Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 33 of 63

Bram woke to gray light through the depot window. The fever had broken. His hand throbbed but the skin around the wound looked pink instead of black. Sigrun sat by the bench with her medical case open, her pale hair loose around her shoulders. She saw him blink and pressed a cup of water to his lips. "You have a week in bed," she said. "Not a day less." "The run is signed," Bram said. His voice cracked. "But the route I flew. The north saddle in a whiteout. No one saw it." Vex looked up from the far bench where she was cleaning grease from her hands. "The ledger has your mark." "The ledger has a signature," Bram said. "It doesn't say I flew the saddle. It doesn't say the coil, or the orchid, or the shear line. Kesh will say I took the south route and lied about the rest. Every courier who hears the story will call it a tall tale." Omondi pushed his glasses up his nose. He had been writing at the clerk's counter. He walked over with a stack of paper. "Then we write it down. All of it. With witnesses who were there." Vex sat on the bench beside Bram. "I installed the coil. I cleared the mast rime. I cut your mooring at dawn." She took the pen from Omondi. "I'll sign to that." The door opened. Parisa stepped in wearing a heavy traveling coat, her jewelry muted under wool. Behind her came Wendell, ducking under the frame, his white fur brushing the lintel. He carried a mug of something steaming in one broad hand. "We heard you were awake," Parisa said. She crossed to the bench and set the dented brass pocket compass on the blanket beside Bram's good hand. The lid was open. The needle spun once and settled. "You kept it through the pass. You should keep it for the record." Wendell set the mug down. "I was in the mountain. I saw him come through the crack with her. I'll put my name to it." Omondi laid the paper flat on the bench. He wrote in his careful hand. Bram spoke and Vex corrected the dates. Parisa described the compass shifting to Wendell in the chamber. Wendell described the pass above the tree line. Sigrun added her account of the pilot she still kept at the waystation, alive because Bram had crashed the prototype to reach him. They signed in order. Five names below Bram's. Omondi rolled the sheet and sealed it with the depot's wax. "File a copy at every harbor between here and Hollowpass," Bram said. Omondi nodded. "By hawk. Today." Bram closed his good hand around the compass. The run was on paper now, with witnesses. What the pilots would do with it was the next question.