Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 (32 page)

Lewis’s lips thinned. “Let’s start with the hydrogen.”

Palmer sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

The stairs that led out of the main corridor were narrow and steep, like the ladders on the ship that had brought her and Gil home from Italy. His ghost, his memory, was very present — couldn’t help but be, she thought, but at least this was a clean thing, not the creeping misery at dinner.

At the second landing, even the perforated ceilings ceased, and the fabric of the gas cells loomed above them. Battery-powered headlamps hung on a board at the bottom of the next ladder, and Palmer took one and flicked it on, motioning for them to do the same.

“Safety lights,” he said. “There’s no electricity further up, for obvious reasons.”

Alma switched on her light and followed Palmer up the next set of stairs. They emerged onto the lower of the two catwalks, a duralumin grid that stretched to either side into the darkness. The gas cells hovered above them, held in place by a padded metal net, and in the far distance her light just picked out the lacy girders of the frame. Lewis turned his head slowly from side to side, letting the light sweep across the gas cells and the narrow catwalk. It was only a couple of feet wide, with a thick rope stretched between the girders for a handhold, and it arrowed on into the darkness beyond the reach of their lights.

“The main catwalk,” Palmer said. His voice seemed hushed, smothered by the weight of fabric above them. “It runs the full length of the ship.”

Lewis looked around again, and met her eyes with an apologetic shrug. “Up further,” he said. “The hydrogen cells?”

“This way.”

They walked another fifty feet toward the airship’s bow before they came to a second ladder. It was a real ladder this time, stretching up into darkness, surrounded by hoops that if they wouldn’t break a man’s fall would at least keep him from damaging the gas bags. Alma tilted her head back, and spotted the second platform maybe thirty feet into the air. It seemed to lead into the gas cell itself, and in spite of herself she caught her breath. Lewis gave her a look, his face set under the headlamp, and she nodded.

“Will you be all right, Mr. Palmer?” She waved toward his slippers, and he shrugged.

“I’ll manage. You’ve got me a little worried now, Mrs. Gilchrist.”

“You don’t know how much I hope it’s all a false alarm,” she said, and started up the ladder after Lewis. Her arms were feeling it by the time she reached the catwalk, and she stopped to catch her breath, turning her head slowly to get her bearings. They were in a gap between two of the cells, right at one of the main rings of the frame. She could see it, overhead and to either side, the duralumin pierced with holes to reduce the weight. On either side, the gas cells swelled, drab gray fabric with an odd sheen from the chemicals that made it impermeable. The catwalk did lead into them, she saw, or rather, the cell was divided on either side of the walk, draped over it like washing on a line. The opening looked like the mouth of a cave. Lewis started toward it, feet silent and careful, but she caught his arm.

“Do you — did you see anyone?” she asked, and hoped he’d understand what she was really asking.

He paused, his eyes focusing on her, and seemed to come back to himself. “I don’t think — there won’t be anybody there,” he said. “Or there shouldn’t be.”

“Be careful,” she said.

“The manual controls are at the mid-point,” Palmer said nervously, and Lewis nodded.

“I think we’re fine. But let’s just take a quick look.”

Alma nodded, reassured, but couldn’t help ducking her head as they passed under the gas bag’s shadow. Inside, the air was still and felt weirdly heavy; her light played across the dull fabric, taut and plain, and the unpainted duralumin of the walkway. She looked down once, and her light fell through the grating to the main catwalk thirty feet below.

“There,” Palmer said, and pointed past her shoulder. She looked where he was pointing, and her light fell on a red-painted panel set between two of the posts that held the catwalk’s rail. Lewis studied it, frowning.

“Hey, Palmer? Am I reading this right?”

“What?”

Alma pressed herself against the nearest stanchion as Palmer pushed passed her, and peered over his shoulder. The dials didn’t make a lot of sense to her, but it seemed as though they ought to be closer to the midline, not dropping down toward eight o’clock.

“That can’t be right,” Palmer said. He tapped the nearest dial, with no result. “It looks like we’re valving hydrogen, but it’s much too early —”

“What should it be reading?” Lewis asked.

“Between two thousand and twenty-two hundred,” Palmer said. “I don’t understand. These have to be wrong, or Captain Brooks would be doing something about it.”

