Aboard the Aeronaut III
It was early morning and already hot. Nathanial wasn’t surprised. After all, it had been hot all night, and all the previous day, and would doubtless continue to be hot until the sun exploded in a fiery Armageddon. He wiped sweat from his eyes and sighed.
The Aeronaut III cruised at a sluggish ten knots and something around a thousand feet over the dense green jungles of Venus. Nathanial Stone sat under an awning on the poop deck at a rickety wooden table, one of its legs propped up on an empty cigar box. He had doubted the even ricketier chair would hold his weight but had found it was, at least thus far, reliable. In his special cryptogram which none but he could read, he scribbled busily in his journal:
17 June. At A’s insistence, we have been travelling between some of the smaller English settlements in F-H’s little airship. I find the journey thus far beyond boring, but at least it keeps A out of trouble. She has made several conquests: J is her slave, F-H thinks highly of her, and the lizard-man T seems to look on her as some sort of amusing pet. When we set down at a settlement, he disappears at once, only to reappear with flowers or fruit, which he solemnly presents to her on a large leaf. She smiles at him and takes the gift; really, her social skills continue to amaze me, considering the sort of life she has led.
The airship thus far has surprised me. It is far roomier than I’d suspected, and is delightfully easy to pilot. I may consider getting one of my own when we return to Earth, purely for enjoyment. I understand, at least a bit, F-H’s fascination with the theory behind it. It is far different from flying on the Zeus, however, no doubt due to its smaller size.
We had a bit of excitement late yesterday. We moored last night near edge of the vast escarpment on which Her Majesty’s colonies sit because F-H, and J as well, insisted that it was a safe place. I, for one, did not believe in the danger, as I’ve not seen any lizard or saurian any larger than a mastiff thus far. This is because, I now understand, our brave colonists have cleared all the major predators off the plateau.
At least, nearly all.
Yesterday we found out that some are still in residence.
We had moored the ship as usual, and J had started a campfire to boil water for tea. I was sitting at this very table, making notes on F-H’s engines for future reference—see page 37—and A, in that irritating way she has, was insisting on going with Thymon to fetch some fresh water from a stream we had flown over just before touching down.
“I have my bow,” she reminded me. Yes, she has brought hers from Earth, and she found a craftsman in Fort Collingwood who fletched some arrows for her with some quite odd yet colourful leathery feathers.
I could see no danger in it and gave my permission for her to go, at which she quite bridled and said, rather tartly, that she hadn’t asked for my permission in the first place. Really, the girl can be most uncivilised! Due, no doubt, to her distressing time in the Americas.
And so she started off, T in tow; the lizard was bristling with weapons, A had her bow and a quiver full of arrows, and it never occurred to me to worry. J started the kettle on to boil, while I asked F-H some questions about displacement and air speed. The time passed quite pleasantly, and I was just getting into a rather invigorating discussion—J later said it sounded more like an argument—with F-H when we heard a roar that shook the bones within me.
“Good gad, what was that?” I asked.
F-H immediately dashed up the gangplank to the Aeronaut, tools falling from the pockets of his frock coat like he was a flower shedding his petals, only to reappear an instant later with a rifle under each arm.
“Get onboard,” he shouted. “We may have to cast off in a hurry.” He tossed a rifle to J and the two of them disappeared into the heavy brush, leaving me, I fear, with my mouth open.
Another roar; this one quite shook the airship. I could feel the vibrations spread out like rings in a pond where one has tossed a stone. I raced up the gangplank and looked about hurriedly for some sort of weapon, but was unable to find anything more useful than an iron belaying pin. Hurriedly, I unwrapped the lines about it and pulled it out of its slot, then I dashed back down the gangplank with it in my hand. I didn’t dare go too far from the ship, for if F-H were indeed correct, we might have to make what the Americans call a “quick getaway.”
Then, silence, which went on for what seemed like forever. I felt a bit silly with the huge iron pin in my hand and was looking about for a convenient place to put it.
But the silly feeling did not last long. In all too short a time, I was glad I had it, and wished I had a dozen, nay, a hundred more.
