shout.” The man was dressed in white slacks held up by a wide black belt, and a red shirt. He wore black boots and a blue wool hat, despite the nice weather. His skin looked an unhealthy shade of pale.
The man walked up to them and stared at Daniel. “You are the sailor, right?”
“You could call it that,” Daniel replied.
“Good. Come with me. I have the perfect thing for you.” Without wasting words or time, Aldrick turned and marched off, the three others in his wake.
Strange Aldrick suddenly stopped. “There she is.”
Daniel and his fellows stopped. And stared. “That is…”
“An airship,” Aldrick cheerfully said. “It is what you need. Believe me.”
“Uhm, I am sorry and not meaning to offend or so,” said Daniel, “but that is a boat.”
Aldrick frowned. “I cannot call it an air boat. That sounds all wrong.”
They stared at a boat, all blue, that stood in a field. It had what looked like two wings protruding from its hull, pointing downwards and resting on the ground, to keep the boat level. There were two short masts on the boat, the sails nicely wrapped up. On the ground, on four sides, they saw strange blobs, like sacks, that were connected to the boat with a complex set of lines.
“How do you like it?” Aldrick asked.
“It’s… impressive,” Daniel gave it his best.
“Oh… wait until you see it all. Come!” Aldrick grabbed Daniel’s arm and pulled him to the boat. “Here, look, see those? Those are the balloons, the floaters that will lift up the boat. Up, to the sky…” Aldrick raised his hands, looking up to the sky. “The sky…”
“Yes. I see them.”
Tomlin and Gelrof kept a safe distance and grinned at each other.
“Come, come!” Aldrick became excited now. “Here, look.” He held up a tube that was connected to one of the balloons. “This goes onto the boat!”
Daniel spotted it. “Yes.” He was, so far, less enthusiastic than the strange man next to him. Amused, yes. But not excited yet.
Aldrick again pulled Daniel along, now to the neat blue stairs that hung from the boat. As Daniel climbed on board after the man, he noticed it was larger than it had looked. It was somewhat like a small ship, with the right attitude. It could hold twenty people with ease, thirty even in case of an emergency.
They went aft on the small ship, where a small cabin was built. Behind the low cabin was a steering wheel.
Aldrick opened the doors of the cabin and pointed at a steam-compressor, in which the four tubes of the floaters came together. “Here, see, look, fire this up, and the hot air goes to the floaters, and they fill up. With hot air, you know. And then they rise, and lift up the ship. The AIR SHIP.” Aldrick exaggerated the words, wanting to make his point.
Daniel shook his head and sat down on the bench behind the steering wheel. “And you expect that this whole contraption, including the heavy steam machine, will float with these four balloons?”
“Expect? I know it will.” Aldrick folded his arms over his chest. “I have flown with this airship, sir. It flies. It sails through the air. And it lands on water just as easily. But that is not a smart thing to do, because when the balloons get wet, they won’t fill up anymore.” This sounded like experience.
Daniel looked up at the man. “Do you think we could give this a try?”
Aldrick sat down next to Daniel. “Yes. And we alone will fly it, as these two… gentlemen…” he almost spat out the word “…are too squeamish for this.”
“Daniel, are you sure about this?” Tomlin asked, still from a safe distance.
“I am sure I want to try this, Tomlin,” Daniel replied. Then he followed Aldrick around the airship as the man secured the lines that held the hot air tubes in place and fired up the steam machine. It did not take long for the engine to build up steam and the floaters were filling up.
“Now look, Mr. Zacharias,” Aldrick said. “This point is important. As soon as the balloons are round, you hold this down.” He momentarily pressed down a lever, which made something hissed. “This fills something special into the balloons,” Aldrick said with a smile that would look good in a secretive brotherhood. “This is what gives them the lift.”
Daniel saw the balloons fill up quickly with the lever pushed. As soon as they hovered well over the boat, Aldrick let the lever go and throttled the steam engine a bit. Daniel still had his doubts that all this mass would be leaving the ground, when they were suddenly lifting off.
Daniel let out a shout of surprise and happiness, just for the sheer joy of it. Tomlin and Gerolf stood with opens mouths, watching the affair take off. Aldrick attempted to outshine the sun in delight of his success. “Now, Mr. Zacharias, would be a good moment to set a sail.”
“A sail?”
“Yes, sir. That is how you steer a small sailing ship, don’t you?”
“And what about that?” Daniel pointed at the steering wheel.
“That only works in the water, Mr. Zacharias,” Aldrick said. He added an understanding smile.
Daniel grinned. This had been one stupid remark. He made his way to the mast closest to the cabin, threw his coat on the row of benches and worked the ropes until the lower sail was in the wind. He found that the sail was very easy to manoeuvre. With some clever moves he turned it exactly right. The airship moved forward, pushed on by the wind.
Aldrick was smiling like a dim-wit, but Daniel knew the man was a genius. They were at least thirty feet over the ground already, Tomlin and Gelrof small puppets in the green.
35. Getting ready
The airship was more stable than Daniel had expected. They had flown it for almost half an hour, and there was nothing he could point at to be wrong, or even slightly failing. Even the turning and sailing up against the wind had gone well, although it had cost a lot of time and effort.
Landing the ship had been simply a matter of releasing the air from the balloons, for which Aldrick had made a lever also. “If the lever fails, then people can pull the red line that holds the balloon, Mr. Zacharias. That will release the air from the balloon directly. Some synchronisation is important then, of course. It is not done to lose passengers.”
One uncertainty was of course: how would the airship behave with twenty or more people on board? Would the balloons hold that?
Aldrick was convinced they would. “You just add some more of the special gas, Mr. Zacharias. It will lift. I am convinced of that.”
Tomlin and Gelrof praised Daniel and Aldrick for their flight. “It looked amazing. Astounding.” Coming from a man who had flown space craft, jet packs and star cruisers, that meant a lot to Daniel.
“We have to make a plan fast, Tomlin. The longer we wait, the less chance we have to find someone alive,” Daniel said.
“Let’s do that on the way back,” Tomlin suggested.
Aldrick told them that the airship would be ready for them any day after this one. “You are most welcome to use it, Mr. Zacharias. You are a good pilot and sailor. I have confidence in you.”
“You’re not coming with us?”
“No, sir. I am an inventor, not a fighter…”
The three men took their leave, went back to the still waiting carriage and made plans on the way back to Tomlin’s house.
The next day Daniel went over to Tomlin’s house again, to meet the skipper Tomlin had found willing to help with the rescue mission. They bravely called it that. The skipper had brought two more people with him. Not the kind of folks Daniel normally would care to know, but they looked as if they were very able to do some serious damage to pirates, so he welcomed the two to the crew.
The skipper had a set of old maps with him, clearly very often used, and pointed out a number of possible
