“I don’t mind you saying so,” she said. “But there’s no need to hold my funeral yet. I’ll be out again, come Tuesday.”
Cly added, “Hainey’s offered to pull her out on his next run. If she can hold out that long, she’ll be all right with him.”
“I’m not comfortable with this,” Rodimer grumbled. “It’s not right, leaving a lady in the city.”
“Maybe not,” Cly mumbled as he took his seat. “But when Fang gets back we’re taking off, and she won’t be making the return trip with us unless she changes her mind. Pull the front lift, will you?”
“Yes sir.” The first mate reached forward and tugged one of the levers. Somewhere above, something heavy disengaged one thing and connected with another. The clank from the shift echoed down into the cabin.
The captain squeezed a handle latch and tugged a shift bar toward his chest. “Miss Wilkes, there’s a cargo net on the wall behind you, fixed to the surface. You can hang on to that, if you need to. Wrap your arms through it, or however works best. Make yourself secure.”
“Will it be… will it be a rough ride?”
“Not too bad, I don’t think. The weather’s quiet enough, but there are air currents around the walls. They’re high enough that the wind off the mountains comes breaking around them. Sometimes we get a little surprise.”
Fang manifested in the cabin with the same scary silence as before. This time Briar knew not to gasp, and the mute Chinese man did not give her any further scrutiny.
A slight shift in the tilt of the floor signaled the start of motion. Against the exterior hull, tree branches scraped a high-pitched tune as the Naamah Darling began to rise. At first it seeped slowly upward of its own volition, unpowered by any steam or thrust, but lifted by the hydrogen in the lumpy inflated tanks above them. There was no real shaking or swaying, only a faint sense of rising until the airship cleared the treetops and floated above them, drifting higher, but not with any urgency or speed.
The whole operation was quieter than Briar expected. Except for the creaking of ropes, the stretching of metal joints, and the sliding of empty boxes across the floor downstairs, there was little sound.
But then Cly pulled a wheel-like column into his lap and flipped three switches along its side. Then the cabin was filled with the rushing hiss of steam being shifted from boilers into pipes, and down to the thrusters that would steer the vessel between the clouds. With the steam came a gentle lurch, east and up, and the Naamah Darling again offered moans, screeches, and groans as she lifted herself into the sky.
Once airbound, the ship moved smoothly with a forward drift augmented by the periodic burst of the steam thrusters. Briar rose from her seat at the edge of the cabin and came to stand behind the captain so she could see the world outside and below.
They weren’t so high that she couldn’t distinguish the boats and ferries that trudged along the water; and when they crossed the line between water and land, Briar could tell which blocks were which, and even determine the streets. The Waterworks compound was flat and spread unevenly across the shoreline. The low hills and sharp ridges had houses perched on them, leaning into them; and here and there great horses towed the water carts from district to district, making the weekly deliveries.
She looked for her own house, but did not see it.
Before long, the Seattle wall loomed in front of them, curved, rough, and gray above the Outskirts neighborhoods. The Naamah Darling floated closer to it, and then past it, and began a course around it.
Briar almost asked, but Cly anticipated her concern. “This time of year,” he told her, “proper transport ships on legitimate business don’t go so close to the city. Everyone takes the northern pass around it, up over the mountains. If we look like we’re going to dip inside, it’ll be noticed.”
“And then what?” she asked.
“Then what what?”
“What if you’re noticed, I mean? What would happen?”
Fang, Cly, and Rodimer all exchanged glances that told her plenty.
She answered on their behalf. “You’re not sure, but you don’t really want to find out.”
“More or less,” Cly said over his shoulder. “The sky isn’t regulated like the roads, not yet. The time will come, I’m sure—but for now, the only governing force in the air is distracted with the war back east. I’ve seen a couple of official ships, here and there, but they looked like fugitive war vessels to me. I don’t think they were out to police anyone, or anything. We’ve got plenty more to fear from other sky pirates, if you want the truth.”
“Fugitive war vessels… like Croggon Hainey’s ship?” she asked.
“Like that one, yes. I’m not sure what kind of favor he did himself, stealing a toy from the losing side, but—”
“They haven’t lost yet,” Rodimer interjected.
“They’ve been losing for a decade. At this point, it’d be better for everyone if they’d find a nice quiet spot to surrender.”
