Faster Than Falling: The Skylighter Adventures

by Nathan Van Coops

  A hush immediately followed as their eyes lingered on the rope. There was a scoreboard on the wall with five names scrawled on it in chalk. As time elapsed, more and more eyes turned to the clock. Samra had never used one before but she was able to recognize that the moving hands were not telling a time of day but were counting down to something.

  The captain was edging her way around the hole to get closer to Borgram. As the clock wound down to its ultimate position, the crowd groaned. The rope failed to quiver a fifth time.

  “Well, four out of five isn’t bad.” A man with a black mustache and top hat near the clock signaled to the men at the winch. “Reel them up, lads.” The men heaved on a lever and the winch motor coughed to life in a cloud of black smoke. As the rope rose into the ship, a crew of individuals unhooked the colored spheres from the line and threw them into a basket. Samra noticed they were numbered.

  Captain Savage shouted over the din. “Borgram, you can’t hide from me.”

  Borgram looked up from his conversation with a fancily dressed man next to him and scowled. “Who’s hiding, girl? You think I have something to hide?”

  “Just the scandalous way you run your business. You knew I was out on a trip. How dare you try to foreclose on my loan.”

  Borgram turned toward the man next to him. “Admiral, I believe you’ll remember Erin. She’s Lord Savage’s eldest and least promising child.”

  The admiral was a square-jawed man with a broad forehead. He fixed a golden monocle to his eye and squinted at Captain Savage. “Ah, yes, I recall the poor girl had aspirations to be a flyer one day. Pity she didn’t have what it took to make my crew.” His eye raked over the captain with a look that made Samra instantly dislike him. His view through the monocle lingered longest on the tightest places of the captain’s clothing.

  Captain Savage scowled. “I’ve been flying since I was a child, no thanks to you and your useless Air Corps. Sorry I didn’t want to join a bunch of elitist thugs in extorting decent people for protection.”

  The admiral recoiled from the words as if from a bad odor. “And still disrespectful of your betters. No wonder your father disowned you.”

  Samra watched the captain, half expecting her to unleash her whip and send the man tumbling out the hole in the ship. But the captain’s voice was cold and measured. “I’m not here to clue your friends in to their obnoxiousness, Borgram. If you want to spend your time with arrogant asses like this, I can’t stop you. But I’ve got work to do. I was in the middle of a big run. I’ve found pods that could lift the whole city. I just need to get back out there.”

  “The pod market is closing,” Borgram replied. “It’s a fool’s investment now. Once your father raises his wreck, all the pods he’s been using in the project will flood the market again. We’ll have enough pods to haul the city to the moons if we want to. Your harvesting days are done.”

  Enough pods to raise a city? Samra wondered just how much of the sky they’d already cleared. On the way through the valley she was fairly certain she’d spotted some of the patch’s missing globe sons in catch nets, but he seemed to be talking about a lot more than just those.

  “The Fury is my ship,” Captain Savage spat. “Mine.”

  “It certainly could be your ship,” Borgram smiled. “But I still hold the note. Seems there’s a matter of ten thousand marks to account for. If you don’t have it, then I’m afraid the ship will be claimed by the bank.”

  The crowd outside gave a shout as the first jumper was reeled from the hole. The rope running through the spool was now yellow, and at the bottom of that section, just before it turned to orange, a man had his legs wrapped around a sphere and was clinging tightly to the rope above with his arresting hook. Samra noted that the huge fabric streamer dangling from his back and twisting in the wind beneath him was yellow as well. The crowd began to laugh as he was raised into the afternoon light.

  “Matches the color of his courage,” someone commented.

  “Or what’s leaking from between his legs,” another said.

  The man with the top hat affixed a yellow disk and the number ten to a peg beneath the man’s name.

  “I could give you two thousand,” Captain Savage offered, ignoring the spectacle. “If I delay the pay to my crew for a month and take on half rations, I can get you two now. I can pay the rest off in a few months like we originally discussed.”

