3.6

"Perhaps we should land," Helen's father said, the words tripping out a little too quickly. His voice sounded odd, as if slightly strangled in his throat. He gripped the railing of the gondola with both hands and his knuckles were white.

The rushing of the wind and the murk of the clouds conspired to make the scene a trifle nightmarish. They were no longer a good fifty yards above the perilous rocks; more like thirty.

Helen bit her lip. There was plenty of room yet, surely. "Signor Romano, what do you think would be best?"

Romano shook his head as he fiddled with the controls. "Too risky!"

"Because of the wind?" Helen's father shouted, his tense voice signaling the need to argue.

"No, signore," Romano said. "We are moving much too quickly and landing on this uneven surface could be quite dangerous."

"We just got the ship repaired from the last disastrous landing," Helen shouted across to her father as the wind tried to steal the words away.

"What the devil—?" He shouted back. "Do you reckon our lives less than this bloody machine?"

"Papa, don't swear."

"If there is a time for swearing it's when your daughter is trying to kill you by means of a damned airship," Rochester muttered, though he knew his daughter would not be able to hear the words.

Before he could formulate a more genteel inquiry, another bolt of lightning struck, blinding them all momentarily.

Helen fluttered her eyelids to remove the afterimage, then shook her head. A quick glance around the gondola did not reveal any damage.

"All right then?" she called to Romano.

"Nothing's on fire," he said which was something of a reassurance.

"Papa," Helen called, turning back to her father, "Are you—" She stopped and gazed dumbstruck.

"What?" her father barked, trying to decipher the look on Helen's face.

"The lightning hit very near."

"Doubtless, all the more reason we ought to—why are you smiling?"

Helen tried to smother the laughter that threatened to pour forth from her throat. "Nothing, Papa, I—"

"Out with it!"

Signor Romano turned and at once cried out with laughter, doubling over and slapping his knee.

At that outburst, Helen found it impossible not to laugh as well, though she tried to muffle it somewhat with her hand.

"What are you two idiots laughing at?" her father demanded, shifting his gaze back and forth between the two of them.

The hair, always unruly and rather long, had apparently picked up a charge from the lighting strike. It stood out from his head like the prickles of a thistle. To add insult to injury, Tuppence reappeared and added her voice to the general cacophony as if she too were laughing at the sight as she circled the airship.

Rochester raised a tentative hand to his head and felt the effects of the static energy. He glowered at his daughter and somewhat more effectively at the Italian.

"The devil take you all," he muttered as he tried to flatten the unruly hair into some kind of obedience.

"Papa, never mind," Helen said, "It's really a much greater concern than your hair." She had to swallow a smile once more. "Our best bet is to keep low, otherwise we stand an even greater risk of lighting, which could be destructive in all kinds of ways."

"I understand that, but if we were to land—"

"We'd be in even more danger."

"You're not just saying that to try to win the wager?" Her father seemed to have regained some of his humour.

"No, although I want to teach the Lintons a good lesson," Helen replied, throwing a glance back to her competitors, "There's no need to—oh my heavens!"

"What?" said her father as he turned to look behind them.

3.5

"I don't understand," Helen's father repeated. "Surely this thing is weather ready." He looked up to the ceiling of the gondola.

"That's not the issue, Papa," Helen said, peering into the clouds as if she might be able to divine the path of the storm and its ferocity.

"Well, there can't be much rain getting in here." He patted the railing as if to reassure himself of the strength of the conveyance.

"But signor, the lightning," Romano repeated. "Very bad."

Rochester began to pace around. "I don't see how, it can't really get in here, surely. It's not going to be attracted to a big balloon."

"Dirigible," Helen corrected automatically, then stopped short to look at her father. "You do realise all the machinery is metal, of course."

He stared at her, blinking, and then turned to gaze at the engine assembly.

Helen tried to remember any other time that she had rendered her father speechless, but was unable to recall a single instance. This day would have to be filed away for special mention in her journal.

If they survived the day, that is.

