Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Melissa Scott

  Lewis had taken off his headlamp, wrapped it in his handkerchief to muffle the light. He kept it pointed at the catwalk, his hand cupped to hide as much of the glow as possible. Alma had turned her light off entirely and had her hand on his belt as they felt their way toward the stern of the ship. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought the dark had faded a little, that they were creeping toward dawn. Or maybe his eyes had just gotten used to the dark. The airship shivered under them, a strange, uneven movement, and Alma’s hand tightened for an instant.

  They had left the passenger compartments behind long ago, and the crew’s quarters as well, and had reached the part of the ship where the heavy cargo was carried, holds like boxes bolted into the curve of the frame below them. Most of them were empty, Lewis saw, or only lightly loaded: passengers might make the trip for status, but hard-headed businessmen weren’t going to risk their money on a maiden voyage.

  He paused, scanning the catwalk ahead, searching for the flicker of light that had marked the creature’s progress. For a long moment there was nothing, and then it came again, further away, and — higher? Yes, higher, he thought, and in the same instant realized that they were approaching the tail. The gas cells were smaller here, where the frame tapered toward the huge fins that held the elevators and rudder. The light vanished, hidden behind the curve of the gas cell, and Lewis risked uncovering his own light.

  “He’s going up into the tail,” he said, and Alma switched on her headlamp.

  She made a small noise of surprise, and Lewis looked down to see a car — a Peerless coupe, fabric roof folded and secured with half a dozen straps — strapped in the cargo bay below them.

  “Oh, Henry,” Alma said, and her breath caught on the last word. “Wait — what’s that?”

  Lewis looked where she was pointing, and his own breath came short. Below the catwalk, below and beyond the box that held the car, a body lay on the fabric of the hull. It was struggling, he thought, adrenaline jolting through him, and then he realized that the body wasn’t moving, at least not of its own volition. What he had taken at first glance for blood or oil was a tear in the hull, slowly spreading wider as the weight of the body stretched the overburdened fabric. It was like any airplane fabric, you could walk on it if it was whole, but get a rip, a tear — a bullet hole or two — and the taut fabric split at the slightest stress.

  “Oh, my God,” Alma said, and caught his arm. “Lewis —”

  “There’s nothing we can do,” he said. The tear was spreading, disappearing beneath the body’s legs. They dropped, first one, then the other, and then the body tilted forward, vanished into the night.

  “Oh, God,” Alma said again.

  Lewis crossed himself. “He was dead already,” he said, and hoped it was true.

  Relieved of the body’s weight, the tearing stopped, but now the edges of the fabric were flapping in the wind of the airship’s passage. Smaller tears were starting to appear, the edges of the fabric shredding: it would go soon enough, Lewis knew, ripping away until it reached a stable point. Probably at the girders, he guessed, and was glad the hull didn’t need to be intact to fly. As long as they could keep Henry from releasing any more of the lifting gas, the Independence would stay in the air.

  “Damn,” Alma said, and he looked back to see her studying the valve panel at the base of the gas cell. “He’s jammed it open.”

  “Hell.” Lewis looked from her to the catwalk curving up into the dark of the tail. Henry, the creature, had to be stopped before he did anything worse, but if they could fix the valve —

  “Go,” Alma said, and tugged the wrench out of her belt. “I’m going to see if I can close this. And then I’ll go forward and tell the captain what’s going on.”

  It wasn’t a great idea, but it was the best one they had. “Ok,” Lewis said, and started along the catwalk. It rose under his feet, curving up as the airship’s body tapered, and he paused to cover his light again. In the renewed darkness, he thought he saw movement up toward the tail, movement and then the quick flash of a light. It had to be Henry, anyone else would be showing a headlamp, and Lewis started forward, whispering an Act of Contrition. Knife against gun was not good odds, but he ought at least to be able to keep the bastard too busy to do any more harm.

  “I can’t close the valves from here,” Jerry said. He didn’t look at the dead man on the floor, couldn’t spare him the sorrow. “We’re still losing pressure in cells 14 and 15.”

  “Ok,” Mitch said. “And the hydrogen?”

