CHAPTER 40 - AIR SPEED AND ALTITUDE

The Mammut brown rope spun wildly into the retraction reel above the belly hatch of the gondola. Daggy had her hand tightly gripped on the activation lever and as a dark form suddenly appeared Daggy shoved the lever into full stop. The reel slammed to a screeching stop as the latches took hold. Kees Kepler, pulled off his black baklava and laid down Little Ben to the deck plates.

“No sweat.” said Kees as he began to climb the gangway to the engineering station above.

Daggy looked at the crumpled form before him. Daggy put her arms around Little Ben and helped her to her feet.

“Don’t worry Little Ben,” said Daggy in as soothing a voice as a 20 year navy girl can say. “Don’t worry, you’re in the safe hands of the Blue Navy now. Don’t worry.”

Little Ben was shivering and her tear filled eyes broadcast fear and terror of a kind Daggy had never seen. Daggy had seen a lot of inhumanity in her life but nothing compared to this. Daggy was becoming a mix of intense compassion and boiling rage.

Punky turned in the pilot’s seat as the Dread sped away at 42 knots and was approaching 2200 meters in altitude. “Is she ok?” shouted Punky above the scream of the engines and the escaping steam of the double boilers.

“I don’t know,” replied Daggy, “I don’t know. Poor girl.”

Daggy knew what to do. Daggy picked up Little Ben. Little weighs practically nothing at all thought Daggy. Little was shivering, hypothermic and probably starved realized Daggy. He carried Little to the showers near the hydrogen separators. Steam power provided many advanced technological advantages, but an advantage they every sailor appreciated the most was hot showers. They had plenty of hot water in the Dread and the spacious showers were real morale boosters.

Daggy quickly stripped the rags from Little’s body. She was covered in filth, scars, small animal bites and other abuse too horrible to contemplate. Daggy grabbed the shower handle and threw it to hot. Then Daggy paused. No, not hot, thought Daggy. Hypothermia was a deadly condition. Better to start tepid and then bring it up to hot. Daggy set the setting to tepid and placed Little under the rich stream of flowing pure water. Little winched, to her frail cold body the tepid water was scalding hot. In a few moments she passed out from exhaustion. Daggy held Little up, and with her foot pulled a small aluminum stool to the shower. Daggy slid Little down onto the stool and held her up. Daggy began softly washing Little with a bar of Old Navy soap.

Daggy kicked open the shower door with her foot and shouted, “I need warm broth, clear broth and I need it now!”

Tek ran to the galley and found a can of Clumpetts Consommé Soup. He opened the can and poured it into a paper cup. Tek checked carefully, there was no pointy end on the cup. Daggy had banished pointy ended cups before the flight. The cup went into the steam cabinet and Tek pulled the handle down firmly and let go. The handle rose slowly as the cabinet filled quickly with steam.

“And I need warm dry blankets, Now!” shouted Daggy.

As the soup heated, Tek ran aft and from his bunk he pulled a navy issue scratchy blanket. He smelled it and frowned. He grabbed Punky’s blanket and tossed it into the bread warmer.

“Bzzzurrpp”, went the steam cabinet. “Ding,” went the bread warmer.

Tek grabbed the cup of soup and the blanket and ran to the shower door. He opened the door and looked upon the frail and crumpled form of Little Ben. Tek averted his eyes to save Little any embarrassment, but she was unconscious. Daggy took the soup and blanket and Tek left closing the door slowly behind him.

“&^%$, *&)#&,” Punky heard Tek say. Tek never used those kind of words Punky knew. It must be really bad.

But Punky had her hands full. She was plotting a course to Clissa, and to the Plaza in their capital. On her clipboard she had the latest weather report, and on her lap she had a map board with a protractor and divider. Airspace in Clissa would be guarded she knew, so they would have to take the long way around and approach the Capital of Clissa from Sodom Mountain. No one would expect an approach from the disputed lands. All sides in the recent Sim dispute would not risk offending Governor Linden by violating his directive concerning the Sodom Mountain area. But Punky hoped to be in and out of there before anyone noticed or complained.

The Chair was reliving his misspent youth as he piloted Old 47 “The Spirit of Io” toward Sodom Mountain. It was tight in the little blimp gondola and Old 47 smelled of cedar and naphthalene.

