Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 5 of 63

Vex woke him before light with a hand on his shoulder. The bar was cold. She had already gone to the mast. Bram pulled on his jacket, took his charts from the inside pocket, and spread them on the counter one last time. The charts showed Hollowpass as a knot of gray lines. Two saddles. Three false openings that ended in cliff. His father's route ran the north wall, but the north wall meant a climb the envelope could not take. The south run was lower. It also bent twice around blind rock. One wrong turn there and he would smear the gasbag across a face he could not see coming. He rolled the charts and went out to the mast. Vex was working the hand pump on the brass serpent. Steam poured from its mouth onto the frozen lines. Ice cracked and slid off in sheets. She did not look up. "Twenty minutes to your window. Have you picked your line?" "Not yet." "Pick it on the ground. Not in the air." He climbed into the gondola. The mechanical owl sat on its perch, vents ticking as it warmed. He unlatched the small hatch in its chest and pulled the paper strip from last night. Wind numbers, saddle by saddle. He laid the strip beside the chart and matched them. The north saddle read clean. Steady wind, no cross gust. The south saddle read broken — two crosswinds against the blind turns. He had been staring at the south run for a day because the south run was lower. The owl's numbers told him the south run would kill him. He would have to take the north. That meant no climb. That meant flying the pass at the height he entered it, threading the north saddle straight, trusting that the envelope held level. He went to the weather instrument bolted to the gondola rail. The brass orchid had saved him once by venting pressure. It could hold him at altitude now if he set it before the pass and did not touch it. He opened its base, set the vent to a fixed pressure, and locked the dial. Vex climbed up beside him, breath white. "Mast is clear. Lines are free." "North saddle," he said. "Straight through. No climb." She looked at the chart, then at the orchid's locked dial. "That's the right call." She held out a gloved hand. "Second half. Now." He counted the coins into her palm. She closed her fingers and stepped down off the gondola. "Möller." She waited until he looked at her. "If the north saddle has changed since that owl flew, you won't know until you're in it." "I know." She cut the mooring. The airship lifted. Below him the inn dropped away, and ahead the pass opened its narrow throat against a pale sky.