by Jay Lake
“Need a bit of help there, lad?” The female sailor peered down at him. Elroy spun slowly on the chain, grateful of the support wrapped around his forearm, even as the pressure of his weight threatened to crush his wrist within the chain's tightening grip. The two sailors peered from the open hatch above him.
“If you please,” gasped Elroy. He wondered what the warm, acrid smell was, then realized he had pissed his pants.
“We'd need to see a boarding chit.” The two of them grinned like monkeys sharing an armload of rotten papayas.
“A thousand pardons.” Elroy shuddered. “I am somewhat constrained at the moment.” He slipped two links down the chain, the length circling his wrist binding tighter. He could feel bones grind against one another. Elroy hissed with pain.
The woman pulled a serious face, rubbing her chin. “A right problem there, lad. Rules say we have to see the chit afore you can pass the hatch."
“Ancient law, that is,” the second sailor added. “Protects everyone's rights, that does."
They both laughed.
Wiggles squirmed beneath his arm. “Money. Offer them money."
Elroy's hand slipped, and he felt an astonishing pain as his elbow threatened to come loose in its socket, counterpoint to the grinding in his wrist.
He clenched his teeth. “Perhaps a gratuity would be in order."
“Now you're speaking the language of the sky, lad.” The two sailors hauled in their chain.
* * * *
“Despite the irregularities of your embarkation, your boarding chits seem to be in order."
Elroy's wrist throbbed so severely that he had trouble focusing on the purser's words. They stood in the officer's abbreviated workspace in a forward cabin of the airship.
The purser was an aging golden retriever wearing a blue jacket with epaulettes. Its fur was braided in tight cornrows, each one clasped by a clip decorated with an ancient copper coin. It stared at Elroy and Wiggles as if they were unpleasantly spoiled cargo loaded by some error. “It seems I am stuck with you for now. What transpired back there at New Dallas?"
Wiggles glanced sidelong at Elroy, who took that as a hint.
“Sir purser,” Elroy began. He was not sure what he should say, but he had brought them aboard the ship. He felt the way he had when summoned before the abbot for some infraction. “I am in service to this noble pug. We were chased by brigands. We thought to escape by boarding the Child of Crisis, but they were closer than we realized. My most humble apologies for bringing risk upon your vessel."
“Brigands,” said the purser flatly. It stared at Elroy, its large brown eyes sweeping up and down his grimy beaded vest and torn muslin trousers. It then turned its gaze on Wiggles, whose green flowered waistcoat was, as always, immaculate.
“I may be a foolish old Animal who has spent his life among the free folk of the air, but I know brigands when I don't see them. Those were security wolves, firing indiscriminately down there with heavy weapons.” It glanced at their boarding chits. “You two are fully paid and bound for Odessa Port. I've a mind to have you both tossed from the hatch to save me further trouble, but it's a fact that the Air Charter protects Child of Crisis and all her passengers and crew from precisely this harassment. Now tell me what you're really about."
Wiggles scratched his ear, then licked his nose. His tail stayed tight to his body as he spoke. “My servant and I are pursuing a quest."
“And that quest would be?"
Wiggles spoke with a quiet, proud strength. “Through error, I have been cast out of the Gardens of Sweet Night. I now make my way home."
The purser studied them a moment. “In their common room up against the belly of the gasbag, air sailors tell stories of those who die in the wide arms of the sky. Every man and Animal longs for a peaceful death in the air, followed by a sky burial. What we—they—say is that the bodies rise up singing into the heavens, until they come to the Gardens of Sweet Night. That is where they find their reward.” It laughed, a stuttering bark deeper and richer than Wiggles’ wheezing moments of humor. “Somehow you do not seem like one who has returned from the dark clouds of death."
“It is but truth, friend Purser. My story is as real as the Gardens themselves, for all that they may be myth to some."
“I do know more than the simple sailors."
“If you know the world,” said Elroy unexpectedly, “you know injustice.” He surprised himself with his words. “We have been pursued with a vengeance out of all proportion to any offense. You have your Air Charter. We have only our wits and our luck. I beseech your help in surpassing this wicked pursuit and gain entrance to the Gardens?"
