Dinosaurs & A Dirigible (40 page)

The only sound
The Enterprise
made was the minute whistle of the air curling around it, and that was lost in the rustle of the trees. When their sharp-edged shadow fell across the grizzly, however, the brute paused and turned with its snout raised. Erlenwanger was steadying himself with his arms through the loop of the ladder as if it were the sling of a rifle. His camera was ready. The bear coughed and charged without hesitation.

Carl’s heart leaped as he saw through the port in the gondola floor that the grizzly was rearing onto its hind legs. The beast slashed the air with its claws, black and worn by use to chisel edges instead of points. The gondola lurched as the Professor jerked his knees up to his chest, supporting his whole weight on his arms. Then they were safely past. Carl turned to call something to Erlenwanger, and five thousand feet above them a cloud passed before the Sun. The hydrogen cooled and shrank. The airship lost buoyancy almost as suddenly as if Carl had dumped a tank.
The Enterprise
dropped ten feet to a new equilibrium. The end of the rope ladder clattered on the ground. The gondola itself was well within the range of claws that could rip open trees to get at the honey within.

The grizzly coughed again and charged, as quickly as a cat sighting prey. Professor Erlenwanger had pulled his torso into the gondola. Carl leaped from the controls to drag him the rest of the way to safety. The older man, gripping the jamb with his left hand, drew his pistol. The shots rattled like a dozen lathes cracking, sharp but overwhelmed by the blasts of the bullets themselves bursting on the ground beneath. Shards of rock sang off the underside of the gondola. One bit hummed through the doorway to sting Carl’s outstretched hand. The snarl deep in the bear’s throat
whuffed!
out instead as a startled bleat. The Professor laid his pistol on the gondola floor. “Now, Carl,” he gasped. “If you would.”

Carl grasped the older man under both armpits and hefted him aboard. Molly had slammed all her levers upward when she realized what was happening. The airship was soaring and already near its normal cruising altitude. Beneath them the grizzly sat back on its haunches, washing its face with both paws.

Professor Erlenwanger unstrapped his camera and slid the door shut. He was breathing heavily. Carl had returned to the helm but kept only steerage way, uncertain of what the Professor would want to do. Molly had leveled them off at a thousand feet again. She was beginning to regain some of her normal color. “I think we can resume course,” Erlenwanger said at last. He picked up the little handgun and extracted the magazine from its grip.

“You shot the bear?” Carl asked, watching the older man. He was thumbing brass cartridges into the magazine from a box that had shared the drawer with the pistol.

Professor Erlenwanger looked up sharply. “I fired into the ground in front of the bear,” he said. “That was sufficient.” He slid the reloaded magazine back into the butt of the pistol, his lips silently working as he considered whether or not to continue. “I dare say it is sometimes necessary to kill,” he said finally. “In order to stay alive, or sometimes for better reasons. But it isn’t a decision to be taken lightly or as anything but a last resort.”

Erlenwanger shook his head as if to clear it of his present mood. He set the weapon and the box of ammunition back into the drawer and closed it. Smiling he added, “It’s an automatic pocket pistol of European manufacture. And I suppose you’re familiar with the use of explosive bullets in hunting dangerous game?”

Carl nodded. “I’ve heard of that.”

“Well,” the Professor said, “I had a—Belgian gunsmith of great ability make up some explosive rounds for the pistol. On stony soil they produced quite a startling effect, don’t you think?”

Molly took a deep, thankful breath. “More to the point,” she said, “the bear thought it was startling.”

“Goodness,” said the Professor, noticing that his wireless apparatus still sat out on the ledge, “I’d best complete my report, hadn’t I? Especially now that I’ve had a real adventure!” Chuckling, he sat down at the key again as the airship swept steadily westward through the calm air.

Professor Erlenwanger looked at the altimeter, frowned, and glanced over at Molly’s bank of controls. They were all uncomfortably close to the top. Despite that,
The Enterprise
was within five hundred feet of the ground. The dry snow blew like fog around the trunks of the conifers marching up the slopes. “Between the thin air at this altitude and the film of ice we’re gathering,” the Professor said, “we need maximum lift. And I’m afraid that there’s enough condensate in several of the chambers that we aren’t getting the lift we should be.”

