Bob Shaw: The Fugitive Worlds

“Abort the landing!” he shouted. “Up! Go up!”

The main jets sounded immediately and, following the emergency drill, the crewmen who were not otherwise engaged ran aft to transfer their weight and help tilt the nose of the vessel upwards. Prompt though the corrective actions had been, the inertia of the tons of gas in the envelope which strained overhead slowed down the ship’s response. For nightmarishly protracted seconds it continued on its course, with the obstructing vessel expanding to fill the view directly ahead, then the horizon began to sink with nerve-abrading slowness.

From his position at the side of the bridge Toller glimpsed the long-haired figure of Countess Vantara, a momentary vision which was replaced by the swift-sliding curvatures of the other gasbag, so close that he could make out the individual stitches of the panels and load tapes. He held his breath, willing himself and his ship to rise vertically, and was beginning to hope that a collision had been averted when there came a vast groaning sound from below. The sound—low-pitched, quavering, reproachful—told him that his keel was ploughing its way across the upper surface of the other ship’s gasbag.

He looked aft and saw Vantara’s ship emerging from beneath his own. At least two seams had given way in the varnished linen envelope, allowing the supportive gas to spew into the atmosphere. The rents, although serious, were not bad enough to cause a catastrophe—the elliptical gasbag was slowly becoming misshapen and wrinkled, allowing the gondola beneath it to sink to the ground.

Toller gave the orders for his ship to resume normal flying and to make another circuit in preparation for landing. The maneuver gave him and his crew an excellent opportunity to watch the countess’s ship sink down at the end of its tether, and—the final ignominy—be blotted out of sight by the collapsing gasbag. As soon as it had become apparent that nobody was going to be killed or even injured, the release of tension caused Toller to laugh. Taking their cue from him, Feer and the rest of the crew joined in and the merriment became almost hysterical when the parachutist—whose existence had virtually been forgotten—descended into the scene of action, made a comically awkward landing and ended up sitting on his backside in a patch of swamp.

“There’s no hurry now, so I want a flawless showpiece landing,” Toller said. “Take her in slowly.”

In accordance with his instructions the ship settled down against the breeze with a stately motion and grounded with a barely perceptible shudder. As soon as the anchor cannon had secured the craft, Toller swung himself over the rail and dropped to the grass. The first of Vantara’s crew were beginning to struggle out from beneath the folds of their gasbag, but Toller ignored them and walked towards the parachutist, who had risen to his feet and was gathering the sprawled canopy. He raised his head and saluted as he saw Toller approaching. He was a lean, fair-skinned youngster who looked barely old enough to have left his family home, but—and Toller was impressed by the realization—he had completed a double crossing of the void that lay between the sister worlds.

“Good foreday, sir,” he said. “Corporal Steenameert, sir. I bear urgent dispatches for her Majesty.”

“I thought as much,” Toller smiled. “I am under orders to transport you to Prad without delay, but I think we can take a moment to let you get out of that skysuit. It can’t be very comfortable walking around with a wet arse.”

Steenameert returned the smile, appreciating the way in which Toller had put the relationship on an informal footing. “It wasn’t one of my best landings.”

“Bad landings seem to be the order of the day,” Toller said, glancing past Steenameert. Countess Vantara was striding towards him, a tall black-haired woman whose high-breasted figure was made even more impressive by the fact that she was holding herself angrily erect. Close behind her was a smaller woman, much rounder in build, wearing a lieutenant’s uniform, who was laboring to keep pace with her superior. Toller returned his attention to Steenameert, his sense of wonder stirring as he thought of the magnitude of the journey the boy had completed. In spite of his youthfulness, Steenameert had seen sights and had been granted experiences Toller could scarcely imagine. Toller envied him and also was deeply curious about what had been discovered on the voyage to Land—the first since the colonization of Overland had begun fifty years earlier.

“Tell me, corporal,” he said. “What was it like on the Old World?”

Steenameert looked hesitant. “Sir, the dispatches are privy to her Majesty.”

“Never mind the dispatches. Man-to-man, what did you see? What was it like?

A gratified expression appeared on Steenameert’s face as he struggled out of his one-piece skysult, making it apparent that he had a compulsion to talk about his adventures. “Empty cities! Great cities, cities which make Prad look like a village—and all of them empty!”

“Empty? But what about the—?”

“Mister Maraquine!” The Countess Vantara was still a dozen paces away, but her voice was forceful enough to silence Toller in mid-sentence. “Pending your dismissal from the Service for willfully damaging one of her Majesty’s airships, I am taking command of your vessel. You will consider yourself under arrest!”

The arrogance and the sheer unreasonableness of Vantara’s words checked Toller’s breath, inspiring in him a pang of fury so intense that he knew it was vital for it to be subdued. He put on his most relaxed smile, turned slowly towards the countess, and immediately wished he had met her under different circumstances. She had one of those faces which have the effect of filling men with hopeless admiration and women with hopeless envy. It was oval, grey-eyed and perfect—flawless in a way which set its owner apart from all the other women Toller had ever seen.

“What are you grinning at?” Vantara demanded. “Did you not hear what I said?”

Putting his regrets aside, Toller said, “Don’t be silly. Do you need any help with repairs to your ship?”

Vantara glanced in outrage at the lieutenant who had just arrived at her side, then triangulated her gaze on Toller’s face. “Mister Maraquine, you don’t seem to realize the seriousness of your situation. You are under arrest.”

Toller sighed. “Listen to me, captain. You have behaved very stupidly, but fortunately no real damage has been done and there is no need for either of us to make an official report. Let us just go our separate ways and forget the whole sorry incident.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“It would be better than prolonging this lunacy of yours.”

Vantara’s hand moved to the butt of the pistol in her belt. “I repeat, Mister Maraquine, you are under arrest.”

Scarcely able to believe what was happening, Toller instinctively gripped the haft of his sword.

Vantara’s smile was icily perfect. “What do you think you could do with that ridiculous museum piece?”

“Since you ask, I’ll tell you,” Toller said, lightly and evenly. “Before you could even raise your pistol I could cleave your head from your body, and were your lieutenant foolhardy enough to try menacing me she would suffer the same fate. Furthermore, even if you had two others of your crew with you… and even if they managed to fire and put their bullets into me … I would nevertheless be able to run at them and cut them down.

“I hope I have made myself clear, Captain Dervonai. I am under direct orders from her Majesty, and if anybody attempts to prevent me executing those orders that attempt will end in terrible bloodshed. Those are the simple facts of the matter.” Keeping his expression bland, Toller waited to see what effect his words would have on Vantara. The physique he had inherited from his grandfather was a living reminder of the days when the military had comprised a separate caste in Kolcorron. He towered over the countess and had twice her weight, and yet he was not at all certain that things were going to go his way. She had the look of one who was not accustomed to being thwarted, whatever the circumstances.