This year, for Nat 1's WWOO two-week short-story challenge, I revisted Kee and her menagerie of Wingfolk pioneers. I'm invested in writing fiction for fun again, and I wanted to use this story to do a couple of things. First, I wanted to more closely experiment with close third person writing. I wanted to get more of Kee's thoughts around what was happening and "zoom in" on her actions. Second, I wanted to use much richer imagery and situational environments to reveal things about the world, instead of just dumping them on the reader. I ended up writing a much longer story than originally anticipated for this anthology, but I couldn't stop telling the story!
The rhythmic thrumming of the engines emitted a drone that hushed out all other noise in this part of the ship. Like a lullaby, it smoothed over footsteps, tools, and valves, present though they were. The dim light was betrayed by glinting aluminum girders, all of which were strapped in place by a web of thick steel cables. The canvas walls gave off the slightest ripple—the only indicator that there may be a harsh or exciting world beyond them.
A row of slack hammocks filled the voids between large tanks of water or oil, a couple of dented workbenches with bins of fasteners, and heavily laden wooden toolboxes. One hammock, taught with its burden, appeared at first like an open burlap sack full of iridescent green feathers. It rarely twitched or deviated from rest, a state most appreciated by its occupant. The bundle of feathers rose and fell and routinely gave off a snore. Sometimes a clawed black foot or a scaly hand would make its way out of its nest in search of cooler air.
The volume of the engines deadened abruptly. Like a backup quartet quickly regrouping into a trio—the drop was soft and proportionate. There was no harsh banging of equipment. No explosions or ringing to indicate a state of alarm, but the new quiet was plenty enough to disturb the slumber in the one weighted hammock. Any dreams that might have been filled with bright, blue skies and the thrill they brought were quelled with the intrusion of new silence. That silence would assuredly beget work. Not the boring or toiling kind, but satisfying and thought-provoking work. These thoughts tucked away dreams and rushed in to replace them with alertness and drive. For Kee, they did this rather slowly.
“Mmmmsome engine down…” Kee grumbled, hoping it was loud enough for someone to hear the complaint. She cracked open one eye. Nope, just me. She sighed and unfurled in the hammock, swaying as she sat up. She stretched her arms over her head and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. A yawn escaped her long, thin beak. “Can’t even finish rest before someone mucks up on watch?” she asked aloud to nobody.
Oh well, her gripes were always half-hearted anyway. In-flight repairs meant thrilling engineering, and she wasn’t going to miss a second of the action. Kee hoisted herself up and slid down from the hammock, sucking in air when her claws clanked on the cold aluminum deck. She fluttered her wings to wake them up as she started off.
Kee headed forward down the catwalk through the belly of the ship. The droning of the engines got louder as she moved. If it’s still this noisy over the aft engines, it’s gotta be the forward port or starboard engine that died. She continued musing as her footsteps clicked along the planks of the catwalk. Could it be fuel delivery? Oiling? Or maybe some mechanical failure. She was confident that the crew had done a thorough overhaul and inspection before the voyage, and everything looked in order. Maybe—
“Kee, the devoted early riser, on her way to set things straight, no doubt!”
Kee jumped out of her thoughts to see lanky white plumage strutting up the corridor toward her. Eudo’s arm was raised in greeting, and the gape of his orange bill was curled in a friendly grin. Kee smiled back and returned his wave before rolling her eyes in mock annoyance. “Eudo the rigger, managing to somehow eek his way through trim watch no doubt.”
He nodded with his too-long neck. “Cheeky and grumpy this morning, great combination. Just finishing up, actually. Moved a hundred gallons forward. Figured you’d already be up and thought I’d see if you wanna hit the galley before I go off watch. When’s the last time you slept through a down engine?”
She blinked and gave an exaggerated yawn in reply. “Well, you know me. Can’t stand the thought of sleeping in.”
“Yeah, ’swhat I thought. The rest of the crew and I do our best to keep you on your toes anyway,” he said and bowed in mock service. “Now it’s your turn. If we go to eat, you should know Halihk is in there.” He smirked and twisted his long neck so he could look pointedly down his bill at Kee.
She bristled, and even though the plumage on her nape was sticking straight up, she waved her hand through the air to dismiss Eudo’s comment. “He and I aren’t mortal enemies, you know. We just got off on the wrong foot.” Well, more like both feet, fists, and all now that she thought about it.
Halihk’s first impressions ranged from mildly antagonistic to downright malicious. “What matters is he and I both care about getting stuff done and leaving each other alone; it doesn’t make any difference what he thinks of me.” She hoped it sounded convincing.
Eudo retorted, “Yeah, seeing you two get stuff done is what makes breakfast so entertaining for me and the other guys.” Before she could sass him, he spun around and took long, bobbing strides down the corridor. Kee switched from thinking up comebacks to figuring out how she was going to get reassigned to the downed engine. Halihk might give her a go at it if the rest of the workload was light. She clicked along the wooden catwalks to keep up with Eudo. Her line of sight stretched down the catwalk, which arched slightly back up at the end of the hall. Her gaze drifted up to the massive cells full of lifting gas looming overhead. The gargantuan bags quietly assumed most of the ship’s bulk and kept her aloft. Kee admired the off-worlders. Featherless and wingless things, but they do have some bright ideas.
Before long, they arrived at the galley door. It was one of the only compartments of the ship that was walled off from the inner workings. Cooking, eating, and communing were best done out of sight of work. The privacy was largely for show; the room was still wrapped in canvas and did nothing to muffle the chatter and noise from inside. But somehow the guys still used it to divulge all the latest scuttlebutt. Eudo slid open the canvas door and stepped through. Kee followed right behind and drew the door shut behind her. Along one wall, a row of electric cooktops and an oven were lined with aluminum pots, pans, dishes, and utensils. Kee immediately spotted Yarrick dancing back and forth, prepping and dishing out rations, his black feathers dusty with flour and his apron stained with whatever he had happened to be reheating that day. Perches and tables lined the perimeter of the cabin, running down the middle from one end to the other. Electric lights bathed the whole room in an artificial but cheery glow. The watch change meant the place was already teeming.
The menagerie of crew present was busy squawking or chittering away in conversation. Edd was trying his best to distract Yarrick (or anyone who would listen, probably) with a tale of someone he met at the dry dock. Eudo did his best to push his way past Edd in the cramped space and get something to eat. Kee turned her attention to the tables. Sriharc, a navigator and one of the Talons who ran the ship from the control gondola, ate across from Halihk at a far table. Halihk looked more abrasive than usual. Kee’s throat dried up. He was probably ready to peck the eyes out of anybody who’d so much as open their beak at him. This should be good. Well, only one way to get what you want.
She marched her way right up to their table. “Morning, Sriharc. Fine flying weather out there?”
Sriharc nodded in greeting, his yellow eyes darting from Halihk to Kee and back. “Fine weather, just a few passing Vork.”
Vork were a mystery to Kee; essentially, they were bonded globs of elements that floated around in the air from place to place. They populated and sometimes moved through Wingfolk skies like vast migrations. Most of them were harmless, such as the jelly-like masses of water, but others were dangerous—floating blobs of caustic acid-like substance, burning pockmarks into the sides of the Shelves. Steering clear of them was a job for the Talons.
“We’re making good headway, too, a few thousand miles in over the Underwood already. Another couple of days and we’ll break the record for crossing over it wings-on-your-back. Then comes the rest of the surveying flight, charting, etc.” He smirked and lifted his pitcher with an arm trimmed in brick red plumage. “Course, we’d do it a lot quicker with four engines.” He retrained his eyes on Halihk.
Kee braced for impact but managed to offer, “Sure, well, I’ll get right on that.”
Halihk answered on cue, “Nuts, Sylph, there’ll be no asking for an invite to the party on starboard engine, ‘cause the answer’s no. You stay on trim watch this shift or go pick flowers in the Underwood for all I care.”
Oh yeah, it’s on. The crude words flowed from Kee’s mind to the tip of her beak without filtration. “Thanks Halihk, but actually was feelin’ a little worked up—came to check whether you gents were lekking in here. Gotta say so far I’m pretty disappointed, s’like a cold shower with you around.”
Eudo smacked the table from across the room, head reared back in laughter. Yarrick beat his wings and chuckled while he shifted pans around. Halihk sneered, but his beady black eyes glowered up at Kee.
She reloaded and took her next shot before he could get one out.“Besides, if I wanted that job, I’d ask the chief or one of the Talons,” she jabbed a scaly black thumb at Sriharc.
Sriharc raised his gray head and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Oh, no, you two and Llyr work that out; he’s in charge of you mechanists. ’Sides, in this galley, the only one in charge is Yarrick over there. Right, Yarrick?”
Yarrick looked up from what he was doing long enough to caw out a dry, “You better believe it!”
Sriharc stood from his perch and made his way past the rest of the menagerie and out of the galley. Before he shut the door, he flung one last piece of ammo toward the impending battle: “Oh, and Halihk failed to mention that he already asked the chief if he could look at that engine. Poor guy got shut down.” He gave Kee a wink. The jerk looked pretty satisfied with his handiwork.
