Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Melissa Scott

  Jerry nodded tightly.

  Mitch unfolded from where he leaned against the wall. “The other thing that making it chase us will do is make it less likely for it to hurt Henry. It’s not enough to get rid of the thing. We need to get rid of it without harming Henry.”

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Jerry said warningly.

  Mitch looked at him sharply. “Think about it. We don’t leave our own behind. Henry was our lodgemate once. It’s not his fault he’s possessed by this thing. We get it out of him without harming him.”

  “It probably is his fault,” Alma said. “And ours too. We wired Henry that Davenport had lost us in Chicago and that he was on his way to New York. How much do you want to bet that old Henry couldn’t resist going to confront Davenport by himself? And he didn’t have an amulet.”

  Jerry hit his forehead with his palm. “Of course he did! That’s just like Henry! He trotted over to the hotel as soon as he got our telegram, ready to handle Davenport alone.”

  “And it jumped into him,” Mitch said grimly.

  “I should have known. I’ve known Henry long enough.” Alma let out a deep breath. “Ok, let’s give this a try, Jerry. Once we get to Paris we’ll head for Italy by train and see if he’ll chase us. But you’d better have figured out what we’re going to do when we get there.”

  “Believe me, I mean to,” Jerry said fervently.

  Jerry said he was going to sit up and work on it while Mitch curled up on the upper bunk in their room, so Alma and Lewis went back to their own cabin. Even spooned together, sleep eluded Lewis for a long time, and when at last he did sleep it was briefly and restlessly. Alma seemed an enormous weight on his arm, pressing him down into the mattress, and it wasn’t long before he rolled over, staring at the ceiling above.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asked. Her voice was clear, not muddled by sleep.

  “No,” Lewis said. He ran his hand over the day’s beard on his chin. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.” He wasn’t surprised she was lying awake. He would be too, if he were her. “Listen,” he said awkwardly, “About Gil….”

  “He would never want me to do something like that,” she said. “Never.” He felt the splash of one tear hitting his arm, but her voice was angry. “It only made the offer because it’s in Henry, and it knows it would hurt me. That’s how it works, Lewis. It feeds on misery and fear and pain. It’s feeding off me right now, and I don’t know how to stop it.” He heard her choke back a sob, tightened his arms around her, not knowing what to say.

  “What we had was beautiful and wonderful. And it’s over.” Her voice sharpened. “Things happen. No one gets forever. We were so lucky, Lewis! For a few years we had everything.”

  Lewis bent his face against her hair. He couldn’t do anything about the demon, or even about its offer. All he could do was be a shoulder for her, and he’d do that if she’d let him. He wouldn’t let it take her. No matter what.

  Alma raised her face and kissed him hard, breathlessly, as though she could devour him, and Lewis leaned into it, his arms tight around her. This was the way to break it, he thought. It fed on misery. There was no sustenance for it in love.

  When she looked up her eyes were bright. “I’m ok,” she said, and there was no tremor in her voice. “I’m fine.”

  “Sure,” Lewis said. “Sure thing.”

  “I just couldn’t sleep,” she said.

  “Me either.” Lewis twisted enough to glance at his watch. 3:30 am. He wondered where they were. Possibly over England, or nearly so. He wondered if this might not be the most fantastic time to be in the observation car, crossing sleeping Britain by night, the lights of towns and cities winking up into the sky, clustered like threads of light on a spider’s web.

  Alma huffed. “Can’t sleep just because we’re trapped on an airship with a demon?”

  “Yeah.” Lewis grinned. “Oddly enough, it makes me nervous.”

  She gave him a sudden sharp look. “You’re serious.”

  Lewis paused. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “There’s something — not right somewhere.”

  “Can you see where?” She gave the word the little twist that said she meant more than ordinary sight, and he closed his eyes obediently, trying to find the stillness that let him reach outside himself. His mind stayed stubbornly blank, and he shook his head.

  “Nothing. Sorry.”

