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Dust filtered down through the crevice. I looked up to a clear patch of sky, we'd come all the way through, finally. I switched off the oil lantern on my miner's helmet and ran my sleeve through the sweat and grime on my forehead.
Darby took hers off and stood, head between her knees for a moment, heaving. It felt good to be breathing fresh air again.
We'd jut completed the final cut along the bottom ridge of the Land Cloud. There'd been a few tense moments as the last of the stone masts holding the floating island in place were knocked out and it settled. I'd thought for sure we'd be smothered, the end of the entire experiment, but here we were.
"It's flying on its own magnetic current now," the voice came from a metal box on Darby's belt.
She pulled it loose and held it up to her mouth.
"Johann released the dirigibles?" she asked.
"That wasn't supposed to happen while we were down here," I said.
Johann was reckless. Even if the Land Cloud Helium Condenser was his father's life work, he had no right to risk our lives to prove the point, and I'd said so.
"Well, what's done is done," the voice said.
I could almost see Percy wince as he said it, sitting high above us in the old mill. He knew how I felt on the subject, but Johan was childish, and once he'd determined what he wanted done, there was no stopping him.
Percy came back on, "I think once you've seen this, you'll want to put that aside. Come on up!"
Darby hung up the talkbox and I swung one of the rope ladders loose from the side of the crevice and started up. It was a sixty foot drop into this hole. We'd been in it for four days with a team of eight excavators. There hadn't been time to scale down the steam powered digger to get past the first twenty feet, which had created a moat, about six feet wide around the perimeter we hoped to use as for the cloud.
There had been some collapse, but, for the most part, Doctor Avarice's notes had been accurate.
"Choose land sufficiently permeated by deep bedrock, with a topsoil held in place with a sturdy turf," he'd written, when discussing how to select a property for Land Cloud construction.
The old mill had seemed ideal, not only were we able to scope out the rather large boulder that lay just feet below the surface, but the six large tree stumps indicated that we'd have a large root structure attaching the soil underneath as well.
Below me, the ladder swayed, as Darby started her climb. Above us, I could see the team, readying the wire mesh nets that would be lowered over the side, and stitched together underneath, to create a canopy, preventing stray boulders from bombarding unsuspecting villages as we hovered over the landscape.
"If we're lucky, Johann will let them wait until we're up," Darby said.
The sarcasm in her voice coincided with my own dark opinions of partnering with Johann. She wasn't far from the truth, we had to scramble to unhook our safety lines to prevent the nets dragging us back over the edge, just moments after she surfaced.
From above,I could see Johann drifting down toward us from the lead dirigible, his Heliodrop Jumper, slowing his fall to a leisurely 1 foot per second. The large wicker blades, chopping the air over his head as they spun, creating enough lift to slow his descent. We'd been working on powering it to create enough lift for flight, but so far our tests had failed.
I marched into the mill house. I had time for a quick word with Percy, before His "Royal Pain in the Ass" made landfall.
"What the devil was that, my good man?" I demanded. "You know the lift from those dirigibles were our only safety net, should the compressor fail. Why didn't you prevent them raising the anchors?"
"They didn't," Percy snapped. "They cut the lines loose from the dirigible end. I had no control. Johann and I had words, and you can be sure we will again, but I think it's best for all concerned if you just..."
"Keep our mouths shut?" Darby finished.
My wife could be a force of nature, and it was challenge enough for most men that she actually preferred wearing pants. Her frank and open conversational tones often put them over the edge, but that was their problem. I welcomed her back up.
"Joseph, we need you on this voyage. Both of you. I wouldn't have put up my own money to fund this monstrosity for Johann's sake. You know that," Percy said. "If I had my way, I'd toss him overboard as soon as we're under way, but we still don't have the notebooks!"
"I've managed to recreate the entire plan, down to the particle separator, but I still can't get that cold plate filter to work, without Johann's damned magnetizer," I said.
Darby carried a set of notebooks containing drawings of every step of the process and as soon as we had the last piece of the puzzle, we'd publish. This work belonged to the whole of Translantia, as Johann Aerosmith Senior had wanted. But his son wasn't content to take the lion's share of royalties in perpetuity, as was the Law of Invention in Translantia, he wanted to own the only Land Cloud in existence.
