Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 43 of 63

An hour west of the harbor, Cora spotted a dark shape holding station above them on the north flank. Bram tilted his goggles up and squinted. A second airship rode the ridge line at their altitude, matching their speed. It carried no harbor colors. It carried no cargo hooks. It was Kesh's bag, stripped for chase. "He's shadowing us," Cora said. She held the mechanical owl against her chest. Its brass vents ticked warm through her glove. "He's been up there twenty minutes." Omondi wiped his glasses and leaned over the rail. His hip bumped the compass hawk's perch and the bird shook out its wings. "He can't catch us at this weight," Omondi said. "He wants us to burn fuel dodging him. Or he wants us to cut a corner and clip a ridge." Bram pulled the journal from his coat. He flipped to the wind rules for this stretch and read the margin notes he had written last winter. The corridor narrowed in six miles. Kesh would push them south there, toward a downdraft line Bram had marked in red ink. If Bram trimmed hard to hold course, the stripped bag would yaw. With no ballast, one bad gust would spin them. "He knows we dumped the crates," Bram said. "He watched the launch." Cora looked up from the owl. "So we can't outrun him and we can't trim against him." "We send the hawk," Bram said. He unhooded the compass hawk and set his hand under its feet. "Not for weather. For proof." Omondi caught up a beat late. "A witness bird." "Every harbor on this circuit knows the hawk's band," Bram said. "Send it to the next harbormaster with a wind reading and Kesh's position. Filed before we arrive. If he crowds us into the downdraft, the record shows he did it on purpose." Cora tied a strip of paper to the hawk's leg while Omondi read out the bearing. Bram wrote the time, the altitude, and Kesh's heading in a clean hand. He tore the page and rolled it small. The hawk took it and lifted off the rail in one push. They watched the shadow above them. For six minutes nothing changed. Then the second bag banked north and climbed, pulling off the ridge. Kesh had seen the hawk go east. "He knows what it means," Omondi said. "He knows he can't ground us clean now," Bram said. "Not without his name on the wire first." Cora let out a breath and set the owl on the rail. The corridor opened ahead, clear and cold. Bram kept his hand on the brass ring and did not look up again. The lead was still his. But Kesh had learned the trick, and the hawk was gone until the next harbor. The bag flew west with no scout ahead and no drum in the hold.