Lincoln's Wizard by Tracy Hickman, Dan Willis

hold on the rope with his left hand. His right closed around the bottom of the net and he hung there with his legs flailing in the strong wind, unable to get purchase anywhere.
    Below, the men shouted at him but he couldn’t make out the words. He wanted to tell them to be silent as their voices might carry to men on the ground, but there wasn’t time for that.
    Fear rose like bile in his throat, but he was an engineer, he understood about diverting forces. He welcomed his dread, letting it fill his body with adrenalin. When he could hear the pounding of his own heart in his ears, he released the rope and flung out his left hand, grabbing the net. He hung there for a long moment, shocked that he’d done such a thing and amazed that it worked, and then began pulling himself up the interwoven ropes like a ladder. When he reached the top, he could hear gas escaping from the bag and feel the bag beginning to lose some of its shape.
    “Sergeant!” he yelled over the rushing of the wind.
    “I’ve got a can of pitch,” Sergeant Young replied from below. “Davis is tying a line on it and we’ll throw it up to you.”
    Braxton managed to move into a sitting position astride the gasbag. He found the release cord and followed it to where a brass valve had been sewn into the bag. He couldn’t see the mechanism but he could feel the gas being pushed out through the hole. He needed to slow it down until Davis could pass up the pitch.
    Taking off his coat, Braxton balled it up and forced it down on top of the brass fitting. The bag gave way a bit beneath him and he couldn’t keep a tight seal.
    “Incoming!”
    Braxton looked up in time to see a dark shape on the end of a line come hurtling up at him. He lunged back to avoid being hit in the head, and the heavy can of pitch slammed down onto the back of his hands with a dull thud. With a cry of pain, he jerked his hands back and his coat whipped away and over the side, caught by the rushing wind.
    Despite his pain and his loss, Braxton lunged for the can and caught it as it began to roll down the far side of the gasbag. It was tied tightly in Davis’ rope and his hands were too numb from the climb to untie the knot. Cursing, he pulled his knife from its sheath at his waist and simply cut the little can free. Using the tip of the blade, he pried the lid off and stuck it to the top of the gasbag before sheathing his knife.
    Working quickly, he scooped out a blob of the sticky black stuff and smeared it inside the valve. The flow of gas slowed, but didn’t stop altogether. He’d need something to plug it. He turned to call down to Davis, but a gust of wind hit the lifeboat and it lurched beneath him. Braxton grabbed onto the net and tried to hold himself steady as the partially deflated gas bag twisted and bucked beneath him. The little can of pitch went spinning into the darkness after his coat.
    Braxton swore again. He was beginning to get good at it.
    “You alive up there, sir?” Sergeant Young called from below.
    “Yes,” Braxton called back. “Almost done.”
    Think , he admonished himself. There had to be something he could do. A thick blob of pitch still clung to the valve; he just needed something to seal it up with.
    He pushed himself back up to a sitting position, leaving a long, dark stain where his arm had been. Braxton held up his arm quickly, fearing the can had cut him during its unscheduled egress. All he found, however, was a trail of pitch running from his elbow to his wrist.
    He jerked his knife from its sheath and, working as carefully as he could, cut the sleeve from his shirt. Rolling it into a sticky wad, he jammed it into the brass valve. Turning it back and forth, he wedged the fabric plug in place then lowered his ear to the hole.
    He couldn’t be sure over the wind, but he didn’t think he could hear the gas any more.
    He let out the breath he’d been holding and sank down onto the gas bag. After what seemed like a quarter of an hour, he swung