Tuppence croaked and finally succeeded in lighting on Rochester's shoulder. The bird's presence was enough to irritate him back to normalcy and he waved the bird off with a few explosions of cursing.

Helen threw a look back; the Lintons were no closer and she smiled with satisfaction. Come what may with the storm, there was a great deal of satisfaction in proving the superiority of her ship.

"Can you take us lower?" she called to the pilot.

"Not until we're over the last rise," Romano shouted back.

The moors offered an impassive and forbidding face. Helen knew they would be heartless if the ship came to near their rough surface. There was nothing to do but hold steady at this level and hope the winds did not shift them too much.

"Aren't we a bit too near the ground?"

It seemed a bit odd to have to be reassuring her father. Helen experienced another surge of confidence and wished her mother were here, too. "We are trying to keep below the storm, Papa."

"The winds are bringing the storm in from the sea," Romano called out. "They're slowing us down some."

Helen looked back at the Lintons' ship. They would feel the winds no less than they and were accordingly slowed. But they seemed higher in the sky now.

"I think they fear coming too low," Helen muttered. Glancing down, she saw that the rough surface of the moors lay like strange animal below them, the rough verbiage clinging tightly as if fearing to lose purchase on the rocks.

"Are we too low?" Her father seemed galvanized once more by the nearness of the harsh land below them.

"We'll be fine as long as we keep a good distance between us," Helen said trying to throw some cheery confidence into her tone. "The winds may buffet us a little as they pick up, but we have plenty of room between us and the rocks."

At least she hoped it was still enough. As they approached the summit of Beacon Hill, Helen realised her body had become rigid, braced for disaster. Leaning over the edge of the gondola, she estimated that they had not slowed much though the ground had become much closer.

"Easily fifty yards," she called over to her father who had been making his own survey of the situation.

"Is that enough?" He did not look up.

"It will have to be," Helen said simply. Tuppence landed beside her and made some clicking sounds. She reached out to the bird and stroked the smooth feathers of her neck.

A sudden gust of wind lifted the ship and then dropped it precipitously. Helen grabbed the edge of the gondola and Tuppence lifted off into the air again. The raven circled around the ship, calling loudly.

"See there," Helen said as the ship's path smoothed once again. "Plenty of room yet, we're in no danger."

The words had no more than left her mouth when a loud clap of thunder erupted next to them and shot out a bolt of lightning. For a moment Helen found herself blinded by the glare and felt her fingers dig into the railing.

"That was close!" she squeaked in alarm.

3.4

Helen tried to smother a smile. "Oh, papa! Are you all right?"

He stood up, looking alarmingly blanched and wiping at his mouth with his handkerchief. "Why the devil should I not be?"

"I just thought—"

"Well, never mind that." He waved away Tuppence who seemed to want to land on his shoulder. "How are we doing?"

Helen turned back to look over the side of the gondola. "We're doing at least forty knots, I reckon." She smiled over at her father. "And we're putting distance between us and those Lintons."

His bark of laughter sounded harshly, though he continued to mop his brow with the handkerchief. "I knew you had it in you, my girl."

"Papa, you know that I try—"

"Well, trying is one thing," her father said standing more erect. "Succeeding quite another." He took a step away from the edge of the gondola and coughed loudly.

Helen could see the colour gradually returning to his face. It was quite remarkable really. She had begun to think that he would not last the voyage and now that he had been sick over the side of the airship, her father seemed to have recovered himself completely.

Tuppence squawked loudly, flapping her wings as if trying to draw their attention. Helen's brows knit as she looked at the raven. Perhaps it was simply upset by her father's passing bout of illness.

"How are things holding, Signor Romano?" She shouted toward the pilot. The wind seemed to be picking up force as their speed increased.

"It's al looking very good, signorina," the pilot called back, throwing up a thumbs up gesture as the tradition dating from medieval times. Helen had found it odd at first until learning that some of the local Yorkshiremen used the same gesture

The things you learn when you leave the ancestral home, Helen mused.

