Skybreaker Page 9

  “I just met her last night. I had a little adventure with pirates.” Very quickly I told her about my encounter at the Ritz, and how Nadira had helped me escape.

  “So you were going to team up with her instead of me?” Kate inquired with frightening calm.

  “I thought you were all cozy with Mr. Slater!” I protested.

  “She’s a complete stranger, Matt!”

  I raised my hands, trying to shush her.

  “Don’t shush me,” she said, eyes blazing. “I hate being shushed.”

  “Then you should talk more quietly. Listen, she has the key.”

  Kate faltered. “What key?”

  “To the Hyperion’s cargo holds. She says they’re booby trapped.”

  “A likely story,” she sniffed.

  “What about Slater? Do you trust him?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “How much have you told him?” I asked.

  “Just that I had the last known coordinates of the Hyperion.”

  “That was cheeky.”

  “It did the trick,” Kate said. “He’s willing to take us.”

  “I want to make sure I trust him,” I said. “He’s not the only ship in town. We’ve got our own lead on a high flyer.”

  “The Sagarmatha? Berth 32?”

  “Oh.” I took a breath. “Slater’s ship, is it? Well, we’d better introduce everyone then.”

  We walked back to the others. Slater was gazing patiently out over the heliodrome, and Nadira was staring hard at me. This was going to be complicated. Slater turned and strolled toward me, hand outstretched.

  “Hal Slater,” he said. His grip was stronger than I liked.

  “Matt Cruse.” I squeezed back as hard as I could. He squeezed even harder, then let go.

  Nadira looked at me. “You didn’t tell me you already had partners.”

  “I didn’t last night. Mr. Slater here is captain of the Sagarmatha. And Kate de Vries is a friend of mine with a special interest in the Hyperion’s cargo.”

  “How do you do?” Kate said, offering Nadira her hand. Nadira took it reluctantly. She didn’t look at all pleased.

  “Obviously we have some things to discuss,” said Slater. “Perhaps we could do so in private aboard my ship.”

  “I think that would be a good idea,” I said, not liking the way he took control.

  He was a handsome devil, and naturally I hated him on sight. He had a broad forehead, high cheekbones flushed with good health and vigor, blue eyes, and a square jaw. Wavy blond hair was swept straight back from his forehead, though I was happy to note that his hair was thinning somewhat at the temples. I thought his nose a bit bulbous—Kate, I hoped, might say it lacked refinement. And this too: he looked the slightest bit too big for his suit, like his body was merely putting up with it. It wanted boots and a leather aviator’s jacket. I wondered if Kate had noticed the two small holes above his left eyebrow where a ring had once pierced his skin, a common enough fashion among sky sailors—and pirates for that matter.

  Slater led the way along the catwalk. Trailing in his dashing wake, I was aware of my torn and dirty overcoat, my scuffed shoes. I must have looked a proper beggar.

  I kept hoping for a glimpse of his ship, but she was berthed directly behind an enormous Russian liner. It wasn’t until we were heading down the spiral stairs to berth 32 that I got a good look at the Sagarmatha, and she completely stopped me in my tracks. She was a beauty.

  “Smitten already?” Kate quipped as she stepped around me.

  Just looking at her made my stomach clench with envy. If the Aurora was like a magnificent blue whale, the Sagarmatha was like a tiger shark. I reckoned she was about a hundred and sixty feet from stem to stern, maybe thirty high, and all muscle. Her outer skin had been reinforced with an exoskeleton of ultralight alumiron, to protect her, I supposed, from the scuffs and collisions inevitable in salvage work. But the Sagarmatha did not look scuffed or scraped at all: she was pristine. The copper of her oversized engine cars gleamed as if hand polished. Like the ship’s hull, the entire control car was sheathed in a kind of protective filigree, without a patch of tarnish or rust. Spotlights and mechanical arms and coupling gear bristled from her underside.

  “What do you think, lad?” Slater asked, waiting for me at the gangway.

  “Not bad for a tugboat,” I said.

