Skybreaker (13 page)

She nodded. “I remember those eyebrows.”

“Who is he?” Kate asked, coming over.

I glanced at the photo caption. “Says here, George Barton. He’s on the Board of the Aruba Consortium.”

“It seems most unlikely,” commented Miss Simpkins, looking up from her needlework, “that a fine gentleman from the Aruba Consortium would be dealing with the likes of John Rath.”

“I agree,” said Kate. “It’s not a very clear photograph. Are you sure, Nadira?”

She stared long and hard. “Well, not entirely. But those bushy eyebrows …”

“Those are very fashionable now,” Kate said. “All the old richies are doing it. The bushier the better.”

“I think they’re fake half the time,” murmured Miss Simpkins.

“Oh,” said Nadira. “I just caught a glimpse of him really.”

Kate lost interest in the matter and went back to her camera. Miss Simpkins sewed. Nadira found a newspaper and settled down. It was very hard to believe Rath could have anything to do with the Aruba Consortium, but I couldn’t help remembering something he’d said to me at the Ritz, about how he worked for some of the finest people in Paris. A lot of rubbish, probably.

“Aren’t you surprised we haven’t seen any cloud cats?” Kate asked after a moment.

“Well, not really,” I said. “I sailed three years without seeing any. Besides, they may not inhabit these skies at all.”

“I sincerely hope not,” said Miss Simpkins. “Horrid creatures in my opinion.”

Kate ignored her chaperone, as though her words were nothing more than the dripping of a leaky tap.

“I do hope we spot a few,” Kate said. “I’ve been working on a little theory over the past few months.”

I knew she wanted me to ask. “About what?”

“Well, the sea, as we all know, is simply teeming with life. Why shouldn’t the sky be the same?”

“Not quite as many fishies, last I checked,” said Nadira, without looking up from her newspaper.

“Ah, but if the sky can sustain a large predator like the cloud cat, surely there must be other creatures aloft.”

“But the cloud cats seemed to find most of their food at sea level,” I pointed out. “Fish and birds.”

“That’s just where we happened to observe them. Anyway, birds and fish might only be part of their diet.” She paused significantly. “The sky may hold more surprises than we think, especially at the higher altitudes.”

A year ago, I would have contradicted her. I would have told her that in all my years watching the sky, I had seen no signs of life apart from brave seafaring birds. But after discovering the cloud cats with her, I could no longer make easy assumptions. Still, with Kate I always thought it best to argue, just to stay in practice if nothing else. She liked a good debate, and I wanted her to think me clever.

“It gets awfully cold up high,” I reminded her, “and there’s not much oxygen. Or water. Every living thing needs water. They don’t call it Skyberia for nothing.”

“True,” Kate said, “but just think of the deep sea. Granted, it never goes below freezing, but when you think about it, it’s a far less hospitable place than the sky. Remember the discoveries Girard recently made in his bathysphere?”

I recalled the stories and photographs in the newspaper:
the intrepid French explorer in his striped bathing suit, standing beside his odd, spherical submarine. Its metal hull was several feet thick, fitted with reinforced portholes and lamps and motors that enabled it to be lowered to the sea’s blind depths.

“He discovered things we never imagined,” Kate went on. “A fangtooth fish that lives at a depth of sixteen thousand feet. The pressure down there is over seven thousand pounds per square inch. Imagine that. You’d be squashed into meringue. Girard found sea spiders at four miles below the surface. There’s no light and not much oxygen down there. I don’t see why airborne creatures couldn’t live at high altitudes. Certainly they’d have to adapt in ways we hadn’t thought possible.”

“It’s a very intriguing idea,” I said to Kate.

“Hmm,” said Nadira, looking at her newspaper.

“I’m hoping Grunel has some interesting specimens aboard the
Hyperion
,” Kate continued. “It would help my research no end. And imagine if he had a cloud cat! It would be even more proof. Those stodgy old men at the Zoological Society would think twice before accusing me of jumbling up some panther and albatross bones.”

Nadira looked up.”It’s a strange kind of loot to risk your neck over.”

“Well, I already have lots of the other kind,” Kate said. Apologetically she added, “Not that I earned it. It was just luck of the draw.”