She glanced back over her shoulder. The Lintons' ship was falling even further behind. Helen grinned. Things were looking good. Not only would they win the race but she would have enough funds to assure the last of the alterations that would make the ship ready for its debut at the Exposition.
"We are going to make a real splash!" she crowed. Tuppence croaked a response that she took to be congratulatory.

"Splash?" The paleness returned to her father's visage and he lunged for the ropes again. "Are we over the ocean?"

Helen looked over the edge. They might well be doing forty-five knots now. She wished there were a more accurate way to measure the progress of the ship. It was one thing to try to be as accurate as possible, but she didn't want to consider that she might underestimate the speed in the interest of fairness and not overestimating the speed.

"We're just coming up to the coast, Papa. Look there!" She pointed down to where the North Sea's grey waters joined the land.

Her father did his best to struggle over to the side of the ship and, Helen found herself impressed to observe, steeled himself to look down below. His grimace showed that it was an effort, but by and by, he relaxed his grip on the edge of the gondola.

"It all looks so far away." Her father's voice had a tone she had seldom heard before. It was wonder.

Helen smiled to herself. This was proving to be a most diverting trip. "It is relatively far. you know." She crossed the gondola carefully balancing herself as had become second nature now. "From the barns to the top of the fields. A good gallop even on Belial."

Her father looked at her with an expression Helen found hard to read. There was a certain puzzlement in it, but something else too. It might have been a kind of astonishment.

Something changed. Helen looked up. The sun had gone. Well, not gone, but it had disappeared behind a bank of storm clouds that were looming before them.

"Signor, I think you might want to take us down a bit lower," she called across to Romano.

"Si, si, signorina," the pilot shouted back. "I see the clouds. Very bad. I think there is lightning."

"What's so bad about that?" Her father crooked an eyebrow up, looking quite strong now that he had got his stomach back. "I can take a little hullabaloo now."

Helen laughed but the sound came out a little harsh. "We're not concerned about the bumps, Papa."

"What is it then?"

"The lightning!"

3.3

Romano turned back to the controls and slammed the ship into top gear. The gleaming instruments reflected his harried face but the ship responded with a smooth acceleration that belied his frantic motions. The pilot's glance tracked the dials but he could tell the ship was ascending as well as speeding up. He smiled.

Helen could feel the flush on her face as she listened to the motor's hum. While the speed increased she had held her breath, anticipating some kind of grinding noise or any sign at all that there could be a problem.

"How fast are we going?"

Helen looked over at her father who appeared alarmingly pale. "Papa, are you quite all right?"

He nodded tersely.

"Are you sure?" If she did not know better, Helen could have sworn her father was about to be violently ill. Even from her station by the rear of the gondola the sheen of sweat on his brow glistened like the surface of the sea at sunset.

That would be a good detail to tell mother, Helen thought at once.

"How fast are we going?" Her father repeated, his brows ruffling with the temper she knew so well. "Just as a matter of record, of course."

Helen smothered a smile. "Are you keeping a record, Papa?"

"Yes, I'm keeping a bloody record," he sputtered as he swayed with the movement of the ship. "I'm recoding my last will and testament, too."

"Papa, there's nothing to worry about."

"She's right," Romano chimed in, smiling encouragingly at Rochester in what he hoped would be perceived as a friendly way. He had not quite accustomed himself to the man's barking voice and abrupt manner, though the latter had become slightly more amiable as he got to know the Italian.

Romano kept far away from his dog, however, and released a big sigh of thanksgiving when the signorina managed to dissuade him from bringing Cerberus on board for the flight.

"I am enquiring for the scientific record," Rochester said very slowly and deliberately. "I am the observer here, so it is my duty to keep track of things."

Helen shrugged. "All right, Papa. We'll try to calculate it."

His eyebrows shot up again. "What about those dials?" He gestured toward Romano who raised his hands to indicate his blamelessness.

"Signore, we don't have one to measure the speed."

"Why not! Seems like the most natural thing in the world." Rochester glared at the pilot as if he were personally responsible for the lack.

"Papa," Helen soothed. "I hadn't thought it necessary." She looked over at the Linton's craft, which continued to lose ground to their steady progress. "I had no intention of racing the ship. We were more concerned with keeping it in the air and keeping an even keel."

