When Palace of the Skies was finished—next year if things flowed on schedule, but more likely he wouldn’t be ready for his maiden flight till two years from this spring—another captaincy would open up. And go to one of the NTC’s airship line’s first officers: Flier or Layman. Well, Palace would create three more berths for watch officers as well. And in two years, natural attrition in the higher echelons might have moved little Candace Altocumulus up a rating or even two.
If not, if NTC failed to recognize her stuff with a First Officership by the time they christened Palace, there was that little Bolivian transport company constructing its own dirigible. Swisstrans, Aeroflot, and the People’s Republic were rumored to be shuffling similar plans. The next three or four years might see as many as half a dozen non-NTC zeps riding the cloudlines.
Candace’s Chinese was limited to twelve weeks of basic introductory, grace of NTC’s training program, but her Russian was almost decent. That is, stranded in a stark survival situation with an educated speaker of standard Muscovite, she would have a chance of achieving something like verbal communication. South American Spanish had been her university minor. And English still counted for quite a bit. Politicians could rant all they liked about English and Russian losing the International Languages race to Chinese and South American, but big multi-national corporations were at least as important as little national governments, and some of the biggest multi-national corps still honored their old R.S.A. home bases.
Unfortunately, that was one rub about leaving Nostalgic Transport to be a bigger frog in some smaller pond. But as multi-nationals went, NTC was hardly more than medium size. A captaincy in the Bolivian company might lead to one in Aeroflot or Swisstrans, both of which were small in the fancy-class and nostalgic travelers department but larger overall, catering as they traditionally had to the reality-perceiving branches of humanity.
Yes, given a long enough stopover in Lisbon, this might be as good a time as any to pump the local databases for the Bolivian company’s application form. Candace only wished she had a little more crisis experience to her credit. Crisis experience just wasn’t that easy for an NTC third officer to log.
“How are we doing?” she asked the intercom.
Radiowoman Jorhoven’s voice came back: “She’s coming up on us from north northwest, closing at eighteen knots.”
“That should put us roughly one point five kilometers distant,” said Northstar, who sat at the navigator’s compscreen this watch.
“Good.” Candace nodded. Captain Denne wanted the first dip to come toward the end of the main course, so she could leave her meal unfinished in her hurry to save the ship. Very dramatic. Candace wondered how the M. Thundergod they had aboard would react to the whole situation.
She was about to check with the elevatorman’s report when she heard the door open. She turned sharply, annoyed to think the Old Woman was jumping the gun.
SS Major von Cruewell stood in the doorway.
“Are you and your people here in your right minds, Offizier Altocumulus?” said the blind woman, just as if she didn’t look a little incomplete without her dog.
“What kind of question is that, Major?” Candace shot back. “Are we flying this ship as if we were in our wrong minds?”
“You sound lucid. That is good.” Coming all the way inside, Major von Cruewell shut and latched the door. “Yes, he was flying well, very smoothly. But that meant only that you were not being wild with the actual controls, not yet. In calm weather this zeppelin could fly himself for a long time and nobody guess the difference.”
“Well, the weather isn’t going to stay calm much longer, but when we dip it’ll be according to plan, not because we’ve gone wild at the controls! Now if you—”
“They are all wild in the passenger lounge and promenade deck,” said the major. “Also, Chef Lightouch sounds wild in her galley. I believe they have been whammied.”
“Whammied!” Third Officer Candace Altocumulus, Navigator Northstar, Elevatorman Steadyshoes, and Rudderman Armstrong all echoed it, not quite in unison, with varying inflections.
“Ja, whammied.” Major von Cruewell nodded. “But no, you are not whammied here. You are in your right minds. I can tell by your voices. What of your radio operator?”
“Lucid.” Candace heard a slight quaver in her own voice. “I just talked with her over the intercom.”
“Gut. Very good. You must close yourselves in. Lock your door and tell your radiowoman to lock hers.”
Candace had tabbed her wristphone to Captain Denne’s personal number. Captain Denne didn’t answer the soft chiming.
