by P. J. Sky
Keshia shivered. Reluctantly, she let go of the line and stepped across the deck to the first lever. Grit blew into her eyes. She grabbed hold of the lever and steadied herself. Together with the old man, they rotated it back into place. When Keshia turned to the second lever, Ari was already pulling it into place on her own.
“That’s them safe, now ‘old on to something, this is gonna be a bumpy ride.”
Keshia moved back to her line. She looped her elbow and knee around it and watched as Ari took hold of another and did the same. Above her, the hiss and glow of the burner fought against the wind’s doglike howl, as it whistled around every corner of the balloon. As the sky grew darker, Keshia watched Ari slip her goggles over her eyes. The yellow glass glowed orange in the light from the burner.
“Are we getting higher?” asked Keshia.
It didn’t feel like it. It felt like they were flying right into the heart of the storm. All around them, the clouds of red dust billowed and churned, like spectral monsters waiting to pounce.
From somewhere deep inside the clouds flared angry bursts of yellow light. Keshia heard a hungry rumble, as if from the belly of some giant beast. Her skin prickled and she felt the hairs on her arms stand on end. Looking up, she saw purple sparks flicker across the metallic surface of the balloon.
The clouds of dust stretched out around them, like a giant claw, ready to squeeze. Keshia could feel a huge pressure bearing down on her skull and her eardrums began to bulge.
Then the red dust hit them like a wall.
∆∆∆
Keshia cried out and her voice was swallowed in the bellow of the storm. Her throat filled with dust, like shards of glass, and she closed her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut tight. She gripped hold of the line and sank to her knees.
The world around her howled. The dust lacerated her skin. In the darkness behind her eyelids, she remembered the dust storm after she’d escaped the orphanage and the way it had torn at her skin and stung her eyes and in the morning how it appeared to have swept the world clean of everything but her and the flat, red wasteland. That had seemed bad enough, but this was much worse.
The deck bounced, then plunged downwards. There was a crashing sound, as if the deck had smashed into the ground and been torn in two, but then it felt as if the balloon was rising again. Keshia felt herself being dragged in all the wrong directions. Her body was lifted from the deck and only her grip on the line stopped her being blown away.
Briefly, she opened her eyes. Purple sparks danced over her elbows. Ahead was a dark tunnel of spiralling red dust and Keshia could feel her body being sucked towards it. A jagged shard of yellow lightning bolted from cloud to cloud.
Keshia squeezed her eyes shut.
Please God, she prayed, please let me survive this. I’ll be better, I really will, if only I can get through this. I’ll pray and touch my head and shoulders before your cross, just like I’m supposed to.
Through the roar of the storm, she heard the hiss of the burner. The lines creaked and the deck bounced. “Here she comes,” cried the old man.
Is this not it, thought Keshia? There can’t be more, can there?
Keshia opened her eyes. In the light of the orange flame, she could just make out the silhouette of the old man, one hand clung to the cable that controlled the burner, the other to the wheel. The balloon felt like it was surging forwards, deeper and deeper into the storm. The deck creaked and rattled and plunged down again and again and Keshia was certain that at any moment they had to fall crashing into the ground.
On the other side of the deck, Keshia could just make out Ari’s silhouette, her arms stretched out between two lines and her legs flailing in the air behind her. Her body looked like a flag blown helplessly in the wind, and one that might, at any moment, be torn from its mast.
She cried out, “Ari.”
The deck crashed and surged upwards and Keshia watched Ari slam into the deck.
I have to do something, she thought. We’re not going to rise above the storm, we’re going to crash. Why didn’t the captain see this coming? Why hasn’t he already taken us above the storm, or landed us on the ground? Surely that would have been even better? Instead, he’s going to get us all killed. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing? Then a thought hit her and her heart leapt. She cried out, “We need the engines.”
“No,” cried the old man. His bald scalp glowed orange in the light of the burner. “Stay where ya are.”
It’s too far for him to make it, thought Keshia. But I can make it. It’s just a small step to the lever.