"Foolishness! Very short sighted, I must say."

Helen smiled. "I'll be sure to add it in the next upgrade."

"I should think so." He swallowed and looked away.

"Papa, you look a trifle green."

"Nonsense," he said, but his tone seemed less gruff now and more strangled. "So how are you going to determine the speed?"

Helen blinked at him, then decided it would be best to act as if everything were fine. "Well, first we try to gauge the relative speed against a static visual."

"What the devil does that mean?"

Helen laughed. "We look down at the ground and try to get an estimate of our relative speed."

"Look down?" If he had appeared vaguely green before, he had become positively emerald now.

"It may help, Papa," Helen said, making her way over to his side. "Come now, take a look down." Helen gazed down and immediately drew a quick breath. We must be going 40 knots or more! That will show those Lintons!

She turned to share her triumph with her father, but saw that his eyes were closed. "Papa?"

Without warning, he spinned around, leaned over the side of the gondola and was violently ill. It did not help that Tuppence croaked loudly at him.

3.2

Romano's face grew stony as he maneuvered the ship higher. Helen glanced at her father, whose white-knuckled hands gripped the ropes, bracing himself for further shifting winds, then she unstrapped herself from the seat and made her way to the rear of the ship to listen attentively to the engine.

"What are you doing," her father shouted, tightening his hold on the gondola's ropes as the craft shuddered up at an angle. "Sit down!"

Helen ignored him and listened carefully to the chugging gears. Then she smiled. The motor seemed to be running without complications and they were buoyed up by its power at an increasing rate.

Glancing over her shoulder, Helen saw that the Lintons' ship had picked up its pace as well, though not flying as high as hers at present. She hoped they could increase the distance between them.

She could use that £500!

"Take it up to top gear, signore," Helen called out to her pilot.

Romano looked at her, his face full of misgiving. "Perhaps we should not risk it, signorina."

"Yes, we must try it out."

"But it may not be necessary; I think we can beat them without it." The pilot gestured at the craft below them. There could be no doubting that the gap between the two ships had begun to increase.

Helen smiled as she looked over the edge of the gondola, but when her gaze returned to meet the pilot's, it was lit with enthusiasm.

"I want to try it out."

Helens father fought his way to a standing position. "What the devil are you two talking about?"

The pilot looked apologetic, trying to keep a watch on the dials and levers before him as he tried to remonstrate with his patroness. "We repaired the previous damage—"

"From the failed flight, last week—you remember, Papa."

"I'm not an idiot," Rochester grumbled. "Of course I remember."

Helen smiled indulgently. "I know you don't enjoy the technical discussions."

Her father grimaced. "You're delaying. Your mother will be so proud to hear that you have followed in her extremely irritating habit."

"Sorry, Papa. I took the opportunity we had with taking apart the engine assembly to initiate a few improvements that I think will offer some surprising innovations."

"I don't like the sound of that." Her father suddenly appeared a trifle more pale.

Helen laughed. "It's only a mild increase in speed capability and—you will be glad to hear—an improvement in motor efficiency at those higher speeds."

"Provided the assembly does not overheat," Romano cautioned.

Helen waved away his words. "I worked it all out in the sketches. The bearings and the oil should withstand the friction without trouble."

"But rotation at that velocity!" the pilot said, wrestling with the wheel before him which seemed to be fighting back. "I think we have underestimated the heat generation index for the entire assembly."

Helen shrugged. "How else will we discover whether the calculations hit the mark?"

"You're speaking gibberish," Rochester shouted, feeling courageous enough to let go of the ropes with one hand as he waved the other at the Lintons' ship. "And anyway, it seems unnecessary. We're clearly in the lead. Just maintain that—"

All three of them watched as suddenly the other craft lurched in the air and then began closing the gap between them at an alarming rate. Tuppence croaked from her perch on the ropes as if to warn them of its approach.

"You see?" Helen said, triumph filling her voice. "We've got to test it now!"

