On the High Road to Oblivion

Chapter 7—The View from the Top

Findlay Newcombe could not remember ever feeling quite so giddy. While he did not think of himself as being especially staid, he rarely had occasion for the sort of elation he felt now. The last time he had felt anything approaching his present emotional state had been when Dodge provided him with one of the strange devices taken from the Outpost in Antarctica. He hadn’t felt this way about a girl since he was a teenager.

He did not allow himself to dwell on the fact that neither of those earlier instances had ended terribly well.

He was up as soon as the first rays of the rising sun streamed into his stateroom. His quarters were luxurious, far nicer than any apartment he had ever lived in, and he found himself humming cheerily as he performed his morning ablutions and got dressed. As promised, his suit had been expertly mended and cleaned. The only thing that could have possibly made his morning better would have been donning his own glasses. The lenses Fiona Dunn had loaned him didn’t give him the clearest view of the world.

Still, they were better than nothing. And they had come from her. That gave them a certain talismanic property. No, he decided, these glasses are just fine.

“Good morning, Miss Dunn,” he said to the mirror. Too serious. He tried several more times, varying the level of enthusiasm in his voice, affecting humor, even attempting casual indifference, but quickly realized that if he couldn’t make a good impression just being himself, then he had no business trying to woo her.

A knock at the door startled him out of his musings. Was it Fiona? The knock continued insistently, and he hastened to answer. When he threw back the door, his heart sank. It was Lafayette.

The red-haired writer looked exactly as he had the previous day when Newcombe had first been introduced to him, sporting his silk jacket and red ascot. He swept into the room like it was his own.

“Ah, good. You’re finally up.” Newcombe frowned, but Lafayette didn’t give him a chance to respond. “So, what are we going to do about all of this?”

“Do?”

“I don’t mind saying, I’m not happy about this business of going to… Persia, is it?”

“Well, I’ll confess to having some reservations myself. But Mr. Barron did say he’d put you off in Europe, if that’s what you really want.”

“It’s madness,” Lafayette continued. “What do we even know about this place we’re going to? It’s wild country. Armed mobs on horses… warlords.”

“You’ll be quite safe here on the Majestic,” intoned a familiar voice from the open doorway.

“Fiona… ah, Miss Dunn.” Newcombe thrilled a little at the sight of the woman who had so occupied his thoughts, and who now stood at the entrance to his stateroom. She wore what looked like a safari jacket, with matching khaki trousers, but a bright green silk scarf tied around her throat softened the almost masculine ensemble. Newcombe noted that she now wore a pair of spectacles identical to those she had given him.

“Fiona will do just fine, Findlay. Good morning to you. And you, Rodney. I’m just on my way to the dining room for breakfast. Care to join me?”

“Breakfast?” Lafayette grumbled. “Yes, well the food is tolerable here, I’ll give you that.”

Newcombe stepped forward. “I’d like that very much, Fiona. Lead the way.”

“Splendid. And I’ll try to put your minds at ease about our upcoming adventure.” She turned back into the hallway, with Newcombe beside her and Lafayette, still mumbling under his breath, close behind. “You’re exaggerating the dangers of our journey, Rodney. Iran — that’s what they call Persia nowadays — is a modern industrial country, and the ruins of Alamut are less than a hundred miles from the capital city. With Majestic, we can go directly there. Of course, there’s no need for you gents to even leave. You can stay right here, safe aboard the Majestic.”

“Safe?” exclaimed Lafayette. “On this floating bomb? All it would take is one hooligan to shoot a flaming arrow into us, and we’d go up in smoke like the Hindenburg!”

They arrived at the doors to the dining room and Newcombe hastened forward to open them, primarily for Fiona’s benefit. She thanked him effusively; Lafayette did not.

A buffet had been set up near the dining table, which was occupied by a scattering of a few men wearing uniforms of officers and crew, dining informally. Lafayette went immediately to the buffet, and although he continued to mutter complaints about the fare, he nonetheless began heaping food onto his plate.

“There’s not much chance of us burning up like that zeppelin,” Fiona explained, as she poured a cup of tea. “Majestic is filled with helium.” Her brogue, which had previously been almost undetectable, surfaced for just a moment: “hay-lium.”

“Helium isn’t reactive like hydrogen,” Newcombe supplied. “It’s completely safe, though it doesn’t provide quite as much lift.”

Lafayette was persistent. “If it’s so wonderful, why didn’t the Germans use it on the Hindenburg?”

