Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

  “Bastard!” the pirate roared, and I kicked again and got him in the teeth this time. He let go and I climbed furiously. At the top of the ladder I got one arm hooked round the handhold inside the hatch. But the pirate had me again by the leg and started pulling. I held tight, the metal handhold digging into my bone, and I knew he’d break my arm clean off. My eyes skittered around inside the ship. I saw an oil can within reach, grabbed it with my free hand, then reached down and squirted the pirate in the face and all over the rungs. Cursing, he let go to wipe his eyes and lost his grip. He fell heavily, crashing in a heap in the engine car. I hauled myself into the ship, lungs burning.

  I slammed the hatch shut and locked it with my keys. With luck maybe the pirate would fall asleep and not mess with the engine. I leaned against the hatch to catch my breath.

  That was another pirate down. Five left. Just five.

  A finger of cold metal knocked against the side of my head.

  “Hold up there, lad.”

  I turned slowly.

  Crumlin’s pistol was against my skull.

  20

  AIRBORN

  Crumlin had his free hand clenched around Kate’s arm. He’d got us both. We stared at each other mutely, and in her eyes I saw all that I myself felt: a terrible weariness; self-reproach that I’d been foolish enough to be caught; and fear too, not yet at a full boil, but on the brink. I hoped they didn’t have Bruce as well.

  “Well, isn’t this an unpleasant surprise,” Crumlin said. He reeked of fish soup. It seemed to be steaming from every pore of his great sweaty body. “When the captain’s done with you, you’ll wish you were back in that pit.”

  He blinked and took a breath as if to steady himself. For just a moment his grip around the pistol faltered, and then he came back on full alert. The sleeping elixir must finally be starting to work. I glanced at Kate but couldn’t tell if she’d noticed.

  “Walk,” Crumlin grunted, shoving me with his gun.

  We turned onto the keel catwalk. Forward, near the door to the passenger quarters, waited another pirate. I could see that it was the one-handed fellow, Rhino Hand.

  “I’ve got the both of them,” Crumlin called out to him. “Rathgar’s got himself locked in the starboard engine car. Go back and get him out. And make sure both those engines are fired up again.”

  Rhino Hand started walking toward us. He kept tilting off balance against the railing, even though the ship was flying steady.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Crumlin barked. “Too much juice?”

  Rhino Hand said nothing, just waved his hand dismissively and muttered inaudibly to himself. He almost tripped again.

  “Cripes, man, you’re a disgrace!” Crumlin roared, but when I looked back at Crumlin I saw his own eyes flicker. He lifted his pistol hand to his temple and jerked his eyes wide, as if trying to clear his blurry vision. I wondered when we should make our break for it.

  Rhino Hand was still about thirty feet away when something dropped down onto the catwalk between him and us.

  It was a sleek beautiful bundle of misty fur and teeth and claws. It was the cloud cat, nostrils flaring.

  “You little monster!” hissed Crumlin, squinting and blinking as though he’d been confronted with a ghostly apparition. He stopped walking. Rhino Hand had stopped too. The cat was looking from one to the other. I could see its shoulder muscles tense and its rump drop, and I knew it was about to lunge.

  “I’ll have you on my wall!” Crumlin roared and raised his pistol.

  The cloud cat jumped up into the rigging above the catwalk, the wires and alumiron struts enough like branches that I wondered if it felt at home here after all. It leaped nimbly to the other side of the corridor then back again, coming at me and Kate and Crumlin, shrieking. Even then I thought, It’s magnificent.

  Crumlin shoved Kate hard to the floor and tried to take aim with his pistol as the cloud cat bounded for us. But the pirate was unsteady on his feet, his vision misted by drink and sleeping elixir, and the pistol trembled in his fist.

  He fired.

  He missed the cloud cat, but hit Rhino Hand down the corridor. The pirate clutched at his neck, and a dark stain of blood seeped between his fingers as he sagged to the floor, cursing his life away. Crumlin fired again and again missed. I threw my whole weight against him, and he was dopey enough to stagger off balance. His gun clattered to the floor.