  She shoved her hair back from her face, smoothing it into some semblance of order. “If you’ve got a bad feeling there’s probably something wrong. Let’s get up and go see.”

  “Truly?” He’d never seen this before, this kind of rock-bottom faith in him. She would get up in the middle of the night and go wander around just because he said he had a feeling something wasn’t right. And this…. This was like a cold place in the pit of his stomach, the absolute unshakable certainty that something was badly wrong.

  “You’re a clairvoyant,” Alma said. “If you have a feeling, that’s good enough for me. And the number of things that could be wrong beggars the imagination.”

  “Ok,” he said, and leaned over to hunt for his pants. “Let’s get dressed then.”

  The door that separated the passenger areas from the crew compartments and the cargo holds was unlocked. That wasn’t exactly surprising, Alma thought, you wouldn’t want to block access in an emergency. What was a little surprising was the dark green leather that covered both sides of the door, quilted like the upholstery of a sofa. Soundproofing, maybe, though the airship was astonishingly quiet in operation. She let it close softly behind her and looked around. The crew corridor was more brightly lit, the lamps utilitarian, and through gaps in the ceiling she could see the duralumin girders of the frame rising up into the dark.

  “Ok,” she said, and looked at Lewis. “Where to?”

  “Up.” His face looked different in the harsh light, harder and younger at the same time, oddly unfamiliar. She hadn’t seen him like this before, except maybe once in the blurred aftermath of a dream.

  “Ok,” she said again. Stairs or ladders? There must be one or the other, and they needed to get out of the main corridor, out of sight —

  Ahead of them, a cabin door swung open, and a man in a striped flannel bathrobe stepped out. Lewis started forward, but she flattened her hand against his chest.

  “Mr. Palmer,” she said, softly.

  He turned, blinking, sleep fading to a frown. “Mrs. Gilchrist? What are you doing here?”

  If you’re going to tell a lie, Al, make it a whopper. She could almost hear Gil’s voice, could see him standing by the mantel with its electric fire, Jerry with his new wooden leg propped up on a footstool, shaking his head at both of them. Their second Christmas in Colorado, that had been, when things were starting to go well again.

  “Good, I’m glad I didn’t have to wake you,” she said. “Has Mr. Kershaw told you why we’re on board?”

  “No.” Palmer looked from her to Lewis and back again.

  “Henry received some crackpot letters,” Alma said. “Threats against the Independence. He didn’t think it was anything serious at first, but later — he had reason to wonder. So he asked us to come along. And now — Mr. Segura has had some indications that there might be trouble up in the hull. Maybe with the gas cells.”

  For a mercy, Palmer didn’t ask what those indications were, just blinked at them for a moment. “No wonder he’s been worried,” he said. “Do you want Captain Brooks? Or one of the pilots?”

  “I think actually we want you,” Alma said, and smiled. “We just want to take a quiet look around — it may only be an attempt to create bad publicity.”

  As she’d hoped, those were magic words. “Of course, Mrs. Gilchrist,” Palmer said. He glanced back at his cabin door, and she said, “There’s no need to change.”

  “And no time, if there is a problem,” Lewis said. He was falling into the spirit of the story, Alma thought. “I just hope I’m wrong and we only lose some sleep.”

 
“All right,” Palmer said, and tightened the belt of his robe. He was wearing sturdy-looking slippers, Alma saw with some relief. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Up,” Lewis said again. “There’s — there’s a catwalk along the bottom of the gas cells, right? I’d like to take a quiet look there.”

  “If there’s a problem with the gas, it would show up in the control car,” Palmer said, but he didn’t sound entirely sure of himself.

  “It should,” Lewis agreed. “But I’d just like to take a look.”

  “Ok,” Palmer said. “Which catwalk?”

  Lewis hesitated. Alma said, “There are two?”