  “Oh! A tugboat!” he exclaimed, looking wounded. “You are unkind, sir! Come aboard and have a look around. Let me change your mind. The Sagarmatha’s a beauty. Her name is Nepalese for—”

  “I’ve sailed past Everest several times.”

  “Ah! But have you ever sailed over her?”

  The summit was twenty-nine thousand feet. “It can’t be done,” I said.

  “Can’t it?” He gave me a wink. “I could sail over her; I could probably give her a good tug if need be.” He nodded at the massive starboard engine cars. “Notice anything special about them?”

  I took a closer look and gave a gasp of amazement when I saw they were totally sealed, only the shaft and propeller sticking out.

  “They’re pressurized,” I said.

  “That’s right. Don’t have to worry about thin air stalling my engines.”

  “What’s their maximum altitude?” I asked, wanting to sound knowledgeable.

  “Haven’t found it yet.”

  “How do you stop your gas cells blowing?”

  “She’s designed to carry two extra cells, empty,” Slater said. “When my hydrium expands too much, I route it to the overflow cells.”

  “And if they fill?”

  He smiled. “Ah. That’s a little secret of mine. Can you guess?”

  “You’ve got a compressor on board and you pump the hydrium into tanks.”

  “You’re a thinker,” he said.

  We stood staring at each other appraisingly. I heard Kate clear her throat.

  “Sorry, ladies,” Slater said, turning unapologetically, “just a bit of man talk. After you.”

  Once up the gangway, I noticed that he was careful to lock the hatch behind us. Slater led us along a clean, well-lit corridor that had carpeting, and a brass railing running along one side.

  “The mess is just through here,” he said, opening a door and ushering us inside.

  This was no tugboat’s mess. It looked more like a gentlemen’s club. One side of the room had a generous dining table, set atop a Persian rug and surrounded by elegant high-backed chairs. Through a wide archway was the lounge, filled with leather armchairs of dark green and cognac, foot stools and side tables, and a few enormous potted plants. There was a small but well-stocked bookcase, a rack of newspapers, and a gramophone. Against the wall, a fine mantelpiece was built around an electric fire. There was a small bar in one corner, its counter made of a dark tropical hardwood. The room was amply lit, from overhead lamps but also from a long panel of reinforced glass set into the floor. A faint aroma of cigar smoke lingered in the room. Not even the officers on the Aurora had such a fine lounge.

  “Surprised, Mr. Cruse?” Hal Slater asked.

  I was indeed. Though the ship was a commercial vessel, Slater had obviously not stinted on the interior. Most freighters and tugs I’d seen were a gloomy webwork of catwalks and platforms, with hammocks strung between girders.

  “It’s very well appointed,” I remarked.

  “This is my one and only home,” he said. “I like to have a few comforts at day’s end. Now, let’s all have a seat.”

  We settled ourselves around one end of the dining table. Kate and Nadira sat side by side, both gazing at me and looking thoroughly displeased. I could not help staring back, for they made quite a contrast: Kate’s pale skin and elegant purple suit, Nadira’s dusky skin and exotic fiery sari.

  “Do we clash?” Nadira said dryly.

  “We certainly do,” said Kate. “Would you like me to move?”

  “Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “Shall we begin?” said Slater. “Miss de Vries has alr
eady apprised me of the situation, and I am interested in the venture. But it seems to me it requires a great deal of secrecy. How shall we all be satisfied our partners are trustworthy? For my part, I have no quibble with Miss de Vries, or Matt Cruse. But Miss Nadira here worries me.”

  I was both startled and impressed by his bluntness.

  “She has a key that opens the cargo holds,” I said, and repeated for Slater the story I had told Kate.

  “Let’s see this key, then,” said Slater.

  Nadira took it from its pouch and put it on the table.

  Slater poked at it with a finger. “It’s a pretty little thing. But for all I know, it might be the key to your luggage.”

  “How do we know you’re not working for John Rath and his pirates?” Kate asked.

  “Why would I have helped Matt Cruse escape from them?” Nadira shot back.

  “To make him trust you,” Slater said coolly.

