The other airship had been hidden behind a mountain peak, and came up effortlessly; it looked like a traditional Zeppelin, with small propeller nacelles instead of multiple rotors on gantries. A quick look through binoculars confirmed to Rayford that the aerostat had a small hangar and carried a number of flak cannons.
"We're going to heave to and prepare to be boarded. We're hauling construction materials, we're carrying nothing that's worth risking anyone's life. I will take responsibility for this with the company."
Rayford set the transponder to 7500. There wasn't much in the way of other traffic, but maybe someone or something would detect it.
"All right, Captain Baltor. I'm transmitting our cargo manifest to you. What do you want?"
"Your name on the airwaves, Steele. I'll duel you for it. Choose your weapon."
A beat of utter silence.
"... Wait, you want to fight me because you want the right to use my call sign?"
"Yes."
"Which is, in fact, my given last name that I was born with?"
"Yes."
"And you want to give me a choice of hand weapons, since my ship is defenseless?"
"Yes."
"I understand. Give me a minute, please."
Rayford looked at his crew.
"Well, you heard that. That's... stupid on multiple axes."
"Captain Steele, that guy has a bad case of Protagonist Syndrome..."
"I can see that, Mr. Lawrence."
"No, it's an actual affliction, it's close to Science Related Memetic Disorder. He's... sort of caught up in a narrative and has to play it through. If you deny him, he's liable to do something really stupid, like attack us as soon as he rationalizes an excuse to."
"So, he's going to be a danger to others. Looks like there's little choice. The problem is, well, he has guns, we don't."
"Probably why he wants to duel you. If he just blew us out of the sky it wouldn't be very heroic. It doesn't have to be to the death; is there any martial art or sport you're good at?"
"Martial arts.. it wasn't really a thing in my youth. But, I was a pretty decent athlete in high school..."
Rayford made his proposal to Baltor over the radio; the would-be air pirate accepted. It would be a log fight.
The "log" was actually a wooden beam, part of the Perdix' cargo; it had been carefully lowered right at the point where Two Oceans Creek turned into the marsh that would then divide into Atlantic and Pacific Creeks, and held about two meters aloft. Steele and Baltor were lowered onto it; the latter tossed a carbon-fiber rod to the former before disengaging the safety line. A fall into the marsh would be humiliating, but harmless. By Vicki's reckoning, as soon as their captain had left, the crew of the Rabid Wombat relaxed considerably, to the point of offering to zipline some rum over to the Perdix. A few small bets were made, even, to be settled by email later. The scene was a little surreal; did these people really intend to blow their ship out of the sky not half an hour ago?
Vicki took Judd's hand. "This is just weird. What's actually going on?"
Down below, Rayford and Baltor squared off, in a traditional fencing stance, each holding a staff. Baltor advanced, and hit Rayford's staff with his own.
"It looks a bit like that really old Robin Hood movie."
The thought crossed Vicki's mind that this whole thing had been set up for her entertainment; the whole scene came across as street theater, buskers playing Batman and the Joker on a busy sidewalk. But that couldn't be; just the fuel bill for the airships to hold position would run into the thousands of old dollars. Down below, Rayford kept parrying, letting the younger man tire himself out. Rayford's first mate distributed binoculars to watch the fight with. "Does anyone have a camcorder?"
This was Rayford's first long-distance flight as Captain; maybe this whole craziness was some sort of initiation ceremony? Vicki asked Judd, who asked Lawrence. "No, we have a crossing of the equator thing, Naval tradition, but... your father's a bit too straight-laced for that sort of thing."
Below, Baltor had pushed the older man almost to the end of the log, which by now was wiggling urgently from recoil and downwash.
"This should be interesting. If the cables holding the logs go into resonance, it's going to shake all over the place, so footwork is important."
Judd eyed Don suspiciously. "So you've done this before?"
"Long-line loading and unloading, yeah. Never got into a fight on top of the payload though. If you start seeing resonance, you hang onto the line and stop moving about, or you fall."
The log was only a few feet above the marsh; a fall wouldn't be dangerous. Rayford had caught the log's movement, and took a final step backwards so that he could hold onto the cable like he had been trained to, fight or no fight.
