“It would be my pleasure. Those ladies and gentlemen are next, but if you can wait-”
“I can’t,” Slade said. “We must go to London, and we must go now.”
“London?” Dr. Crick hunched his shoulders. “But I’ve never flown that far. I don’t know whether my airship can make it.”
“Could you try? It’s urgent.” Slade added, “I’m on official business.”
“Official business, oh, well, then.” Dr. Crick’s look said he was privileged to know that Slade was, or had been, an agent for the Crown. “In that case, we’ll give it our best shot.”
Slade turned and beckoned. Stieber, his men, and I hurried forward. Slade introduced me as his wife, and Stieber and the soldiers as friends visiting from Prussia. Dr. Crick said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He was oblivious to our companions’ menacing air. “But I’m afraid I can only accommodate three of you, plus myself and my assistants. Any extra weight will drag the balloon down, and the basket only holds six.”
“Leave your men behind,” Slade told Stieber.
I knew what he was thinking: their absence would much improve our chances of thwarting Stieber. But Stieber said, “We all go or no one goes.”
“My friends and I will take the place of your assistants,” Slade said to Dr. Crick. “Just teach us what to do.”
“Very well.” Dr. Crick was glad to cooperate for the sake of crown and country. A speedy but complicated lecture on operating the airship ensued. Then he said, “You should use the conveniences before we take off. All we have on board is a pail.”
We took his advice. Stieber made sure that Slade and I had no chance to escape in the airship without him and his men. Dr. Crick’s assistants helped us climb into the basket. It was crowded with the engine, a coal bucket, and sundry equipment. I gazed nervously up at the balloon, which resembled a levitating whale caught in a net. Could it really carry us aloft?
The assistants shoveled a last load of fuel into the engine. They spun the propeller, whose three blades began to turn lazily. Smoke puffed out of the engine’s funnel, which was pointed downward so that sparks from it wouldn’t ignite the hydrogen gas in the balloon. Dr. Crick and Slade hauled up the anchor. The assistants untied the balloon’s tethers. The airship began to rise.
“Bon Voyage!” Dr. Crick said cheerfully.
“How fast does this go?” Slade shouted above the roar from the engine and propeller and the hiss of the boiler.
“I clocked it at ten miles per hour last time.”
“It’s about seventy miles from Portsmouth to London,” Slade said. “That should take us at least seven hours.”
He sounded disappointed, but Dr. Crick said, “Maybe less, depending on the wind. And unlike a train, we needn’t stop for passengers or follow a track. We’ll go as the crow flies.”
The lawn fell away beneath us. The floor of the basket pressed up against my feet as the balloon lifted my weight. My stomach plunged while I rose. My heart pounded; I grew giddy. As the airship gained altitude, the people and the mansion below shrank until they were as small as dolls and a dollhouse. Dr. Crick worked the controls on the engine. The propeller blades accelerated into a whir. The funnel discharged smoke that streamed behind us as the airship moved forward. I felt a wave of something akin to seasickness, but I was too thrilled to care.
Ever since I was a little girl, I have wished for wings, for the ability to soar above the earth. Now I floated through thin air, looking down at the treetops, free from the shackles of gravity. I would have jumped up and down with glee had I not been afraid to upset the basket, which rocked gently in the wind. Airborne by the miracle of science, I gazed up at the sky and marveled that I was in it. The billowy white clouds seemed close enough to touch. I clapped my hands and laughed.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” I exclaimed.
“It certainly is,” Dr. Crick said, pleased and proud. “We’ve got a good tailwind.”
Friedrich sat in a rear corner of the basket, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms and hands clasped over his head. Wagner’s ugly face was pale and dripping sweat. I gathered that both men were afraid of heights.
Slade stood beside me, gazing at Stieber, who stood in the opposite side of the basket. They wore the same hard, calculating expression, and I knew what they were each thinking: If I attack him, what are my chances of throwing him off the airship before he throws me? Neither moved. Fighting was too dangerous hundreds of feet above the ground. Stieber wouldn’t risk his life before he’d completed his mission, and Slade wouldn’t risk dying and leaving me with Stieber. Their stalemate allowed me to enjoy my first flight in peace.
We soon left the city, which resembled a toy village. We motored over fields, pastures, and woodland-a patchwork of different shades of green, like a quilt, that rippled over hills. Tiny people on the roads looked up, pointed, and waved. How small, how petty, did the tribulations of the world seem from my lofty perspective! Could mankind not forget them and enjoy the God-given miracles of life?
I glanced at Slade. He and Stieber kept watch on each other while viewing the scene below us. Slade flashed me a smile, sharing my delight. Stieber seemed impressed against his will. I think he resented being at the mercy of nature and science, hated anything he couldn’t control. I could almost pity him, but not quite.
Dr. Crick yanked on a rope, adjusting the sail, which functioned as a rudder. Friedrich remained huddled on the floor. Wagner sat next to him, green and rigid as a corpse. We floated over sparkling streams crossed by miniature bridges, and farmhouses suitable for Tom Thumb. Hours passed, during which I was so enchanted that I didn’t notice when Slade left me to stand beside Stieber. Then I happened to glance up and see them facing out the other side of the basket, talking. I moved next to Slade, to listen.
“It’s invariably fatal. There’s no antidote.” Slade was speaking about woolsorter’s disease. “If Russia uses Kavanagh’s bomb in a war against Britain, it won’t only destroy Britain. The plague will spread everywhere.”
“That may be the case, but I am not concerned about it,” Stieber said.
“You can’t stop it outside Russia’s borders,” Slade persisted. “Millions of Russians will die, too. Even the Tsar isn’t immune.”
“I have my orders to capture Dr. Kavanagh and the weapon and deliver them to His Highness. I will do so.”
“If you explained to the Tsar, he would understand that the weapon is too dangerous ever to use. He’s ambitious, but not stupid.”
“It’s not my place to explain.”
Slade stared at Stieber in disbelief and repugnance. “How can you be so blindly obedient? Have you no conscience?”
“What you call conscience, I call a luxury in which I do not indulge,” Stieber said calmly.
“Why?” Slade said, vexed and bewildered. “Why does someone as intelligent as you not want to think for himself and do what’s right?”
“Because I bow to the authority of those I serve,” Stieber said. “That is my calling.”
The engine thundered; the boiler shrieked; the propeller beat the air. Slade regarded Stieber with the air of a scientist studying a poisonous snake because he wants to know what is in its venom before it bites him and he dies. Stieber contemplated a village on the ground, the minute spire of its church glinting in the sunlight. Perhaps he was more affected by the miracle of flying than I’d thought, and it relaxed his discretion, for he began to talk.
“I was born in Merseburg, Saxony. My father was a government official. My mother was from a family of wealthy English landowners.”
I was surprised to hear that Stieber had English blood; he seemed so foreign. Slade and I listened with interest as he went on, “My family moved to Berlin.” We both abided by the saying, Know thine enemy. “My father wanted me to enter the church, and so I studied theology at the University of Berlin.”
Nor had I imagined Stieber as a former clergyman. Slade raised his eyebrows in surprise that he and his foe had that much in common.
“There, I had an experience that changed my life,” Stieber said. “A young friend of mine was accused of theft. I believed he was innocent. I argued for him in court, and he was acquitted. I realized that I wasn’t meant to be a cleric. I left the divinity school to study law. I kept it a secret from my father because he wouldn’t approve. I had to pretend to be continuing my theology studies. I even preached a sermon.
“As I spoke, I felt ashamed because I was an impostor who proclaimed the word of God in order to procure