“But I can get to them,” cried Keshia.
The deck bounced.
“No,” cried the old man again. “It’s too risky.” He let go of the wheel and his legs lifted into the air.
Keshia’s heart leapt. He’d almost been blown away.
What if we lose the captain? We’ll definitely never survive then. I have to do something, and I can do this.
It was just a small step, she could make it, she knew it.
Keshia loosened her grip on the line. Her heart beat in her ears.
Thump, thump.
I can do this.
She unwound her leg from the line.
There’s nothing to it, just one leap, one footstep really, and I’m at the lever.
Keshia held her breath and leapt…
The hot wind tore against her clothes. Keshia stumbled and her hands landed on the lever. Her heart jumped. She dug her feet into the deck and began to pull.
“Come on.”
The lever snapped backwards and Keshia was flung across the deck. She landed on the hard, metal surface and rolled. She reached for a line but it was just out of reach.
The air was shattered by the tin cry of tearing metal. For a moment, the deck seemed to stop moving, and then just as quickly it was flung backwards, as if released from some invisible spring. Keshia looked up and, in the open air beyond the canopy, she saw a thin, black object spinning helplessly upwards towards the silver bulb of the balloon.
The deck bounced and Keshia was lifted into the air. The metal surface slid beneath her outstretched fingers. She tumbled over canvas awning and grabbed hold of one corner. Her legs flailed behind her in the open air. The muscles in her arms screamed.
She buried her face into the canvas.
Far behind her, spinning away with the storm, was the unmistakable shape of one of the balloon’s fans.
∆∆∆
Keshia was trailing after the balloon. Ari could hear a series of popping sounds. As she watched, one by one, the tethers that held the canopy in place were snapping. Beyond Keshia’s feet, the sky churned and sparked angrily.
Dag it, kid, thought Ari. You’re gonna get us all killed.
The old man was holding something towards her. A rope. “Ya gonna ‘ave to help me. I’s only got two ‘ands, I’s can’t do everythin’.”
Ari nodded. In one swift movement, she stepped from her line to the wheel. She slipped her elbow through the spokes.
“It were’n’ ‘er fault.”
Ari took the rope. “Ya coulda fooled me.” She slipped one end through the spokes and started to tie it.
“Here,” said the old man, “like this.” His ancient fingers moved deftly around the two cords; up and over, over and under. Ari pulled the knot tight.
Maker, give me strength, thought Ari, because how am I supposed to tell this kid what for if she goes and falls to her death? Then it’d be pretty hard to be angry with her.
Ari flung the rope towards Keshia. It flailed wildly past her, snapping and curling in the wind like a wild snake.
“Dag it.”
Another tether snapped and the canvas awning folded over itself, sending Keshia bouncing in the air.
Using both hands, Ari hauled the rope back in. She squinted into the thick dust. She could taste the grit in her mouth, dry and salty, like the salt plains. A solid bar of yellow lightning pounced between two clouds. The air tingled like it
was alive and the hairs on Ari’s arms prickled.
Ari started to feed the rope back out towards Keshia. It whipped about wildly.
Come on, thought Ari.
She twisted the rope between her palms. It spun in circles and lashed against Keshia.
“Come on.”
Ari tried to block everything else out — the wind, the yellow lightning, the purple static, the red dust that cut through her skin, the grit in her mouth, clogging her throat, like the black dust in the mine.
The final tether popped. The canvas tore away from the deck, sucked into the maelstrom of the storm.
Keshia clung to the rope.
Ari sighed, then a burst of red pain exploded in her elbow. She released one hand and before she could stop herself, her arm had slipped through the wheel’s spokes.
Something gripped the top of Ari’s arm. She looked down and saw the thin fingers of the old man now clung to her with surprising strength.
Ari gritted her teeth and, one hand in front of the other, she started to pull the rope in.
“Thas it,” she heard the old man say in her ear. “Almost there.”
Keshia bounced wildly in the wind.