The pot was adequately stirred. Halihk stood, his tawny wings stretching out and puffing up his stature. “That’s right, Sylph. Chief’s orders. You stay on trim, and I go on rest, and Krarr learns how to pull a cylinder all by himself. Sky above knows he’s gotta figure it out in-flight one way or another.” His white cheeks shifted. He looked amused more than anything. “Besides, if you really want to pull a fella in here, all you gotta do is show him your nest.”
Kee felt her wings quiver and the down on her chest swell. She stuck her neck out and threw her arms up, gesturing to the tight room. “Maybe I would if there were any guys with rank in here, but there aren’t, are there?”
She felt the blow hit home. The dirty cone-face’s amusement faded faster than it came. That got him. All he could get out was, “Perch on a cactus, Sylph,” and he stomped back up to his table.
“Yeah, lay an egg, Halihk.” Kee turned on her toes and scraped her way across the deck back to Eudo, who was already perched at a table with Edd. Yarrick coughed and growled out, “That’ll be enough o’ that while I’m prepping food for your foul gizzards!”
Kee sidled up to Eudo. She avoided eye contact, instead fixing her gaze on the black and white photograph above the table. It had been taken back at the dry dock before the maiden voyage when Halihk had his chance at being Chief Mechanist. The caption read: The Aerie and her crew. Eudo started, “You know you really ought not to bring up the guy’s rank. He was really proud to be ‘chief for a day’. Besides, you’re both Soaring Mechanists now, you don’t have anything left to prove to anybody.”
“It’s just how we get along. Llyr will smooth things over.” Kee stared at the photo, or rather, past it into some middle distance. She let her vision blur while her time as a Fledgling Mechanist trickled back. All the hard work, the sweat, the late nights. Why did she do it? ’Cause she liked it, duh. Should she have something to prove? That she wasn’t too small or just some broody girl in denial? If she did have something to prove, she wasn’t sure to whom. Herself? Her family? Llyr or the crew? She wanted to work on the Aerie the moment she knew the ship’d been offered to the Wingfolk by the off-worlders. She flew a long way to apprentice with the best. She wanted to get her hands dirty, make things tick, solve problems. Building things had a purpose. Wasn’t that reason enough? Should she have some aspiration to fly higher, fly farther, like everyone else? Or maybe one day design and build ships. Give flight to the flightless. That wasn’t such a bad reason; most everyone had that goal. It was troubling, not because it was a bad goal, but because it didn’t feel like it was her goal.
The table had been quiet for too long, and her chest felt tight. She thought she’d die stewing on it if she didn’t talk about something else. “So uh, what’s up with the Underwood?”
Luckily, Eudo took the hint. “Well, we’re pretty deep into the territory. You know we’re gonna be the first ones to cross it? It’s so big nobody’s ever been able to wing it across the whole thing.”
Big deal, lots of trees to look at. “We stopping anywhere?”
“No, don’t think so. In our briefing, Qreel just said we’re mapping the whole Shelf. Taking measurements, pointing out spots where we might be able to settle or something. Besides, the canopy is too thick to land anywhere.”
Edd added his usual flavor to someone else’s conversation, “Ain’t no sense trying neither. Talons said the last expedition that touched down at the edge just reported it’s dark, dank, and full of nasty varmints.”
Eudo and Edd continued gossiping about the mission and the crew while Kee ate. Her thoughts drifted to the desolate foreign shelves, like those of the Underwood. Why would we explore a place not worth living? She supposed it was better than the Crags. The lowest surface of the Wingfolk world wasn’t a nice place to be. Jagged rock and nothing grew there. Up high on rock columns called Shelves is where everyone lived, ate, and had fun. Lakes, beaches, her hometown. Thoughts wandered back to it for a brief moment before the memories got too boring. No, the best was being in the air. All the time if you could help it. At least here she could fly, tinker, and see what else was out there.
The conversation drifted to the captain. Edd waffled on, “Well, this is how the hangar guys said it went down. Captain’s flyin’ through this wicked squall, yeah, and he gets to flyin’ too close to the deck, and then bam!” He slammed his fist on the table. “He smacks back-first into the Shelf-face. Radius nerve is smithereens, and he’s grounded for life.” Kee caught Halihk turn around at his table and survey them with one eye. Edd was too stupid to notice or listen when Eudo shushed him. “So I’m jist askin’, how come the guy steerin’ the ship is the one who’s caught in a gale flyin’ upside down.”
Halihk rose from his table and walked closer until he stood beside Edd. He set his fingers on the table, his wings looming such that they blocked out the electric light overhead. He spoke with a controlled tone that Kee couldn’t remember ever hearing from him in all her hours on board. “There’ll be no more talk of the captain in this galley. And if I catch you doing it on watch, chief or no chief, I’ll set you to work. Did that make it into your hollow skull?” Before they could respond, he turned, opened the canvas door, and left.
Edd recoiled and tried to stammer an apology, but it was too late. “Sheesh, you guys know I don’t mean nothin’ about the captain, he’s a great Talon. ’Sides, he got us out of that jam on our maiden voyage.” He turned and raised his pitcher to Kee. “With some fancy flying from our fearless, shimmering bolt of green!” Kee giggled and rolled her eyes. Looking back, her “daring” flight between the engine cars wasn’t her proudest moment.
The drone of the ship’s remaining engines was cut by the whistling hiss of an air starter and the pop of ignition. It quickly erupted in knocking and intense vibration, which reverberated through the lightweight girders of the ship and rattled its way into the hollow bones of everyone in the galley. The Aerie was shivering like a beast in distress, and the clanging, knocking sound made Kee wince. Then it was over, gone seemingly as quickly as it had started. Kee jumped from her perch and made for the door. It slid open, and Halihk’s tawny face and white cheeks blocked her way.
“Get to it, Sylph, on the double.” He gestured out the door with his wing.
Kee bolted out into the corridor. Her jaunt almost turned to flight as she jumped and flapped her way down the catwalk to the cargo bay. The cargo bay was essentially a series of storage lockers situated between two rings of the hull. A few loading rails and lifting chains hung from the ceiling, and crates and sacks of supplies were stuffed anywhere they would fit—between cables, girders, and the supporting nets of the massive gas cells above. It did, though, have large bay doors beneath for raising and lowering palettes of cargo into the ship. These were usually left open for the crew to catch some wind. Perfect, they’re still open! Kee took one look over the edge into the clouds and rolling green canopies below and dove off the ledge.
Every plume, every fiber of her body savored and cherished the wind: the cool rush of the Aerie’s wash and the warm, uplifting currents from the Shelf below. It was heavenly. She kicked her legs out behind her as her pointed, violet wings fanned out to grab the air. She buzzed them to keep up with the ship, but the updrafts flowed over and through her primaries and held her aloft. The enormous silvery fish above her propelled itself through the air effortlessly, if noisily. No beating of wings kept the Aerie aloft.
Mile after mile stretched the green canopies, all the way to the horizon in all directions, without so much as a bump in elevation. Scattered clouds cast shadows down onto the lush foliage. A few Vork did meander in between clouds. They didn’t look caustic or dangerous, mostly clear. More likely than not, they were just balls of water. Ahead, Kee could see the control gondola slung beneath the bow. Through the porthole windows, she could see Talons—officers of the Aerie—busily charting out their course and maintaining the ship’s heading. Kee pulled back to slow up. She drifted back along the sloping, ribbed hull, dipping her right wing and rolling over to starboard to meet up with the engine car.
The small pod was affixed to the hull of the ship with a few girders and a ladder. The propeller windmilled freely. Alright, girl, what do you need? Kee dove toward the ladder and tucked her wings. She deftly grabbed hold of the rungs with her claws, firmly joining the Aerie once more.
Wind rippled through the down on her arms and back as she slid into the car below. She landed on the deck with a clank. Krarr was panting and hunched over the engine, frantically disassembling the rockers with an open-ended wrench. Soot covered his light gray and tawny down. His bushy ear tufts, normally flattened back against his head, were standing straight up and scraping the canvas ceiling of the engine car. He jumped and spun his head around, fixing his enormous, yellow, globed eyes on Kee.
“Kee! I don’t know what happened,” he pleaded. “It was running rough and then just quit. I made some timing adjustments, but it wouldn’t start, so I removed a couple of cylinders. But when I got ’em off, I didn’t see anything wrong, so I put it back together and started it up again, that’s when things shook. It felt like the whole car was going to come apart! And now I don’t—I just don’t know—” he tripped over the remaining words and eventually trailed off without forming a complete thought.
Krarr was even more out of his element than usual. On a good day, he was a half-decent mechanist, just a little too by-the-book to troubleshoot things himself. Kee looked around the place. Tools and rags littered the already cramped compartment. Spare parts were unboxed and scattered about, and the toolbox appeared to have been turned upside down at some point. Worst of all, the engine order telegraph—the method the Talons used to communicate desired speed and direction— was still set to Cruising speed. The big guy was clearly flustered.
