In a world where airships once ruled… a new adventure begins ABOVE the skies!
Sailing Deep Sky, Chapter 13
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"Learning the Hard Way"
Once Schiff had fitted Kathode Ray with a new hand, Nixie, Kathode, and Toa left Wenge with the momentous job of learning to sail the deep-sky ship. Toa would take Nixie and Kathode back to the town of Beggars Drop in the Liliʻuokalani, where they could continue their gondoliering. It was a bit of a somber parting of ways, but even though the trip had been eventful, the four of them really hadn’t known each other for long, so there was not much reason for them to go on together.
Toa, Nixie, and Kathode headed out of the shipyards, walking down the sun-bleached wood docks, a mile above the cactus forest of what used to be known as Arizona (but was now referred to as either the Prairie, or the Wasteland, depending on your mood).
It was late in the afternoon, the sun was hot, and the birds were loud and happy as they flew in glorious circles around the aerial city.
“…I’m just saying we could have stayed a couple more days with Wenge, while he figured things out,” Nixie said.
“Sure, we could have, but it’s not like he needs us anymore. Now that he’s a fancy-pants ship owner. Ship? Yacht? Deep-sky yacht? Besides, who knows how long it will take him to figure that thing out? You humans take forever to learn something new.”
“What?!” Nixie exclaimed. “No, we don’t!”
“Yeah. Ya do.”
“No, we don’t! No slower than ’tommys. You never learned how to fix the gondolas’ motors, even though you complained about them constantly,” Nixie said.
“Neither did you, Nixie. Besides, I did figure out how to fix them: replace them! Those things were rusted solid.”
As they walked, a huge silver zeppelin could be seen ascending to dock level behind them and across the city. Had they noticed, they would have been alarmed, but their eyes were on the narrow dock ahead of them, and their minds were on the conversation.
“But we couldn’t afford to replace them!”
“Right. That’s why I didn’t do it.” Kathode went on in a matter-of-fact voice. “Look, it’s not your fault humans are dim-witted. Automatons are just more elegantly designed, that’s all.”
“What!?” exclaimed Nixie in disbelief, as Toa marched forward silently, ignoring the argument.
“Yeah. Automatons are more elegantly designed.” Kathode went on, “By your own theory, you started as a single-celled orgasm, right?”
“OrgaNISM,” corrected Nixie, stressing the third syllable Ray had fumbled.
“Hum, you sure about that?” asked Ray. “I’m pretty sure it’s ‘life started with an orgasm and a single cell.’”
“No,” said Nixie. “That’s something else.”
“He’s right,” said Toa, one eyebrow raised.
“Anyway,” Kathode went on, “Your species started as single-celled critters. Then you were a bunch of cells, writhing around in the goop. Then you became a weird fish thing, then a weird fish that could kind of squirm in the mud. On and on you evolved, becoming all kinda terrible things. Eventually, you became a monkey, and then you finally topped out at whatever the hell you are now. Not much better than a monkey. All soft and squishy.”
“What!?” erupted Nixie.
“Yeah, like, just compare our brains, right? Mine is a gorgeous, elegant gold filigree. Yours is this gooey blob that looks like rotted cauliflower. It’s just gross. Whereas my brain is beautiful! A work of art. The finest craftsmanship. All these spiraling patterns…it really is a sight to behold.”
Had the three not been so engrossed in Kathode’s diatribe, they would have noticed the birds had all gone silent.
The three rounded a corner and started out on the dock finger where Toa had left the Liliʻuokalani tied.
Nixie burst out, “Yeah, but WE made your brain! Your brain is pretty because we made your brain pretty!”
“Not a good argument,” said Kathode matter-of-factly. “First off, you didn’t make my brain. Doctor Toube bought it from a dealer, who bought it from an automaton who makes Tommy-brains. That guy’s name was Jeff something.” Kathode looked smug. “And the second thing is that you guys evolved for, like, millions of years, and you put all your knowledge into your greatest achievement: me!”
Nixie stopped walking. She stared at Kathode Ray as if she wanted to shove him off the dock.
“Where’s the Liliʻuokalani?” said Toa. The dock was empty. Nothing tied to it at all. Just open sky, and in the distance another silver zeppelin.
“Did she lose buoyancy!?” He leaned over the edge in a panic, afraid of seeing his beloved jalopy dangling from its dock line a mile above the prairie.
And, sure enough, Toa saw the Liliʻuokalani, as well as a half dozen other small vessels, being towed away by a Harpy.
If you’ve read the Airship Pirate Chronicles, you can skip the following description, but a Harpy is a lighter-than-air automaton: a metal-plated balloon about 15 feet by 15 feet, with a propeller and engine on each side, and suspended under it a mechanical, skeletal demon with two long arms ending in vicious claws.
