by Phyllis Huldarsdottir

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”), Airship Commander for Aerosud, a luxury liner airship company based out of São Paulo in the Empire of Brazil, who is searching for her father, Commodore Jack Cheése, an outlaw and antigovernmental rabble rouser.

Professor Doctor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, who has abducted Lydia to get her to pilot an illegal unregistered airship to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republic) on a mission of mercy in exchange for helping her find her father.

Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler and who is also a psychic Vessel. 

Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and a traveling circus strongman Lydia recognizes from her past.

Pyare, a young man with dreams of being an airship pilot, and member of LBFDS (the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud) helping Lydia and Serpina rendezvous with Serre-Pain and Vlady at an illegal airship.

Emile Etugouda, poet, philosopher, world traveler, raconteur, and general all around know-it-all whose memory of an ancient epic poem helped Lydia, Serpina, and Pyare cross the Massif and on to their rendezvous in Autre Lyons.

Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA squad charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer.

Pax Victoriana, a period of peace imposed by the Clockwork Commonwealth and its enforcement arm, The Admiralty, dating from the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign to the present for a total of 180 years which includes the TSR (Temporal Shift Realignment) of 56 PV (1893 AD) after which Commonwealth calendars where recalibrated to reflect Her Royal Majesty’s peaceful rule (following the devastation of the first Pandem and its resurgence 30 years later as Pandem II).

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Chapter XX

Lydia stood in the wheelhouse of the airship like she was visiting an old friend, a very old friend. It was a text book reconstruction of the control panel, down to the mahogany framing, analog instruments, chrome highlights and gleaming brass, the outsized rudder wheel, elevator wheel and panel, altimeter, gas board, and engine telegraph dating back almost a hundred years. Pyare could barely constrain himself, a child in a museum, wanting to touch everything and make equivalences to what he knew of current airship dashboards with their plasma displays and their analogous functions. She was relieved by his apparent familiarity with procedures and that it wasn’t all braggadocio. She was going to require a second if they were to accomplish their mission. Pyare, who had accompanied them across the Massif, had decided to continue with them to North Africa. He had no reason to return to Old Orleans now that the gendarmes were after him. Apparently Leon had confessed to everything and exposed the organization’s network, naming names, his among them.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Serre-Pain and Etugouda were acquainted. They were of a second Pandem generation and wore similar world weary expressions around their eyes. It was during their exchanges of when they had last crossed paths that her real identity was revealed. Not Odette Oday as her identity papers claimed, but Lydia Cheése, airship commander, who was to pilot their mission to Djibouti.

Etigouda had cocked an appraising eye at her and asked, “You’re not related to Nye Cheese, are you? The Queen’s Chancellor for a brief period during the period following 1906 current era, Pax Victoriana Year 69 or some such, and just ahead of the first BMI Pandemic. An obtuse character if there ever was one. He considered himself quite the philosopher but was actually completely mad. The Admiralty Board put an end to his conciliatory concessions with the powerful Romanovs over the administration of Eurasia and its contiguous states, especially in its rivalry with the Empire of China for the Independent Republic of North Pacific Archipelagos, or Manchatka, as it is commonly known.”

Of course she wasn’t. Her family name was pronounced “chase.” And she wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise. The old poet’s idea of a conversation was a monologue, preferably his.

Once they’d gained  the sanctuary of the remote farmhouse with its massive stone barn carved into the hillside where the dirigible was penned, Lydia had set about the inspection of the airship, a medium sized transport. She had trained on similar rigs but none quite as old. The principles were the same.

Serre-Pain outlined the plan over the large chart table before their departure. They would be flying unauthorized through the commercial airspace and subject to interception by the customs authorities. It all depended on timing. A Russair cargo dirigible of similar vintage was making its way down on the opposite side of the Massif. He pointed to the map and where the monitoring stations were along their flight path. The one to the south of Autre Lyons was the one they would have to deceive. All cargo transports were required to keep to a strictly enforced schedule as well as elevation. If the Russair transport could be delayed at their last cargo stop, they would have a narrow window to impersonate its flight signature and fool the monitors. That would take some calculation.

Lydia had quickly worked it out, estimating the airspeed of that class of dirigible, especially laden, taking into consideration the time of day, and what upswells of wind current could be expected descending into the littoral plain. It had been a while since she had actually had to work out a flight plan—her staff on the Orinoco II had usually taken care of the navigation requirements, but it was something she felt perfectly confident doing.

“Once we get underway, we’ll have to average 50 knots to meet the point where the airship can intercept the flight path undetected,” she pointed to the spot on the map. “Our cruising altitude will be 200 meters unless we encounter cloud cover. Once we make it past the last monitoring station we will be into the autonomous zone of the Ligurian League, and by then, out of IOTA’s effective jurisdiction.”