For the most fearsome beast chose that instant to come charging through the underbrush, straight for me. A massive head filled with far too many teeth sat directly on a thick trunk without benefit of a neck; two ridiculously small arms waved about aimlessly, each ending with a four-fingered clawed hand. The heavy hind legs were bowed out, and a thick, short tail waved back and forth with the most menacing air imaginable.
I will be quite honest; my very heart quaked within me. I felt my back press against the wooden hull of the airship before I was even aware I had moved, and the air seemed to have oddly lost its oxygen content. I gasped and held the belaying pin out in what I hoped was a threatening manner. Much good it would have done me against the huge beast now bearing down on me.
Then, I noticed the arrows in the thing’s right flank, and the bright green blood gushing from a huge wound in its throat. It slowed, seemed to look about as if wondering where it had got to, and staggered a bit.
A loud whoop came from the dense forest behind the thing, and A burst into view, waving her bow above her head in a most unladylike and quite bloodthirsty way. T was right behind her, and F-H and J were behind him.
I gave them the merest glance. My eyes were caught by the thing before me. I could see now it was in its death throes. It tottered forward a step or two, and one huge splayed foot came down directly on the small fire J had lit before all the excitement. The great lizard jerked with pain, but sluggishly, as though its scorching skin was little more painful than an insect bite. It gave one more step forward, another, getting ever closer…
Then A, the mad child, came running at the thing, waving a branch at it.
“We’ve got to keep it away from the airship!” she shouted.
I saw at once what she meant and ran forward—carefully—to help her drive the thing away, for its great bulk would damage the gondola of the ship irreparably if it fell on it. T and the others joined in, and the great lizard changed its course just enough to bypass the ship. It fell, dead, a little to the left of the stern.
For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Even the constant cheep-chirp-chitter of the jungle was still, as if all the local inhabitants were offering a moment of silence to commemorate the passing of this great jungle lord.
J ran up, a grin on his face, and broke the silence.
“I say, Stone, what a smashing girl Miss Annabelle is! Look at that shooting! Why, she hit it three times before any of us could get a shot in!”
Then, after the fire had been built up again and the kettle was on the boil at last, I had to hear them all tell me about A and her bravery and her skill and her courage…all while I was trying to learn more about the beast.
“It’s what the natives call a baratnor,” J explained, in between glances of admiration at A. “I haven’t seen one on the plateau before, though I know some of our chaps go hunting them below the escarpment.”
T, who had removed several of the beast’s teeth and claws—no doubt to add to his spiked war club—nodded in agreement. “Very fierce,” he said. “Ssstrong warriors fear them. But not Missss Annabelle.” He looked at her adoringly—or, at least, I suppose that was the feeling he displayed on his leathery, knotty face. For all I know of him and his kind, he might have been considering her suitability for the cookpot.
“A remarkable creature,” F-H chimed in, and for a moment I thought he was talking about A. Then he went on, “Carnivorous, of course. They get considerably larger. This one was little more than a cub. Perhaps it was able to make its way through some of the subterranean passageways that link the plateau with the jungle below. The tunnels are far too small for a full grown one, naturally, but a youngling might just make it. Really, Miss Annabelle, your archery skills are most impressive.”
A smiled at him, turned to me and said, “No more than Nathanial’s skill with a belaying pin, surely.”
Everyone laughed merrily. I’m sure I even heard the lizard-man make a sort of gravel-shaken-in-a-bucket sound which I thought might be construed as amusement.
Really, the girl can be most irritating.
“Oh, do put that journal down and look around you, Nathanial!” Annabelle said.
Nathanial sighed, capped his pen, closed his journal and tucked the pen into his pocket. He got up from the rickety chair and joined Annabelle at the starboard railing.
“Just look at the size of some of those trees!” Annabelle waved at the passing jungle below them. “Isn’t it lovely? So very different from the deserts in the Western Americas…”
Her voice trailed away. Nathanial knew quite well why. Annabelle had seen her parents die in the deserts. No wonder she was dazzled by the lush greenery of Venus. She didn’t even seem to mind the ever-present damp, though he, for one, did not like it in the least.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with a damp handkerchief.
