Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
All are feeding today with a new kind of urgency. Are they on some kind of migration? I wonder where they’re going? Where they come from? I suppose the sky is their home; they need no terrestrial haven. Perhaps they simply move from hemisphere to hemisphere looking for the warmest skies, and the birthing season coincides with their arrival in southern latitudes.
19:35
They’re departing. Would like to follow, but they’re too fast. With tailwinds, I would estimate eighty knots. Amazing creatures.
Gone now.
Weather changing.
Maybe it was me, but I thought he sounded pretty dejected. When I turned the page I felt a bit queasy. Most of the handwriting was smeared, by torrential rain, I supposed, and I could make out only a few words. It seemed a tropical storm had overtaken him and kept him in its fist for some time. I think I saw the word damage in one entry, and a mention of a problem with the envelope. A hot flush swept my back. Was he leaking? Had the creatures torn his balloon, or was it just the storm?
Benjamin Molloy had stopped dating his entries, and his coordinates and weather observations seemed halfhearted now. His handwriting was all tilted, the letters slewing into one another. I remembered that we’d found him on September 13, so that left five days after his last dated entry. I wondered if he’d now fallen ill, too weak to repair his ship or keep his log properly. There were some more sketches of the creatures, and then, suddenly, the sketches became stranger, covering more and more of the pages.
Creatures with the faces of lions or eagles or women. Creatures with human faces, and furred bodies and wings that even not fully extended dwarfed their bodies. These were imaginings, surely, for they were so different from his earlier sketches, but drawn with such detail you’d have thought he’d had them right before his eyes.
Surely he was ill, or disturbed, by now. Seeing angels, maybe. Seeing his own death fluttering down to gaze upon him with her hypnotist’s eyes and carry his soul off.
“They were beautiful,” he’d muttered to me before he died. “Did you see them?”
There was only one more written entry in the log.
Airship in the distance. Will signal for help.
I looked for the date, but found none. It must have been the Aurora he’d sighted, but I’d certainly seen no signal from his gondola. Perhaps he’d passed out before he could signal. Doc Halliday had said he’d had pneumonia and possibly a heart seizure too.
I stared at that last page for a while, the final words, the nothingness after it, and it got me feeling strange, so I had to close the book. I felt a keen disappointment. It was hard to know what to make of it all. At first the log had been so clear and reasonable, but by the end, especially with those pictures, it seemed he was dreaming. When did the real end, and the conjurings of a disturbed mind begin?
It was pushing two in the morning now, and I felt thoroughly ill at ease. I put the book on the shelf and eventually slept.
And dreamed all night. Of me and Kate de Vries and winged creatures that looked like cats, and Benjamin Molloy, and Captain Walken, and there were others swirled into the dream, the Lunardi boy and Baz, and a great sense of peril hung over us all, but also exhilaration. My father was there too, and we were suddenly in a gondola, this great group of us, with winged creatures careening all around. Some watched the creatures with intense amazement, some with fear, others with only mild curiosity. But they were flying closer to the balloon, ever closer, and I saw their great curved claws and teeth and was worried they would tear the balloon and we’d no longer be airworthy. “Keep back,” I shouted at them, but closer they came. “Keep back,” I shouted again, but they would not heed me.
I woke feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all, head thrumming like a symphony. I sprang off the bunk, eager to get the journal back to Kate and talk to her. But it wasn’t until lunch that I had a chance. At breakfast I was serving, and Miss Simpkins was at the table the whole time, and then she whisked Kate out before I could even hand her the journal. Then there was the clearing up and the preparing for lunch.
Around midday we were passing over the Hawaiis, and the captain slowed down and took us lower so the passengers could get a good look. On other trips we sometimes made stops, but this was a direct passage, so everyone had to content themselves with peering down at the lush foliage and hearing the shriek of macaws and spider monkeys and toucans and cockatoos; the heady scent of the islands’ flowers reached us even at a hundred feet. We were close enough so people on the ground waved and cheered, and bathers on the beach shielded their eyes with tanned hands to look up at the great ship as it painted its massive shadow over the sand and water.
We were cruising over the outer islands when the captain entered the lounge, grinning.
“Ladies and gentlemen, a point of interest. Off the starboard side, we’re passing Mount Mataurus, and, if I’m not mistaken, she is about to erupt.”
Nearly everyone put down their forks and knives and rushed to the windows. In the distance was the island with its volcano, a great heap of stone, looking more like the devil’s anvil than anything, despite the green hue of its lush vegetation. Great puffs of gray smoke were billowing up from its jaws, and getting darker by the second.
“Thar she blows!” shouted Baz.
Black bits of rock came shooting out from the cone, and the sound hit us a second later, a deep thunderous vibration that passed through the entire ship and rattled the windows. We were upwind of it, or we would have soon been choking on the ash and smoke it was venting high into the sky.