“I don’t remember getting a draw,” Nadira said wryly.

I laughed. “I guess we missed it. So what will you do with all your newfound riches?”

Nadira said nothing for a moment, and I worried I’d overstepped.

“I want to strike out on my own.”

“You mean leave your family?”

“But isn’t your community awfully close-knit?” Kate asked.

“There’s no one community,” Nadira said. “There are four nations of Roma: the Kalderash, the Machacaja, the Lovari, and the Churari, and a dozen other groups besides. They’re all different.”

“I see,” said Kate sheepishly.

“Anyway,” Nadira went on, “the truth is, my own people don’t even consider me a Roma.”

“Whyever not?”

“My mother married a gadjo. An outsider. And if your father’s not a Roma, his children can’t be either. My mother was considered impure.”

“Was it terrible, growing up like that?” Kate asked.

“It would have been worse if my father’s work hadn’t taken him away for long stretches. He started out as a merchant airshipman, and then he began working with John Rath, and his work became more unsavoury. After he left us, my mother remarried, to a Roma, but we were always considered beneath the others. That’s why my mother’s in such a hurry to marry me off. Because of my mixed blood, she knows there won’t be many takers.”

Nadira was so pretty, it seemed hard to believe.

“Do you have no say in the matter?” Kate asked.

“None.”

“Quite sensible,” said Miss Simpkins, glancing up from her sewing. “Marriage is far too important a matter to be left to the young.”

“My mother would agree with you,” Nadira said. “That’s why I’m already betrothed.”

“You are?” I said, feeling an unexpected pang.

“I’m getting married in three days.”

“You’re not!” Kate exclaimed.

“Well, no, because I won’t be there, will I.” She smiled mischievously.

“You ran away!” I said, with surprise and admiration.

“Oh! This is scandalous!” Miss Simpkins said, but she had put down her sewing and was leaning forward in her chair.

“If you saw the man I’m supposed to marry,” Nadira said, “you’d run too. He has very bad teeth. He is also old enough to be my grandfather.”

“I’m completely sympathetic,” said Kate.

“Unless I marry, and become a wife and mother, there’s no future for me back home,” Nadira said. “That’s why I need Mr. Grunel’s gold.”

She was right. If she were to leave her family and make her own way, she would need plenty of money. An unmarried young woman would find it very difficult to secure reputable work, or a place to live. And as a gypsy, things would be even harder.

“Well, I think this is very loose behaviour altogether,” said Miss Simpkins. “You’re a very bold girl.”

“I was thinking of settling in Paris, actually,” said Nadira. “Buying a nice place on the river maybe. We could be neighbours.”

Miss Simpkins started sewing with renewed vigour.

“And what about you?” Nadira asked me. “What will you do with your share of the loot?”

“Buy a new school uniform,” I said decisively.

She laughed. “And then what?”

“Well, it depends how much is left over, doesn’t it?”

“More than you know what to do with!” she said, eyes alight.

“Oh, I’d buy my mother and sisters a house. A really splendid house up in the hills of Point Grey, with a view of the water and mountains. My mother wouldn’t need to work anymore. I’d have an eminent doctor cure her rheumatism. I’d hire someone to help her keep house. They wouldn’t have to make their own clothes. I would buy them a new-fangled motorcar if they wanted!”

“But you must want things for yourself too.”

“Just to keep flying,” I said, but I was lying. I wanted more than that, and felt ashamed of how much. I daydreamed about money all the time now. I would buy myself clothes like the ones Hal Slater wore. They were bound to make me look less like a boy. I would become manly. I would not endure Miss Simpkins’s peevish looks and comments about
my unsuitability. I would not suffer the humiliation of having Kate pay my way. If I failed at the Academy, I could buy a ship and a crew to call me captain. Money would conjure my happy future like a genie’s lamp.

L
ATER IN THE AFTERNOON
, I was hunched over my physics text, trying to train my equation to perform like a troupe of circus monkeys—without much success. As I rubbed out my pencil scratchings for the third time, Kate bustled into the lounge, carrying a glass flask and looking windblown and flushed and altogether pleased with herself.

“What’ve you got there?” I asked.

“Oh, just a few specimens,” she said, heading for her table.

