Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 48 of 63

The bench held them out of the wind, but the bag sat wedged between two boulders with no clear run for a launch. Bram walked the ledge and measured with his eye. Twenty paces of flat stone, then a drop. Rock walls closed both sides. He needed a lane long enough to lift before the wall, or the bag would smear against the face. Somewhere west, Kesh was still moving. Every hour on this bench put Kesh closer to the next harbor stamp. Omondi crouched by the collar and checked the fabric. "The crown seam is dry. She can fly. But not from here." Cora walked to the drop and leaned over. She came back wiping sleet off her cap. "The bench steps down. There's a lower shelf, twice as long. If we lower the bag off the lip, it opens straight into the valley wind." Bram opened the journal on a boulder and turned to the face page. He had sketched this bench years back. He had not drawn the lower shelf. He tapped the page. "You saw it clean?" "Clean," Cora said. "Wide enough. No overhang." Bram measured the drop with a coil of line. Fourteen feet. He tied a bridle to the collar and rigged a slow lower off a horn of rock. "Kamau on the brake. Cora on the vent. I'll walk her down from below." Omondi set his boots against the horn and wrapped the line twice. "Ready." Bram climbed down first and stood on the lower shelf. He waved. The bag tipped over the lip and eased down, brass fittings knocking on stone. Halfway, a gust pushed it sideways. The fabric kissed the wall. Bram held his breath. Omondi checked the brake with a grunt. The bag steadied and dropped the last six feet onto the shelf. Cora slid down the line after it. She landed and ran her hands along the seam where it had touched rock. "Scuffed. Not torn." Bram looked west along the shelf. Open lane. Valley wind coming steady up the slope. He set the brass orchid to a soft pressure and watched the dial climb. He worked the vent by hand. The bag filled and lifted a foot off the stone, then two. "Lines," he said. Omondi cast off. Cora scrambled aboard. Bram pulled himself over the rail as the shelf slid past his boots. The bag climbed clean out of the lee and into the valley air. He checked the sun. They had lost half a day on the face. Kesh had a full harbor's lead by now. Bram wrote the lower shelf into the journal in pencil and drew a small arrow beside it. Then he set the wheel west and pushed the orchid up a quarter turn. The bag answered. He had his lane back. He did not yet have his lead.