Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
“Take off your shoes and boots,” I told them. “You’ll be quieter.”
“My feet might be a bit whiffy,” Kate said apologetically.
“I promise not to sniff them.”
She unlaced her boots quickly, while I helped Bruce off with his shoes. Then I led the way up the ladder to the keel catwalk. I could smell fish wafting down the corridor. Vlad was already cooking. We had to hurry. It took Bruce quite a while to make it up the ladder. I wondered if he was up to this.
On the keel catwalk we parted company. Kate and I wished Bruce luck and he limped off down a lateral walkway to the ship’s starboard hull. There were access hatches all along that would let him get at the main landing lines and slip them from their cleats.
Kate and I padded our way forward. We were amidships when we heard voices and froze, my senses swiveling to find the source. They were coming from just behind us, from the gangway that led to the aft engine car. The footfalls were getting louder. They’d come out onto the keel catwalk soon, right behind us. There was no time for running back. Run forward and they might see us before we could get out of sight.
“Slide under,” I hissed at Kate, pointing down. There was a bit of clearance between the metal grille of the catwalk floor and the actual hull of the ship’s belly. I pulled her down and helped her swing her legs under the catwalk. I shoved her body beneath then slid in beside her. It was dark, but there was a tungsten lamp not too far along the corridor, and if anyone was to look directly down, he would see us, stiff and frozen like fossils in a glacier.
The voices grew louder.
“They’re beauties,” said one of the pirates. “Better than ours.”
“Three thousand horsepower each I’d wager.”
“Szpirglas says we can take three and leave one aboard to power her up and wreck her.”
There were two of them, Crumlin and some other fellow. I could see them as they emerged from the gangway and came toward us along the keel catwalk. They talked about the engines and the best way to strip them. I felt their footfalls through the metal of the catwalk, through the wall of my chest into my heart. I tried not to breathe. Their boots clanged over us.
And stopped, just over our heads.
I was staring up at the pockmarked undersides of their boots. I could tickle the underside of their boots if I but lifted my finger. I could see up their trouser legs and behold their great hairy calves. The smell was not pleasant.
“That cook’s got something on the go,” said the pirate.
“Hungry, are you?” Crumlin asked.
“I’ll wager their grub’s better than ours.”
“Maybe we should keep the cook.”
They both laughed at this.
Crumlin lit a cigarette and dropped the match. It fell through the metal grille and landed on my cheek, its tip still blazing hot. I screwed up my face and tried to think of my foot, my fingers, anything but the red hot ember on my flesh. Water flooded my eyes, my nostrils ran. The heat faded. I needed air. I wanted to breathe deeply, but the wretches were still standing over us, gabbing about what else they wanted to strip from the ship. Some cigarette ash drifted down onto Kate’s nose. She breathed some of it in, and I saw her nostrils wrinkle and knew she was about to sneeze. Her eyes narrowed, her chest quivered. I lifted my hand and pinched her nose with my fingers. She gave a little gasp, but at that moment the pirates started walking again and their boots clanged on the catwalk, blotting out the sound.
Crumlin and his friend kept going. I listened to their fading footsteps, following them forward through the ship. Keys jangled, a door opened and closed, and I knew they’d passed into the passenger quarters.
We crawled out. I was shaken, not just by our close call but by the fact the pirates were moving about the ship now. I’d become careless, assuming the pirates were still all on A-Deck, standing guard over their hostages. It would make it harder for us to get around, to stay secret. I hoped Bruce was being careful.
“Are you all right?” she said, touching my cheek. There must have been a red mark there. I could still feel it smarting. The pads of her fingers were cool and soothing.
“Fine,” I told her.
The smell of Vlad’s cooking suffused the corridor, and my stomach tightened with hunger. It smelled awfully good. We made our way, more carefully now, to the door to the passenger quarters. The pirates had locked it behind them. I listened, then let us through onto B-Deck.