“You speak well for a servant,” said the purser, “As it happens, I have conceived of a way to lend a hand, spite the security wolves, and keep the Child from multiplying her current difficulties, all in one stroke. If I can persuade the captain to spite those who trespass on our ancient rights we may throw you from the hatch after all. Would you care to experience a sky burial of your very own?"
* * * *
Rise Up Singing
The crew common room was low and dark, with a convex ceiling following the swell of the gasbag. Elroy, at two meters of height, could stand only along the slant walled sides where the ceiling reached up to about the top of his head. Long and narrow, with no windows and poor lighting, it felt to Elroy like the sarcophagus of some giant from prehistoric America.
“You effected our rescue quite well,” said Wiggles.
Elroy snorted. “I assaulted an innocent man, then leapt into empty air, to be saved by dumb luck and a long chain."
“You saw what needed doing, and did it."
“Perhaps. But not now. What are we doing here?"
Wiggles rested in the hammock with Elroy, curled up against his side. One of the sailors had cleaned and bandaged his wounded foot paw, but the pain clearly bothered the pug.
“Hiding from passengers who will certainly be questioned at Odessa Port by the Flaming Sword. For the same reason the captain, too, cannot afford to see our faces."
“I know. I wondered about the sky burial. I am afraid of being tossed from the hatch."
“They will cast us out in a sort of flyer that is used to send out the dead. We will not plummet to the ground, but rather be rescued by secret friends."
Elroy still did not trust what was to come, but he had trouble imagining such an elaborate effort would be expended just to kill him. It couldn't be any worse than his leap onto the airship.
* * * *
Elroy kept a wary distance from his rescuers, Nero and Mycroft, in the little storeroom where they were supposedly preparing his body. “You are not tying me to those splints. That's no flyer."
“Here, there,” Nero said. “Your funeral is in ten minutes. You don't want to be late for it."
“Elroy,” snapped Wiggles. “We do not have time for this."
“Look.” Nero displayed a small bone-handled knife. “For later. To cut your way out. Trust us, you'll feel like a new man after your funeral."
Elroy stepped over to the splints. They were body length, cross-braced to a large capsule of a dull-colored matte plastic. Nero had given him a blue uniform jacket, without epaulettes, while Mycroft stood by with a winding sheet for the ‘corpse.'
“Wiggles...” Elroy began. Control of his situation kept slipping further away from him.
The Animal licked his own nose, then grasped Elroy's hand with a thumbed paw. “We must, friend Elroy. This will work."
Elroy lay down with the greatest reluctance and allowed Nero to bind him to the splints. The straps came across his upper arms, leaving his forearms free from the elbow down—not restraints, exactly. Nero slipped the bone-handled knife into Elroy's right hand. Wiggles crawled between Elroy's legs, where he was enclosed in the winding sheet that Mycroft wrapped from Elroy's feet to his waist. The sheet was some sandpapery weave of sackcloth cheaply printed with block patterns of birds soaring among blazing stars.
�
��Oh are you in for a treat. While we're in the cargo hold, try to remember you're dead,” Mycroft whispered in Elroy's ear. “Don't breathe where the passengers might see you."
Nero and Mycroft hoisted the splint ends and carried Elroy as if on a stretcher into the aft cargo hold of the Child of Crisis. Eyes slitted open, Elroy could see through his lashes an honor guard of four sailors to one side of the great double doors of the aft cargo hatch. Two of them played a fast-paced dirge on an electric sackbut and an out-of-tune finger harp. The musical effect was unique in Elroy's experience.
The purser stood in front of the hatch doors with a small book in its hand. Nero and Mycroft lowered Elroy onto the deck, the capsule beneath the splints taking his weight. Elroy could hear a rustle of people behind his head, presumably passengers and crew in attendance of his funeral rites.
“Crew, passengers, the ship our mother,” intoned the purser. “I beseech all to draw near and take comfort.” It made vague motions with the book in its thumbed paws.
