Open, Charlie

Chapter Five ~ Cables

They did have shorthand and filing lessons the first day and the next days too. There wasn't much else to do during the trip. The monotony of flying only broke a few times, when the dirigible landed and then took off again. Only the passengers who had tickets for that particular stop were allowed to disembark. The rest had to stay aboard.

The faint swaying of the gondola was lulling, the bunks in the cabins narrow but soft, so many long-distance passengers, like Mary and Charlie, slept late every morning. When they didn't have lessons or sleep, they read or spent time in the games room. Charlie also went outside at least a couple times a day. She would wrap her warmest clothing and Mary's around herself and spend hours listening to the cables' songs. Only the icy wind that always blew across the outer deck would drive her down. The crew got used to her staying at the railing motionless for long stretches. She didn't bother them, and they didn't bother her.

"You're going outside again, Charlie?" Mary closed the book she was reading and stretched on her bunk. Her hands pushed at the upper bunk above her head.

"Come with me, Mary. You've never gone outside. It's so peaceful up there, and everything below is so tiny. All our troubles below are tiny from up here," Charlie said dreamily. She wrapped Mary's woolen pink scarf around her head. "Today is our last day, your last chance. We're due to land in Denver in the afternoon."

"Well." Mary sighed. "Okay. But only for a couple minutes."

"I'd have stayed here forever, if it wasn't so boring. Do they allow women to work as stewards? I saw only men."

"I think only men are allowed to serve aboard, like on sea ships."

"It's so unfair."

"Life is unfair, Charlie. You'd better get used to it." Mary shrugged with practiced fatalism and put on her coat. "Or you'll be constantly disappointed."

"I guess. Wrap your brown shawl around your head, not your hat. The wind would blow the hat off."

Mary snorted but obediently wrapped her warm shawl over her head, tucked the ends into the coat, and climbed after Charlie up the stairs to the outer deck.

The weather was fair, and the land far below lay open for miles in all directions, like a map. Green forests, a thin blue ribbon of a river, a charcoal line of the railroad in the distance, and the mountains zooming in front of them, huge and ragged. No people. No cities. Just wilderness and the endless blue sky.

"Wow!" Mary murmured.

"Isn't it wonderful?"

"Yes," Mary agreed quietly. "I had no idea."

An officer hurried past them, but Charlie didn't spare him a glance. She was used to the crewmen on deck. The majestic vista commanded all her attention, and the low harmonic thrumming of the cables sang in her blood.

No, not today. Today, a dissonance intruded on the cables' celestial melody, as if one of the strings of a violin had sagged. Charlie shook off the trance she had often experienced up here. The cables shouldn't squeak like that.

"Something is wrong, Mary."

"What? What's wrong? You mean all the crewmen? I thought it was normal."

Charlie looked where Mary indicated. Half-way towards the stern, several crewmen talked animatedly beside one of the cable nests. Charlie followed their gazes and pointed fingers upward, and her heart plummeted. One of the cables seemed to be unraveling in the middle, between the gas-filled balloons and the gondola. A few steel filaments already flapped free, creating the strange moaning sound on the edge of human hearing. As she watched, horrified, another filament broke free. The gondola lurched.