“They planned to. But the largest reserves of helium are in the United States. For strategic reasons, there’s a moratorium on helium exports. Hydrogen is much cheaper to produce. And if proper precautions are taken, the flammability danger can be mitigated.”

“Hmpf. Hydrogen or helium, I can’t fathom why anyone would want to travel this way. What if the gas bag springs a leak?”

“There are risks in traveling, no matter what method you choose,” Fiona said. “Ships can sink, planes crash all the time. So do motor cars.”

“Exactly my point! Better just to stay at home.”

She laughed. “Rodney, you need to stop fussing about so much. Enjoy life. Live in the moment.”

“I would think this adventure would provide excellent fodder for your stories,” Newcombe said.

“I have an imagination for that,” Lafayette replied acerbically.

“I take it you are not enjoying your stay aboard my ship, Mr. Lafayette?”

Newcombe looked up and found that Barron had joined them. He now wore a blue uniform, identical to that of the Majestic’s officers, but without any insignia or badge of rank.

Lafayette seemed to shrink a little, as if intimidated by Barron’s presence. “I just prefer to have solid ground beneath my feet.”

“But Miss Dunn is correct. What is the value of being alive if you do not truly live?”

“I was enjoying my life quite well until yesterday, thank you very much.”

“And what of Dr. Newcombe’s suggestion? Will you be writing of this experience? Will we read about the Majestic in one of your fictional stories?”

“Never mind those. I plan to put this one on the newswire as soon as you put me off in Europe. I can see the headline now: ‘Famous author abducted, crosses the Atlantic in luxury zeppelin.’ That should give my name a boost. Might even be able to get a better rate.”

“But that’s not entirely accurate. I didn’t abduct you; I rescued you from those who did.”

“Piffle.” The writer waved a hand. “It’s just a headline, to grab attention. I’ll explain everything else in the body of the story.”

“I thought as much.” Barron smiled. “I’ve just had a thought. If you are going to tell the tale, then you need to see Majestic as she truly is. I’ll arrange for Mr. Sorensen, my chief pilot, to take you out in one of the autogyros.”

Lafayette nearly dropped his plate.

Fiona clapped her hands together. “What a splendid idea! Findlay, I can take you out in the other.”

Newcombe was impressed. “You fly?”

“I can fly anything with wings… and in the case of the autogyros, things without wings, too.”

“Strictly speaking, the autogyro’s rotor assembly is a type of wing…” He realized he was lecturing and quickly adjusted course. “What I meant to say is, I would love to fly with you.”

“Well that’s an even better idea,” Lafayette interjected with a forced chuckle. “Newcombe here can take notes and tell me all about it when he gets back. That way you don’t have to go to any additional trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Barron answered, his voice steady but insistent. “No, Mr. Lafayette, if you intend to tell this story, then you must see the view from the top.”

“This must be old hat for you,”

Hurricane Hurley glanced at his traveling companion. “How’s that, Miss Nora?”

“Dashing off on one of your adventures. Flying across the ocean on a moment’s notice. You do this all the time, don’t you? Just like in your stories.”

“I do seem to travel quite a bit, though not usually in such luxury.” He didn’t let on that the luxury of flying aboard Pan-American’s newly inaugurated Yankee Clipper — a Boeing 314—came with a hefty price tag. The cost of two trans-Atlantic fares had put a serious dent in his savings account.

“Well I could definitely get used to this.” She raised her champagne glass to him, and then took a sip.

Hurley smiled. Nora’s enjoyment of what amounted to little more than sitting in a chair for hours on end was a pretty fair trade-off for the cost of the journey; she embraced every aspect of the flight with an almost child-like enthusiasm, pressing her face to the porthole as they taxied down the Hudson River and lofted skyward. Once airborne, with nothing to see but clouds and the gray ocean, she had taken out a pen and notebook, and commenced scribbling away furiously, filling several pages and pausing only to enjoy the food and beverages provided by the stewardesses. And now, several hours later, as they approached their first port — Horta harborage on the island of Faial in the Azores archipelago — she was back at the window, soaking up every detail.

Formed by volcanic activity, the island of Faial looked like little more than a bump in the ocean, sloping with deceptive gentleness up from sea level to its highest point, Cabeco Gordo — Portuguese for “Fat Mountain”—a massive volcanic caldera with an elevation of more than three thousand feet. The city of Horta, situated on the southern part of the island, was a sprawl of Anglo-Saxon architecture stretching across the low lying ground facing the harbor and gradually creeping like ivy up the surrounding hillsides. The island had long been a waypoint for ships crossing the ocean, but technological developments in the late 19th and early 20th century, including both the emergence of air travel and the critically important trans-Atlantic cable, had breathed new economic life into the archipelago, and Horta in particular.