Carl frowned back. “Are we in danger?” he asked, carefully controlling his voice. He did not want to sound as though he were on the edge of panic—but five hundred feet was a long way to fall, and the ground beneath looked as hard as a millstone.

“Oh, goodness,” the Professor said, blinking in concern at the impression he had given. “Oh, not at all. I just propose to land in a suitable location—I’m sure there must be one.” He squinted through the forward windows. The cabin heat kept the center of each pane clear. The edges, where the aluminum frames conveyed the warmth to the outside more swiftly, were blind with frost. “I’ll vent and dry tanks three and seven—they seem to be the wettest—and recharge them. It may not be the most attractive country on which to set down, but I think I can promise you that we will do so gently.”

“There’s a clear hill over there,” Molly said, pointing so that her finger left a smudge on the glass. “But you’ll need water to refill the tanks, won’t you?”

“Oh, that’s quite all right,” Erlenwanger explained, already swinging the helm. “We can melt the snow for electrolysis, and goodness knows there’s enough snow. See if you can bring us down just a little above the tallest trees, my dear.”

Despite the gusty winds and the lack of anyone on the ground to set their grapnel for them, Professor Erlenwanger brought them to the smooth landing he had promised. Twigs, poking through the crust of snow which had come early even for the mountains, snapped beneath the weight of
The Enterprise.
“Well,” said the Professor, “I think the first order of business is to clear the chambers, don’t you?” He gripped one of the vent levers and tried to slide it to the side. It did not move. All three people looked momentarily blank. “Of course,” Erlenwanger said, “the ice! The valve mechanism must be frozen shut.”

“Something we can fix?” asked Carl, frowning again but without the immediate concern that the prospect of crashing into the ground had raised in him.

“Well, yes,” agreed the older man, “but it means climbing up to chip the valve loose, and I’m afraid it’s really too near dusk to do that now. I had hoped to have the chambers refilling overnight.”

Carl shrugged. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll take a lantern up with me and do it now.”

Erlenwanger frowned. Then he, too, shrugged and said, “Well, that’s all right, I suppose. But don’t even think of getting above any other airship with an open flame. Blocking the percolation of hydrogen through the very atoms of the skin was perhaps the greatest of the advances incorporated into
The Enterprise”
—his grin flashed—“though it isn’t one I would expect an investigator of the present time to note.”

Carl drew on the sheepskin jacket and cowhide work gloves the Professor had bought him at a rail siding the night before. Molly handed him the kerosene lamp she had just lighted. It whispered deep in its throat, and the yellow glow it cast was friendlier and more human than that of the chilly electrical elements. Carl stepped outside, bracing himself against the expected eddy of wind-blown snow. The lantern rocked in his hand but did not go out. He slammed the door and began to climb the open ladder just astern of it, up the side of the gas compartment. There was a slick of ice crackling on the rungs, and the lamp in his left hand made climbing harder; but Carl had carried shingles to the roof of the barn in a drizzle, and this was nothing beyond his capacity.

The snow and the twilight made the evening seem bright, but the vents were deep in a shadowed recess. A catwalk ran along the airship’s spine. Without the lantern the trip would have been vain, though the yellow light paled everywhere but where it was needed. Carl set the lamp down on the walk and rapped the valve with the bolster of his clasp knife. He took the glove off his left hand and opened the blade to scrape the joints in the brass.

Movement at the wood line caught the corner of Carl’s eye. A pair of steers bolted into the open. One had horns which had been cropped to stumps shorter than its ears. Carl stared, squinting into the failing light. “Professor!” he called, just as the light on the gondola’s prow spread its broad fan down the hillside. The floodlight glared red from the eyes of the cattle and the three horses following them. The nearest of the three riders was wrapped in a dark-colored blanket. Even his hands, gripping a long-barreled rifle across the saddlebow, were hidden. Trotting his pinto just behind the first rider was a second whose straight black hair fell to his shoulders. A youthful whoop died in his throat at the blaze of light. His left arm, upraised with an unstrung bow, jerked down as his right hand sawed the pinto’s reins back.