I led Kate past the crew’s mess to the kitchen. Overhead I could hear footsteps and the faint sounds of Vlad singing and cursing as he cooked in the main A-Deck kitchen. I walked over to the dumbwaiter and slid open the door. We looked at it.
“You can’t fit in there,” Kate said.
“I can,” I said doubtfully.
It was even tinier than I’d remembered.
“Maybe I should do it,” Kate said. “I’m smaller.”
“No.”
“In you go, then,” she said.
I handed her the flask of sleeping elixir. I had to go in backward, for once I was in, there would be no shifting, and certainly no turning around. I backed in bum first, spine and neck bent until I could barely breathe, my knees splayed up on either side of my ears. I felt like a circus freak, squeezing into a milk crate.
“All right?” Kate asked.
I grunted.
“There’s bits still sticking out,” she said and gave me a good shove.
“Gently does it!” I hissed.
“Sorry. Here.” She placed the flask in my fingers and jammed in my right foot, which kept sliding out. “Don’t want it getting caught in the door. Ready?”
“Ready.”
I was boxed. I would rather have swung over the open ocean than this. Sweat prickled across my entire body. Kate slid the door shut, and I wondered if my heart would stop. Thank goodness for the little round window at least. Kate peered in at me, smiled, then her hand lifted to the control buttons. With a jerk I was moving up. Blackness slid down over the window.
It was only a matter of ten feet, I knew, but those were the slowest ten feet I could recall. The noise of the dumbwaiter’s motor sounded labored, and I wondered if it had ever carried such weight before. I was light, but not lighter than a rack of lamb.
Good Lord, what if there were pirates in the kitchen with Vlad? What if they were standing guard over him? I’d be delivered to them trussed up like a Christmas goose.
Light bobbed down behind the window, and I was in the upper kitchen. Steaming pots and spitting skillets and vegetables and fish and potatoes were spread out on cutting boards. And there was Vlad, his back to me, whisking something in an enormous soup pot. I tilted my head as much as I could, but saw no one else in the kitchen.
I waited a moment, for Vlad to turn. I’d been hoping he would hear the dumbwaiter and turn in curiosity if nothing else. But the sounds of his kitchen must have drowned it out.
I could not open the door from the inside.
I rapped at the glass with my knuckles.
I felt a bat wing flutter of panic inside my chest.
I was trapped.
I knocked harder and could see Vlad stand taller for a moment. Once more I knocked, and this time he turned, frowning. He bent and peeped into the window and jerked in surprise. He looked hurriedly to the kitchen doorway then opened the dumbwaiter.
“Yes, Mr. Cruse?” he said, as if I regularly made an appearance in the dumbwaiter.
“I’ve got some—”
He whirled away from me and went back to the oven.
A pirate staggered in, a near empty bottle of wine in one fist, a pistol in the other. I shrank back into the dumbwaiter. My toes, I was sure, were sticking out.
“Where’s that soup?” the pirate roared at Vlad.
“Coming!” Vlad bellowed back. “A soup you will like. You will adore it!”
“We’d better or we’ll bung you in for more flavor!”
“Ha ha!” Vlad laughed dementedly. “Yes, yes, of co
The pirate was beside Vlad now, peering into the great cauldron of soup, his back to me.
“We’re hungry, Count Dracula, now get a move on! Cook!”
“Cook, I live to cook!” bellowed Vlad. “Let me cook!”
The pirate turned. His head was now in profile. With one twitch of his eyes he would see me. He took another long snort from the bottle of wine. He started turning toward me.
“What is that you’re drinking?” Vlad said suddenly, placing himself between us.
“Booze is what it is,” the pirate retorted.
Vlad took the bottle to read the label.
“No! No, no, no!” shouted Vlad as if impaled on a sword. “This is the wrong wine for the meal I am about to serve. Open a white, please, a Chablis or a Riesling. The soup will be better, you will see.”
The pirate pushed him away and stomped out of the kitchen.
Vlad turned back to me.
