Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (28 page)

Lewis was looking at her, a curiously blank expression on his face. “Why would you do something like that?”

“Why would I choose freedom and flying and going home to Colorado and to share my life with two wonderful, fascinating men? Why wouldn’t I?” She willed him to understand, searched for words. “I wish I could show it to you the way it was to me. I wish I could make you see. I know it’s strange, but you know I’m an odd duck. I’ve never wanted an ordinary life.”

Lewis swallowed, his eyes searching her face like he was looking for the right words too. “But Gil…. Everybody says that he was a great pilot. That he was so good. And Jerry. He’s brave and….”

“And you like him and can’t imagine that he could be a brave man and a good officer and queer?” Alma’s voice was a little harsher than she meant it to be.

“Jerry’s not effeminate. I mean, even with the books and the Latin….”

“Nor was Gil,” Alma said tartly. “I promise you he was perfectly capable. I certainly never had any cause for complaint.”

Lewis swallowed again. “And you were ok with this? With Gil and Jerry?”

Alma took a deep breath, finding a smile. “I was very happy. Truly I was. When Jerry lost his leg, Gil and I took care of him, and when Gil was sick, it was me and Jerry. It was harder on him than me, I think. I could mourn and everyone respected that. Jerry had to act like he was just a good friend. And I have the planes and the company and Jerry doesn’t have any of the things he wanted, not even Gil. It’s not anyone’s fault of course – his leg, the war. But it’s been hard on him. And hard on him to see me with you when he’s alone.”

Lewis took a step back, as though he would step out of her arms, but the edge of the berth was at his back. “It’s a lot to think about, Al.”

“I know.” She looked away, blinking at the irony. “When Gil told me about Jerry long before we were married he expected me to drop him like a stone. But I told him I had to think about it. That I didn’t have enough data to make a decision.” Gil had been taken aback by that, steeled for the blow, not expecting quirky curiosity, a bevy of questions about exactly what he and Jerry did. A key turned. Something suddenly made sense. “I don’t suppose I understood it then. What he was trying to tell me about different kinds of love. You and Gil are so very different, such different men, and yet….” She was skating perilously close to words she had not said. “I would never want you to be just like Gil. You’re you, and he was himself. There are so many different shades of love, Lewis. If he were alive, I don’t know how I would choose.” If Gil were alive and she’d met Lewis…. Alma shook her head. Gil would have to suck it up. She’d told him in the beginning that she believed in Free Love. And he’d not have a leg to stand on, not with Jerry for eleven years. He’d abide by her choice. More than anything else, they’d always been fair to one another.

But it was Lewis who mattered now, Lewis who stood looking at her like he’d never seen her before. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“I know.” Gil had given her time to think, time to ask all the questions. It had never occurred to her then how that must hurt.

“Alma, you’re….” Lewis broke off, inarticulate in the face of it. “You mean a lot to me. This is just…. I like Jerry.” He said the last almost helplessly, as though it flew in the face of all.

“Jerry is like a brother to me,” Alma said. “Whatever you think or whatever you decide, don’t take it out on him. It was my decision to marry Gil knowing exactly what the score was. Nobody has done anything to me.”

Lewis nodded slowly, his eyes troubled. “Ok, Al.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek again. Gil had done just that. Ok, Al, he’d said. Take all the time you need. Think about it all you want to. I’ll be here.

“I’ll be here,” Alma said. “Take all the time you need.”

A
lma turned over in the narrow bunk, looking for a warmth that wasn’t there before she remembered. The Independence’s engines droned steadily, a gentle vibration through everything, and she lay for a moment listening to it, staring at the bunk above her. There probably would never have been a good time to have that conversation, but last night, when she had been floating on wine and luxury and good-fellowship — it seemed especially cruel.

She rolled over, not quietly, but there was no sound from the upper bunk. And, to be fair, she’d promised to give him all the time he needed, just as Gil had done for her. He deserved that, deserved the time to think things through. She slipped from under the covers, dressed quickly, slacks and her one pretty blouse, and closed the cabin door softly behind her.