  “Yes,” Palmer answered. “We have both hydrogen and helium cells — we need the hydrogen for the extra lift, and it’s a good deal cheaper to valve it to balance the fuel consumption than to waste the helium. Mr. Kershaw’s idea was to place the hydrogen cells inside the helium cells, so that the helium protects the hydrogen from any sparks. It reduces the danger of fire dramatically — but my point is, there are two catwalks that give access to the cells, one at the bottom of the helium cells, and the other running, well, through them, to reach the hydrogen cells.”

  Lewis’s lips thinned. “Let’s start with the hydrogen.”

  Palmer sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  The stairs that led out of the main corridor were narrow and steep, like the ladders on the ship that had brought her and Gil home from Italy. His ghost, his memory, was very present — couldn’t help but be, she thought, but at least this was a clean thing, not the creeping misery at dinner.

  At the second landing, even the perforated ceilings ceased, and the fabric of the gas cells loomed above them. Battery-powered headlamps hung on a board at the bottom of the next ladder, and Palmer took one and flicked it on, motioning for them to do the same.

  “Safety lights,” he said. “There’s no electricity further up, for obvious reasons.”

  Alma switched on her light and followed Palmer up the next set of stairs. They emerged onto the lower of the two catwalks, a duralumin grid that stretched to either side into the darkness. The gas cells hovered above them, held in place by a padded metal net, and in the far distance her light just picked out the lacy girders of the frame. Lewis turned his head slowly from side to side, letting the light sweep across the gas cells and the narrow catwalk. It was only a couple of feet wide, with a thick rope stretched between the girders for a handhold, and it arrowed on into the darkness beyond the reach of their lights.

  “The main catwalk,” Palmer said. His voice seemed hushed, smothered by the weight of fabric above them. “It runs the full length of the ship.”

  Lewis looked around again, and met her eyes with an apologetic shrug. “Up further,” he said. “The hydrogen cells?”

  “This way.”

  They walked another fifty feet toward the airship’s bow before they came to a second ladder. It was a real ladder this time, stretching up into darkness, surrounded by hoops that if they wouldn’t break a man’s fall would at least keep him from damaging the gas bags. Alma tilted her head back, and spotted the second platform maybe thirty feet into the air. It seemed to lead into the gas cell itself, and in spite of herself she caught her breath. Lewis gave her a look, his face set under the headlamp, and she nodded.

  “Will you be all right, Mr. Palmer?” She waved toward his slippers, and he shrugged.

  “I’ll manage. You’ve got me a little worried now, Mrs. Gilchrist.”

  “You don’t know how much I hope it’s all a false alarm,” she said, and started up the ladder after Lewis. Her arms were feeling it by the time she reached the catwalk, and she stopped to catch her breath, turning her head slowly to get her bearings. They were in a gap between two of the cells, right at one of the main rings of the frame. She could see it, overhead and to either side, the duralumin pierced with holes to reduce the weight. On either side, the gas cells swelled, drab gray fabric with an odd sheen from the chemicals that made it impermeable. The catwalk did lead into them, she saw, or rather, the cell was divided on either side of the walk, draped over it like washing on a line. The opening looked like the mouth of a cave. Lewis started toward it, feet silent and careful, but she caught his arm.

  “Do you — did you see anyone?” she asked, and hoped he’d understand what she was really asking.

  He paused, his eyes focusing on her, and seemed to come back to himself. “I don’t think — there won’t be anybody there,” he said. “Or there shouldn’t be.”

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “The manual controls are at the mid-point,” Palmer said nervously, and Lewis nodded.

  “I think we’re fine. But let’s just take a quick look.”

  Alma nodded, reassured, but couldn’t help ducking her head as they passed under the gas bag’s shadow. Inside, the air was still and felt weirdly heavy; her light played across the dull fabric, taut and plain, and the unpainted duralumin of the walkway. She looked down once, and her light fell through the grating to the main catwalk thirty feet below.

  “There,” Palmer said, and pointed past her shoulder. She looked where he was pointing, and her light fell on a red-painted panel set between two of the posts that held the catwalk’s rail. Lewis studied it, frowning.

  “Hey, Palmer? Am I reading this right?”

  “What?”