Muffin was taking a bath in his porti-tub. His household staff, all members of the Assassin’s and Au Pairs Union, were busy attending upon him. Mrs. Gellwatt was sorting though suitable disguises for the Monforte heir to wear on the long climb up the mountain. She was trying to decide between a pink bunny suit with pointy ears, or a Zorro costume with a red sash and a plastic sword. Molly Parsnip, another household staff member held a large paintbrush in one hand and a bucket of Killey’s Erasure Paint in the other. She was busy painting out the stenciled lettering on all the crates and portmanteau’s which indicated that the royal presence was present.

Muffin was singing in the bath. It was the only place where he sang that it was bearable. Muffin was signing songs of the Old Andirons Sailing Club. He was on the third section, the one about the captain.

“Friggin in ta riggin,
Friggin in ta riggin,
Friggin in ta riggin,
Theres nothings else to do.

The captain of ta lugger
Is jus a filthy bugger,
He wasn't fit to shovel stuff
From one place to another”

The Chair laughed loudly as he returned his attention to the flight controls. As a young new pilot he had been given command of New 47 and most of his junior captaincy had been spent in ‘The Spirit of Io.” When the paperwork came over his desk many years later for sending Old 47 to the breakers, he could not bring himself to sign the death warrant. Instead he had her mothballed.

When he called her out the mechanics at the Aerodrome urged him to take a safer more modern blimp. But The Chair knew Old 47 was the right selection. He could fly her upside down in a hailstorm, with one hand on the wheel, the other hand holding an open bottle of Dom Pigeon, a gleaming Testosa Grande clenched in his teeth, and in his underwear. He knew he could do this because there was that night long ago when he did just that with the lovely Miss Iconoklass. The had both been in their underwear. Well at least The Chair was in his underwear. Ah, what fun, he remembered. Besides The Chair knew he did not have the training to fly the new high powered, fly by wire, models of the modern Blimp Cartel fleet.

The Chair noticed that the barometer was falling rapidly and that the wind had picked up significantly. The ship was barely making ten knots at 1000 meters and every once in a while she was buffeted and rattled by the air pockets and cloud purses. Greater altitude might avoid some of this weather, but she was at her operating ceiling. The sun would be setting in an hour and it was going to be a long long night of seat of the pants flying. One of the two steam engines was leaking badly and the pressure was wavering. He had checked the left coal auto feed shoot, but it was clear. However the chain drive kept slipping on a rusted cog wheel. It could not be fixed without a machine shop.

Mr. Slipps, Muffin’s Tea Caddy, was assigned the task of occasionally turning the cog wheel. Poor Mr. Slipps was so unused to anything other than serving tea and an occasional crumpet, that he constantly was apologizing to the cog wheel when it jammed and then his first reaction was to offer it a serving of hot tea.

“Ta Captain has a daughter
Who fell in ta deep sea water
Delighted squeals
revealed that eels
Had found er private quarters”

Muffin laughed even louder and his staff was shocked by his selection of tunes. This made Muffin laugh even more. He was having the time of his life.

Old 47 pitched hard to the left and the nose lifted sharply. Muffins bath sloshed and some soapy water spilled onto the deck. The Household staff was turning white and Muffin’s bat man, Mr. Garnaph, was getting airsick.

“I do apologize sir, shall that be Earl Jones, or Chamomile?” said a voice in the gondola.

Muffin started a new song.

“Singing bell bottom trousers,
Coat of navy-blue.
Let him climb the rigging
Like his daddy used to do.

Once there was a waitress
In the Prince George Hotel,
Her mistress was a lady
And her master was a swell.”

The Chair put the blimp on auto pilot and stood up. He was going to have to stop Muffin before he got to the final stanza. After all some decorum was always needed when in the royal presence.

“At sea without a woman
For seven years or more.
There wasn't any need to ask
What he was looking for.”

“Muffin, now Muffin. I think its time to get out of the tub. We have some rough weather ahead and I don’t want you catching a cold.”

“Darns,” said Muffin, but he knew The Chair was right.

He looked to Mr. Garnaph, and Garnaph, now well into lime green color, handed Muffin an enormous pink towel.

The ship shook again and this time she rode high in the tail. The autopilot struggled to recover and the wheels spun one way and then the other.

The Chair moved fast and grabbed the flight control. The ship returned to some semblance of level controlled flight.

Below The Chair could see Sticks River and the sun was about to set. In the distance, in the direction of Sodom Mountain, the thinnest sliver of a dying moon became faintly visible. The wind increased in speed and began to howl against the skin of the aged blimp. Her airspeed began to fall, and another gasket began to leak in her ancient boilers.