“In accordance with the rules of the Air Charter first granted us by the counselors of La Segunda Republica Norteamericana in years of lost history, and further in accordance with the timeless rites of the Brotherhood of the Sky, we gather today to commit to a sky burial the mortal remains of able airman third class Vulpen, born of the airship Fortune's Enemy, and in service on the Child of Crisis since his seventh year. As our customs dictate, the remains of airman Vulpen will be cast out into the air for a sky burial, that his soul might guide him upward to the Gardens of Sweet Night where he may find his eternal reward."
Elroy moaned, very quietly. He was supposed to cut the bonds with the knife in his hand, but where was the promised flyer? Elroy began to sweat.
The purser continued. “The Captain has taken us up above the clouds so that airman Vulpen's soul may rise up singing into the glorious light of the day star, bearing his mortal remains to that which awaits him. As I open the hatch doors, I ask everyone to bow their heads in respect for the dead."
“You're on,” Mycroft stage-whispered. Through his slitted lids, Elroy watched two of the honor guard crank open the hatch doors while the other two wheezed and tootled their way through some airmen's paean. A sharp draft of very cold air swirled in as Mycroft added, “Don't cut too soon, friend."
Mycroft and Nero ran forward, dragging Elroy with them. The purser's smiling face flashed by with a wink and a pained squeal from the electronic sackbut, then Elroy launched into the air.
He described a long arc down from the airship, screaming with every gram of his strength as the rumpled clouds below him grew larger and larger.
* * * *
In the Belly of the Orange Balloon
A crack like the snapping of a mighty tree trunk interrupted Elroy's prolonged terror. Within the winding sheet, Wiggles nipped at his calves.
Their free fall pulled abruptly short, slamming Elroy into the straps that held his body. The one across his shoulders slipped to his neck, nearly strangling him as it bruised his larynx. Improbably, he still held on to the knife.
His fall turned into a gentle trembling flight above the clouds. Elroy lay face down, pulled against the straps by his own weight. Wiggles struggled against the winding sheet, threatening to break through and resume his own, independent fall.
Elroy found his voice well enough to snap at Wiggles. “Stop moving, sir pug.” To his surprise, he was no longer screaming.
Elroy craned his neck, trying to look over his shoulder. Above him to each side was a large, orange fabric wing with jointed skeletal ribs, like the wings of the flying foxes of his home forest in Pilot Knob. Elroy heard a steady hissing noise distinct from the flapping of the air across the fabric wings.
“Something is happening."
“What?” demanded Wiggles, who had wrapped all four paws around Elroy's left leg.
“We are no longer falling, and something is hissing above us, between our new wings."
“This is the whole point of a sky burial.” Wiggles’ voice was muffled by Elroy's legs and the winding sheet. “We're in an orbital drop-up pod."
“This is the flyer?"
“Yes. It flies to orbit. We're heading back to the Gardens."
Elroy watched as a great balloon slowly spun itself into being around them.
* * * *
They sat on the floor of the balloon, propping the splints across its inner curve for something to lean against. Opaque, about five meters in diameter, the balloon enveloped them in a diffuse orange light leached from the sunny sky outside.
Elroy had used the knife to cut them away from the splints. He then carefully tucked it in the pocket of his uniform jacket. His wrist, strained from their embarkation of the dirigible, caused him excruciating pain. Seeking something else on which to focus, Elroy noticed that the inside of the balloon carried a sharp chemical odor, redolent of freshly milled plastic with a metal undertone.
Wiggles watched Elroy sniff. “Nanotrace is what you smell. You know, that knife won't harm this balloon."
“Neither will it harm me, now that I have put it away, sir pug.” Elroy hugged his legs. He was cold, shivering, and he felt very lost.
“You have lost your nerve. You suffer from shock, I think.” Wiggles scooted next to Elroy, curled his small body against Elroy's side.
“Nerve?” Elroy tried to laugh, succeeding only in producing a dry cough. “I will never have nerve again. The Green Man help me if I ever so much as hop from a log. I want to go home."