The grizzled old snake doctor nodded his head with approval. “But their agents are everywhere and we must remain discrete. Once we determine that the delay has been effected, we can untether.” At Lydia’s questioning look, he added, “We will depend on Serpina for that confirmation.”

Orphaned, a refugee, Serpina had joined them when she was very young, and she had immediately bonded with the mute bear.

And it was true, the young woman had been unusually pensive in the preparation for boarding and getting underway. She had never been on an airship she had confessed to Lydia once the reality of the prospect had been confirmed. And Lydia, too, had sensed the rivalry for Vlady’s attention. The old strongman had once been her hero, and now it was obvious from their affection for each other, that he was Serpina’s as well.

Her reunion with Vlady had been a little awkward because he had been Samson Trismegistus when she knew him as a child, the strongman in the circus in which her ballerina mother had performed as a tightrope walker. Now he was pleased that she had finally realized his identity. He was still a bear of a man, mute as he had not been before. She had remembered his voice as a rough growl. But he had acknowledge with a sage expression that he knew who she was. And he admitted with a nod when she recalled that he had saved her mother and her from the fire in the arena tent set by vindictive clowns and carnies. Serpina had finally spoken up. “He is very happy to be reunited with you.” To which the large man assented.

Lydia understood then the bond between the two of them. Those thousand unasked questions, the ones she wanted to pose, were answered in the conversations during the ride up to the estate of a local landlord and the location of the clandestine dirigible. The six legged steam beetle was a farm tractor used for hauling hay wagons. Serre-Pain had switched carts when he suspected that Leon might be induced to reveal their plan.

From what she could gather from her inquiries of Serre-Pain, and somewhat reluctantly, Serpina, Vlady had been tortured by the Tsar’s secret police, the Oprichniki, for being an enemy of the Russian Empire. After the fire in the big top, he had returned to his hometown in the trans-Caucasus where his mother lay dying. Because he had lived outside the Empire during his travels with the circus, he was accused of being a spy and had had his tongue cauterized with a hot iron. He escaped from the prison camp where he had been left for dead, and made his way across the Carpathians with a group of refugees from Kazakhstan. He chanced upon Dr. Serre-Pain and the Original Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium with the original Madame Ophelia, on the outskirts of Sarajevo. They were being set upon by a gang of Ottoman thugs, and he had intervened. Serre-Pain had been on a mission to provide antivenom to save the life of a young man who had been bitten by a horned viper, the deadliest in the region. From then on, he had accompanied the snake doctor across vast stretches of the post pandemic continent, skirting the BMI devastations and avoiding the authorities. Orphaned, a refugee, Serpina had joined them when she was very young, and she had immediately bonded with the mute bear. It was only later that they had discovered her receptivity as what is commonly called a “vessel.” And that she was implicitly sensitive to Vlady’s frequencies and could read him like a mood ring. In many ways, he was a beacon onto which she could home.

Lydia understood also that she would not be the one to get between Serpina and Vlady, and that Pyare didn’t realize that he might. And considering their latest trek, she was beginning to wonder who was leading whom.

Chapter XXI

Lydia gladly shed the rough cloth of the burnoose when she was given the uniform of a Russair airship captain with the gold and red piping, the square billed cap and its glossy green visor. At least she no longer looked like a refugee, although the uniform was decidedly out of date, like much of the Russair operation. Out of his country togs and in his own Russair uniform, Pyare presented an impressive figure and looked the part of an airship pilot. She had given Vlady a quick lesson on the engine telegraph in the engine room. With Pyare at the helm, she would be free to respond as navigator, rigger, comm operator, and engineer if the need arose. Her crew on her Aerosud luxair, Oricono II, consisted of a minimum of fifty specialists, not counting the passenger attendants, and kitchen staff, but a small transport such as this usually operated with a dozen airshipmen. Serpin, the Doctor, and the poet would stay out of sight in the comm room in the keel until they had made it past the final monitoring station.

Until then they would have to wait for the acknowledgement from Serpina that the Russair ship had been delayed. And Etugouda had not stopped talking, jumping from topic to topic, like a flat stone skipping across a still pond. How he had landed in the Massif, escaping from the displeasure of the Spanish King’s family for a poem he had delivered to the Court. He had found himself penniless and at the mercy of the clans. They were descendants of Fourierists and fugitive Communards who mingled with the locals who were themselves much later descendants of persecuted Huguenots. It was a world outside the law of the Clockwork Commonwealth. They were missing a fool in their midst, he explained, someone who could utter the forbidden of what they all thought. As a poet, he was perfectly suited for the job. He had survived for the last five years on scraps and the generosity of the frequenters of the Lion & Bear, taking up residence in an abandoned shepherd’s stone shelter. His life at the Spanish court was another story. And he thought that he might never return to the normal world of hubris and ambition that his profession required.

