Land and Overland - Omnibus (28 page)

A dilemma had to be resolved.

Was the fact that so much depended on the outcome of the proving flight an argument for going on and on, even at the risk of passing an imperceptible point of no return? Or was there a higher obligation to be prudent and turn back with their hard-won store of knowledge?

“This is your lucky day,” Toller said to Rillomyner, who was watching him from his usual recumbent position in a passenger compartment. “You wanted work to occupy your mind, and now you’ve got it. Find a way of diverting some heat from the burner exhaust back down into the gondola.”

The mechanic sat up with a startled expression. “How could we do it, captain?”

“I don’t know. It’s your job to work out things like that. Rig up a scoop or something, and start right now—I’m tired of seeing you lie around like a pregnant gilt.”

Flenn’s eyes gleamed. “Is that any way to talk to our passenger, captain?”

“You’ve spent too much time on your backside, as well,” Toller told him. “Have you needles and thread in your kit?”

“Yes, captain. Big needles, little needles, enough threads and twines to rig a sailing ship.”

“Then start emptying sandbags and making over-suits out of the sacking. We’ll also need gloves.”

“Leave it to me, captain,” Flenn said. “I’ll fit us all out like kings.” Obviously pleased at having something constructive to do, Flenn tucked the carble into his clothing, went to his locker and began rummaging in its various compartments. He was whistling in shivery vibrato.

Toller watched him for a moment, then turned to Zavotle, who was blowing into his hands to keep them warm. “Are you still worrying about relieving yourself in weightless conditions?”

Zavotle’s eyes became wary. “Why do you ask, captain?”

“You should be—it looks like a toss-up as to whether you produce steam or snow.”

Shortly before littlenight on the fifth day of the flight the gauge registered a height of 2,600 miles and a gravity value of zero.

The four members of the crew were tied into their wicker chairs around the power unit, their feet outstretched towards the warm base of the jet tube. They were muffled in crude garments of ragged brown sacking which disguised their human form and concealed the heaving of their chests as they laboured to deal with the thin and gelid air. Within the gondola the only signs of movement were the vapour featherings of the men’s breath; and on the outside meteors flickered in deep blue infinities, briefly and randomly linking star to star.

“Well, here we are,” Toller said, breaking a lengthy silence. “The hardest part of the flight is behind us, we have coped with every unpleasant surprise the heavens could throw at us, and we are still in good health. I’d say we are entitled to drink the brandy with the next meal.”

There was another protracted silence, as though thought itself had been chilled into sluggishness, and Zavotle said, “I’m still worried about the descent, captain—even with the heater.”

“If we survived this far we can go on.” Toller glanced at the heating device which Rillomyner had designed and installed with some assistance from Zavotle. It consisted of nothing more than an elongated S-shape of brakka tubing sections jointed with glass cord and fireclay. Its top end curved over into the mouth of the burner and its bottom end was secured to the deck beside the pilot’s station. A small proportion of each blast on the burner was channelled back down through the tube to send scorching miglign gas billowing through the gondola, making an appreciable difference to the temperature levels. Although the burner would necessarily be used less during the descent, Toller believed the heat drawn off from it would be sufficient for their needs in the two severest days.

“It’s time for the medical report,” he said, signalling for Zavotle to make notes. “How does everybody feel?”

“I still feel like we’re falling, captain.” Rillomyner was gripping the sides of his chair. “It’s making me queasy.”

“How could we fall if we have no weight?” Toller said reasonably, ignoring the fluttering lightness in his own stomach. “You’ll have to get used to it. How about you, Flenn?”

“I’m all right, captain—heights don’t bother me.” Flenn stroked the green-striped carble which was nestling on his chest with only its head protruding through a vent in his outer garment. “Tinny is all right, as well. We help keep each other warm.”

“I suppose I’m in reasonable condition, considering.” Zavotle made an entry in the log, writing clumsily with gloved hand, and raised his reproachful gaze to Toller. “Shall I put you down as being in fine fettle, captain? Best of health?”

