Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 26 of 63

Bram set his hand on the tender's throttle and looked west. The squall that had chased them off the ridge was already curling south, and a second front was building behind it, low and gray along the western corridor. That was the way to Kesh. The runner had two hours on him and a fresh bag. He had one tank and a closing sky. Vex climbed onto the rail before he could push the lever. "You launch into that, you're down in twenty minutes. No lift, no visibility, no fuel to climb back out." "Then I go under it," Bram said. "You go under it, you hit the foothill line blind." She jabbed a finger at the western horizon. "That front's got a floor. I've read it twice this week." Parisa stepped up beside the cowling. She held out the dented brass pocket compass, lid open. The needle sat quiet on north. "It's no use to me now," she said. "Take it. If the light goes, you'll want a heading you can trust in your palm." Bram closed his fingers around the case. The brass was warm from her hand. Wendell moved up behind her, red waistcoat dark with melt. The tender rocked under his weight. He did not speak often, and when he did the pilots listened. "The corridor shuts in forty minutes," he said. "I watched it shut from inside the rock for four days. You will not beat it." "Then I don't fly the corridor," Bram said. He looked at Vex. "Send the hawk." Vex frowned. "For what?" "A read on the seam between the two fronts. If there's a gap along the south face, I ride it low and come up on the harbor from beneath." Vex whistled once. The storm-tracking hawk lifted off the tender's mast, banked west, and was gone into the gray. They waited. Bram counted his pulse against the throttle. Omondi said nothing. The mechanical owl on Bram's belt clicked its cold firebox. The hawk came back inside six minutes. It landed hard on Vex's wrist and shook water from its patterned wings. Vex read the band on its leg, then read it again. "No seam," she said. "The two fronts already kissed. Corridor's closed floor to ceiling." Bram let his hand fall off the throttle. "Kesh landed?" he asked Omondi. "Kesh landed. Signed the book. I had word on the last tender." Bram climbed down onto the apron. He put the pocket compass in his jacket next to the folded slip with Kesh's mark. His run was closed on paper, and now closed by weather too. He would not lay his hand on that package tonight. "Where does the consignee sleep?" he asked. Omondi looked at him. "On the harbor. Above the office." "Then I walk," Bram said, and started west along the apron on foot.