“And when you three showed up, I understood that you were an omen, more than met the eye, and the passport out of my exile. But if you must know, it was fated that my friend Jean-Pierre and I should be reunited. It seems like a thousand seasons have passed since we were face to face, and the world has changed since then, drastically. Before I landed in the Spanish Court, I was travelling in the Americas with a group of aristo vagabonds from Greater London when we just barely missed the resumption of the Pan-Am war. The United Slave State Republics led by the Republic of Texas were making claims on Ultra Mezzistotec territory south of the Rio Grande, again, and of course the Bush Whacker Rebellion within their own member states. It wasn’t the only upheaval in the former United States and Territories. And now there is more trouble brewing, this time from the tribes of the Dakota Prairie Republic, if what Jean-Pierre is telling me is true, and I have no reason to doubt him. They’re claiming that since the central government in the District of Columbia is no longer a government entity, that the treaties they signed with the then United States almost two hundred years ago were no longer binding. It is understandable that they might want to leave territory devastated by black mold and the attendant anomalous weather for what they claim as their homeland. They are seeking the return of their lands from the southern Appalachians to the Mississippi. Needless to say the Republic of Tennessee Georgia, known to everyone as ROTNG, and its citizens have rejected the idea. I remember when this claim was first broached in their pleas for support from the Admiralty right after Pandem II and during a meeting of the newly formed Conglomeration Of Affiliated Nations of which the USSR was not a part”

The snake doctor looked directly at her and nodded gravely. It was time to spark up.

Lydia had had it with the self-inflated gasbag. She was in no mood to listen to prattle about current affairs or world history, especially when it was beginning to veer into speculation and conspiracy theories. She stared at the ceiling of the observation room at the rear of the gondola. Above her in their rigid shell were the gas bags she was concerned about. Unlike the older models that used hydrogen, this airship had been retrofitted with the less volatile biogen gas cells, standard for at least the last half century, if she remembered her history correctly. Biogen pellets were mixed with water at the base of the cells which caused the release of the biogas that inflated the biosilk envelopes. They had taken on enough ballast to mimic a laden transport, and the bug drives were primed to bring the H2O solution to a boil, and off-gassing the steam to spin the two outboard turbines that would propel the airship. The bug drives, as the engines were called, operated on Euler’s theoretical equation of a relation between the velocity, pressure and density of a moving fluid using a system based on the Rayleigh-Benard convection dynamic. Or so she remembered from Basic Aeronautics, a class that was guaranteed to put her to sleep, the drone of the lecturer’s voice that stupefying.

Etugouda’s voice was having a similar effect and she snapped her eyes open and shook her head. Now he was going on about the reason behind the first Black Mold Infestation, often referred to as BMI One or Pandem I, that had killed millions of people and devastated vast tract of the Northern Hemisphere.

“Many would like to place the blame on the Admiralty for the epidemic, the first one. I don’t directly believe that they were behind it, but they did capitalize on it to consolidate their power into the Clockwork Commonwealth. What was the cause of this poison that was sown into our soil, killing the plant life and its attendant biosystem? Historically we know that in the current era 1906 or Pax Victoriana Year 69, if you wish, the earth’s orbit passed through the tail of a gigantic comet, a flaming planetoid. The resultant diffusion of the meteoric matter through the aether sheathed the northern part of the globe with its alien presence, effacing the existing flora and fauna. Many believe that it was an invasion from another world that sought to extinguish us. Scientists, in what was then known as the Prussian Alliance, before it became a part of Greater London, developed a biocide that neutralized the black mold and stopped it’s advance. Unfortunately the solution had the unexpected side effect of being a petrophage, and before. . . .”

Now Lydia was in her history class at the Air Academy, another lecture course that had bored her to tears. She was about to counter what, to her, sounded like ICER propaganda when she noticed that Serpina had crossed the room to say something to Serre-Pain. The snake doctor looked directly at her and nodded gravely. It was time to spark up.

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Next Time: Citily and the Republic of Corsardinia

by Phylis Huldarsdottir

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”), Airship Commander for Aerosud, a luxury liner airship company based out of São Paulo in the Empire of Brazil, who is searching for her father, Commodore Jack Cheése, an outlaw and antigovernmental rabble rouser.

Professor Doctor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, who has abducted Lydia to get her to pilot an illegal unregistered airship to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republic) on a mission of mercy in exchange for helping her find her father.

Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler and who is also a psychic Vessel. 

Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and a traveling circus strongman Lydia recognizes from her past.

Pyare, a young man with dreams of being an airship pilot, and member of LBFDS (the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud) helping Lydia and Serpina rendezvous with Serre-Pain and Vlady at an illegal airship.

Emile Etugouda, poet, philosopher, world traveler, raconteur, and general all around know-it-all whose memory of an ancient epic poem helped Lydia, Serpina, and Pyare cross the Massif and on to their rendezvous in Autre Lyons.

Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA squad charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer.

