“Plague?” asked Flojian.
“Population. If we come back in thirty, forty years, this’ll all be farmland.”
By sundown they were crossing a Roadmaker double highway. It came out of the north, broad and straight, and from their altitude it looked unbroken. Ahead, a range of white-capped peaks loomed.
It was cold, and getting colder. They distributed the blankets and pulled them around their shoulders. “If we went lower,” suggested Flojian, “we might get warmer air.”
“Might,” said Claver. “We might also Ret currents that are going the wrong way. We don’t have hydrogen and ballast to waste running up and down.”
They ate and watched the mountains approach. The land rose under them, snow and granite and forest. It mounted up and up, gradually at first, and then sharply, and they were drifting over peaks so close they could smell the spruce. And then the land fell away again. The sun went down and the darkness below went on forever.
A full moon rose. ‘With a little bit of luck,” said Claver, “we should be over the ocean by dawn.”
They arranged a rotating night watch.
Claver explained that they wanted to keep the north star forty-five degrees off the port side of their line of advance. “Obviously, we won’t maintain that with any degree of exactitude. But if we get too far off course, say thirty degrees or more for longer than a few minutes, wake me.”
They managed some privacy by holding a blanket for one another. A bucket hung from the underside of the craft, and this was hauled aboard when needed, and after use its contents were dumped. Flojian and Claver exchanged amused comments about the risks for travelers on the ground.
Quait took the first watch. Chaka stayed close to him for a while, and he was grateful for her warmth. Then she climbed beneath a blanket and was quickly asleep, rocked by the gentle movements of the gondola.
Following Claver’s suggested method, Quait picked out a landmark, a hill, a patch of trees, a river bend, occasionally a mountain, anything that was forty-five degrees forward of the north star. Then he settled down to watch it draw nearer. As long as it continued to do so in a more or less straightforward manner, he was satisfied. On one occasion, a highway intersection that he was guiding on veered far to starboard. That meant the balloon had begun to move almost due north. He woke the pilot.
Claver was cheerful enough about being disturbed, and seemed to enjoy having been called on to set things right. He tugged on the yellow line until the balloon started to descend. His manner suggested all this was really quite basic. Within a few minutes he had the vehicle back on course and, in his condescending manner, asked to be awakened again if there were any more difficulties.
Quait knew how to make the balloon rise and fall. What he did not understand was how to determine where favorable air currents would be. “I don’t know how to explain it/ Claver told him later. “Experience, I guess.”
Sleep came hard for Quait. It might have been the cold. Or the smell of salt air. Or the impending end of the hunt. But most likely it was Chaka’s proximity. On the trail, he had prudently maintained a discreet distance. Here, she lay breathing softly, within easy reach.
He sighed, got up, and joined Claver, who was at the helm, or whatever constituted a helm on this windrunner. The sky was ablaze with the rising sun, and they were running parallel to a rocky shore.
Claver was doing knee bends. “I recommend it,” he said. “Keeps you warm and flexible.”
“How are we doing?” asked Quait.
“Okay.” There was a note of self-satisfaction in his voice. “The wind wants to take us out to sea.”
“Don’t let it happen.”
“I won’t.” He flexed shoulders and arms, not unlike a boxer. “But we’re spending a lot of gas and ballast.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Starting to be.”
Quait settled back to watch the sunrise. The pilot passed him some nuts and water. “Not much of a breakfast,” Claver admitted. ‘But with luck, we’ll be on the ground anyway in a few hours.”
“I’ve seen the ocean before,” Quait said. ‘At the mouth of the Mississippi.”
“What direction was it from the land mass?”
“South.”
Claver thought it over. “I wonder if it’s the same body of water? It might be possible for you to go home by sea.”
Quait laughed. “Anything would be an improvement on the overland route.” He looked toward the rising sun and the curving horizon and wondered what lay beyond. ‘Could you get to Chicago in this thing?” he asked.
“If we had enough hydrogen. And the wind was right. But I don’t think I’d want to try it.”
They began to drift, and he had to take them up and then down to get the balloon moving forward again. It gave Quait a little satisfaction to see that even Claver didn’t guess right all the time. But the sandbags were emptying fast.
They floated north over a rugged coastline, an endless series of cliffs, shoals, inlets, and offshore islands. They saw deer and wild horses and, on occasion, signs of habitation. There were a few plowed fields, some orchards, a house on a bluff overlooking a harbor. Gray smoke billowed out of the chimney. Later they saw a small boat casting nets. But these were the exceptions. For the most part, there was only wilderness.
The sun climbed toward the meridian. The first sign of Knobby’s bay would be land to the east. But islands were liberally sprinkled through the area, so there was a series of false alarms. At midafternoon, the wind changed. Claver threw more ballast over the side. The vehicle moved first one way and then another before settling back on course.
“That’s about it,” he announced. “We don’t have enough left to manage anything other than a landing. Your bay better come up soon.”
Within the hour, a finger of land appeared in the east. They watched with hopeful skepticism, remembering the earlier islands. It developed into a long coastline, and cut off the open sea. Mountains rose. And, as they drew closer, they saw more Roadmaker towns and coastal roads littered with hojjies.
“This is it,” said Chaka.
They came in over the bay at an altitude of about two miles. The tide was out, and they saw with joy that it did indeed leave vast mudflats in some areas. It wouldn’t be difficult for an unwary master to find himself stranded.
A few minutes later, the bay divided into two channels. “Keep to starboard,” said Flojian, barely able to contain his excitement.
The water glittered in the sunlight. Escarpments and green hills lined the shore. Here, waves rolled onto white beaches; there, they pounded rock formations.
A crosswind caught them and blew them toward the wrong side of the bay. Claver reluctantly released more hydrogen until he had arrested the movement and they were again approaching the eastern coast. But they continued to drop, even after he’d thrown out ballast. “We’re going to have to find a place to land,” he said.
“Over there!” said Flojian. Inshore, the saddle-shaped mountain came into view.
“Okay,” said Quait. “We’re doing fine.”
“Not really,” said Claver. “We’re going down a little bit fast.” He dumped the last of his sand. They continued to fall.
“Orin?” said Quait.
“Prepare for landing,” he said. “We need a city.”
The bay was getting narrow. A long hooked cape, very much resembling the one marked on Knobby’s map, projected out from the east. Knobby had given them bearings, and they used them now to target an escarpment. A sheer wall, their map said.
“That’s it,” cried Chaka, and they embraced all around.
They drifted past. “We’re doing about forty,” said Claver.
The bay continued to squeeze down. The mountaintops were getting close.