“Krarr, take a deep breath with me. In through the nares, out through the gape.” She sucked in air, held it, and exhaled, motioning for him to do the same. His bushy chest inflated as he breathed in, and then compressed as he let the air out. “We’re gonna figure this out together, okay?” He nodded. Kee pointed to the telegraph. “Always, always set the telegraph first so the Talons know what’s up, alright?” He nodded again while she rolled the dial back and forth, ringing the bell with a Ti-ti-ti-ting and setting the indicator to stop engine, brake on.
Kee motioned for him to scoot over. The great iron behemoth dominated her attention, and she greedily fixated on it, running over it with eyes and scaly fingers, trying to assess what had been done or not done. The gorgeous brass and iron fixtures looked to be mechanically intact. Six cylinders stood in a row, one clearly half-bolted. The spider-like valve train atop the cylinder was in pieces, no doubt Krarr’s next avenue of attack. The rest of the assembly seemed untouched: a network of pipes and hoses carrying oil, coolant, air, and fuel all strung out like veins from the cold, dormant heart. In her head, Kee could see everything: valves actuating, pistons traveling up and down, connecting rods translating linear motion into circular motion, and finally turning the crankshaft and propeller. All she needed to do was see who in the family was misbehaving.
Spark plugs first. Kee grabbed a socket and wrench from the wooden toolbox and started pulling all twelve spark plugs one at a time. She held them out under the light from the porthole, studying the electrodes for damage. Finally, she got to the last cylinder. They were both fouled, sooty with oil and unburned fuel.
“Krarr, during your watch, was she blowing fire or blue smoke out the exhaust at all? Or using much oil?”
Krarr shifted on his feet in the compartment and nodded. “Yeah that started happening on my watch. I tried adjusting things, but nothing I did helped, and then it quit.”
Burning oil and bad oscillation. Kee wasted no time. She reached back down to the toolbox and rifled through it, setting out everything she’d need to disassemble the last cylinder. Notably, it wasn’t the one Krarr was halfway through taking off.
While she was working, another pair of clawed feet started traversing the ladder from the hull down into their car. Llyr’s jet black feathers poured into the compartment as he squeezed along the other side of the engine next to Krarr. She looked up long enough to give a, “Hey chief,” and continued working. The place was cramped with three mechanists in it.
“Kee, Krarr, sorry I’m late. How are you two getting on?” Llyr was always pleasant, and Kee felt a warm sensation of confidence every time she worked with him. Her apprenticeship at dry dock was mostly overseen by Llyr, and he was the best there was, no doubt. He knew things about engines no other Wingfolk had picked up yet; it was borderline supernatural. But he never talked down to anyone—everything was a learning opportunity if you were willing to put in the work.
Krarr jumped at the chance to provide some iota of progress, “Well, Kee pulled the spark plugs, and the number six cylinder is fouling pretty badly. She—I mean, we’re taking that off for inspection.”
“I see, well observed. And what are we thinking could be the culprit so far?”
“Krarr told me blue smoke and flames right before she stalled, so I’m thinking rings or connecting rod. With the vibration we all felt, gotta be the rod.”
“Well diagnosed, you two! I can see I’m not needed here. But Krarr, why don’t you lend Kee a hand with those valves?” Llyr was good. He wasn’t a watch-and-learn kinda guy. He taught through hands-on experience and built confidence.
Kee and Krarr squished together on the outboard side of the engine, working in tandem. Llyr watched their work over the top of the motor, making small talk. Kee heard less and less of it the more focused she got. She was savoring, calculating, keeping track of parts. After another hour, they had everything neatly organized into small buckets of parts on the floor, and together, they lifted the cylinder apart. It was pretty bad. The top half of the cylinder was pretty scored up. The piston itself clearly failed in some way, as there were black scorch marks all around the rings and down the sides of the piston. Everything was still connected, but there was clearly overheating and loss of oil. Kee studied the piston, dangling freely in the air as if it were holding onto the crank for dear life. She worked it back and forth and noticed the wrist pin was dead seized.
“Well, I think you’ve found the culprit, alright.” Llyr beamed over the valvetrain at his two mechanists.
“Yep, definitely bad wrist pin,” Kee confirmed and offered the piston to Krarr to study. “We’re going to need some parts from the engineering station and more tools. It should only take an hour to get a new pin in and put everything back together.”
Llyr blinked and frowned. “I’m not so sure we can. Look at the slight curve in the connecting rod; it’s bent out of shape, and I think it took too much meat off the cylinder with it. I think we’ll have to remove the piston and run on five the rest of the voyage.” Kee’s tail feathers drooped. A wrist pin or even re-ringing was an easy job. The conn rod meant dropping the pan, turning the block over, and getting the end caps off. It was a major overhaul. But Llyr was right, there was no way this piston was moving up and down without hitting the sides of the cylinder. It just wouldn’t fit right, unless—
Kee’s heart skipped, and she perked up. “Well, let’s file the piston then!” she chirped. “We can ream out the bushing a little so it’s oval, and then file the edges of the piston to give us some clearance with the cylinder. New rings should take care of the rest, right?” She pointed her beak at Llyr, zealously waiting for his reply.
The chief turned things over in his head, looking not at Kee but at the piston. After musing for another minute, he made eye contact with Kee, smiled, and cawed, “We’ll need to run less fuel through there, but I don’t see why not. Let’s get to work.”
Kee danced in place; she couldn’t help herself. She was radiating. Resurrecting an engine was like magic. The tools were like wands or mystical adjuncts, connecting Kee with some tapestry of innate motorized life force.
The crew set to work. Kee and Llyr flew back out of the car and up through the now-orange sky back to the cargo bay. They clanked their way to the engineering station, gathering parts and tools as they went, and chatted about the wind conditions, ballast levels, clouds, and their stuck piston. They swapped stories of great discoveries made on watch and late nights banging their heads against problems that tired eyes would never solve. They gathered their collection into a few light packs and flew them back to the engine car.
The Underwood continued endlessly below them. It looked like a bubbling, rolling green sea of tree crowns. As the daylight waned, the shadow of the ship passing overhead grew longer.
When they got back to the starboard engine car, they resumed their positions. Kee and Krarr stood on the outboard side, taking turns filing away at the disassembled piston. A little metal there, a little shave here. They checked and rechecked the fit as they worked, making sure they removed just what was necessary. Finally, they had a fitment they were happy with. By now Kee’s white chest was sooty and matted with grease in spots. Her iridescent green arms gleamed a rainbow-black hue from the oil. Llyr worked on the fitting of the new wrist pin, ensuring it had a full range of motion and adequate lubrication for startup. By the time they had the cylinder back on and everything ready to go, the light through the porthole had gone completely, and an indigo night was rapidly giving way to pitch blackness. A small electric lamp was all they had to work by now.
Llyr wiped his claws on a rag and ran his hand back along his nape. “Well, who’d like to do the honors?”
Kee almost spoke but caught the words at the last moment. She instead gave Krarr a gentle thump on the wings. “How about it, Krarr?”
Krarr’s yellow globes trained on Kee. He smiled, nodded, and moved into position. The chief rang the telegraph with a ti-ti-ti-ti-ting and signalled idling, brake off. Kee and Krarr echoed the command. She released the brake while Krarr set the choke and mixture for startup. At last, he yanked the air starter.
Vvvfff-boom, the engine coughed and then erupted with motion. The carburetors sucked in air, and magic and life returned to the dead cauldron of fluids in the engine car. It sounded distinctly different from Kee’s memory, probably because it still wasn’t running in top shape, but it was smooth and powerful. It tickled Kee’s senses—sight, sound, smell. It was an orchestra of fumes, valves ticking, and coolant and fuel flowing through a maze of energy.
Llyr rang and signaled cruising speed with the telegraph, and assumed the throttle controls while Kee handled the clutch that connected the engine to the propeller. Llyr put the power on, pumping more fuel and air into its starving cylinders to increase the RPMs, but not quite to the level they usually ran at. Kee yanked the clutch to engage the prop. The shock was instant, and the oscillating in the car was intense. Kee immediately reversed her actuation.
Nothing happened.
She pulled harder, but it wouldn’t disconnect. What’s wrong with this thing? The entire car was shaking and creaking with the vibration. Llyr yelled something to Krarr, but Kee couldn’t hear it. The car swayed.
Krarr killed the engine. The vibration stopped, but the car continued swaying. Llyr shouted, “Strut’s loose—both of you out!” and he motioned up the hatchway ladder.
“Krarr, move your tail feathers! Get out of here!” Kee started shoving Krarr around the engine toward the ladder. “Chief, you’re in the way, move.” The car was tighter now that the three Wingfolk were spreading their wings in a panic, as if any moment they’d need to fly to safety. Kee and Krarr couldn’t maneuver around Llyr up the ladder.
