The pope was strapped in a chair, breathing mask on, air bottle on his chest. As he raised a hand in greeting, the hull shuddered as if hit by a gust from the side. Hunt staggered, fell into a chair.
‘We’re climbing,’ the engineer said, ‘and you’re a minute away from mental shut-down.’ He got AVIOX sets from a locker and showed them how to put them on.
As Cain took deep breaths, he felt his mind start to function again. ‘The Resurrection of the Body.’
The pope nodded. ‘Wonderful just to breathe.’
A change in the tone of the engines.
‘Have to go,’ the chief announced. ‘Belt up.’ He left by the stern door.
The hull lurched again, tail swaying, gave a stomach-dislodging bounce.
‘Oh God.’ Hunt scrambled for something to be sick in.
Slowly they came back on course. Cain, thankful for the AVIOX, just wanted to flop, to sleep. He listened to the unobtrusive engine drone, felt the sluggish movement.
Hunt stared into a bag she’d found in the back of her chair. ‘They’ll radio Alpha, track us.’
‘But they’ll need their other chopper,’ he said, ‘to get the bodies and their squad back. So they can’t come after us yet.’
‘They’ll still catch us up. This thing’s so slow.’
‘But it has huge endurance — because it doesn’t have to hold itself up. So once we’re out to sea, the chopper’s stuffed.’
‘We’re still a long way from…’ She gagged.
The pope said, ‘The toilet’s upstairs.’
She unbelted and headed for it.
The rolling was less now and they’d levelled off. Cain unbuckled and limped to the forward door, wanting to find out their heading.
The flight deck was in a pod that projected like a half-gondola. It was surprisingly quiet and a mixture of old and new. It had work stations for comms, nav and two forward seats for the pilots. Through the big windows he saw a flotilla of approaching storm clouds. Handling-lines dangled from the nose of the craft which curved above them far ahead.
Flynn and Duckworth sat up front in World War II bomber pilot-style masks that covered their noses and mouths. Glowing displays in front of them showed multiple readouts for airspeed, rate of climb, altitude, pitch, yaw, roll. These were flanked by simple flight instruments that might have come from a light plane — artificial horizon, turn and bank… An overhead panel appeared devoted to gaseous concerns — humidity, purity, temperature, pressure, altitude, ambient light…
As he watched, one VDU switched to a skeleton-form of the hull showing numbered frames and longerons outlined in different colours that indicated shear-loads.
Duckworth was flying, if that was the word, threading them between ramparts of clouds that drifted past so slowly the ship seemed barely moving.
Cain asked, ‘Can you get above this crud?’
Flynn glanced up from a weather radar display, pulled the mask half off to speak. ‘We’re considering that now.’
‘Is it a problem?’
‘Everything’s a trade-off. You don’t just decide to climb. The higher we go, the more the helium expands. We only have so much cell expansion before we reach pressure height. If we vent, we lose lift when we descend, and have to compensate by dumping ballast. Then sun on the envelope gives a temperature effect. Not as bad as a rubber cow, but significant.’
‘Can’t you compress the gas back into pressure bottles?’
Flynn shook his head. ‘Helium’s the hardest gas to compress and the most difficult to liquefy. No one’s developed a practical way to conserve helium for airships by repressuring. But we have a limited propane system for heating air inside the envelope.’
‘You get lift from hot air too?’
‘Not much. It has a third the lift of helium. But we use it to warm the air around the cells and expand the helium when that’s needed. But at these temperatures you have to insulate and preheat the tanks.’
‘Sounds a whole new world.’
‘It is. An airship’s unique. It’s part plane, part balloon, part ship.’
He watched the ragged clouds ahead as they discussed a multitude of things — diverting around the weather, crosswinds, down-draughts, shear-loading, cubic metres, ice caps, moisture freezing the valves…
Then Flynn called the damage detail. ‘We need to get above the weather. Your situation?’
An intercom cut in. ‘Bridge, sparks. Cells two and three affected. Five holes located and patched. Estimated three sites to go. But locating and reaching’s a worry. And we’re pretty useless now with the cold.’
‘Received. We’ll be venting anyway. Come back in and get warm.’
Cain clung to a stanchion as they began to climb again. He was surprised to find how slowly the ship responded to the controls. They rose into sun-glare to hang just above a sea of cloud.
Duckworth checked the manometers. Cain could hear his muffled comment. ‘Pushing pressure height. Starting to vent.’
Flynn scowled.
‘And we’re down to 50 knots. The diesels aren’t efficient in this thin stuff.’
‘Better than bashing her around in the clag.’ Flynn punched coordinates into the flight computer. The untended controls gently cycled as the autopilot made fine adjustments.
Duckworth looked at his watch. ‘Two more hours of daylight. Then she’ll cool.’
‘Yes. We can’t maintain this at night and we’ll need the burners or we’ll be dropping too much ballast. But if we can get past this cloud, we’re set. The plateau’s falling all the time now. ETA?’
‘With this wind, fifteen hours.’
‘So we’ll be over the Brun ice shelf in the morning.’
Cain didn’t know the area. ‘Where are we heading?’
Flynn glanced back, half-lifted the mask. ‘Chile. Our last stop’s a mother ship off the shelf.’
It clicked. The icebreaker with the tower he’d seen on the Herc flight down. ‘How far to the ship?’
‘Around 760 nautical miles.’
He knew the range of the remaining Sikorsky would be around 500. But it could do better with extra tanks, and Alpha could have fuel dumps. ‘We could still be attacked with a chopper. They’ve got one left.’
Flynn said, ‘Have to find us first. We look big but our radar signature’s small.’
‘They’ll find us.’
‘Maybe. But I can’t worry about that now.’
Cain left them to their calculations and retreated to the saloon. Late sun now bathed the deck, turning the bare area into a futuristic stage set.
He asked the pope if Hunt was still upstairs.
‘Yes, poor thing.’
‘What’s up there?’
‘A small kitchen and cabins with bunks. Odd to have all this space. Can you believe we’re suddenly above it all? Warm. Able to breathe.’
‘I know.’
‘Life never stops playing with us. I thank you for this, Ray.’
‘Just confabbed with the helium-heads. They’re taking us to Chile. With luck, I’ll get you out of this.’
The old man shook his head. ‘Not important. I don’t have long to go. My legs, my heart… the thing’s worn out. Just look after the manuscript if you can. It’s all I ask.’
‘I can’t lose you yet. I’m still hopeless.’
‘Yes. All that thinking, feeling, activity. All that life energy pouring to waste. How to bring the three together so that you ARE? You know, I AM that I AM is the closest statement of the truth. How to BE. But to be NOTHING. Do you see it?’
‘The presence of absence?’
‘In a way. I have to be completely naked — on the pinions of the wind, as Eckhart put it. The Kingdom of God is within — and for none but the thoroughly dead. But while you struggle with all that, remember the essential first step. Attention connects everything. Be — here — now. Present to your inner life.’