  “How do you expect to earn the money with the pod market closed?” Borgram scoffed. “Every pod barge in the valley will be turning into air taxis and security patrols after tomorrow. Seeing as I now own most of them, I can assure you that the competition for employment will be considerable. If I was you, I’d be a little nicer to Admiral Orloff. You might be begging him for a job in the Corps come next week.”

  Captain Savage now really looked like she wanted to murder someone. Samra decided that if she were the banker, she wouldn’t be sitting nearly so close to the hole in the ship. But the situation didn’t seem to concern him.

  “I’ll make you an offer, Erin. I’ll buy the Restless Fury from you right now. I’ll give you twenty-five thousand marks for it. You can take the money and go buy yourself a little skiff and fly off into the sunset. If the flying is what you care about. It’s a wonderful offer, considering the circumstances.”

  “A wonderful offer?” Captain Savage said. “With the modifications I’ve made it’s worth seventy, easy. I’ve already paid you forty on the loan. You want to give me twenty-five and I’m supposed to just walk away from my investment? You’re out of your mind.”

  Borgram merely grinned at her. “Very well, where’s your payment then? Ten thousand tonight or my men repossess it tomorrow. What’ll it be?” He leaned forward. “What’s that? Oh, you don’t have it. I see. Then I guess I can just sit here, enjoy the show, and wait to collect my ship. I’m sure the Admiral might buy it off me tomorrow.” He turned to his companion. “You said you needed a few more old crates for target practice, didn’t you? Maybe you could test out those new harpoon launchers you were discussing. The ones with the flaming tips.”

  The admiral was back to ogling the captain. “I’m sure there are other skills she might employ for a bit of credit, or she could always join the rest of your foreclosures.” He gestured to the deck with the gaggle of nervous jumpers. “Try to win her last payment in the jump. Popular option today.”

  “Now there’s an idea, Orloff. Young Erin says she wants to keep her beloved tub. Let’s see if she has the courage to jump for it. I hear the prize for a black ten is up to twenty thousand marks. For ten thousand, you’d only have to fall to a what? A black five?”

  “Eight,” the games master with the top hat declared. He’d clearly been listening in to the conversation. “Black eight is worth ten thousand.”

  The crowd cheered again as more of the jumpers were lifted clear of the hole. One of the men was at the bottom of the orange section of rope and the next two had landed in the red section. A man with a spyglass was peering down the hole and shouting out the numbers. “Orange eight. Red four and . . . Looks like a red ten!”

  “A thousand marks to the winner!” the man with the top hat declared. The crowd erupted into hoots, whistles, and applause.

  Samra absorbed the fervor of the cheering. They were this happy just about someone falling part way? She checked the results board. She’d never had a use for money aboard the patch, but a thousand marks definitely sounded like a lot. Certainly worth a lot of respect here. Even the captain seemed to respect it . . .

  Borgram frowned as the red circle and number ten were hung on the peg beneath the winner’s name. “Well, it looks like Mr. Gibran gets to keep his house after all.”

  “Told you he had more gumption than you gave him credit for,” the Admiral said. He held out a hand and Borgram passed him a few bills. “Goes to show what a sense of desperation can do for you.”

  “Downright inspiring,” Borgram grumbled. He turned back to Captain Savage and his mood lightened. “So
what do you say, young lady? Is your ratty little ship worth a bit of risk?”

  “I’ll do it!” The words were out of Samra’s mouth before she’d had time to think them through. All eyes turned to her. Borgram squinted to try to make her out in the now smoky half-light.

  “Who’s that you’ve got there?”

  The crew all wore surprised expressions on their faces. Captain Savage stammered out a response. “That’s my . . . cabin boy, Sam . . . son.”

  The admiral leaned forward and reattached his monocle.

  The captain elbowed her way to Samra and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I can do it,” Samra whispered back. “It would be easy.”

  The captain grabbed her arm and tugged her into the crowd, away from the watchful eyes of Borgram. “This isn’t your responsibility.”

  “I want to do it,” Samra said. “But if I win the money, you make me an airship pilot and take me home. And nobody steals anything, and I’m not a knowledge thief.”

