Skybreaker

  “Zeus’s throne,” he muttered, and I must say, a cold tingle swept my arms and neck. “Something’s up there. Cruse, try to raise her on the wireless!”

  Since there was no proper wireless officer aboard the Flotsam, the task fell to the assistant navigator—me. I hurried to the ancient radio beside the chart table, hoping I’d remember what to do with the bewildering array of knobs and switches. I pulled the headphones over my ears and lifted the microphone. The radio was already tuned to the universal airship frequency.

  “This is Flotsam, hailing vessel heading south southwest from bearing 90°28” longitude by 9°32” latitude. Please reply.”

  When I heard nothing, I bumped up the wattage and tried twice more, without success.

  “Nothing, sir,” I told Captain Tritus.

  “Try the distress frequency.”

  Rapidly I turned the needle to the proper location and listened. Soft static whispered over my headphones.

  “There’s nothing coming in, sir.”

  “Not surprised,” muttered Mr. Domville. “At that height, unless they had tanked oxygen, they’d all be unconscious.”

  He was right. All the flight manuals said that at altitudes over sixteen thousand feet, supplemental oxygen was mandatory. And the cold would be something else altogether, far below freezing. What had happened to drive her so high? I wondered if her engines had failed, or maybe she’d jettisoned too much ballast, and the storm’s updraft had lifted her to this deadly height—a fate that easily could have been ours.

  “Her propellers aren’t even turning,” Captain Tritus remarked, spyglass to his eye. “What a wreck! She’s older than the pyramids. Can’t make out her name…” He pulled the mouthpiece close. “Mr. Sloan, have you got her name yet?”

  “It’s…” There was a lengthy pause. “Captain, I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s the Hyperion.”

  Without a word Captain Tritus dropped the mouthpiece and once more lifted the spyglass to his eye. For a long time he stared.

  There could be no one in the control car who hadn’t heard of the Hyperion. She was a ship of legend, like the Marie Celeste or the Colossus—vessels that had set out from harbor and never reached their destinations. The Hyperion was rumored to be carrying great wealth. She may have crashed, or been pillaged by pirates. But no wreckage was ever found. Over the years sky sailors sometimes claimed to have spotted her, always fleetingly and from afar, and usually on foggy nights. Before I was born there was a famous photograph that was supposed to be of the Hyperion sighted over the Irish Sea. My father had shown it to me in a book. It was later exposed as a fake. She was a ghost ship—a good story, but nothing more.

  “It’s her,” the captain said. “By God, I think it’s her. Look!” he thrust the spyglass at his first officer. “Curtis, can you see her name?”

  “I can’t quite make it out, captain.”

  “You’re half blind, man! It’s clear as day. Cruse, get over here! They said you had sharp young eyes. Take a look!”

  Eagerly I hurried to the front of the control car and took the spyglass. When I worked aboard the Aurora I’d spent many hours in her crow’s nest, doing lookout duty. I had plenty of experience with a spyglass. Before I raised it to my face, I sighted the ship with my naked eye. I reckoned she was more than three miles away, no larger than a cigarette, pale against the distant darkness of the storm front. Quickly, before her position changed, I lifted the lens to my eye. Even with my feet planted wide for balance, and both hands on the spyglass, it was no easy feat to get a fix on her. Whenever I came close, the Flotsam pitched and tossed, and my view would skid off into cloud and sky.

  Glimpses were all I caught: An enormous engine pod, its paint stripped away by the elements, glistening with frost. A control car almost entirely encased in ice, light flashing from a cracked window. Wind-blighted letters barely visible on her flayed skin: Hyperion.

  “It’s her,” I breathed.

  It sent a chill through me just to see her. How could she still be up there, so high? What spectral crew had been guiding her across the skies for forty years?

  “We’ll have her!” said the captain. “Mr. Domville, mark her location on the chart! Prepare to drop some ballast, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Sir, we’re already at our maximum height,” the first officer reminded him.

  “It’s the Hyperion, Mr. Curtis. By all accounts she’s a floating treasure trove. I mean to claim our right of salvage. We’ll tow her in!”

