“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.
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.
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 particulary 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…
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.
Toller’s consciousness was sundered by two focuses of terror. Fear of personal annihilation kept his gaze centred on the smoking patch of fabric until he saw that the flame had extinguished itself, but all the while he was filled with a silent-shrieking awareness of the bright void between Flenn and the balloon growing wider.
Flenn’s initial impetus had not been great, but he had drifted outwards for some thirty yards before air resistance brought him to a halt. He hung in the blue emptiness, glowing in the sunlight which the balloon screened from the gondola, scarcely recognisable as a human being in his ragged swaddling of sackcloth.
Toller went to the side and cupped his hands around his mouth to aim a shout. “Flenn! Are you all right?”
“Don’t worry about me, captain.” Flenn waved an arm and, incredibly, he was able to sound almost cheerful. “I can see the envelope well from here. There’s a scorched area all around the strut attachment, but the fabric isn’t holed.”
“We’re going to bring you in.” Toller turned to Zavotle and Rillomyner. “He isn’t lost. We need to throw him a line.”
Rillomyner was doubled in his chair. “Can’t do it, captain,” he mumbled. “I can’t look out there.”
“You’re going to look and you’re going to work,” Toller assured him grimly.
“I can help,” Zavotle said, leaving his chair. He opened the rigger’s locker and brought out several coils of rope. Toller, impatient to effect a rescue, snatched one of the ropes. He secured one end of it and flung the coil out towards Flenn, but as he did so his feet rose clear of the deck, and what he had intended as a powerful throw proved to be feeble and misdirected. The rope unfurled for only part of its length and froze uselessly, still retaining its undulations.
Toller drew the rope in and while he was coiling it again Zavotle threw his line with similar lack of success. Rillomyner, who was moaning faintly with every breath, hurled out a thinner line of glasscord. It extended fully in roughly the right direction, but stopped too short.
“Good for nothing!” Flenn jeered, seemingly undaunted by the thousands of miles of vacancy yawning below him. “Your old grandmother could do better, Rillo.”
Toller removed his gloves and made a fresh attempt to bridge the void, but even though he had braced himself against a partition the cold-stiffened rope again failed to unwind properly. It was while he was retrieving it that he noticed an unnerving fact. At the beginning of the rescue effort Flenn had been considerably higher in relation to the ship, level with the upper end of the acceleration strut — but now he was only slightly above the rim of the gondola.
A moment’s reflection told Toller that Flenn was falling. The ship was also falling, but as long as there was warmth inside the balloon it would retain some degree of buoyancy and would descend more slowly than a solid object. This close to the midpoint the relative speeds were negligible, but Flenn was nonetheless in the grip of Overland’s gravity, and had begun the long plunge to the surface.
“Have you noticed what’s happening?” Toller said to Zavotle in a low voice. “We’re running out of time.”
Zavotle assessed the situation. “Is there any point in using the laterals?”
“We’d only start cartwheeling.”
“This is serious,” Zavotle said. “First of all Flenn damages the balloon — then he puts himself in a position where he can’t repair it.”
“I doubt if he did that on purpose.” Toller wheeled on Rillomyner. “The cannon! Find a weight that will go into the cannon. Maybe we can fire a line.”
At that moment Flenn, who had been quiescent, appeared to notice his gradual change of position relative to the ship and to draw the appropriate conclusions. He began struggling and squirming, then made exaggerated swimming movements which in other circumstances might have been comic. Discovering that nothing was having any good effect he again became still, except for an involuntary movement of his hands when Zavotle’s second throw of the rope failed to reach him.