  “What makes you think you’re a thief?”

  “Because you taught me to fly the Fury and Landy says you always keep track of your debts. I don’t want a debt to anybody. Not even you.”

  “You’d do that? Do a rope fall just to save my ship?” Captain Savage was studying Samra’s face with what looked like awe. Samra liked it.

  “I told you. It’s easy,” Samra said. “I fall all the time. If I go too far, I can just float back up.”

  “Not with a chain around your waist you won’t.” Sunburn had squeezed through the crowd to listen to the conversation and pinched Samra’s oversized shirt where the chain was looped above her hips.

  “But I have this,” Samra said, pulling her sleeve back and revealing the key strapped to her wrist. She carefully covered it again as the crowd around them started to take an interest.

  “No one’s ever made a black eight,” Sunburn objected. “Hardly anyone lands in the black at all. It’s too dark down there. They say the black rope just vanishes. May as well be invisible.”

  “Yeah, but she lights up,” Landy whispered from the other side of the captain. “And flies. We saw her do it on the ship. It’s brilliant. This would be a piece of cake for her.”

  Sunburn looked unsure but didn’t raise another argument.

  Samra had to admit the darkness might be an issue, judging on her spotty lighting abilities, but she’d have a long way down to get ready.

  “You’re sure?” Captain Savage asked, keeping her eyes fixed on Samra.

  Samra nodded. “I plummet all the time at home. I can do this.”

  “Okay then.” Captain Savage forced her way back through the crowd. Borgram and Admiral Orloff were in murmured conversation.

  “We accept your challenge,” Captain Savage said.

  “It’s typically up to the winner what to do with the funds of course,” Borgram said. “But we don’t let minors place any wagers. There is also the matter of the fees. If your cabin boy can’t pay the entrance fee and you’re indebted as it is, might I suggest a little side wager between us? I always think it’s best if everyone has a bit of skin in the game.”

  Captain Savage squinted at him skeptically. “What’s the wager?”

  “You bet on your cabin boy. I’ll bet on my own man. If you win, Admiral Orloff here will cover your entrance fee, I’ll forgive the loan on your ship, and the boy can keep the prize to do with as he sees fit. If my man wins, I get the Restless Fury, and you sign a contract to work off the entrance fee and the remainder of your debt to me in Admiral Orloff’s Air Corps.”

  Admiral Orloff smirked his leering smile at her.

  Borgram leaned forward and rubbed his hands. “How’s that for an exciting proposition?”

  Captain Savage turned to look at Samra. They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Samra couldn’t tell what the captain was searching for, but when she turned away and faced Borgram, her voice was steady. “I’m in.”

  Borgram laughed and held his arms out to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a wager.”

  27

  SCARABS

  Kipling was empty. Leaning against the cockpit rail, he felt as though his inside had been hollowed out and purged of any potential source of energy. Probably because it had. Atlas had offered him the hunk of goat cheese that was now somewhere below the Sun Dragon in the foaming swirl. Kipling had optimistically attempted to eat it but his body had rejected it immediately, along with most of the water he’d drunk to quell his stomach’s rumblings.

  Now he was truly out of options.

  The tunnel of ancient tree limbs had given way to more and more rock as the river carved its way through the terrain. The noise of the rushing water had risen as they progressed and now it had swelled to a throbbing roar as it tumbled over the edge of the falls.

  Atlas was leaning over the cockpit rail as well, though for reasons other than his stomach. He was studying the gaping hole in the ground that the river was disappearing into. His eyes kept flitting from the view below them to the map in his hand.

  “I just don’t know,” he muttered.

  They’d been hovering overtop the falls for fifteen minutes, pondering their predicament.

  They’d reached a dead end. The tunnel of dead trees had brought them this far, but the path had been closed off. The river vanishing below ground left a wall of rock and twisted roots ahead, with no conceivable way through.

  “Didn’t he say to just follow the river?” Kipling asked. “Was there another branch?”