  His speech failed to rouse an enthusiastic cheer, but no one dared contradict him.

  “We’ve already jettisoned nearly all our ballast,” Mr. Curtis pressed on uneasily. “To reach her, we’d have to lose it all.”

  “So be it. The Hyperion will be our ballast when we bring her down.”

  “But we’ll also be needing to vent more hydrium so we don’t rupture the gas cells.”

  “Correct, Mr. Curtis.”

  “Sir, we may be too heavy coming down.”

  “Fuel too can be dumped. Follow my orders. That’s all that’s expected of you.”

  I watched this exchange, barely breathing, for I could see that Captain Tritus was hell-bent on reaching the Hyperion. He would risk his life, and all of ours, for this chance at riches. When Mr. Curtis said no more, I could not hold my tongue.

  “Sir, if I might have permission to speak.”

  He glared at me, but said nothing, so I hurried on.

  “At twenty thousand feet the Flotsam might suffer. Her engines weren’t designed for such high altitude. And the crew—”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Cruse! Remember, you’re a trainee, and here under sufferance.”

  “Sir, I’m just concerned that hypoxia—”

  “Return to your post and keep your mouth shut! I’ll be making a note of this insubordination. I’ve got no patience for snotty-nosed Academy brats.”

  I went back to the chart table, my face burning. Nothing short of a mutiny would stop Captain Tritus.

  “We’ll make a homesick angel,” the captain told his crew.

  A homesick angel was a steep and very fast ascent—like an angel speeding heavenward—usually only made in emergencies. I suppose he was hoping that if we did it fast, we’d suffer less from altitude sickness as we climbed. He was trying to cheat Mother Nature.

  “We’ll be there in under ten minutes,” Tritus assured his crew. “We’ll take up the Hyperion’s bow lines and make them fast. Now then, blow our forward tanks, Mr. Curtis!”

  The hatch forward of the control car opened, and through the window I saw a ragged column of our precious ballast fall away to the sea. With our bow much lighter than our stern, the ship’s nose pitched even higher. I heard the Flotsam’s powerful engines roar to full power, laboring to drive us up into the sky.

  “Speed, twenty-two aeroknots,” said Mr. Curtis.

  “Twelve thousand five hundred feet,” reported Mr. Schultz.

  “This is madness,” I muttered to Mr. Domville. He gave a curt nod, and I could tell he was holding himself very tightly, trying not to shiver. I looked at the thermometer mounted against the nearby window. The mercury was just falling below freezing. Mr. Domville deftly updated the chart, marking the Hyperion’s longitude and latitude. I looked at the numbers.

  The captain’s laughter made me turn, for it was not a sound I’d heard before. It was a harsh, strangled thing—really not the kind of sound you’d want to make in public.

  “Imagine the look on their faces when we come into harbor towing the Hyperion, eh?” Captain Tritus said, mightily pleased.

  He reached for his spyglass, and dropped it. Stooping to retrieve it, he teetered clumsily for a moment. Tritus gave another laugh as he finally scooped it up and held it to his eye.

  “Amazing luck!” he said. “Just waiting for us all these years, eh, Mr. Beatty?”

  “She is indeed, sir,” Mr. Beatty replied cheerfully from the rudder wheel. He was smiling.

  It was starting. I remembere
d the symptoms from my textbook. Hypoxia might come on as a feeling of tremendous well-being, even euphoria, so you wouldn’t notice that your vision was failing and you were getting clumsy and weak. You might not even start to feel short of breath before you suddenly went unconscious, your brain and body starving for air. If you were healthy, you could last a bit longer, but Captain Tritus and his crew were not healthy. They were all great lumps and smokers, and they would not make it to twenty thousand feet. I turned worriedly to Mr. Domville. His health was poor to start with. He kept blinking, and his breathing came in ragged puffs, as if he were running.

  “Mr. Domville?”

  “I need a stool,” he gasped.

  I dragged one over for him and helped him perch on the edge, his upper body hunched on the chart table. It seemed an effort for him to keep his head up. I took off my jacket and placed it over his shoulders.

  “Fourteen thousand feet, sir!”

  Negative three degrees it was now. A fine icy lace was spreading across the windows.