What in the name of Heaven was he doing here? He had examined the engines designed by Forbes-Hamilton and found them, at least to his knowledge, barely different from those used in the German zeppelins. Of course, on this ridiculous, time-wasting flight over endless trees, their host had not shown Stone every one of his alterations and additions; Nathanial was quite sure of that. There was one particular valve series that he was itching to investigate, but Forbes-Hamilton kept changing the subject when he asked questions and leading him away to examine yet another dirty bit of engine or section of ripped airbag material. One useful thing; the airbags seemed to be made of some sort of local lizard skin obviously far stronger and even lighter than canvas.
Still, he was glad to have the opportunity to learn more about the craft. He had spent so much time on aether engines, their design, workload and forms, that he was quite enjoying learning about a system that worked within an atmosphere, instead of outside of one.
If only Annabelle hadn’t insisted on this endless trip between tiny, boring villages, all of which looked precisely the same. They could perfectly well have stayed at the capital instead of traipsing all over Victoria plateau. Thank the Lord, they were heading for a larger fort at last, though not Fort Collingwood, and could get off this cramped little airship and into a semi-civilised spot.
“If you’ll look just there, Miss Annabelle,” Giles Jericho said, pointing down over the rail, “you can make out one of the smaller outposts; see it there? It sits very near the edge of the plateau. Fort Saint George is the nearest major outpost from here, though it’s far from the size of Fort Collingwood, naturally. We’ll arrive there soon.” He turned and smiled at her. “I’ll be happy to show you about the place, if you like?”
“Is it indeed a fort? I mean to say, is it surrounded by a tall stockade, like Collingwood?”
“Yes indeed. Quite necessary, don’t you know. The native fauna can be rather hard to deal with, and I’m not just talking about the huge ones like the one you so brilliantly and bravely killed last evening. Why, there’s a lizard no bigger than your hand; travels in packs of thousands and they can strip a field of sugarcane in a day. Luckily, they can’t fly, and they seem to prefer the lowlands. That’s one of the main reasons we’ve colonised the plateau. Easier to grow crops, and the larger lizards tend to stick to the lowest jungle, where they have plenty of prey.” Jericho gave what Nathanial thought was a rather inane laugh. “We wouldn’t want to end up on the receiving end of a trantor’s teeth or a gizzleback’s claws, I assure you.”
Nathanial barely was able to restrain a snort. Really, Jericho was enjoying Annabelle’s company rather more than was suitable. Although, admittedly, he did keep her occupied and out of his way.
Stone returned to the rickety cane table under an awning on the poop deck of the Aeronaut, trying without much success to keep from dripping sweat on his open notebook. He was eager to get back to scribbling notes and ideas for a new sort of hydraulic system, inspired by some of the things he’d seen in Forbes-Hamilton’s engine room. The inventor was standing behind him, gazing through a telescope on a tripod mounted at the edge of the deck.
“Rather a lot of air disturbance south of us,” Stone heard him mutter. “Appears to be moving quickly too.”
Stone ignored the man. Surely such a system would prove most useful… He wandered away into the recesses of his mind.
A heavy tread on the deck beside him brought Stone back with a start.
Thymon stalked past him and headed towards Forbes-Hamilton.
“We sshould land, ssir,” said the lizard in his sibilant speech. “Ssee there? It iss a flight of—” he said something indecipherable to Nathanial which sounded very much like “clothespins,” though he was sure he must have misheard.
Forbes-Hamilton called out, “Would you all get below, please? We shall be, uh, landing shortly, and I believe there may be a bit of turbulence in our future.”
Stone didn’t like the concern he could hear clearly in the man’s voice. He stood up, gathering his things, and called, “Annabelle, Jericho. Shall we go below and prepare to disembark at our next stop? No doubt we shall see something interesting there.”
“Nathanial, I can hear your unspoken ‘at last’ and I do not appreciate it,” Annabelle said severely as they all went down the ladder and headed below decks. “Remember, you are the one who promised Uncle Cyrus to take care of me. Honestly! As though I cannot do that quite well on my own. And I for one am having the most delightful time.”
Just as she spoke the last word, the Aeronaut gave a sudden jerk and twist sideways, almost as if the ship were dodging something. Nathanial knew that could not be the case. No airship could respond so quickly, almost like some sort of steam-driven wheeled land vehicle.