  “This is it,” Atlas replied. He pointed to the map. “It’s the only one anywhere near us.” He dragged a finger across the line of blue to the point where it changed to brown as it met the mountainside. “It goes underground from here. I just didn’t know that’s what this map meant.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Kipling asked.

  Atlas took one more look at the tangled canopy of boughs overhead, then returned his gaze to the falls. “I guess we follow it. We go underground, too.”

  Kipling frowned.

  It was dark enough here as it was. By his calculations it was midday and, even so, he doubted there was enough light to see a quarter mile in the murky haze. If the trees would ever allow it. He leaned over the rail and looked at the chasm the river was plunging into. “What if it doesn’t make it all the way through the mountain? What if we get trapped under there?”

  “We can always turn around if we have to,” Atlas said. “We can backtrack.”

  Kipling felt he barely had the energy to move forward as it was. He hadn’t had anything to eat that would stay down since the day before yesterday. He needed to get to the Heights to find food, not delve even further into this foreign world of rock and water. But there was no choice. If Samra was on the other side of this mountain, then he needed to be too. Even if he did turn back, where would he go? The patch had moved on. There was only forward. Success or utter failure. And only one way to find out which. “Okay,” he said. “Well, let’s do it so we can get it over with.”

  Atlas nodded and sank back into his seat. He pushed the controls forward and powered up the fans. The nose dipped in response. Kipling watched him maneuver the dials and levers. Atlas had taken hold of a handle and was pumping it up and down. “What does that do?”

  “Moving ballast to the front. It’ll help trim the nose down for the descent.” Atlas tilted his head skyward and shouted. “Fledge! Come on!”

  Kipling turned and spotted the cliff fox leaping from the roots of a banyan palm. Fledge banked and glided down to them, alighting on the front windscreen. He squeaked once and hopped into Kipling’s seat.

  The falls raged past, coating the ship in mist and spray in intervals. Kipling wiped his face and let the water rejuvenate him. He stayed standing with his hands firmly gripping the rail so as not to waver.

  As the Sun Dragon reached the bottom of the falls, Kipling could barely hear his own thoug
hts over the noise. He stared up at the yawning mouth of the cavern and steeled his nerves. He glanced back at Atlas one more time, but didn’t attempt to speak. Questioning Atlas again wouldn’t be possible. And they’d made their decision. Atlas gave him a nod and pressed the control levers forward.

  Within moments the darkness swallowed them. Kipling glanced back a few times toward the mouth of the cave as they advanced and thought that as dim as it had been outside, that faint light seemed like a beacon now—a glowing half moon fading slowly back into the cosmos.

  Atlas lit the lanterns.

  The river calmed itself and the noise of the falls receded with the memory of the light. Underground, stillness reigned. Over the gurgles of the river, Kipling began to make out new noises. Waiting noises. The noise of patient moss and determined fungi dripping condensation from the cavern ceiling. The noise of mysterious beasts hunched in alcoves, sleeping the patient sleep of the timeless. This place seemed the realm of dragons and trolls, goblins and wraiths.

  But no. That was only Samra’s stories. He had spent too many nights in the darkness of their hideout, listening to her describe imaginary threats in the starry skies. Real dangers didn’t need magic, or sleep.

  Real threats were already awake and prowling.

  “Keep an eye out,” Atlas said, his eyes sweeping from one side of the ship to the other. He steered the ship with a steady hand, well away from the dripping cavern walls. Kipling wasn’t sure if he meant to look for nightbeasts or the route forward, but either way he had no choice. He kept a firm grip on his warhook and kept his eyes fixed ahead.

  They came quietly.

  Scarab crabs. They perched on ledges and peered out into the tunnel with bright iridescent eyes. The eyes flickered in the lantern light. The smallest were perhaps two feet across, the largest more than six. They stayed motionless as the Sun Dragon passed, black, shiny statues arranged to decorate the passage. They didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, just observed and catalogued the ship’s movement through those flickering orbs. And then, once the darkness shrouded them again, they followed. At first only a few, and then a growing wave. Their noise gave chase.