  Alma pressed herself against the nearest stanchion as Palmer pushed passed her, and peered over his shoulder. The dials didn’t make a lot of sense to her, but it seemed as though they ought to be closer to the midline, not dropping down toward eight o’clock.

  “That can’t be right,” Palmer said. He tapped the nearest dial, with no result. “It looks like we’re valving hydrogen, but it’s much too early —”

  “What should it be reading?” Lewis asked.

  “Between two thousand and twenty-two hundred,” Palmer said. “I don’t understand. These have to be wrong, or Captain Brooks would be doing something about it.”

  “Al,” Lewis said. “You and Palmer check the next cell aft, see if it’s the same. I’ll go forward.”

  “Right,” Alma said. “Come on, Mr. Palmer.”

  He made no protest, shuffled along after her in his bathrobe and slippers. They came out of the first gas cell into another gap, the frame ring looming in on them, and Alma ducked into the next cell without hesitation. The control panel was in the middle there, too, and the needles were creeping down toward eight o’clock.

  “My God,” Palmer said, and shook his head.

  “We’ll check one more,” Alma said, grimly, and kept moving aft. In the next cell, the panel was bigger — it was a bigger cell, Palmer said, farther away from the passenger section — but the needles were below eleven hundred, and falling.

  “We need to get down to the control car,” Palmer said. “We have to tell them.”

  “Back the way we came,” Alma said.

  Lewis appeared at the entrance to the forward cell just as she reached the ladder. “Either all the hydrogen cells spontaneously sprung a leak, or somebody’s opened the valves.”

  “We have to tell the captain,” Palmer said again. “My God, Mrs. Gilchrist, if we keep valving hydrogen at this rate —”

  “Emergency controls,” Lewis said. “Can we close the valves from here?”

  “Not on this level,” Palmer said. “All the panels say the main valves are closed, it must be the automatic valves that are open — they’re supposed to open if the pressure gets too high, it’s to keep the cells from being damaged. But it’s not possible that all of them jammed open —”

  “Can we get to them from here?” Lewis asked, and Palmer shook his head.

  “You’d have to go back down, climb up the riggers’ walks in the frame.”

  “Damn,” Lewis said.

  “Mr. Palmer,” Alma said. “Go tell Captain Brooks what’s going on, see if he can’t get someone to the automatic valves as quickly as possible. We’ll make sure none of the main va
lves are open.” She paused, not sure she wanted to know the answer. “How long do we have?”

  Palmer shook his head. “I don’t know. It depends on when the valves opened. I just — I hope we can make the coast.”

  “Go,” Alma said, and the young man shook himself, slid down the ladder toward the main catwalk.

  “I’m not sure I think much of Kershaw’s — its — plan,” Lewis said, after a moment.

  “It doesn’t need Henry to live,” Alma said. “Doesn’t need any of us to survive. It can jump to a rescuer, anyone who comes to see what happened. And our deaths will nourish it.” She shivered. “All right. Let’s check the main valves just in case.”

  “And hope Kershaw doesn’t have any more surprises up his sleeve,” Lewis muttered.

  Chapter Twenty

  The sound of the engines didn’t change. Perhaps it was some subtle shift in the sense of motion, some tiny change in angle of declension. Mitch couldn’t have said what it was. But it was enough. He was a pilot, and it woke him.

  Mitch sat up, bumping his head on the ceiling. He was in the upper bunk aboard the Independence. Jerry slept in the bunk below, still fully dressed and wearing glasses, a book opened across his chest.

  “Something’s wrong,” Mitch said.

  Jerry stirred, eyes opening at the sound in Mitch’s voice.

  Mitch glanced at his watch. Eight minutes after four. They shouldn’t be descending, not yet. The airship’s course was supposed to skirt the coast of southern Britain, passing over Lands’ End and then more or less following the coast as far as Portsmouth, when it would turn a little south, making for Le Havre and the coast of France, straight as an arrow from there to the airfield outside Paris. At ten after four they ought to be over the Channel, or perhaps making landfall in Cornwall.