“Yeah, real hilarious,” Jesse said.
The airship flew upward past the tapering tip of the Skylifter’s teardrop and out around its fat middle. The dirigible was listing drunkenly and rotating once every ten seconds or so. The window Clair had fallen against came into view. She saw nothing but cushions and spreading frost. No people.
“Higher.” Clair leaned forward as they neared the uppermost deck. The dome had shattered, and the space below lay open to the sky. It was hard to see through the light, and at first she saw no one, but then, around a central spar that had once held the graceful curve of plastic safely over the heads of the Skylifter’s inhabitants . . .
“There!” She pointed at a small huddle of people in the scant shade provided by the spar, waving desperately to attract the airship’s attention. “Take us closer!”
“I see them,” said Q through a new wash of static. The airship rocked on its roaring fan engines through the full effect of the powersat beam—all the power a living city needed, sent down from space in one broad, powerful stream.
Clair stayed by the instruments, the better to see what was going on through the front window. To Jesse, she said, “Get ready with the door. Be careful.”
He moved back to stand over it, braced on either side by one hand and one foot.
The air was turbulent and hot above the observation deck. Shards of plastic dome stabbed at the airship’s vulnerable underbelly. Twice, Q caught the tip of a propeller on something she shouldn’t have, provoking outraged shrieks of metal and carbon fiber.
“This is as close as we get,” Q finally said. “I can’t hold this position long.”
Jesse opened the door and shouted something into the wind that Clair couldn’t make out. Through the windshield she saw people emerging from their meager hiding place, lurching across the windswept surface in a series of staggering steps. There was nothing for them to hang on to but each other.
The Skylifter steadied. They ran forward. There was a flurry of shouting and movement—bodies falling en masse through the open hatch, propellers screaming, white-flaring wreckage suddenly rising up to meet them—and then the airship was rising, pulling away from the doomed Skylifter, out of the beam from the powersat, and the light was fading, and the door was shut.
Jesse lay on the floor of the airship with the others. Clair went back to help them. Everyone was talking at once, gasping for breath or crying with mingled relief and shock. There were just four survivors, their skin red and blistered where exposed to the beam.
“Where’s Turner?” called the woman with mismatched eyes, pushing out from under the huddle. “Where is he?”
“I’m here.” He was helping Gemma to a seat.
“Thank God.”
“For small mercies, yes.” When Gemma was buckled in, Turner turned to Clair and Jesse. “We owe the two of you our lives.”
“Q did the flying,” said Clair. “We couldn’t have done anything without her.”
“The three of you, then,” said Turner gravely. “We are in your debt.”
Through the cockpit window, the bright column of the power beam was visible now that they were out of it—not the beam itself but its glittery effect on the atmosphere, like dust sparking in a shaft of sunlight. The Skylifter was dropping away below them and to one side, trailing debris as it went. Clair saw smoke. The Skylifter was burning, breaking up.
Her mind was still reeling from the nearness of their escape.
“Where on earth do we go now?” she asked.
Gemma came forward to take the controls, and Turner followed her. Clair made room for them but stayed to watch over their shoulders.
“There,” said Turner, pointing at a map on a screen. “Take us in that direction.”
Clair didn’t recognize any of the names on the map.
“Shall I surrender control?” Q asked her.
“Yes, you’d better.”
“Is there anyone we can call for help?” asked Gemma.
“No,” said Turner. “Don’t want to draw any more attention to us than you have to. We’re radar silent, I presume.”
“Yes.”
Brightness hit the airship anyway. Clair flung herself away from the windshield with an arm over her eyes. The beam was searing her skin. Static flared in her ears. Her feed to Q went dead.
“Take us down,” Turner cried. “Get us under the clouds!”
The floor fell out from beneath her and they dropped like a stone. She couldn’t tell if Gemma was flying or had lost control. Clair could only struggle to find an empty seat to strap herself in.
Something went bang above them. The airship lurched.
“We lost an airbag,” she heard Gemma say. “The good news is that will make us go faster.”
“I wonder what the bad news is,” said Jesse, pulling Clair into the seat next to him and slipping the harness over her shoulders.
Clair held his hand tightly. Her insides felt weightless in a highly unpleasant way. “It’ll make us harder to stop, I guess.”
The clouds were coming up at them. There was a second bang, another lurch.
Then a shutter fell between the airship and the power beam, and all Clair could see were brilliant purple afterimages. The propellers roared. They were below the cloud layer but still falling, rocking from side to side as Gemma fought to find some kind of stability.
“Come on,” Gemma was saying. “Stop fighting me. Come on!”
There was a moment of relative stillness, almost of calm, and then a huge force struck the airship like a bat hitting a ball, and they were bouncing, spinning, shaking, tearing—coming down hard.
49
CLAIR REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS upside down, locked into her harness, and choking for breath. There was fluid in her nose, filling her sinuses, and bubbling up the back of her throat, making her feel as though she were drowning.
She jerked explosively forward and sprayed blood across the cockpit of the airship. That cleared her nose, but it didn’t make the view any prettier.
The airship was ruined, its cabin filled with broken glass, destroyed electronics, and broken branches. Clair reached out for Jesse, but the seat next to her wasn’t just empty. It was gone. One whole side of the compartment had been torn away. When she twisted wildly to look down, she saw him lying on his side on what had been the crew compartment’s roof. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing.
Clair twisted farther. All she could see were branches. No other bodies. She forced herself to breathe deeply and not to give in to panic. Imagining the worst wasn’t going to help anyone, starting with herself.
“Jesse? Q?”
Her voice sounded nasal and thin. No reply from either the Air or the boy below her.
With one forearm, she braced herself against the armrest of the seat. She hit the harness release with her free hand and dropped like a sack of stones, too heavy to hold herself up. But she slowed her fall with the arm that had been bearing her weight and landed next to Jesse rather than on him. She bent down to check his pulse and make sure his airways were clear, as she had been taught in first aid. That lesson had been a long time ago. She had never needed it more.
After a moment, she sagged back onto her heels, dizzy with relief.
Jesse was alive.
When she brushed the hair back from his face, though, he didn’t react. She pressed her hand against his forehead, wondering if he felt hot or cold, or if that even mattered after an accident like this. She ran her hand over his skull, looking for bumps or wet patches. There were none, but that didn’t reassure her.
“Jesse? Wake up, please. . . .”
She wished she could talk to Q, but she had no access to the Air at all even though she was out in the open. She had no one to turn to for advice. She was on her own.