Miss Simpkins looked sharply up from her book. “What do you mean, specimens?”

Kate sat down and began examining her flask through a magnifying glass. “This voyage has given me the perfect opportunity to test my theory. So I rigged up a net.”

“A net?” I said.

“Just outside my porthole. I waited thirty minutes and now I’ve got my first specimens.”

“What exactly do you have in there, Kate?” Miss Simpkins demanded.

“Come see,” she said, delighted. Miss Simpkins came no closer, but Nadira and I certainly did. Even without the magnifying glass, I could see plenty of activity inside the flask. Nadira and I bent close, our heads almost touching.

“Spiders?” I said in surprise.

“Yes,” said Kate. “Those down at the bottom are still in
some kind of frozen torpor, but these others seem perfectly happy.”

They were scuttling around inside the glass. Some looked familiar enough, but others were odd, spindly looking things, with smaller bodies and longer legs than I was used to seeing.

“But they don’t live up here,” Nadira said. “They’re just getting blown around by the wind.”

“Well, some of them,” said Kate. “Which is fascinating in itself. They’re light enough so that the wind can carry them, probably for thousands of miles. They could cross oceans. Colonize new continents! I don’t think anyone’s considered the spread of insect habitats by such means. But some of these other ones are very odd indeed.”

Kate tapped on the side of the glass, directing our eyes towards a spider I hadn’t noticed yet.

“Are those wings?” I said in amazement.

“Spiders don’t have wings,” Nadira said. “It must be something else.”

“I think it’s a winged spider,” said Kate. “I’m not completely sure. Arachnids really aren’t my specialty. But if it is, no one’s identified it before. And look at some of these other insects.”

There were many. They were bizarre-looking things, with compact little armoured bodies and multiple sets of sturdy wings. Their colouring was muted, all silvers and greys and milky whites. To blend in with the sky and clouds, I supposed. Nothing wants to get eaten. It amazed me to think of insects flying at such an altitude, assisted by powerful tailwinds.

“Do you know what all these things are?” I asked Kate.

“No,” she said, “but I can’t wait to start dissecting some of them.”

“Kate, you’re not going to cut them up!” exclaimed Miss Simpkins.

“Oh, yes, it’s quite necessary.”

“You’ll not do it in our cabin.”

“It’s unlikely any will escape.” Kate gave me a sly smile. “That one does have nasty-looking mandibles, though, I must say.”

“You’ll keep them in their bottles!” said Miss Simpkins.

Kate ignored her. “This is very exciting. This could mean there’s a vast airborne zoology just waiting to be discovered.”

“They’re just little bugs,” said Nadira.

“Not just any bugs, though. Most bugs are very sensitive to cold temperatures, but lots of these are special. Look how active they are, even though it’s below freezing outside.”

“You’re right,” I said. “They should all be frozen.”

“I’m thinking they might have some chemical in their bodies that lowers their freezing point.”

“Like ethylene glycol,” I said, delighted I remembered this detail from my studies. I could see Kate was impressed, because she stopped talking and her eyebrows lifted. “It was invented by a Frenchman, Charles Wurtz. A chemical that stops liquids from freezing.”

“Then this would be the same, only produced biologically!” Kate said. “And here’s the other exciting thing about these
little fellows. If they can live up high, so can bigger creatures. Predators.”

“Really?” asked Nadira skeptically.

“Think what the blue whale eats. Plankton. Krill. The tiniest creatures are enough to keep the biggest in the world alive.”

Kate’s words sent a sudden thrill through me. I had to hand it to her; she had a way of spinning your thoughts in completely new directions. A creature as vast as a whale, sailing the sky.

“Now,” Kate said, “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Classifying and so forth.”

Nadira and I looked at each other, amused. We’d been dismissed. Kate was already busy making sketches and notes, oblivious to everything else.

I glanced at the clock. It was still an hour before dinner. We went back to our reading. All was quiet. Occasionally Miss Simpkins, engrossed in her book, would give a little squeak or gasp and sit up very straight in her chair.

“Is it an exciting bit, Marjorie?” Kate asked after the twentieth gasp. Miss Simpkins ignored Kate, or perhaps was too excited to hear her. She turned the page and squeaked again.