“Do not eat or drink anything from the galley until we know it is safe,” Major von Cruewell went on. “I suspect the soup, but this is not yet proved. What of the off-duty crew? They are eating their dinner now, nicht wahr?”
With one ear turned to her captain’s still chiming number, Candace tabbed the intercom, gave Jorhoven the picture in a few terse phrases, instructed her to lock her door and check with the crew’s quarters and the watch mechanics in the engine gondolas. Her face felt tight. While waiting for Jorhoven’s report, she turned back to the major. “Everyone in the passenger areas? Captain Denne, too?”
“Captain Denne, Offizier Flier, and Offizier Airborne. Also the good Doktor Caduceus. People cannot help themselves when someone puts whammy secretly into their food. Also both our stewards and the waiter Garson. They must have eaten from the passengers’ food before serving it or else in the galley as they went back and forth. One passenger only remains unaffected, besides myself. That is why I suspect the soup, because he very rudely did not eat it.”
“It was iguanice for the passengers and officers.” Candace thought regretfully of the bowl or two she was to have enjoyed once off duty. It occurred to her that Major von Cruewell must not have eaten any, either, but she didn’t ask the major’s reasons. Instead, she added, “The crew was getting mulligan tonight.”
“Sehr gut. If it was the iguanice, they will not be affected. But you will tell them to remain close and let nobody into their quarters except myself or you until further notice.”
“You, Major?” Candace began, but at that same moment Captain Denne’s wristphone clicked into her waveline. Over a babble of mob noises and disorganized music, the Old Woman shouted, “Damn the torpedoes and double-speed to the spiral!”
Candace tabbed her phone off and stared at the SS major.
“Mister Altocumulus, sir,” Jorhoven’s voice reported via intercom, “they all seem to be all right up there.”
“Excellent,” said the blind woman. “But they must not eat or drink anything else. I will go and choose three or four of them to watch over the lounge and promenade, to be sure that the passengers do not injure themselves in their frenzy. If it is whammy, it will pass in a few hours. Meanwhile, Offizier Altocumulus, you will continue to fly this zeppelin. Perhaps your bridge crew and radiowoman can be relieved from among those above, but you yourself must hold the command until further notice, even if it is for all this night, even if it is for all the rest of this voyage.”
Major von Cruewell left for the crew’s quarters above. After instructing the radiowoman to keep her lines open and her door shut, Candace started to take another swallow of coffee, glanced at it suspiciously, and emptied it back into the thermplate urn.
“Sir?” said Navigator Northstar.
Candace Siroonian Altocumulus, Third Officer NTC Airship Lines, slowly grinned. “Head straight into it, Mister Northstar. We’re taking him through! By gadfry, we’ll give them an evening’s entertainment to remember.”
Chapter 9
“Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs.”
—Edgar Allan Poe, “The System of Doc
tor Tarr and Professor Fether”
* * * *
The Firebird was aflame. Vasilisa Tallchief Petrovka must bound swiftly, swiftly through this skyforest of dusky green and twilight blue, from one end to the other and back, never daring rest for a moment lest her magenta-orange radiance set the gauzy leaves ablaze, and if they were above the rainclouds, nothing could ever put that fire out.
* * * *
The world was green and white and golden. The plant who was called, for the benefit of her redblood companions, the Celestial Ariella, Musician of the Spheres, drew her tendrils lovingly along the harpstrings. Showers of sparkling notedrops rained upward and swirled hovering round the ceiling before falling gently down over the company.
* * * *
Great Olympian Jove, Father of Gods and Men, chose this auspicious evening to descend in showers of gold. Gold enough to coat every fair mortal maiden in the chamber, starting with the sulkiest ...
* * * *
Belladonna the Ribald had forgotten whether she was fighting or making love. Not that it mattered. When you’d lost your sword, and couldn’t reach a fork or a broken bottle, you just kept punching and squeezing at the orc or demigod or elemental or giant dwarf or dragon or centaur or whatever it was you were rolling around on the ground with.