“I’m going last, no arguing!” Llyr demanded. The car sagged and swayed again as a creaking, twisting sound tore through their ears.
“You don’t get to choose, now hustle!” Kee shoved Krarr’s bulk up against Llyr, pinning him up against the ladder. Finally, he struggled to free himself and start climbing. He disappeared through the hatch as Krarr followed as quickly as his size would allow. Kee grabbed the rungs of the ladder. Past Krarr’s tail, she could see the torn canvas of the ship and girders protruding like splintered bones piercing skin. As the car sagged, the fuel and oil lines severed, showering the car and ladder rungs with a smelly, slippery lubricant. Llyr and Krarr took a bath in motor oil, shielding their eyes as Kee grabbed hold of the rungs with both hands and started to hop up the ladder. The telegraph. Her eyes darted toward the dial face, in the dim light still indicating cruising speed.
“Sylph, let’s move!” Llyr shouted down the ladder.
She reached for the lever instead, rang the bell, and felt her stomach lurch. The creaking, crunching noise of twisting aluminum and the snapping crackle of wire braces gave way to the noise of wind.
The light in the car went out, and Kee felt her whole body shunted against the far wall. Dropped. Everything spun and turned over as she spread her wings, trying to get airborne. Her wings flapped and slapped into pipes, flinging tools, and the canvas sides of the car.
Caged.
Kee slammed back-first into the side of the car, the momentum she built up impacting all at once and knocking the air out of her as the car smashed into solid matter again. She reached out for a handhold—anything she could use to climb out of the car and get into the open.
The car’s speed picked up again as it rolled over on its side. She jumped just as the car reentered free-fall, once more pinning her to the side. The disorienting blackness and falling sensation kept her scrambling for a way out of the cage. Falling. Any egress she could use for flight was invisible, out of her grasp. Parts and tools continued to spiral around, assaulting her face, chest, and arms. She covered her eyes with her hands as she flapped and rolled.
The motion halted violently again with a shuddering smash as Kee rocketed sideways into the engine block, one of her wings buckling with a sickening crunch as her head impacted the manifold.
Everything was still, but her vision was still swirling. Her wing hurt. Her legs hurt. Her head hurt. Sticky, warm fluid ran down into her eye, and fog seeped in, stealing her consciousness away.
The air was stagnant and thick with moisture. Unbreathable. Everything was a fuzzy approximation of reality, swirling around in invisible mist. Kee’s head pounded, the feathers on the left side of her face still hot and sticky. A cloud of gnats invaded her thoughts and faculties and drew her vision to the gray light and the car around her. Shit.
She and the car sat in at least three inches of muddy, oily water, and gnats and mosquitoes assaulted her ears. As the fuzziness left her skull, the car became clearer. The pain got worse. Double shit.
Everything was sore, but parts of her were in agony. Her left wing— “Ouch!” she winced and hissed as she grabbed it. “Oww!” It hurt worse the more she touched it, the more she flexed it. Her heart pounded, and nausea slowly crept up her throat from her stomach. She sucked in breath. Keep it together. Just a little sprain. One inch at a time.
She relaxed and then tensed her shoulder muscles, slowly extending her wing joint by joint. “Shhhhhit! Ow!” Her feathery wing wrist burned and throbbed. Worse, it was immobile. Despite the pain, she felt no control over it. She stiffened it again, hoping to find a restful position where her muscles didn’t sear.
Now wide awake, the masked pain came in full force. “Oh no, oh no no no!” It’s fine, just sore, you can do this Kee, just gentler— She hissed again as she extended her right wing, and the pain coursed back into the wrist. It felt like her muscles had been pried loose from her bones with a chisel.
Grounded? It sank in too fast. Her eyes welled with tears so quickly she choked on them. She couldn’t cry, she just couldn’t. She had to find a way. But the sobbing came in spurts anyway. Holding back made her throat raspy. “My wing, not my wing!” she croaked through tears.
This was it. She was grounded. Like the captain, she’d never fly again. But unlike the captain, she was stuck in some stupid forest nobody even wanted to live in. Just a dumb little wannabe mechanist. Her last flight was carrying some tools around. She wished she had the forethought to take just one last soar from the observation deck with Eudo. But here she had no Eudo to lean on. No Llyr to teach her. The gnats and the humidity were all she had. No crew, no friends. No Aerie. They would rescue her, right? How could they? Llyr probably didn’t even see the engine car fall. How would they even know where she was in the dark? She’d give anything for that last flight now. Maybe it would be better if she hadn’t woken up at all. She cried for only the sky knows how long, emptying any energy she had left into her tears.
A flapping sound and something landing with a thud and a splash outside jerked Kee to her senses. She called out, “Hello? Guys, I’m in here!”
More rustling and a kickoff. Something was flying away fast. Kee pushed herself up off the wet floor, holding her breath through the pain. The car lay roughly upright, tilted a few degrees to one side. She climbed what was left of the slick ladder, carefully tucking her lame wing so it didn’t impact the hatch. With her head out of the car, she laid eyes on the Underwood for the first time.
The forest was dense with the largest swamp gum trees Kee had ever seen. The tupelos had massive trunks, and their canopies stretched at least one hundred feet toward the sky. There was no sign of any Wingfolk. Kee’s eyes scrutinized the canopies. Am I hallucinating? Everything was dimly lit as minuscule amounts of light cut in through the foliage; only a small hole let daylight down directly above where Kee landed. Landed? Hell of a landing.
Kee scoured the ground around the car. The base and roots of the trees were completely submerged. The whole area she could see was flooded. Leaves and debris floated on the water, which was surprisingly clear everywhere except where the broken engine bled oil. She blinked. At the base of the car, on what looked like a small raft made of tree roots, were flowers. A whole pile of green-white flowers the size of her fist. Beside them sat a few dark blue fruits, all floating calmly on the raft.
Kee was still dizzy and overcome with pain. Her stomach added a new, gnawing sensation to the party. Suddenly, she was starving. She clambered out of the hatch, careful not to rock the car too hard. Climbing down the car's side was not easy, but Kee managed to grip the ribbed, torn-up surface. She splashed down into the mud as deep as her calves.
The raft wobbled as Kee swashed up to it, sinking slightly into muddy deadfall beneath the surface. The flowers smelled amazing, their sweet nectar alluring. Kee picked one up and drank from it. Wow, that’s great. It was sweet, and with every sip, her body begged for more.
She drank through half of the flowers before she caught herself thinking about Halihk. She chuckled. If that jerk could see me now. Picking flowers in the Underwood. She dismissed the memory and turned to the fruit. She bit into it. It was good, but not as good as the flowers, more like a sour plum than anything.
While Kee ate, her spirits recovered marginally, and the sense of hopelessness melted away into questions. She always felt better when she had questions to think about. But here, there was nobody to ask them but herself. Who left this for me? Was the crew here or someone else? Would the crew even be able to find me? She winced again. How long would it take for her wing to heal—if it did heal fully, she wondered. She set that question aside and finished the food.
The little raft was made of just a couple of logs bound together with reeds and vines. Kee saw some utility there, and as best she could, she tied a small splint to hold her broken wing in place. No sense in making things worse. The wood looked like it came from the tupelos around her, but it was dry, even seasoned. She carefully piled the remaining dry logs.
“Well, I’m alive for the moment. And I can’t leave. If someone does come looking for me, it’s going to be right here. Might as well make myself useful.”
She waded around in the water, studying the dirty bottom. The twinkle of tools shone up into her eyes. Every instrument, tool, and scrap of metal she could find, she gathered into a neat pile. This pile she carefully rinsed off and oiled with what was floating on the surface around the car, and returned to the scuffed wooden toolbox in the car. She took stock of what was left. The car was tattered, and the frame had buckled. The tools were in decent enough shape, though. There were a few welding masks and miscellaneous parts from their repairs. The engine had sunk into the ground up to the manifolds and flattened out the girders beneath. It was toast, as were two of the propeller blades.
Kee couldn’t help herself. She was tired, and already the little light she had to work by was fading. She began disassembling the engine, including the clutch and propeller brake. She wasn’t sure if she was passing the time ’til she could be rescued or just passing the time until the inevitable happened. It didn’t matter; she couldn’t help herself. She needed to tinker, and if she couldn’t fix what happened, she needed to understand it.
Her postmortem revealed another broken wrist pin, just like the one they repaired in flight. Other signs indicated under-oiling, which likely contributed to the failure in both pins. As the pistons started to seize, the vibration shook the engine car hard enough to break struts, cables, and supports. The clutch was another mystery entirely. Why it wouldn’t disengage when Kee tried to stop the quaking didn’t make any sense. Not, that is, until she opened it and realized the forks that the lever tied to and which disengaged the clutch had been shorn off. No doubt from the oscillations in the engine car. She made a mental note to report the need for rubber dampeners and a variety of structural reinforcements. Not that it’ll do me much good here.