  “Gone, mostly,” Jerry answered. “I’ve got zero readings in all the hydrogen cells.” Independence would fly on helium alone, Federman had said, but not if they kept losing gas at this rate.

  “I don’t suppose the radio works?”

  Jerry looked over his shoulder. “The tubes are smashed.”

  “Goddammit!” Mitch controlled himself instantly, his hands never moving on the elevator controls.

  “Do we drop more ballast?” Jerry asked. It was the only thing he’d figured out how to do that might be of the slightest utility.

  Mitch hesitated. “Not yet,” he said at last. “Does the telephone work?”

  Jerry blinked — what, call up Paris and ask the operator to send a fleet of rescuers? And an exorcist, perhaps? Then he saw what looked like a field telephone set up beside the dials that displayed engine output. Or something like a field telephone, he thought, as he limped over to it. The ones he remembered from the War threw off too many sparks. “Maybe.”

  “Can you reach the engineers? Anyone?”

  “I’ll try,” Jerry said. There was a handwritten list taped to the cabinet that housed the batteries: short-short-long was the portside rear nacelle. He turned the crank, the old skills coming back, but there was no answer. He tried again, without result, then rang long-short-long for the forward starboard nacelle. This time the line clicked, and a voice said, “Captain?”

  Jerry hesitated. “Captain Brooks has been shot.”

  “Oh, good job, Jerry,” Mitch said. “Reassure them right away.”

  “What? Who is this?” the voice in the telephone demanded.

  “A friend of Mr. Kershaw’s,” Jerry said. “Someone’s trying to sabotage the ship.”

  “Yeah, I know that. How do I know it’s not you?”

  You don’t. Jerry bit back the words as probably counterproductive, looked over his shoulder at Mich. “What do you need me to tell this guy?”

  “Tell him we’re losing gas,” Mitch answered. “I need more power from the engines, everything he can give me to keep from losing any more altitude than we have to.”

  The telephone was squawking at him again, and Jerry said, “Be quiet. We’re in a serious situation here. We are losing gas — have lost hydrogen and are losing helium. We’re losing altitude, and we need more power.”

  There was a little silence, and the voice said, “I told you we were descending.” There was a pause. “Ok, I’m upping the rpms, but I can’t give you any more without unbalancing the ship.”

  “Can you contact the other engine nacelles?” Jerry asked.

  “Are you kidding? Look, you’re in the control room, you call them.” There was another pause. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “There’s a guy with a gun loose on the ship,” Jerry said. “Jam your door closed and stay out of trouble.”

  “Jesus,” the man said.

  “Stand by,” Jerry said. “I’m going to try to get the other engines to answer.” He hung up without waiting for a response, turned the crank again. Short-long-short was the forward nacelle on the port side, and to his surprise, he got an answer. He gave the same orders, watched the rpms creep up again on the dials, and tried the aft nacelles again, with no result.

  “That’s feeling a little better,” Mitch said.

  “You’re getting, um, 1480, 1490 rpms on both the forward engines,” Jerry said. “The guy I talked to said he couldn’t give you more or the ship would go out of balance.”

>   “It’ll do for now,” Mitch said. “Where are we with the helium?”

  Jerry stumbled back across the control car, bracing himself on the chart table. “Um. Pressure’s still falling in cells 15 and 16. The leak’s stopped on 14. It’s holding at sixty percent of full.”

  Mitch adjusted the elevator wheel. “Well, that’s something.” He didn’t sound convinced, and Jerry didn’t believe it either.

  Lewis eased forward along the catwalk as it rose into the tail girders, the muffled headlamp tucked in his pocket, knife in his hand. Outside, dawn was coming, the fabric lightening enough for him to make out the shapes of the girders, the patterns of guywires and crosspieces and the access ladders. He could see the creature, too, a shadow moving against the bigger shadows, a flash of light against the girders. It was heading for something, he thought, it had a destination in mind — the control wires, for a bet, the cables that moved the rudder and elevators. They’d be most accessible here, at the point where they exited the hull.