* * * *
Andrew Gorky Stewart had rediscovered an ancient laborsaving technique. Instead of stacking up dirty dishes for the tedious washer—fling them, scatter them, break them. Poltergeists had the secret, why not people? Every meal a solemn toast, each plate rendered unreusable. And transformed, as a side advantage, into a missile to be aimed at somebody’s—anybody’s—head. Yes, the world would have much to thank its steward for.
* * * *
Lance ffellowes Flier, NTC Airship Lines First Officer soon to be Captain, didn’t quite understand what what’s-his-name was trying to make with the dinner rolls, but they should be excellent crunches for stuffing the next ballot box.
* * * *
Ozzie Gillikin, alias the Wizard of Oz, had almost licked three model scalawagons into shape. If he could just get the carrots to stick on for wheels, he could make them full size and then the entire party would enjoy an Ozhilarating zip through the clouds. Straightening his tongue, he concentrated on pronouncing the magic word “Pyrzqxgl” three times, very fast.
* * * *
Captain Gage Burkhardt Denne was deep in the manufacture of waterfalls. Crimson waterfalls, rosy waterfalls, pale gold waterfalls, they struck the crags and cliffs of her second officer’s face and rolled down in streaks. A seltzer bottle, if she could find one, would make very bubbly waterfalls. Or beer. A beerfall would more than bubble. It would foam, and the foam would last. A beer waterfall might turn this upcoming little rainstorm into a snowsquall.
* * * *
The second officer wondered, along idly scientific lines, if it was possible to drown someone standing up, with intoxicants aimed well up the nostrils. Middle-aged, balding, paunchy, adrift somewhere between the first officer’s competence and the third officer’s energy—mere teenyboppers, both of them—the second officer had trouble remembering if he was trying to drown the captain or get her to drown him. Airborne! Yes, that was his chosen name. Wright Airborne. With an Oland in the middle, handed down from his mother and her father and a long line of fathers before the Great Reform.
* * * *
Mother Frances Jackson Jackson was looking for an aspergillum. She found one on the table, disguised as a salt shaker. Salt was also holy and a blessing. Chanting aloud, she went about sprinkling the company with holy water crystallized into holy salt. Wherever it lighted in tiny flecks it glowed for a few seconds before sinking in. She asperged the dark priest’s legs very thoroughly before he was aware of it.
* * * *
Winterset Lone-Eagle Windsong was at one with the Universe. He was always at one with the Universe, but even more so tonight. Artificially, but when this kind of mind exploder got inside one who was at one with the Universe, both that one and the Universe just had to let it roll. So Sky was Earth above his head and Earth was Sky beneath his feet, and he simply let it be and accepted. He glimpsed the gazelle bound by and bounded after her, intent on being one with her, and somersaulted into Earth Mother instead. He had not remembered he was standing on his head. Rolling closer, he began merging, Sky Father into Earth Mother and who could say which was Yang and which was Yin when the Universe Itself was one?
* * * *
In the studied professional opinion of Dr. Cecily Payne Caduceus, this airship was suffering from a severe case of gaso-enteritis. The only hope was immediate surgery to stabilize the cabin pressure, and the best place for the incision was at the joint of window and ceiling. Selecting a scalpel from the table, she waded through the ship’s stomach and started climbing toward the upper northwest corner.
* * * *
Wasn’t this always the way? thought Peach Ming Blossom, Imperial Lotus Flower and child of the Mandarins. No sooner clean a room than the round-eyes will dirty it and rumple it again. Here was Dr. C., who ought to know much better, trampling down the pillows, and she hadn’t even dusted her shoes first! Ming Blossom pulled and tugged at her, determined to plump her up and make her lie neatly in place with the other sofa garniture.
* * * *
Amahl Korfu Garson, humble waiter in line for a stewardship on the Palace and the chance to bully his own waiters, had really been born to sculpt. At long last he had his chance to sculpt an entire orchestra. One chair here, the next chair there, and when they were finally perfect, all the musicians would come.
