought of my father during meal times. He had once eaten at this very table, with many of these same people I now rubbed shoulders with. They’d known my father. They’d known he’d served dutifully and well aboard the
Aurora.
Some had been his friends. I liked being near them all. I didn’t need to talk about my father with them; I just liked knowing he’d been here.

I was finishing off my second helping of mashed potatoes when the mess door opened and a crew member I’d never seen before entered. I knew right away it must be the Lunardi fellow. The potatoes nearly stuck in my throat, and I had to swallow them down with a gulp of milk. Lunardi looked around a bit uncertainly and then sat down at the end of my table.

“Hello,” he said. He was seventeen or eighteen and, I noticed dejectedly, as handsome as a matinee idol. There was no denying it. In fact, he looked like the hero in the last swashbuckler I’d seen. I felt my mouth go dry with indignation. Well, I supposed money could buy anything, even good looks. He sat down, and the first thing he did was knock over a pitcher of milk. Unfortunately it was nearly empty and only wetted his lap a bit. He mopped it up with his napkin, ears burning red.

“Not too swift, was it?” he said, attempting a laugh, looking right at me.

I kept staring at the junior sailmaker insignias on both corners of his jacket collar. A small gold steering wheel stamped into the fabric. I couldn’t meet his eyes. Surely he must know who I was, what he’d done to me. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe no one had told him and the blinking oaf didn’t know.

“I’m Bruce Lunardi,” he said to everyone. “I’m the trainee sailmaker.”

Everyone nodded and said polite hellos, nothing more. Some of them looked at me, checking my reaction. Well, if they were expecting a show, I wasn’t giving it to them. Next to me, Baz gave me a friendly wink and nudge. I said nothing and slowly drank another glass of milk.

“So, you’re Otto Lunardi’s boy, then?” one of the machinists asked.