Airborn

by Kenneth Oppel

  “They say they were wrecked in the typhoon,” Crumlin told his captain.

  “Good heavens!” said Szpirglas, all concern.

  And so I repeated my story for him. “You’re from the Sky Guard, aren’t you?” I asked, trying to appear dim-witted.

  Szpirglas smiled benevolently. It made my skin crawl. “Of course we are, dear boy. I’m Captain Anglesea. It was a bit of good luck that you happened to be swept to this island where we have a large station. It’s quite an establishment, really. You two are very fortunate indeed.”

  Almost every second I thought, He is playing. He knows.

  “Mr. Crumlin,” he said to his mate, “take them to the village and make them comfortable. I’ll be along shortly after I oversee the docking.”

  Village? I thought.

  “Are you hungry?” Szpirglas asked us. “You poor creatures must be ravenous.”

  “We found some banana trees,” Kate said quietly.

  “Very good. Clever children. But you’ll still be wanting a proper meal after so long. I’m ready for a good meal myself. We’ll have a feast together, and I want to hear about your mishap.”

  Szpirglas strode off to oversee the berthing of his ship. His crew were already smartly getting on with the business of unloading and loading and refueling, inspecting her skin for wear and tear. It might have been a scene from any harbor around the world, but it did not comfort me now. From the cargo bay doors and gangplanks came metal barrels of Aruba fuel, crates of food, a squealing pig, and other unmarked crates that surely must contain the pirates’ despicable loot.

  Crumlin smiled at us, but it came out like more of a grimace. He did not share Szpirglas’s talent for malignant fakery.

  “This way, then,” he said.

  As Kate and I followed him, a plan came to me. The Aurora wasn’t ready to fly yet. But by tomorrow morning she should be fully refueled and airworthy. We would have to bide our time today with the pirates, making sure they believed we were the two sole survivors of some shipwreck. They would not be suspicious of two grateful and gullible children. And tomorrow, in the early hours of the morning, while they all slept, we would make our break, cross the island, and warn the Aurora. By the time the pirates noticed us missing, they would have little time to launch a search of the entire island, and by then we’d be airborne.

  Crumlin led us to the edge of the landing field and onto a well-maintained path into the forest. Of all the islands in the Pacificus, we’d had the misfortune to crash on the one Vikram Szpirglas had made his secret base. But this was no makeshift hideaway. At my first glimpse through the trees, I saw that village was indeed the right word for it. There was a large bamboo lodge, with a generous, wide verandah on all sides, lots of proper windows, and a high-pitched roof of palm fronds. Arranged all around it were well more than a dozen smaller bamboo huts and houses. There were fenced pens with chickens and pigs snuffling about, and more people milling around than could have come from the airship just now. With a start I realized there were women here too. They were dressed in saris and sarongs and all manner of loose-fitting clothing, their arms and necks and ears bejeweled, and they ran to embrace their pirate mates and were hugged and kissed and swirled around through the air. And children! Some of the women carried babies in their arms, and toddlers ran about underfoot.

  This place was a proper home. It must have taken years for the pirates to establish it. They had cleared as few trees as possible, and I realized that even if you were to fly low overhead, you would not see their habitation. Beyond their buildings the forest thinned, and I saw that we were high on a promontory overlooking the island’s windward shore.

  It looked as if the village had taken a bit of a beating in the typhoon, even sheltered as it was behind the trees. Men were up on the roofs, repairing the thatch. One shed was tilting over crazily, and there were palm fronds strewn all around the village. Despite all that, the place had an undeniably trim and tidy look to it. Clearly there was a ground crew who stayed on the island when the others were out pillaging. A little kingdom Szpirglas had created for himself here. The thought made me go all queasy, for I knew how the pirates would guard the secrecy of this place. What were the chances of them letting us escape, even if they did think us harmless children?

  My plan seemed a paltry thing now. We ought to have run when we had the chance. I thought of Bruce limping wounded through the jungle. I thought of the ship filling, but not yet ready to launch. I felt as close to despair as I ever had in my life. But when I looked at Kate, I pulled myself together. It had been my plan, and she was playing along with it, and I must do my best.

