The door was bent in all the wrong ways, and it wasn’t going to hold. The final hinge gave way to the weight of the steel slab. With a tiny squeal, the door dropped to the city below.
Everyone listened, and counted seconds until they heard it land.
Zeke counted almost to four before the crash echoed up from the streets. So they were high up, still. Real high up.
The captain came swinging down into the door on the far side of the cargo hold. He shut the door, sprinted back to the cockpit, and took his seat, despite the teetering angle and missing door that exposed the whole cabin to the stinking sky. “Out of here,” he gasped, fully out of breath and
quivering from exertion. “Now. If we can’t get over the wall, we’re done for. ”
Parks leaned over the slumping form of Mr. Guise and pulled a lever, then stretched his foot over the slouching body to push a pedal. It was the wrong pedal, or maybe the right one. The ship bounced up, and with a hearty half-roll, it dislodged Zeke from his defensive position by the wheel lock.
He bumped, sprang, and toppled over to the open door.
Without dropping his knife, Zeke lashed out with one hand to seize the frame, or the hinge, or anything else he could catch; but the ship was listing up and there was no helping hand to assist him. The twisted, split hinge cut a gash into his palm too deep to allow him to hold his position—swinging half out of the deck, half out in the air—and by reflex and terror he let go.
He fell.
… And smashed against something hard much sooner than he’d expected, even in his fear-addled state.
And then the giant hand Zeke had seen before grabbed onto his arm with the crushing force of a cabinetmaker’s vise.
Zeke’s head swam with adages about frying pans and fires.
He couldn’t decide whether or not to struggle, but his body decided for him—even though there was nothing beneath his feet but sickly air. He kicked and fussed, trying to twist against the grip of the enormous fingers.
“You stupid kid,” growled a voice that matched the hugeness of the hand. “You don’t really want me to let go, do you?”
Zeke grumbled something back, but nobody heard it.
The big hand reeled him up, to the very edge of the other ship’s deck.
The boy tried hard not to gasp, lest he suck in any more vomit off the mask’s visor. Holding him up by the wrist was the biggest man he’d ever seen, or even heard of. He was crouching in order to fit in the opening where the door of his own ship had been pushed aside—it did not open out on hinges, but slid from side to side on a track. The man’s mask was a close-fitting model without a large breathing apparatus. It made him look bald, and something like a snub-faced dog.
Behind the big man, Zeke heard voices bickering unhappily. “They disengaged! The son of a bitch disengaged us! By hand!”
“So the thief’s a tricky bastard; we knew that already. ”
“Get this ridiculous bird up in the air! Get it up, right this moment! My ship is leaving me moment by moment, and I will not lose it, do you hear me? I will not lose my ship!”
The big man turned his attention from the wriggling boy to say, over his shoulder, “Hainey, you’ve already lost your goddamned ship. We tried, all right? We’ll try again in a bit. ”
“We’ll try again now,” insisted a thick voice from deeper within the cabin.
But another voice, higher and almost prissy, argued, “We can’t try again now. We’re hobbling, you big jerk. ”
“And we’d better get rising!”
“We’re not rising, we’re sinking. ”
Over that same shoulder, shaped like a mountain range, the big man said, “Rodimer’s right. We’re hobbling, and we’re sinking. We’ve got to set down, or we’re going to crash. ”
“I want my goddamned ship, Cly!”
“Then you shouldn’t have let somebody steal your goddamned ship, Crog. But I might have a hint about where it’s gone off to. ” He looked again at Zeke, still held up over the empty, swirling fog that settled like scum at the bottom of the city below. “Don’t I?”
“No,” Zeke said. It almost sounded like he was sulking, but he was just choking and aching from being held up so oddly and breathing through vomit-clogged filters. “I don’t know where they took the ship. ”
“What an unfortunate tune you’re singing,” the man said, fluttering his wrist as if he meant to fling Zeke out into the ether.