Oh, yes, Mercy said. I know how it goes.
Thisll add another hour or two to the flight, but its safer in the long run, and it wont cost you any more. Here, let me stamp you out a ticket, she offered, and something pinged in readiness behind the counter. The clerk braced herself and pressed hard on a lever, using almost her full weight, and a punched card popped up through a slot between the buttons at her waist level.
Mercy traded some money for the ticket, and the clerk pointed toward Row B, Slot Two.
The airship yard was laid out much like a train station-at least, that was Mercys impression. She took a seat near the end of the row, where she could keep an eye on the airship comings and goings, but also watch for the dirigible that would carry her down to Tennessee. It hadnt yet arrived, but she could gather much about it from the other passenger ships that came and went while she observed. All of them were minimally marked, with names like Papillion, Helena Mine, and Catie James . Most had a label across the rear that marked them as CIVILIAN TRANSPORT, to differentiate them from the military ships.
According to everyone who kept track of such things, travel by air was infinitely safer than travel by train (what with the bandits and rail pirates), and even safer than simple carriage (given the highwaymen and unscrupulous checkpoints between regions and war zones). But when the Zephyr drifted into Row B, Slot Two, Mercy felt something in her chest clench with anxiety.
It moved so quietly for something so big; it docked with nothing but the tug and stretch of hemp lines and the creak of metal joints settling, then finally the clack and lock that affixed the great machine to the pipework dock. When the claws were all fastened and the hull had quit bobbing like a childs toy in a tub, a seam along the hulls underside cracked and then descended, followed by a folding set of stairs that tumbled down like a dropped accordion.
Down these stairs came the handful of passengers from Raleigh, if Mercy had overheard correctly. None of them looked bruised, battered, frightened, or otherwise shaken by their experience, though several were visibly relieved to have earth beneath their feet again.
Mercy tried to take this as a good sign.
The Zephyr s captain descended last. He was short, wide, and younger than shed expected, and seemed cheerful as he met the teams of maintenance men who greeted every new arrival. Mercy lingered by the benches with her five fellow passengers-to-be as he discussed the hydrogen levels and how they were holding, and how much of a topping-off he needed here in Richmond. When his landing duties had been completed, he wandered over to his next batch of passengers and introduced himself with a round of handshakes and a tip of his hat.
Captain Curry Gates, at your service, ladies and gentlemen, he said.
Mercy was one of only two ladies present, and the other woman was elderly, accompanied by her equally aged husband. Another two passengers had arrived when the airship came to port, bringing the total number of riders and crew to nine.
Itll be about two hundred miles to Winston-Salem, where well stop for more fuel, then another seventy or so to Charlotte,
and not quite three hundred more along the Tennessee line to Fort Chattanooga; then on to Atlanta for our final stop. Does that sound right to everyone? Check your tickets, and make sure this is the ship youre looking for. The next one on this route wont be along until tomorrow.
While he spoke, the remaining two members of his crew were descending behind him, toting equipment and inspecting the work performed by the dock crew, making sure everything satisfied their personal standards. Then they stepped to the side of the ship and behind it, where they began gesturing to something down at the end of the row.
Mercy craned her neck and spied the thing they motioned toward the ship.
It moved on a narrow rail that ran the length of the dock between the rows and was roughly the size of a small train engine, with a taller, rounder shape confined by riveted bands of metal. It looked like a great steel-crusted loaf of bread, and it came up on the Zephyr smoothly, with only the soft ratcheting sound of segmented wheels on a carefully fitted track. A series of hoses was toted in a rear compartment, like a caboose. The men on the dock unfurled the hoses and locked one end onto the metal canister, one end to some port on the backside of the Zephyr . The biggest man present-a tall fellow in an undershirt, with arms like an ape-climbed up to the top of the canister and turned a valve there, which prompted the hose to puff like an elongated marshmallow as it unloaded the canisters contents into the ships tanks.
One of Mercys fellow passengers leaned toward her and said, Hydrogen.
She replied, I know.
Its a marvel, isnt it? he pressed, until she turned to regard him.
He was well dressed, and the details wouldve betrayed his foreign origins even if his voice had not. The shoes were a brand and shape Mercy rarely saw; likewise, his suit had a cut that was a few lines distant from contemporary American styles. His hair was dark and curly, and his hands were long, soft, and unmarked-they were the hands of a scholar, not a man prone to labor.