  Crumlin led us to the main lodge and up the steps to the verandah, which was veiled all round, most civilized, with mosquito cloth. We sat at a large table, and Crumlin told us we could wait here for the captain to return. There followed a great deal of grunting and satisfied moaning as he unlaced his great black boots and set them thunking on the bamboo deck. He had the biggest, hairiest toes I’d ever beheld, and it made me quite ill just looking at them. His big toe alone could squash a coconut. I wondered that any airship would support a man with his bulk.

  The late-afternoon breeze off the water blew among the trees and cooled us. I longed to talk properly with Kate, but we had no chance with that great hulk Crumlin there, massaging his feet. I was glad we were upwind. Looking through the doorway into the lodge itself, I saw a large hall that was obviously meant for a dining room, arranged with tables and chairs. Then I caught sight of something on the wall and stared in amazement.

  “What’re you looking at, then?” said Crumlin suspiciously, turning to follow my gaze. He chuckled. “Oh, that. Never seen one of them before, I’d wager.”

  Kate had seen it now too, and I shot her a look so she wouldn’t say anything.

  It was the head of a cloud cat, mounted on the wall like a trophy. Its wings had been nailed up on either side.

  “What is it?” I made myself ask.

  “Freaks of nature is what they are. You only see them in these parts. They fly over the island a couple times a year. Shot that one meself, right out of the sky. They’re fast. Damn hard to hit, I can tell you. We all have a go at them whenever we can. Good sport. Four or five we’ve brought down over the years.”

  I pictured Crumlin, a rifle to his face, and suddenly understood why the cloud cats had been afraid of Benjamin Molloy’s spyglass. When he’d raised it to his eye, they must have mistaken it for a gun.

  “I don’t think it’s very sporting at all,” said Kate. “They’ve done nothing to harm you.”

  Crumlin gave a low growl of laughter. “Not so, young miss. There’s one that lives here on the island. He used to come slinking around our village sometimes. He’d throttle our chickens, and gut our pigs alive. Had a go at me once too. Look here.” Crumlin rolled up a trouser leg to reveal a long red crescent of scar tissue on his hairy calf. “He’s curious as a cat, with as many lives too. Don’t know how many shots we’ve taken at him. The winged devil’s learned his lesson, though; he stays away from the village now.”

  “Well, it’s lucky we didn’t come upon him,” I said, looking at Kate. I was worried she might say more, but she just grunted, looking faintly ill. I wondered if the cloud cat was naturally vicious, or whether it was the pirates who had taught it to attack people. I couldn’t help thinking of Bruce and his own injured leg. I hoped he was all right, and that he was well on his way back to the Aurora.

  More and more men and women were filing into the lodge, and there were a good many celebratory whoops and clinking of mugs. It seemed a merry time was going to be had tonight, which suited me just fine. It would be all the easier to sneak away from pirates sunk in a drunken sleep.

  Just then Szpirglas returned, jogging into the village amid a general cheer from his men.

  “Another successful mission for the Sky Guard, ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted grandly, to more applause. “And look, we’ve just discovered these two castaways who had the
courage to make it ashore after their ship was wrecked.”

  He leaped up the steps to join us, as if he’d long been anticipating this meeting with the utmost glee.

  “There you are,” he said, sitting down. “Mr. Crumlin, have you offered them some refreshments?”

  Crumlin forced that grimace onto his face. “Where are my manners,” he muttered. “What shall I get for you?”

  “Fresh mango juice, I think,” said Szpirglas. “To wet their parched tongues,” he added, and I thought I saw Crumlin suppress a smirk.

  “Very good, sir,” he said and went off inside the lodge.

  “Now, tell me everything,” said Szpirglas.

  “We’d given up hope, hadn’t we?” I said to Kate. “And right here on the island, a Sky Guard station!”

  Szpirglas smiled, but it was just a mouth smile. His eyes were cold and concentrated, and I knew my storytelling powers were about to be sorely tested.

  “What was your vessel?” he asked.

  “Pegasus, sir. She was an eighty-footer, twin engine, G class. She was mostly for cargo and private charter. Eight crew under Captain Blackrock, and only two passengers. We were two nights out of Van Diemen’s Land, heading northeasterly for Honolulu.”