The third Indian was far the oldest, though his twin braids were still so black as to give the lie to a face wrinkled like walnut burl. He wore a buffalo robe—as old, perhaps, as he was—pinned at the shoulder but open down the front to display a buckskin shirt. The old cap-and-ball revolver thrust through his waistband was nickeled. It sparkled like a faceted mirror in the instant before the rider slid it out and down into the shadow of his horse’s neck.

The gondola door rumbled open, thumping against its stop. Carl peered over the side. The curve of the buoyancy chamber hid the Professor until the older man stepped out in front of his floodlight. His shadow flashed suddenly toward the Indians. Its outline was misshapen with the angles of camera and tripod.

“Professor!” Carl called. “Those aren’t reservation cows!” If the older man heard Carl, he did not understand. He continued to walk downhill toward the Indians, calling to them in a language unfamiliar to Carl. Carl swung down the ladder, leaving skin from the palm of his left hand frozen to the top rung. He was muttering an unconscious prayer.

The steers had shied from the light, disappearing again into the trees. The eldest of the riders spoke. The rifleman swung his weapon clear of the blanket. The knob of its bolt handle, polished by decades of wear, winked. As Carl jumped into the gondola, a trick of the breeze brought Erlenwanger’s words up the hill: “Why, my goodness, a Dreyse needle gun here!”

“Where’s the lantern!” Molly cried.

“Jesus Christ, I left it!” Carl shouted, slamming open the pistol drawer. The cartridge box flew out, spilling the deadly brass to roll in a shifting pattern on the floor. Carl leaned out the doorway, leveling the unfamiliar pistol.

Molly vented tank three. The hydrogen bathed the lantern and ignited in a blue glare spraying a hundred feet in the air. The pinto reared, spilling its young rider. The rifle muzzle wavered from Erlenwanger to the airship, then back into the woods as the leading rider wheeled his mount. Molly opened tank seven. The eldest Indian fought his horse for an instant, the reflection from his revolver no harsher than that of his eyes. Then he gave the beast its head to gallop into the forest, followed by the pinto and the third of the cattle thieves. That last Indian was holding the pinto’s reins with both hands and running along beside it. A steer bawled from a distance. Then the night was silent again, leaving the Professor poised awkwardly in the light of his own airship.

Erlenwanger turned and began trudging up the hill. Molly cut the floodlight. Carl lowered the pistol which he had not fired. It apparently had a safety catch somewhere, like a hammerless shotgun. His left palm was burning and he noticed the blood for the first time.

Professor Erlenwanger slid the door shut behind him and set down his camera carefully. “One can get carried away and make mistakes,” he said softly. “They were doing something illegal; and of course we frightened them.” He looked from Carl to Molly and back again. “When one does something foolish, as I just did, it’s important that one have friends with better sense and quick minds. Thank you both, for my life and for much more.” Carl set the pistol down to take and squeeze one of the hands the older man stretched to both of them.

“Less than fifty years old,” the Professor said, apparently to himself, “and look at it even now.”

Molly leaned forward for a better look. She had stared down on Boston, however, and the skeletal mass of lights in the pre-dawn did not impress her. Carl had never seen anything like San Francisco in his life. “Oh, if Dad could only be here,” he said. “He wouldn’t brag on his trip to Kansas City ever again.”

“You can follow the veins of the city out beyond the lighted heart,” Professor Erlenwanger said. “Every one of those blue sparks is the collector arm of a trolley, bringing the late shifts home, carrying the earliest workers in to their jobs. Sometimes I think that cities live too, and that one day they will send travellers back in time to record their own births.”

The airship had met a mass of cool air over the bay and dropped to about five hundred feet. Molly started to nudge a pair of levers up, but the Professor’s hand stayed her. “No,” he said. “I’m going to land here.”

“Are we staying in San Francisco?” asked Carl, a little surprised because of the Professor’s previous avoidance of populous areas. But after all, they were on the West Coast, now; there was nowhere further to go.

The Professor cocked the helm slightly, searching the terrain below so that he did not have to look at his companions. The sky beyond the hills was metallically lighter. “I’m going to land you here and go on,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed your company more than I can tell you, but it is time for me to leave. I am not”—he swallowed—“simply abandoning you; I will leave you with five hundred dollars in gold pieces—”

“Professor,
no!”
Molly cried, her hand shooting out to touch but not grip his elbow. “We didn’t come with you for the money—but don’t leave us!