Starclimber (5 page)

I
arrived with the dawn, the spires of Lionsgate City already aglow as our ship came in to land. I’d forgotten just how high and glorious the city was, its skyscrapers straining to compete with the mountain peaks that encircled them.

Stepping down the gangway onto the landing field, I suddenly realized how much I’d missed the sea and mountains. Almost two years had passed since I’d been back, and when I got into the hired car with my luggage, I gave the driver the wrong address, automatically thinking of the old Gastown apartment where I’d grown up.

“Sorry,” I said, “we’re going out to Kitsilano.”

The new address sounded strange to me, and I realized this was the first time I’d spoken it aloud.

“Very good, sir,” said the driver.

I was glad our route would take us through downtown. It was Thursday, and the city was wide-awake and already in a hurry. Paris, with its old, beautiful boulevards and buildings, was like an orderly symphony, but Lionsgate City was all ragtime and jazz: carts and lorries unloading at markets and factories and the grand department stores, and the honking and shouting and motorcar fumes and cigarette smoke, and the smell of wet pavement and horse manure, and the clanging of the streetcars.

“Uh-oh,” said the driver. “Looks like trouble up ahead.”

I peered past him through the windscreen and saw quite a crowd coming our way down the middle of the street. There seemed to be a great many ladies’ hats and bobbing placards, though I couldn’t yet read what was written on them.

“Is it a parade?” I asked.

He snorted. “Of sorts. It’s those ladies who want to vote, sir.”

“The suffragettes?” I said.

“That’s the ones. We had Mrs. Pankhurst in town giving one of her speeches, and she’s got our Lionsgate women all riled up now.”

I’d seen the suffragettes marching in Paris earlier in the spring. All across Europa and North Americus women were banding together and demanding the right to vote.

“They’ll get bored soon enough,” said my driver. “It’s a serious business, voting. They wouldn’t want the responsibility. We’re doing them a favor, don’t you think?”

“I don’t see why they shouldn’t vote,” I said.

“You’re young yet, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. Let’s see if we can take a little detour and—blast, they’ve blocked off Cordova! We’ll just have to wait them out, sir.”

He pulled over, and before long the motorcar was completely engulfed by women shouting, “Votes for women!” and “Equality, not slavery!” My driver sat hunched over his wheel, waving his arm as if trying to scatter midges. The women ignored him, parting around his car and flowing by in their dark skirts and white blouses and summer hats. A few thumped merrily on the car’s hood as they passed, which made my driver’s fists tighten on the wheel.

“You’re blocking our parade!” came a familiar voice to my right, and a hand slapped imperiously on the car’s roof.

I looked out the window and straight into the face of Kate de Vries, a placard in her hands. She stared back at me in astonishment.

“Hello!” she said brightly as I rolled down the window. “Welcome home! You must’ve just got in!”

“I was on my way to my mother’s.”

“You should’ve taken a different route.”

My driver gave a hollow laugh.

“What does your sign say?” I asked.

She sighed. “‘New laws for a new century!’ I wanted ‘Equality or Death!’ but they were all taken.”

“Do your parents know what you’re doing?”

“They think I’m at the library, reading morally improving literature for young ladies.”

The driver was watching us in his rearview mirror. The tide of women continued to flow past the car.

“There’re certainly a lot of them,” I remarked.

“Not
them
, Matt.
Us
. I heard Mrs. Pankhurst last night. She’s very inspiring. I simply couldn’t resist the chance to march. Care to join us?”

“Maybe another time.”

Kate nodded. “You don’t want to be late for your mother. But I should get back.”

“When will I see you?” I asked as she hoisted her placard high.

“Oh, I’ve already taken care of that. Give my best to your mother and sisters! See you soon!”

She marched off, her voice ringing out above the rest. “New laws for a new century!”

The driver looked back at me. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir, she seems a right handful.”

“You’ve no idea,” I said.

“Ah, I can see the end of the parade now, sir. I’ll have you in Kitsilano in a jiffy.”

The driver let me off in front of the house. There was a new log road, but no sidewalks yet. To the north, across the Burrard Inlet, the mountains rose magnificently. This was a strange homecoming, since the home I was coming to was altogether new.