Even in her goggles, Ari’s eyes teared.
Keshia thumped, bounced, then landed on the metal deck.
“Grab holda’ somethin’,” cried Ari.
Keshia scrambled across the deck and got a hold of one of the lines.
Ari released the rope and grabbed hold of the wheel. The old man released her arm and returned his hand to the cable that controlled the burner.
Ari sank to her knees and closed her eyes, shutting out the world of the storm and the dust. She didn’t think about Keshia or the old man or the mission to save Starla and all those half-moon coins she didn’t really care about anyway. She felt the warm heat of the burner and listened to it hiss, carrying them higher, out of the storm.
∆∆∆
Gradually, the storm began to die. The deck bounced less and the wind subsided until there was none at all and the balloon slid into a plane of hot, dead air.
For a time, Ari drifted on the edge of sleep. She saw images of her mother and father, and their little hut in the wasteland, before her father disappeared, and before her mother died. She remembered her cave with the little pictures she’d scraped onto its walls and her collection of beads and bits of pottery, like the fragment of glazed china with the blue bird that she’d found out in the wasteland. She saw the false lashes that Starla had given her and remembered the way they’d tickled her palm. That all seemed so far away now, as if all of it had happened to someone else.
Her muscles ached. Sweat trickled down her scalp. She sucked her chapped lips and swallowed dryly.
The old man stopped the burner. In the silence, between the creaking lines, Ari thought she could just hear Keshia sobbing.
Let her sob, she thought. She near enough got us all killed. Stupid kid, I should have left her behind in Bo. In fact, if it weren’t for her, thieving from all the wrong folks, I wouldn’t even be in this mess.
But then, she thought, Starla would still need rescuing. Would the city have found her somehow anyway?
Yeah, but maybe not the Jackrollers, and maybe not Nero and this stupid balloon. Give me a camel and supplies, maybe even a rifle, and I could have done it myself. I don’t need no one else holding me back, especially not the kid. I don’t know why I never kicked her to the curb when she stole from the Jackrollers. That’s caused me all kinds of trouble I never needed and didn’t deserve. If I had then I wouldn’t be on this stupid balloon. Flying, seriously. Flying’s for the birds.
After a while, Ari opened her eyes. Ahead, one side of the canopy was now torn away entirely, leaving the world below now visible from the deck. The clouds of red dust were clearing, revealing a land covered in black blotches like bruises. Long earthworks cut into the flat wasteland. Orange bursts of flame were scattered like bonfires and thick columns of black smoke oozed from round craters.
The old man spoke. “Someone’s takin’ ‘vantage of the dust storm. They’s makin’ an offensive. We should be safe enough up ‘ere though.”
The war, thought Ari. That’s something else I shouldn’t be in. It ain’t nothing to do with me if these folks wanna kill each other.
The balloon drifted in the dead air and, with a strange detachment, Ari watched the battle ensue far below. The ground blazed and popped and the metallic smell of burnt oil drifted upwards. Keshia had stopped sobbing and now sat quietly, her face in her hands, and Ari felt she had no energy to talk to her.
A big, black fly buzzed around Ari’s head. It landed on her knee and she watched it rub its front legs together with glee. She sucked at the corner of her lip. “Hey, are we gettin’ lower?”
The old man scrunched his forehead. “Well, I’s been wonderin’ that, but I’s can’t see clearly the way’s you can. Do it look like we’s getting closer to the ground?”
“Kinda, maybe.”
The old man stuck his tongue out as if to taste the air. “Well, air’s certainly thicker I reckon.”
He scurried across the deck and craned his head upwards. Nodding, he returned to the wheel, hitched himself up onto it, and pushed his head up into the balloon. He came back down and scratched the bristles of his chin.
“Well?” asked Ari.
“Aye,” said the old man. “We’s goin’ down all right. There’s a tear in the balloon.”
Chapter 8
In his trembling fingers, the old man held out the roll of black tape. “So, one of you’s got to climb up an’ repair the tear.”