Pax Victoriana, a period of peace imposed by the Clockwork Commonwealth and its enforcement arm, The Admiralty, dating from the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign to the present for a total of 180 years which includes the TSR (Temporal Shift Realignment) of 56 PV (1893 AD) after which Commonwealth calendars where recalibrated to reflect Her Royal Majesty’s peaceful rule (following the devastation of the first Pandem and its resurgence 30 years later as Pandem II).

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Chapter XVIII

Lydia had had enough. The old man, the poet Emile Etugouda was trying her patience. Not that she wasn’t thankful that he was helping them evade the clan militias by offering a shortcut to their destination, but he wouldn’t shut up. He talked about himself endlessly, the famous authors he knew, as well as his friends in high places. Lydia recognized some of the names he’d mentioned from the Emperor’s court in Rio Rio, but they were mostly from another era, her grandfather’s generation. She had never heard of the poets he mentioned, but that was no surprise. Even in her schooling, she had never been interested in the sentimental and fantastical, the frivolous. And for all she knew, what he was claiming could be a complete fiction.

The first instance that warned her of things to come was his forgetfulness. And since the trail they were following to get to Autre Lyons depended on his remembering of the epic poem, La Reccourci, a good memory was essential. They had traveled a couple of miles before Etugouda realized that they had taken a wrong turn because he had conflated “hair” with “lair of the Maiden” which was actually a detail from a completely different epic altogether. And from there they had veered off in another direction only to be confronted by a sheer wall of water at the top of the winding stream along whose banks they had trudged with increasing difficulty.

That was frustrating enough, but combined with his insistence on reading their auras and relating what the colors said about their personalities, it was grating on her nerves. Here they were desperate to reconnect with Professor Serre-Pain, and their guide, such as he was, wanted to play parlor games. He’d first fixed on Pyare as it was his suspicion he wished to allay, and because a male, make an ally.

“But enough about myself. How about you, my boy, what is your name? You seem to be the least out of place of your trio. Are you from these parts?”

“Pyare,” the young man spoke cautiously, “Pyare Aucarray. I grew up in the suburbs of Old Orleans. I worked in the fields in the valley, summers when I was going to school. We would often venture into the Massif to go hunting or swim in the streams.”

“Yes, yes, I sense that about you. Rugged orange, adventurous, with a hint of yellow to underscore your easygoing nature but also energetic red highlights. You are at peak spectrum. You have great potential and I would assume that you have many talents that are just waiting to be put to the test. Have you ever considered flying?”

Pyare looked askance as if he’d been asked a trick question. “How do you mean?”

“As an airship pilot, of course, you are just the caliber of man that would do well in the Navair trade.”

Pyare threw Lydia a triumphant look. “Exactly.”

Lydia suppressed her guffaw. “An airship pilot, imagine that,” she said at Serpina’s snigger. “Had we known, we could have flown to Autre Lyons instead of bumping into dead ends and following false nonexistent trails.”

Etugouda ignored her sarcasm and turned his attention to Serpina. “And what did you say your name was again?”

Serpina threw a glance at Lydia before answering. “I didn’t say, but it is Addy.”

“Yes, yes, Addy, there is something about you I can’t quite place.” The old poet ran a hand over his large mustache. “ There is a bit of the blue about you, a mysteriousness, a depth unfathomable, a spirituality. And a green that speaks of a garrulous nature. Also an underlying yellow, much like our young man here.” He smiled as Serpina’s cheeks pinked, and nodded, “As I suspected.”

When he looked at Lydia his eyebrows drew together and shaded his fierce discerning eyes. “But you, I cannot fathom. Your papers say your name is Odette Oday, if I heard correctly, and yet somehow that does not fit. And your credentials say you are a third class worker, but that is belied by your appearance and demeanor. As Conan at the Lion & Bear said, you are too shiny, and indeed you are. You radiate a dark red, almost purple, which mean you are not only determined but spontaneous, grounded but not easily cowed by convention. There are undulations of orange which I take to be of a cautious nature. As well some green around the edges that would indicate someone who is comfortable commanding others.”

Lydia returned the old poet’s gaze. There was a smugness about his pronouncements that galled her, something that she encountered mostly from men who were always in a hierarchal mode, like somehow they knew better or were better. Her boss and nemesis, Commodore Crenshaw, at Aerosud Headquarters, held a similar attitude toward her and the other female airship pilots. Airship commander was still a very much male dominated occupation. There was also something decidedly archaic about the old man, as if he belonged to another era. His clothing was a patchwork of styles, the tilted hat, the bulky scarf draped around his shoulders like a mantle of office, and the rough canvas jacket of many pockets, a faded blue. His trousers, patched at the knees, were cinched at the waist by a wide purple sash. The cuffs, turned up at the ankles, offered a glimpse of dark gnarled toes shod in sandals. A sturdy staff in one hand and the dark satchel slung over the other shoulder marked someone long experienced in travelling afoot.