She knew she was just satisfying her own curiosity. She supposed she felt better thinking about her work. It distracted her from the pain, too. Her wing still throbbed, albeit not excruciatingly. She had no doubt now that her wrist had broken, and there was no flying for at least a few weeks. She pretended to be confident there’d be no lasting injury. Focusing on the engine helped her to not think about that.
The dim light faded into night, and the cool air ushered in an all-encompassing fog throughout the Underwood. The lush, green gum trees all turned into shades of formless gray. Kee could hardly see beyond the clearing surrounding the engine car. Only the tiniest sliver of pale moonlight penetrated the narrow opening Kee crashed through in the canopy above.
She sat on top of the car for a couple of hours listening to the stillness, hoping she’d hear the distant hum of the Aerie’s propellers or a pair of flapping wings. Nothing came. Nobody came. Everything was quiet. Come on, guys, where are you?
From deep into the hazy distance, Kee could barely make out the faintest splashing sound. It wasn’t very regular, not like water lapping up against a tree trunk. It would echo off the trees from Kee’s left and then go silent. Fish? The splashing echoed off the trees to Kee’s right for a few seconds and then retreated again. Kee had been fishing before. Fish jumping made little splashing noises, but this was different. It was almost a dragging, heaving kerplunk onto the bottom, displacing all the water in a small area. Kee flinched. There was one that couldn’t have been more than fifty feet away.
She wasn’t sure why, but she had the most uncomfortable sensation. The plumage on her chest puffed out, and her nape stuck up. The flopping swashes moved this way and that, closing the distance between whatever they were and the engine car. Kee slid off her tail into the car and rummaged through the toolbox as quietly as she could. Her heart was pounding. Even her breath sounded loud. Another splash. She grabbed a flashlight, hoping it was dry, and scurried back up the ladder. She turned every which way, holding her breath while she listened. She heard no splashing. No flopping, lurching, or smacking sounds. Kee exhaled softly. She quietly moved the chrome flashlight from her chest, and her fingers fumbled for the switch. Her hand trembled as she pointed it at the foggy surface beneath the car.
The light clicked on, and the water surged. Four massive, flat beasts with black scales and purplish feathers all rampaged toward the car on six legs. They slammed into the frame and started tearing at the canvas with monstrous, snapping jaws, hissing and lunging at the girders.
Kee leapt, and the light slipped from her fingers, clanking through the hatch into the car. She slid down after it, the frame shaking and shuddering from the creatures’ onslaught. Snarling, hissing jaws ripped through the silvery flesh of the car and gnawed on its aluminum bones. What the— One head pierced through the canvas behind Kee just shy of her tail feathers. Her good wing flapped automatically as if begging to carry Kee away. If only its twin worked. She backed up to the end of the car and bumped her head into the telegraph; the ti-ting of the bell rang out into the space.
Abruptly, the swarming stopped. A tentative hiss emitted from the jaws outside. Kee reached around and cranked on the lever, banging it back and forth between engine off and fire. Kee was sure she’d go deaf from the ringing, but the hissing, biting onslaught rapidly gave way to scattered turbulence. Kee rang the bell until her arm was sore. When she finally relented, her chest was heaving with exertion, her mind dazed with fear. She halted, held her breath, and listened. There was stillness. No splashing. Nothing at all.
Kee slumped down to her knees and crouched in the oily puddle, her back to the manifold. She wrapped her arms and good wing around her knees and started to cry. Not because she couldn’t help it, but because she wanted to. Wisps of mist floated in between the folds of tattered canvas.
Kee awoke with a start. The stillness of the dim gray morning unsettled her after the night’s attack. She couldn’t bear being grounded in such an awful place. Every little sound she heard startled her. She felt flighty, twitchy, restless. She slept, but only fitfully. Her awake mind focused on one singular thought: I’ve got to get out of here.
She stood and sloshed toward the ladder. She scaled it and sat on top of the car, staring down at the marshy surface. Her eyes roamed and eventually settled on the tupelos, then back to the car, and finally on herself. Kee was never prim or neat. In fact, her mother used to say she looked downright unpreened on occasion. But Kee never paid much mind to her appearance to date. She hated to admit it, but she’d give anything for a preening comb right then. Her feathers were matted and greasy. Her iridescent green plumage was grungy with dirt, oil, and swamp water. The cuts and scrapes she got during the fall made her look patchy and squalid. She did her best to ignore it, but she couldn’t help feel like she already looked half-dead.
Well, if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna do it from where I belong. From high up. Kee had decided in the middle of the night that she’d figure out how to climb one of the gum trees. She wasn’t sure how yet, but she wasn’t going to spend another night on the ground. And who knows, maybe she could gather some sign of the Aerie, or send up some kind of signal. It’d be a better camp. Safer, and at the very least, she might see some sliver of the sky again. She craved some semblance of sky.
It was time to work. She deftly began dismantling the canvas surrounding the engine car. It was mostly in tatters, but there was a rigger’s kit inside she could use to make some small patches. She also unbolted any dangling, frayed cables that once secured the struts to the Aerie’s hull. When she was done, she had a large silvery blob of canvas and a pile of line and rough-looking cable.
The engine car looked like a twisted-up mess, a massless cage entrapping an iron beast that surely would never growl again. She quickly got to unbolting the rear-most girders of the car: the small and light ones would make a decent basket to lift off the ground. If she could find a way to secure a few cables or vines, maybe she could winch herself up to the broken canopy she crashed through.
She was deep in thought when out of the corner of her eye she caught it: another raft! Like the first one, it was piled high with flowers and fruit. She reared around looking for its carrier. Had she missed the flapping last night? Early this morning? She made some noise taking off the girders. Her eyes went where they never had to: up. She inspected the gum branches.
A half-scream fled from her beak when she saw her patron perched on a branch, staring down at her with bright blue eyes. The Wingfolk in the tree returned a surprised squawk, nearly losing her grip on the tupelo limb she roosted on.
Kee caught her breath; her heart was pounding out of her chest again. The perching Wingfolk wafted and settled her wings and resumed her relaxed posture, watching Kee. On second look, she had yellow eyes with blue eyebrows and nape. Her head had a tall, black crest that flowed down to her conical beak. Her belly was a fluffy, off-white color which sloped back to vibrant purple wings. She said nothing, but rested her chin on one hand, an elbow on her knee, absorbed apparently with the busywork below.
“He-hello up there?” Kee attempted to sound more welcoming than frightened. Her guest uttered no response, but blinked once. “Can you talk?” Again, nothing. Alright, we’re not making much headway here.
Kee changed tactics. She elongated her right wing and hand and tipped them in a wave. Wingfolk sometimes did this in flight to be friendly as they passed in the air. It seemed to help: the stranger extended a wing and a hand, waving back down to Kee. Alright, now we’re getting somewhere. She gestured toward the flowers. “Thank you for the food. You’re very kind.”
At Kee’s gesture toward the raft, the stranger seemed to perk up. She spread her violet wings and soared down from her perch, alighting on the engine car above Kee. Kee felt a pang; it looked so effortless. The Underwood dweller seemed to understand and fixated on Kee’s splint.
“My wing is broken. I’m kinda stuck here until my friends get me. If they come get me…” She wished Eudo could be here. At the very least, a familiar face would feel comforting.
The dweller hopped down from the car and splashed in the water beside Kee. She pointed to the fruit and then back at herself, uttering something unrecognizable. Kee turned and picked up one of the dark blue fruits, then handed it to the dweller, who took it and seemingly expressed gratitude with more unfamiliar words. Kee saw an opportunity and took it. Kee pointed to her own chest. “Kee.” Then she pointed toward the stranger and waited.
“Reeka,” the dweller responded, munching on the fruit and nodding.
“Reeka. Kee,” she said, pointing first to the newcomer then to herself. “Nice to meet ya, Reeka.” Kee took a break from her work to perch with Reeka and share the food. She was accustomed to forgetting to eat while solving a problem on watch, but she never went hungry. Reeka, whoever she was, seemed to know what to eat and where to go to get it in this place. She sat mostly in silence while Kee talked, more to herself, recounting her journey on the Aerie, the crew, and her fall from the hull. Some words drew Reeka’s attention more than others. She would interject and substitute a piece of her own language for something Kee said. They tried as much as possible to use gestures, but Kee was sure most of it didn’t make it through. Not until she described the bog beasts by splashing around and making chomping motions with her hands. Reeka locked onto that.
“Tarkzu,” she repeated a few times, making the same chomping jaws with her fingers, occasionally scanning the visible edges of the Underwood as if the creatures could be around any tree.
Their exchange continued for over an hour. Reeka seemed to be a good friend, or at least neutral to the whole situation. She must not have had much else to do around here because she continued to watch Kee’s every move with intense interest. As nice as it was to have someone to talk with, it was time to get back to the task at hand. That being figuring out what to do when the Tarkzu came back. She fished a few tools between the girders and unbolted the telegraph from the side of the car. A hand-held deterrent would be ideal, especially if the car were naked on the ground.
