were hundreds of ’em, heading up to Mirrlees, heading up to the rain. Not sure what welcome old Stade’s going to give ’em, doesn’t have a history of looking kindly on refugees. I’ve heard rumblings about camps. Oi, stop you’re listening in, boy, or I’ll cuff your ears till they bleed!”
David reached the bar and ordered his drinks.
Cadell was scowling when David returned. “The Roslyn Dawn was bred for this task, Miss Jade. It is why your mothers gave her to me.”
“It’s not a ship, it’s a she, and they gave you nothing,” Kara snapped. “They sent me on this mission. I am their agent, and my powers are discretionary.” Cadell looked at her as though he knew this was not true.
David passed her the bourbon. Kara Jade sculled it, without looking, and gave him back the empty glass. “Mr Cadell was telling me just what he means to do. What do you think?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked over at Margaret, and she shook her head.
“I might have that drink after all, David,” Margaret said.
Kara Jade snorted. “Not sure? Well, you better be. David, I’ll be flying you, Mr Cadell and the lady here into the Roil.”
David blinked. That was the first he had heard about it.
“The Roil, you say?”
Cadell grimaced. “Why else did you think I pushed for you to go with Buchan and Whig. I need to get in there, I need to see it.”
“I’ve been in there,” Margaret said. “Trust me you don’t want to see it.”
“Wants and needs are a different thing, girl,” Cadell said. “And I must see it. Unless I do my argument with the Engine is incomplete.”
“Well then,” David said. “If we’re all going to die, how about another round.”
Kara laughed. “Only if you’re buying. And a better bloody quality bourbon this time, that last one was shit.”
Chapter 41
Aerokin are unpredictable as the weather. The Mothers of the Sky more so, their motives ever uncertain. Only the Roil’s intentions were clear. Against such an implacable force, motives, plans and politics are meaningless. You may as well play games with a rock.
“How long now?” Cadell asked, the translucent floor beneath them vibrating in time with the Roslyn Dawn’s nacelle exhalations, loud enough that he had to shout.
“Four minutes until we reach the curtain,” Kara Jade said, she did not look at all happy about it. David was not sure if the reason lay in their proximity to the Roil or the bad hangover she must be nursing.
Last night she had, to put it politely, overindulged. They all had, but the woman possessed a will to drink that David had never seen before – and his father had known some serious drinkers.
At one stage Kara kissed him on the cheek and started singing air shanties, all rollicking good fun until she had vomited everywhere, then as though a switch had been flicked she’d stumbled off to the Roslyn Dawn. Both Cadell and Margaret had gone to their respective rooms by then, so David had been left with the clean up.
Kara Jade had hardly looked at him since, except with the occasional stare of condemnation, as though, somehow, it was all his fault.
“Seven minutes,” she said, turning and giving David another grim look.
David shivered. Seven minutes until the nightmare begins.
Cadell had hardly given him any Carnival that morning, and not nearly enough for him to deal with this.
He looked about him at the arcane array of controls, which Kara Jade had explained were less controls and more a point of dialogue with the Roslyn Dawn. As though flying was nothing more than having a chat. From what Kara had told him the Aerokin wasn’t happy about this foray into the Roil but, like her, it was following the orders of the Mothers of the Sky.
When the Mothers of the Sky spoke it was law.
The gondola shook with the vibrations of the nearby nacelle-enclosed bio-jets. Everything that wasn’t actually grown by the Roslyn Dawn itself was polished brass and smooth leather, and smelt softly of disinfectant mixed with an odour that was distinctly animal – slightly doggy with a hint of malt if David had to compare it to anything else, and while not unpleasant it certainly didn’t help with his hangover.
The Roslyn Dawn’s gondola was more a cyst or an odd extrusion of matter. Cadell had described it as modification of the Dawn’s claws and that they were, in effect, crawling around inside a fingernail. That nail was semi-translucent and narrow, it ran along the belly of the Aerokin. Midway along its length was the doorifice – an all too fleshy puckering that flapped open on contact – it was the same fleshy colour as the Aerokin itself, the gondola hard around it.
Kara had showed them all how two taps with a hand made any section of the gondola instantly transparent or opaque.
David had tried it on the floor and felt at once that he was about to fall out of the sky. He tapped it twice more and could breathe again. Why hadn’t Cadell given him more Carnival?
“It’s one way, of course.” Kara said proudly. “You can see out, but nothing can see in.”
“She’s a fine ship all right,” said David, as though he knew anything about Aerokin.
“She’s not a ship.” Kara Jade hissed – perhaps remembering that kiss – a muscle in her cheek twitched. “Ships aren’t clever. Ships don’t breathe. Ships don’t get angry and hurl their stupid passengers into the sky.”
“Um, what I meant to say was she’s the finest Aerokin I’ve ever ha-.”
“The Roslyn Dawn is the finest Aerokin, without a doubt.” Kara Jade sniffed, David wondered if he wasn’t going to get a punch to the face. “A real evolutionary leap forward. You will not see her like anywhere. She is faster, lighter and more stable than anything the Mothers in the Sky have ever gestated: the endpoint of over three decades of research. With the Roslyn Dawn my people have taken the technology and the breeding programs as far as they can go. Though she requires a fine pilot, she needs only one. Not like her bigger kin, with their Elevator and Rudder crews.”
“The finest Aerokin, the finest pilot, we are indeed lucky,” Margaret said.
“Yes, you fucking are,” Kara Jade replied. She swung back to her instruments. “Two Minutes, I want to hit it at three thousand feet.”
David rubbed the bridge of his nose. His head felt like it was going to explode. He winced, and Kara Jade must have caught the expression. “Click your jaw,” she said with surprising gentleness. “It will help your ears deal with the shift in pressure.”
David did, and yes, it helped a little. He thanked her, then glanced over at Margaret. He wondered how she felt going back. If it were him… well, if it were him he probably wouldn’t even be on this airship.
Margaret’s face was calm. Her dark eyes gazed out steadily at everything. Her lips though were twisted and one of her hands kept straying to the hilt of the rime blade at her belt.
The Roslyn Dawn flexed along its length, shifting the chemical components of its body, increasing the percentage of hydrogen to oxygen. Its ascent sharpened, silent but for the vibrations of the hull. They powered towards the Roil.
For all that he had read of the Roil and seen from afar now David knew, at once and undeniably, its indifferent bulk. Nothing had prepared him for this.
It rose above them like some mountainous yet becalmed tsunami that possessed the apparent tangibility of stone. But that did nothing to describe the sensation of motion and stillness that gripped David now. He looked to the Old Man.
Cadell sat silently, his eyes closed, his fingers linked together in what may have passed for prayer but for the whiteness of the knuckles, the soft flexing of his shoulders. He was readying himself for something.
