DIRIGIBLE DOWN

=1= THE DIRIGIBLES

The settling of Aurora had been a planned event - a hundred thousand sleepers sent from Earth with all the equipment they could pack into three slowboats. The survey probes had selected Touchdown Harbor as the primary settlement site. They had picked the site well, for now some two hundred years later 70% of Aurora's human populationstill lived near Touchdown. The other 30% of Aurora's humanity was scattered across the globe in small settlements. Unlike Touchdown these scattered communities were far from self-sufficient, depending on a wide variety of support from Touchdown's industries. A principle piece of the support matrix was the dirigibles - a fleet of dirigibles circling the globe carrying people, supplies and equipment outward and bringing raw materials and semi-processed goods in. Life aboard these dirigibles was demanding and at times dangerous: Aurora's highly ionic atmosphere tended to make weather somewhat exciting for these cumbersome boats of the sky; landings could be life and death experiences; and time demands kept these boats in flight long past scheduled shipyard stops. Despite all this dirigible crews were a dedicated group that kept their boats going to and fro with admirable efficiency. The Dirigible Service had its antecedence in the all the finest navies and merchant marines of Earth's past.

The Gray Lady was an Omega class dirigible. Built for speed and capacity, the Omega class boats were the super freighters of the airways. The crew was a twice twenty-five fifteen complement working a split ten-ten shift. The twenty-five were the working crew who actually sailed the boat. The fifteen were engineers who carried a continuous round of in-flight maintenance so these valuable boats could be kept in constant service. The ten-ten referred was a two shift rotation each ten weeks long. Because these boats were in constant service the crews worked a ten weeks on - ten weeks off split with a second or twice crew as they were called. There was nothing pretty about these boats. They were simply an exoskeleton framework hanging down from a large rotating air bag and with electro-thrust motors. Everything else from the control cabin to cargo modules was slung onto the undercarriage. At very rear top of this framework were cramped quarters for crew and passenger. The one luxury these boats sported was fully glassed viewing rooms tucked into the nose or tail. People had been known to spend entire voyages in these rooms watching the country unfold before them. Particularly an Omega class boat where gallaries existed at both ends of the boat. The Gray Lady ran the coast to coast express run from Touchdown Bay to Silver City, rarely spending more than five hours at either end of the line.

=2= MORNING AFTER

Gazing out from the shade cast by the wreck Mohammed watched the heat waves shimmer on a rock strewn desert. For all of the thousands of air kilometers logged by dirigibles each year crashes were few and far between. Last night though Mohammed's boat, The Gray Lady, had plummeted to the ground, a total loss. Mohammed had been off duty, but as captain he still felt responsible. As he shifted his weight pain ripped upwards from the crushed bones of his left leg. He had a feeling the loss of his boat would soon be followed by the loss of his leg and finally loss of his command rank. But Mohammed knew he had to set aside self-pity if anyone was to survive.

"Good morning, Captain. Glad to see you back among the living."

Captain Mohammed pushed back the haze of pain-killers, fighting to remember who these two were. He was Ferguson, the chief engineer. The femme? Mid to late thirties, tall, short brown hair, not crew. Uhm Lena? Leda? Oh Leda, the exploration leader shagging a ride to the west lands. Or was it Lieutenant Leda of the militia. I don't think she was a Red Cap, though she did have that certainty of action Red Caps project.

It was good to be able to think clearly again.

She had a pleasant voice - contralto, smooth, sensuous. "Well Captain, we survived our first night. You and three others are in serious, but not life threatening condition. Other injuries consist of miscellaneous cuts, bruises and lacerations. Except for the bridge crew I'd way we got off pretty easy from this crash."

"Help?"

"I can't say for sure. The radio is crushed. The emergency transponders were triggered and I'm sure they tried to put out a Mayday last night. I'm not taking bets on them cutting through that electrical storm last night. I think were on own for the moment. No one will start looking for us until we are at least two days overdue. Even then it could take a week or three to find us unless the ionosphere settles down. It could be a whole lot longer. Judging by this terrain I would say we slipped at least seven hundred, possibly a thousand kilometers, south in the storm."

"And?"

"If I'm right were deep in one of Aurora's worse deserts and it's the middle of the dry season. We have food, medicine and shelter, but no water. The ballast tanks are bone dry. We have almost no water."

"Emergency kits?"