  “Sir,” I called out to the captain, “Mr. Domville isn’t well.”

  The captain didn’t hear, or if he did, he ignored me.

  “There she is, gentlemen,” he said, pointing out the windows.

  We were within a mile now, and I could see the Hyperion much more clearly. She was an immense, old-fashioned ship, the likes of which I’d only seen in photographs. She seemed as much a vessel of the sea as the air. She looked like a Spanish galleon shorn of her masts and sails.

  “Fifteen thousand!”

  The faint pressure at my temples had amplified. My heart raced.

  “Just a few minutes more,” the captain promised his crew, “and you’ll all be rich. Are the men stationed at the tail cone, Mr. Curtis?”

  Mr. Curtis looked confused. There was a layer of sweat across his waxy face. “No, captain.”

  “I gave you the order,” shouted Tritus, suddenly enraged. “We need four men at the stern to take the Hyperion’s bow lines!”

  “Sorry, sir, I must’ve forgotten.”

  “Hurry, you damn fool. We want this done as quickly as possible!”

  Mr. Curtis staggered to the ship’s telephone. He almost tripped, and Mr. Beatty started laughing, and couldn’t stop.

  The idiots were getting drunk on the thin air, and no one seemed to notice.

  “Sixteen thousand feet,” said Mr. Schultz, his voice slurred.

  Mr. Beatty’s laugh turned into a cough. No one was smiling anymore. I saw several of the crew holding their cheeks and temples and ears against the pounding pressure within.

  Pressure. With a sick jolt I suddenly remembered the hydrium, how it would be expanding dangerously as the pressure dropped, straining the goldbeater’s skin that contained it.

  “Sir,” I called out to the captain, “the gas cells need—”

  A great tearing explosion rocked the ship, throwing half the crew to the floor.

  Enraged, the captain looked about as if someone had slapped his great red face. He should have known instantly what it was.

  “We’ve lost gas cells nine and ten,” reported the first officer dopily.

  “Curtis!” Tritus alone seemed to have the energy to raise his voice. “You were supposed to be venting as we climbed!”

  “You didn’t give the order, sir,” he wheezed.

  “Of course I did! Do it now, you idiot, before all of them rupture!”

  Mr. Curtis sleepwalked toward the gas controls, and I could not bear to see him move so slowly. The cells would all burst in a moment. No one else seemed to be helping, so I ran to the board and started opening the valves. Mr. Curtis finally reached the controls and together we vented enough hydrium to prevent another explosion.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cruse,” he said wearily.

  I was shivering badly now. I was slender and did not have much between me and the elements. The tips of my fingers were numb. My vision had contracted to a narrow tunnel. When an alarm blared through the bridge, it took me a few seconds to understand what I was hearing, as if my very thoughts had started to congeal and freeze.

  “Engine number…two’s…down,” Mr. Beatty hacked out between his coughs.

  The engines were starving in the thin air, just like us.

  “Maintain course,” Captain Tritus commanded.

  A second alarm sounded over the first.

  “Sir,” Mr. Curtis said, “engine four has stalled.”

  “Almost there,” said Tritus. “All we need to do is put a few lines on her, and then we’ll descend.”

  I looked at Mr. Curtis, his face sallow, his lips blue-tinged.

  “Sir,” he wheezed, every word an effort, “we’re at…half power. We’ll likely…lose all the engines…if we continue.” Curtis was capable of no more, for he sank down on his haunches, his head drooping as he struggled for breath.

  “Maintain course, we’re grand,” muttered Tritus. “She’s within reach. Imagine their faces…”

  Through the control car window I saw her, the Hyperion, looming large. Her massive flanks glinted with frost. Her windows were black. For a moment, my mind wandered. What if she really was filled with treasure? We were so close, and would it be so hard to throw a few lines on her and take her back to harbor? What would my share be? Beyond one of the Hyperion’s black windows, a pale face bloomed and I jolted in shock. I blinked and then saw nothing, except ice.

  I turned back to the chart table. Mr. Domville was collapsed on the ground. I moved toward him, and it was like moving through water, every step slow and labored.