“Your assessments of our personalities are entertaining and diverting, Monsieur Etugouda, but so far we seem to be taking one step forward and two steps back, and you have not brought us any closer to Autre Lyons. As for the palette of colors you ascribed to me, their combination would not be the most complimentary. Are you saying my aura is muddy?”

“Again, your wit distinguishes you from who you appear to be,” the old poet chortled, “And you are right to be skeptical. Your impatience is understandable but not entirely correct.” He pointed to the water cascading down the side of the gorge. “This waterfall is the Maiden’s hair of the poem. The next verse instructs us to push the hair aside to speak into her ear and ask for her protection and guidance.”

Lydia glanced up at the roaring falls and then at Etugouda as if to say, “and just how are we going to do that?”

Serpina had gone ahead. “I think I see a path up to the ledge above.” She was pointing up the sheer incline. “There, up there to the left, there seems to be a gap!” she insisted.

“A gap,” the poet smiled mischievously, “Something like an ear, perhaps? An orifice?”

Lydia followed where Serpina’s finger was pointing. “How are we going to get up there? We’re not mountain goats.”

Pyare proved that that he was true to his colors, energetic and adventuresome, by ducking through the underbrush to the base of the escarpment. The others, followed with Lydia bringing up the rear.

As if a natural feature of the landscape, a faintly discernable narrow track ran up the face of the cliff at an oblique angle. “Ah,” Etigouda exclaimed, “the nape of her neck will lead you to the lobe of her ear, as the poems says!”

Pyare had already started climbing cautiously, placing a tenuous hold on the craggy face of the sheer cliff and a careful foot on the narrow jutting edge. Once around a slight bend, the path appeared less treacherous although the roaring fall of water and the mist it raised was daunting enough. Wrapped in a cloak, Serpina’s lithe young frame seemed not to be troubled by the narrowness of the path. Etugouda glanced over his shoulder at Lydia before starting up. Lydia’s eyes traveled the path mapping its contours to the shaded terminus near the top of the falls. She looked at her feet as if willing them to begin their ascent. I’m an airship commander, she thought to herself, why am I spending so much time on the ground. She was out of her element. She needed to be in the air. 

 

Chapter XIX

Lydia stood alone, off to one side of her companions, and gazed across the valley and at the air traffic in the sky above it. She was looking at the north south commercial air corridor up from Autre Lyons. Dirigibles, rigs and semi rigs, private silrigs as the Self-Inflatable Long Range Gliders were known, and even a few solid shell low altitude maneuverable dirigibles called flitters, usually in the service of the authorities, flecked the horizon like so many large dark birds. Lydia felt pangs of longing at the sight of them. She had not been at the helm of an airship in almost a month. A strong wind pushed the tall grass of the hillside where she was standing and tugged at the edges of her burnoose. South, she assumed was the direction of Autre Lyons.

The epic poem had been right she had to grudgingly admit. And she’d been prepared to give Etugouda his due but for the fact that he was too busy expounding on facets of the poem and how it reflected the geography far more ancient than the poem itself. And that this path had been used by humans and animals for tens of thousands of years to travel across the Massif to the valley below which was why water nymphs figure so prominently in the ancient local folklore because they were recognized as the source of life and regeneration. And on and on like a man in love with what he was saying, he kept up his chatter even in the roar of the waterfall as they passed under it and on up a narrow cleft to the crest of the ridge and the grassy rolling hills below. Or maybe their guide had known of the shortcut all along and the epic poem was merely a fanciful charade. That had yet to be determined.

At the forefront of Lydia’s thinking was how to make their way to the urban center and what to do once they got there. They were all in the same mess, it was no longer just about her flight from the scrutiny of IOTA to a safe refuge in Rio Rio and the court of the Empire of Brazil. She would honor her agreement with the snake doctor and pilot his clandestine airship to Djibouti and the capitol of ICER conspiracists. The other pressing concern was her hunger. That was proving to be a big distraction. And did nothing to improve her humor.

In the distance among a cluster of trees at the edge of the grass fields, the angled arrangement of earthen roof tiles was discernable. A dwelling would indicate that some kind of road or thoroughfare might be nearby. Serpina was already making her way down the slope in that direction and Lydia naturally fell in behind her. The grass slapped against her thighs and she stumbled over the loose uneven ground. She glanced back at Pyare whose strides soon overtook her and brought him up beside Serpina. Etugouda struggled with the descent, one hand holding his hat in place, his satchel slung over his shoulder bouncing on his hip, staff a third leg.

Lydia scramble up a little rise in the hillside at the top of which Pyare and Serpina had stopped. Below them was a double rut leading down. In the distance she heard faintly what sounded like a steam engine accompanied by the sound of machinery. Etugouda’s labored breathing made her turn and extend her hand to grasped his and pull him up. His moustache widened in a smile reflected in the twinkle of his eyes. “Not so muddy,” he rasped as he reached the top.