  “Come on!” I yelled at Kate, grabbing her hand and hauling her up.

  But it was Crumlin the cloud cat wanted. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the pirate sluggishly scrabbling about for his gun as the cloud cat leaped at him. Maybe it remembered Crumlin from the island and was hungry for revenge. Maybe it just liked his fishy odor. The creature engulfed Crumlin’s head and torso with its own body, a whirling bundle of fur and claw. Crumlin roared and threw up his arms to pound the creature off, but the cloud cat nimbly retreated into the wiring overhead, escaping the bludgeoning force of Crumlin’s fists. He was bleeding badly from the shoulder and neck. Then the cloud cat lunged in again, quickly slashing with its claws and teeth before again retreating beyond Crumlin’s clumsy blows. He turned and lumbered off, but the cloud cat launched itself at his back and knocked him over. He scarcely tried to get up.

  After that, I stopped turning back to look, and Kate and I just ran as hard as we could along the keel catwalk toward the ship’s stern. I did not know what the cloud cat would do when it was finished with Crumlin. I couldn’t imagine it still being hungry after feeding on him, but maybe this was not simply a matter of hunger. Maybe it was like those wild bears or lions who, after a taste of human blood, cannot forget it and go on craving it madly their whole lives.

  I wanted to get back to Bruce. I shouldn’t have sent him off alone. He was supposed to meet us in the port cargo bay. In my head I counted pirates. Five were gone now, that left three, two probably in the starboard lounge keeping guard but getting sleepier by the second, if Crumlin and Rhino Hand were any guide. I hoped it wouldn’t be long until Captain Walken and the officers could make a move and overpower the guards.

  But Szpirglas, who would not eat fish, would be in the control car, wide awake and steering us back to the island. I could only hope that Bruce had managed to shut down both his engines.

  But as we neared the aft engine gangways, I heard the telltale vibration of the port propeller. The starboard one was silent at least. Maybe Bruce was just having trouble shutting down the port engine. I felt a queasy wave slosh through my guts. I stopped, suddenly afraid to turn down the gangway. I made Kate stand back and then carefully poked my head around the corner.

  Bruce lay crumpled on the floor. Blood pooled stickily about his head. I rushed to him, bent down, and felt for his pulse along his jaw, but just by the cold touch of him I knew he was already dead.

  “Oh,” Kate gasped, kneeling beside me. “Oh.”

  At first I thought maybe the cloud cat had taken him, but then I saw the precise bullet hole in the side of his skull. He’d been shot at close range.

  From the starboard engine car I heard the propeller suddenly kick back to life. Footsteps rang on the access ladder.

  “Run!” I told Kate. “Go to the cargo holds and hide!”

  I heard her protest but didn’t wait. I ran down the gangway toward the starboard engine car. If I could get to the hatch in time, I could slam it shut and lock the pirate on the outside. It was Szpirglas himself, and he was nearly at the top of the ladder, about to come through into the ship. He saw me. I grabbed the hatch and swung it, but he caught it against his shoulder before I could close it. I heaved with all my weight, but it was no good, he was the heavier and stronger by far, and with a final powerful push he sent me sprawling backward.

  I scrambled up and ran before he could take proper aim and heard the bullet whispering past through the rigging. I careened round the corner onto the keel catwalk and was relieved to see no sign of Kate.

  I jumped onto the companion ladder and started cr
awling up toward the axial catwalk. Szpirglas stood below me. I was an easy target, straight overhead, so I jumped off the ladder and into the bracing wires where I was partially hidden behind cables and the edges of the great shimmering gas bags. Up I went like a spider, Szpirglas’s bullets whizzing past me and slicing through the goldbeater’s skin and releasing small mango-scented geysers of hydrium. I heard him cursing and then his boots on the ladder, and I knew he was coming up too, and just as fast as me, for the ladder was easier work than monkeying through the rigging. Cold hard thin wire bit at my raw feet.