"They may not catch up," her father muttered, but she noticed that he took a firmer hold of the gondola's cables. All her life the towering temper of the man who gave her that distinctive profile had demonstrated his fearlessness.

She found it quite enjoyable to be the cause of making him a bit unsettled. For try as he might, Helen could see behind the bluster that he was afraid.

I am being rather cruel, she tutted herself. But the smile spread across her lips anyway. "Top gear," she shouted to Romano. "Let's show these amateurs what a real ship can do!"

3.1

"What the devil is that!" Helen's father blurted.

Helen stared, mouth open. "I don't believe it!"

Passing far too closely on the starboard side came another airship, rather larger than hers, but also far more ungainly. Its striped ballooning seemed garish in the early daylight and the engine assembly ungainly and without elegance. Two young men gawped from the gondola.

"The Linton twins," she growled with unaccustomed vehemence.

"Better watch where you're going!" One of the young men shouted toward their ship, grinning like a monkey.

"You two are a menace!" Helen hollered back.

"What shall I do, signorina?" Romano called from the wheel, glancing back over his shoulder with look of agitation.

"You don't own the sky!" the other twin bellowed at Helen.

"Damnation, what are these impudent puppies doing?" her father demanded. Despite his peremptory tone, his face continued to look alarmingly pale as he clutched the ropes of the gondola.

"Hush, Papa!" Helen admonished, before turning back to her rivals. "Simple common sense rules of logic suggest the utter stupidity of bringing your ship so close to ours."

"We were here first," the twins sung out in unison.

"They are idiot children," Helen's father growled between clenched teeth. "Ought to have been drowned at birth.

Helen ignored his comments. "Take us up, Signor Romano. Get us away from these amateurs."

"Amateurs!" the older twin shrieked. "Our ship is vastly superior to your pathetic little balloon."

Helen Rochester could bear many things with equanimity, but having her ship thus accosted was not one of those things. "Balloon?" she said, her voice cool but her cheeks pink with irritation. "My airship embodies the very finest qualities of a the very cutting edge of heavier than air technology. Your pathetic and inelegant vehicle looks like a whale beside a dolphin."
She had perhaps hit a vulnerable point with her nautical mammal comparison, or – it is just as likely – the brothers were already committed to challenging the intrepid aviatrix. "You don't know what you're talking about, Rochester. Why don't you go back to your bonnets and baubles and let men worry about airships."

Helen smiled. It was not a pleasant sight, although her smiles were quite capable of pleasantness. No, this was a smile that made her look very much like her father. Although he at that moment found himself startled at the eerie familiarity of that look without being able to trace its cause, something in the expression kindled a similar temper in his breast.

"You don't mean to accept the insults of that cur without reprisal, do you my girl?" Rochester called across the gondola with a grim smile.

"Certainly not," Helen said, her clear voice ringing across the open air, punctuated by the rasping croak of Tuppence, who flitted up beside her. "I think we need to show you what this ship can be capable of."

"You're on!" the twins shouted in unison.

"Race to Whitby," Helen said. "To the abbey."

"It's a challenge," cried the elder twin.

"Shall we make a wager?" Helen inquired.

"It's only sporting," crowed the younger twin, rubbing his hands together in glee.

"Five hundred pounds!" Helen said, her smile smug.

"Five hundred pounds?!" her father repeated.

The twins exchanged a look. They were arrogant about their ship's chances, but the addition of a considerable purse seemed to make them pause.

"Well, gentlemen. Do you have any confidence in your ship or not?" Helen folded her arms and glared across the expanse between them. "Five hundred pounds."

"You're on!" the younger twin shouted, his tone extra belligerent now that he was so full of doubt.

"May the best ship win," Helen called out as Tuppence perched on her shoulder. "Signore, take us up and out toward the sea!"

"As you wish, signorina," Romano agreed, looking askance at the courageous woman, then stealing a glance at her father.

"Saints preserve us," the latter murmured, but his words were snatched by the wind.

Apologies

It seems I've been delayed by a diverting conversation with a very charming Venetian lion in Rome. He seems to know a rather singular alchemist. A new episode will be forthcoming next Sunday.