Keshia eyed the tape nervously. The pit of her stomach felt hollow.
Ari nodded towards Keshia. “Well, we know whose fault this is.”
“I was trying to help.”
“An’ now we’re adrift, with only one motor, an’ a tear in the balloon.”
“I’m sorry,” said Keshia.
“Well, I ain’t climbin’ up there,” said Ari.
Keshia looked back at the tape. The feeling in her stomach was getting lower, pulling her down.
“Well,” said the old man, “on a ship there be only one fair way of doin’ this.” He slipped the tape back into his pocket. He rummaged around in the pocket. When his hand emerged, in his fist he held three yellow straws.
“I ain’t doin’ this,” said Ari. “It’s ‘er fault, she should make it right.”
“Tis the only way,” said the old man. “In the skies we’s together, ain’t no one's fault.”
Keshia looked at Ari. Ari looked at the straws. Keshia watched the sweat trickle down Ari’s scalp. Ari had barely looked at her since she’d pulled her back on board. The lump in Keshia’s throat grew.
Ari chewed at the corner of her lip. “All right then, if it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be.”
“Tis the way,” said the old man.
Ari reached out and pulled away one of the straws; long and thin.
The old man looked at Keshia.
I don’t have any choice, thought Keshia, it surely has to be me. It should be me, shouldn’t it?
Keshia’s fingers shook. Gingerly, she clasped the end of a straw and pulled it away. Small, stubby, barely deeper than the old man’s fingers.
In her gut, Keshia could feel panic rising. She looked up. The old man’s eyes widened and began to moisten. He tried a smile as he opened his palm where a single long straw remained.
“You’s lightest anyways,” he said. “Good for climbing up the balloon.”
Keshia felt cold and began to shiver.
∆∆∆
Ari and the old man worked quickly, fastening a rope around Keshia’s waist.
“Be sure to pull it tight,” said the old man.
Ari squeezed the knot. The rope pinched. Ari gave it a confident tug.
“Now, if ya fall,” said Ari, “you’ll be right.”
Keshia nodded. Her throat felt dry and her whole body shivered.
“Tis not
so far,” said the old man, almost as if he were talking to himself. “When I was a lad, not so much older ‘an you, I’s did jush this, ’twas a balloon over the Simpson, so I’d recall, not so far from here that.”
Always in the background, through the dead air, came the gentle popping of the explosions far below.
“‘course, we could land too, but then we’d be in the war,” continued the old man. “Nows, I’s jush put this ‘ere for ya.” He thrust the tape into her pocket. “Stick to anything that, ya jush pull the fabric together and get a good seal, it don’t need to be pretty or nothin’. Till then, I’ll keep the burner goin’, stop us gettin’ too low.”
Get a good seal. It doesn’t need to be pretty. Keshia rolled the instructions in her head, thinking of those instead of the other thing, the bit where she climbs up the outside of the balloon.
Ari and the old man thrust Keshia towards the remaining canopy.
“You’ll be right,” said the old man. “Rope’ll catch ya if ya fall.” He reached out a long finger and pointed to the webbing that stretched upwards. “See, ‘tis like a ladder. It covers the whole balloon an’ keeps it all in place. You’s can climb up that. We’ll feed the rope out as ya climb. Jush don’t look down an’ you’ll be fine.”
Keshia stepped out onto the canopy. Her feet sank into the strained fabric and she stumbled forwards onto her knees.
The old man muttered to Ari. “Bad sign, that.”
Keshia looked over her shoulder at Ari and the old man. The old man raised his eyebrows and beckoned her on.
Gingerly, Keshia crawled to the edge of the canvas. Sweat trickled down her forehead.
Don’t look down, don’t look down…
She mouthed the words to herself, repeating them like a mantra.
Don’t look down, don’t look down…
In her ears, her heart beat solid and heavy, like the footsteps of a monster that grew closer and closer.
Don’t look down, don’t look down…
From far below, she could smell the burning fuel and hear the whistle of projectiles and the pop-pop of explosions.