  Somehow I reached the axial catwalk first, grabbed a wrench from an open locker, and heaved it at Szpirglas’s head as he came up the companionway. It struck him in the temple and he cursed; it bought me a few seconds more to toss the rest of the contents of the locker at his head, including a pot of patching glue that splashed onto his face and blunderbuss. He clambered onto the catwalk. He was not sleepy. He had eaten none of Vlad’s fish soup. His eyes blazed with a fury I’d never seen in any man before.

  He raised his blunderbuss at me and fired, but the gun only gave a thick gluey clunk, for its snout was clogged with glue. Szpirglas cursed and lunged at me. The only way for me to go was up again to the aft crow’s nest. So up I went.

  I reached the glass observation dome, flung it open, and hauled myself out onto the ship’s back. I had to squint fiercely, for the sun was ablaze in the sky. Blue sea stretched all round, and dead ahead was the island. We’d reach her in less than ten minutes by my reckoning.

  Crouching, I hurried forward, one hand looped around the guide wire. At the midpoint I glanced back and there was still no sign of Szpirglas at the hatchway. I hesitated. Maybe he was coming up the forward crow’s nest in wait for me. I was scuppered, not knowing which way to go.

  The forward observation hatch was already flung open, and as I stared in disbelief, a white shape sprung out from it.

  The cloud cat was on the ship’s back. It crouched there, fur matted against its body by the wind, looking all around. It hadn’t been in the sky since the day of its birth. It was not interested in me at the moment, perhaps had not even spotted me, hunched down motionless against the ship’s skin. But I dared not go closer. Its muzzle was stained red from feasting on Crumlin. It was blocking my only escape route.

  Hurriedly I turned back to the aft observation hatch. Perhaps Szpirglas had given up. He had the ship to fly after all. He needed to land her on the island.

  When I was not fifty feet from the aft hatch, Szpirglas climbed out through it onto the ship’s back. In his hand was a knife. The sun winked off its serrated edge. His face was impassive, eyes focused on me, intent on the job ahead of him.

  It was over. There was nowhere left to run. I didn’t know if Szpirglas saw the cloud cat behind me, for it was hunkered down flush against the ship’s skin, and my body was directly in line with it. I didn’t know which would be worse, being savaged by the creature or stabbed by Szpirglas. It shamed me, but I had to admit I was tired out. I was finished with running, especially when it was all futile. There were two paths, and each took me to my death.

  Szpirglas advanced toward me, his balance expert. I noticed the wind picking up some, and realized that Szpirglas must have taken the Aurora lower in preparation for landing. The island was still a ways off, but the Aurora would surely collide with the central mountain if left unchecked. Even now I didn’t want to see my ship harmed, especially when all aboard might still be saved. It might be just me who was to perish. And Bruce already. Poor Bruce.

  “Quite an escape artist, aren’t you?” Szpirglas was only a few paces from me. “You’re an impressive lad. If you hadn’t defied me so, I might have offered you a home on my ship.”

  “This is my home,” I told him dully. And I’d never felt it more than now. I’d bundled everything into this ship, all the good feeling I had; all my sense of belonging was beneath my feet, every hope of happiness. And I thought that at least I would die here at home.

  “Just tell me, lad, for I’ve got a craving to know. How did you get out of the hydrium pit?”

  “I flew,” I said savagely, hating him.

  He chuckled darkly. “Then fly again.”

  Both his hands took hold of my shoulders and he gave me a mighty shove. My arms windmilled uselessly and my feet left the ship’s back—and I fell.

  I fell backward and instinctively opened my arms, spread my legs. I could feel the air pouring over me, feel how it parted for my head and over my shoulders and over my chest and down my torso to trail off my legs. I tucked an arm and rolled my shoulders so I was falling facefirst toward the ship’s stern.

  I was not frightened.

  This was how my father fell.

  It was the most natural thing in the world. I knew it would be like this. It was very smooth and slow. I had time to look down at the sea. I even looked back over my shoulder and saw Szpirglas watching me, and the cloud cat, still crouching farther forward. I gazed ahead and saw the ship’s great fins coming toward me. I would soar clear over the horizontal fin on the starboard side. Then I would fall free of the ship, and it would be just me and the air.

  If my father could do it, I could do it. I was born in the air.