  I did not know how carefully these pirates monitored air traffic over Oceanica. For all I knew they could have flight plans of every ship within a thousand miles—how else how could they pinpoint their prey so accurately? But a small vessel could more easily slip through the cracks. It would not raise any suspicion, or so I hoped. My answer seemed to satisfy him.

  “And you say the typhoon brought you down.”

  I watched him as I spoke, alive to every movement of his face, every blink, every lift of his eyebrows and twitch of his mouth. The typhoon was unquestionable; it had been real and would have posed a grievous threat to any small vessel caught in its bellows.

  “The winds must have damaged one of our props. We were having engine trouble, sir, and losing altitude. We were leveled off at ninety feet only, but we might have been all right if it hadn’t been for the wave. It was one of them rogues, sir, a big cliff of water from nowhere, working against the wind, and it came and clipped us as it crested. Knocked off our engines, our fins, and sent us spinning down.”

  “God in heaven,” said Szpirglas, all amazement and sympathy. “It is surely an airshipman’s worst nightmare. I’m amazed anyone survived. Did you have time to make a distress call?”

  “I was not on the bridge, sir. I don’t know. But I would doubt it. It all happened so quickly.”

  I knew what he wanted to discover. If we’d sent a distress call, and it had been heard, there might be a search under way. And a search might come close to his island kingdom. I didn’t want him to think we were bringing danger to him.

  Crumlin returned and put two mugs of mango juice before us. For Szpirglas there was a crystal glass of ruby wine. I drank, for I was truly thirsty. It was a sweet concoction, but cool and refreshing. I drained the mug nearly to the bottom in one breath and broke away, panting more than I needed to.

  “You must be parched,” said Szpirglas. “Poor lad.”

  He did not recognize us, of that I was quite certain now. I’d been watching him as he watched me, and could see no flicker in his face. A huge relief it was, for if he remembered us, all was instantly lost.

  “Are you sure you were the only two to survive?” Szpirglas asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “We were all tumbled around terribly. It seemed to happen all in a trice.”

  Like any game of pretend, you had to half-believe it to play properly. All I had to do was remember my fears as the Aurora had come close to crashing in the sea. “We hit the water, and I must have lost consciousness for a few moments. The ship was already starting to fill. It was only by chance I came across Miss Simpkins here.”

  It was not a good choice of name, but it just fluttered into my head, and I seized it. Kate did not even flicker. Through all my talking she’d dutifully hung her head, and her face had a crumpled look—which was not hard to fake right now. Kate was born to this kind of playacting, probably came from all her reading and fanciful stories. I could have handed the whole thing over to her and had a nap.

  “We got out only just in time,” I said.

  “If it weren’t for Mr. Cruse here, I’d surely have perished,” said Kate. She said it with such gratitude and conviction that I wasn’t angry she’d spoken out. I’d wanted to do all the talking, so we didn’t start contradicting each other, but I’d doubted she’d be able to stay quiet so long and let me hog all the story spinning. I supposed it didn’t matter she’d used my real name. It meant nothing to the pirates.

  “You had a lifeboat of some kind, surely,” Szpirglas asked.

  “No, sir, there wasn’t any time to deploy them. We just cracked into the drink and scrambled up onto a bit of busted hull that was like a kind of raft, and we clung to that. We didn’t see anyone else.”

  At this Kate covered her face with her hands. She didn’t sob; she just shivered and made a kind of whimpering sound.

  “Her mother was aboard too,” I explained to Szpirglas. “She was our other passenger.”

  “You poor thing,” said Szpirglas. “Well, it’s too early to give up hope, Miss Simpkins.”

  “Do you think?” Kate asked, staring at the table and lifting her big eyes slowly. “Might she still be alive?”

  “We will do all we can to find out,” said Szpirglas in soothing tones. “This region isn’t very well charted, but there are countless little coral atolls dotting the ocean. It’s possible, yes, that she might be safe and sound somewhere else, just awaiting rescue. As soon as our ship is refueled and my men fed and rested, and we have a day’s light ahead of us, we will set a search in motion.”

