Bram Möller's Arc

Chapter 8 of 63

Bram cleared the last of the pass and let the foothills open beneath him. His envelope hissed above, the seam still holding by a thread. He set course for the low sky harbor where his delivery was waiting. Then he saw the other airship. It came in fast off the south ridge, smaller than his, painted the flat gray of a private courier. He knew the cut of the hull. A rival out of the depot who worked the same winter contracts and lost most of them to Bram. The rival had been sitting up here watching the pass. Waiting for scavenge. The other ship pulled alongside within a hundred yards. A woman stood at its rail in a heavy coat, one arm braced on a grapple line. Beside her rode a hawk on a wooden perch, gray feathers marked with pale rings like the face of a compass. The bird watched Bram with the same still attention as its handler. She had used it to track the storm and find him. "Your envelope is finished, Möller," she called across the gap. "Hand off the cargo. I'll log the run. You keep your life." Bram did not answer. He looked at his cracked seam, then at his hand. Two fingers still would not close. He could not outclimb her. He could not outrun her. If she threw a grapple, he would either tear his envelope pulling free or lose the cargo trying to hold it. The brass orchid vented at his elbow. The mechanical owl still gripped the ring. Bram thought about the wind. He had crossed the pass on wind data no one else had. He had a bird for it. She had a bird for it too. But her hawk read storms. His owl read pressure, close and exact. He eased the vent open a hair and dropped. Not a climb. A controlled fall into the trough of cold air pooling along the foothills. The rival ship followed and hit the shear line he had felt the owl flinch at. Her envelope shuddered and yawed hard to starboard. She fought her wheel. The hawk screamed and lifted off its perch. Bram leveled out below the shear, ten yards off the tree line, and ran flat toward the harbor. When he looked back, her ship was still climbing to clear the turbulence, minutes behind him now. He brought the airship down onto the harbor apron one-handed. A dock crew ran out. He unlashed the crate himself, one strap at a time, and signed the manifest with his off hand. The delivery was logged before the rival's shadow crossed the field. He had kept the run. But his envelope was done. Whatever came next on the route, he would not fly out on this ship. He stood on the apron and watched the gray hull circle once overhead, then turn back toward the pass.