Reeka seemed to enjoy the ringing bell thoroughly and egged Kee on to repeat it several times. After the novelty wore off, Kee revisited the tupelos. She wasn’t much of a climber. She couldn’t remember clawing her way up a tree since her fledgling days, and the trees back home were perfect for climbing. They had lots of low-hanging branches and hollows to reach for. These gum trees were trickier: tall and wide, and all the branches were up in the canopy. It’d be great if Reeka could fly a cable up there and secure it to help Kee get her basket up high, but that was obviously beyond their level of communication.
Several hours passed with Kee trying to find various ways to wrap a cable around a tree and shuffle her way up it. It wasn’t as straightforward as it ought to be. The only conclusion she drew was that climbing sucked and nobody should have to do it, ever. Her thoughts wandered back to the captain who hadn’t flown for years. How did he do it? The Aerie seemed a lot more appealing, considering he’d never be able to take to the wing again.
A small, click, click sound emitted from Reeka’s hands. She had been examining every object in Kee’s toolbox with great curiosity, her crest bobbing this way and that as she studied their apparent functions. Now she was playing with a flint striker stuffed between the welding masks, apparently trying to get it to catch on one of the little dried logs Kee saved from the first food raft. Surprisingly, it actually caught quickly.
Reeka set it gently afloat on the surface of the bayou. As it rolled and burned, Reeka watched it earnestly. The smoke played tricks on Kee’s eyes, apparently shimmering and pooling above the roots.
Wait a second—what? Kee dropped the cable she was futzing with and waded over to Reeka’s log. Reeka looked up and grinned at the edges of her gape, her eyes bright with glee. Her eyes weren’t playing tricks; the smoke really was collecting. As the smoke rose from the root, it pooled and reformed into a tinted bubble. It had a gray, wispy, smoky quality to it, but unlike smoke, which dissolved, it stuck together and stayed buoyant. More bubbles started to lift from the stick and join the steadily growing mass hovering a foot above the water.
Kee’s beak hung open, mesmerized by the effect. It was Vork! Here, of all places, Reeka created Vork!
Vork were a relatively poorly understood phenomenon in the world of the Wingfolk. Kee wasn’t a Vork expert. She didn’t know where they came from or how they formed—she had only the most basic experience with their composition, but spent more time dodging them on the wing than anything else. But here, she was watching Smoke Vork form before her very eyes, and all it took was burning the wood from a gum tree.
Reeka took the now sizable Vork and spun it around in the air like a ball, pushing it over to Kee like she was initiating a game. The misty globe floated through the air toward Kee and stopped short when it encountered too much wind resistance. Kee took it in her hands and tested it. The surface tension held it together, giving it a sense of consistency. It was not hot to the touch, although the smoke within continued to swirl like it was from a fresh campfire. Little bubbles of Vork continued to pool above the log; every small contribution caused the bigger mass above it to gain altitude. Reeka grabbed it and sent it sailing over to Kee. Sailing just like the Aerie. She felt a bolt go through her mind. “Vork! Lifting Vork! Reeka, you’re a genius!” She bounced the ball back to Reeka, who blew air out of her beak, sending it soaring over her head.
“Reeka, can you get more of these? We need more, tons more!” Kee held up the splint on her wing and pointed to the smoldering pyre. Reeka seemed to understand, nodding and clicking the striker a couple more times. Kee waved her hands around in the air. “Awesome, yes! We’re gonna have a big fire, Reeka!”
Reeka chortled and shook her head, apparently amused by Kee’s excitement. But she dutifully extended her wings, beat them a few times, and leapt into the air. She soared out of sight, dodging gum trees with an impressive amount of skill. Kee reached through the engine car and removed the rigger’s kit, unraveling it to find thick thread and sharp needles. She unrolled her pile of silvery canvas and busied herself patching and reshaping it. She didn’t know how long it would take Reeka to come back with enough wood, but she wanted to have something ready for when she did. She needed to. Mist was already rolling in.
The murky light of the Underwood was waning. Kee engineered what she felt was a craft capable of carrying her up through the canopy and roughly where she guessed the Aerie was headed. Confidence was lacking, but it was better than nothing. The basket of thin aluminum girders was light enough, Kee assumed, that she would take up most of the weight. Cables and vines tethered it to her makeshift canvas envelope, which was essentially a large umbrella designed to collect the lifting Vork. Reeka brought surprisingly bountiful hauls of deadfall from only sky knows where. Her trips away from Kee became shorter and shorter as the night and mist crept in. They had built a good bonfire below Kee’s envelope. The Vork percolated from the smoky gumwood and gathered into the envelope, which began to tense on its restraints. The basket was fastened to the ground by a string of pistons, connecting rods, and other heavy components. It must already support more than its own weight. Just a little more and it’ll carry me too. I hope.
To pay for Reeka’s time and firewood, Kee offered her the whole of the toolbox, which she greedily accepted and continued admiring. She was busy with the socket set while Kee fanned the flames of the bonfire with her good wing. Soon she’d fly again. Very soon.
Splash.
It was definitely a splash. Isolated but unmistakable. Kee stopped wafting the flames and listened. Reeka’s yellow eyes were fixed on the wet path zig-zagging through the trees away from the car. More lapping, watery sounds followed. And another splash. Shit. Reeka dropped the tools and thumped her wings, the beats taking her airborne in a split second. Kee looked up and already saw her tail feathers in a high tree branch, not twenty feet to the side of the engine car. Great, thanks! Kee couldn’t stay mad; she knew she’d be up there too if the roles were reversed. Time to get a move on.
Splash.
Kee’s nape stuck up. She trudged through the tepid water to grab her telegraph deterrent from the engine car and yanked the lever twice. The shrill ringing sounded out and echoed off a few of the trees. She listened with bated breath. Nothing disturbed the water. Kee counted off the seconds, the crackling of the fire the only disturbance in the cool, misty hush.
Splash.
And then another, off to the distance on the right. The floppy paddling and lunging continued. More water was displaced by the wet smacking, further to the left. And another. Kee rang the bell incessantly, not bothering with listening. She needed time. Vork continued to glob together from the fire’s smoke, filling her envelope further. She continued chiming the bell, its tone resounding off the trees. High up, she saw Reeka looking wide-eyed at Kee. And then, a shriek from where she roosted; Reeka was shouting down and pointing to Kee’s flank. The water erupted as gargantuan jaws snarled and opened wide to seize Kee. She beat the purplish feathers on its head with the telegraph, every strike sounding off another ti-ting. “Get away from me!” she howled. She kicked at its black scales with her claws, its six stubby legs struggling to push its flat, flabby body closer to its prey. Kee bumped into the car, tools sliding off the roof and plunking into the water. She reached down and grabbed a pipe wrench, cleaving into the beast’s head with jaws of her own. It went limp. Was it dead? Maybe just stunned.
Splash. Splash.
“Alright, time to get the hell out of here.” Kee untied the tethers at the base of the basket. Each one cast off with a thump, the basket rising and straining ever more as its earthen grasp gave way. Up above, Reeka shrieked again. Another Tarkzu attempted to leap over the flames but fell short, searing its chin on the bonfire and shooting steam out of its nostrils before recoiling in pain.
Splash. Splash.
They were everywhere. Her beak hung open, hyperventilating. She swore her heart was beating out of her chest. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as her shaking hands fumbled with the tethers. “Come on, come on!”
Splash. Splash.
The fire. She grabbed one of the few good burning logs and wielded it like a brand, touching it to the remaining ties. The basket jolted as the ties thumped and smoldered away. Kee jumped on, hissing as she bumped her injured wrist into the envelope above.
Splash. Splash. Splash.
The last of the tethers burned off. All that was left was the steel cable, bundled up and bolted to the engine car. Kee attacked the bolts on the basket with her pipe wrench. It slipped, rounding off one of the bolts.
She was sloppy, panicking. LET. GO. WHY WON’T YOU LET GO?
Another pair of black jaws exploded from the water inches from her face, latching onto the side of the basket. Kee screamed as the leviathan gnawed on the aluminum girders, twisting them like sinewy bones. The cable wrapped around its glistening white, razor-sharp teeth and started to fray. Kee assaulted its head with the pipe wrench, but it wouldn’t budge. Finally, the cable snapped, twanging away and ripping open a red gash in the monster’s mouth. Still, it held firm.
Kee’s arm was tired from swinging the wrench. She didn’t have much left to give. Her eyes were wide with fear, her muscles aching, her beak lulling open and panting with exertion. Her chest was pounding with respiration. This wasn’t a problem solved with tools. When you have nothing left to give, some problems just chew you up and spit you out.
The Tarkzu’s beady black eyes rolled around and blinked as it shredded away at Kee’s basket. She drew everything she had left into both arms: one last swing. The wrench met its mark right between the beast’s eyes, which crossed as its skull caved in. Its jaws jerked open and withered as the creature slumped into the muddied water.
As soon as she was free, Kee’s craft began to rise. Inch by inch, she felt herself leave the sky-forsaken surface of the Underwood. She watched the seething bog quickly engulf and snuff out the bonfire. A few blobs of smoky Vork drifted off as the steam mixed with the mist.
