Skybreaker (29 page)

“You should stay with Nadira,” I told Kate. “We can’t leave her alone.”

Nadira was shaking her head. “I’m coming.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” I said.

“I’m fine on oxygen!”

“Cruse is right,” said Hal. “You’d be a danger to yourself and the rest of us.”

Angrily Nadira started to rise. I watched, awed by her determination. She made it halfway up, then staggered off balance. I caught her and helped her back down. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“You’ll get your share,” Hal told her with surprising gentleness. “You needn’t worry.”

I knelt beside Nadira and checked the oxygen tanks. I figured she’d have enough to last until the
Saga
came.

“You’re doing great,” I said.

“Not really,” she replied.

I could see she was scared. “You’re a rule breaker, remember? You’ll be fine.”

She nodded tiredly. I don’t think my pep talk cheered her at all.

“Go!” she said to Kate through her mask. “No point you staying.”

Kate sighed and looked at me. “If you’re hell-bent on doing this, we better do it quickly.”

I did not like to leave Nadira alone, but she was right. There was nothing more we could do for her, and three sets
of eyes were better than two—though I had no intention of letting Kate go off alone.

“You’ve got the gun,” I told Hal, “you’re on your own. Kate’s with me.”

“Fair enough,” he replied. “We’ll split up and meet back here.”

We agreed on how to divide the ship, and then Hal set off down the steps to the keel. Kate and I headed silently along the axial catwalk, keeping our torches off so we’d see Rath’s men before they saw us. The thought of ghosts and spectres no longer scared me. We reached the aft companion ladder and cautiously started down.

First stop was the orchard, but the blueprints weren’t there, so we made our way to the landing bay. Inside, Kate’s eyes lingered on the two ornithopters.

“Strange-looking birds,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t call these ornithopters. Chirothopters, maybe. More like bats. The wing structure is quite different.”

“No time for this,” I hissed at her, searching the walls for the message tubes. It didn’t take long—but the blueprints weren’t here either. I imagined them hurtling endlessly through the labyrinth of pneumatic piping.

As we headed for the dead zoo, I heard a great deal of noise coming from the engineerium. Rath’s crew would still be dismantling Grunel’s machine and turning the entire room on its head, trying to root out the blueprints. It wouldn’t be long
before their search took them into the rest of the ship. We’d have to be quick.

Getting to the dead zoo was the riskiest bit of all, for the keel catwalk was the only way, and if Rath’s pirates left the engineerium, we would have to press ourselves into the shadows and hope they wouldn’t see us. We moved as speedily as our oxygen-starved bodies let us.

We reached the door safely and slipped inside among the huge, frozen display cases. We were halfway along the back wall, trying to find the message tubes, when we heard voices from the catwalk. We halted. Footsteps entered the room. Many rows of cases were between us and them, and light sparkled through the panes of frozen glass.

We crouched low behind a display case. The footsteps moved deeper into the room, and it sounded like there was someone coming down each of the three aisles. All escape routes were cut off. If they came all the way to the end, we were sure to be caught.

“What’s all this, then?” I heard one of them call out.

“Dead animals,” said another.

“What a freak show,” said a third.

“Whole ship’s a freak show.”

“As long as there’s no more of them that got Harrison.”

I reached up for the latch of the display case and turned it. It was not locked. I swung open the large glass door. Inside was some kind of wolf, jaws wide.

Kate needed no explanation. Silently she climbed in. I followed. There was just room enough. I could not latch the door
properly because there was no handle on my side. The frost on the glass was thick, though patchy in a few places. It was too late to change cases now. The men’s voices were getting closer.

We stayed on all fours. I hoped that through the frost our silhouettes might be mistaken for animals. I heard a fast heartbeat, and for a confused, hair-raising moment thought it was coming from the wild creature beside me. But it was only my own pulse, pounding in my ears.

“What’s that in there, the great fat fellow?” I heard one of them say.

“That’s a yeti, that is.”

