SECOND DRAFT: Hard Bank Left

37

Graham guarded the pilotry for the next day and a half, leaving Celeste on sentry duty outside the stairwell door while he stayed in the pilotry with Krys. She didn't seem bothered by his company, which he was relieved for. He didn't consider himself good company, what with how quiet he was. She let him sit in her chair much of the time, while she sat on the floor. He found this to be an unnecessary kindness but didn't complain.

When she spoke he looked her in the eye only to find her looking back. That connection came as a comfort to him, that she felt comfortable enough to look him in the eye.

"We should be getting there soon."

"I never did ask where we were going," Graham asked, both genuinely curious and desperate to keep the conversation going. The silence had eaten at him for the last several hours.

"Well," Krys began, "when we first set up shop, I ordered two of everything plus extra parts. Half the shipments were sent to us, half to an off site mechanic in case of emergencies."

"You had a mechanic aside from me?" Graham would have been appalled if it weren't for the fact that this mechanic was to be their refuge.

Krys pretended to smile. "Yes, aside from you, but he's not mine, he was my mother's."

Graham mulled this over, took in some key details being relayed to him via earpiece. "Are you sure you can trust him? I mean... if he worked for your mother...."

"I trust him with my life. He's never let me down."

The sting of that last phrase wasn't lost on him. She claimed to trust Graham with her life, but how often had he let her down now? How many times had he failed her? Hurt her? The voice in his head followed the same line of thinking, chiming in with: We've let her down too many times to count.

As though reading his mind, Krys touched the back of his hand and whispered, "I didn't mean it like that."

Had she read his mind? Or was it just that he was terrible at keeping his thoughts from his face? She returned her hand to her lap where she set them politely, Graham realized that he was sitting with much the same posture and wondered if he was feeling what he was experiencing: a lack of knowing how to behave or what was acceptable. Again he got the impression that he knew what it felt like to be close to her. Not sure how he felt about that, he let it lie. There would be other times to think of such things.

"I know you didn't," he lied in reply.

"No you didn't," she corrected. "You don't know how I meant it."

"I'm pretty sure you wouldn't say anything to intentionally hurt me," he said, assured of this fact by the voice in his ear. "Anyway, how much longer do we have."

Krys didn't respond in words so much as a glance around her control panel and a vaguely pointing finger. Graham followed her pointing to the horizon where he noticed for the first time in many hours something other than sea, something approaching fast. The mass of land seemed small at first. It didn't really get much bigger as they approached, at least, not until they reached the point where the island became a wall of cliffs and rolling hills and fjords and snow.

Standing, Krys took her place between Graham and the panel, adjusting speed and maneuvering the thrusters to guide the WindSong into a slot between two steep cliff faces. Snow passed below them, a blanket of white as they crept closer toward jagged row of black cliffs in the distance. If it wasn't for a parting cloud and a bright ray of sun, Graham wouldn't have noticed the black hangar door nestled in the cliffs before them. Whomever this mechanic was, he liked his privacy, he wouldn't take kindly to their brilliant red balloon attracting unwanted attention.