“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.
“We’re almost there,” David said. Cadell’s eyes opened.
“I know,” he said. “I can feel it. Is it too much to hope that it can’t feel me?”
David swallowed, another detail that he had not wanted to hear.
They entered the Roil all at once; it did not close about them in fragments like real mist did, but smoothly and completely as though the Roslyn Dawn had plunged into a vertical lake of darkness.
One moment light surrounded the Roslyn Dawn – sunshine and clear blue sky to the rear of them – the next, day was gone, swallowed up. The quiet dark transformed all at once.
Gales crashed up behind the face of the Roil and the Roslyn Dawn shuddered as she struck these, lifting up perhaps thirty or forty yards, then she was through the unquiet air.
David realised that he had been holding his breath.
He looked over at Margaret. Her face was pale. Cadell also bore a resolute expression, as though he could endure this and would; but only just. Kara Jade alone betrayed no emotion in those first moments, so intent was she on the task at hand.
Thunder, borne on spikes of green lightning, tumbled the silence. The dice rolls of giants. Again, again, again. David’s bones tingled.
Kara Jade grinned, her jaw clenched so tight her eyes bugged, as her hands hovered over the controls.
“Just nature’s spear shaking,” she said. “Impressive but of no real substance. The Roslyn Dawn is more than capable of taking multiple lightning strikes.” She turned a few dials and stared through the cockpit windows out into the storm. “Though I’d prefer she didn’t have to.”
“Bring her down,” Cadell said. “I want to get a good look at the surface. Are your floodlights charged?”
“Of course they are.”
They began their descent. The Roil increasing in density as they sank, a cloudy darkness heavy with spores. The Roslyn Dawn creaked and mumbled.
Kara Jade glanced over her readings. “The air pressure is higher than I would like.”
Something flared below and a wave of heat rushed up towards them. The Roslyn Dawn shuddered and lifted with the impact. Kara Jade cursed softly, a frown washing over her face. “I know. I know,” she whispered. The nacelles exhaled in response, the Roslyn Dawn swung out in a wider circle. The nose dipped, presenting a smaller target, David guessed.
“There’s a lot of heat down there,” Kara said.
“And hot air rises, yes,” Cadell said. “But we have to get closer, I need to see what is going on beneath.”