  “Mr. Domville!” I turned him over onto his back. He made no reply. His face was gray. My numb fingers could barely feel a pulse at his throat.

  “Captain, Mr. Domville is unconscious!”

  As if from far away, I heard a great bang, and suddenly icy water was pouring over me. I cursed, but the cold sharpened me up. A fresh water tank must have burst overhead, drenching the rear of the control car. The chart table, and all Mr. Domville’s careful markings, were obliterated.

  “Someone…tend to that,” slurred Captain Tritus, his eyes fixed on the Hyperion through the bridge window. No one moved. Mr. Beatty had stopped coughing and was slumped against his wheel, and I could not tell if he was conscious. Mr. Schultz was barely managing to stand. I looked at the water puddling on the floor and saw a skin of ice already forming on its surface.

  “Captain!” I shouted. “We’re too high! You’ll wreck the ship!”

  The captain could no longer hear. He was humming contentedly to himself as he watched the Hyperion. His fingers clumsily tried to extract a cigarette from his case, but couldn’t. They all scattered on the control car floor, and he laughed. The sound came out like a gasp. He tried to bend down to pick them up, and fell to his knees. Like all his crew, his lungs were scarred from years of smoking. My vision swam and puckered but I was still on my feet, and I was not too far gone to understand that we would all die if we continued to rise.

  I knew I had hardly any time. My fingernails were rimmed with blue. My skin tingled all over, just as it does when your foot’s gone to sleep. I felt a huge plunging sensation pass through me, and worried I’d soon black out.

  Laboriously I walked to the elevator wheel and pushed Mr. Schultz out of the way. He made a small grunt of objection, but sagged to the floor, too weak to stand. I gave the wheel a few hard turns, angling the ship lower.

  “You little whelp!” Tritus wheezed.

  Through my scarred vision I saw the Hyperion floating up out of sight as we began to drop.

  “I’ll see you in the clink for this!” Tritus hissed, but made no move to stop me. No one did, they were all so weak.

  Next I staggered over to the gas controls and vented a little more hydrium, just enough to level off the ship properly and keep us on a gentle descent. A huge weight was against my chest, forcing the air from my lungs. The sky did not want me to breathe.

  At the rudder wheel I turned us back to our original westward
bearing. I fixed my eyes on the altimeter, just to make sure we were indeed falling, for I no longer trusted my senses. We had only two engines, little hydrium, and no ballast, but if we were lucky, we would make it to the nearest harbor.

  THE JEWELS VERNE

  A private elevator, its interior gleaming with mirrors and brass, rocketed me diagonally up the southeast pier of the Eiffel Tower. The elevator soared past the tower’s first platform, and at the second, slid gracefully to a halt. A somber attendant in a black suit snapped back the mesh screen, and I stepped out into the swirl and scent of a bustling restaurant. Guests chattered, waiters moved about in an intricate ballet, cutlery clinked, and glasses pinged. My eyes were instantly drawn to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Here, at six hundred feet, the Jewels Verne had an airship’s view of the entire city—one usually reserved only for the rich and famous.

  Trust Kate de Vries to choose the fanciest restaurant in all of Paris.

  I suppose she thought I’d enjoy being aloft.

  I looked around at all the fine ladies and gentlemen, the extravagant hats and suits and furs, and could easily have been back aboard the Aurora, serving in the first-class dining lounge. Certainly I would have felt more comfortable. But right now I was a guest. At least I’d had the sense to wear my Academy uniform, secondhand though it was. I felt young and poor and altogether an imposter.

  The maitre d’ strode toward me. His busy eyes flitted over me, picking out the worn cuffs, the ghostly trace of a stain on the lapel. Six months ago, when I’d bought the uniform, it had seemed crisp enough in the dim glow of the shop. But here, in the dazzle of the restaurant Jewels Verne, I might as well have been draped in rags. I now wished I’d splashed out and bought a brand new uniform, like all the other students. But after watching my pocketbook for so long, it had seemed extravagant. And I always knew my mother and sisters could make better use of the money. Even though I paid for all my tuition and room and board here in Paris, I still felt guilty I no longer had my cabin boy’s salary to send back home to them in North America.