“Crikey, he’s an ugly bastard.”

“I’ve seen one in the wild.”

“You haven’t.”

“Alaska. Mount McKinley. We took a few shots at it from the ship as we passed.”

“These drawers underneath are just bones,” came the voice of the third man. “We won’t be finding any blueprints here. Let’s head out.”

“No. We need to be thorough. Rath’s orders.” I could hear them scraping ice from some of the other cases, muttering darkly about the specimens. I wondered if they’d notice the cases Kate had left empty from her pilfering. Surely they would not check each and every one.

They were coming down our row now. I tried to slow my breathing. I locked eyes with Kate. She gave a long silent exhalation and her warm breath rose like smoke. I reached out and put my hand over her mouth, my eyes wide with
alarm. She understood. We each held a gloved hand to our lips so we would send up no signals.

I tried to be still, tried to look like a wolf. It was not so hard to imagine myself petrified, it was so cold. The ice lit and sparkled as torch beams swept the case. On the opposite wall, our animal silhouettes stretched and shrank.

All I could think was what a fool I’d been. A boy playing at pirate. But it was all dross to me now, the fluttering confetti of bank notes I’d imagined. It seemed greedy and reckless and ugly. I was no pirate, and I would have given anything to be back where I started, in the Eiffel Tower with Kate, and I would say, Let’s not. I don’t want the
Hyperion
’s cargo. Let’s stay here and keep things as they are. I will work harder at my studies. I will master my numbers. I will become a junior officer and work my way up. It will be enough.

“This one’s ajar,” said a voice outside our case, and I could see the man’s bulk silhouetted against the frosted glass. His arm lifted to the handle.

My haunches tensed; I was ready to spring at his throat, snarling like a wild beast.

“There’s nothing here,” came another voice. “Let’s head out. We’ve got plenty of ship to search yet.”

For a moment the arm did not move, and I thought he was going to open the case anyway, but then he turned, and his shadow dissolved into the general gloom. I listened to their fading footsteps. The cold air seared my lungs. My face was a mask welded with ice to my skull. I imagined I must
look like one of those ancient mummies found in glaciers, charred by time and terrible to behold.

Their footsteps evaporated, and I heard no more talking. Kate nodded. We pushed the door wide and quietly swung ourselves out. I pointed my torch beam at the floor so my light would not splash around too much.

“Let’s just get back,” Kate whispered. “This is too risky.”

I let my torch light seep up the wall and saw, in the corner, the two message tubes we’d been searching for. On the incoming tube the green flag was raised.

“Just a second,” I said, and hurried over. I reached through the hinged door to pull out the message capsule, but there was nothing there. I closed my eyes in frustration. Grunel would not release his secrets to me.

Light hit me in the side of the face. Stupidly I looked, blinding myself.

“Drop your torch!” a familiar voice said. It was John Rath. “I’ve got a pistol! Put up your hands!”

I dipped my head so the hood gave me some shadow. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kate, still hidden from Rath behind a case. She stepped back. I dropped my torch and raised my hands as he strode closer, keeping his light right on me.

“Who the hell are you, then?” he said. “Head up!”

There was a trace of fear in his voice, as though I might have been some spectral beast, escaped from one of the displays. I wanted to run. But if he gave chase and others came, they’d see Kate too, and we’d both be caught.

I checked on her. She was backing away quickly. She
turned and hurried out of sight. Good. She would run back to the others.

“Head up, I said!” Rath was close now, and I saw a flash of his ginger beard before he struck me in the temple with his torch. My knees buckled. I felt my hood being yanked off.

“Ah,” he said. “I see. I thought the
Saga
was just arriving. But she’d already put aboard her landing party. She was just coming back to take you off when we scuttled her.”

I said nothing.

“How many others are here?”

“It’s just me,” I said.

He snorted impatiently. “We’ll see about that. What’ve you found?”

“Not a single ounce of gold,” I said, and it was not hard to muster venom. “It’s been a complete waste.”

