Alchymist

'Can't we go any faster?' said Flydd, coming up beside her. 'If I stuck my head out the back and blew, we'd move quicker than this.'

'Off you go, then,' Irisis said coolly.

He did not reply. He looked terrible.

She felt contrite. How could she know what he had been through? 'What's the matter, Xervish?'

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to sound ungrateful, earlier. This past week and a half…'

'You look as though you haven't eaten since I last saw you.'

'Close enough.' He stared up at the balloon. 'The bag's still losing floater gas. At this rate, we'll be lucky to make it to land.'

'How's Inouye?'

'Who?'

'The pilot.'

'I've never seen anyone go so close to anthracism and survive.'

'Can she come up and take over?'

'Only if you want to kill her' said Flydd.

'Then you'd better hang onto this.' She gave him the controller arm.

Hey!' he cried. 'I can't operate one of these.'

The alarm in his voice amused her. 'In that case you'd better start blowing.' She went down to the cabin.

Inouye lay on the canvas bench, her eyes as red as tomatoes. Her lips were like crumpled paper and her fingernails had gone black. Her skin was completely white, as if all the blood had withdrawn from beneath.

'I thought you were going to die,' Irisis said, taking the small woman's hand.

'I want to,' said Inouye in a whisper like the rustling of papers. 'The one thing I have left is to die.'

'You saved us all, and the scrutator. You've done more than your duty.'

'I couldn't save my family.' Inouye turned her face to the wall.

'I don't think the Council would harm them.'

'I'll never see my children again.'

How could Irisis answer that? She stroked Inouye's limp hair, then returned to the pilot's position and coaxed a little more speed from the rotor, at the cost of exhausting herself. Without training, or a controller tailored to her, piloting was a debilitating business. Fortunately the tailwind had picked up, though Meldorin was not in sight and from here must be a day's flight away – if the floater gas lasted that long. She leaned back against the cabin wall and closed her eyes, feeling as if she'd not slept in a week. There would be none tonight.

Flangers and Muss had rigged up a rope ladder between the bottom of the airbag and the rail, and run a line around the floater-gas generator, which had a huge dent in one side. Flangers was hammering out the crusted pins that held it to its mountings.

'Gently,' Irisis called. 'Don't make a spark -'

'There's no iron in it,' said Flangers.

'What about your hammer and punch?'

He looked down, grinning sheepishly. Morons! she thought.

'We're still losing altitude,' Irisis said to Fyn-Mah, who was standing in the doorway of the cabin with the map flapping in her hands. 'Better find a place to land. The gas won't keep us up much longer.'

'Turn due north. There are reefs and islets not far from here.'

'Doesn't sound very promising.' Irisis turned onto the new heading and an hour later, when she could barely stand up, saw surf breaking on submerged obstacles. 'I don't see any dry land.'

Fyn-Mah was now on the cabin roof with her spyglass. 'There, to the left.'

Irisis rotored that way, shortly encountering a platform of black rock fringed with olive-green seaweed. The surface was only half a span above the water, crisscrossed with water-filled gutters and rockpools, and none of it was dry.

'Is this the best we can do?' she said, dismayed. The wind was jerking the air-floater this way and that and she wasn't experienced enough to control it. She aimed for a flat slab of rock but overshot. The machine set down with a crash, right in one of the gutters. Water dribbled in through the canvas floor.

'Up!' yelled Flydd as a wave foamed towards them. 'The next wave -'

'I know, I know.'

The air-floater would not rise, of course, for the floater-gas generator was no longer connected. She spun the rotor hard, grinding the keel along the gutter and bouncing it up onto the next slab. Grapnels were flung out, pulled tight and the machine came to rest canted over on its side. Irisis let go the controller and lay down on the sloping deck. She simply could not stand up.

'What happens when the tide comes in?' asked Flangers.

'The Karama Malama isn't big enough to have tides,' said Eiryn Muss.

'Let's get the damn thing fixed and get out of here,' Flydd said tersely. 'I've spent enough time in this bloody sea.'

'You'll have to do it,' Irisis said. 'I'm utterly worn out.'

'It can't be that difficult,' said Flydd.

Flangers shot him an unreadable glance. He and Muss tightened the grapnel ropes to bring the deck horizontal, then brought the floater-gas generator down to the front deck and began to take it apart.

'Does anyone know how these things operate?' Irisis heard Flydd say.

'I imagine Irisis could work it out,' said Flangers.

'She's exhausted. Pull it apart, see what you can find. And don't break anything.'

'Which way does this screw?'

'It doesn't screw at all, you clot,' said Flydd cheerfully. 'You -'

Irisis was amazed to realise that they were enjoying themselves. Good-natured though the banter was, it irritated her. Men! She slipped over the side. Being a genius with her hands, she couldn't bear to listen as they squabbled about how to get the case open.

She trudged across to the far edge of the rock platform, the brown pea-sized bladders of seaweed popping underfoot. There was nothing to see but water. Irisis sat down on the wet rock, but even that was tiring. She lay on her back, feeling the cold water seeping through her coat but too drained to do anything about it. Irisis was hurt that Flydd hadn't recognised all they'd done to find him; she felt unappreciated. She could have fixed the device, weary though she was, but let Flydd have his go. When he failed, he must realise how much he needed her.

She put up with their incompetence for another ten minutes, then looked up to see dark clouds gathering behind them. A wave broke next to her and she scrambled to her feet. They were dreadfully exposed here – the mildest of storms would drive head-high breakers right across the platform. A strong wind would simply blow them away. It had gone on long enough. Irisis wobbled across to the air-floater.

'Get out of the way, you dills! Can't you see, it goes like this.' She twisted the housing one way, then partway back.

The mechanism clicked and she tugged gently on each end. The two parts slid open.

She laid the internal workings on the canvas, turned it over and said, 'There's the problem. The crystal that draws power into the mechanism was smashed by the impact. I'll pop in another one and we'll be on our way.'

It didn't turn out to be that simple, of course. There were no replacement crystals.

'We had a spare,' said Inouye in that dreary, husk-like voice, "but one of the other air-floaters had a problem on the way from Nennifer, and we had to give it to them.'

'Don't you have any other crystals?' asked Flydd.

'Only in the spare controller for the rotor. But it wouldn't fit.'

'What about my scrying crystal?' said Fyn-Mah.

'It wouldn't do at all,' said Irisis without looking up. 'I'll have to cut down the spare controller crystal. And that won't be easy without suitable tools.'

After an hour of careful labour, during which time the storm clouds came ever closer, she managed to obtain a suitably shaped sliver of crystal, which she tested with her pliance. 'It's far from ideal, but it's the best I can do.'

Flangers had pounded the dent out of the housing on the rock platform, keeping well away from the airbag in case of sparks. Irisis inserted the crystal and put the case together. Flangers and Muss climbed the ladder, hefting the device onto its frame. They filled the barrel with seawater. By the time all that had been done the airbag was as flabby as an old bladder.

Irisis held her breath as she worked the controller. The floater-gas generator shuddered and gave a cheerful whistling hiss.