Already Serpina was following the dusty rut, moving determinedly, almost possessed, Pyare on her heels with a concerned frown. Lydia had little choice but to chase after them, leaving the old man to make his own way down. At one point beneath an arc of oaks, the road opened into a wide obviously well-traveled stretch. Serpina increased her pace to a steady jog, her mouth set in grim determination, eyes intent on the road ahead, a hound on a scent. She was oblivious to Etugouda’s entreaties to wait or Pyare’s alarmed appeals that she tell him why or what she was doing. At the sight of a bend in the road ahead, the young girl started a sprint, the flounce of her long skirt held high so as to not impede her speed.

Lydia picked up her pace to a run, matching her stride to Pyare’s. She rounded the bend at his shoulder. Ahead she could see Serpina racing toward an antique six legged steam beetle attached to a large wagon. Two figures were standing next to the multilegged contraption from the pre-Pandem II years, the exhaust stack sending up little gray puffs of smoke. Serpina extended her arms as she reached them.

And Lydia laughed, stopping in her tracks to catch her breath. She recognized the two men, one tall and lanky, and the other, bear-like, stocky and wide. It was Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain and Vlady. And as she followed Serpina up to them, she caught Vlady’s wide grin. She had so much to talk to him about, so many questions. If only he could talk. The Professor’s kind eyes smiled at her, at her relief and exhilaration.

She turned as the old poet, gasping and wheezing, came up behind her. The look on his face was one of complete astonishment, an expression she would have never expected from the old claven, as know-it-alls are often called. She heard Serre-Pain announce his own surprise, “Emile Etugouda?” To which their guide replied, “Serre-Pain, I should have known.”

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Next Time: Flight Of The Long Bird

by Phylis Huldarsdottir

Cast of Characters (Partial):

Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”), Airship Commander for Aerosud, a luxury liner airship company based out of São Paulo in the Empire of Brazil, who is searching for her father, Commodore Jack Cheése, an outlaw and antigovernmental rabble rouser.

Professor Doctor Jean-Pierre Serre-Pain, proprietor of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium, a traveling snake show, who has abducted Lydia to get her to pilot an illegal unregistered airship to HOAR (the Horn Of Africa Republic) on a mission of mercy in exchange for helping her find her father.

Serpina, a young girl who serves as Serre-Pain’s assistant and snake handler and who is also a psychic Vessel.

 

Vlady, an older bearlike man also in the employ of Madame Ophelia’s Ophidiarium and a traveling circus strongman Lydia recognizes from her past.

Pyare, a young man with dreams of being an airship pilot, and member of LBFDS (the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud) helping Lydia and Serpina rendezvous with Serre-Pain and Vlady at an illegal airship.

Pax Victoriana, a period of peace imposed by the Clockwork Commonwealth and its enforcement arm, The Admiralty, dating from the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign to the present for a total of 180 years which includes the TSR (Temporal Shift Realignment) of 56 PV (1893 AD) after which Commonwealth calendars where recalibrated to reflect Her Royal Majesty’s peaceful rule (following the devastation of the first Pandem and its resurgence 30 years later as Pandem II).

Chief Inspector Karla Kola, head of the IOTA squad charged with capturing Commodore Jack Cheése and Lydia’s nemesis and pursuer.

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Chapter XVII

The stone threshold led to the open door and the darkened interior of the public house. The air was close and smoky as Lydia Cheése stepped onto the roughhewn floor. The amber glow of lights, plasma based or bacterry powered, even some organic bougies illuminated wide tables and the chatter of voices of those around them. Delectable odors made her mouth water.

A large broad shouldered woman, fists to hips, blocked any further progress. Pyare spoke to her a few words in a local dialect. The woman’s eyes narrowed and reconsidered what Pyare had told her and what she was seeing, Lydia and Serpina looking very rough. She inclined her head in the direction of the kitchen and had them follow to an alcove nearby. There was a bench and a stool. From a doorway opposite, the large kitchen fireplace exuded heat. She addressed Pyare with a hand held out.

Pyare turned to Lydia, the hood of her burnoose still drawn close around her face, “She will feed us but we must pay. You have Victorines. Or better, the local currency. They are very suspicious of Victorians.”

Serpina stepped forward. “I have a few old francs.” She retrieved the bills from her wallet, handing them to the woman, and smiled. The woman’s severe demeanor softened and she smiled back as if entranced. She was older, with a pushed in face and large eyes, greying dark hair pulled together under a scarf. “Yes, I speak standard little. I was maid many years in Nouveau Old Orleans. I am Mira. Please sit. I will be back.”

Lydia’s eyes questioned Pyare. He seemed nervous. The murmur of voices from the main room of the Bear & Lion had quieted as the newcomers were silently scrutinized. Serpina sensed Pyare’s anxiety and stood close to him, in his shadow.