It was a fine little clapboard house, two stories, freshly painted blue with white trim. My father had always wanted us to have a house. Last year, salvaging the
Hyperion
, I came away with some gold. Four bricks was my share. I’d sold them, and given most of the money to my mother so she could finally have her own place.

It had taken her months to agree. She’d hemmed and hawed and said she couldn’t accept the money. Then she had said she was too busy to bother moving. But in the end she’d bought the little place in Kitsilano, an easy walk from the streetcar line on Fourth Avenue. She and my sisters had moved in May. I’d had a description of it in letters, but this was my first time standing before it. I must say, I did feel a little proud.

I stepped up the path to the front door and banged the knocker. I’d sent a telegram, telling my mother I’d be home for breakfast.

I heard a flurry of footsteps, and then the door swung open and there was my mother, with Isabel and Sylvia close behind.

Mom took me by the hands and smiled, and as usual her eyes filled with tears.

“You look
very
well,” she said, giving me a hug, and then my sisters pressed in on both sides, and I was wrapped up in everyone’s arms.

“You look quite fine, Matt,” said Sylvia.

I’d dressed in my Academy uniform, for I wanted them to be impressed, and I could see Sylvia’s eyes taking in every detail from cap to shoes. She’d always had an interest in what was fashionable.

“You look too strapped in,” said Isabel, wrinkling her nose. At eleven, she was two years younger than Sylvia and hadn’t yet transformed into a young woman. “It looks too tight around your neck.”

“It’s meant to be worn that way, Izzie,” I said

“Of course it is,” Sylvia told her little sister, and I remembered how well they could exasperate each other.

Isabel smiled with menacing sweetness. “You don’t know
quite
everything yet, Sylvia.”

“Enough, you two,” said Mom, and ushered me into the house.

“What do you think?” Isabel demanded excitedly.

The height of the ceilings was the first thing I noticed, at least half a foot higher than our old ones. In the ample sitting room, light and fresh air streamed in through the open windows, and you felt you could really breathe here. The floors were oak, and the plaster walls were painted a pale apricot.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a nicer, friendlier house in my life,” I said. “You chose very well. Do you all love it?”

“It’s utterly charming,” said Sylvia, very ladylike.

“It’s a lovely house,” my mother said. “But you know, it was hard—surprisingly hard—to leave our old place.”

“Not for us,” chirped Isabel with a smile.

“No more cigarette smells,” Sylvia said.

“Or neighbors’ fighting,” added Isabel.

“And we’ve got our own rooms,” Sylvia told me. “Finally.”

Our old apartment was on the third floor above a Gastown tobacconist. It had only two proper bedrooms, one toilet with sink, and a parlor with a tiny kitchen off it. It hadn’t seemed small to me before I’d started work as a cabin boy—but after I’d been aloft, and my eyes widened to broader horizons, I’d found it cramped and airless. The last time I’d stayed there, I’d been ready to make a rope of my bedclothes and climb out the window.

But standing here, looking at our old and slightly shabby furniture in this new, fresh room, I knew what my mother meant. This house was a completely new space, with none of the memories that had filled our old apartment. That place hadn’t been very nice, but it had contained our lives: our meals and birthdays and all the other happy times and sad times too. It was the place where Isabel and Sylvia were born; the last place we’d all been together as a family. This new house would never hold my father.

“Come see my room!” Isabel cried, grabbing my hand and starting to pull me toward the stairs.

“After breakfast,” Mom told her firmly. “Let’s sit and eat now. Everything’s ready. You arrived at exactly the right moment, Matt.”

The girls led me through the sitting room to the cozy little dining room. Delicious smells wafted in from the adjoining kitchen. The table was laid with a freshly ironed cloth, and our finest cutlery and glasses on it.

Mom had prepared a bang-up breakfast. She and the girls brought in platters of bacon and scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes, and fresh rolls, and biscuits and scones and dewy butter, and little dishes of jam set out, and a pot of tea, and even some freshly squeezed orange juice.

