Arabella of Mars(29)
The furnace-men now unfastened Diana’s tube from their barrel, blasting Arabella with a gust of hot smoky air that rippled the balloons high above, and put their oars in the water, backing away from the ship with what seemed considerable haste. Two of Diana’s airmen hauled the sagging tube from the water and out of sight below the curve of her hull.
The ship seemed to pause. Arabella looked to the captain, whose eyes scanned the length of the ship, seeking any fault or error or she knew not what. Then he nodded briskly and spoke one word to Kerrigan.
“Ballast away, fore and aft!” Kerrigan cried.
With a creak of wood and a great rumbling rush that made the rail vibrate against Arabella’s chest, several small ports opened in the hull below her, each discharging a square column of frothing, filthy water.
The whole ship trembled.
Then, suddenly, she burst aloft.
Arabella’s stomach seemed to drop below her rope belt as the ship flung herself into the air, and she found herself whooping with surprise and excitement. So did all the other crew, a great wild “Hurrah!” that echoed off the Thames rapidly receding below.
Arabella leaned as far as she could over the rail. The river immediately below churned, a great ship-shaped roiling welt in the water showing the space Diana had just vacated. Water continued to pour from the ballast-ports; more water ran down the ship’s sides, flowed along the keel, and fell in a great stream from the rudder.
In moments the ship rose as high as a tall house, as a church-steeple, as a soaring bird, giving Arabella a view she had never before even contemplated. The whole dockside area spread out below her like some huge and complex toy, the river crowded with boats and ships and barges. Nearby another airship was just filling its envelopes, the great tube running to the furnace-house on the shore seeming little larger than a shoelace.
Threads of smoke rose into the air—rose up below her!—from a hundred chimneys. A few early-morning promenaders and milkmen with their carts trod the streets, the horses looking absurdly like mice when seen from above. Some of the people waved hands or hats at the rising ship, and Arabella waved her hat at them in turn. Others ignored the miracle above them, plodding along head-down and oblivious. One fellow shouted and gestured rudely as a trickle of falling water cut across his courtyard.
As Diana rose higher, Arabella’s view expanded. Now she could make out the great double curve of the Thames, as plain as any map. From here she could see not just the dockyards, but the crowded center of London: rank on rank of houses, shops, and great public buildings. That pencil laid across the Thames must be London Bridge! And the large building and park just to its north, Bedlam Hospital.
Diana’s shadow sailed across Arabella’s view. She followed it with her eyes, watching as it skimmed silently across streets, parks, and rooftops. Immediately surrounding it, panes of glass and puddles of water glinted the rising sun back into her eyes, ringing the airship’s silhouette with a glittering halo of light.
The whole teeming metropolis was visible now, seething with the motion of ten thousand early risers … maybe even a million. A great human anthill filled with busy workers.
A hand clapped onto her shoulder. “Impressive view, eh lads?”
Arabella looked back to see Faunt, his hands on her shoulder and Young’s. Young stood at stiff attention, eyes staring rigidly ahead, and Arabella realized she might be in trouble. “Aye,” she said in a neutral tone.
“Well, if somebody don’t start shoveling coal pretty soon, we won’t have that pretty view very much longer.” Young seemed to wilt under Faunt’s hand.
“I suppose that would be us, then?” Arabella asked.
“It would indeed. Now get below.”
*
Although the great blast of hot air provided by the furnace-gut had gotten Diana started, the air in the envelopes was already cooling, and a great quantity of coal had to be burned to keep the ship aloft. By the time their relief arrived, Arabella and Young were as grimy as the furnace-men and bone-weary from endless shoveling.
Arabella came out on deck after her mid-day meal, still sneezing and blowing black coal-dust from her nose, to find the world had fallen away from Diana, the ship hanging suspended in blue air scattered with white, fluffy clouds. The air around the ship lay still and clear, with a clean dry scent that brought to mind the high plateaus of the Kthansha region. A few birds flapped lazily nearby.
But when she peered over the rail, expecting an infinity of blue, her stomach dropped. The Earth lay far below, her curvature plainly visible.
Arabella had expected the planet to resemble a map, with continents and oceans easily distinguished, though she knew not to expect to see national boundaries. What she saw instead looked more like a huge, rounded globe of decorative glass, the blue of oceans swirled with white sweeps and streaks of cloud, the sun’s light winking brightly off the clouds and sea so very far below. “Where’s England?” she asked Young, who leaned exhausted on the rail beside her.
“My eyes ain’t what they once was,” he said, shading them as he peered downward. A moment later he pointed. “Y’see that big shiny white patch? That’ll be the North Pole. And the terminator?”
“Which would be?”
“The line ’twixt dark and light. It’s just past one bell, so you should look for England in the middle of the lit part, ’bout halfway down from the pole.”