Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

  I had to seize hold of myself and yank myself back awake. No more calming thoughts for me now. I prayed Kate would not let herself fall asleep, for the urge was so strong. I cursed my own stupidity at guzzling so much of the pirates’ drink. It might well have been poison. And why hadn’t it been?

  I was fairly certain now that Szpirglas meant to keep Kate for ransom, but he would have no use for me. Unless he meant to press me into service. But, no, I doubted his intentions for me were so sunny. If I did not escape, he would dispense with me.

  Was he hoping I’d sleep, or hoping I’d make an escape so he could follow me? It was a sickening thought. He’d put me in this infernal hammock for a reason. Maybe he wasn’t sure I’d bolt, but if I did, he wanted to know about it.

  I wondered how Bruce was making out. His leg would slow him down, and night might have fallen before he’d reached the Aurora. Would he keep walking through the darkness or wait for the dawn to continue?

  I rolled onto my stomach. What a noise that made, but I figured they’d be even more suspicious if I made no sounds at all. Everyone shuffles and shimmies about when sleeping. I cracked open an eye and looked down at Szpirglas. His eyes were closed and his breathing calm. He seemed genuinely asleep.

  In the smudgy darkness of the room, I looked about at my possible exits. There was the door that opened out into the hall of the lodge. And there was a window, big enough to get through. It was hinged at the top and held open with a bamboo stick. The door was out of the question. Earlier someone had slumped drunkenly against it and fallen asleep in the hallway. His shadow blotted out the crack under the door, and I heard his great racking snores.

  It had to be the window.

  My hammock was bolted to the wall, quite close to the window. I didn’t dare try to swing myself out of the hammock, for I feared the noise it would make. The hammock would have to be my tightrope.

  Now was the time.

  I looked down at my boots. If I stretched, I might just grab them. But I would have to lean way over, and that would make the hammock rock, and I might end up getting spilled out with a rusty pirate-rousing shriek. Even if I could snatch them up, I’d just have to hold them, and I needed both hands free now. I never thought I’d look at a pair of boots with such longing. I removed my socks and placed them quietly on the hammock; I must be barefoot for the acrobatics I was about to attempt. My feet would get awfully bloodied and bruised in the forest, but that would be a small price to pay for freedom.

  Flat on my belly I dragged myself up along the hammock, toward the wooden dowel from which all the netting was strung. The hammock quietly creaked. It wanted to roll. It wanted to pitch me off and onto Szpirglas’s chest.

  I would not let it.

  With my hands on the dowel, I slowly knelt, bringing one knee up at a time, keeping perfect balance. I stood, feet planted wide.

  The hammock sighed.

  I fixed my eyes to the window.

  Below me Szpirglas gave a snort. I dared not look down for fear of losing my balance. I stood, hovering above him, an acrobat. If he’d seen me, he would speak. If he said nothing, he was still asleep.

  He said nothing.

  I stepped nimbly onto the ends of the dowel, my feet curling around the rope and wood. There were three feet between me and the window.

  I leaped. I spread my arms like wings and when I landed on the windowsill I made myself believe that my bones were hollow, that I was so light the wood would scarcely know my weight. My feet gripped the narrow sill, and my hands reached up and touched the window’s upper frame.

  Lighter than air, I was.

  But not light enough, for with a rattle, the stick holding the window jiggled and slipped and fell outside onto the verandah. The window started swinging down; in less than a tick it would slam shut.

  I took one of my hands off the frame and caught the window with my spread fingers against the glass. The hinges gave a little whine. I closed my eyes, breathed, waited. Behind me, Crumlin and Szpirglas made not a sound.

  I have walked the back of the Aurora in a gale.

  I have swung across the ocean from airship to balloon.

  I can do this.

  Someone was sleeping outside on the verandah, just to the right of the window.