Baltor laughed in triumph when Rayford let go of the staff to cling to the cable. The young man then swung laterally, and hit Rayford in the sid... and promptly fell over the side of the beam as it bucked, carried by his own momentum. Rayford winced at the blow, but hung on. When he looked again, Baltor was splashing helplessly in the shallow.
"Are you all right? Can you swim?" Rayford signaled for the Perdix' half of the beam to be lowered, and after a moment of lopsidedness the two ships coordinated their winches to lower the log to the water. Rayford saw that Baltor's thrashing had turned into wading, and stayed on the log.
"Argh! You've got me! Very well, Captain Steele, you win! Let the heavens fear the name of Baltor!"
"Er, yes, okay..." It was getting dark enough that fireflies were coming out of the thicket into the marsh; a few hovered around Baltor as he stopped thrashing, then, just to top off the moment, one or two rested for a moment on Rayford's head. The older pilot smiled broadly, held the beam line in a strong grip with his off hand, and leaned forward, holding a hand up for Baltor to grasp. "I believe that this concludes our business, Captain Baltor. I will see you again, I'm sure."
Baltor took the help, and climbed on the beam - Rayford had braced against being pulled in, but the younger man had apparently decided to play fair after all.
"That was actually pretty impressive, but let's not congratulate the captain too much, for his own health. Stay professional, all right?" Mr. Lawrence admonished the rest of the crew.
The two captains hitched themselves on each ship's cable, Baltor disconnected the beam, and the ships separated without incident while winching up their duelists. Baltor's ship blew an impressively loud air horn that shook the Perdix' windows, and turned around, bound southward.
Rayford was greeted by the applause of his family and crew; Mr. Lawrence thanked him for making sure that there was no serious fight. Rayford beamed; he, Vicki and Judd thanked the Lord while the rest of the crew stood back respectfully.
"How's the schedule look?"
"We've gone from being a little ahead to being a little behind, sir, but it shouldn't be a problem."
"Very well! Collective pitch to 85%, generator to three quarters, motors to full, let's get back on track." He glanced at the weather report. "There's a cyclonic depression forming right past the pass, we can skirt it and make up a bit of time, and leave it before it gets turbulent. Make it so."
The crew saluted - crisply, for once - and got back to their posts. Rayford nodded approvingly as the Perdix resumed her journey, and went for the ship's log while the details of the fight were fresh in his mind.
The accreditation email, indicating that the actual letter would follow, came in just after the end of the day's classes. It was essentially unconditional. COT would have to have a curriculum ready for their high school, as soon as there was such a thing as high schools again: nothing could fill the age gap caused by the Rapture - but that was a problem for next year.
"Conrad, are we actually going to leave the privacy curtains up?"
Lionel and the older kids had done a fantastic job; Mr. Pessimal had indicated that something like a shower curtain would do, but Lionel had taken the opportunity to give a brief lesson on thin paneling. Later on, the panels would get decorated by whichever art class got to it first.
"For a couple of terminals, yes. In case Mr. Pessimal shows up again and, well, he was right in that there isn't a public library within reasonable walking distance, so we're it until there is."
The Chicago area had rebuilt itself faster than most other cities in PATRIOT territory by largely giving up on its city centre: while returnees to most other metropolises huddled in the center or in the historical district, Chicago had given up on most of its skyscrapers and configured itself around its ring of suburbs. This fit well with the Christian majority, as well as those who felt that it was a close recreation of the pre-Carpathia American experience, but made it essentially mandatory to own a bike, horse, or car: wanderers on foot were rare. Public buildings such as libraries had generally been reclaimed for other uses, making the school library annex rule necessary; of course, Vicki always made a point of offering a meal to any traveler who was willing to either do a bit of work around the compound, or simply looked like they hadn't eaten in a while. Fortunately, it had been less and less of a problem lately.
And then there was the young woman that Shelly was looking at. "Little Chiron's Pizza! I have an order for... Lailah?"
The woman, Shelly's age but looking a little younger, was clearly the athletic sort; she had come in at a trot, and rang the bell to the main gate just minutes after it had been closed. On a somewhat saddle-like backpack were enough boxes of deep-dish pizza to feed a whole class. Dinner was being prepared, as it was every day, and COT's kitchen was alive and noisy with staff, kids helping out as part of home ec class, and a couple of troublemakers on dishwashing duty.