“Peasants, these people. He thinks a Burgundy is appropriate!”
He shook his head venomously, as if he’d forgotten the fact we were prisoners, our lives were in danger, and I was crammed in a dumbwaiter.
Vlad sighed heavily. “Now, then, what can I do for you, Mr. Cruse? My soup soon is at a critical stage.”
I wondered if Vlad was completely cuckoo after all. My hopes felt all soggy.
I held up the flask of sleeping elixir. He squinted at it, read the label, and nodded. He took it from me.
“Yes, yes, I see. For extra flavor.” He winked at me, and I knew that he understood perfectly. He crammed my foot back inside the dumbwaiter and then, as an afterthought, he filled a bowl of fish soup, popped in a spoon, and pushed it into my hands. Then he closed the dumbwaiter door and pressed the down button.
My last view through the round window was of Vlad uncorking the medicine bottle and dumping the entire contents into the soup while belting out an opera aria.
Down I went.
It was no easy feat, eating and swallowing in such a position, but I devoured half the fish soup before I reached the bottom of the dumbwaiter shaft. I saved the rest for Kate.
With a jolt I stopped.
Light filled the round window.
Kate was gone.
19
AIRBORNE
My eyes darted frantically around the kitchen, but Kate was nowhere to be seen. It could only mean she’d been caught. Beneath the sink, a cupboard door swung open, and Kate emerged, a frying pan clutched in her hands. She nimbly leaped out, rushed to the dumbwaiter, and slid open the door.
“Quick,” she said, snatching the bowl of soup out of my hands then tugging at me roughly. My back and neck sang with pain as my body unfolded itself. I tumbled out stiffly. “I heard someone. I think he went into the toilets across the corridor.”
I took her hand and led her out of the kitchen. From the men’s lavatory we heard a flush of water. We ran. I fumbled with my keys and opened the door and we were out onto the keel catwalk, near the ship’s bow this time. From here, the catwalk stretched forward to the officers’ and captain’s quarters and the control car. I started down a lateral passage toward the ship’s starboard side.
For the next half hour or so, Kate and I worked along the inside of the hull, opening access hatches and casting off landing lines. I wanted to be quick. With fewer lines on her, the Aurora would shift if the wind picked up, and the pirates would surely notice and come to investigate. From the beach they’d see all the slipped lines and know they had stowaways.
Through the walls of the passenger quarters I caught a wave of raucous laughter.
“They’ve been drinking,” Kate whispered.
“Eating too, I hope.”
“They still seem awfully lively,” Kate said as more guffaws and shouting passed through the walls.
Right now I just hoped most of the pirates were eating in A-Deck lounge and not skulking about the ship, scavenging. I hoped Bruce was getting on all right. Kate and I worked, silent and intent, along both sides of the Aurora until we’d cast off all her landing lines, letting them drop to the sand below.
“Just the bow lines now,” I whispered.
We went back to the keel catwalk and up a companion ladder toward the axial catwalk. Cautiously I lifted my head above the last rung of the ladder and peered about. It was clear. I hurried forward.
Right in the ship’s nose were two access panels. I opened one and light flooded in. I stuck my head out and was heartened there was still no breeze against my cheeks. Once I cast off the bow lines, assuming Bruce had done his work, the Aurora would only be tethered by the stern, and anything more than a breath of wind would shift her.
Cleated outside on the hull were the two thick bow lines. They swung down toward the sand and were tied up to palms across the beach. I slipped them off at the cleats and let them fall. It was simpler and faster than risking a trip outside to cast off, and this way there’d be no line left dangling to snag as we took off.
“Let’s go,” I said to Kate.
I decided to take the axial corridor all the way back to the stern. I hoped it would be safer, for there was little up here to interest the pirates. We were halfway back when I saw something at the far end of the catwalk.
“What is that?” I asked Kate.
At first I thought it might be a tarp or a bundle of extra goldbeater’s skin lying in a heap, but then it shifted, wispy white. The hair on my arms lifted.