Breakfast was already being served in the lounge, though her watch proclaimed that it wasn’t quite six in the morning. A smiling steward offered her a window table, but she shook her head, and said she needed to stretch her legs. What she needed was privacy, a little space to herself to think things through, but that wasn’t going to happen here. She walked the length of the promenade, then up the central corridor, past the most expensive cabins to the locked door that led to the control cabin, and back again. The crew was up already, stewards at work in the passenger area, flight crew in their padded coveralls taking a shortcut at the change of the watch. She was in the way, at loose ends, and she found herself back in the lounge, taking the offered table. The steward brought her a pot of coffee, fine china badged with Republic’s crest and Independence’s crossed flags, waited while she chose poached eggs on toast, and slipped silently away again.

Outside the slanting window, she could see the sea, the sun glittering from the dark surface. They were high enough that she couldn’t really make out individual waves, just the occasional flash of white that was a higher swell, and the airship’s ride was so smooth that she couldn’t tell if those breaking crests were driven by wind or just by random chance. She’d never flown over open ocean herself, of course, so she had no comparison to work with.

She sipped her coffee and wished Lewis were there. Maybe if she hadn’t told him, if she’d made something up to explain why she knew Jerry wasn’t in love with her — Jerry wouldn’t have contradicted her, and he probably would even have understood. But she couldn’t do that to him, any more than she could do it to herself. She had loved Gil, passionately and completely; he had loved her, and Jerry, too.

She closed her eyes for an instant, remembering a dinner, the three of them for once on leave at the same time, hers beginning and Jerry’s ending. They had lingered over coffee and grappa that tasted like well-aged kerosene, and though she’d known she should excuse herself, let Jerry have his last night, she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. She and Gil had only just come to an understanding; she wanted every minute she could steal. Jerry gave her a grin, rueful and unrepentant — no, he wasn’t leaving, either — and Gil threw back his head and laughed.

“You know, there is another option.”

Alma blinked, and then blushed, and when she could look up again, Jerry’s face was just as pink. He managed another smile anyway, and shrugged one shoulder. “I’m game if you are, Al.”

“Right, then,” Gil said, and beckoned to the waiter.

They found their way back to Gil’s lodging, a narrow room above a shop, almost filled by an ancient four-poster bed. Alma blushed again, and Jerry looked at Gil, his expression not quite a challenge.

“Ok, now what?”

“I think you two should kiss,” Gil answered, and Jerry looked at her.

“Ok, Al?”

If she said no, it would never be mentioned again; she could walk away and neither of them would blame her. But she would always regret what might have been. She took a step closer, turned her face up to his. “Yes,” she said.

They traded kisses for a while, her and Gil, her and Jerry again, and then Gil and Jerry, exciting in ways she’d never imagined. And then they’d found their way into the featherbed that nearly smothered them until Jerry kicked it onto the floor. She ended up on her knees between them, Jerry’s big hands cupping her breasts, pulling her hard against his chest, while Gil worked her with his fingers, bringing her to a shaking climax. Afterward, she lay watching while Gil took Jerry, too fascinated and aroused to think of jealousy, finally fell asleep on Gil’s shoulder while Jerry sprawled on his other side, and woke before dawn to find Jerry already dressed, peaked cap in hand. He’d kissed Gil, who barely stirred, then came hesitantly around the end of the bed to kiss her as well.

It had never happened often, maybe twice or three times more, but it had been a delicious secret, a hint of spice among the three of them. She did not, would not, regret a moment. If it cost her Lewis — surely it would not. He had accepted her as she was, pilot, the company owner, and now the lodge. Surely, surely, he could come to accept this, too.

The steward appeared with her breakfast, offered another pot of coffee, and she smiled and nodded, her mind still worrying at the problem. There was no need to tell him more than she already had, not now, not ever — she curbed her thoughts with an effort. She had promised to give him time, and she would give him time, treat him carefully, as normally as she could. There was more than enough to keep them busy until they got to Paris.

I
t was with a sense of immense satisfaction and subtle well-being that Jerry settled himself in the airship’s lounge. True, he couldn’t enjoy his coffee and his cigarette at the same time, due to all smoking aboard the Independence being relegated to the interior smoking lounge, so he’d had his cigarette first and was now settling in for coffee. There were very few people in the lounge, though the sun was high, streaking in through the right side windows.

