Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion

by Howard, Jonathan L

  “As my father took the controls, McMurdo caused consternation among the ground riggers by demanding the safety lines be loosed immediately. The official assigned to the Davina asked what they were up to and my father shouted down that they would pursue the Glory to deny it a clean getaway. They would drop messages where they could in an attempt to keep the police apprised, but they would have to lift immediately if they were to have any chance of keeping the prey in sight. To the great credit of that worthy, he saw the sense of their plan immediately, wished them God’s speed, and waved them clear.

  “And so lifted the Davina in the first and, I believe, only incidence of a gyrosphere pursuit.

  “The Glory was already quarter of a mile away as they cleared the tree line, caught in a fresh south by south westerly. They were not manoeuvring yet, probably intent of getting a head start by running before the wind before starting to steer. You can imagine how unwelcome the sight of the Davina rising in their wake was to them. To my father’s astonishment, however, they held their height, gusting along barely ten feet above the tree tops, and not deigning to climb into the faster winds above. My father took this to be a wobble on their part and was about to capitalise upon it by climbing over them, when McMurdo, wilier than father, stayed his hand. ‘No,’ he warned. ‘They’re up to something.’ My father had long since learned to trust his friend’s instincts and drew back the rotary speed of the lifting gyroscope, but he was unable to stop their ascent until they were some twenty feet higher than the level of the Glory’s sphere-top. Once there, he was loath to descend again, for the trees were moving below them now, and it would be all too simple to overcompensate and put the basket down among the branches to snag there and bring the chase to a premature end.

  “’They’re brave or desperate,’ opined McMurdo. ‘I believe they intend to thread the needle.’

  “And indeed they did. The needle in question was the Avon Gorge beneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a vertiginous place where winds blows through at speed on some days, and that was such a day. The wind had already shifted towards the north-west at our back, and we had to use the sails to stay heading towards our target. Confined by the walls, the air would be moving at fifteen or perhaps even twenty knots upriver. Those were dangerous speed for a gyrosphere, but if handled correctly, would shoot her through like a cork from a bottle of champagne. They were already starting to descend, and her rudder gyro was bringing her about to enter the Gorge north of the bridge.

  “The opportunities for disaster were many, but so was the chance for them to show the Davina a clean set of heels. ‘Well?’ my father asked of McMurdo.

  “McMurdo didn’t hesitate even for a second. ‘After them,’ he said grimly, and so my father engaged on the dangerous pursuit.

  “The Glory tried to enter the gorge tidily, but it was a manoeuvre that involved both vertical and lateral movement committed upon at the same moment, and she was not fitted out to manage such easily. She made the turn, but the change in attitude was handled less neatly. The Davina, in contrast, was fitted with the new control gear that had so disconcerted the villains the previous night. My father was able to conduct both operations simultaneously, and swept in behind them. Instantly the sails bloomed as the spirited wind entered them, blowing the creases taut and making the booms creak under the strain. They descended into the gorge where the wind blew hardest and also where they would be sure of missing the underside of the bridge, but not so low as to threaten the high masts of the shipping travelling the channel below.

  “The Glory was cutting it much more finely. Above and ahead of them, my father and his colleague watched with horror as the stolen gyrosphere flew far too closely for comfort to the bridge’s deck. It would only take a perturbation in the wind or the gyroscopic levitation field to drive them up into it, possibly with enough force to deform the gyro cage, causing them to jam and the field to dissipate almost instantly with fatal effect.

  “It was then that the chase took an unexpected turn.”

  “I’m finding all manner of things about this tale unexpected,” muttered Kay, “not to mention unbelievable.” He was hushed immediately by the other members.

  “My father could see a little band of blue sky between the top of the Glory and the bridge when, to his great astonishment, he saw something fall across the gap. ‘Did you see that?’ he asked McMurdo.

  “’Aye,’ answered the Scot. ‘It was a body. I think I saw the outline of a skirted figure. Och, Hercules…’” Here Danvers rolled the “r” sound of “Hercules” quite unforgivably. “’Tis a woman who’s jumped!’

  “There are, unhappily, certain places in the country that draw those who are in such a state of mental anguish that they seek self-destruction. Beachy Head is infamously one such, and — ever since its opening — the Clifton Suspension Bridge is another.

  “As the Glory cleared the bridge and sunlight fell upon her once more, they could clearly see a figure spread-eagled across the trailing side of the upper surface of the ‘sphere, a woman in a blue dress clinging fiercely to the anti-bird netting with which the structure was swathed.

  “I understand it is not unusual for the suicidal impulse to be purged when an attempt fails, and this seemed to be the case here. This poor woman, driven by unknown devils, had taken herself to that place for her own execution, placed herself on the rail, and flung herself into what she believed to be eternity and the judgement of an unamused God. We should all of us who have never felt that impulse thank our lucky stars, and not rush to judge those that have. In any event, the extraordinary coincidence of the moment of her jump and the passage of the Glory beneath her — illegal on several counts — had preserved her, and even the speed with which she fell those potentially deadly yards was moderated by her skirts ballooning in the wind to ameliorate the shock of her landing.