“Should’ve taken my offer at the Ritz.”

The mention of the hotel barely made sense to me, it seemed so impossibly warm and long ago.

“So, you’re all alone and you’ve found nothing. What a shame,” said Rath, putting the muzzle of his pistol against my forehead. The cold metal burned against my flesh like a brand.

“My employer will be very displeased to learn there are others aboard,” he told me. “I know what his orders will be. But if you’ve come across anything you think I might value, maybe we can help each other. How were you planning on getting off the ship? Flying, perhaps?”

I kept my mouth shut.

“I can get you off if you tell me where Grunel’s gold is.”

“There’s no gold.”

He rapped the pistol hard against my skull. Tears sprang to my eyes, freezing on my eyelashes.

From the wall came a strange, hair-raising whistle and then a thud. Before I could stop myself, my eyes flicked to the message tube. The green flag vibrated.

“Expecting something, were you?” Rath said. “Go ahead, take it.”

As Rath watched, I pushed the hinged door aside and pulled out the message capsule.

“Open it,” he said.

I removed the cap and pulled out the blueprints.

“Hold them up,” he commanded. Rath played the light over them and gave a satisfied grunt. “Put them back in the tube,” he said. “You’ve just saved me a great deal of time.”

He snatched the capsule from my hand and jammed it under his belt.

From somewhere in the ship came the sound of a gunshot, then another.

Kate.

“You’re coming with me,” Rath said angrily.

There was a second whistle and thud from inside the wall, and the green message flag sprang up once more.

“You’re very popular,” said Rath.

Keeping his pistol trained on me, Rath tucked the torch under his arm, thrust his free hand into the message tube, and started screaming. He yanked his hand out. An aerozoan hatchling clung to his fist, tentacles flexing. I had not thought
the little ones would be so potent, but Rath flailed, his jaw grinding. His torch fell to the floor, spinning light.

Rath tried to smash the aerozoan off with his pistol, but its metal sparked with electricity, and he dropped it in agony. The message capsule containing the blueprints flew free from his belt and skidded across the floor.

I snatched it up, along with my torch, and ran.

Rath’s screams had brought his men running. As they came charging into the dead zoo, I doused my torch. They had not yet seen me, so I slunk into the shadows, cloaked in my hide suit. I waited for them to rush past, then ran for the door.

“He’s got the blueprints!” I heard Rath roar. “It’s Matt Cruse!”

I made it through the doorway. The keel catwalk was empty, but I heard more voices coming from the engineerium. I ran the other way, the dim glow of the ship’s skin my only guide. I reached the aft companion ladder, climbed to the axial catwalk, and then staggered forward to the bow, the message capsule clutched in my hand. The run had sapped all my strength. Six steps. Stop. Breathe. Six steps. Stop. Breathe. I had the blueprints. Soon the
Sagarmatha
would be soaring to meet us. But we’d been spotted now, and Rath’s men would come looking. And what was that gunshot I’d heard?

I reached the ship’s bow and knocked quietly on the locker door.

“It’s me, Matt.”

I slid the door open and went inside. Hal was slouched against the wall next to Nadira.

Kate was not with them.

H
AL LOOKED UP AT ME
, face ashen, and saw the message capsule in my hand.

“You got it?”

“Kate’s not here?” I asked.

“Let’s have a look. Open it up!”

Hal reached for the capsule, but I pulled back. “Did Kate not come back?”

“No. She was with you, mate!”

I staggered back out to the landing, listened for her footsteps, shone my light into the darkness. I’d just assumed she had gone on ahead.

“Turn your torch off,” Hal hissed, limping after me.

“They must’ve caught her,” I said, feeling sick. I quickly told him what had happened in the dead zoo. “There was a gunshot.”

“That was me,” said Hal. “You’re not the only one who was spotted.”

For the first time I noticed the right shoulder of his sky suit bore a dark stain.

“You’re shot!”

“My arm’s broke, but I’ll live. Better off than the other fella.” He tried to smile, but it came out all crooked.

