gained altitude. Anton hurried to the starboard bow and began hauling in and coiling the rope there, the Professor doing the same in the port stern. By the time all four ropes were aboard, they were five hundred feet in the air and beginning to drift to the east. Anton took a look over the side of the gondola and saw Elkbone, strung out in its little valley; then he looked up, across the rolling prairie, and saw their destination dead ahead.
From this distance, twenty miles or so out, the Anomaly looked like a fog bank: high, gray, crowned with clouds, impenetrable. They weren’t nearly high enough to see over it, even if there was anything to see. What would they find on the other side? Anton wondered. Could they even get to the other side?
He glanced at the Professor, expecting him to order the engine started, but the Professor, looking over the side, said nothing for a moment. “There’s little wind, but it’s taking us in the right direction,” he said at last. “We’ll drift, lad. Our fuel supply is limited and we’ll want it for the return trip.”
Drift? Anton took a look over the side. They were moving, but very, very slowly. He could still see the crowd in the Elkbone Temple Square, waving. He took another look at the Anomaly. Four hours at this rate, he thought gloomily, sighed, and went to the bow to keep a lookout.
The morning passed slowly. The wind rose with the sun, but not very much. Elkbone dwindled out of sight behind them at last, hidden in its valley. The Anomaly grew closer. Periodically the Professor lit the burner, so that they continued to rise, until they were five thousand feet above the snow-covered prairie below. Anton, looking down, saw a huge herd of bison, oblivious to their silent presence, grazing peacefully.
But after three hours, the Professor, who had been examining the Anomaly ahead with the telescope Anton had belatedly delivered to the airship, abruptly straightened and closed the telescope with a snap. “I believe it’s time to make steam, Anton.”
“Aye, aye, Professor!” Anton said. At last!
He hurried to the stern, and took the tiller, flipping the loop of rope that had been holding it centered off of the end. The Professor turned his attention to the steam engine. The boiler was hot, but like the envelope, needed more heat before it would do them any good. He cranked open valves, checked gauges, double-checked the boiler’s safety valve, then waited stoically for the pressure to rise.
“Pressure’s up,” he said after a few minutes. “Engage the gearshaft.”
Anton pushed a lever by his left hand. “Gearshaft engaged.”
“Quarter steam,” the Professor said.
“Quarter steam it is.” Anton pushed a second lever forward half as far as it would go. The little steam engine gave a gasp and began to puff… and behind Anton, the propeller began to spin, slowly at first, but rapidly picking up speed. As it did so, he felt air moving against his face for the first time. He pushed at the tiller, and the nose of the airship responded… sluggishly, but it responded. It would respond faster at a higher airspeed, but of course the Professor still wanted to preserve as much rock gas as possible.
“Our heading will be due east,” the Professor said. “I’ll take the tiller once we are closer to the Anomaly, but for now, carry on. Keep us at five thousand feet.”
“Due east at five thousand it is,” acknowledge Anton. He didn’t move the tiller; they’d been drifting due east the whole time. The altimeter showed them dipping below five thousand; he reached out for the burner control and gave the envelope a brief kick of flame.
“I believe we will make it half steam,” said the Professor.
“Half steam, aye,” Anton said. He pushed the throttle ahead another quarter. The puffing of the engine increased in tempo, the rhythmic whirring of the propeller grew louder, and the light breeze blowing past Anton’s ears became a stiff one, and a cold one, at that. He reached up and undid the snaps holding the earflaps of his helmet, so they dropped over his ears, and then pulled his goggles down over his eyes.
Meanwhile the Professor had opened a compartment in the bow and pulled out a fine-grain imager, a huge black box with a lens on the front that he attached to a mount. He began taking pictures of the Anomaly as it drew nearer and nearer. Not that its appearance changed; it remained a towering bank of fog. It looked like they could sail right through it, but, of course, Anton knew better. Deep within that fog was the true Anomaly, an impenetrable black wall of nothingness, so cold that the unlucky discoverer of the Anomaly (a now-elderly gentlemen whom Anton had met in person during a trip with the Professor from Hexton Down to Summerfell to argue for more funding from the Academy) had lost not only his fingers but his whole hand and a large portion of his arm after reaching out and touching it.