Jerry glanced at his watch. Only seven am in New York. He hadn’t reset it yet. But they were somewhere mid Atlantic, and the sun had climbed much higher here. Ten o’clock? The airship’s crew would know, crossing six time zones from New York to Paris. Forty hours on the crossing – it was incredible, actually. Months and months on tiny, crowded disease ridden sailing ships reduced to this, cruising along in the clouds across thousands of miles.

A fragment of poetry came back to him, something a friend had given him once, before war and all of that, disjointed bits that almost made a verse. It had caught him at the time, a student of archaeology; because the poet addressed the future archaeologist who might someday parse his words.
I care not if you bridge the seas, or ride secure in the cruel sky…but have you wine and music still, and statues and bright-eyed love?

Not a thousand years to conquer the sky. Twenty years, perhaps, since the words were penned.

“Music,” Jerry said, “And bright-eyed love.” He flipped open the late edition of yesterday’s New York Times left folded neatly on the side tables for the lounge’s patrons. Reviews of the gallery openings of inexplicable painters. A rather good review of a show he’d never heard of. Jerry had little patience for theater. Gil had always laughed and said that if it happened less than a thousand years ago Jerry wasn’t interested. Two thousand, Jerry had replied. Plautus had nothing on Euripides.

Gallery showings…. Was there nothing except paintings by experimental moderns? Jerry flipped the page.

Noted Archaeologist Found Dead. Dr. William C. Davenport, an internationally recognized authority on Roman antiquities and member of the faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles, was found dead this morning in his hotel room.

Jerry blinked, then read the article twice over with a mounting sense of panic.

Dr. Davenport’s body was found just short of noon by the chambermaid, who notified authorities. The cause of death was undetermined at press time, but appeared to be natural causes. Dr. Davenport was en route to his dig in Italy, where he is engaged in the excavation of the Nemi ships at Aricia, a find described by Dr. Davenport himself as “quite extraordinary.” Dr. Davenport had arrived the previous evening by air, and was scheduled to sail for Europe today. “His death is a tragedy for the profession,” said Dr. E. M. Compton of Columbia University. “He was one of the brightest lights in the field of Classical Archaeology.”

Jerry got to his feet, the paper clenched in his hand. He hurried down the narrow interior corridor of the airship to his own room.

Mitch was combing his hair in front of the tiny dresser mirror, the comb carefully dampened.

“Davenport’s dead,” Jerry said.

Mitch looked around, frowning. “What do you mean, Davenport’s dead?”

“I mean he’s dead,” Jerry said, waving the late edition of the Times at him. “He was found dead yesterday before the Ile de France sailed.”

“Dead?” Mitch said again.

“Dead! It’s not like you to be this stupid! Dead!” Jerry expostulated. “Davenport is dead. Yesterday morning. While we were trying to figure out how to catch the Ile de France, he was already laid out by the coroner.”

“Crap,” Mitch said succinctly. “The damn thing’s jumped.”

Jerry nodded. “And we have absolutely no idea where or to whom.”

Mitch ran his hand through his hair, ruining his careful combing job. “In New York twenty four hours ago. He could have jumped to anybody. To the maid. To somebody else staying in the hotel. To….” He shook his head. “Anybody. It could have jumped to anybody going anywhere in the world.”

“Meanwhile, we’re on an airship bound for Paris,” Jerry said. “And even if Henry will blow another thousand dollars letting us bum a ride back on the return trip, it will have five or six days’ lead on us in New York. It could literally be anywhere in the world.”

“Alma’s going to pitch a hissy,” Mitch said.

“Alma’s going to have to live with it,” Jerry said. “And she’s going to have to live with the fact that we’re not any good without Gil. We’re not even really a lodge anymore.” Jerry pulled up, swallowing. No, he would go on. It was time to say the thing he’d been thinking, that they’d all been thinking whether they admitted it or not. “Maybe it’s time to pull the plug on the Aedificatorii Templi.”

Mitch looked away, as though there were some answer in the unmade upper bunk or the wardrobe door. “We have oaths, Jerry. We can’t walk away from those.”