Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

“Certainly, sir, though I'm sure Mr. Gooch-”

“Will have everything under control. I don't doubt it, Henson, but since we have only three riggers and there are four engines that require attention, Mr. Gooch will be out on one of the flight pylons.”

“Ah. I see. I'll get down there at once.”

“You can shave and tidy yourself up first. There are some internal repairs and adjustments to be made before Gooch and his team go outside. Get down there within the hour, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

Henson's door was the first of a number to be knocked upon over the course of the next few minutes, and in very short measure the majority of the Orpheus's aeronauts found themselves unexpectedly back on duty.

It was a few minutes past midnight.

The rotorship's flight crew gathered on the bridge. Sir Richard Francis Burton was there, watching each of them carefully. They looked bleary-eyed and dishevelled. Captain Lawless did not. His uniform was buttoned, his eyes were bright, and he was all efficiency.

“What's going on, sir?” Arthur Bingham, the meteorologist, asked.

“I'll have your report, Mr. Bingham, not your questions,” Lawless snapped.

“Yes, sir. A wind has picked up. Rather strong. Easterly, currently at a steady twenty knots. No cloud.”

“You heard that, Mr. Playfair?”

“Yes, sir,” the navigator responded. “Taken into account. Course plotted to Aden.”

“Good man. Mr. Pryce, call down to Mr. Gooch and have him start the engines.”

“Aye, sir.” Wordsworth Pryce, the second officer, moved to the speaking tubes. Moments later, a vibration ran through the rotorship.

“Engage the wings, Mr. Wenham.”

“Engaging. Opening. Rotating…and…up to speed.”

“Take us to two thousand feet.”

On an expanding cone of steam, the Orpheus rose into the night sky and began to power into the southeast, leaving the ill-lit city of Cairo behind her. Above, the Milky Way arced across the heavens, but below, the narrow Red Sea and the lands to either side of it were wreathed in darkness, so it seemed that the ship was sailing through an empty void.

With her stern engines still operating abnormally, the huge vessel rattled and shook as she ate up the miles, speeding at almost 150 knots toward Aden, on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.

In the engine room, the bearing cradle had been refitted, but it took Daniel Gooch and his fellow engineers almost four hours to reset the synchronisation system, which they achieved by shutting down the four rear engines one at a time while adjusting the various components to which the cradle was connected.

Now all that remained was to recalibrate each of those stern-most engines.

Gooch and the riggers Gordon Champion, Alexander Priestley, and Winford Doe, positioned themselves at the four hull doors and buckled themselves into harnesses. They clipped safety straps to brackets above the portals.

First Officer Henson pulled a speaking tube from the wall.

On the bridge, his call was answered by Oscar Wilde, who said, “Captain Lawless, Mr. Henson is asking permission to open the external doors.”

Lawless was standing by the window with Sir Richard Francis Burton. They were watching al-fajr al-kaadhib, the zodiacal light, which was rising column-like in the western sky. He said, “Tell him permission is granted, Master Wilde.”

“Aye, sir,” the boy replied. He relayed the message down to the engine room.

Lawless stepped over to the helmsman and stood beside him, quietly ordering, “Steady as she goes, please, Mr. Wenham.”

“Aye-aye, sir, but-” Wenham hesitated.

“What is it?”

“I-um-I think-” The helmsman turned to Cedric Playfair, the navigator. “Shouldn't we still be over the Red Sea?”

“Yes,” Playfair answered, glancing at his instruments.

“Then why is there desert below us?”

Lawless and Playfair both looked up and saw what Wenham had spotted-that the vaguest glimmers of light were skimming not over water, but sand dunes.

“Impossible!” Playfair gasped.

Burton joined them and watched as the navigator checked over his console.

“The compass says we're travelling south-southeast,” Playfair muttered. “But if that were true, we'd be where we should be.” He tapped the instrument, then bent, opened a panel in the console, reached in, and felt about, muttering: “Maybe something is interfering with-hello! What's this?” He pulled out a small block of metal, and as he did so, the compass needle swung from SSE to SE.

“A magnet!” Burton observed.

“How the devil-?” Playfair exclaimed.

Lawless clenched his teeth and bunched his fists.

“But it shouldn't make any difference!” Francis Wenham objected. “That compass is just for reference. It isn't used to set the course.”

“He's right, sir,” Playfair put in. “Mr. Wenham follows the instrumentation on his own console. It indicates the degrees to port or starboard he should steer the ship to maintain the course I set. Taking into account the compensation I calculated, if he's followed his indicators exactly, we should be slap bang over the Red Sea.”

“And I have done,” Wenham noted.

“Compensation?” Burton asked.

“For the wind, sir,” Playfair replied.

Burton stepped back to the window. He turned and gestured for Oscar Wilde to join him.

“Yes, sir?” the boy asked.

“Can you find me some field glasses?”

“Right over here,” said Wilde, crossing to a wall cabinet and returning with a large-lensed brass device. Burton took it and raised it to his face, clipping its bracket over his head. He turned back to the window, and with the fingers of both hands rotated the focusing wheels on either side of the apparatus.

The land below was wreathed in darkness, with just the tips of dunes visible in the faint light of al-fajr al-kaadhib. The field glasses threw them into sharp relief.

“Captain Lawless,” Burton murmured, “I have a reasonably clear view of the sand dunes below us.”

“What of it, Sir Richard?”

“They are entirely motionless. There is no sand rippling across their surface or spraying from their peaks. In other words, the strong wind Mr. Playfair just mentioned is nonexistent, at least at ground level, and since we're flying low-”

“If I've been taking into account a wind that isn't actually blowing, it would certainly explain our position,” Playfair put in.

“Mr. Bingham!” Lawless roared, but when he turned to the meteorologist's position, he saw that it was unoccupied. “Where the devil is he?” he demanded.

“Mr. Bingham left the bridge some little time ago, so he did, sir,” said Oscar Wilde.

“Playfair, Wenham, get us back on course! Sir Richard, come with me. We have to find my meteorologist. He has some explaining to do!”

Some minutes later, they located Arthur Bingham in the engine room, standing with Daniel Gooch, Shyamji Bhatti, and Winford Doe near one of the open hull doors. Doe was unbuckling his harness.

“Hallo, Captain Burton, Captain Lawless!” Bhatti called as they approached.

Gooch turned and said, “Almost done, Captain. Mr. Champion is just putting the finishing touches to the last of our wayward engines.”

Lawless ignored the chief engineer and glared at the short, fat meteorologist. “You appear to have deserted your post without permission, Bingham.”