  “It’s too fancy,” I said. “On the rooftop, those men had me. They would have beaten the information from me, or worse. They didn’t need some complicated scheme to get the coordinates.”

  Slater said nothing. Kate looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if she was convinced, or just surprised I was sticking up for Nadira.

  “You say these fellows came looking for your key,” Slater said to Nadira. “How is it they knew you had it?”

  I felt a fool I hadn’t asked the same question last night, and now wondered what her answer would be.

  “They knew my father,” Nadira said. “He used to work with them.”

  “Oh ho! A pirate’s daughter.” Slater laughed. “Mr. Cruse, what fascinating company you keep!”

  It was a damning piece of information, to be sure, and I was amazed she’d admitted it so readily. Angry too that she’d omitted this detail when talking to me last night. My face was hot. I’d been too trusting and hasty; I felt a complete amateur.

  “My father left when I was nine,” Nadira said. “I haven’t seen him in seven years. He made his choices; I’ve made different ones.”

  “Where is he now then?”

  “Dead.”

  “And this John Rath, is your family still on friendly terms with him?” Slater demanded.

  “No. I hadn’t seen him since my father left. But Rath came looking for me a couple days ago, in London. A neighbor knocked on the door and said some gadjo was asking around for me.”

  “What’s a gadjo?” I asked.

  “An outsider, someone who’s not a Roma. No one was in any hurry to help him. I wanted to know what he was after, so I followed him from a distance. He and his men went back to a tavern, and I listened in on them. They started talking about how the Hyperion had been spotted and how they needed the secret key. Until then, I was never completely sure if my father was telling the truth about it; he made up a lot of stories. Rath must’ve remembered my father giving it to me. Then they talked about Matt Cruse and how they were going to get the coordinates from him.”

  Slater looked at her suspiciously. “I don’t trust you.”

  Nadira made no reply.

  “I trust her,” I said, not knowing quite why. Maybe I just wanted to contradict Slater.

  He gave an amused sniff. “Look, lad, I’m susceptible to a pretty face too, but I wouldn’t mix it in with business.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn yet again. I glanced over at Kate. She was looking at me. “If the ship’s booby-trapped—”

  “If,” said Hal Slater pointedly.

  “If it is, we need the key.”

  “A key that might not even work,” said Kate.

  Nadira gave Kate a long hard look. “Mr. Slater has the ship. Mr. Cruse has the coordinates. I have the key. What exactly do you have?”

  For the first time Kate looked flustered, and I felt immediately protective of her; I’d so rarely seen her at a loss for words.

  “Well, she did find Mr. Slater,” I pointed out.

  “We were just on our way to find him ourselves,” Nadira countered, turning her cyclone eyes back on Kate. “Is it because I’m a gypsy, or because you’re afraid I might cut into some of your loot?”

  “I’m not interested in the loot,” Kate said disdainfully. “There’s a collection of taxidermy I want.”

  Nadira turned to me. “I thought you wanted the dead animals.”

  I shrugged. “It’s just clutter to me.”

  “I don’t care who gets them,” said Nadira. “It’s the money I want.”

  The two girls stared at each other, fuming.

  “As far as I’m concerned, this is Miss de Vries’s charter,” said Slater. “She approached me, and she’s agreed to pay my fee and all my costs in the event we don’t find the Hyperion.”

  “Exactly,” Kate said, with a grateful nod to Slater. “That’s my contribution. Money.”

  “Money won’t open the cargo bay doors,” Nadira remarked.

  “It would be a shame to get all the way up there and be blown to bits,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “I think Nadira should come. Anyway, she’s good in a scrape.”

  “The final decision’s not yours,” said Slater.

  “Yes, it is,” I said, bristling. “This is my trip. Without my coordinates no one goes anywhere.”

  “Wrong. Without my ship no one goes anywhere.”

  Nadira stood up with a disgusted snort. “I wish you all luck. I’ll find myself another ship.” She walked out the doorway and kept going.

  Hal Slater grinned at me. I glared back.