"Sorry, we have a Leia here, but Lailah like the angel, no."
The delivery girl's ears drooped a bit; she adjusted her ponytail. She shrugged for a beat, then stopped the movement after realizing that the pizzas might fall off.
"If it's a prank it's a weird one, 'coz they paid AND tipped by email."
Shelly gave a noncommittal shrug. Electronic currency, once despised for its association to Carpathia, was starting to pick up steam again. "Sorry, no idea."
"I don't suppose you could sign for... 'Lailah-lan-Phanuel-lan-Michael-lan-Yahweh'? Again, this is already paid, it's not a tip scam or anything, I promise."
Shelly figured it had to be a prank; who would use an Angel's full hierarchical name to order pizza. "Sorry, no. I guess you can take them back and donate them?"
The girl shook her head vigorously. Only then Shelly noticed the pink triangle pin on her tunic. "Aw, man! I trotted all the way out here, was going to take it easy and walk back... they'd get cold!"
Shelly considered. The food being prepared right now would keep, and there was enough pizza on the girl's back to give a slice to most anyone who'd want it. She didn't want to play favorites in case there turned out to be more kids than realistic pizza slices, though. "All right, we'll take them. Thanks."
The girl stretched awkwardly in order to unload the pizzas; Shelly let her, and only took the boxes when they were put in her hands. She sagged from the weight and went back inside.
Three minutes later, the delivery girl figured that nobody was going to sign for the pizzas, and left after giving the door frame a bit of a hoof kick. Good thing she'd been tipped in advance!
Roughly at the end of the meal, Little Chiron's Pizza called COT's front desk to confirm that the delivery had in fact happened, and that was the end of that.
"I was a bit worried, we have a slight leak in the pantry, you know what I mean?"
"Goes to show that God still works in mysterious ways."
"Yeah, but... pizza? Next thing you know the kids will want it every week!" At least it was proper Chicago deep dish.
"I think we can afford it every once in a while."
"Not from Little Chiron's, though. Let's see if we can make a deal with a Christian pizzeria..."
"Do you think it was just Chaim sending a care package?"
"No, he'd have sent proper groceries. And he wouldn't have used an Angel's full name."
"He knows some of that angelology stuff by heart though." Shelly shook her head; that had been more Tsion's thing, admittedly.
"Yes, but he wouldn't use it inappropriately."
The mystery pizza was a topic of conversation for a couple of days. Naomi confirmed that the order had been placed from within COT using admin access, but neither her not Chang had done it; the staff eventually settled on the possibility that Mr. Pessimal had it sent.
"All right crew!" Vicki called out on the ship's PA. "Tonight's dinner is risotto alla milanese!"
Of course, with the crew working with British Navy style watch shifts, it was only dinner for captain, guests, and two of the deckhands; to everyone else it'd be either lunch or breakfast.
Courtesy of some waste heat from the generator, Vicki had turned a forlorn bag of rice and bunch of onions in the pantry's far reaches into something that smelled good enough to overpower ozone and motor oil.
"Where did you learn this? It's great!"
"Would you believe that one of the kids' moms taught me when they dropped him off? Very simple, too, rice, onions, bit of seed oil, red wine..."
Rayford looked at his crew with an air of annoyance. "Gentlemen, I thought I said no alcohol on board on cargo runs." Other than one deckhand, everybody looked various shades of guilty. Vicki resumed talking.
"Oh, it's my fault! I traded it with the cook on Baltor's ship. Anyway, making risotto heats all the alcohol out, so dig in!"
Rayford ignored the collective sigh of relief from the crew. "All right. Just for this once, since we have guests."
Judd had managed to get an ethernet signal on the ship's terminal just before dinner, enough to load email headers. "Also, we got accredited! And pizza, apparently."
"Congratulations!" Rayford, Judd and Vicki toasted with apple juice.
Later that night, the young couple watched the desert file past through their cabin's porthole, hand in hand. It had been an odd day, but a full one. This time, they didn't bother putting something in front of the porthole; it looked out of the envelope, so who would bother peeping?