Soon the volcano was spitting out orange and red sparks, and then a glutinous tongue of black and orange lava oozed over the crater’s rim and started a leisurely slide down the slope, incinerating everything in its path. Good thing this was an uninhabited island.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
I glanced over, and Kate was beside me. She was looking out the window, but I knew she wasn’t talking about the volcano. There was no sign of Miss Simpkins, and there was no one else around us; everyone was watching the eruption, talking and pointing excitedly and snapping pictures.
“Incredible,” I said and faltered, uncertain what to say next. I took the journal from my inside breast pocket and passed it to her. “Thank you.”
“You don’t believe it,” she said coldly.
“I’m not saying that. It’s just…I’m not altogether certain your grandpa really knew what he was seeing.”
“How can you say that? He spent days watching them and taking down notes like a scientist. He couldn’t have made up all these things. Not in such detail!”
It did seem an awful lot to imagine, even if he was delirious. I remembered his drawings. A weak, shaking hand couldn’t have spun those lines.
“He always saw them from a distance,” I pointed out.
“True, but think what he saw! The feeding, the birthing!”
“Those picture toward the end…” I had traversed the skies over Atlanticus and Pacificus and never had I seen such creatures. How to tell her that her grandpa had been ill and his fevered brain had projected these things on thin air for his failing eyes to see? I thought of all her camera equipment, her bottles of chemicals, and could not find it in my heart to speak the plain truth.
“You think like the others,” she said, and there was a new hardness in her voice.
“I think your grandfather was unwell and saw things. Maybe,” I added. All the friendly light in her eyes had frosted away, and it made me feel sick.
“No. He saw them. He’d been watching them for days.”
She clenched the journal in both hands, knuckles white. “He was sick by then, I suppose,” she said. “But maybe he didn’t mean us to think those last drawings were real. He was just imagining.”
“Your grandpa’s not the first to see such things. They’re called sky kelpies. You see them from time to time, reflections on the water mostly. All sorts of weird atmospheric things. Airshipmen used to report them all the time. It’s
I could see she didn’t like this much. I was insulting her. But what else could I say? I was just telling her the facts.
“Maybe you should talk to the captain about it,” I suggested. “I’m sure he’d talk with you, miss.”
Captain Walken surely must have read the journal last year when we took the gondola on board. I wondered that he’d never spoken of the strange things it contained—but of course he wouldn’t have. He would never have divulged the contents of another captain’s log to any but the relevant officers and authorities.
“I don’t need to talk to the captain about it. I expect I’d get much the same as what I’ve just heard from you.”
“It’s not that I haven’t looked,” I blurted out as she turned to leave. “I’ve looked, for all sorts of things, you can take my word on it. Every flicker in the sky.” I shook my head. “I’ve never seen anything. But I’d love to. What your grandpa described is amazing. It sent shivers across my belly and then up into my armpits.”
“Me too!” she said, nodding with a frown. “That tingly feeling. I get it every time I read it, and I’ve read it a hundred times now.”
All the passengers in the lounge, including Miss Simpkins luckily, were still crowded around the windows, riveted by the eruption. The volcano was putting on quite a show. Half the island was aflame now, lava crackling and steaming as it poured into the water.
“Have you shown the journal to anyone else?” I asked her. “Your parents surely.”
I saw her nostrils narrow as she sucked in an angry breath. “They’re embarrassed by the whole business. Mother always thought he was odd. The traveling, the balloons. Just silly. They always thought he was a bit of a nutter. Hallucinations, that’s what they said. ‘Let’s just forget the whole thing.’ That’s why I had to send the letter to the Zoological Society myself!”
I blinked.
“I couldn’t let my parents stop this from getting out to the world! This is a major discovery—a new animal! I wrote them a letter describing more or less what my grandfather saw and asked them if they’d care to see a facsimile of his journal.”
“Did they reply?”
“Oh, yes.”
From her handbag she produced a letter. It was folded square, the creases so worn you could tell she’d folded and unfolded it many times. I could imagine her face when she read it, getting mad all over again. It wasn’t a long letter, and I read it quickly:
Dear Miss de Vries,
Thank you for your letter. Firstly, let us say how sorry we are to hear of the death of your grandfather. We wish you and your family the best in this trying time. We appreciate your taking the time to tell us about your grandfather’s observations on his balloon voyage, namely the sighting of “some kind of winged mammal.”
We feel strongly that should such a creature exist it would surely have been sighted and documented long ago. Every year there are hundreds of unsubstantiated sightings of monstrous creatures in land, air, and sea and we feel it is our duty as men of science to gently remind you that your grandfather was not trained, and in his state of health, he may have suffered additional deficiencies of observation.
“Additional deficiencies of observation,’” Kate scoffed, reading over my shoulder. “They mean he was seeing things. Why don’t they call him a senile old goat!”
I turned away a bit so I could finish the letter.
Our suggestion to you would be to put your grandfather’s writings out of your mind and turn your interests elsewhere, to more comfortable young ladies’ pursuits.