“Dead?”

“If I’d done it sooner my shoulder wouldn’t be peppered with lead. I took his oxygen tank for Nadira. Got his gun too.”

“I’m going back for Kate,” I said.

Hal caught me by the arm. “Hold up. She may just be biding her time. Wait a few minutes. Rath’s men’ll be everywhere.”

Reluctantly, I followed Hal back to the storage locker.

“We were idiots,” I said bitterly, “to do this.”

“You got the blueprints,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It will,” Hal said fiercely. “Maybe not right now, but when we get off this wreck and back to Paris, it will. Trust me. The
Saga
’s here in fifty minutes.”

“We’ve got to find Kate. You’ve already killed one of them. That leaves only six. The locksmith fellow and Barton, they’re not up for a fight. And Rath might be dead. An aerozoan hatchling got him. So just three or four of them now. We’ve got two guns. The odds aren’t so bad.”

A voice welled up from the darkness, sounding as though it were carried by a bullhorn.

“We have the girl…. We have Kate de Vries….”

Even though it was distorted by the bullhorn and its own echoes, the voice was plainly Rath’s. The wretch hadn’t died as I’d hoped.

“We will kill her,” Rath said, “unless you surrender yourselves and give us the blueprints.”

It was as if a gale-force wind had swept through my head,
clearing all thoughts and words. I sat down hard, staring, empty. I thumped at my forehead with my fist. My mind must be going. Words and shards of thoughts swirled about, storm tossed, but I couldn’t catch hold of them. They had Kate. That was all I could grasp.

“Bring us the blueprints and no harm will come to the girl!” Rath bellowed through the ship. “We’re your only way off. Give us the blueprints and we’ll give you safe passage home!”

“They’re lying,” Hal scoffed. “They mean to kill all of us.”

“Bring the blueprints to the engineerium! You have fifteen minutes.”

“I’m going,” I said.

Hal grabbed me with his good arm.

“They will kill you.”

I said nothing.

“The
Saga
’s coming. We have one chance of escape, that’s all. If we miss that, we all die.”

I stared at him in horror. “Are you saying we should leave her behind?”

“It’s not right,” wheezed Nadira, taking the mask from her mouth. Her eyes flashed angrily at Hal.

“Right’s got nothing to do with it,” he said. “I’m talking about survival. Morality is a nicety we can’t afford just now.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to hear that, Hal.”

He snatched the blueprints from my grasp. “You’re not giving them these.”

“Of course I am. I’m going to trade them for her life.”

“Don’t be a fool! If you go, you won’t come back.”

“Give them to me.”

“I’m saving your life, Cruse!”

I lunged at him, and he fell back against my sudden weight. We both crashed to the floor. He tried to beat me off with his good arm, but he was weak, and my heart was pumping furiously. I grabbed the hand that held the message capsule and banged it against the metal grille until his fingers lost their grip. Seizing the blueprints, I stepped back and away from him, panting. He looked crumpled and forlorn on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He made no answer. My fury left me. My knees shook. I tossed the blueprints back to him. “You’re right. These aren’t going to help. But I’ll not lose her.”

“I lost a man,” he panted. “I hate it, but sometimes it’s the nature of the beast.”

“I’m going to beat the beast. Give me one of the guns,” I said.

He shook his head wearily. “You’re outnumbered, Cruse.”

“Give. Me. The. Gun.”

Hal stared into the darkness, looking lost. He steadied himself against a girder and retched twice, bringing nothing up. He swore.

“We’ll both go,” he said.

“You’ve got a busted arm. You’re ill. You should take some oxygen.”

“I’m fine.”

“Stay here with Nadira, in case I don’t come back. You can help her onto the
Saga
.”

“You should be weak as a kitten,” Hal said, in plain bewilderment. “Why aren’t you?”

“The sky knows me,” I said.

Hal snorted and passed me a pirate’s gun. “Four bullets in this one,” he said, and showed me how to use it. I tried to listen attentively, but my concentration was poor, my mind already chanting its own war dance.

