Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 1 of 63

Bram Möller had six hours to leave, or the Hollowpass route closed until spring. No courier had ever finished it in winter. He meant to be the first. Ice sheeted the depot in a single night. Rigging lines snapped under the weight. Mooring masts wore glass sleeves an inch thick. Every airship on the field sat pinned to the ground like a bug under a jar. Bram stood on the loading apron in his cracked flight jacket, frost building on his fur collar, and watched his season die in front of him. His mechanical owl clicked on his shoulder, brass feathers ticking as it turned its head. A thin curl of steam left its beak. The manifest strapped to its leg was still warm. Sealed cargo. Paid in advance. No refund clause. "Waiting isn't an option," he said. The owl blinked once. He crossed the yard to the engineer's shed. He had been told not to go there. Everyone had been told not to go there. Dr. Cassandra Vex opened the door before he knocked. She was small, redheaded, and holding a soldering iron like she'd been in the middle of an argument with it. The depot had fired her twice. She was still on the property both times. "Möller," she said. "You're the idiot flying Hollowpass." "I need lift in six hours." "In this?" She jerked her chin at the ice. "Your envelope will crack before you clear the mast." "Then fix it." She studied him. Then she stepped back and let him in. The shed was hot. Copper coils ran floor to ceiling. On the bench sat a coiled brass shape as thick as his thigh, scales polished, head raised. Vapor slid from its jaws in a slow white rope. The heat in the room came from that. "Thaw coil," she said. "Illegal in three districts. I wrap it around your gasbag, we bleed the mist through the rigging, the ice sheds in about forty minutes." "What's it cost me?" "Half your fee. And when it fails, it fails hot. You'll have maybe one lift before the envelope scorches." "One lift is all I need." She grinned like he'd said something funny. "You haven't asked what happens if the coil ruptures over the pass." "I don't need to." They worked the full six hours. Vex climbed the rigging in fingerless gloves and lashed the brass serpent around the envelope while Bram pumped ballast. The owl carried her tools between them, wings hissing. Ice fell from the hull in slabs. By dusk the ship steamed on its mooring like a kettle. Bram cut the lines at the last legal minute. The airship rose, groaning, into a black sky still spitting sleet. Below, the depot shrank to a smear of lamplight. On the gauge above his head, the envelope temperature was already climbing past safe. The pass was four hours out. The coil would not last three.