Rodimer pushed a pedal with his foot and used the back of his hand to flip a switch. “It’s a wonder the Confederate States have held out this long. If it weren’t for that railroad…”
“Yeah, I know. If it weren’t for a million things they’d have been smashed up ages ago. But they ain’t been yet, and God knows how much longer they’ll dig in their heels,” Cly complained.
Briar asked, “What do you care, anyway?”
“I don’t, much,” he told her. “Except that I’d like to see the country incorporate Washington, and I’d like to see some American money up here—maybe clean up that mess in the city somehow. There isn’t any more Klondike gold, if there ever was to start with, so there’s not enough local money to make them care, otherwise.” He flicked his hand at the window to his right, at the wall. “Somebody ought to do something about it, and Christ knows nobody down there has got half an idea of how it ought to get fixed.”
The first mate’s head bobbed in a semi-shrug. “But we make an all right living off it. Lots of people do.”
“There are better ways to earn livings. More decent ways.” Cly’s voice carried a funny threat, and neither Briar nor Rodimer pursued the subject further.
But Briar thought she understood. She changed the subject. “What were you saying about sky pirates?”
“I didn’t say anything about sky pirates except that they happen. But not so much around here, not usually. There aren’t too many shippers with nerve enough to duck down far into the gas. The way some of us look at it, we’re doing the Outskirts a favor by taking some of it away. You know, that gas is still coming up out of the hole. It’s still filling up that wall, like a big old bowl. What we skim off the top is only helping.”
“Except for what it gets turned into,” Briar said.
“That’s not up to me, and it’s not my problem,” Cly replied, but he didn’t sound mad at her about it.
She didn’t answer him because she was tired of arguing. “Are we almost there?” she asked instead. The Naamah Darling was slowing down and coming to a settled position, hovering above a segment of wall.
“We’re there. Fang?”
Fang rose from his seat and disappeared down the wooden steps. A few seconds later there was a sound of large things rolling or shifting, and then there was a dip and a jump as the ship found its balance. When the ship stopped bobbing, Fang reappeared in the cabin. He was wearing a gas mask and leather gloves so thick that he could scarcely move his fingers.
He nodded at Cly and Rodimer, who nodded back. The captain said to Briar, “You’ve got your own mask, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Put it on.”
“Already?” She reached into her satchel and heaved it out. The buckles and straps were clunky and tangled, but she unfastened them, straightened them, and held the thing up to her face.
“Yes, already. Fang’s opened the bottom bay doors and anchored us to the wall. The gas is too heavy to rise very fast up here into the ship, but it’ll waft its way through the cabin once we get moving.”
“Why are you anchored to the wall?”
“To keep us stable. I already told you about the air currents. Even when it’s quiet, there’s always a chance a gust will grab the ship and throw her down into the bad blocks. So what we do is anchor with a rope that’s a few hundred feet long. Then we shove off like it’s a boat leaving a pier, over the city proper.” He unbuckled himself out of his seat and pushed the wheel away from his knees. The captain stood, stretched, and remembered not to stand up straight just in time to keep from cracking his forehead against the window.
“Then,” he said, “we’ll lower the empty bags and yank the thrusters into full drive. The thrusters will send us shooting back towards the wall, dragging the sacks behind us—and they’ll fill right up, fast as can be. The extra power will lift us up higher, because like I said, the gas is heavier than you think. We’ll need the boost to get all the way into the air again.”
Briar held her mask just over her face, strapped onto her skull but propped up above her eyes so she could talk. “So basically you drift out over the gas, drop the bags, and slingshot yourself back out of the city.”
“Basically,” he said. “So you have until we finish drifting. Then I’m going to hold you out over one of the air tubes. You’re going to have to either climb down it or slide down it. I’d recommend a combination of the two. Hold your hands and feet out to slow your fall. It’s a long way down, and I don’t have any idea what you’re going to find at the bottom.”
“No idea at all?” She was holding the mask up, unwilling to shut herself off from the rest of them by affixing it to her face.
He scratched at the side of his head and tugged a big black mask down over his nose and mouth. As he tightened the straps and worked it into position, his voice changed to a loudly muffled whisper. “I guess if I drop you down a tube, the odds are good you’ll wind up in an air pump room. But I don’t know what those look like. I’ve never seen one up close and personal. I know that’s how they bring down the good air, though—such as it is.”