Although they hadn’t been able to learn a great deal from their visit to the Royal Industries hangar in New Jersey, they had a rough idea of the route Barron would be taking to cross the Atlantic. Because the airplanes were considerably faster than even the fastest dirigible, they would be able to get ahead of the Majestic, and as soon as she put in an appearance anywhere in Europe, they would know about it. At least, that was the plan.

Hurricane was pleased that the experience of travel had apparently distracted Nora from her concerns about Lafayette’s safety. The simple fact that they were on the move, doing something… anything… was preferable to staying in one place and worrying. For his own part he was worried, and not just about their friends on the Majestic.

Dodge’s silence was disturbing. He had expected a phone call or at the very least a telegram, but there had been no word. He knew that Dodge could take care of himself, but that didn’t lessen his concern. The young man had gone off with a bomb-throwing anarchist; there were any number of ways that could end badly.

And then there was the matter of their shadows.

He escorted Nora off the plane, making idle small talk about the weather on the mid-Atlantic island, and the fact that it was now almost evening, even though their wristwatches and their bodies said it was only midday, but he kept a wary eye on the two men in gray suits who had boarded the plane in New York shortly after he and Nora. He was pretty sure he had seen them earlier, following the cataclysmic conclusion of the chase the day before.

The men weren’t hard to miss. Although they seemed adept at blending into the background, they couldn’t hide their distinctive racial heritage.

He had made a casual inquiry of a stewardess during the first leg of the flight, and been told that the pair were Chinese businessmen. By itself, that was suspicious. New York did indeed have a robust, if insular, Chinese community, but the primary area of influence for Chinese shipping abroad was the Pacific.

More significant of course was the fact that the men were not Chinese.

He didn’t fault the stewardess for not recognizing the difference. Unless a person had spent a great deal of time immersed in the many different cultures of the East, it was an unfortunate reality that people from that part of the world all kind of looked alike. But Hurricane had spent nearly half his life roaming the world, and he immediately recognized their country of origin: Nippon… Japan.

That also did not of itself constitute cause for concern. Although the invasion of Manchuria had aroused anger toward Japan in the West, it did not follow that every citizen of that country was responsible for the atrocities committed there. The men might indeed simply be businessmen, traveling abroad, looking for new opportunities.

That did not however explain why the pair was following Nora and himself, and that fact, not their heritage, had aroused Hurley’s suspicions.

He escorted Nora to a popular portside establishment, adorned with a carved wooden sign that read “Café Sport,” where many of the clipper’s passengers were admiring the museum-like collection of scrimshaw and otherwise doing what most travelers did when there was nothing else to do: indulging in food and drink. Hurley found a table with a view of the harbor, where a maintenance crew was refueling the plane. While Nora resumed writing in her notebook as she sipped a drink, he fired up a cheroot, and considered what to do next.

The Japanese men entered the cafe and, to all appearances, chose a table well away from the flow of foot traffic through the establishment. They kept their eyes down, but every few minutes one of them would glance casually around the establishment. Hurricane was careful to be equally discreet in his own surveillance, never looking directly at them, but his suspicions about the men were not alleviated in the slightest.

“Miss Nora, do you trust me?”

She looked up from her labors with a quizzical expression. “I should say so. After reading the Captain Falcon stories for three years, I feel like I know you very well. Assuming, of course, that Mr. Dalton hasn’t embellished your stalwart qualities.”

He smiled patiently. “He may have exaggerated a bit. Nevertheless, I want you to do something for me, and I won’t be able to explain it all right away, so I’m going to need you to play along and not ask a lot of questions.”

Her brows came together in a mask of concern, but she pressed her lips together, silencing the inquiry that he knew was already forming, and nodded.

“In just a few moments,” he continued, “we’re going to get up and walk out of here, rather briskly. Don’t look around. Just take my arm and stay with me. Can you do that?”

She closed her notebook and returned it to her clutch purse. “Say the word.”

Hurricane maintained eye contact with her, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the Japanese men make another surreptitious observation of the lounge. As soon as the man lowered his head again, he said: “Now.”

They both sprang to their feet and Nora slipped her arm around his. He quickly guided her through the maze of tables, out the door, and turned left, hastening along the sidewalk. As soon as he reached an intersection, he made a turn, heading up the gently sloping street, away from the port, but then almost immediately stopped and maneuvered Nora close to the side of the nearest building. He could sense the questions building within her like an impending volcanic eruption, but he forestalled her with a finger pressed to his lips.