"I said almost no water, Captain. I don't think the person who packed those kits seriously believed that water would be needed beyond that contained in the ballast tanks. That person had also never experienced the Manarsh Dune Country."

"If they dumped the tanks, then they must have dumped the cargo? Yes?"

"Yes, the cargo bay is empty. Ferguson here tells me we are alive because the crew quarters collapsed into the empty cargo bay. Why do you ask?"

"Check the cargo roster. Might be help there if the dump site isn't too far away."

"Sharks, why didn't I think of that? I'm supposed to be the survivalist here. Could have had scout parties out looking. Sharks and double Sharks."

"Not a dirigible captain. Don't beat yourself up over it."

"Good point, Captain. You rest for a while, Ferguson should know how to find the roster."

"Wait."

"Yes, Captain?"

"Who is in charge?"

"Yeah, well, I guess, well, I've kind of taken charge. Frankly, until you came up with that cargo bit I was sure you weren't in any shape to lead. Captain, lets just say I'm your acting first officer. I would appreciate your support. Oh, and keep the ideas coming. This is going to be a bad one."

"Keep my crew alive, Leda."

"Is that an order, Sir?"

"Yes Lieutenant, it is. One I know you are capable of carrying out."

"Thank you, Captain. I will."

"Carry on, Ferguson."

"Yes, Sir!"

=3= HEAT OF THE DAY

He must have past out after Leda and Ferguson left. Judging by the shade pattern the sun had moved across the sky several hours distance. He couldn't remember ever hurting this much: his leg had become a constant throb; his vision was blurred; someone had draped him with monitors; and despite the heat he felt cold all over. Ensign Swartz was kneeling down beside him.

"Relax, Captain. Your leg is okay, but you have a bit of a fever. Just lie and I'll bathe your forehead."

"No, don't waste the water."

"Not water, Captain, grain alcohol from your personal stores. It seems of like a waste of good booze, but Leda says drinking alcohol will only hasten dehydration."

Mohammed considered this, His personal stores had been listed on the cargo roster. Apparently Leda had found the roster. What else had she found. "Where is she?"

"Leda? She and the others are cobbling together something called dew traps. She says there is always moisture in the air, no matter how dry this damn desert might seem. She says there are plants out here that get all their water from such dew traps."

Mohammed wondered if these dew traps were merely make work designed to keep up crew morale. But leadership being what it is, he didn't voice his thoughts to Ensign Swartz. He had, after all, promised Leda his full support.

"Ferguson thinks we could use the refrigeration unit with these dew traps, but he is not sure whether he can get the power plant running. We really made a mess of the ship this time, Captain. I mean we're talking a major layover in the shipyards. It will be nice to have an extended stay with my husband and kids. I'd say we were overdue."

Mohammed wondered if Swartz really was in good spirits or was she just putting on a good face for the sick and ailing captain. No matter.

"Best close your eyes so I can bathe your face, Captain."

=4= EVENING SHADE

"Good Evening, Captain. How are you doing?"

"Not well, Leda. Looks like I would have served my ship better by staying in my bunk when the alarm klaxons went off. Instead I shatter a leg trying to get to the bridge."

"I say you are little down on yourself. Unnecessarily so, I might add. From what I can gather your crew is a well trained and totally focused. A quality crew indicates there is a quality captain at the helm. From all the evidence your bridge crew held their stations all the way to the ground, fighting for control even as the ship collapsed down on them from above. I went out scouting today and found the fuel tank a mere five kilometers back along our glide path. They must have ejected it in the last seconds before the crash, you couldn't cut it much closer than they did. Frankly I would have kicked loose a potential firebomb like that a whole lot sooner. Apparently they never considered failure as an option."

"Training and attitude."

"And a good captain."

"What else did you find?"

"Not much. I didn't want to strike out too far from the crash site this early in the game."

"A captain should stay with his ship and crew, Leda."

"I'm not the captain, Captain. But yes I intend to keep the crew together here at the crash site at least initially. In the meantime I've given you a derma patch so you get a solid night's rest. Sleep well, Captain."

Leda checked his leg, positioned it a touch higher, read the monitors, then covered him with a heavy blanket. Ensign Swartz, returning to his side, applied a trance to his arm. The scene soon grew blurry as he faded from consciousness.