  “We reach the ship,” Slater called out, examining his fingernails, “and if your key works, you get a cut. If it doesn’t work, you get nothing.”

  I heard returning footsteps. Nadira poked her head around the doorway.

  “That suits me. Because if my key doesn’t work, we’re all dead anyway.”

  “Excellent,” said Slater. “Come sit down. I can get you to the Hyperion, but my share is ninety percent. You three can squabble over the rest. And Miss de Vries is welcome to the animal carcasses.”

  “We want forty percent,” I said, amazing myself.

  Slater shook his head. “I’m shouldering all the risk. Ten percent is a generous finder’s fee by any stretch of the imagination.”

  “You try finding her without my coordinates,” I said.

  “Matt…” Kate said.

  “You might not care about the money,” I told her, surprised by my sudden flare of anger, “but I do. So does Nadira.”

  “You’re overestimating the value of your coordinates,” said Slater with an indifferent shrug. “They may not be that helpful if she’s drifted.”

  “Fine,” I said, “why don’t you just close your eyes and pick a point on the map? You wouldn’t be interested in this trip if you thought my coordinates were useless.”

  Slater stared at me hard; I forced myself not to look away.

  “I take eighty,” he said, “you keep twenty.”

  I turned to Nadira. She nodded.

  “Good,” said Slater. “Since Miss de Vries claims she doesn’t want a cut of the money, you two will be very rich. You can take me out to dinner at the Jewels Verne when we get back.”

  “When can we leave?” Nadira asked.

  “This afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?” Kate said in surprise.

  “Every minute we wait, the more the Hyperion drifts,” Slater said.

  She looked at me. “Told you we’d miss the ball.”

  “Get yourselves ready,” Slater said, “and be back here at four o’clock, latest. Talk to no one. Cruse, I’ll need those coordinates.”

  “You can have them when we’re airborne.”

  Slater was about to protest, but then he just grinned.

  “You’re a smart lad,” he said.

  A RATHER HASTY DEPARTURE

  We left Slater to muster his crew and prep the Sagarmatha. Outside the heliodrome, Kate had a motorcar waiting.

  “Hop
in,” she said. “I’ll give you both a lift.”

  “I’ll walk,” Nadira said. “It’s not far.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  “See you at four,” I said, as I climbed in.

  Kate gave the driver instructions and then closed the screen so we could talk privately as we headed back into the city.

  “I don’t think she likes me,” Kate said.

  “I’m not sure she likes anyone.”

  “Well, I think she likes you. She kept looking at you.”

  “I didn’t notice,” I lied.

  “It was very chivalrous of you, leaping to her defense all the time.”

  “I just didn’t like the way Slater treated her.”

  “Do you trust her?” Kate asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not particularly,” she said.

  “But you have no problem with Slater.”

  “He’s quite straightforward. He just wants money. I don’t know if it’s that simple with Nadira. She’s a bit of a mystery. Pirate’s daughter and all.” She paused reflectively. “Gosh, I wish I were a pirate’s daughter.”

  “You do not!”

  “Oh, come on, it’d be fabulous. Everyone would think I was frightfully alluring and mysterious.”

  “You’re already alluring.”

  She looked a little hurt. “Not mysterious?”

  “You’re too talkative to be mysterious. It all comes out sooner or later. Sooner mostly.”

  “I just like everyone to know what I’m thinking,” she said.

  “It’s awfully considerate of you.”

  She jabbed me in the ribs. “Well, come on! If we all knew what the other person thought, we could just get on with things much more easily. Nadira’s very beautiful. And extremely capable. Getting over here all by herself. She can’t have much money. But she’s obviously got big plans. I’ve always admired people who start with little and really work hard to make something of themselves.”

  I nodded, hoping I too was included in this. But then I thought of Slater and how young he was to have such a fine ship—or any ship at all. I wondered how impressed Kate was with him, whether his type of accomplishments appealed to her. But if she weren’t impressed with a man who’d made his fortune in the air, why would she be impressed by me, who had neither ship nor fortune to his name?