“Al,” Lewis said. “You and Palmer check the next cell aft, see if it’s the same. I’ll go forward.”

“Right,” Alma said. “Come on, Mr. Palmer.”

He made no protest, shuffled along after her in his bathrobe and slippers. They came out of the first gas cell into another gap, the frame ring looming in on them, and Alma ducked into the next cell without hesitation. The control panel was in the middle there, too, and the needles were creeping down toward eight o’clock.

“My God,” Palmer said, and shook his head.

“We’ll check one more,” Alma said, grimly, and kept moving aft. In the next cell, the panel was bigger — it was a bigger cell, Palmer said, farther away from the passenger section — but the needles were below eleven hundred, and falling.

“We need to get down to the control car,” Palmer said. “We have to tell them.”

“Back the way we came,” Alma said.

Lewis appeared at the entrance to the forward cell just as she reached the ladder. “Either all the hydrogen cells spontaneously sprung a leak, or somebody’s opened the valves.”

“We have to tell the captain,” Palmer said again. “My God, Mrs. Gilchrist, if we keep valving hydrogen at this rate —”

“Emergency controls,” Lewis said. “Can we close the valves from here?”

“Not on this level,” Palmer said. “All the panels say the main valves are closed, it must be the automatic valves that are open — they’re supposed to open if the pressure gets too high, it’s to keep the cells from being damaged. But it’s not possible that all of them jammed open —”

“Can we get to them from here?” Lewis asked, and Palmer shook his head.

“You’d have to go back down, climb up the riggers’ walks in the frame.”

“Damn,” Lewis said.

“Mr. Palmer,” Alma said. “Go tell Captain Brooks what’s going on, see if he can’t get someone to the automatic valves as quickly as possible. We’ll make sure none of the main valves are open.” She paused, not sure she wanted to know the answer. “How long do we have?”

Palmer shook his head. “I don’t know. It depends on when the valves opened. I just — I hope we can make the coast.”

“Go,” Alma said, and the young man shook himself, slid down the ladder toward the main catwalk.

“I’m not sure I think much of Kershaw’s — its — plan,” Lewis said, after a moment.

“It doesn’t need Henry to live,” Alma said. “Doesn’t need any of us to survive. It can jump to a rescuer, anyone who comes to see what happened. And our deaths will nourish it.” She shivered. “All right. Let’s check the main valves just in case.”

“And hope Kershaw doesn’t have any more surprises up his sleeve,” Lewis muttered.

Chapter Twenty

T
he sound of the engines didn’t change. Perhaps it was some subtle shift in the sense of motion, some tiny change in angle of declension. Mitch couldn’t have said what it was. But it was enough. He was a pilot, and it woke him.

Mitch sat up, bumping his head on the ceiling. He was in the upper bunk aboard the Independence. Jerry slept in the bunk below, still fully dressed and wearing glasses, a book opened across his chest.

“Something’s wrong,” Mitch said.

Jerry stirred, eyes opening at the sound in Mitch’s voice.

Mitch glanced at his watch. Eight minutes after four. They shouldn’t be descending, not yet. The airship’s course was supposed to skirt the coast of southern Britain, passing over Lands’ End and then more or less following the coast as far as Portsmouth, when it would turn a little south, making for Le Havre and the coast of France, straight as an arrow from there to the airfield outside Paris. At ten after four they ought to be over the Channel, or perhaps making landfall in Cornwall.

“Wait here,” he said, and got to his feet, hurriedly putting his shirt back on over his undershirt and tucking it into his pants. He slid his feet into his shoes without socks. “I’m going to get Lewis.”

“Ok,” Jerry said bemusedly. He looked still half asleep.

Mitch went into the corridor, pulling the door shut behind him. All was quiet. Of course the passengers were asleep at four in the morning. He knocked softly on Lewis and Alma’s door. There was no answer, so he knocked louder. “Lewis? Alma?”

No answer again, so he tried the door. It took a moment’s glance to see that they weren’t there. No sign of a struggle, just gone.

“Damn,” Mitch said softly. He hurried down the corridor toward the dining room, feeling the wrongness in the base of his belly. A one, maybe two degree angle. That was nothing. But it was wrong.

