Twinmaker

48

THE PROPELLERS ROARED, and the airship tore away from the tube connecting it to the Skylifter. Bright white light hit the airship as it came out from under the shadow of the larger craft. Clair clipped herself tightly into the seat next to Jesse.

“That laser or whatever it is—it’s not coming from another airship,” she said, peering through narrowed eyelids out the automatically darkened windshield. “It’s coming from above.”

“It’s a satellite power beam,” said Q.

“Here?” said Jesse, wide-eyed. “We’re miles away from the nearest receiver!”

“The beam’s been deliberately moved.”

“Someone’s trying to make this look like an accident,” said Clair, thinking of Jesse’s mom. “Funny how things like this happen around people in WHOLE.”

“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.