  Some part of my brain, though, must have known I did not want to overshoot the ship. I needed to go down. I closed my legs, folded my arms back against my sides, tilted my head and shoulders, and plunged toward the fin. Everything was starting to speed up, and for the first time I felt fear. I fanned my legs wide and pushed my arms forward to break my fall. I hit the great flat fin and felt the skin on the palms of my hands evaporate as I tried to slow myself. I was in a scalding skid. The fin’s edge soared toward me. I kept my chin up so I could see.

  There was a narrow gap between the elevator flaps and the fin itself, and I drove my hands and arms into it, grabbed hold of a metal strut, and held on. My whole body jerked and buckled, and my arms shrieked with pain as I came to a violent halt. I’d been spun around so I was now facing toward the ship’s bow, my legs and torso flattened against the elevator flap, the wind smacking at my face.

  I could not fly. I had crashed. I was not lighter than air after all.

  I’d fallen, and a great shame seeped through me.

  I was heavy as stone.

  All my life I’d told myself I was light and could soar free of things. I was light and could outrun sadness. I could fly away and keep flying forever.

  But I could never catch up with my father. He had fallen, like Gilgamesh, and I had not been there to save him with my all-powerful Enkidu hand. He was gone, well and truly gone, and now everything had caught up with me: all the years of sailing away from my family, and my sadness.

  I knew I could not hold on for long, and there was no way to scramble back up the fin. My hands would lose strength, my fingers would let go, and I would slide off for one last inglorious freefall to the waves.

  Up above me on the ship’s back I could see Szpirglas, standing tall, turned toward me. It would not be hard to see me in the full daylight, my dark shirt against the ship’s silver skin. The cloud cat was there too. I wanted to look at this creature rather than Szpirglas.

  Then an amazing thing happened. It didn’t seem possible that the cloud cat could have slipped, so it must have jumped of its own free will. Its wings flared, and it glided off the ship’s back. But the crimped left wing did not open fully, and the cloud cat slewed through the sky, falling too fast.

  It was falling all over again, just as it had the moment it was born. Only this time there was no island beneath it to break its fall.

  Come on. Fly now.

  Somehow, despite its crimped wing, it leveled off. I saw its wings move up and then down in a power stroke, and it lifted a bit. Gradually, it gained more altitude. It was still tilty in the air, hadn’t quite worked out yet how to steer and stay level.

  But the cloud cat was flying.

  It soared away from the Aurora, trying out its wings, playing wi
th this new thing called flight. It did a couple of clumsy turns but with every second was getting better. I was laughing and crying, and I think I must’ve been a little mad with the pain and knowing my own death was close, because I no longer felt sad or afraid. It was so good to see the cloud cat fly, back in its own element. It was never meant to be landlocked. I kept my eyes fixed on it until I could see it no more.

  I smiled and closed my eyes and put my face down on the ship’s cool skin, soothing my fevered cheek. I wanted to sleep now. But through the ship’s skin I could hear a thumping vibration, growing stronger.

  Groggily I opened my eyes. I looked up and with a shock saw Szpirglas coming toward me. He’d found a safety line, had used it to rappel over the ship’s side to the fin. He was crouched low, making his way back to the elevator flap where I lay.

  Why bother, I wondered. I would fall soon.

  He made his way carefully toward me, gripping his safety line in one hand.

  “If I turn my back on you,” he shouted above the wind, “you might appear again to vex me!”

  He kicked at my fingers with his boot. They had so little feeling in them that I didn’t even cry out in pain. Somehow I kept them locked around the metal strut.

  “Let go, boy! Do I have to break all of you?”

  “You’ll never break all of me,” I said.

  With the last of my strength I rolled to one side and swung my legs hard against his feet. It took him by surprise, and he staggered off balance and skidded onto his knees. The knife lurched from his free hand and was whipped away by the wind. The safety line jerked loose from his other hand. He started slipping off the fin, and in disbelief I thought I’d defeated him. But at the last moment he snatched the rope back into his fist. He stood tall. He came toward me, and the anger in his face was terrible to behold. His booted foot drew back.