Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman

The battered cargo balloon came in out of a rainstorm over the White Sea, losing height rapidly and swaying in the strong northwest wind as the pilot trimmed the vanes and tried to adjust the gas-valve. The pilot was a lean young man with a large hat, a laconic disposition, and a thin mustache, and at present he was making for the Barents Sea Company Depot, whose location was marked on a torn scrap of paper pinned to the binnacle of the gondola. He could see the depot spread out around the little harbor ahead—a cluster of administrative buildings, a hangar, a warehouse, workshops, gas storage tanks, and the associated machinery; it was all approaching fast, and he had to make quick adjustments to everything he could control in order to avoid the hangar roof and make for the open space beyond the warehouse.
    The gas-valve was stuck. It needed a wrench, but the only tool to hand was a dirty old revolver, which the pilot hauled from the holster at his waist and used to bang the valve till it loosened all at once, releasing more gas than he really wanted. The balloon sagged and drooped suddenly, and plunged downwards, scattering a group of men clustered around a broken tractor. The gondola smashed into the hard ground, and bounced and dragged behind the emptying balloon across the open space until it finally came to rest only feet away from a gas storage tank.
    The pilot gingerly untangled his fingers from the rope he'd been holding on to, worked out which way up he was, shifted the toolbox off his legs, wiped the oily water out of his eyes, and hauled himself upright.
    "Well, Hester, looks like we're getting the hang of this," he said. His daemon, who looked like a small sardonic jackrabbit, flicked her ears as she clambered out of the tangle of tools, cold-weather clothing, broken instruments, and rope. Everything was saturated.
    "My feelings are too deep to express, Lee," she said.
    Lee found his hat and emptied the rainwater out of it before settling it on his head. Then he became aware of the audience: the men by the tractor; two workers at the gas plant, one clasping his hands to his head after the near escape; and a shirtsleeved clerk from the administrative building, gaping in the open doorway.
    Lee gave them a cheerful wave and turned back to make the balloon safe. He was proud of this balloon. He'd won it in a poker game six months before, in Texas. He was twenty-four, ready for adventure, and happy to go wherever the winds took him. He'd better be, as Hester reminded him; he wasn't going to go anywhere else.
    Blown by the winds of chance, then, and very slightly aided by the first half of a tattered book called The Elements of Aerial Navigation, which his opponent in the poker game had thrown in free (the second half was missing), he had drifted into the Arctic, stopping wherever he could find work, and eventually landed on this island. Novy Odense looked like a place where there was work to be done, and Lee's pockets were well nigh empty.
    He worked for an hour or two to make everything secure and then, assuming the nonchalance proper to a prince of the air, he sauntered over to the administrative building to pay for the storage of the balloon.
    'You come here for the oil?" said the clerk behind the counter.
    "He came here for flying lessons," said a man sitting by the stove drinking coffee.
    "Oh, yeah," said the clerk. "We saw you land. Impressive."
    "What kind of oil would that be?" said Lee.
    "Ah," said the clerk, winking, "all right, you're kidding. I got it. You heard nothing from me about any oil rush. I could tell you were a roughneck, but I won't say a word. You working for Larsen Manganese?"
    "I'm an aeronaut," said Lee. "That's why I have a balloon. You going to give me a receipt for that?"
    "Here," said the clerk, stamping it and handing it over.
    Lee tucked it into his waistcoat pocket and said, "What's Larsen Manganese?"
    "Big rich mining company. You rich?"
    "Does it look like it?"
    "No."
    "Well, you