  I held the window up as far as it would go and jumped through. I kept my arm up high so it would catch the window as it fell back shut, and as my feet cushioned my silent fall on the verandah, the window swung back and pincered my hand against the sill. But there was no sound: the shriek of pain was only in my head. Gingerly I took my fingers out, found the stick lying against the belly of a sleeping pirate, and propped the window back open. I padded across the verandah, climbed the railing, and sprang off, picking for my landing site a place without crackly leaves or branches. I landed in a crouch and froze, looking all around, drinking in the darkness and watching for movement.

  I wanted to find Kate’s cabin, but I did not know which one it was, and I was afraid of wasting time. I would just have to hope she’d get out on her own.

  I started moving, seeking out the shadows for cover.

  And then I was into the trees.

  I ran. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, sharp as an owl’s. I saw by starlight and moonlight filtered through the branches and leaves. The air was velvet. I could run all night, I felt that strong. I was a wolf. My feet barely touched the ground. They did not hurt. I was free of the pirates’ room. I flew through the forest. In the landing field the moon shone darkly on the moored airship and the tall grass. I would stick to the trees and run all the way around to the far side where Kate and I had first emerged. Without my belt, my trousers were a bit loose around my hips. Every once in a while I had to give them a good tug. But my lungs did not burn. I had no cramps. I kept running.

  I was on the far side of the field now, and I slowed. I listened for Kate. I whispered her name. I looked around. I went a little deeper into the forest and whispered her name some more. I stared at the stars, and knew it was well past two. I pictured Kate in her cabin, peering through her window, about to begin her run.

  I sat down against a tree near the field’s edge and hugged my knees and waited. Cloud blotted out the moon for a moment, and it was truly dark. She would come before I counted to a hundred. But she did not. I gave her another hundred and then stood and walked along the field’s border, whispering her name, fearing she was lost.

  But she was not so helpless. She had found her way from the ship, across the island, and down the bluff into the valley quite happily. She was capable. If she’d left her cabin, she would be here. Unless she’d been caught. Unless something was wrong.

  My throat felt thick. I did not want to go back to the pirate camp. I was free here in the woods. I felt I belonged to the night air, and I did not want to venture back and risk being caught. I wanted to run to the ship, my ship, and warn her and cast off.

  I took a breath, stood, and started back toward the pirate village.

  I decided to risk it and run across the landing field, for it would be faster. I entered the village quietly as a deer, for I feared a trap. I lingered at the edges, looked toward the bungalows. There was no one in sight. I went to the first that seemed likely and found a window and saw half a dozen men sleeping on mats and hammocks. I went to the next, and through the window saw the nurse Delilah sleeping on a mat near Szpirglas’s son, Theodore. The next hut over was the right one. It was a proper little house, with furniture and a desk and a sofa and a bed, and on the bed was Kate, fast asleep.

  I skirted round the bungalow to the door and pulled at the handle, but it was made fast from the inside. I dared not knock. Back to the window I went. Luckily it was not locked. I pushed it all the way open and hoisted my belly over the sill. Headfirst I slid into the room, landing in a handstand.

  I went to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. The fragrance of deep sleep was all around her. I whispered her name in her ear. She made a small sound, and her eyelids crinkled like she
wanted me to go away and leave her be. I gave her a rough shake and said her name again, this time not so gently.

  Her eyes opened, and she looked at me most reproachfully for a few seconds. Then her eyes flicked around the room in horror.

  “I fell asleep,” she breathed.

  “Come on now.”

  “I fell asleep,” she said again in disbelief. “I’m so sorry.” She was fully dressed at least. I headed for the door.

  “Do I have time to visit the toilets?” she asked.

  I stared back at her, incredulous. “You can go in the forest later.”

  “I certainly won’t,” she said.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “All very well for boys,” she muttered.

  I turned the latch and opened the door.

  Szpirglas stood before me.

  “This is most improper,” he said.

  I had no words.

  “I thought I recognized you,” Szpirglas said, “but I wasn’t sure, and you playacted so well. I thought to myself, If they try to get away, they know who we are—and they’ve got another way off this island.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Captain Anglesea!” I said desperately.

