John Wright - Titans of Chaos

That was too much for Quentin, who did not want to see his beloved called a harlot. He muttered a curse under his breath and made a small gesture with his walking stick. Of course, when Quentin mutters a curse, it works: Colin hopped as if stung by a bee, yowling in pain and clutching his bum.

Yes, there was an all-night sporting-goods store in San Francisco. The store's loudspeakers were vibrating with energetic dance tunes, and the clerks working there were bright-eyed and hyperactive, no doubt as a side effect. They even had a little elevator just for the sports shoes to ride. What a country! The cash that Victor and Vanity still carried was enough to cover the costs of tents and tarps and sleeping bags made of shiny space-age materials I had never heard tell of.

Quentin paid for the cooking gear, knives, a hatchet, and an axe. Victor invested twenty dollars in a Boy Scout Handbook and a U.S. Army Survival Manual.

Vanity called her ship to her, and we all flew over to the deck, either levitating magnetically, or by warping space-time to deflect gravity, or by uttering a charm to the unseen spirits of the middle air, or by jumping off the docks with a scream that turned in midscream into the shrill of a hawk.

Vanity rode on my back amid wings made of flame-colored music-energy.

Of course she would have preferred Quentin to carry her in his arms, but the nervous shyness of his familiar spirits made that unlikely. She complained while we flew that she could have found a shortcut through a phone-booth door or something directly to the deck. Then she said I was too close to the water, and then that I was too high, yak, yak, yak. Backbone driver!

Through the dark clouds above the nocturnal sea, I saw the red planet, Mars, winking at me like a distant light above the far horizon, mysterious, untrod by man, and I wondered how high I could fly. These are questions every young aviatrix asks herself: How far, how high, how fast, under what weather conditions?

We lit on the deck with a swirl of gravitic rainbows, or levitated silently as if riding an invisible elevator, or stepped down from the shadows in the night air, or pretended to be a bird until tickled and kissed by Vanity and me back into being human. Jerk.

We stowed the gear in convenient cabins under the deck that Vanity found (or created) for us. The boys waited above impatiently while Vanity and I changed. I am sure they rolled their eyes and made boyish comments, but still, I was not going to go sailing in an evening dress. I put on a very sensible dark sweater, dark blue jacket, white slacks, deck shoes. And no reason not to accessorize, since Vanity had bought me a cute little necklace of fine gold in Paris. And no reason not to brush my hair, since it did not make sense for me to have my hair amess if I were dressed nicely, did it?

Back up on deck, Victor seemed not to notice how I was dressed. Second jerk.

But I looked all captainy and official. "Miss Fair!" I called out in my best Bligh voice. "You may weigh anchor and set our destination. Some fine deserted island, empty of men or gods, where we may tarry for a while in peace!"

Vanity raised her hands and closed her eyes, and intoned in a theatrical voice: "Argent Nautilus, beloved ship, vessel white to carry us to freedom! Find me an uninhabited island!"

The Silvery Ship raised no sail. Silently, with no hand at the tiller, we sped away under the stars.

Untasted Waters and Untrodden Sands

I suppose this has happened to everyone: It is easy enough to say to a magic boat, Find me an uninhabited island, but the first place we made landfall was a rock less than an acre wide, half-submerged at high tide, covered with ice at low tide. There were some tough-looking birds, their feathers gray as lead, who had built their nests among the frost-coated rocks. Nothing else grew on the rock but lichen and clinging green seaweed.

We were all shivering in the gray and snowy air, except for Victor, who did not notice cold.

"Vanity!" I said through chattering teeth. "Whose idiot idea was this? I told you to find some deserted tropical island!"

Vanity stamped her boot against the deck. "You did not! I said just what you said! A deserted island!"

Colin and Quentin were both looking at me. Oops. First lesson about being a leader. If it goes wrong on your watch, it is your fault. I could have given a different order, been more specific, said something else. Bossing is like an unwritten contract: The men obey your dumb orders without question, and in return you don't give any dumb orders. You use your brain. You make the plan. You're in charge.

"At ease, Miss Fair!" I barked out. "We'll say no more about it. Tell the vessel to find someplace warmer! In the tropics! Double time!"

Vanity squinted at me. Her red hair was being tossed about by the cold wind, and her lips were blue. "What does 'at ease' mean?"

"It means you don't have to stand at attention."

"I wasn't standing at attention."

"Good. Because you don't have to! Tell the Nautilus to find an island currently empty of man or god, spirit or spy devices, in a warmer clime, someplace large enough to pitch a tent. Someplace with grass and trees. Now, step lively, spit spot!"

"What does 'spit spot' mean?" Vanity asked.

Colin said, "It means Amelia thinks she's Mary Poppins now. Quick, send this boat to someplace warm, or she'll have us clean the nursery while she sings."

It is easy enough to say to a magic boat, Find me a warm and uninhabited island, but if you forgot to say, with a safe anchorage, then you might end up having to fly to shore at night. There was no opening in the reef, no safe passage. Well, I suppose a deserted island has to be deserted for a reason.

The necessity gave an excuse to be cunning: We sent the boat on her way, with instructions to visit the islands of Micronesia in alphabetical order, to lead any magic watching her away from us.

Beneath a midnight sky, in our various flying forms, we circled the island once and twice before landing. Victor said loudly through the night wind that he detected no electrical signals of motors, telephones, radios. Vanity (who was riding my back again) said she sensed no one looking. I gave the order to land.

Descending, I smelled green, growing things and heard the dry rustling of broad leaves. Funny, the leaves sounded different here than they do in Wales: like huge fans whispering.

But, ah! The warmth of the tropics! Why in the world would anyone live anywhere else? The land of endless summertime.

Victor had levitated down nearby. I heard him trampling through hissing grass blades toward me, and saw the dull blue beam from his metallic third eye. Against the stars and palm trees, his silhouette looked like that of a miniature lighthouse.

"Any idea where we are, Mr. Triumph?" I said, setting Vanity on her feet and refolding myself into human form. I felt sand and soil under my shoes, and long grass or ferns tickling my knees.

"About four hundred British nautical miles northwest of Tahiti, Leader," he said. "That is a rough guess based on star positions. I will need time to correlate and make adjustments to my internal instrumentation before I can interpret global positioning satellite signals correctly." A wry note crept into his voice. "My paradigm does not allow me to invent new sense impressions without knowing how they work."