In the day of the Emperor, freelanders, people who lived free outside the cities, were illegal. Harpies were used to round up freelanders and imprison them in large towers in Emperor Victor’s dark cities.
“It’s a round-up!” exclaimed Kathode, now seeing dozens of Harpies streaming out of the silver airship behind them and descending on the floating city.
“Holy hell!” exclaimed Nixie. “I thought they gave these up when the Emperor died!”
“Guess not,” growled Toa.
The Harpies were flying over the city, occasionally disappearing from view between the small wooden buildings of the town, only to reemerge grasping one or two writhing and fighting citizens.
“We gotta get outta here,” said Toa. He was watching a Harpy about 50 yards away, which had just set its sights on Nixie, Toa, and Kathode.
“We can’t hide on this dock…oh, run, sista!” Toa exclaimed in surprise as a Harpy appeared, perhaps 20 feet away, ascending from under the dock.
“I’m not going back to slave’n in the city!” Kathode said in a panic, his head darting from side to side, looking for a path of retreat.
So the three ran back down the dock in the direction they had come.
Screaming could be heard from all over the city, as well as the buzzing sound of the Harpies’ propellers. There were also explosions here and there, as townsfolk shot back at the Harpies, occasionally piercing the gas-filled airbags.
Chapter 14
"Skyward Bound"
Wenge was sitting in the captain’s chair, trying to remember how to start the engines. First, flip two switches below the helm. Then, turn two keys. Then, one after the other, push the ignition switch for each engine.
Wenge pushed the first switch and could hear the engine whirring to life on his port side. This made all the little dials and gauges on the left of the helm jump to life. Next, he pushed the switch on the right side of the helm, and the starboard engine sprang to life.
The ship vibrated quietly. This was the first time he’d started the engines without Schiff standing over his shoulder, and Wenge felt a quiet pride in remembering the steps.
Through the huge curved windshield, Wenge could see Schiff in the open-air workshop, carving a nameplate for the ship. It had been decided, at the suggestion of Toa, to name the ship The Tangaroa. “One can feel at home on Tangaroa,” he had said. Tangaroa was the name of his lost island, and also the name of the Polynesian god of the sea and the sky. So this seemed fitting for a deep-sky ship.
Upon hearing the engines start, Schiff held up one hand and circled it in the air, indicating Wenge should fly the ship about.
Wenge had been shown how to do this. There were a series of levers in front of him: two levers that put the engines in and out of gear, and two more levers that controlled the engines’ speed. A steering wheel that changed the direction the ship was pointing. Two pedals that controlled the ship’s direction, port to starboard, and a lever that allowed you to descend or ascend without pointing the ship up and down. Pulling or pushing the wheel forward or backward pointed the ship’s nose up or down.
It was a lot.
In addition to controls, the helm was equipped with numerous gauges of brass, with illuminated faces, measuring things like altitude, engine pressure, speed, and “resupinate clarity”, whatever that ment. There were two orbs. Inside one was a solid glass orb the size of a grapefruit, floating in a glass dome. This glass orb contained a blue arrow that currently pointed north, though Schiff assured Wenge this would point toward the earth’s northern pole, no matter what direction the ship was pointing. So at any given time it might be pointing up, down, left, aft, etc.
“Once you’re out there, if you lose sight of earth, this will get you back. But remember, earth is very large,” Schiff had said. “It won’t look large when you are up there, but it is. Don’t just aim for the North Pole every time you are coming back.”
Schiff made the gesture again, signaling impatiently, “Get going!” He had told Wenge earlier, “You’ll never learn if I’m hanging over you, making all the decisions. You just have to try it for yourself, to get the feel of it.”
“Okay,” Wenge said to himself. “I can do this.” He wrapped his hand lightly around the lift lever. And as slowly as he could, pulled back on the lever.
The second the ship began to lift, he nervously pushed the lever back into neutral, and the ship drifted to a stop.
Schiff glared and gestured again.
“Okay, okay, let’s do this for real,” Wenge said, and pushed the lift lever. The ship dropped slowly down, but instead of hovering perfectly even with the dock, he was now almost completely under it. He could only barely see Schiff now, and the ship was nearly completely out of Schiff’s view.
“Crap. Okay, now I guess I’d better…” But as he said this, he could see five shadowy figures enter the shop across from Schiff. Three men and two very tall automatons holding some sort of long hooks.
Schiff jumped to his feet and started arguing with the shadowy men, who seemed to be yelling back. These men were all dressed like the man who shot Wenge’s father.