The wait was mercifully short. Less than two minutes later, one of the gray-suited Japanese men appeared at the corner. Although he wasn’t quite running, his strides were almost as quick. His gaze was focused down the street, but as soon as he entered the intersection, he swung his head around to search the side street…

… and came face to face with Hurley and Nora.

Hurricane smiled broadly, and dusted off a greeting he’d learned ages before. “Konnichiwa.”

Even as the man opened his mouth to respond, some part of him recognized that he’d been found out. For just a moment, he was paralyzed by indecision, but only just a moment. His dark eyes grew hard with resolve as he ripped a handgun from a shoulder holster concealed beneath his suit jacket, and stabbed it in Hurley’s direction.

Lightning fast, the big man swatted the pistol away. The stunning force of the blow knocked the weapon out of the gunman’s hand. As the pistol skittered across the pavement, out onto the frontage road, Nora’s scream split the air.

Hurley followed through with punch that could have pulverized stone. But his knuckles struck only air. The Japanese had recovered quickly from the disarming block, and deftly dodged Hurley’s punch. Before the big man could draw back for another attempt, his opponent darted in close and with hands open and rigid like knife blades, delivered several quick strikes to Hurricane’s abdomen.

Hurley gasped and staggered back. The pain was like nothing he could remember having experienced. Gritting his teeth through it, he brought his left arm around in a haymaker punch, but his foe dodged again, and as Hurricane’s fist smashed a hole in the side of the building, the Japanese man repeated the attack. His hands were like pistons, driving forward and back faster than the eye could follow. Although the strikes had not been that powerful — mere slaps against the anvil that was Hurricane Hurley’s muscular physique, each one had found a nerve cluster with pinpoint accuracy. Hurricane felt pain so intense that it was literally blinding, and dropped to his knees, doubled over, unable to move any of his extremities.

The Japanese man did not hesitate to capitalize on his victory. He thrust a hand under the folds of his suit jacket, and a single deft motion, drew out a short sword and slashed at Hurley’s exposed neck.

“Is all of this really necessary?”

Newcombe paused in his struggle to don the heavy leather jacket and glanced over at Lafayette, who regarded the coat he had been handed as if it had just been stripped off the carcass of a cow.

The dark-haired man with the scar — Captain Tyr Sorensen, Barron’s chief aviator — made a disapproving face. “We are presently 20,000 feet above sea level. The air temperature at this altitude is about ten degrees Fahrenheit and we’ll be flying through it at a hundred miles an hour, so it’s going to feel like twenty below zero. But if the jacket offends your sartorial sensibilities, by all means, feel free to leave it behind.”

“I think you’ll look quite dashing in it,” opined Fiona.

Newcombe thought Fiona looked rather dashing in her jacket, replete with a leather helmet and a pair of goggles which were presently pushed up above her forehead, but knew it would take a lot more than a fancy coat to have that effect on him. But Sorensen’s approximation of the external air temperature and the effects of wind chill — something scientists were only just beginning to understand — were no exaggeration.

At the appointed hour, they had gathered in a room at the opposite end of the service corridor, where Captain Sorensen had been waiting with the gear for their flight. Another door, in the far aft bulkhead, led out of the ready room, but unlike the other doors, this one was made of solid metal and looked more like something from a ship or submarine than the elegant wood doors Newcombe had seen thus far.

“I meant this whole business,” Lafayette complained. “This is a luxury airship; why on earth would we want to subject ourselves to this excursion? It sounds rather like a polar expedition.”

“We’re not on earth, Rodney,” Fiona said with a laugh.

“These flights are routine,” Sorensen explained. “We go out every day to inspect Majestic for damage.”

“Because of thermal expansion?” Newcombe inquired, then explained: “The sun heats the gas, increasing the volume.”

“Majestic is engineered with such considerations in mind. The outer skin of the vessel is built over a rigid frame of duralumin. The helium is actually contained in a smaller envelope within that frame, which reduces some of the effects from heating. But the outer skin is vulnerable to temperature changes. At these altitudes and temperatures, the metal and other materials can become brittle. The crew constantly inspects the interior for damage, and once a day, we inspect the exterior.” Sorensen smiled unexpectedly, softening the almost sinister effect of the scar. “Plus, it gives us a chance to get some time in the cockpit.”

“Always a good thing,” Fiona chimed in.

“But why do I have to go?”

“Goodness, Rodney. You sound like a spoiled child.”