“Yes, and all the sarcasm in the world won’t get me to change my decision—I’m turning the ship over immediately after littlenight.” Toller knew the co-pilot was still clinging to his opinion, voiced earlier, that they should delay turning the ship over for a full day or even longer after passing the zero gravity point. The reasoning was that doing so would get them through the region of greatest cold more quickly and with lost heat from the balloon protecting them from the chill. Toller could see some merit in the idea, but he would have exceeded his authority by putting it into practice.

As soon as you pass the midpoint Overland will begin attracting you towards it
, Lain had impressed upon him.
The pull will be very slight at first, but it will quickly build up. If you augment that pull with the thrust from the drive jet you will soon exceed the design speed of the ship—and (hat must never be allowed to happen
.

Zavotle had argued that the S.E.S. scientists had not anticipated the life-threatening coldness, nor had they allowed for the fact that the thin air of the mid-passage exerted less force on the envelope, thus increasing the maximum safe speed. Toller had remained adamant. As captain of the ship he had considerable discretionary powers, but not when it was a case of challenging basic S.E.S. directives.

He had not admitted that his determination had been reinforced by an instinctive distaste for flying the ship upside down. Although during training he had been privately sceptical about the notion of weightlessness, he fully understood that as soon as the ship had passed the midpoint it would have entered the gravitational domain of Overland. In one sense the journey would have been completed, because—barring an act of human will translated into mechanical action—the destinies of the ship and its crew could no longer be affected by their home world. They would have been cast out, redefined as aliens by the terms of celestial physics.

Toller had decided that postponing the attitude reversal until littlenight had passed would use up all the leeway he had in the matter. Throughout the ascent Overland, though screened from view by the balloon, had steadily increased in apparent size and littlenight had grown longer accordingly. The approaching one would last more than three hours, and by the time it had ended the ship would have begun falling towards the sister planet. Toller found the progressive change in the patterns of night and day a powerful reminder of the magnitude of the voyage he had undertaken. There was no surprise as far as the intellect of the grown man was concerned, but the child in him was bemused and awed by what was happening. Night was becoming shorter as littlenight grew, and soon the natural order of things would be reversed. Land’s night would have dwindled to become Overland’s littlenight…

While waiting for darkness to arrive, Toller and the others investigated the miracle of weightlessness. There was a rare fascination in suspending small objects in the air and watching them hold their positions, in defiance of all of life’s teachings, until the next blast from the drive jet belatedly caused them to sink.

It is almost as if the jet somehow restores a fraction of their natural weight
, ran Zavotle’s entry in the log,
but of course that is a fanciful way of regarding the phenomenon. The real explanation is that they are invisibly fixed in place, and that the thrust from the jet enables the ship to overtake them
.

Littlenight came more suddenly than ever, wrapping the gondola in jewelled and fire-streaked blackness, and for its duration the four conversed in muted tones, recreating the mood of their first starlit communion of the flight. The talk ranged from gossip about life in the S.E.S. base to speculation about what strange things might be found on Overland, and once there was even an attempt to foresee the problems of flying to Farland, which could be observed hanging in the west like a green lantern. Nobody felt disposed, Toller noticed, to dwell on the fact that they were suspended between two worlds in a fragile open-topped box, with thousands of miles of emptiness lapping at the rim.

He also noticed that the crew had stopped addressing him as captain for the time being, and he was not displeased. He knew there was no lessening of his necessary authority—it was an unconscious acknowledgement of the fact that four ordinary men were venturing into the extraordinary, the region of strangeness, and that in their mutual need for each other they were equal…

One prismatic flash brought the daytime universe back into existence.

“Did you mention brandy, captain?” Rillomyner said. “It has just occurred to me that some internal warmth might fortify this cursed delicate stomach of mine. The medicinal properties of brandy are well known.”

“We’ll have the brandy with the next meal.” Toller blinked and looked about him, re-establishing connections with history. “Before that the ship gets turned over.”

Earlier he had been pleased to discover that the ship’s predicted instability in and close to the weightless zone was easy to overcome and control with the lateral jets. Occasional half-second bursts had been all that was necessary to keep the edge of the gondola in the desired relationship with the major stars. Now, however, the ship—or the universe—had to be stood on its head. He pumped the pneumatic reservoir to full pressure before feeding crystals to the east-facing jet for a full three seconds. The sound from the miniature orifice was devoured by infinity.