“Do you trust her?” Lydia had quickly scanned their environment. A large room occupied by a dozen or more people, eating, drinking, talking. It all seemed very congenial. Until they arrived. A few, men, were on their feet and moving around, some to an adjacent room that also appeared to be occupied.

“Of course. Once we crossed the threshold, the rules of the clan do not allow any harm to come to us. The food will be simple but good. It is once we leave here that I’m worried about. I see some very unfriendly faces at those tables.”

“I’d rather not worry about that on an empty stomach. They can’t all be hostile to us, can they?”

“They will be if they think we are police spies. Or worse, refugees.”

The woman named Mira returned with a large pot and three bowls which she set on a barrelhead nearby. Ladling out portions of murky stew she passed the bowls around. Lydia looked at the congealed brown and orange mass with certain revulsion. She was hungry, the smell was savory but unfamiliar. The thought of it passing through her mouth made her gag involuntarily. Pyare looked at her in surprise as both he and Serpina were already swallowing their first bites. Mira looked at her askance as if it were a comment on the dish.

Pyare nodded vigorously and pointed at the bowl so that the woman would understand that he thought it delectable. Serpina, as well, nodded her appreciations. “Mushrooms,” she said, her eyes widening. “Sausage!” Pyare chimed in.

Each word was like a stab in the gut, but after such reviews, how could she refuse, especially under the returned suspicious gaze of their hostess. She nudged a small portion from the bowl to her lips and past her teeth. A warm sensation flooded her mouth from the surprisingly rich texture of the morsel. It did not taste as unpleasant as it looked. There was a complexity to the flavors that she had sampled only in the most expensive restaurants in Rio Rio. This was not the same old remolded morselized biotein fare that was common throughout the Commonwealth, fauxfillets of fizsh and strings of rehydrated chibz, or ubiquitous  biotein patty pazetree puffs sold in take outlets and automats everywhere. Except in the Massif, apparently. The first bite was followed by a second bite although she was uncertain what to do with the first bit of sausage. She closed her eyes and swallowed so that she could tell herself she had done so without looking.

It wasn’t long before Lydia was running a finger along the insides of the bowl to get every bit of the stew and unhesitatingly accepted the large stein of fermented broth proffered by an approving Mira. Lydia felt full as she had never felt before. And drowsy. If it hadn’t been for the commotion in the main room of the house, she would have drifted off to catch up on much needed sleep.

A man in a tilted hat repeated what he had just proclaimed. “It smells like destruction, I tell you!” He was a round man, tall, with shockingly blazing eyes and a large unruly white moustache overhanging his mouth. Another man seated near him took offense. “No, friend, it smells like good food and warm bodies, especially those of women!” His assertion was met with a few guffaws and a comradely “Hear, hear.”

Lydia stepped between them. “Let me show you mine.” She proffered the identification card with one hand and with the other placed the twin tips of the viper blade under his chin.

“It smells like an evil wind that bodes no good!” the round man continued.

“Maybe it’s a broken wind,” someone else offered to a chorus of laughter.

“He should know” offered another, “He’s a bag of wind. Blow back to your mountain hut, old man, and take your bitter nuts with you!”

“Yar, that he is! And always with the same complaint!” The tone was a little more aggressive. “You don’t belong here. Go back to your wallow!” The accusation had come from a man who had entered from the adjacent room. He was large with a shaggy head of mouse brown hair.

“Ruin! I can smell it in the air. The foul stench of annihilation!”

“Blame it on the wind. It’s blowing your stinking breath back in your face!” Another man in a great coat had stood up menacingly. “We don’t need your kind around here! You are stirring your disturbance in the wrong place!”

Lydia looked puzzled. She wasn’t certain what was happening. What had started as banter had turned abusive. She could tell by Pyare’s posture that he was on the brink of fight or flight. Only Serpina seemed unconcerned, a slight smile turning up the edges of her mouth.

“It is us, all of us, who bring this doom to ourselves. Not the Clockwork Commonwealth or its client states, or the sanctioned republics, but we, the humans who comprise these states of mind, the squirming grubs, the microbic slime of this planet. We are bent on destruction, on self-destruction!” The round man in the tilted hat held a finger up in testament. “And why? Because of time! We have too much of it. Like misers we want to acquire it all, all the time. And what do we do with all this time? We claim that it is necessary for our own self-improvement and satisfaction! Yet look at us, do we look satisfied? If this is improvement, it is only preparation for the grave! The entire mammal world, with one exception, has never once given time to consider how to improve themselves. What can we say about their lack of discontent?”

“Get out with you words,” another man spoke up, “they’re spoiling the taste of my food.”

A few of the men at another table pushed back their bench and stood. The mouse haired man advanced toward the tilted hat who stood defiant in his righteousness. “I’ll teach you to curdle the cream!” he said threateningly.