Calculations based on the apparent curve of the Anomaly indicated it formed a circle some 1,800 miles in circumference, roughly six hundred in diameter, encompassing an area of more than 280,000 square miles (assuming it really was a circle; no one had yet penetrated far enough into the Wild Land from its mountainous eastern shore to encounter the Anomaly from that direction). Its height was uncertain, due to the fog and clouds associated with it, but was generally estimated to be between 13,000 and 18,000 feet.
Closer and closer drew the wall of fog. Periodically Anton lit the burner to keep them at five thousand feet. Mostly he watched the back of the Professor’s head, waiting for the next order, and finally it came. “Slow to one quarter,” he said. “I think it is time to ascend.”
“Yes, Professor,” Anton said. He pulled back on the throttle. The Professor checked the gauge on the rock gas tank, frowning slightly, then shrugged and opened the main valve. The flame roared, and the airship began to rise through the cold prairie air.
Five thousand… six thousand… seven… eight… up and up they went, and still they could not see over the Anomaly. At nine thousand feet their rate of ascent slowed, and the Professor, frowning again at the rock gas tank, said, “I believe we will release ballast, Anton. If you would open the tank? One-quarter turn, I think; we don’t want to ascend too quickly, and we’ll want to save some ballast if we can.”
“Yes, Professor.” Anton bent down and turned a knob protruding through the floor of the gondola at his feet. The entire base of the gondola was a water tank-their water supply, should they need it. However, considering the entire prairie around them was covered with snow and ice, it seemed unlikely they would. The water also made ballast, and now, as Anton turned the valve, that ballast began to flow out of the bottom of the tank. The airship lurched, then rose much faster than before.
Ten thousand feet. Eleven thousand. Twelve, and they were slowing again. The water tank was empty, they were almost to the wall of fog marking the Anomaly, and still it rose above them, an impossible cliff of white, swirling vapor. Was it his imagination, or could he feel the chill from it even through his warm leather flying gear?
The Professor peered up into the fog. “I think we need another two to three thousand feet,” he said, his voice grim but determined. “Release ten sandbags, please, Anton.”
“Ten sandbags, aye,” said Anton. The sandbags festooned the outside of the gondola; one hundred in all, in five ranks of ten bags each, port and starboard. The cords holding them were rigged with quick release buckles at his end. He let the tiller go for a moment, took hold of the top buckles on each side, and pulled hard.
The ropes dropped from the side of the gondola, the sandbags slipping off them to plummet toward the prairie below… and the airship resumed climbing. Anton seized the tiller. “Head to port!” yelled the Professor above the constant roar of the burner. “Parallel until we get enough altitude!”
Anton pushed the tiller to port, but he knew they couldn’t really fly parallel to the Anomaly, not with the prevailing westerly pushing them toward it. Of course the Professor knew that, too. If he really thinks we’re going to hit, he’ll want to turn right into the wind and try to fight our way away from the wall, Anton thought tensely. I’ll have to be ready to-
“Ten more sandbags,” called the Professor, cutting his thought short.
“Aye, aye!” Ten more plunged away.
And still the wall of fog rose above them, so close now that they were within the outer reaches of it, the moisture beginning to freeze onto the rigging and metal, forming ice that would weigh them down, slow their ascent. Anton, squinting up, could see no end to the fog. Yet from a distance he’d been able to see the top. They must be close…
The Professor was glaring up through the fog as though he took the Anomaly’s ridiculous height as a personal insult. “Release all ballast, Anton.”
Anton swallowed. Without any ballast, they’d have no way to gain altitude rapidly the next time they needed to. A gust of wind swung them farther into the mist, making the Professor go suddenly ghostly in the bow. On the other hand, Anton thought, reaching for the quick-release buckles, we’re liable to smack hard right into that thing any minute, and what that kind of sudden freezing will do to the airship…