I had a Himalayan heart. I was strong and they were weak. They needed tanked oxygen; I needed none. Their backpacks made them slow and cumbersome. I felt the leopard’s fur against me and became the leopard. I was lithe and strong. I would be fast. I would bring Kate back.

Slinking down the steps to the keel catwalk, trying to keep my thoughts tethered. We had broken the sky. We had angered the gods, just like Grunel. He’d taken light and air for his Prometheus Engine. The mythical Prometheus stole fire from the gods and was punished for an eternity. Maybe Grunel was being punished too. His unhappy spirit roamed the ship. He had come aloft with every hope of building an aerial city, and had only succeeded in constructing an airborne grave. All his gold and glory and fame hadn’t been able to stop that.

But we had the blueprints, we could let the world know his secrets now. They were good secrets. Why should anyone be punished for such a thing?

I reached the door to Grunel’s apartments without seeing any of Rath’s men. Once inside, I listened, watching, my eyes so accustomed to the darkness I imagined my pupils as dilated as an owl’s. I pulled down my hood so I could hear without the fur interfering. I touched the wall to help guide me, the silk paper shushing against my gloves.

I paused and felt a great welling of dread. Turning to face the wall, I saw it was no wall, but some kind of window. And standing on the other side, in the near dark, was the fiend from my nightmare.

He was cut from ragged bits of hide, clumps of potter’s clay. He stared back at me, and his expression bore the look of terror I remembered from my dreams. I could not scream, though a strangled whimper escaped my mouth. I thought this was surely the end of everything. What defence could I have against such a spectre?

Without any hope, I lifted my gun, and the creature too lifted its arm and great blocky fist, as if trying to ward me off. I faltered, and he too faltered, and then I knew I was not peering through some portal, but into a cracked, discoloured mirror. The unfinished man was me. I touched my face, scarcely recognizing myself, and hurried on.

In the bedroom, Grunel did eternal sentry duty in his lounge chair. I found the secret catch in the bookshelf and pushed. Inside the passage I closed the door behind me and turned on my torch. The ship was rising again, ever so slightly, and I felt it in my ankles. I walked. The
Hyperion
gave a shake,
and I stumbled against the wall. The wood panelling made a hollow thump. I tapped it with my gloved fingers, saw a small knob, and slid the entire panel to one side.

My torchlight picked out cables and the great rudder and elevator chains running between the Control Car and tail. Above them I saw the underside of the engineerium’s titanium floor. Stuck to it at regular intervals were bundled sticks of dynamite, connected by a network of wires.

Nadira had been right: the entire engineerium was booby-trapped. If anyone tried to break through its walls, windows, doors, or ceilings, it would mightily explode.

As I pulled back my torch, something glittered. Nestled snugly between the ship’s wooden ribs was a collection of crates. The one nearest me had its lid missing—and inside glowed lustrous bricks of gold. The top few layers were uneven, bricks askew, like someone had already helped himself.

I looked up and down the secret passage in alarm, but I was quite alone.

I stared back at the gold. Here was our treasure. But the sight of it gave me no satisfaction. The opposite.

I could hurry back and tell Hal. He could fill our rucksacks at least, and bring them aboard the
Saga
when it came. But I would not go back and tell Hal. That would take more time and energy than I could spare.

I could step in right now and grab a few slim bricks for myself. But I had no pockets to hold them. And even if I’d had my rucksack with me, I knew I would not take a single piece.
The fuel of my old dreams was too weighty, and I needed to be as light as possible for what was to come.

I closed the panel and carried on, my stomach clenched tight as a walnut. Reaching the stairs, I silently opened the trap door and climbed up into the coffin. I slid beneath the periscope and pulled the eyepiece to my face. I hooked the listening horn to my ear.

The portable lamps still illuminated the room. Grunel’s Prometheus Engine had been gutted. Its innards lay strewn about, its huge brass cylinder toppled and hacked apart. Barton was studiously sifting through various pieces of the wreckage with Zwingli, the locksmith.