At this point, the two giant automatons strode to either side of Schiff, who grabbed a large wrench to defend himself.
Wenge stood up from the captain’s seat, trying to decide what to do. With the ship this low, it was unlikely he would be seen, but it also meant he couldn’t get back on the dock.
He grabbed the lift lever again to raise the ship back up to the dock, but noticed the ship had drifted several feet to port (for you landlubbers, that’s the ship’s left side). If he lifted up at this point, he would collide with the dock.
Then he watched in horror as the silhouetted giants hooked massive crooks around Schiff’s legs, and he was pulled to the ground. One of the shadowy men pulled a gun and walked toward Schiff, holding it to Schiff’s head.
Wenge cried out in the silent cockpit, but Old Mister Bauer surprised them all. He rolled backward as the shot fired, and, dodging the bullet, rolled under a shop table.
One of the brass giants then tossed the table aside, but as soon as it did, Schiff darted across the room and climbed into the little red pod about the size of a coffin, that hung in clamps in the corner. The second he was in it, the pod dropped through the floor and out of sight.
At this, the shadow men and their automatons began looking around, at which one of them made eye contact with Wenge! The two stared at each other for a moment until the man broke eye contact and gestured to his machines.
Then there was a large impact, like something heavy hit the ship from above.
Then another hit, and another. Was Wenge being shot at? He pushed gently on the lift lever, and the ship started to slowly descend, but suddenly a change in cabin pressure could be felt, and a short whooshing sound could be heard.
Wenge stood from his seat and spun around in the direction of the sound. The rear hatch had opened, and in strode Toa, followed by Nixie and Kathode!
“Time to go, brudda!” said Toa urgently.
Wenge sat back down. The ship was slowly drifting to port and dropping in altitude. They could see the entire underside of the city stretched out in front of them: void tanks, dangling ropes, and cellar windows stretching out in all directions.
There were also dozens of Harpies flying this way and that, in the shadows under the city, looking for anyone trying to escape by parachute or other means. Several of these Harpies now noticed Wenge’s ship and turned toward them.
“Go, go, go!” Kathode yelled.
“Toa, you want to fly this?” said Wenge, offering the captain’s chair.
“I don’t know how!”
“But you flew the Liliʻuokalani!”
“It’s not the same ting, brudda! I only had like two controls! Lili was a tiny airship, this ting’s big different!”
“Wenge,” said Nixie in a calming voice, while she watched a dozen or more Harpies heading toward them. “We need to go now.”
So in a complete panic, Wenge pushed the lift lever, and the ship started to drop. He then pushed forward on the engine speed levers, and the engines spun fast, but the ship didn’t move forward.
“It’s broken!” he exclaimed. “I broke…no, wait, they are not in gear!”
He then reached for the shift levers and pushed them forward, but with the engines already throttled fast, this resulted in a huge lurching impact, and the ship leapt forward at a staggering speed, hitting three Harpies as it did. The weight of the heavy wooden vessel demolished the Harpies on impact and did nothing to the deep-sky ship.
The ship was now hurtling toward the edge of the city, and beyond that two huge silver zeppelins waited.
In a flash, they reached the edge of the city, and as soon as the city’s shadow drew back from the ship, Wenge pulled hard on the ship’s wheel, which lifted her nose skyward.
The deep-sky ship didn’t slow. It shot up at a 45-degree angle, and in a flash was over the zeppelins and gaining altitude at a staggering speed, many times faster than any airship could climb.
In a few minutes the city could not be seen. In a few minutes more the blue of the sky was darkening. And in another few minutes, the sound of rushing air around them went silent, and the blue sky was now an arch below them, the top of a great blue orb in a starry sky.
Everyone was in silent awe, gazing wide-eyed out the huge glass dome.
“Oof. I guess it IS round,” said Toa finally. “I thought it might be, but people always argued about it, so I didn’t know.”
Wenge pulled the throttles back to zero, and then pulled the shift levers into neutral. A quiet hissing sound could be heard from outside the ship, and soon the ship came to a stop.
“Holy…I mean…just…wow,” said Wenge. “This is…” He trailed off.
“It’s beautiful,” Nixie added.
“Look at da ocean,” added Toa. “It’s so huge, and you can see the sparkles from way up here.”
Then they noticed it. Far to their starboard side, and up, with a huge arch. A river of asteroids, many hundreds of miles away, and over a million miles long. It flowed steadily away and around the earth. Rocks of a many different colors and an infinite number of sizes, all circling the earth once every 27 days.
This was the Little Kuiper (pronounced kai-per), the remains of the moon and the massive asteroid that collided with it decades ago. A huge astral archipelago, more vast and unknown than anything on earth.