“Is it a good novel, Marjorie?” Kate persisted in exasperation.

“Hm? Oh, yes, indeed it is.”

“Really? What’s it about?”

Miss Simpkins lowered the book to her lap and looked sternly at Kate.

“An ill-advised romance between a headstrong young heiress and a stable boy.”

“How riveting,” said Kate. “How does it all turn out?”

“With heartbreak, disaster, and death.” She let her gaze drift across the room to settle on me.

“I must read it after you, then,” said Kate breezily. “I adore stories about stable boys.”

“It’s not at all appropriate for someone of your tender years,” said Miss Simpkins curtly and went back to reading.

I’d barely returned my gaze to my wretched textbook when the door opened and Slater strode in.

“My, what a studious lot we are today,” he said. I did not look up but watched him from the corner of my eye as he moved across the room towards me, chest thrown out, chin tilted high like the figurehead of some flamboyant ship. He bent to take a quick look at my textbook.

“What a lot of rubbish,” he said with a chuckle.

“It’s rubbish I need to learn.”

“I can assure you, you don’t need it,” Slater said.

“I do if I want to graduate from the Academy.”

Slater gave a sniff. “They’re probably still teaching Morse code.”

“They are, actually.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. About as useful as a dead language. Dorje learned it back in Nepal when they still used telegraphs.”

For some reason I was rather good at Morse code, but I
had to admit Slater was right. Nowadays, I’d never known it to be used aboard ship.

“Looks like you’ve done more erasing than anything,” Slater carried on. “I might be able to lend a hand.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” I doubted he could make any more sense of the calculations than me, but I dared not run the risk of having him show me up in front of Kate.

“Suit yourself. Just remember, you don’t need a scrap of paper from the Academy to fly.” He held his arms out. “Look at me. No scrap, and I’m a captain, my boy.”

I hated it when he called me “my boy.” I sensed there was nothing affectionate about it; it was meant only to keep me in my place. What made it more galling was that he was not much older than me.

“Well,” Slater said, “I came to let you all know we’ve just crossed the equator, and that always puts me in a celebratory mood.” He went to the gramophone, sorted through the ample collection of records, and placed one on the turntable. He cranked the handle. “Miss Simpkins, would you do me the honour of a dance?”

Kate’s chaperone flushed from her collar to her hair. For a moment I thought she would decline and mutter some excuse, but she said, “Very well, a bit of exercise would do me good.”

“Well, if I’m only a bit of exercise to you, Miss Simpkins, perhaps I should find a more eager partner.” Grinning, he took her hand and led her to the room’s centre.

From the gramophone’s horn soared a rousing waltz.

Hal Slater, I had to admit, was a very good dancer. And so was Miss Simpkins. Watching her in Slater’s arms, I saw her for the first time not as Kate’s irritating chaperone, but as a young woman. She was only a little older than Slater. Dancing made her graceful and attractive. She smiled. Her hair caught the light. I felt I was watching a miraculous transformation.

“Delightful,” said Kate, clapping as the dance ended. “Well done, Marjorie. Well done, Hal!” As another waltz started up on the gramophone, she turned to me. “Come on, Matt!”

“You’ll have to teach me,” I said quietly as she walked over, hands outstretched.

“You’ll get the hang of it instantly.”

I was glad of the excuse to hold her.

“It’s called the box step. Feet together. Here we go. Take a step with your left foot. Now step out and over with your right, and now bring your left over. Good. Now the reverse: back with your right, back and over with the left, and bring your right over so your feet are together again. You see? One, two, three. One, two, three. All there is to it.”

We danced—or tried to at least. As Slater swirled Miss Simpkins effortlessly around the lounge, I staggered and lurched and stepped on Kate and bashed her into furniture. I felt like an imbecile automaton with rusted limbs.

“Ow,” Kate said again.

“Sorry.”

“Would you mind stepping on my other foot next time?”

“Shouldn’t I be leading?”

“Then lead.”

“I’m trying.”

I gripped her more tightly, counting in my head. I watched Slater, trying to copy him. The music didn’t seem to be cooperating with my counting. There were more beats than I had footsteps.