Kee’s vessel accelerated as it climbed uninterrupted toward the canopy. She held fast to the lines to stabilize herself, grasping the basket with her feet as it swung in the air. Moonlight poured in through the shredded hole above. Kee wafted her good wing through the air, propelling herself and lining up her balloon with the egress. She swore she could taste fresh air and even a cool breeze dripping down through the hole.
The canvas ruffled slightly as it bumped against a branch, deforming and squishing back into shape. At long last, the branches thinned out, and a whistling breeze rocked the highest foliage and Kee’s envelope. The cool air washed through her dingy plumage, setting her heart a-flutter. Feels so right. The whole sky was a deep indigo, and long, flat clouds slid softly across the expanse as the moon shone in a bright, full white glow.
Kee got her bearings and rearranged herself on the basket. She stuck her good wing out and gave it a buzz. After a few seconds, she had some forward momentum. It wasn’t as fast as winging it, but it was still flying, and that was good enough. She breathed a sigh, not just of relief, but of satisfaction.
She was the second Wingfolk she knew who flew without wings.
Alongside Kee’s airship, a blue and off-white figure beat her wings. The breeze ruffled Reeka’s crest. She was struggling slightly to gain more altitude, but easily kept up with the slow headway Kee was making. She turned her head and smiled, waving. “We did it, Reeka, we made it!”
Reeka paid little attention to Kee’s gesture, but wore a wide grin on her face the whole time. Her head was twitching this way and that, taking in everything the sky above her home had to offer. “You know, a part of me never thought I’d make it out of there. I didn’t realize that you may never have left either.” A small gust shook the basket, and Reeka struggled to maintain a clean flight line. “Try this,” Kee said, lifting her arms up and stabilizing them like she would her wings if she were soaring. Reeka studied Kee and seemed to get the message. She straightened out, and her flapping became less frantic.
Kee settled in and tried to get comfortable holding the lines and slowly wafting her wings. It was going to be a long night.
The sunrise emitted a beam of orange and pinkish hues that carved out a semicircle in the endless indigo over the Underwood. Kee’s eyelids drooped. It was a struggle to keep them open, especially as the warm sun began to shimmer into her pupils, almost lulling her into nodding off and enjoying the rays and the breeze.
Twice during the night, she had almost fallen asleep—Reeka would perch on the back of their little airship, beating her wings to help propel them so Kee could have a break. Eventually, they’d lose enough altitude that they were forced to hop off and let Kee rise again. The whole while the endless rolling canopies of the Underwood swept by beneath them. It felt good to be above the foliage again. Kee wondered at the vast expanse and how many miles of treacherous swamp lay beneath the tupelos. How much longer can I keep this up? What if I have to live in these woods forever, after all? Her chest tightened.
She twisted her neck to check up on her companion. Reeka’s wingbeats were starting to get languid. She’d been flying through the night, and clearly much longer than she was used to being airborne. Maybe there would be a village that Reeka could show her. She could heal up there. And then what? Spend the rest of my days dodging shitty Tarkzu? She wasn’t ready to give up yet. Like her compulsion to join the crew of the Aerie, her need to return to it coursed through every hollow bone in her body. It was like breathing or flying. Automatic, she just had to do it.
An occasional glint in the green sea of canopies jolted Kee out of her ruminations for a brief spell. The sunlight bounced off some geometric surfaces like a faceted mirror. Kee course corrected, pointing herself right at it. Her gut stirred as she stared transfixed at the glimmer of hope. As the sun rose higher, the glinting became increasingly frequent. She swelled. It was like a strobe light, signaling and beckoning Kee. Her wing buzzed harder, her eagerness driving her forward. It has to be there. Falling out of the sky, fighting for her life, and building a way to fly again, it was just another mountain to soar over. She needed it to be there. Her affinity for tinkering, for the Aerie, and for her crew’s way of life were a part of her. They were innate, her whole reason for living. She knew then and there that there was no chance she’d fight it out in these woods.
Like the captain, she’d be glued to the Aerie come what may. She was sure, like him, she could find a way to bear not flying again if she had to. But to be completely grounded, to watch the ship sail away forever… she was sure she couldn’t survive that. The thought of being away from home, spending another night out of her hammock, surrounded by tools, parts, and machinery, was unbearable.
The sun continued to rise all the while the duo’s journey went on toward the glimmer, hoping for an end to their plight. Closing the distance between themselves and the twinkling afforded them more detail of the subject. Kee’s eyes were glued to the glinting. They strained, squinting to make out lines, shapes, anything worthwhile in the brightness. The shine gave way to a spot of silver. A rounded shape, a quartet of raked tail fins. Straightaway, her vision focused, and everything became clear. An argent, beached whale slumped atop rolling green dunes. Kee’s heart leapt, and she blinked tears from her eyes. The corners of her gape lifted into a grin. She picked up her pace. With every wing stroke bringing her closer, she took in the beautiful sight. Home.
“This is it, Reeka, this is it! We made it!” Kee let out a whoop.
Reeka beamed at Kee and shouted something Kee couldn’t make out, but was certain was celebratory. She looked to be transfixed by the Aerie. Kee wondered whether that’s what she looked like when she first perched on the sill in the hangar and drank in the massive craft; the wonder and adventure it foretold beckoning her to come aboard. Everything was in focus now. Despite the damage, the ship still took Kee’s breath away. The nose pointed a little skyward of equilibrium, as if looking toward the blue yonder for help to extricate her from terrestrial ties. Where there once was an engine car, there were now exposed, twisted aluminum girders. Several cables hung down outside the hull, free from their restraints. A gas cell was exposed to the harsh sun and moisture of the sky above the Underwood. Hastily applied patches bandaged over cuts to its delicate surface, where the cables once secured it. A handful of wings flapped their way around the cover. They’re stranded too! Gas must have leaked from the cell when the cables snapped. The ship had no capacity to lift itself, no way to fly. No way to find me, she gulped.
A rush of wind shook Kee’s basket. Not home yet. Her biceps strained as she gripped the ropes and ruddered her wing to maintain her current course. She gingerly spread her bad wing a little to let the air rush through her primaries. It wasn’t quite flying, but it felt so good. She dismissed the possibility she could still be trapped here. It didn’t matter where the Aerie was or what shape she was in; she just felt right.
Kee started calling out. She emptied her lungs of air, trilling and calling until her throat was sore. Reeka joined in, waving her hands and scrying.
They watched the wings and talons flitting around the Aerie, dropping what they were doing and taking to the air. They started swarming, beating their wings to gain altitude and heading directly for Kee. The menagerie of bright plumage swept through the air in formation.
Kee allowed her wing a rest and just drifted. Soon she made out beaks, eyes, downy cheeks, and entire faces. She started pointing them out to Reeka. “That’s Eudo!” Her chest was swelling with glee. “And Qreel is next to him there. And that’s Sriharc, they’re both Talons. And there’s Halihk, he’ll bite your head off like a Tarkzu if you’re not careful.” Reeka tilted her head at that.
The gap between her friends and crew tightened, and she could finally hear the litany of cawing and shrieks of delight. Eudo went on and on in between wafting wing flaps, “Kee, you’re alive! We thought we lost you—didn’t know where you were—but you’re really alive!”
“Nuts, Sylph, only you could bring a whole engine gondola to the ground with yourself in it!” Halihk sounded exasperated and not a little bit sarcastic to Kee’s ear. He gave a wry smile at Kee all the same.
Qreel and Sriharc grabbed hold of the tethers to her gondola, jostling it slightly but holding fast to Kee’s arms. Sriharc interjected between Eudo’s unabashed zeal and Halihk’s taunting. “Good to have you back Sylph. It looks like you’ve had quite the journey.”
In his trademark raspy voice, Qreel begged this be the last time he had to carry Kee back to the ship. Kee wanted to sass him but was too drained of energy to care. She didn’t want to dig up her big flight on the first voyage. Instead, she did introductions while the crew beat the air around her craft, “This here’s Reeka. She honestly saved my life. She’s a good friend. Reeka, these are friends.”
Reeka announced something Kee didn’t understand. She was going to try mimicry or signing before Halihk spoke up. “Chu’rec debok?”
Surprise swept over Reeka’s face. She quickly replied, “Debok, trejartu!” She went on and on in her own language while Halihk nodded and shook his head.
How in the sky? Kee was floored. “You can speak her language? What are you guys talking about?!”
“No, I can’t speak it. At least not fluently. She speaks a similar dialect to one I have studied; some of the tribes outside the Underwood use it. What, Sylph, you think I spend literally every day up to my armpits in grease like you?” He gestured at the state of her plumage.
Kee chuckled. “You’re wet shit Halihk, you know that?”
He just smiled and said, “Yeah, you too, Sylph. Not like we could leave without you, though, on account of the Aerie bein’ heavy and all.”