“This is better than first class on the Lunardi Line!” I said, and my mother beamed.

We all sat. Sylvia daintily helped herself to food. Isabel slopped things onto her plate, and I smiled as Sylvia glowered at her younger sister.

“Honestly, Izzie, your manners!”

“I’m
very
,
very
hungry!” she protested.

“I hope I didn’t keep you all waiting and starving,” I said.

“Not at all, not at all,” said Mom.

“We’ve been waiting
ages
,” said Isabel.

“Tea?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes, please.”

“That was quite a mysterious telegram you sent,” Mom said, sounding amused. “A masterpiece of vagueness. So what brings you home? You were to be working all summer in Paris, I thought.”

“Yes, but I was offered another job. A better-paying one,” I added hurriedly, for I knew she wouldn’t like the idea of my quitting any job. It wasn’t respectable. “And with this one I’ll get to spend a bit of time with you all.”

“What will you be doing, then?”

I’d thought a great deal about how I’d tell her.
Slowly
was the only brilliant idea I’d had.

“It’s an advanced training program sponsored by the Lunardi Corporation and the government.”

I thought my mother would like the idea of more schooling. As she’d had little herself, she put great stock in classrooms and diplomas.

“Not a job, then, exactly?”

“No, but I get paid very well for my time.”

“What is it you’re to be trained for?” she asked.

I choked back a piece of bacon. “Well, there’s going to be an expedition, quite an important one. But there’s no guarantee I’ll be selected. I’ll probably get cut within a few days. This really is tremendous orange juice! How many oranges did it take to make this?”

“And just what kind of expedition would this be?” my mother asked patiently.

My hand trembled slightly as I put down my glass. “A bit of a high-altitude test flight, really.”

She stopped chewing. “How high?”

There was no avoiding it. “Outer space,” I said.

“Ah,” she said. She put down her fork.

“Mom, you mustn’t go worrying about it!”

“Just outer space,” she said.

“They won’t choose me. They’ve got lots of fellows trying out. I haven’t a hope.”

“Then why are you even bothering, Matt?”

I saw the humorous light in her eyes and chuckled. “Because I want to go. I surely do.”

“I’ve heard it’s very dark in space,” said Isabel sagely.

“I don’t see why,” Sylvia said. “There’s the same sun and moon and stars up there.”

“Well, it seems pure foolishness to me,” said my mother.

I wasn’t sure this was the best time to launch into the wonders of the heavens, and the canals of Mars, and the dark side of the moon.

“It’s going to be the first voyage beyond the sky!” I said. “A lot of people want to be first, to see what’s up there.”

“Will you be visiting the moon?” Isabel inquired.

“Not this time. And look, all this is still secret. You’re not to go gossiping to your little friends.”

I caught a glimpse of scorn in Sylvia’s eyes. “I’m sure my
little friends
and I have better things to talk about.”

“I’m sure,” I said.

Mom sighed. “You must want to go badly enough, if you’re willing to spend the summer away from your Kate.”

I cleared my throat. “She’s already been invited on the expedition.”

My mother’s eyes flashed. Even though I hadn’t been home much in the last five years, it was a look I remembered well enough.

“Is it her you’re doing this foolish thing for?” she demanded.

“It’s awfully romantic!” said Sylvia.

“I’m going for my own reasons,” I said firmly. “If Kate weren’t going and I had the chance, I’d still go. You mustn’t think she’s dragging me into it, Mom.”

My mother shook her head. “It’s bad enough you want to make the sky your life; but I don’t see why you want to go embarking on something so treacherous. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you as well.”

She looked so bereft, I was tempted to say I wouldn’t go. But I didn’t. How could I? What sky sailor, given a chance like this, wouldn’t have grasped it with all his might?

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t want you to worry. And look, even if I’m chosen, the ship’s going to be safe. It’s built by Lunardi, and no one builds better ships.” I turned to the girls to avoid my mother’s hard stare. “There’s going to be lots of famous people aboard, you know.”

“Will Sarah Bernhardt be going?” asked Sylvia, referring to the actress.

“No,” I said. “I meant famous scientists.”