=5= THE AWAKENING

Mohammed blurred in and out of consciousness several times, generally when someone touched or moved him. Time had lost meaning. There was only pain and heat - only they had meaning. It was the 26th century, people weren't supposed to suffer this way, even here on Aurora. It was wrong, very wrong.

Sometime into dark the haze of pain began to lift. Two voices talked softly from the shadows.

"The autodoc seems to have brought him around, thank goodness. I was beginning to think the infection was going to kill him. A stupid way to die. Do you think we can charge up the battery bank again, Ferguson?"

"The real trick isn't charging the bank, but avoiding an overcharge. That wasn't one of the prettiest jury-rigs I've ever put together."

"Well the important thing is that it works. Now go see if you can cobble up another miracle or three for us, will you?"

"Is an engineer's work never done?"

"Not this trip, Ferguson." Ferguson shuffled off, the other knelt down beside him, gently brushing hair off his face. It was Leda.

"I feel like hell, Leda."

"You should. You've been there and back the last few days."

"Days?"

"Yeah, days, over a week."

"What have I missed?"

"A whole lot of heat. A sense of doom building with each passing day. I guess I should have spelled the worse case scenario for the crew back on day one. Maybe I still should. Truth is I'm more at home in the mountains than this god forsaken hell hole. It's coming down to wire, either we find water, or they find us, or we start dying."

"Will they find us?"

"Depends."

"Depends on What?" "On blind luck. On my memory. On your engineer's ability to create order out of chaos. We've got lots of tech here. Just need to refashion it into something useful."

"Like what?"

"Well I'm banking that Touchdown has brought the old mapping satellites on line. Assuming this is true, we need to create a beacon specific enough to register on the satellite sensors and yet unique enough and strong enough to draw someone's attention. Ferguson is working some ideas along these lines. The man is a marvel."

"And?"

"We haven't the power available for active observation, but I've assigned round the clock teams to scan the skies with passive devices like the opticscopes and the audioenhancer we salvaged from the stores. Should they detect a search boat, we will set off the fuel tank in one giant fireball observable for at least a thousand kilometers, day or night."

"And?"

"I find potable water somewhere out there. But like I said before I'm not a desert rat."

"And?"

"More of an 'or', Captain. We all die of dehydration."

"What of the cargo roster?"

"Never say die, ai Captain."

"That's what leadership is all about, Leda."

"Occasionally a leader needs to know when to cut and run. Not every situation is winnable."

"Retreat is not the same as surrender, Leda."

"Okay, okay, I stand chastised. The cargo roster listed a library update for Silver City, the information therein could well save us by helping us find water. I just don't know how far away your bridge team dumped the cargo? Whether I can reach it or even find it? Or whether this damn library can help us? Far too many questions and far too few answers. But listen, you rest up. I want to survey another stretch of desert while it's still dark. I'm glad you're doing better, Captain."

"Take it easy, Leda."

"Thanks, Captain. I will."

Mohammed stared up at the skies. There were no stars to be seen for, as usual, there was a solid cloud ceiling up there. Mohammed had read that the early sailors had navigated Earth's seas by taking sightings on the stars and the magnetic fields. Neither technique would have worked on this planet. If there had been primitive sailors here, he wondered, what type of navigation tools or skills would they have evolved. Maybe he would seek out an answer to this question next time he was in Touchdown. Yeah, next time he was in Touchdown.

=6= THE PASSING HOURS

Mohammed watched the crew come and go, carting bits and pieces of the boat wreak across the dune to the emergency camp being erected out there beyond his line of sight. The most striking for Mohammed was the appearance of his crew. They now all wore modified respirators wherein the membrane cartridges had been reversed. Mohammed suspected Ferguson had found a way to reduce water loss by trapping moisture expelled in ordinary breathing. Many had discarded their well tailored uniforms for loose fitting wind oversuits. Brimmed hats were common, some wore head scarves and a few had wrapped a turban, none had bare heads. Indeed the amount of skin exposed to this oppressive heat was surprising small. All looked like they hadn't groomed themselves ever. Mohammed realized grooming would be difficult without water, but still appearance was important in paramilitary organizations like the Zeppelin Service. Mohammed wondered if he should take this as a good sign - the crew was adapting to the situation - or a bad sign - they had given up on the Service. It was obvious Leda was them too busy surviving to worry about survival.