About fifty feet from the coffin was Kate, sitting in a chair. They had stripped off her oxygen tank, to keep her weak, and I could see her chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled for breath. Standing nearby was John Rath. Both his hands had been clumsily swathed in bandages. He held no pistol.

I swivelled the periscope, looking for the rest of his crew. On the floor I saw two dead bodies, one of which was horribly charred. The other must have been shot by Hal. The remaining three men were ranged on either side of the engineerium’s doorway, pistols at the ready for anyone foolish enough to enter. Hal was right. They had no intention of bartering. They would shoot us as we stepped inside.

The vivarium was still frosted over and intact, and I felt huge relief. Rath and his men had not bothered to see what lay beyond the icy glass. I saw no sign of the hatchlings.
Perhaps they’d all found the pneumatic tubes and gone sailing through the ship.

The
Hyperion
lurched higher in the sky. From beyond the hull came the muffled sound of a ship’s horn blaring.

“Storm’s coming,” I heard Rath tell Barton. “The ship wants us back. It’ll be damaged if we stay tied up to the
Hyperion
. We need to cast off.”

“Not until we get the blueprints,” said Barton.

“Lads, five minutes,” Rath told his men. “Then it’s back to the ship.”

“Those are not my orders!” Barton said.

“I’ll not have my ship wrecked.”

“That ship,” said Barton, “is not yours until our venture is concluded.”

“It’ll end in death if we’re foolhardy,” said Rath menacingly.

The ship gave another ungainly gallop, and everyone staggered off balance.

“Your friends don’t seem very concerned for your welfare,” Barton said to Kate.

Wisely Kate said nothing.

Silently I lifted the lid of the coffin and jammed it open with the end of my unlit torch. I peered out and saw Kate, and Rath, who, luckily, had his back to me. I had a clear view of the vivarium.

Not even my oxygen-starved brain could think my plan a good one. It held about as much promise as Pandora’s box, but it was all I had.

I had never fired a pistol. My fingers stiff and clumsy, I
took aim and held tight, for Hal said it would kick something terrible. I quickly fired four times, trying to aim a bit to the right with each shot. The noise was as loud as cannon fire, and its reverberations all but drowned out the sound of shattering glass.

A jagged hole gaped in the side of the vivarium. Even as Rath’s pirates looked frantically around, trying to find the source of the gunfire, an aerozoan jetted out through the opening.

Barton saw it first, shouted, and ran out of the way. The creature’s tentacles whipped Zwingli. His oxygen tank exploded, sending flaming debris and body parts across the room.

“Kill it!” Rath bellowed.

His three men advanced cautiously, unleashing a hail of bullets. Thrashing, the aerozoan slewed through the air, catching one of the men with its tentacles. He made a terrible leap into the air, electrocuted. I could smell the hydrium gushing from the creature’s sac as it sank to the floor. Its tentacles lashed against the portable lamp batteries. Giant sparks flew, smoke billowed, and then the lamps went dark all at once. Shadows leapt across the room like hungry animals.

As I’d hoped, Kate saw her chance, stood, and made for the coffin. Rath had his back to her, watching the aerozoan, still in its death throes at the room’s centre. But Kate was very weak, and she managed little more than a hobble.

I pushed the coffin lid high and swung myself out. The air was thick with smoke and embers and the terrible smell of
burning flesh and hide. Kate saw me as I ran to her, but luckily did not call out. Rath still hadn’t turned round. I grabbed her by the arm and hurried her back towards the coffin.

“Stop!”

It was Rath, but I knew he didn’t have a pistol, and I hoped the smoke would shield us from his men. We didn’t look back. I pushed Kate inside the coffin and got one leg over myself. Kate screamed. An arm hooked around my chest and dragged me back. Rath’s hands were bandaged up like a mummy’s, but he was still dreadfully strong. He threw me to the floor and gave me a kick in the ribs.