  Kate beamed at him with such sincerity that I was momentarily confused.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  It took me a moment to puzzle it out, why Szpirglas was being so kind to us. Why did he bother wasting his time on this game? Then I understood. He wanted us to relax; he wanted us to feel safe and content; he wanted to know everything we knew, in the hopes of gaining something from us. It wasn’t simply a matter of him finding out if there would be others searching for us. Maybe he also wanted to know what our ship was carrying, if there was any precious wreckage that might have washed ashore.

  “You have no idea where you are, then?”

  I knew I must be very careful here. I did not want Szpirglas to think the secrecy of his base was at risk. He would surely never release anyone who could give its coordinates away.

  “No, sir, we were tumbled around so much I haven’t a clue.”

  “But your bearing before the typhoon?”

  “I don’t much take an interest in that,” I said, trying to look sheepish. “Captain says I’d get lost on the ship if I weren’t told where to go. I’ve got no sense of direction.”

  “No matter, no matter,” said Szpirglas. “You’re safe with us.”

  Another pirate came and put some new mugs of mango juice before Kate and me.

  “There’s food coming, don’t fear,” said Szpirglas merrily. “I can smell a feast cooking, and it won’t be long before it’s served, eh, Mr. Crumlin?”

  “That’s for certain, Captain,” said the bearish mate. “Pork.”

  “Excellent,” Szpirglas winked at me. “I can’t abide anything that swims, I’m afraid. Rather awkward on an island, don’t you think?”

  Kate and I both made ourselves chuckle. There was a brief silence, and it seemed Szpirglas had lost interest in us, but I knew our interrogation was far from over.

  “A long flight for a small vessel, Van Diemen’s Land to the Hawaiis,” Szpirglas mused. “Your captain must’ve been an experienced one.”

  “Yes he was.”

  “Strange, then, he didn’t see the warnings of the typhoon.”

  “It seemed to come out of nowhere,” I said and almost felt defensive, for
I had missed it too, weather watcher that I was.

  “It did come on sudden, I’ll grant you that. We caught just the tail end of it, and it gave us a shake, did it not, Mr. Crumlin?”

  The mate gave a curt nod. “I’ll see what’s what with dinner,” he said and went inside the lodge.

  “Weather does come on quickly in these parts, you are right,” Szpirglas said. “Well, you two are lucky you survived, and we must be hopeful there will be others. Whereabouts did you two wash up, then?”

  He was watching me carefully, and for the first time I felt myself falter. He would want to see if there was wreckage there to confirm our story.

  I sighed and tried to look abashed. “I’m not quite sure. We’ve walked about quite a lot, looking for inhabitants, and I’ve got turned around. It was a rocky stretch, not shallow, and we had to swim for it. We’re lucky the seas were calmer then, for we could easily have been dashed against the rocks. As it was, our bit of raft floated off and we were left to scramble up onto the rocks. I think it was somewhere off that way.” I pointed, making sure to point in the opposite direction to the Aurora.

  Szpirglas nodded without so much as a flicker in his eye. “And that’s where you’ve made your camp?”

  “Well, we didn’t really bother with a proper camp or anything.” I didn’t want him checking for signs. “Couldn’t even make a fire.”

  “We tried with some sticks,” Kate offered, “but neither of us had any luck.”

  Szpirglas gave a hearty laugh. “It is a deucedly hard business, making fire without matches, I agree.”

  “We slept there the first night and waited the next day, hoping we’d see some others. But”—I looked over at Kate, in consideration of her missing mother—“then we moved on, hoping we’d find someone, or get to higher ground where we’d have a view of something or other.”

  They would check the coast, and would find nothing. But that was why I’d been careful to mention the raft had floated off. I wanted to make sure I left no loose ends to my story.

  “Ah, there he is!” cried Szpirglas, and I looked over my shoulder to see a striking, tall, raven-haired woman walking toward us. But it was not the woman Szpirglas beheld with such pleasure; it was the small boy she led by the hand. Not more than four, this boy, I’d say, and pulling free from the woman’s grasp now so he could charge headlong up the verandah steps and into Szpirglas’s waiting arms.