Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

Author:Kenneth Oppel [Oppel, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Technology & Engineering, Animals, Pirates, Action & Adventure, SteamPunk, Juvenile Fiction, Science & Technology, Fantasy & Magic, General, Fantasy, Airships, Inventions, Fiction, Salvage, Imaginary creatures, Mythical
ISBN: 9780060532291
Publisher: Eos
Published: 2007-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Next morning Hal posted extra lookouts. He wanted no chance of the Hyperion slipping by undetected now that we were nearing our rendezvous mark. In the control car, Hal and Dorje scanned the skies directly ahead. Kami, who was walking again, though slowly, was stationed on the starboard side of the bridge; I was on the port. You could not have asked for more favorable weather. The sky was completely clear. From our altitude of twenty thousand feet, you could see all the way to the white shores of Antarctica.

It was a great relief to me that there was no sign of Rath’s ship. Hal’s ploy had obviously worked, and they were likely hundreds of miles off course by now.

But there was no sign of the Hyperion either.

As each minute ticked by, the tension in the control car coiled more tightly. With increasing regularity, Hal would seize the speaking tube and demand a report from Ang Jeta in the crow’s nest.

“Nothing fore or aft,” came the reply once more.

Two hours after we’d overshot the mark, Hal turned to me and said, “Cruse, those coordinates you gave us, you’re sure of them?”

“I wouldn’t forget those numbers.”

“You’ve been having trouble with your numbers at school though, eh?”

“That’s different,” I said indignantly.

“Then where the hell’s our ship?”

Hal let his eyes rest on me longer than was pleasant, but I held his gaze, refusing to be rebuked.

“My calculations may be at fault,” Dorje said quietly.

“Dorje, you’ve never been wrong in your life,” said Hal.

“I want to check again. Hold our course for now.”

Dorje went back to the navigation room, and I heard the sound of his ingenious charts being taken out and unfurled on the table.

“Someone may have beat us to it,” Jangbu said from the wheel.

Hal scoffed. “There’s only a couple ships in the world that could make these heights. Before we left, I checked up on the locations of all the other skybreakers. They’re all tied up on long-haul jobs. They can’t be seeking the Hyperion as well.”

I looked at Hal. “I thought you said yours was the only ship that could work so high.”

“A bit of an exaggeration. There are several.”

“How many?”

“Maybe a dozen. Probably more. But they don’t have the coordinates, do they? Those sensationally accurate coordinates of yours.”

Hal kept us on watch long into the afternoon. When finally Dorje emerged from the chart room, we all turned expectantly.

“I didn’t account properly for our proximity to Antarctica,” he said. “The cold air slides off the mountains there like an avalanche. No ship without power could cut those headwinds. The Hyperion will have changed her course. Bring us about east northeast. We will find her yet.”

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