Forbes-Hamilton pattered down the ladder behind them an instant later. “Not to worry, not to worry,” he said distractedly. “I must just go down to make sure the boiler is in order.” He disappeared down the ladder to the lower deck, and they could soon hear the occasional “Dear me” and “Good Gad” and once an emphatic “Blast!”
Nathanial could feel himself blushing at the curse, and he was irritated to see that it had not affected Annabelle one iota. She smiled at Jericho and disappeared into her tiny cabin, calling something about “I’ll just find my hat” over her shoulder.
“What is it, old boy?” Jericho asked. “You look rather pale.”
At that instant, the Aeronaut gave a decided list to starboard, spun around, and Nathanial could feel the unmistakable dropping sensation in his nether regions, which could only mean they were falling.
“Grab hold of something!” he shouted.
Jericho gave a squawk and seized a convenient railing, one of many along the passageway. From Annabelle’s cabin, Nathanial could hear cursing far stronger than that used by Forbes-Hamilton. He would have felt embarrassed if he’d had the time, but he did not.
“Watch out for Annabelle!” he shouted. “Get her above deck as quickly as you can! I am going below to check on Forbes-Hamilton!”
Jericho nodded and began to inch his way up a deck no longer level; instead, it seemed to be canted at quite thirty-seven degrees, Stone calculated automatically as he headed for the engine room below. By the time he reached the hatch, the incline had increased and he very nearly fell into the yawning opening. He was just able to grab hold of the railing that lined one side of the ladder.
“Mister Forbes-Hamilton?” he called as he stumbled downwards. “Sir? We appear to be falling, and rather quickly. Will you come, sir?”
The only reply he received was a cloud of oily grey smoke, which set him to coughing. He pressed forward blindly, slipping on the last step and nearly falling but catching himself in time. He hissed in pain as something hot burned his outstretched fingers.
“Sir?” he called again.
No reply.
He was just contemplating the wisdom of leaving the inventor to his fate, since it looked as if they were all going down with his ship, when the Aeronaut righted herself. Since Stone had been canted forward against the pull of gravity, this time he did fall, sprawling onto the greasy decking below him. He lay there for a moment, trying to catch a breath of relatively clean air.
Then, two powerful arms pulled him to his feet and turned him, none too gently, around. His eyes steaming, his burned fingers throbbing, Stone looked up into the gleaming emerald eyes of Thymon.
An instant later, Forbes-Hamilton appeared from the smoky gloom.
“Are you harmed, Professor Stone?” he enquired. “Ah, I see you have singed your hand. Do come along into my cabin; I have some native remedies which are quite efficacious.”
“What…how…the others. I sent them to the deck.”
“Thymon made sure the small ones were ssssafe,” said the lizard-man.
“There, you see? No cause for alarm. Thymon here alerted me in time that we were headed into a cloud of kaloshpinas. They’re a kind of…well, I suppose butterfly is the closest Earth approximation, if you can conceive of a monarch with inch-long spines lining its wings. Plenty of time to take evasive action, though, don’t you know? Now let’s go see about the others.”
Nathanial grabbed him by his sleeve. “Sir, your servant just said they were fine. And my fingers are only singed. I really must know about your evasive manoeuvres just now; I do insist.”
Forbes-Hamilton looked up into Nathanial’s eyes, his own gleaming with pride. “Rather impressive, were they not? It’s all due to my—”
The airship lurched and Forbes-Hamilton fell into Nathanial’s arms.
Shouts and cries came echoing down the hatch.
“Shall we continue this discussion a bit later, my dear sir? I fear our airbags took some hurt.”
They had indeed; Nathanial saw when they arrived on deck. The first airbag was nearly deflated, and the second in the series of five was hissing like a gigantic tea kettle.
“Not to worry,” said Forbes-Hamilton. “We are just about to set down at Fort David. I shall do a few repairs.”
Annabelle ran up to Nathanial, her eyes shining in excitement. “Isn’t this thrilling? One would never have such an exciting trip in a larger ship. Oh, Nathanial, I am so glad we came to Venus! Aren’t you?”
Nathanial didn’t feel the need for a reply as the ship began limping towards the fort he could barely see in the misty distance.