  He struck me hard across the face. “You know my real name, boy! Why didn’t you run when you first saw us at the landing field, eh? You’re protecting someone, and something.” He shoved me back and strode into the bungalow, followed by his mate. “Mr. Crumlin, rouse a search party immediately. We may have a ship to salvage. Where is the Aurora?”

  “Your props tore us to shreds!” I told him. “The ship crashed. Only some of us got off.”

  “No. You’re lying. Where is she?”

  I stopped talking.

  “Perhaps your fancy friend here will be more cooperative. What do you say? You seem attached to the girl. It might upset you to see us torture her. Tell me what I need to know and save her from torment. How does that strike you?”

  He was smiling as he said this, as though it were another of his gentlemen’s jests, all in the best of fun.

  “To the northwest,” I lied.

  Szpirglas looked at me with disgust.

  “There’s no place there where a ship could land. I see you don’t take me at all seriously, lad.”

  “The ship did not land,” I said doggedly. “She ditched and some two dozen of us made it ashore.”

  I saw in his face that same cold anger as when he’d shot Mr. Featherstone. His gun was holstered through his belt, and I knew he could use it on me at any moment.

  “Let’s take them both to the pit, Mr. Crumlin.”

  Szpirglas seized Kate by the arm, and Crumlin grabbed me in his butcher-block fists and marched me out of the bungalow. Even if I could struggle free, they’d shoot me in the back. We crossed the village and took the path toward the airfield, then turned off onto another path I hadn’t noticed before. The smell of mangoes bloomed heavily in the air. In the speckled starlight I saw huge spools of hosing near a great stony mound. Set into the stone face at an angle was a narrow metal hatch. In its middle was a round collared opening, capped right now. Crumlin grabbed the hatch’s handle and pulled it open. Hydrium hissed out loudly from the dark shaft.

  The entire island seemed porous with hydrium. No wonder this place was so precious to the pirates. Hidden and with an eternal supply of lifting gas.

  “Your ship was gutted,” Szpirglas said as if I’d personally insulted him. “She should have sunk.”

  “She did sink.”

  “I think you managed to save her somehow. Or slow her enough to land here. I applaud your captain and crew. You must have been mending her at a furious pace.”

  I said nothing. Szpirglas was smiling, as though marveling at our ingenuity.

  “Now, then,” he said, nodding at the shaft, “the fall isn’t much, just enough to bruise you up some. It’s the hydrium that will kill you. There’s no room for air down there. You start telling me the truth, or you both go down.”

  My entire body burned with cold. Not even in my worst nightmares had I imagined such powerlessness. My legs were weak. I could not run. I could not fly.

  “You first, then,” said Szpirglas to Kate. “If I’m to ransom you, I’ll need your parents’ particulars, not that pretty address in Honolulu you concocted.”

  “I’ll not tell you,” said Kate, giving him one of her nostril-narrowing gazes. I was amazed she had the courage at such a time.

  “Excellent,” said Szpirglas. “I’m most impressed. Of course, the alternative for you is a particularly nasty death.”

  She said nothing, only looked at me. I nodded. She told Szpirglas her real name and address.

  “A fancy address for a fancy girl. Very good. Now, Mr. Cruse, the whereabouts of your ship.”

  “There’s no ship,” I said once more. “Only some survivors, on the island’s leeward side.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully, almost sympathetically, I thought. “Take heart, Mr. Cruse, there are only three or four places on the island where one could land a vessel the size of the Aurora. It will not be hard for us to scout out.”

  “You’ll not find any ship,” I said, lying in vain even now. The sickly gush of hydrium was giving me a headache.

  “It’s a shame,” Szpirglas said. “I had no intention of damaging the Aurora. You must blame Mother Nature and her storm winds. I take no pleasure in killing. As it is, you must know I can never let you leave the island. I’ve got a whole village to take care of, men and women and children. My own son. This is my home. I can’t have anyone giving me away. Last year, some benighted fool in a hot air balloon came bumbling over the island and had a good long look. We had to go after him and slit his envelope and make sure he’d never see land again. He was a sick old man; I don’t think he would have lasted long anyway. I didn’t enjoy doing it, but it was not a choice I had.”

