Captain Robert took his men
And flew to Prague and back again
Some fell off, some dropped dead
And some put bullets through their head

...Abney Park 'The Ballad of Captain Robert'

Adrift in the Aether

There it is again. That noise.

Vesuvius raised his head. He'd been poring over the badly-drawn map of Aeolia, trying to stall the inevitable landing, and despite his determination not to take any notice, the persistant creaking had levered itself into his brain and lodged there.

He rubbed his forehead irritably. Whatever it was, he could hardly ignore it at ten thousand feet. Genevieve was old. A rattling old wreck, some men less polite than himself might say. She's seen better days. He sighed and went up on deck.

Above him was nothing but an expanse of frosty aether. Below him too. Genevieve hung suspended in mist and cloud like a precious artefact coddled in cotton, her main propellors silent, her bulk held aloft only by the tail-spins. The lazy clack-clack of her pennants was the only sound to break the eerie silence. Vesuvius frowned. No creaking after all.

'Billy!'

'Aye Cap'n?'

'Do you hear anything unusual?'

'I ain't sure, Cap'n. I ain't never flown before neither.'

As I suspected. 'Call the crew to me,' he said aloud. 'I hear creaking, and I don't like it. It's not healthy. It may be time to take her down.'

'Aye Cap'n. But the crew, Cap'n...they're...'

'Yes, Billy?'

'Er...asleep, Cap'n.'

'Asleep?' Vesuvius stared at his first mate, incredulity widening his eyes. His Naval crew never slept! At least, not all at once. The high scream of a raptor rent the quiet, and he caught sight of the bird circling the ship. He stiffened.

'Billy,' he said, 'have you ever seen a bird that big before?'

'I cain't see no bird, Cap'n,' said Billy cheerfully. Nothing bothered him. Vesuvius sometimes lay awake at night, trying to think of something that would bother Billy. A pointless pastime, he knew. Billy was too stupid to be afraid.

Billy grinned at him. 'Shall I wake the crew, Cap'n?'

'By all means, and let them know I shan't take it personally - this time - if they are here within five minutes.'

He caught sight of the bird again, his blood freezing in his veins. No bird, not a real one. Yechaman? Surely not, when they had been ten thousand feet above the land and wreathed in cloud besides. Nothing else should be up here.

The cloud cleared halfway through his speech to his sullen and resentful crew, and all words failed him.

'Aeolia, sir,' said Allan Cambridge, the bo'sun, with a malicious smile. 'Closer than we thought, ain't we?'

Vesuvius swallowed the bile that had leaped into his throat at the sight that greeted him as he looked over the side of the ship. They weren't ten thousand feet up. They'd dropped. Now, Genevieve hovered like a sick airborne whale a mere thousand feet above ground. Maybe less. He gave the orders for the sounding-line to be dropped over Genevieve's sides.

Allan Cambridge cleared his throat. 'Captain, with respect, we shouldn't stay here. The yechaman probably know we're here, and we're vulnerable, out here on the plain like this. We should head for the mountains and beach her up in a valley or summat.'

'See to it,' murmured Vesuvius absently, drawing up the line and recording the measurements on his fathogram. Although Genevieve was an Airship and not an ocean-going vessel, she was still a ship and most of the instruments she had were familiar to him. The fathogram was his own; a thing of pride to him, with its copper cogs vying for space among the newer steel sprockets, topped off with a delicately-etched face and a handsome case of polished rosewood.

He looked up as Genevieve's main propellors whirred into life, and he snapped the case shut and went to the Captain's cabin.

Time to...land.