  And that needed to be stopped. He placed his back securely against a girder, looked up to study the pattern of ladders and catwalk and frame. Going up the ladders was the last thing he wanted to do, just asking the thing to shoot him, but there didn’t look to be a good alternative. Up to the central catwalk, then, and across. With luck, the creature would be looking for him on the lower level, and wouldn’t expect him coming from his own level.

  He swung himself onto the first ladder, moving as quickly and as quietly as he could manage, his skin crawling. The thing was out there somewhere; if it saw him, he was a sitting duck, trapped in the ladder’s cage. The words of the Ave rolled in his mind, matching the rhythm of his climb: Ave Maria, gratia plena…. And Diana, too, if she was listening: he could use all the help he could get, all the hunter’s stealth he could muster.

  At the top of the ladder, he rolled out onto the catwalk, crouched for a moment to catch his breath and his bearings. The light was definitely stronger now, the hull paler gray, the frame and the ladders dark against it. He could see what had to be the controls for the rudder and elevators, a tangle of dark shapes against the fabric of the hull. Henry was there, the creature using him, using his knowledge of the ship to destroy it, a moving shadow busy in the dark.

  Light spilled then, a section of the hull rolling up and away, letting in the dawn. Lewis could see Henry’s body silhouetted against it, realized he was going not for the internal controls but for the cables and gears that lay outside the hull: harder to fix, in the little time they had left.

  He shoved himself to his feet, not daring to think, hurried down the catwalk, heading not for the ladder, but for the girders themselves. They came together here in a final frame ring no wider than the height of a man. If he could pull himself along them — he stretched, found a handhold and hauled himself up. Yes, there were handholds, the holes that lightened the metal spaced comfortably, and he dragged himself up onto the beam, let himself slide along its length until he reached the final ring. Henry was still stooped over something outside the hull, leaning out into the air, and Lewis reached for the rigger’s knife. But, no, he couldn’t be sure of his aim, not with a knife he didn’t know, and instead he fumbled in his pocket and drew out a handful of change. He slung it at Henry with all his strength, heard the grunt of surprise and the tinkling of the coins falling through the girders, ducked behind the girder as Henry turned, gun ready.

  “Kershaw!” Lewis shouted. His voice was distorted by the hanging fabric, but Henry leveled the gun anyway and Lewis ducked as low as he could behind the nearest girder. Henry fired, once, twice, and then the hammer clicked on an empty cylinder. Lewis launched himself across the frame and scrambled onto the catwalk, but the creature was already charging, gun clubbed in his hand. Lewis blocked the first blow with his forearm, tried to bring up the knife, and the creature struck again, grazing his forehead as he dodged back and away. Lewis fell back, and the thing pushed past him before he could strike, footsteps suddenly loud on the catwalk. It was running down the middle of the ship, toward the bow, the gas cells, and Lewis swore and started after him.

  “Kershaw!” he shouted again. “You can run, but we’ll find you. We know where to bind you —”

  It was darker under the gas cells, and he stopped to pull out his headlamp, switched it on again. He risked taking off the handkerchief, shone the light ahead of him, but there was no sign of the creature. He took a deep breath, and plunged further into the dark.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mitch hauled on the rudder again, worked it back and forth in the hope that somehow that might free up whatever was jamming the controls. It wasn’t anything in the control car, he was pretty sure of that, guessed it was somewhere in the tail, maybe in the rudder gears themselves, but that didn’t matter unless he could actually fix it. They were still losing altitude: 450 feet now, and he could see the waves distinctly in the rising light, along with the first shadow of the coast. But that wasn’t the problem, or wasn’t the worst problem. The wind had been rising with the dawn, steady out of the southeast, and the airship wanted to turn with it, turn north and west and away from the land. He risked letting go of the elevator again, used both hands on the rudder, and thought it gave a little before the nose dropped too far and he had to grab the elevator wheel again.

  “Jerry!”

  “Yes.”

  Mitch looked over his shoulder. “I need your help here.”

  “Ok.” Jerry stumbled toward him, bracing himself on the chart table and the back of the captain’s chair. He looked like hell, Mitch thought, gray-faced and unshaven and determined, and guessed he himself didn’t look any better.