"Royalties? Please, Royalty, is more like it. I'll have every King and Baron in the nine districts paying me anything I want for a voyage aboard the "Nubes Terram" I'll have them throwing their fortunes at me to elevate their estates! Why would I take a putrid 5% when I can rent the technology to the highest bidder!" he'd said, when faced with his father's wishes, in writing. "Unless that document holds the seal of the High Council itself, I can do as I please."
He was right. Nothing was held in more sacred regard than Intellectual Property, throughout the nine districts. And, precedent showed he'd soon be the most influential Translantian inventor of all time. The problem was, he couldn't invent an exit from a wet paper sack.
There was shouting from outside. I moved to a window. The ground crew was gathered in a knot, at the point of the Land Cloud, looking up, several of them pointed in the direction of Aerosmith's dirigible. Then, I saw him.
The heliodrop had gone up in flames, Johann was plunging toward us at breakneck speed. We all saw it, there was only one chance. The Mill had been outfitted with a special foam cannon. Powered by steam, it emitted a high impact, froth, that could be produced from a thousands ports in zones across the island, creating a temporary, safe buffer.
One flip of a lever and Johann's landing field, became as safe as falling into a feather mattress. Percy reached for the lever.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," Darby said, coldly.
Her eyes remained glued to the rapidly descending form of Johann Aerosmith junior, but her left hand, held a fully loaded and primed Buzzkill Defender, aimed across her body, squarely at Percy.
Percy's jaw dropped.
"If it is within your power to save a fellow aeronaut, not doing so amounts to treason," he said.
"Don't quote the Flight Guide to me. You'll wait until I tell you," she said.
Percy's fingers twitched toward the lever, Darby's grip on the static beam pistol tightened, her eyes never leaving Johann.
"Now!" she said.
Percy threw the switch, the foam covered an area several meters square in less than a second and began to rise. Johann's body plunged into it, but did not rise back to the surface.
"You've killed him," Percy said, throwing the switch into reverse. This brought a sprinkler system to bear, and by the time we reached Johann at a quick jog, the foam had dissipated.
"Not sure that foam hardened fast enough, guvner," One of the ground crew said.
Johann's head lay at an odd angle to his body. But, Darby wasn't interested. She scanned the area around him, and there she found a small, leather bound book, just inches from his left hand.
"Move back, medic," she said.
Which was true. She'd served in the royal surgical service for four years before we married. She knelt beside Johann, one knee neatly hiding the notebook. I knelt beside her and scooped it up.
Johann's eyes fluttered. "My notebook?" he asked.
"Shh, we'll find it, but right now, I need to set your spine," Darby said.
She pulled a bright blue electric syringe from her waste pack and plunged it into the top of Johann's skull. The pulse it sent through the musculature, temporarily, left the disks of the spine, loose, like buttons on a string. Working quickly, a skilled surgeon could set almost spinal fracture, by adjusting the head and neck, before the patient was moved.
Johann's eyes rolled back, a perfectly normal response, that shocked the crowd into silence.
"Be still, everyone, I must feel and hear the reset, or this man's life may be at stake," Darby said.
She grabbed Johann by the jaw, pushed his head up and back. There was a loud pop. She reached up to the syringe and depressed a second plunger, Johann's body tensed, there as a second pop, then he lay still.
Later, that evening in our chambers, Darby showed me the pages she'd copied from the journal. Johann was quietly resting in the mill house's state of the art infirmary, on a steam cloud bed. His fracture was being stimulated by electrical impulse and he'd be good as new in less than a month.
"He'll know it was you," I said.
"No, he won't be able to prove a thing. I'll send it to Charles, in the outer rim, he can publish it there and let it make its way back. He'll still get his due," she said. "But this is too important to let him horde it. Now he'll still be the richest Translantian in three districts, it will just take longer and he'll have to earn it."
She was right. Originator tagging made it possible to track an invention, across the nine districts and royalties were imposed on every purchase. Everyone knew about the Land Cloud, his father had presented at Translanticon the year before his death. She hadn't harmed him, much. Not as much as he deserved. I moved to the window.
Johann had insisted we continue our maiden voyage. He'd intended to spend his time in a deck chair, he reasoned, it wasn't that much different, and by the time we reached the royal court of the third district, he'd be up on a cane and able to receive guests.
By the time his first contracts were in Inventor's Court for approval, the patent would have circulated back around. He'd find out soon enough. For now, I'd just sit by the window and watch the clouds roll by.
READ ONE OF MY LATEST SHORT STORIES "The Seraph of Szechuan"