The dining room was deserted. The tables had been laid for breakfast but it was too early for even the stewards to be awake. Mitch padded over to the port side windows, a broad sweep down the side of the gondola that in daylight afforded a magnificent view of sea and sky. Now it was overcast and even the stars didn’t show.

But there were stars beneath. To the left and rear a chain of lights hung on the horizon, a curve of glittering gems against the darkness. Mitch had flown these skies himself, ten years ago, and it only took him a moment to get his bearings. The lights behind were Brixham and Berry Head, the generous curve the shape of Tor Bay. The airship had crossed the neck more or less over Plymouth and now took off across the dark waters toward France. A hundred miles to Le Havre on this diagonal course, though it must be less than sixty to Cherbourg.

Which was not good news. If they were prematurely descending it would not be a tragedy to do it over England. Bournemouth had a good airfield if they could turn north. Portsmouth would be nearly ideal, though he didn’t think they’d get so far at this rate of descent. But this…. A sharp right rudder would turn them south to Cherbourg. Otherwise there was a hundred miles of gray, rolling waves before they crossed the coast again.

Mitch almost ran back down the corridor, caught Jerry at the door coming out, his cane in his hand. “We’re descending,” Mitch said. “Way too early. We’re over the Channel and I’d guess we’re a hundred miles out from Le Havre.”

“Um,” Jerry said. “That’s not good.”

“You’re right. That’s not good. Crashing in the English Channel is not good, Jerry,” Mitch snapped. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the same elongation of moments he’d always felt in combat, like there was all the time in the world for everything. “We’ve got to get to the cockpit.”

“The pilots….”

“Would be turning hard to port if they were able to,” Mitch said grimly. “We could make Bournemouth easily on that course. Come on, Jerry. And watch my back.”

It could be a technical problem, a jammed rudder or the like. But somehow that seemed awfully coincidental.

The door was locked, of course. And of course nobody answered his knock, not even when he pounded on it. The small glass porthole showed nothing, just a dovetail of wall that revealed nothing.

“Open up!” Mitch shouted. “Emergency!”

There was no response.

“Oh shit,” Jerry said quietly, under his breath. At an extreme angle the wall did show something, a spatter pattern of scarlet against the white.

Mitch put his ear to the door, listening. He thought he heard a faint moan. “Anybody there? Are you hurt?”

The faint moan again.

“Here.” Jerry thrust his cane at Mitch. “Break the glass and use the loop to reach in and catch the latch from the inside.”

“Thanks,” Mitch said, grabbing it. There was a reason he was glad Jerry was a damned genius. He stepped back and swung, but it took several blows to break the glass. Then he put the cane through loop down, feeling around for the latch.

“Help…” a weak voice murmured. “Gott in himmel…..” He trailed off with a gasp.

The pilot Federman, Mitch thought. He was German, hired away from the Zeppelin Company. “Is that you, Federman?” Mitch called. “Hang on. We’re coming.”

The loop of the cane caught the latch and Mitch levered it up, the door swinging open.

“Oh damn,” Jerry said softly.

Captain Brooks was dead on the floor beside the control chair, shot in the head. It was his blood that had made the spray of scarlet across the wall. Federman lay almost behind the door, half against the wall. He’d been shot in the chest, and one glance was enough to tell Mitch he probably wasn’t going to make it.

That knowledge was in his eyes too as Jerry went down laboriously beside him. He looked at Mitch, and he knew.

“Who did this?” Jerry said, checking his pulse with one hand, the other keeping his balance on the gore streaked floor.

“Mr. Kershaw….” Federman said, his mouth twisting with pain. “He is a madman. He came in and said he had to talk with us…. He shot Captain Brooks….”

“And you tried to take the gun,” Jerry said, his eyes tracking the bloody footprints across the floor, the position where Federman lay. “You struggled and he shot you point blank.”

“He is mad….” Federman whispered. “Mad. He reset the controls. I do not know….” His eyes twisted up to Jerry. “There are forty passengers, forty innocent people….” His breath caught on a sob of pain.

Mitch slid into the pilot’s seat, dashing blood from the controls with his left hand. No time. And all the time in the world. There were no lights ahead, only dark sea.

“Listen,” Jerry said evenly. “Mitch, Captain Sorley there, is a top pilot, an ace. You tell us what you can and we’ll get you down. Mitch can fly anything that was ever built. Right, Mitch?”