For a moment it seemed that its puny output would have no effect on the mass of the ship, then—for the first time since the beginning of the ascent—the great disk of Overland slid fully into view from behind the curvature of the balloon. It was lit by a crescent of fire along one rim, almost touching the sun.

At the same time Land rose above the rim of the gondola wall on the opposite side, and as air resistance overcame the impulsion from its jet the ship steadied in an attitude which presented the crew with a vision of two worlds.

By turning his head one way Toller could see Overland, mostly in blackness because of its proximity to the sun; and in the other direction was the mind-swamping convexity of the home world, serene and eternal, bathed in sunshine except at its eastern rim, where a shrinking curved section still lay in littlenight. He watched in rapt fascination as Overland’s shadow swung clear of Land, feeling himself to be at the fulcrum of a lever of light, an intangible engine which had the power to move planets.

“For pity’s sake, captain,” Rillomyner cried hoarsely, “put the ship to rights.”

“You’re in no danger.” Toller fired the lateral jet again and Land drifted majestically upwards to be occulted by the balloon as Overland sank below the edge of the gondola. The rigging creaked several times as he used the opposing lateral to balance the ship in its new attitude. Toller permitted himself a smile of satisfaction at having become the first man in history to turn a skyship over. The manoeuvre had been carried out quickly and without mishap—and from that point on the natural forces acting on the ship would do most of his work for him.

“Make a note,” he said to Zavotle. “Midpoint successfully negotiated. I foresee no major obstacles in the descent to Overland.”

Zavotle freed his pencil from its restraining clip. “We’re still going to freeze, captain.”

“That isn’t a major obstacle—if necessary we’ll burn some green and purple right here on the deck.” Toller, suddenly exhilarated and optimistic, turned to Flenn. “How do you feel? Can your head for heights cope with our present circumstances?”

Flenn grinned. “If it’s food you want, captain, I’m your man. I swear my arsehole has cobwebs over it.”

“In that case, see what you can do about a meal.” Toller knew the order would be particularly welcome because for more than a day the crew had opted to go without food or drink to obviate the indignity, discomfort and sheer unpleasantness of using the toilet facilities in virtual weightlessness.

He watched benignly as Flenn pushed the carble back into its warm sanctuary inside his clothing and untied himself from his chair. The little man was obviously struggling for breath as he swung his way into the galley, but the black cabochons of his eyes were glinting with good humour. He reappeared just long enough to hand Toller the single small flask of brandy which had been included in the ship’s provisions, then there followed a long period during which he could be heard working with the cooking equipment, panting and swearing all the time. Toller took a sip of the brandy and had given the flask to Zavotle when it dawned on him that Flenn was trying to prepare a hot meal.

“You don’t need to heat anything,” he called out. “Cold jerky and bread will be enough.”

“It’s all right, captain,” came Flenn’s breathless reply. “The charcoal is still lit … and it’s only a matter of … fanning it hard enough. I’m going to serve you … a veritable banquet. A man needs a good…
Hell!
”

Concurrent with the last word there was a clattering sound. Toller turned towards the galley in time to see a burning piece of firewood rise vertically into the air from behind the partition. Lazily spinning, wrapped in pale yellow flame, it sailed upwards and glanced off a sloping lower panel of the balloon. Just when it seemed that it had been deflected harmlessly away into the blue it was caught by an air current which directed it into the narrowing gap between an acceleration strut and the envelope. It lodged in the juncture of the two, still burning.

“It’s mine!” Flenn shouted. “I’ll get it!”

He appeared on the gondola wall at the corner, unhooking his tether, and went up the strut at speed, using only his hands in a curious weightless scramble. Toller’s heart and mind froze over as he saw brownish smoke puff out from the varnished fabric of the balloon. Flenn reached the burning stick and grasped it with a gloved hand. He hurled the stick away with a lateral sweep of his arm and suddenly he too was separated from the ship, tumbling in thin air. Hands clawing vainly towards the strut, he floated slowly outwards.