“Did you get to the ‘young ladies’ pursuits’ part?” she demanded.
“Just now, yes.”
“I suppose they mean darning socks and needlepoint or making iced butter balls for the dinner table.”
“Most likely,” I said. “Can I just finish—”
“You’re taking a long time,” she said.
I whisked the letter down. “With you interrupting!”
She seemed to realize she was being a pest, and her haughty gaze fell to the carpet.
The rest of the letter was the usual “yours sincerely” and “thank you for your interest in the Zoological Society,” etcetera, etcetera. It was signed Sir Hugh Snuffler. I saw him in my mind’s eye. Short and balding with a big loud voice.
“Arrogant old farts,” Kate muttered. “As if they’ve explored every inch of the planet. As if anyone has! And what about you?” she fairly shouted.
“What about me?”
“You’ve flown for years, yes?”
“Well, three.”
“And how much of the actual sky have you traversed?”
“Not much, when you put it that way.”
“Exactly. Ships have their routes and, as you say, deviate from them only when necessary. That must leave millions and millions of miles of unexplored sky and sea!”
“I imagine you’re right,” I said, nodding.
“And how long have airships really been flying?”
“Fifty years or so now.”
“Hardly any time at all, in other words. So how can we possibly know they don’t exist?”
“Especially out here over the Pacificus,” I said, surprising myself. “The skyways and sea lanes are much less well traveled, compared to the Atlanticus.”
“Exactly,” she said, beaming.
“Do your parents know you wrote to the Zoological Society?”
“Heavens, no! They would’ve locked me in my room without pen or paper! They’d have been mortified! Telling someone outside the family! Spreading his mad rantings! I wish he’d been my father. Wasting all his stories on my mother. She hasn’t an imaginative bone in her body!”
“But you do. Question is, is this all imagination or real?”
“The coordinates he wrote down, for the island. Do we pass over them?”
“I’d have to check, but I think not.”
“Will you check, though?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And if we don’t pass over, will you tell me when we’ll be nearest the spot?”
“I’ll do that.”
“Will you really?” She seemed amazed.
“Yes.”
“Grandpa thought they were migrating, and this is the same time of year. We could see them.”
I thought of her fancy camera.
“And what if you get a picture? What’ll you do with it?”
“I’ll send it directly to Sir Hugh Snufflynose at the Zoological Society. That’ll set him straight.”
I laughed. “I’m sure it will, miss.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘miss.’”
“What should I call you?”
“Kate, of course.”
“If I start calling you Kate now when it’s just the two of us, I might slip up in public, and that’d be seen as impertinent.”
“Silly rules.”
“People like you invented them. Not me.”
“Good point,” she said appreciatively, a thoughtful crease in her brow. “Really good point.”
“Here’s what I’ll do,” I said. “When I get off duty, I’ll check the charts and find out when we’ll be closest.”
“Thank you. I just hope it’s during daylight.”
“I hope you see them,” I said. “I really do.”
6
SZPIRGLAS
Back in the crow’s nest, nestled beneath the stars. Trying to imagine winged creatures above me, creatures who never needed to land, who’d never felt earth beneath their feet. Sitting under that glass dome, looking up at the sky’s bigger black dome, always put me in a talkative frame of mind. Of course, it was all talking to myself.
Before starting my watch I’d gone down to the navigation room, and Mr. Grantham had patiently let me gawk at his charts. Our projected route was a dotted line, with a few little zigzag markings where we’d deviated because of wind and weat
And she’d be right, of course.
“What is it you’re looking for, lad?” Grantham had asked in his friendly way.
“What’s over here? Much?”
“Don’t think so. We try to stay out of that region, actually.”
“Why’s that?”
“Winds are capricious all through there—that’s why it’s called the Sisyphus Triangle. There’s been airships that went in and never came out. I’ve heard rumors about garbled distress calls, compass needles spinning madly, instruments all screwy. Luckily there’s not much need to use those airways. They don’t lead anywhere of particular interest.”
I looked at the dotted line of our course and made a quick calculation. Tomorrow at breakfast we’d be as close to the invisible island as we were likely to get.
At dinner, I’d left a note in Kate’s napkin, telling her what I’d learned. Baz caught me folding it up. He didn’t say anything, just gave me a look, like a cat that had taken an entire budgie in its mouth and was sitting very still, hoping no one would notice. Then he winked and walked off. I blushed…
And almost blushed again now in the crow’s nest as I remembered it. I liked talking to her, but sometimes I’d feel her eyes on me and I’d be painfully aware of the way my words sounded or of my body hanging around me like a big floppy suit of clothing, and I wouldn’t know how to stand properly, and what was my arm doing there, and was there a bit of spit on my upper lip?
I wondered if she was awake, sitting up already at her stateroom windows, camera ready, waiting for first light. Midnight was long past; the passengers were all asleep, and only the crew and the Aurora were awake, working and moving through the sky.