Airborn Read Free Page B

fuss about looking for the gas valve to shut it down, but I was sorely afraid of a fire.
    The third and fourth lines went.
    At my feet, the man moaned again and his arm twitched and knocked against my boot.
    I slashed through the fifth line.
    I looked up and saw the balloon slowly billowing down toward me, all but blotting out my view of the Aurora. It was awfully close to the engine cars and their propellers.
    The sixth line went, and now there were but two lines tethering the balloon to the gondola, attached to opposite corners.
    Suddenly the burner came on, triggered by its clockwork timer, and a geyser of blue-hot flame leaped up and scorched the fabric of the balloon. It caught immediately, spreading high. I checked thedavit hook, for once I cut these last two lines, the only thing holding us would be that hook and the Aurora ’s crane.
    My wrist throbbed as I began slashing through the seventh line. With a mighty crack the frayed rope snapped high into the air, and the entire gondola slewed over. The unconscious pilot slid toward me and crumpled up against the low side. Without the crane’s cable holding us, we would have been tipped out into the sea. I hauled myself to the high side and the last light flight line. The smell of burning fabric was terrible now, though luckily the smoke and flames were mostly dancing up away from me. But the weight of the blazing balloon was oozing down over the frame now, starting to engulf the gondola.
    Frantically I slashed at the last flight line. Something burning hit my shoulder and I struck it off, and then I saw with a panic that a bit of the wicker was alight. I’d deal with it later. That last flight line needed cutting.
    Furiously I attacked it with my knife, severed it, then grabbed hold of the gondola’s side as it jerked violently down. The metal burner frame shrieked with stress as it took the full weight. Suspended only on the davit’s hook, the gondola swung out fromunderneath the blazing balloon, and just in time. Aflame, it seeped quickly downward, cut lines trailing, undulating like a giant jellyfish intent on the ocean’s bottom. I held my breath as it fell past the gondola.
    Fire crackled in the wicker, and I grabbed a blanket from the floor and smothered the flames. There was a sharp tug from the cable, and we were being reeled in, rocking. I made sure the fire was out and then knelt down beside the man. I felt badly that he’d been jostled about so roughly.
    Gently I turned him over onto his back and put a blanket beneath his head. He looked to be in his sixties. Through the whiskers, his face had a sharpened look to it, all cheekbones and nose. Lips scabbed over by wind and lack of water. A handsome gentleman. I didn’t really know what else to do, so I just held his hand and said, “There now, we’re almost aboard, and Doc Halliday will take a look at you and get you all sorted out.” For a moment it looked like his eyes might open, but then he just frowned and shook his head a little, and his lips parted and he mumbled silently for a bit.
    Scattered on the floor were all manner of things. Empty water bottles and unopened cans of food. An astrolabe, dividers, a compass, and rolled up charts.From overhead came a terrible shriek, and I looked up to see one of the burner frame’s metal struts rip loose from the gondola’s rim. We were too heavy. I stared in horror, watching as the frame began twisting from the stress of her load.
    “Hurry!” I bellowed up at the Aurora . We were getting reeled up fast, but not fast enough, for with a mighty jerk, a second strut ripped clean out. The entire gondola started to slowly keel over as the remaining struts weakened.
    We were level with the cargo bay now but still needed to be swung inside, and the gondola was slewing over, about to dump us into the drink. The metal frame was groaning and shrieking. I grabbed hold of the gondola’s side with one hand and the man’s wrist with the other, knowing I had not the