  I looked at Kate, pale in the starlight, staring with silent hatred at the man who’d helped kill her grandfather. I now understood the last entry in Benjamin Molloy’s journal: Airship in the distance. Will signal for help. It wasn’t the Aurora he’d signaled but the pirates’ airship.

  Szpirglas looked at Kate. “Your parents only need to think you’re alive for me to ransom you,” he said, and he gave her a shove that sent her sprawling down the shaft into darkness.

  “No!” I shouted, but already Crumlin had me by the shoulders and was half lifting, half pushing me toward the shaft opening. I kicked and struggled and jammed my feet against the sides, but they battered me until finally I was dangling over the pit, and then with one great push I was sliding down on my backside. Darkness gobbled me up. The steep slope fell away altogether and there was a big drop and I hit the ground. All the breath was knocked out of me.

  Only the faintest pulse of light slanted down from the open hatch, at least thirty feet overhead. Kate lurched toward me, wheezing. The cave floor was scored with countless little hydrium vents, and the gas boiled invisibly all around us, leaving no room for air. When the metal hatch clanged shut we were plunged into a blackness more total than I had ever known. I had Kate by the hand. An hour ago I was free in the forest, running through the night.

  I forced myself up, staggered forward until my outstretched hand hit a wall. Too steep to climb. I kept moving, smacking at the rock. Too steep, no footholds, no way out here. A geyser of hydrium blasted me in the face, making my head spin. I tripped and fell, my nose in the dirt and—

  —breathed.

  Air, a little pool of it, lay silent and heavy against the earth, undisturbed. I grabbed Kate and pushed her head to the ground. She struggled at first, thinking I’d gone mad.

  “Breathe,” I croaked.

  It wasn’t much, just enough to keep our hearts kicking, for a little while.

  “What now?” was all she could say.

  I shook my head, grunted. Didn’t want to waste air on words. This was a cruel way to kill someone. Much better to be shot or thrown off a cliff into the waves.r />
  I felt a little eddy of hydrium slip into my shirtsleeve, the fabric ballooning. Its lift was so powerful that my arm started to rise. My sluggish brain began to work.

  “Take your pants off!” I told Kate.

  “What?”

  “They’re perfect,” I gasped. I grabbed at the waist of her harem pants and yanked them down. I heard her give a yelp. I was too breathless and too muddy-brained to explain more. The material of my own trousers and shirt was too porous, but Kate’s pants were silky, just like the ship’s impermeable gas cells. They were baggy and a bit stretchy, and they’d carry a lot of hydrium.

  “Balloon,” I wheezed, and luckily she seemed to understand, because she stopped struggling and helped me peel the pants off. In the dark I worked as carefully and quickly as I could. I knotted both legs tightly at the ankles.

  “This way,” I said, dragging her over to a hydrium vent. I felt its gush and held the harem pants, waist down, over it. Within seconds they were ballooning with gas. The pull started dragging me off my feet.

  “Hold tight!” I gasped at Kate, guiding her hands to the waistband.

  We rose very slowly, but up we floated, dangling beneath the ballooning harem pants. It was lucky we were slender, but even so our combined weight was almost too much for it. I kept pushing off against the walls with my bare feet, trying to give us a little more lift.

  Lighter than air, I thought groggily, that’s our Mr. Cruse.

  After a moment I felt our balloon nudge up against something, and we were no longer moving. We’d hit the top of the shaft. Now, where was the hatch? I kicked about with my feet until I hit something metal.

  I prayed the hatch was not locked, but I could not recall seeing any bolt or bar on it. My lungs were ready to burst. I kicked harder, and the hatch jumped a bit, moonlight gilding the edges. I hoped the pirates had left us to our death, and we would not find them waiting for us. I’d need to kick harder to fling the hatch wide.

  “Hold on,” I grunted to Kate.