“I look nervous? Really?” answered Frank. “I can’t think why-what with a doctor hovering over my pregnant wife, holding a knife, three months before she’s due.”
Dakis scowled, then blanched; Asher’s hands had come from behind the sheets and were covered in blood. “Perhaps this is all part of our theatrics, senor?”
Dakis uttered an inaudible profanity and, crossing his arms, leaned his back against the inner wall of the lazarette. “Get on with it,” he growled.
Asher glanced at his medium-sized assistant. “Fetch me more of the ethanol, quickly.”
Virgilio angled the props to give a slight downward boost-and suddenly they were under the clouds again, with the xebec visible below and slightly ahead of them. Off to the right, watch lights showed where Palma slumbered at the far end of the bay to the north.
“Very well, we continue on our own, from here,” announced Miro. “Dr. Connal, signal the Atropos that they are to release us. Aurelio is to signal the other boats to head south to their pre-chase loiter positions before he continues west at best speed. After you send the message, reel in the line quickly. Harry, are you ready?”
“Almost. Lemme double-check that my gear is attached good and tight.”
“Virgilio, we have to be in the clouds again before you call for another burn; we can’t show a flame any more.”
“Yes, I know, Don Estuban. I will need more fuel for the engines now. Make it the best we have.”
Miro turned to Turlough Eubank. “Gasoline into the engines, please. And since you will be otherwise occupied shortly, please fill the tanks to the brim, this time.”
“Aye, just as you say, Don Estuban. Do I pitch the container if it’s empty?”
Miro thought. “No, not any more. It’s only a few pounds. We can keep the weight until we no longer have need of stealth.”
Virgilio made a noise that suggested he would have answered Eubank differently. Miro smiled, turned to Connal, and saw the end of the main tow-line come up into his palm from over the side of the gondola; the wires protruding from the end of the narrow up-time electric cord attached to it were faint copper wisps. Connal handed it to Harry, who was waiting for it.
“Do you need help?” asked Miro. He had asked Harry this every time they had run the drill in preparation for this moment; Harry had never admitted needing assistance, and indeed, seemed not to.
But this time Harry said, “Sure, Estuban. Double-check each connection, will you?”
Miro agreed, tugged on and inspected each point where Harry had fastened the tow-line to his harness with D-rings. Then Miro took the device to which Lefferts had attached the wire-ends, which looked like nothing so much as a scissor with a spring resistor against easy closing. “The electrical connections look good, Harry.” He handed back the odd scissors. “Test the handset.”
Harry clicked through three long contacts, then a long-short-long combination. Dah-dah-dah, dah-dit-dah chattered the receiver nestled between Doc Connal’s knees. He looked up and smiled, “‘OK’ indeed, Harry.”
Lefferts nodded. “Then let’s do this.” He swung a leg over the edge of the gondola. “You have all the slack reeled in, Doc?”
“I do. Remember, we can let you down a lot more quickly than we can pull you up.”
“Ain’t that the terrifying truth.”
“And remember: you have extra cable coiled in five one-foot spools at the first harness attachment point; you can give yourself a little more drop if you need it, Harry.”
“Doc, you’re starting to sound like my momma. Anything else?”
Miro simply nodded. “Godspeed, Harry.”
He nodded back and swung his other leg over the side of the gondola. “Well, guys, it’s been a slice.” He turned slowly until he faced back toward the center of the airship, keeping his weight on his arms. He smiled, and said, “Geronimo!” And he let go-gradually.
Harry did not fall, but eased down into a position where he dangled four feet beneath the gondola; a smaler cable-just a cord, really-was attached lower on his back, which helped to stabilize him against spinning or tumbling.
“How are you, Harry?” Miro called down.
“I’m good to go,” came the up-timer’s reply, faint over the hum of the throttled-back engines. “Let’s stop dawdling.”
Miro smiled. “As you wish. Virgilio, can we get back into the cloud bank with engines?”
“Maybe,” answered the pilot, “but a quick burst from the burner would be a great help. You can use the burn-shield to conceal most of it.”
Miro turned back to Eubank again. “Do it,” he said.
The Irishman, moving nimbly despite his cuirass, produced three pieces of thin tin plate and inserted them vertically in slots fixed along each side of the burner, leaving only the southern, seaward side uncovered. The panels had an excessive stove-piping effect, and had a slight tendency to overconcentrate the hot air flow up into the envelope, but they also reduced the visibility of the burner’s flare considerably.
Eubank engaged the burner briefly; the airship climbed back toward the irregular gray fleece overhead.
Miro came to stand alongside his pilot. “We are on instruments only, now, Virgilio, so keep me apprised of wind direction and velocity. I will need that to revise our bearings if we are being pushed off course.”
“Ah, Harry can always put us back on track,” Virgilio pointed out as he throttled the engines back even more.
“I heard that,” Lefferts’ voice announced from ten feet below. “Just don’t go too low, okay?”
“We will not, so long as you tell us what we need to do in order to keep you just below the clouds, and us just above.”
“Count on it,” the up-timer drawled. “Give me a little more slack; the top of the balloon is up in the clouds already.”
Miro looked up; Harry was right. “Ten more feet of slack, please, Doctor.”
Connal nodded. “Down you go, Harry,” he said as he played out the line.
And then suddenly, they were encased in cool gray cotton again.
The tunnel had grown progressively narrower but now rewidened, opening into an irregular oval chamber with a low ceiling and detritus scattered about its dusty floor: ill-cut paving stones, half a belt, a forlorn and ragged shoe. In the shifting light of the lanterns, the men’s bodies threw monstrous shadows on the wall.
The master of the llaut — ghostly from the gray-pink dust of the mining tunnels through which they had entered-pointed toward what Thomas guessed was the north end of the chamber. “We are here,” he said quietly.
North squinted in that direction: stairs, leading up. They were not solid risers, but rather thin slabs of stone that had been set into grooves cut in the facing walls. They ascended toward a heavy-timbered, iron-bound trapdoor seven feet above them. North nodded, checked his up-time watch: they were on time-just. The summons could come at any time, now. “Weapons out,” he murmured. “Check your actions; make sure there’s no dust on or in them.”
“Rearguard, sir?” asked Donald Ohde.
“Perhaps, but I-”
From behind them came the distant sound of feet slapping down against a wet section of the cave floor. Thomas North swung up his weapon; half a dozen of his men followed suit. But listening more closely, the Englishman allowed that it might be water dripping down through the porous sandstone. They had seen plenty of evidence of that on the way in. They waited, guns ready, for almost a minute. The regular sounds ended as a hasty patter, then nothing: water, certainly. “Stand down,” muttered North.
“What was it, Colonel?”