At midday Leda, along with most of the crew, staggered into the shade of the wreck. The first three arrivals busily pulled equipment tarpaulins down across the opening, waiting on the crew count to close them off from the heat of the day. Excepting Ferguson and his team, the crew slept soundly well into the night. Ferguson's team, having stripped off a transponder's casing, were running assorted tests on the circuits therein.

Mohammed, either because of the heat or because he had slept away the last several days, could not sleep. Instead he opened his personal log, thinking to update it - only to realize he had little knowledge of what had transpired during his illness. Mohammed watched Ferguson's team work for some time, wondering why they would even consider tampering with something as important as an emergency transponder. Mohammed was somewhat relieved when the tireless engineer came over to his pallet. Now he would find out what they were up to and why.

"Well Captain, let me explain it from the beginning. As you know, Leda has felt all along that our best survival bet was to somehow get the attention of the mapping satellites. For quite a while we argued on how we could best address the satellite sensor arrays. We could easily generate a wide variety of surface anomalies such as temperature differentials, reflection variances or even light shifts, but we could not build these effects on the hundred meters wide scale necessary for satellite detection and/or maintain the effect more than few minutes."

"Indeed I was about to give up on the project when Ginny happens to mention city maps are not generated from satellite images. In fact satellite maps show blank zones where the cities exist. It appears that some hot shot engineer a hundred years or so must have decided it would save processing time if the satellite just ignored areas that are mapped by ground based systems."

"With this in mind captain I wish to ask you for authorization to alter the emergency transponder codes to a reserved frequency."

"For why?"

"Ferguson's magic hour."

"What?"

"Well, Captain, it's like this. We've already ripped several kilometers of wire from the bulkhead. We plan to use this wire to lay down an antenna grid as large as possible, I.E. as large as we can power up with our batteries for an extended period. Then with a few minor changes in our transponder it will emit Touchdown City ID codes. Ordinarily this would only get you several years of hard time, but for us it might well mean rescue. What we hope is some mapping technician in Touchdown scanning satellite data will see a nothing - a blank hole in the desert. By not existing we exist. Smoke and mirrors, Captain. Smoke and mirrors. Just like pulling a rabbit out the hat or sawing a lady in half."

"It sounds more like a game than a magic trick."

"Game, Captain?"

"Yeah, that children's board game where you always seem to get a card telling you to 'go to jail, go directly to jail'. Oh, what the hell, consider yourself authorized. What's a little jail time between friends?"

"Thanks, Captain."

"Oh, and Ferguson."

"Yes, Captain?"

"Keep me posted, will you?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

=7= HEATED WORDS

"Leda, I would like to discuss the how and why of how you are running this operation."

"So talk."

"Crew discipline looks pretty slack from what I can see. You're keeping them busy though."

"Not to worry, Captain. Your crew has just adjusted itself to this situation."

"Situation?"

"Yeah, you know - an extended shore leave in this wonderful dessert resort."

"Are you always so glib, Leda?"

"A little humor goes a long way when there is nothing to laugh about. Lighten up, Captain."

"Could you bring me the flight logs?"

"No."

"Why not? What have you done with them?"

"Nothing, they are still on the bridge under a ton of wreckage."

"Haven't you even buried the men who died there?"

"Frankly Captain, they are quite well buried already."

"Damn it, we have a responsibility to bury those men properly. We also need the logs to determine what happened here?"

"What has happened here is we crashed. My responsibility is to see that the bridge crew are the only ones that die as a result of this crash. Survival is everything for the moment. As of yet we cannot afford the time or resources prying back several tons of wreckage. Water, shelter, power and rescue are things I'm worried about right now. In my spare moments I worry about medicine, morale, diet and predators. The last thing I'm worried about is some future government tribunal."

"Don't you feel any responsibility to the service, Leda?"

"No, Captain. As I've said before I'm not in the Zeppelin service. Wilderness guides are independent contractors who try to reach a balance between the laws of humanity and the laws of nature. In truth humanity's laws are a lot more forgiving than the laws of nature. Frankly the optimal formula for my own survival would have been to walk out of the desert back on day one. The optimal formula for your crew's survival was for me to stay here at the crash site and work out a two to three month survival program."

"Three months?"

"Yes, three months. Unless they locate us from space, it will take at least two months to bring enough dirigibles and ground support into the area to search for us systematically."

"Can we survive three months?"

"Three months, yes. Four months, no. In truth you missed the worst part - the first three days."

"Actually Leda, I suspect I was part of your first three day problem."