  “My father and McMurdo apprehended at once that the stakes had risen that much higher. Their mission could no longer be simply shadowing the Glory to her clandestine landing, but they must instead do what they could to bring her down without injuring her unexpected passenger. Thus, my father traded a little speed for altitude, and rose up behind the Glory so that the Davina’s basket was on a level with the woman.

  “He flew as near as he dared, and the woman looked over her shoulder to see them coming on. The action disturbed her hat, which fell away, tumbling into the ghastly void beneath. By now, they were into the docks proper, flying over the floating harbour.

  “My father hallooed her loudly, and cried, ‘Madam! You are in great danger!’

  “This she replied to a little testily, ‘I know!’

  “My father communicated quickly to her that her situation was worse than even it appeared. The woman, quickly becoming alive to her predicament, cast around with her gaze, as if seeking some solution. After all, if the Glory managed to escape, then she would be in the hands of desperate men, and her life and perhaps even her honour might well mean little to them. Presently her eye settled upon the netting to which she clung, and she began to make her way slowly and carefully to the apex of the Glory’s gyrosphere. Here she found the end of the so-called cinching line. As may be understood, much of the maintenance of a gyrosphere takes place within the sphere itself and, at such times when the ‘sphere is safely aground in its shed, the anti-bird netting serves as naught but a nuisance. Therefore, it is made relatively easy to remove, although replacing it takes an hour or two of shared labour. In short, the spherical cover is made with a long open vertical seam and, once in place, a line is run through alternating cringles on either side of the seam to form a removable boltrope.”

  Danvers looked around the room and saw he’d lost a few people with that, so he clarified. “Suffice to say, the netting is held in place with a single length of line that holds the seam shut in much the same way that a seam in an item of clothing is held secure with a thread. The line is sewn into the apex of the netting cover and tied off at the lower end. The sewing at the top end, of course, n
ever comes under any great strain and so is not especially resilient. One may be sure it was never intended to weather the efforts of a determined woman to undo it.

  “As my father and McMurdo watched and argued the merits of moving in close enough for the woman to risk moving from one ‘sphere to the other (they concluded it was too dangerous for a multitude of reasons), the woman worked on the cinching line’s topmost anchoring point. Within a very few minutes by dint of a nail file and, in desperation, her teeth, she had detached the line’s upper end and was forcing it back through the loops of the cringles.

  “The netting grew loose as the line slid down through the loops under its own weight. The fugitives realised very quickly what was happening as the line started to slide down and they must also have realised that it was impossible to do anything about it while in flight. When shortly afterwards, the entire netting cover slid down to hang loosely over the sail booms, making their operation slow and awkward as well as their effect markedly reduced, they knew the jig was up. They could barely see out of the basket, and any hope of outrunning the law was lost.

  “A danger remained, however. Astride the topmost armillary ridges sat the hapless woman, now with only sheer slippery metal between her and the whirring arms of the concentric gyroscopes below. If she fell, then if the arms did not dash her to death in a second, they would inevitably foul on her, the ‘sphere would fall, and her doom would be doubly certain. Thus, she laboured to remain on the outside, but even here she was slipping. My father and McMurdo could only watch as her grip started to fail, and it seemed inescapable that the fall that had been interrupted by the Glory must now be fatally completed.

  “My father reached for the controls. McMurdo said, ‘You’re dooming us all,’ but he did not say it as a warning or an admonishment, nor did he try to stop my father. After all, what sort of men would they be not to assay the attempt, though it be at the cost of their own lives?

  “The Davina closed rapidly on the hamstrung Glory, aiming to strike the rear of the Glory’s basket as gently as possible with the leading edge of the Davina’s sphere. It was the most precise piece of piloting that my father was ever called upon to perform.

  “On that clear summer’s morning in Bristol, as the citizens, and the sailors in the docks and aboard their surface vessels looked up in wonderment and surprise, the Davina closed on her prey and tapped into her as softly as the pat of a kitten’s paw. The woman, jarred by the slight impact, lost the last of her waning grip, and slid down the sphere to fall. A fall of a few scant feet before she landed on the netting of the Davina’s upper surface, to which she firmly anchored herself.

  “Once certain she was safely aboard, my father allowed the Davina to fall back, disengaging from the stricken Glory. The safety of their new passenger was paramount and, after McMurdo quickly consulted the map, he changed their tack to head to the northeast. They came by Bristol Cathedral and set down neatly upon College Green, whereupon McMurdo clambered down and proceeded to harangue passers-by for the use of a long ladder.”

  Danvers lit a new cheroot from a spill touched into the jet, took an appreciative drag, and said, “That’s about the whole of the story. The Glory, poor old thing, set down very heavily in the water just before reaching the parish of Redcliffe. The thieves and their booty were recovered, but the Glory herself was irreparably damaged in the landing. All very exciting of course. Quite the nine day wonder.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘the parish of R—‘?” said Kay, somewhat acidly. Danvers refused to rise to that, so Kay continued, “Truly, Danvers, that is the tallest tale I think I’ve ever heard within these hallowed walls.” In fairness, he had been absent the night Hotchkiss had regaled the company about the armoured mastodon that had threatened Ruislip, so perhaps he was correct in this statement.