“Stop!” It was Serpina. She had stepped out of the shadows. She was still smiling, and the men were diverted. “This man has freedom to speak his discontent. It is the winter of his days, one that we will all face, yet you want to deny him this fundamental right to speak the fruits of his experience. Why reject what he is saying when you could engage and glean the substance of his meaning?”

Mira had come to stand by Serpina, Lydia and Pyare cautiously following. “Yes, leave the old man alone, he has a right to his demons.”

The tilted hat bowed to the hostess. “I am only old because I have run out of time, but in my heart burns the eternal flame of love.”

Mouse hair glared at them and then glanced at the standing men around him. “Who are these intruders? Spies, refugees? I’ll want to see you papers!”

“Conan, you haven’t the authority. These are guests under my roof.”

“We’ll see about that.” He approached Serpina, his hand out demanding. “Your papers.”

Lydia stepped between them. “Let me show you mine.” She proffered the identification card with one hand and with the other placed the twin tips of the viper blade under his chin.

“Odette Oday?” Conan gulped and swallowed his insistence. He blinked at the passport. “Third Class Worker?” Stepping back, he shook his head. “Maybe those two.” He pointed with his chin at Serpina and Pyare. “But you, you’re too shiny. Except for the mud on your face, you could be a Victorian, an IOTA spy, for all I know.”

Serpina laughed. “What could IOTA possibly want with a congregation of unwashed farmers and trappers smelling of the field and the wood? Are you plotting a revolution, listening to Commodore Jack and his ICER propaganda over unsanctioned broadcast frequencies on illegally modified boxes? Here in your sylvan redout, you are the powerless of the powerless. The only thing that protects you is your ignorance. Perhaps that is the stench of ruin to which this fellow is referring. Furthermore, we are travelers, not displaced persons. Our path was not chosen for us thus we must follow the one we can find. What is our goal I cannot say only that it is not found here.” With that she bowed to Mira and clasped the woman’s hands in hers. “Thank you for your hospitality, sister.”

Once outside, Lydia caught up with Serpina who seemed propelled by a determination to get away as quickly as possible. “What was all that in there?” What were you doing?”

Serpina shook her head. “Not now. We are still in danger. We have to get out of sight.”

A shout was raised from the house. Pyare on Lydia’s heels, they turned as one expecting the worst. It was the man in the tilted hat hurrying toward them.

Slightly out of breath, he wagged a finger at Serpina. “A foolish thing to do. Stir up a hornet’s nest. They are used to my disputations. They insult me and then forget that I am about. Or should I say they think they can forget what I’ve said, yet I’ve lodged a bug in their berets. Over time their objections are less vociferous although they enjoy the wit of their insults too much to ever stop.” He smiled under the wide brush of his moustache. “Thank you for coming to my defense.” His brow creased, “But your unfortunate disclosure of their anti-government activities has put you in grave danger.”

Pyare confronted the tilted hat. “Who are you?”

Bushy eyebrows raised in surprise, “Of course, how rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself,” hat doffed, “Abraham Etugouda, poet, world traveler, originally from Iberia, citizen in the Republic of Letters.”

Serpina spoke up. “Mr. Etugouda, perhaps you can help us. We are trying to reach. . . .”

“Wait,” Pyare stepped in, “How do we know we can trust him with where we’re going?”

Etugouda gave a body shaking laugh. “I’m an old man everyone thinks is crazy. And who would believe me? And why would I betray you? I’m a stranger here myself. Let me repay your kindness. Tell me your destination, perhaps I can offer some assistance.”

“Autre Lyons,” Lydia replied, “It is imperative that we reach it within the next twenty four hours. Unfortunately following the regular route through the Massif will not allow that.”

Tilted hat nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, yes, I think it can be done. But we must move quickly.” He herded them across the stone bridge and up the hillside to a copse of oaks. “The men at the Bear & Lion have a transmitter in the storeroom. They will have alerted the militia by now. The roads will be watched.”

“What can we do? If you know the path, tell us!” Lydia insisted.

“I will recite a poem.”

“How will a poem ever get us to Autre Lyons?”

“It is an epic poem of local provenance called La Reccourci. It tells the story of a brave young woman who follows an ancient hunter’s path over the Massif to the valley beyond in order to save her father’s life.”

“I don’t see how that is helpful? ”

“As I said, I am a world traveler and a poet. I travel the world collecting the epic poems of various regions, especially epics that describe the topography of the locale. This particular epic contains a map, you might say, landmarks, and directions. It is of the genre known as GPS, Grandes Poemes Secour.”

“Your reciting the poem will require you to accompany us,” Pyare stated suspiciously, “Don’t you have it written down?”

The poet’s moustache raised in a grin and he pointed above his ear. “It’s all up here! I’ve memorized hundreds of epics.” He gazed at their incredulous expressions. “Now if I can just remember how it begins.”

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Next Time: The Tides Of History