by Graham, Jo
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,” Jerry 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.
There had to be a pilot, she thought. She’d heard the ballast drop, someone had done that — someone was flying this thing —
“Yes?”
“Jerry?” She heard her voice scale up with shock.
“Al? Where are you?”
“Lower catwalk, between cells eight and nine,” she said. “What are you —”
“The thing killed the captain and the pilots,” Jerry said. “Mitch is flying us.”
Oh, thank God. They were alive, all more or less accounted for — except for Lewis. She said, “Where — how bad is it?”
There was a mumble of voices, Jerry presumably consulting Mitch. “Not good. We’re at 210 feet and Mitch can’t stop the descent. We’re still about a mile off the coast.” Jerry paused. “There’s a nice sand beach, if we could only get there.”
“Can you drop ballast?” she asked.
“We’ve already dropped it all,” Jerry said, with some asperity.
“What about the passengers?”
“I have no idea,” Jerry said. “I managed to get hold of a steward, told him to deal with it.”
And that was the right choice, Alma admitted. Worry about getting the ship down in one piece, that was the main thing.
“Have you seen Henry?” Jerry asked.
“Lewis went after him,” Alma said. “He — the creature — shot a bunch of the crew.” She shook her head. “He’s the least of our worries, right?”
“Right.” There was another pause before Jerry spoke again. “Mitch says we’ll be in the water in twenty minutes if we can’t gain some height.”
The ballast was gone. What else could they drop? Cargo? “The car,” she said aloud. “Jerry, tell Mitch I can drop one more thing, probably 700, 800 pounds.”
She replaced the handset without waiting for his answer, hurried back down the catwalk toward the cargo sections.
It had been getting lighter for a while now, must be almost dawn. She could even read the numbers on her watch — 4:45 — and colors were seeping back into the world, the red of the instrument panels, the green of her slacks, the oxblood browns of the steamer trunks on the cargo pads below. Overhead, the gas cells looked weirdly shrunken, the lower parts of the cells hanging loose in their netting.
She heard footsteps then, coming toward her, and flattened herself against the rope railing and lifted the wrench. Hopefully the gas bags would help conceal her — but, no, she knew those steps, and she risked calling.
“Lewis?”
“Al?”
The footsteps stopped, and she stepped out onto the catwalk, the wrench still ready just in case. It was Lewis, though, Lewis alone, and she sagged with relief.
“I lost him,” he said. There was a bruise on his forehead, and a streak of blood over his eye, but otherwise he looked unharmed.
“Never mind.” She caught his hand, and pulled him after her along the catwalk. “We’ve got to get that car overboard.”
He didn’t hesitate, swung himself down into the box that held the car. Beyond it, Alma could see the opening where the fabric of the hull had been torn away, a huge square that stretched from one girder to the next. She could see the ocean through it, waves entirely too close. Jerry had said 200 feet, but she doubted they were that high.
“The floor swings down to make a ramp,” Lewis shouted. He reached into the car’s open body, released the handbrake. “Once I get her loose —”
They could drop the ramp and the car would fall free. “I’ll help,” Alma said, and ducked under the rail to let herself down onto the platform. Here for the first time she could feel movement in the ship, the faintest wobble and shimmy of the ramp. She’d felt worse in her own planes, she told herself, and stooped to unfasten the ties.
“Cut them,” Lewis called, and she nodded, reached for the knife he had given her, and began sawing at the leather straps. It seemed to take forever, hacking and pulling, but finally the first one parted, and she began working grimly at the next one. She could see the sea out of the corner of her eyes, rising closer, could even smell the salt air. Another strap gone, a guard chain released. She started for the rear wheel, saw Lewis already slicing through the first strap.
“The ramp release?” she called, and he pointed.
“There, I think.”
Yes, that was it, heavy greased rope caught in a brake, pulleys running overheard. Lewis cut the final strap, scrambled back to join her. She could see where the hinges lay, a foot or so from the end of the platform: it should be enough to stand on, but the ramp had been designed to lower gently, its end traveling only a few feet to the ground. Let it go like this, with nothing to stop it, and the whole thing could tear loose —
“I’ll boost you to the catwalk,” Lewis said.
She shook her head. “Hold my waist.”
He frowned for a second, then nodded, wrapped one arm tight around her waist and hooked his other arm and a leg into the holes in the nearest girder. Alma hauled back on the brake lever. For a second, she thought it wasn’t going to move, but then the drum turned, the weight of the platform and the car pulling the free end down toward the gap in the hull. The drum spun, rope whining, and the ramp fell away, the car rolling and then sliding, tumbling backward off the end of the ramp. It hit a girder with a resounding crash, and vanished through the hole in the hull. She heard it hit the water, a heavy splash. More fabric split where it had hit the girder, tears running through the skin like cracks in ice. But they weren’t falling any more, she thought. They might even be rising —
“Come on, Al,” Lewis said. “We’ve got to get forward.”
“What?” She was moving anyway, dragging herself past the dangling ramp, Lewis’s arm still steadying her, his body close behind her as they pulled themselves up the ladder to the catwalk.
“We’ve got to get forward,” he said again. “We don’t want to be here when we hit.”
She blinked again, and then understood. There was nothing here between the frame and the catwalk, just the duralumin girders that would crumple like paper when they hit the ground. They needed to be forward, where the crew and passenger compartments strengthened the lower part of the hull.
“Yes,” she said, and let him drag her forward. A horn went off somewhere toward the bow, an urgent, two-toned warning, and they began to run.
“Flares?” Mitch asked.
“Done,” Jerry said.
The alarm was howling: no need to ask about that. Whatever could be done for the passengers was being done. Alma had bought them a few hundred yards, maybe just enough. “Tell the mechanics to get out of the engines,” Mitch said, and a moment later heard Jerry relaying the order over the telephone. “Leave me full power, and get the hell out. Then you sit down.”
The sun was up before them, their shadow racing over the water. Ahead rose the
beach south of the Le Havre airfield, a strip of sand maybe a hundred feet wide, and a rugged sandy hill rising up from it. Not what he would have chosen to crash into, but better than the water. The tail would be in the channel, but the passenger sections would be on land. Light flashed above the airfield, flares answering their own, clearing the field for an emergency landing. He pulled on the elevator wheel again, struggling for more lift. Just a little more, just enough to clear the hill, just enough to reach the runway….
There was nothing left. Independence had given him everything she had, she wasn’t going anywhere but down. She was fighting it still, he was fighting it, but there wasn’t enough gas left to carry the heavy frame any longer.
There were people on the brow of the hill, waving and shouting, but they’d have to look after themselves. There were rocks in the water, he saw them now as they dropped lower, a big cluster that would rip the control car right off the frame. He tugged the rudder left, praying that the wind he’d been fighting would help them now, felt the ship start to swing. They passed it, twenty-five feet up and a yard to the right. Sand ahead, a hundred feet of sand. Mitch released the rudder, hauling the elevators up a final time, and dropping the tail. He heard a splash, felt the airship stagger, and then the nose fell hard, slamming against the hillside. The windows shattered, and he flung up his arms to cover his head and face. He heard, felt the frame snapping behind him, but the control car stayed intact. He lifted his head slowly, saw Jerry staring at him from the captain’s chair.
“Are you all right?”
Mitch considered the question. He was bruised, there were some cuts on his arms — and maybe on his scalp, there was a spot that stung like fire — and the old wound in his gut clawed at him, but they were alive. “Yeah. Come on, we’ve got to find Al and Lewis.”