“I know you couldn’t leave without me fixing all your problems, Halihk. Check out the Vork in this thing—you get a big bonfire going and you’ll get plenty to get the Aerie up again.”
Sriharc and Qreel helped Kee out of her basket and held onto her so tightly she thought her arms were losing circulation. They carried her down the rest of the distance to the control gondola while Halihk towed away her craft. The bulkhead was open, and the boarding ramp was down, resting on the foliage. A handful of thick lines held the Aerie to the canopy.
Inside the gondola, a stack of charts was piled up at the navigation desks. The fresh maps of the Underwood were splattered with arrows, circles, and big cordoned-off sections of the Aerie’s flight path with the names of crew alongside them. They did send out search parties. Dozens of them. The captain was there to greet Kee immediately and welcome her back aboard. His mud-colored feathers grayed at the tips, and his right wing sat lower and limper than the other. His eyes were piercing yellow, but exuded a calmness that put Kee at ease. “Kee Sylph, Soaring Mechanist reporting for duty, Captain.” She straightened up and tipped her good wing awkwardly in salute.
He gently raised his hand and then lowered it, giving the sensation that there was no need for studiousness or ceremony. He spoke in a gravely voice, “Good to have you back in one piece, Mechanist Sylph. Long have we searched for your whereabouts and turned up nothing.” He donned a grave look, “We were starting to fear the worst with no sign of you after the first night. I wish only that I personally could have seen to your rescue.” He blinked and glanced out the window at her craft being towed in as he continued, “But, I see that there’s no situation that doesn’t present itself as an opportunity for you to exercise your skills. Once again, that was some fine flying miss.” He saluted her and bowed his head.
Kee ballooned with pride. “Thank you, Captain. I couldn’t have done it without Reeka here. She’s native to these parts and got me out of a tight spot.”
The captain bowed to Reeka, maintaining eye contact as he did so. Reeka, who Kee almost missed entering the gondola, looked decidedly out of place. Her crest waved to and fro as she glanced from Kee to the gondola’s instruments, and the other crew around her. She finally noticed the captain and awkwardly returned his bow.
“Captain, the Underwood is going to get the Aerie out of here. I recognize we’re low on lifting gas, but there’s a source for Vork here. You burn the gum trees and—” Kee stammered halfway through her explanation and suddenly felt dizzy.
“Easy, Kee,” the captain softened. “I believe you’re in need of medical attention. Officer Qreel will escort you to sick bay. Let’s have you looked at before we do anything else.”
“Aye, captain, that’d be… nice.”
Qreel helped Kee up the ladder and through the catwalk of the ship. The monstrous cells and aluminum girders were familiar, comfortable, and somehow inviting. Kee felt the urge to build, fix, and solve problems give way to the need for rest and recharging. She eased into a hammock in sick bay. Wooden shelves were stocked with bandages, ointments, and basic dressing materials. While her wing was being tended, not seconds after Qreel left, the door burst open again, and Eudo and Krarr stumbled over each other into the room. Krarr’s ear tufts were back, and the great yellow globes of his eyes ran with tears.
“Kee! I’m so sorry, Kee, it was all my fault—I broke things and then you fell, and I tried finding you…”
“Krarr, easy Krarr,” Kee tried to interject, but it was no use.
Krarr blubbered on, “…but the ship was going to crash, so I had to go help, and then we couldn’t find where you—and we tried going under the canopy and there were these, things… Oh Kee, it must have been horrible—” he continued to shudder and sob.
Eudo put a hand over Krarr’s beak and shushed him while patting his shoulder. “Krarr, hey, Kee’s okay. She’s here now. I think she just needs some rest. Right, Kee?”
“Er, yeah Krarr I’m okay. You know, you didn’t do anything wrong. You did a lot of good. Means a lot to me that you came looking.
Eudo took his chance to get a word in and spouted a rapid collection of excited topics that didn’t really join together right; his lanky neck twisted this way and that with every phrase. “You really did a number on that engine car, Kee. Looks like it fought back all the way down. You gotta tell me all about it, and that airship you made, I mean, how’d you come up with that? It was so cool seeing you flyin’ in like that! We've been patching the gas cells but have nothing to fill them with, so—”
Kee raised both her hands to pipe down the overexcited boys. “Look, fellas, I think I just need some shuteye here for a while. When I’m back on my feet, I’ll tell ya all about it, but ’til then you’ll have to go find Reeka and get the scoop from her.”
Krarr’s blubbering diminished, “Reeka, who’s Reeka? You mean you met someone down there?”
The two squeezed together on their way out of the room, Krarr still sporadically sobbing and Eudo trying to push past him to find the Underwood dweller. They slammed the door shut and clanked down the hallway.
Kee rolled over and lay on her stomach, taking in the smell of the old cloth. An initial assessment revealed her wing wrist was indeed broken. It would take weeks for it to heal. She got something to help bring the inflammation and pain down, but the one real order was bed rest. She took a deep, deep breath of relief when the doc answered her careful probing questions and said, “Of course you’ll fly again.”
Kee glided over clear, teal water while warm currents held her aloft. Occasionally, a gust of wind carried cool spray from the lake’s surface up to her primaries. She let her legs hang down and drag in the water, enjoying its cool contrast with the basking sun on her back. Her iridescent green feathers shimmered and sparkled off the surface of the water. The hiss of a starter and the roar of an engine seemed to belch out of the lake at her.
She catapulted back from her dream into the sick bay. “The engines, they’re running! We’re airborne again!” She rolled over and sat up, yearning for a look. She flinched when she first noticed the black figure perched near the doorway. Chief Llyr blinked and yawned. “Forgive me, came to talk to you and saw you were asleep, so I just rested my eyes for a bit.”
Kee’s energy surged, but only briefly. “We’re on the move again, already? Don’t you need my—”
He cut her off before she could clamber out of the hammock, “Easy, Kee, you’ve already done more than I could have asked of you. Halihk managed to work out your discovery with Reeka. Cell number seven is full of your Smokey Vork now. Actually, I think it works better than the off-worlder gas. Besides, we don’t need as many crew to tend the engine cars, seeing as we’re down an engine permanently.”
“Well, I can’t fly for a while, but I can still help.”
Llyr snickered, “You really have no quit, do you, Kee?”
She didn’t—she knew that, and he knew that. She was a relentless learner, a doer, a fixer. There would be no sitting around on her tail feathers while others had all the fun.
Llyr continued, “You’re going to need to rest up at least a few more days for me before you go back on duty. This time, as a highly skilled mechanist of terrific intellect once told me, you don’t get to choose.” He grinned.
“Yeah, not my brightest moment with the telegraph either. I’m sorry I ignored you; I just felt like I owed it to the crew to do everything I could to help them first. To get you two out of the car, tell the Talons what’s going on. I thought I could do it all.” Her shoulders wilted a little.
“None of us can do it all, Kee, that’s why we do it together. You and Eudo, for example. Or Krarr. Or even Reeka. You and Halihk could accomplish a lot, too.”
She turned her beak up and squinted at Llyr. “Eh, you were on a roll there, and then you lost me.”
He put his hands up in mock defense. “Hey, don’t look at me, it was Halihk who first started organizing the search parties. He made the first moves to get you back here safely.”
Well, shit. She’d owe him for that. “Guess I can learn to work with him on some level then.”
Llyr nodded and gave a thumbs-up. He stood up from the perch and stretched his wings. “You know, Sylph, you’ll make a great chief someday. You put the crew first, and you’re good at solving problems. You figure out how to get Halihk to play nice and you’ll be a better chief than me, that’s for sure.” He turned toward the door.
“Hey, chief, I got something to ask you.”
He slid open the canvas door and turned back. “Yeah? Shoot.”
“Why do you do it? The Aerie, the engineering. What’s the goal of it all? Why do we bother with this stuff when we can already fly?”
Llyr looked stumped. He concentrated for a couple of seconds, brushing his hand under his beak. Finally, he spoke: “You know, Kee, I don’t really know. It just feels like I got to. Now get some rest, we’ll talk more tomorrow.” He slid the door shut, and his footsteps clanked away down the catwalk and melded with the droning thrum of the engines.
She shook her head at Llyr’s answer. Maybe she didn’t need to have a reason either. Maybe she’d find it as she went along, or make one up if she thought she needed one. She slid down in the hammock and rolled back onto her stomach, resting her head on her hands.
Then again, maybe being driven is reason enough to do something. Maybe you don’t climb into an engine car to be an engineer; perhaps you do it because you’re built to do it. Perhaps it really is like flying; when you don’t know anything else, everything just falls into place. It’s more than a passion; it’s realizing when it’s missing that you never could have lived without it.
She closed her eyes. To any onlookers, the hammock appeared at first glance like a burlap sack full of iridescent green feathers, tarnished slightly by traces of mud and grease. The hum of the engines was still short one member of the quartet, but it didn’t stir or rouse the bundle. Kee drifted back into dreams where she could soar and float to her heart’s content, confident and sure that if her wings couldn’t carry her, the Aerie would.