She stood with her feet braced against the hull, which at this point was angled steeply at about forty degrees, and with her body leaning backwards. If she looked up she could see her cord disappearing over the curve of the hull to its distant anchor point. Some fifteen feet to her right Milo was working level with her. To her left, and slightly below her, was another slave. They were spread out along the hull in a ragged line, slowly making their way downwards. The procedure was to work sideways as far as the lines permitted and then descend further down the lines to a fresh section of the hull. The slaves with the solvent sprays had gone on ahead, soaking the sun-gatherers with the foul-smelling liquid.
“Everything okay?” Milo called to her. Even though the Sky Lord had come to a halt there was still a swift wind blowing over the hull and it was hard to hear him. “I’m fine,” she called back though the muscles in her legs, back and arms ached intensely. She wondered how long this ordeal would continue. She also wondered what was happening on the ground and what the community being taxed by the Sky Lord was like. All Milo had had time to tell her was that it was a farming community and quite large. If she looked over her shoulder she could see rolling hills in the distance that appeared to be free of the blight. She hoped that the ground dwellers didn’t have anything planned along the lines of Minerva’s abortive attack on the Sky Lord. She felt vulnerable enough dangling as she was on her thin length of cord without finding herself in the middle of a battle.
She had cleaned as much as she could of this section; it was time to descend further down the line. Sticking the mop handle under a strap of her harness she took a firm grip on the cord with her right hand and prepared to release the brake mechanism with her left. She told herself not to worry. Even if she lost her grip on the line the brake mechanism, as Milo had explained to her while showing her how the system worked, would close automatically when the line started to move too quickly through the loops of the harness.
She released the brake and slowly started to step backwards down the slope of the hull, feeding the line through the loops a few inches at a time. She had marvelled at the agility Milo and the others demonstrated as they moved about the hull, but then they’d had more practice.
When she decided she’d descended far enough she set the brake and then pulled her mop free. At that moment an unexpected gust of wind pushed her against the hull, and she almost dropped the mop as she put her hand out to prevent herself banging her face against the sun-gatherers. Then it happened. …
Her line went slack. She started to slide downwards.
She screamed. She let go of the mop and tried to dig her fingernails into the hull in the hope of getting a purchase on the narrow gaps between the sun-gatherers, but the thick gloves made it impossible. Nor could she slow her descent by applying the supposedly ‘non-slip’ soles of her boots. The angle of the hull’s slope was too acute. She began to pick up speed.
The faster she fell the more time seemed to slow down, giving her ample opportunity to feel the increasing heat through the gloves; to examine her rippling reflection on the passing sun-gatherers with its wide ‘O’ of a mouth; to listen to the terror in the high-pitched scream that was coming from that same mouth.
The angle of her slide became increasingly acute and then suddenly she was falling vertically and she lost her tenuous contact with the hull. Nothing now but empty air until she hit the ground.
Thump. An awful jarring sensation that sent the air whooshing out of her lungs, cutting off her scream. Confusion. Had she hit the ground already? But she was still alive. …
She saw a flash of silvery-grey hull, then blue sky, distant hills. She realized she was spinning on the end of her line. It must have got snagged by something on the hull! But her feeling of relief was only momentary as the hopelessness of her situation sank in. The line could pull free long before anyone could figure out a way of rescuing her.
She extended her arms carefully and managed to slow her rate of spin. She saw that the hull was a depressingly long distance away from her. She was well below its mid-point and it was now curving inwards. She could see a row of large windows but they might as well have been a thousand miles away for all the good they could do her. She could also see one of the huge thrusters. It was level with her but about fifty yards away towards the tail of the airship.
The line jerked and, thinking she was about to fall again, panic squeezed Jan’s heart and she shut her eyes. But then she realized she was moving upwards. Someone had hold of her line and they were pulling her back up.
Progress was slow and punctuated by a series of jolting stops. With every jolt she thought she was about to fall again, but it didn’t happen. She forced herself to stay calm, taking a series of deep breaths, and told herself she would soon be safe. She tried not to look down but couldn’t help it. The town below was a sickening distance away. She tried to distract herself by studying it and its surrounding lands. It was smaller than Minerva but more haphazardly laid out and the buildings seemed crudely constructed. But there was no wall around the town and the farm lands were plainly untouched by the blight. Apart from wheat fields she saw what appeared to be extensive vineyards.
Her shoulder bumped into something. She looked and saw that she was in contact with the hull again. She turned so that she was facing inwards and tried to get a grip on it with her hands and toes as she continued to be hauled upwards. She failed, but it made her feel less helpless to be doing something instead of just dangling on the line.
The slow journey continued. She passed the outermost curve of the hull and then she saw what had saved her. Milo. Somehow he had covered the fifteen feet of space between them and reached her rapidly falling line before the end of it had shot by. He’d grabbed it (she didn’t want to think of how little line there’d been left when he reached it) and then started pulling her up. She knew he was much stronger than he looked but she couldn’t imagine how he had managed to halt her fall without having both his arms pulled out of their sockets. …
The other slaves had stopped work to watch but none of them had gone to his assistance. On the contrary, when Jan appeared into view they began to jeer and catcall. Jan’s dislike and distrust of them suddenly boiled over into pure hatred. Whatever worries she’d had about the harm she would cause the Sky Lord’s slave population when she succeeded in setting her bomb off disappeared. They would deserve everything they got.
As the curve of the hull became less acute she was able to gain a purchase on the sun-gatherers and take some of the strain off Milo. She was close enough now to see the effort it was costing him etched on his face. They were now only yards apart. He gave her a forced grin. “Hello again, amazon,” he called to her. “Enjoy the view?”
She even managed to smile back at him. “Very nice,” she gasped. The gap between them narrowed. Then he had hold of her arm. Relief swept over her. She was only dimly aware of him tying her line to his harness. “Here, put your arms around my waist and hold on,” he instructed. She did so. The jeers from the other slaves intensified. Milo began to haul himself up his own line. Clinging to him, her face pressed against his back, Jan did her best to get footholds on the sloping glass.
“What happened?” she asked him.
“At a rough guess I would say Benny cut your line,” he told her over his shoulder. “He was the only one up there.”
“But why?”
“To get at me. Teach me a lesson.”
“You saved my life.”
“Just. It was a near thing.”
The slope of the hull decreased to an easy twenty-five degrees. Milo told her it was safe to let go of him. They were nearly at the point where the lines had been anchored to small metal loops protruding from the hull. She could see Benny standing about ten yards away, his face grim.