“You are going home. We're going back to the Gardens. They are the true home of every person, balm for the soul and liniment for the body."
“A plague on your Gardens.” Elroy stifled a sob. “I nearly fell to both our deaths in New Dallas, then again just now. We are floating through the sky in an orange bubble, I am hungry but my stomach threatens never to take food again, and I have to piss somewhere in this empty ball. I miss my quiet treehouse in Pilot Knob. I have had enough of your quest."
Wiggles was silent for a while, his tail thumping gently against the fabric of the balloon. Elroy heaved and choked through tearless sobs, burying his face in his knees. After a time he stopped, only to stare at his orange tinted hands.
“You're going to the sky, Elroy,” Wiggles finally said. “You will walk in the Gardens of Sweet Night and learn the true meaning of wonder."
“I'd like to learn the true meaning of a hole to piss in."
“Just urinate on the fabric of the balloon. It's very smart. It will carry the urine away and break it down for raw materials."
* * * *
“Why does the waist of the balloon sometimes flatten widely, then contract to a ball again?” Elroy had been watching the orange walls for quite some time.
“I believe it makes more, then less of an airfoil."
“Airfoil...” Elroy mused. “That means wing, right?"
“Yes, friend Elroy. A lifting body.” They were again curled together at the bottom of the balloon. The purser, or perhaps the sailors, had thoughtfully included a package of supplies at the back of the stretcher. Elroy ate sparingly of a waxed packet of airship flat bread. He had no great desire to see what the skin of the balloon might do with his shit. The urine processing had been sufficiently alarming.
“The balloon,” the pug continued, “rides air currents and thermals to the highest altitude it can reach in that manner. It is a very clever machine, in its limited way. Once it decides it will profit no further from soaring the middle atmosphere, it will commence a steady low-power jet burn fueled by conversion of atmospheric gases. We will feel that as a slow push downward. At some point, when it has gained sufficient altitude from that procedure, somewhere in the upper atmosphere, the final motor, a flat fission device, will boost us into low orbit. The process can take several days, but it is quite efficient, and therefore cheap. Especially as the balloon is reusable."
Elroy shook his head, straining to believe. “Orbit. In space around our Earth."
“Yes. In t
he high places, where the Gardens of Sweet Night sweep forever about the mother world."
* * * *
Wiggles made Elroy don the flimsy silver suit he found in the purser's package. There was a smaller suit, more of a bag with a head at one end, for Wiggles. The pug explained. “Survival suits. Simple space suits, really, although quite dumb for space equipment. Now that we are boosting toward orbit the balloon cannot protect us from the extreme cold."
“They cannot possibly bury their dead in the air this way,” said Elroy. “This technology is costly and complex."
“Senior officers are sent off this way. Crewmen such as the late airman Vulpen are normally sent out the hatch with a small sounding balloon, enough to keep them in the air for a few days."
“I have never found a dead airman on the ground."
“How many airmen die each day? How big is the ground? I also would imagine the Brotherhood of the Sky is considerate of where they perform their rites."
Elroy mused on the Brotherhood of the Sky. “Now, they were free."
“Free because they travel about?"
“Yes.” He imagined life on an airship, seeing the great cities of the world from high above, immune to wars, to floods and fires, avoiding famines and pestilence.
“It is unlikely Nero or Mycroft have ever set foot on soil. Remember how high the mooring mast was in New Dallas?"
“I assumed it was a safety measure."
Wiggles shook his head, licking his nose. “The Air Charter was written to cover aerial operations of ground-based organizations. Now, the airships are in perpetual flight. If they were to land, and the Justiciary could catch them on the ground, the crews would forfeit property and freedom. Born in the air, they are citizens of nowhere and tithe no one. They have no rights at all on the ground."
“So they are free, but not to walk the forests or swim the rivers."
“Free within their domain, but absolutely restricted to it."
Elroy thought about the massive bulk of the Child of Crisis. “If the airships never touch the ground, where are they built?"