Newcombe couldn’t resist laughing aloud. He had been thinking the same thing for some time, but somehow when the pretty archaeologist said it, it didn’t sound quite so much like an accusation.

He finally got both arms into the sleeves of the heavy jacket and began fastening the toggles. Fiona soothed Lafayette’s ego by helping him into his coat, and when he had it on, Sorensen passed out gloves, scarves, and helmets with goggles.

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to wear your spectacles,” Fiona warned.

“How do you manage to fly?”

She smiled and tapped the goggles on her helmet. “I had this pair made with special lenses.”

“This way,” Sorensen announced, leading them to metal door. He threw it open to reveal a spiral staircase, which he immediately ascended. Trilling with eager laughter, Fiona followed, with Newcombe close behind her, and a still grumbling Lafayette reluctantly brought up the rear.

At the top of the stairs, standing on a wide metal platform that extended in both directions farther than he could see, Newcombe got his first look at the interior of the Majestic. It appeared, at first glance, like the roof of an enormous warehouse, with long exposed girders and beams, but curving up, down and around, stretching in every direction. High above, he saw the envelope containing the lifting gas, looking a little like a smaller airship nestled within the cavity of the parent dirigible’s belly.

Fiona and Sorensen were walking forward, down the length of the platform, and as he hastened to catch up to them, he saw their goal — a pair of autogyros. Just beyond them were half-a-dozen biplanes, each painted with a seemingly haphazard camouflage pattern of sky blue and cloud gray, lined up in two rows, as if ready for take-off. As he got closer, Newcombe saw that each of the compact twin-winged aircraft sported a machine gun, just above the top wing.

“You have planes, too?”

“The autogyros are useful as utility aircraft,” Sorensen explained, “but in the event that we run into other kinds of trouble, we have the Sparrowhawks.”

“They’re marvelous to fly,” Fiona added, “but getting them back aboard is a little tricky.”

Sorensen pointed to the autogyros. “Take the front seats, gentlemen. Mr. Lafayette, you’re with me in the lead.”

Newcombe climbed into the front cockpit of the second gyro, threading his lanky body in between the four struts that supported the rotor axle. Fiona slipped into the cockpit behind him. He felt both apprehension and excitement about the impending flight. Even though it was technically his second time aboard one of the autogyros, the first flight hadn’t exactly made an impression in his memory.

He had logged a lot of new experiences since meeting Dodge Dalton.

Fiona leaned over his shoulder. “Captain Sorensen told a wee fib. We actually come down to about 10,000 feet for the inspection flights; the gyros perform better at lower altitudes. So it won’t be quite as cold as he said, but you’ll want to bundle up all the same.”

Lafayette stalled and equivocated a while longer, and then struggled to squeeze his bulk into the front seat of Sorensen’s gyro. When at last the writer was buckled in, Sorensen waved to one of the crewmen.

Majestic opened up to the sky.

The lower half of the tail section split into four equal wedge-shaped pieces and spread apart like the petals of a blossoming flower. Newcombe felt a chill wind sweep through the interior of the airship, and reluctantly removed his glasses in order to snug his goggles into place.

There was a noise like a gunshot as Fiona fired the starter, and the gyro began to shudder as the Armstrong-Siddeley Genet Major 140 horsepower engine turned over. Through the spinning disc of the front rotor, he saw a blurry movement as Sorensen’s gyro shot forward down the length of the platform. A moment later, Fiona engaged the rotor, and the three-blades overhead began to chop the air. When they were turning faster than the eye could follow, Fiona tilted the rotor hub forward and the autogyro began to move.

Newcombe found himself gripping the sides of the cockpit as the small aircraft rolled down the platform, seemingly not much faster than a car on the open road. In his head, he automatically began calculating how fast they would need to be going to maintain lift.

Then, the gyro shot through the opening and Newcombe’s stomach leaped into his mouth.

They didn’t fall exactly. Rather, Fiona guided the craft into a swooping dive that increased their airspeed enough to maintain the spin of the rotor-wing. The maneuver lasted only a few seconds, and then the gyro rose again, banking right to swing back around, giving Newcombe his first good look at the airship.

He experimented with holding the spectacles up to the lenses of his goggles — difficult with his fingers encased in the heavy leather gloves — and by adjusting the focal length, he brought the world into clear view.