“Well, that was very … vigorous,” said Kate when the waltz ended. “Thank you.”

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of it,” I lied.

“Mmm,” Kate said.

“I’m quite puffed,” said Miss Simpkins, her eyes shining happily.

“It’s just the altitude,” Slater told her. “Let’s turn up the oxygen a bit, so we can all dance some more. Three fine ladies aboard my ship. I can’t let this opportunity pass.” He went to a small brass tap above the door and gave it a half turn. I heard a faint hiss as valves opened and oxygen slipped invisibly through the grates.

“A little treat! Don’t get used to it!” Slater warned us jovially. “Miss de Vries, may I have this dance?”

I did not like to see him hold her. Had our bodies been so close when we danced? In his arms, she looked suddenly older, someone I didn’t quite recognize. Slater led confidently and Kate’s movements surrendered to his as they glided around the lounge. They fit together perfectly. She laughed, she
smiled up at him, and I felt desperately, desperately unhappy. I could not look away. It was as if I’d touched something viciously cold, and my fingers had fused with it—I could not pull free, so it kept on burning with its coldness.

I asked Nadira to dance.

“Promise you won’t kill me,” she said.

“That bad, was I?”

“You just need a little more practice,” she said, and placed her hand inside mine. I held her waist. It was a completely different feeling than holding Kate. With Kate I was aware of a stiff layer of clothing; with Nadira, I was aware of her skin beneath the clothing. I cleared my throat and concentrated on my dancing. I looked over her shoulder and tried not to think about her throat and face and hair being so close to me. I tried not to think about the warm, supple curve of her waist. One, two, three. One, two, three. Kate and Slater swished across our path, chatting and laughing, and I felt like a small boat swamped in their wake.

“You’re doing very well for a beginner,” Nadira told me, when my feet found the rhythm again.

“Really?”

She nodded. “After jumping rooftops, dancing’s a breeze.”

I smiled back. When another waltz started up, Kate and Slater just kept going, so I did too with Nadira. Maybe it was just the giddy rush of the extra oxygen, but I thought I really was getting the hang of dancing.

We swirled, and all my sensations swirled too. I breathed the sandalwood of Nadira’s hair; I saw Kate in Slater’s
embrace, and felt the icy burn of my jealousy. The music quickened, and so did our steps. Mr. Dalkey and Kami came in, and now Miss Simpkins was dancing again. Slater roared for Mrs. Ram to come out from the kitchen. Dalkey, though heavy-set, was an amazingly nimble dancer. We pushed back the furniture so we had more room. We all switched partners, though I never seemed close enough to Kate to claim her before the next song started up. I danced with Mrs. Ram. I even danced with Miss Simpkins. I danced again with Nadira. I felt my feet lighten and become swift and sure. All of us were flushed and laughing, barely having time to catch our breaths between songs as Slater cranked the gramophone.

“Ah, here’s something,” Slater said, putting on a new record. An altogether different sound flooded the room. There were guitars and clapping hands and a wild keening woodwind whirling through it. “You’ll like this,” Slater called out to Nadira.

He was right, for her eyes lit up at once, and she began a dance of her own. I had seen flamenco in Sevilla and belly dancing in Constantinople, and this was like an exotic gypsy blend of both. Her arms lifted, graceful as stripling branches. Her fingers stroked and caressed the air, her feet stamped, and her body slowly swirled. Her bracelets flashed and jangled. She held her neck proudly, and her eyes and teeth flashed as she smiled. Her hips circled and swayed.

“Oh, this is quite inappropriate,” said Miss Simpkins, but she kept watching—as did we all. No one could turn away. It was hypnotic. For just a moment I worried Kate might catch
me staring but then I thought, Let her. All the time Nadira’s eyes were on me as she danced. Music filled the room, as heady as incense.

And then Slater was on his feet trying out the dance for himself, and Kate too, and Nadira was teaching them as she swayed. Kami and Mrs. Ram joined in. Nadira turned to me and crooked her finger, summoning me like a mesmerist. I came, and tried to match my movements to hers. The music seemed to be speeding up, and then I realized the gramophone was skipping. At first I thought it was just the stomping of all our feet, but then I felt the ship give a strange shrug.