“It’s her,” Kate said.
She was right. It was our cloud cat, aboard the Aurora. I’d never seen any creature look more out of place. Amid all the metal and cable and wire, the cloud cat looked like something caged in the zoo. Except it was not caged. It had free run of the ship. How on earth had it got aboard?
“I saw it earlier,” I whispered, suddenly realizing that it must have been the ghostly flash of light I’d spied while running along the keel catwalk.
“The fish,” said Kate. “She smells the fish.”
“Curious as a cat,” Crumlin had said to us, and Kate’s grandfather had noted the same in his journal. They were intelligent, inquisitive creatures. Maybe this one had followed us across the island, invisible in the foliage. Maybe it had watched the Aurora from the treetops for a while, and then the smell of the fish stew had lured it onto the ship’s back and down the open hatch of one of the crow’s nests.
The cloud cat surely had seen Kate and me now, but was not moving. The amidships ladder down to the keel catwalk was just before us, and I touched Kate’s arm and nodded at it. We took it quickly. The cat did not move. Perhaps it was stunned and scared to find itself in such an alien environment.
“This is not a good development,” I muttered, dropping hand over hand down the ladder. Now we had a ravenous carnivore to worry about on top of everything else.
“The pirates will shoot her if they see her,” Kate said.
I was more worried about the cat tearing at the gas cells—or us. With luck, it would find its way back out the way it came, and fast.
I wondered if Vlad had served his fish soup to the pirates yet. How long would it be before they fell asleep? Would their vision swim first? Would they get suspicious? I hoped it took effect quickly and totally, before they could vent their sluggish rage on the passengers and crew. Oh, perhaps it was a wretched plan after all, and would just create more suffering.
When we got back to the auxillary control room, Bruce was there, slumped against the wall, not looking at all well.
“Just having a bit of a rest,” he said, trying to stand. He seemed ashamed of himself, and I felt sorry for him. “I got them all off.”
“Good for you,” I said. “That couldn’t have been easy.”
“We should start looking over the controls,” Bruce said.
“Yeah. By the way, the cloud cat’s on board.”
“You’re joking,” he said, looking at Kate.
She shook her head. “We saw her up on the axial catwalk.”
“Must’ve
“But I think she’s pretty scared,” Kate added, as if trying to reassure Bruce.
“Well,” he said, “I hope she bloody well gets off before we launch.”
The clock in my head told me we didn’t have much time. The other pirates would be here soon.
“Let’s get to work,” I said.
Bruce cleared his throat and nodded. “It’s good luck for us they topped up the ballast tanks. She’s perfectly weighed off right now. We’re just hovering.”
I looked at the ballast board and its row of twenty levers, one for each of the tanks placed evenly along the ship’s keel. I was ashamed I hadn’t thought ahead to that. Without ballast to dump, we’d go nowhere.
“You know how much to dump?” I asked Bruce.
“Standard procedure is one thousand pounds,” he said.
I nodded, though I’d seen the captain dump considerably more when the winds were uncooperative and he wanted to rise more quickly. Today, though, it was perfectly calm.
“We’ll need to switch the controls over from the main car,” I said. “There should be a lever or something.”
“There,” said Bruce, pointing. He looked at me. “Before you pull that, we better be sure we know what we’re all doing.”
He was right, for once we started, there would only be a few minutes before the pirates came running. Unless they were already asleep, which seemed unlikely. All the time I’d been slipping lines I’d been going through the steps we’d need to take, over and over again to make sure it was right and that I wasn’t forgetting anything. There’d be plenty for everyone to do, Kate included.
Bruce and I talked it through and decided what everyone’s job would be. We went through it a second time just to be sure.
“All ready, then?” I said.
“Yes,” said Bruce.
“Yes,” said Kate.
I went to the emergency switch-over lever and pulled it. There was a deep low hum of electricity, and all the instruments and gauges and control panels lit up a fluorescent orange. She was ready.