  “It’s a matter of record” said Danvers lightly.

  “Record be blowed. I think your old man was leading you up the garden path with this one. You had me believing it until you just had to throw in the detail of the opportune suicide who turns into some sort of airborne Boadicea in a situation that would turn any woman and a decent percentage of men into terrified jellies. I simply refuse to believe such a creature exists.”

  “Oh,” said Danvers, unperturbed. “And I was so sure you’d met my mother.”

  To which Kay had no reply.

  Flight of Daedalus

  - Piotr Świetlik -

  for Madzia

  In the beginning there was light. Soft blue haze filtering through closed eyelids from no apparent source, red flashes bursting intermittently from two different directions. Then a soft hum broke through the shell of oblivion he was submerged in, followed by a deafening honk of a ship’s siren. His world shook to the foundations with a metallic twang and when a loud hiss ceased to torture his ears, he thought he could smell the sea, before it was all swallowed once more by darkness.

  His head hurt, a dull pain interrupted occasionally by a sharp pins piercing all of his muscles at once. It was an unpleasant yet strangely invigorating experience, as if his body was returning to function again after a long break. For uncountable time the steady progression of twitches and aches were all that made up his world. Memories began to filter through the pain, slowly at first, only to wash over his med-clouded mind shortly after. He tried to open his eyes and what he saw was strange. He lay in an advanced medical unit, located in what reminded him either of an eccentric mansion bedroom or a nightmarish room in a Victorian hospital, with needles and sensors attached all over his body.

  His first instinct was to flee. He tried to sit up, but found his limbs limp and unresponsive. For a moment he felt panic, but then remembered his training from years ago and managed to calm down enough to look around a little more, to determine if what he saw was real.

  The walls were covered in an entanglement of bronze pipes, with valves and strange looking outlets placed here and there all around. The light came from about a dozen gas or oil lamps. He wondered if they were fake; he still remembered what the flames should behave like from his camping trips. When he looked closely at the med-unit he was attached to, he decided it too has been made to match the fashion. Blue and emerald displays were neatly placed in between the silvery pipes and copper coils. He took a deep breath, wondering where he might be. A private clinic perhaps? He hadn’t had a chance to dwell on that for more than a moment before the wood-panelled door opened and a man came in. He was short, bald and wore a white doctor’s coat. He offered a brief smile from under a bushy moustache.

  “Good morrow to you, good sir. How are you feeling, hm?” The man quirked an eyebrow.

  “Hi…” was all he managed to offer in reply before he broke into a bad attack of coughing. When he finally finished he felt one of the needles placed in his leg vein pump something cool into his bloodstream. It must have been the result of the doctor touching a small dial that looked, from a distance, like a wristwatch.

  “Better, hm?” The doctor smiled. ‘I’m Doctor Philby. Gerald Dundas Philby, at your service.”

  “Hi,” he tried again. “Benton Hermaszewski. Where am I?”

  “Why, you’re in my hospital, of course. How’s your memory?”

  “Fine, thank you. So which hospital is it?”

  “The best. Brunel’s British Royal Infirmary in Bristol.” The doctor kept smiling. “You had quite a fall, but we’ll make sure you’re ticking in no time.” He went closer to the med-unit and brought up one of the blue displays, examining it with evident interest. The metal-clad holo display swayed gently as the doctor tapped it few times.

  “Fall?” asked Benton, his thoughts still heavy with sleep and drugs.

  The doctor pointed at the decorated ceiling. He moved his finger up and then slowly down, imitating the whistling sound of plummeting object. When his finger landed in the palm of his other hand, he fixed his bright blue eyes on Benton. “Sure your memory is fine?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Benton stirred, trying to find a more co
mfortable position. “How did I end up in Bristol?”

  “The Queen Victoria picked you up from the ocean, from what I’ve heard. An impressively huge pinch of good fortune used up, if I may point out.” He looked at the display once more. “I should let you rest for a moment. There is someone waiting downstairs for you. Please wait for another five minutes for the med-bed to complete its cycle and disconnect. Then you may want to consider changing into some of the garments available.” He pointed to the extravagantly carved wardrobe in the corner. “It was nice to be treating you, Mr Herms…” There was a shadow of panic in his voice.

  “Benton. Please call me Benton and thank you doctor, for all your care.”

  “My pleasure, young man. All the best.” The doctor turned, placed his hands in pockets of his coat and left the room. Benton did not fail to notice that the door opened soundlessly before him.

  He lay there, irritated by the forced idleness and at the same time intrigued as to the identity of his guest, trying not to think too much about the strange surroundings. He was hoping it was all an elaborate joke cobbled together by Chuck and Jevgienij. It would not be the first time. He still had scars on his back and leg after his blind date with vampire vixens, orchestrated by the monkey duo. He was slightly puzzled by his own calmness, but then he remembered all the needles, and didn’t even try to guess what kind of drugs his body was full of.