  “Take the elevator wheel,” Mitch said. “Hold it just like this.”

  “Ok,” Jerry said again, and braced his hip against the pilot’s chair. He took the wheel gingerly, blinked as he assessed the resistance, and then nodded. “Ok, I — I think I’ve got it.”

  “Keep the bubble in the center,” Mitch said. “See there? Just like a level.”

  Jerry nodded, and Mitch slid out of the chair, took the rudder in both hands. He planted his feet, turned the wheel as hard as he could left and right and left again. It barely moved, maybe an inch or two of play, but he thought as he tried it again that it was moving just a little more. Yes, he was sure of it, it was moving further — if there was something in the gears, maybe this was chewing it up, giving him a little more control. There was a warning twinge in his groin, the old scars pulling, but he ignored it, tried a few short hard turns to the right. Pain blossomed, but he thought the wheel gave just a little more.

  “Mitch,” Jerry said.

  “Keep the bubble in the center,” Mitch gasped, and threw all his strength against the rudder. Yes, this time he was sure it moved, and he turned it back and forth again. There was maybe a twenty-degree arc of movement, and he turned it hard again.

  “Mitch, I’m losing it,” Jerry said.

  “Hold on just a little longer —”

  “I can’t.” Jerry’s voice was rising again. “Damn! I’m sorry —”

  There was a slithering sound, Jerry’s leg slipping on the metal floor, and Mitch caught the elevator wheel. “It’s Ok,” he said. “I’m not going to get much more rudder.”

  Jerry pulled himself away, swearing at himself, and Mitch slid back into the pilot’s chair. His belly was on fire: he’d torn something, all right, and he was willing to bet he’d be pissing blood for a day or two. If he lived that long. He put that thought aside and checked the instruments again. 410 feet, and nose down. He adjusted the elevator wheel, brought the Independence slowly back to a nose-up attitude, looked at the heading. With the rudder pushed as far right as he could get it, they were just maintaining the direct course for land. If they could gain some altitude. At this rate of descent, they’d never make it.

  “Jerry,” he said again, and hoped his voice sounded more or less normal. “I need you to drop some more ballast.”

  “Ok,” Jerr
y said. He dragged himself to the panel and began flipping levers. There was the shudder of the water leaving the tanks, and Mitch touched the elevator again to compensate. Independence steadied, but she didn’t rise.

  “More.”

  “Ok.”

  Mitch stared at the altimeter, willing the needle upward. It moved, but only slowly: 420 feet. 425. “More.”

  “That’ll empty the tanks,” Jerry said.

  “Do it.”

  “Ok.” Jerry flipped the levers, left them in the open position. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s all there is.”

  “Ok,” Mitch said. 430 feet, and — steady? No, falling, but more slowly. Maybe it would be enough. He felt as though someone had dipped him in acid from the waist down, the old injuries screaming. “Jerry. Give me your tie.”

  “What?” Jerry was already loosening the knot, though, pulled it free of his collar. “Here.”

  Mitch looked at it and decided he wasn’t going to be able to manage. “Actually, you do it. I want you to pull the rudder wheel as far to the right as it will go and tie it in place.”

  “All right,” Jerry said, fingers busy. “Are you all right?”

  In spite of himself, Mitch snickered. “I’m crashing an airship, Jerry. How are you?”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Jerry snorted. “Idiot. Now what?”

  “Hope we’re light enough to make the coast.”

  Alma ducked out from under the last of the helium cells — number 9, she thought it was, a little aft of center. She had heard the noise of the ballast releasing, not just once, but several times, and guessed the pilots were trying to compensate for the leaking gas. She’d managed to get a couple of the valves partially closed, but on most of the cells the damage was too great, and she was beginning to think it was a waste of time. She hadn’t seen Lewis since she’d left him in the tail, and that was a cold knot of terror that she refused to consider, refused to allow into her thoughts. Instead, she continued forward and gave a gasp of relief as she saw a telephone station. The buttons were clearly labeled, and she pressed the one that said “control car.” The bell jangled in her ear, but there was no answer.