* * * *
The Father of Gods and Men slapped at a wasp that had just stung His Left Ear. Impious wasp! He snuffed it out of existence with a wisp of His Divine Will. Meanwhile, time to move on to a new maiden. He started looking around.
* * * *
Great Juno pouted because Ganymede continued to avoid Her. Once he had actually passed Her by, walking with the Titan woman. (Those Titans must be prisoned tighter beneath the earth. Some of them had begun to slip their chains. Rebels, all. A mistake not to have destroyed them utterly. Juno and Jove must deliberate it again.) Ganymede passed Her once more, alone, slipping eelwise through Her clutching Fingers. Very well. For now She abandoned herself to laughing Bacchus, let him whirl Her about, infinitely superior to all his maenads in that they were mortal women and She was Goddess Queen and Mother to them all and even to their lord and demigod of the vine.
* * * *
So there was treasure in Laputa. Treasure in the form of warmer warmth than wine, clearer cheer than hashish, giddiness fenceable for good, ringing gold. Not for nothing had Master Jemmy Tolliver been dubbed the Reynard of High Tobymen. Aye, shrewd was Jemmy, sly was Jemmy, and which was as much as all the rest, once ere now had he imbibed these goods, so that now he recognized what had all this company so wonderful tipsy. Squeezing the old white-toga’s doxy tighter, he whirled her round and rounder, but breathed no whisper of his most profitable secret.
* * * *
Angela Garvey Garvey was creating a masterpiece in all the colors of Thanksgiving. A baked golden potato, squashed with her fist, became the wild turkey’s body. Three sweeps with her beef-gravied fingers, and he had his tail. Carrots for his feet and surprised little beak, two bright cherries for that red thing turkeys wore at the bridges of their noses. Broccoli made a fine green forest for him, and creamy chicken gravy for the fluffy clouds. She wanted to draw those in the air above the tablecloth, for realism, but they wouldn’t stick ...
Corwin sat down beside her.
“Look,” she pointed out proudly. “His tailfeathers, his little beak, his favorite tree, and all the crowds…clouds…crowds of clouds, if we could only make them stick.” She hung her napkin in the air. Obediently, it tried a moment to fly before fluttering back down to the table. But she’d almost had it. She picked it
up and gave it to her husband. “Here. You show it what to do.”
“Garvey ... let’s retire now.”
“Oh, my dear!” Were those tears in his eyes? No, that wouldn’t do, not at all. Quickly she smeared a storm cloud on his forehead. “Now blink, and we’ll have a nice rain and wash it all away.”
He slipped his hands over hers and started wiping her fingers with a napkin. “Garvey, can you concentrate at all? Try to concentrate. Now. Some ... some devil must have drugged our food!”
She tried very, very hard to concentrate. “Oh, I see! We’re wiping the clouds into the napkin and then we’ll teach it to stay up.”
“Angela!” His fingers tightened on hers, but someone came down on her from behind, and she heard a voice booming,
“Hebe! Little Hebe!”
Corwin sprang up and there was a London Bridge of arms over her head.
“Oh, jolly!” Jumping to her feet, she looked for someone to pull into the chain. The nearest was Officer Flier. She reached him by knee-diving halfway across the end of the table—scattering things in a rainbow shower and tinkle of china and glass—pinched his sleeve and tugged.
They tumbled over and for a moment rolled here and there on the thick-growing carpet, and Ozzie was rolling with them. When they all got up again and came to dance through, London Bridge wasn’t there any longer. Corwin and Jove were tying their arms together, down around their chests.
“No,” Angela told them. “No, no. Listen: London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down—”
“Wilt thou, I say,” came Jemmy’s answering refrain, “forever work me pain?”
“Build it up with plastic mesh,” Angela warbled on, and Ozzie and Officer Flier were trying to help, but getting all tangled in their own arms.
“And wilt thou ne’...er restore my joy again?” Jemmy and somebody else came crashing into London Bridge and it all fell down, my laughing lady!
The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK Page 76