Majestic certainly lived up to its name. It was massive, dominating the sky like a great gray thundercloud. Although similar in shape to the zeppelins that had been the pioneers of trans-Atlantic air travel, Barron’s airship was broader and flatter, more like a wing in profile than the traditional cigar shape. Always the scientist, he immediately saw the advantage to this design, both for improving the lift characteristics of the ship and for accommodating the internal runway. As Fiona drew along the starboard side, he could make out the engine nacelles — three in all, one set about fifty yards back from the nose, one amidships, and the last about a hundred yards from the tail — beating the air to pull the ship through the sky. The propellers were all set at slightly different heights, and Newcombe noted a stubby wing protruding from the dirigible behind each of them, utilizing the airstream from the propellers to provide additional lift like an airplane.

Their approach seemed slow, almost walking speed, but he knew this was an illusion; both the gyro and the airship were moving at close to a hundred miles per hour.

Fiona brought the autogyro in close to the gray ship, seemingly close enough to touch, in order to carry out the primary purpose for the excursion. When she completed a pass, she peeled off and raced back to the Majestic’s tail to do it all over again. They made several such passes, each time at a slightly higher altitude, until Newcombe finally got a look at the top of the airship. At first, the scientist thought it had been painted black, but then he realized that the dark matte surface was actually a collection of solar photovoltaic cells; Barron had figured out how to harvest massive amounts of electricity from the sun. He was busy estimating the maximum voltage output of the solar array when he spied several small protrusions dotting the skin of the ship, like the spiny scales on the back of a crocodile. He adjusted moved his spectacles a little closer, and brought them into focus.

They were gun ports.

It made sense that Barron, an arms manufacturer, should festoon his dirigible with firepower, but the realization was nonetheless disconcerting to Newcombe. Majestic was no mere pleasure craft. The guns were almost certainly intended as a defensive measure, but their very presence felt like a declaration of hazardous intent.

But guns on the top? Those will only be useful if Majestic was attacked from the sky… by planes… military planes… Who is he expecting to need to defend against?

Fiona finished her final pass, and then indulged herself with a few aerobatic maneuvers, culminating in a sweeping corkscrew around Majestic, and Newcombe’s worries about the guns were swept away in a surge of adrenaline.

Sorensen’s gyro was lining up for its approach to the open landing bay, and as Fiona swung them onto the same course, Newcombe saw the first gyro move effortlessly into the gap. It was only as the opening loomed ahead on their own approach that Newcombe saw just how little room for error there was. The rotor disc was nearly forty feet across; how wide was the opening? Newcombe had no idea, but a single untimely gust of wind might push the spinning blades into the airship’s shell. Even if that initial crash didn’t kill the occupants, there would be no rescue from the subsequent plunge into the sea, ten thousand feet below. Newcombe held his breath as they passed under the fixed portion of the tail section, releasing it only when he felt the bump of the wheels on the platform.

Fiona engaged a rotor-brake and the axle in front of Newcombe stopped turning. Two crewmen had finished lashing down the wheels of Sorensen’s gyro, and as Fiona taxied into position they quickly moved to secure hers as well. By the time Newcombe extricated himself from the front seat, both aircraft were tied to the platform. As he hopped down, he noticed his exhalations turning to fog in front of his face. The air on the landing deck was as chilly as it had been outside during the flight, and a scrim of ice had formed on the platform.

“It doesn’t look like Rodney had very much fun,” Fiona said.

Sure enough, Lafayette stood at the edge of the platform, clutching the railing, and looked like he might pass out or throw up or both. Sorensen stood nearby, not quite able to conceal a look of contempt.

Newcombe shrugged. “I guess air travel isn’t for everyone.”

They moved over to join the other pair, and Fiona slugged the writer on the shoulder playfully. “Come along, Rodney. Let’s go warm you up with some cognac.”

Lafayette brightened visibly at the suggestion, and followed as Fiona, with Newcombe beside her, led the way down the platform. They had gotten just halfway when the scientist felt a slight change in his center of gravity. “Are we ascending?”

She nodded. “Climbing back up to our cruising altitude of 20,000 feet.”

“Watch your step,” advised Sorensen.

His warning came an instant too late. Lafayette’s feet suddenly flew out from beneath him and he landed flat on his back on the icy platform,

Abruptly, the airship tilted up sharply, and the platform was suddenly a forty-five degree slope. Lafayette flailed desperately to stop his slide, but his gloved hands could find no purchase.

Without even pausing to think about it, Newcombe dove after the writer. He succeeded in snaring Lafayette’s arm, but in so doing sacrificed his own handhold. Tangled together, the two men shot down the icy surface toward the open tail section and the waiting embrace of the Atlantic Ocean.