Airborn Read Free

go.
    It was still at least six feet shy of the gondola.
    “Pity,” said the captain calmly. “Bring her back in, please, gentlemen.”
    I looked down and saw the water close below us. The captain had vented a little hydrium to keep us level with the balloon, but now we had gone as low as we safely could. Any nearer was foolhardy, for you never knew when a sudden gust or rogue front might clutch the ship and thrust her down into the drink.
    “Well, gentlemen, we’ve not much time,” the captain said. “The situation is simple, and our course of action clear. Someone’s going to need to hook themselves to the end of the davit and swing across to the gondola. It’s the only way to get to her before she goes down.”
    He looked across at Mr. Kahlo and Mr. Chen, and the machinists and sailmakers, their faces gray in the starlight, none relishing the idea of careening out over the ocean.
    I held my breath, hoping.
    The captain stared straight at me and smiled.
    “Mr. Cruse, I look at you, and of all the men, you’re the one who shows not the slightest hint of fear. Am I right?”
    “Yes, sir. I have no fear of heights.”
    “I know it, Mr. Cruse.” And he did, for I’d served aboard his ship for more than two years, and he’d seen the ease with which I moved about the Aurora , inside and out.
    “Sir,” said Mr. Chen, “the lad shouldn’t be the one. Let me go.”
    And all at once the other crewmen were vigorously offering themselves for the job.
    “Very good, gentlemen,” said the captain, “but I think Mr. Cruse really is the best suited. If you’restill willing, Mr. Cruse?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “We’ll not tell your mother about this. Agreed?”
    I smiled and gave a nod.
    “Is your harness snug?”
    “It is, sir.” I was glowing with pride and hoped the others wouldn’t see the flush of my cheeks. The captain came and checked my harness himself, his strong hands testing the straps and buckles.
    “Be careful, lad,” he told me quietly, then stepped back. “All right, Mr. Cruse. Hook yourself up to the davit, and we’ll swing you over.”
    He said it as if he were proposing a stroll up to A-Deck to take in the view. He hadn’t chosen me just because he thought I was least fearful. Any of the other crew would have done it. But I was light too, the lightest here by sixty pounds. The captain was afraid the gondola might be too flimsy to carry her own weight once she was hooked and reeled in, and he didn’t want anything heavy added to her. Above all, he needed someone light. But I was still honored he trusted me with the job.
    The davit’s cable ended with a deep hook, and onto this hook I shackled the ends of my two safety lines. They winched me up a little so it was like sitting on a swing. Up close, the davit’s arm seemed afrail enough bit of metal to hang your life upon, but I knew she could carry fifty of me.
    “I know you’ll not falter,” the captain told me. “Here. You’ll need this to cut the balloon’s flight lines.” He passed me up his knife. I slid it through a buckle of my harness. “If you’re ready, we’ll send you over.”
    “Ready, sir.”
    With that the crew swung the davit’s arm out. I saw the deck of the cargo bay give way to the ocean’s silvered surface, dark and supple as a snake’s skin, four hundred feet below. The arm swung to its farthest point and stopped. The gondola was still out of reach, its rim about six feet below me now. Inside, the man shifted again, and I thought he moaned, but that might have been the wind, or the creak of the cable unwinding, or maybe some whalesong out to sea.
    “Lower me some, please!” I called over my shoulder.
    Looking back at the ship did give me a moment’s pause. It wasn’t fear—more interest, really. Just the oddness of it. I’d never seen the Aurora from this angle, me dangling midair, the crewmen standing on the lip of the deck, staring down at me through the open cargo bay doors.
    They paid out more cable