Not so bad. Must hurt like the dickens, though. I need to wash it and wrap it up.
We only have-
Hold it up, above your shoulder. Itll bleed slower and hurt less that way, she urged, and dived back into the bag. Seconds later, she retrieved a heavy glass bottle filled with a viscous clear liquid that glimmered in the moonlight and the feeble glow from the lanterns outside.
He said, Were going down. Were really going down.
He was looking out the window beside her head. She could see it, too-the way the clouds were spilling past. She tried to ignore them, and to ignore the throat-catching drop of the craft.
Dont look out there. Look at me, she commanded. Meeting his eyes she saw his fear, and his pain, and the way he was so pallid from the injury or the stress of acquiring it. But she held his eyes anyway, until she had to take his hand and swab it off with a dampened bandage.
The Zephyr was not falling, exactly. But Mercy could not in good conscience say that it was landing either. Her stomach was up in her mouth, nearly in her ears, she thought; and her ears were popping every time she swallowed. If she didnt concentrate on something else, shed start screaming, so she focused on the bleeding, burned hand as she cleaned it, then propped Ernies elbow on the headrest to keep it upright while she fumbled for dry bandages.
The old man leaned forward and threw up on the floor. His wife patted at his back, then felt around for any bags or rags to contain or clean it. Finding none, and lacking anything better to do, she returned to the back-patting. Mercy couldnt help them, so she stayed with Ernie, wrapping his still-bleeding hand and doing it swiftly, as if shed been mummifying hands for her whole life. She did it like the world was ending at any minute, because for all she knew, it might be.
But things could be worse. No one was shooting at them.
She told Ernie, Hold it above your heart and it wont throb so bad. Did I tell you that already?
Yes maam.
Well, keep doing it. She gasped then as the ship gave a lurch and a heave as if its own stomach were sinking and rising. The captain told everyone to Hang on to something! but there was no something handy except for the seat.
Ernie went for chivalry, flinging his right arm over Mercys shoulder and pulling her under his chest; she ducked there, and wrapped her left arm around his waist. She closed her eyes so she couldnt see the ground rearing up out the window, not even out of her peripheral vision.
The next phase was not as sudden as shed expected. It sneaked up on her, taking her breath away as the Zephyr sliced through treetops that dragged it to a slower pace, then snagged it and pulled it down to the ground with a horrible rending of metal and rivets.
The ship sagged, and dipped, and bounced softly. No one inside it moved.
Is it-? asked the old woman whose name Mercy still didnt know. Are we-?
No! barked the captain. Wait! A little-
Mercy thought he mightve been about to say farther, because something snapped, and the craft dropped about fifteen feet to land on the ground like a stone.
Though it jarred, and made Mercy bite her tongue and somehow twist her elbow funny, the finality of the settled craft was a relief-if only for a minute. The ships angle was all wrong, having landed on its belly without a tethering distance. From this position, they lacked the standard means of opening the ship to let them all go free. A moment of claustrophobic horror nearly brought tears to Mercys eyes.
Then she heard the voices outside, calling and knocking; and the voices rode with accents that came from close to home.
Someone was beating against the hull, and asking, Is everybody all right in there? Hey, can anybody hear me?
The captain shouted back, Yes! I can hear you! And I think everyone is . . . He unstrapped himself from his seat-the only seats with straps were in the cockpit-and looked around the cabin. I think everyone is all right.
This a civvy ship? asked another voice.
Says so right on the bottom. Didnt you see it coming down?
No, I didnt. And I cant read, nohow.
Their banal chatter cheered Mercy greatly, purely because it sounded normal-like normal conversation that normal people might have following an accident. It took her a few seconds to realize that she could hear gunfire in the not-very-distant distance.
She disentangled herself from Ernie, who was panting as if hed run all the way from the clouds to the ground. She nudged him aside and half stepped, half toppled out of her seat, bringing her bags with her. The crewman came behind, joining the rest of the passengers who were trying to stand in the canted aisle.
Theres an access port, on top! the captain said to his windshield.
Thats when Mercy saw the man they were speaking to outside, holding a lantern and squinting to see inside. He was blond under his smushed gray hat, and his face was covered either in shadows or gunpowder. He tapped one finger against the windshield and said, Tell me where it is.