"Frankly Captain, we got off pretty easy. Excluding four deaths your leg was the only serious injury we had in this crash. Except for the infection even your leg wouldn't have been a big deal. Now I appreciate an autodoc as much as anyone, but why the hell wasn't there an old fashion medkit somewhere in the stores. You nearly died while we were struggling to recharge the autodoc batteries. In truth I think all the dirigible emergency supplies are too damn power dependent. I lot of Ferguson's energies have gone into rigging mechanical backups that should have been part of the original design specs."

"It sounds like you already confronted the council over this issue."

"Yeah! For them it all came down to: 'Our dirigibles are crash proof' and 'More mass means less cargo'. Pompous idiots."

"Well, given that my leg is all but healed, could we walk out now?"

"No, Captain. We could not. I could walk out with maybe two others in tow, but not a whole group. No, our best bet is to follow the time tested rule - wait for help."

"Just wait?"

"No, in the meantime we work day and night preparing for when things really get bad here abouts."

"Things can get worse?"

"Sure, you haven't lived until you've lived through a sand storm. Wind blown sand so fast and so thick breathing is near impossible and death is quite probable."

"And what are we, you, doing about that?"

"We're erecting survival domes on the leeward side of that dune. If you're feeling up to it, I've got an extra shovel and a ton of sand to move."

"Thanks for the offer. I could use a little exercise."

=8= UP AND ABOUT

Mohammed was the only one still hooked up to the autodoc, but bone regeneration took time - particularly large bone masses like those in the thigh. This morning though Ensign Swartz seemed to converting the balloon like cast on his leg to its mobile mode. It would be good to be finally up and about.

"Okay Captain, you're a free man, at least for few minutes. Time to get some exercise. Let's just not push too hard, too fast. It will take a while to get your strength back. So where should we go first?"

"Over the dune to the emergency camp. Think it's too far?"

"Not if you don't mind a little help."

"Well like they say ensign, 'pride goes before the fall'. Give me an arm up and let's get hobbling."

Taking up a makeshift crutch Mohammed started up the sand hill along the track his crew had plowed in the previous days, but as the incline became increasingly steeper and the sand under his feet seemingly slid down as fast as he walked up. Mohammed was in good shape for a man of his age, but a week of illness and fifteen years of dirigible service left him ill prepared for this challenge. Soon he felt light headed and his vision tunneled alarming inward. Swartz tossed a blanket down on the hot sand and levered him around to a sitting position.

"Take a break, Captain. It will take a lot more healing before you get back to normal. We've got time."

"Yeah. Looks like pride goes as a result of the fall in my case."

Lying back against the hill massaging temples and eyes, Mohammed tried to relieve the tension of a stress headache. As a captain he knew well of stress and stress headaches. Pressing his palms tightly against his eyes he watched dots of light swirl down to one bright glow fluxing in a mat of black. Soon the tension began to dissipate and he dropped his hands into his waist. Time to go on.

Two rest periods later they reached the dune crest. Looking off to the heat blurred horizon, Mohammed saw that this dune was but one of a multitude of dunes marching away from the prevailing wind. Between the dunes blue gray shrubs dominated the desert, looking as if someone had evenly spaced them across the ground. About his feet he saw sand wavelets rippled up the face of the dune before the now growing wind. He remembered seeing similar wave patterns etched on river bottoms by moving water currents, but thinking of wind as water came easily for someone who sailed dirigibles through the sky. Turning downwind he watched sand was being thrown free into the air from the crest of the dune. Thinking again of water he saw in his mind ocean waves breaking over Touchdown's reef, his elder son - the surf swimmer - riding a well-waxed board in the spray of the breaking water.

Below him two survival domes had been anchored to the hard pan underlining the shifting sand. A ship's walkway had been cut loose from the wreck, dragged over to the sight and then wrapped in ship fabric. This was to provide a sheltered crawl-through between the domes and an access tower reaching some eight meters upward. As the captain watched work continued, men shoveling sand back down unto the domes. Mohammed wondered if this sand was to help anchor the domes or provide additional insulation from the heat.

"I've seen enough, Ensign. Help me back to my pet autodoc."

=9= SHELTER FROM THE STORM

It had been dark for some time. An electrical storm had been growing in intensity as the hours dragged by, the seconds between flash and thunder Mohammed narrowing as the storm drew closer. Intrigued, Mohammed watched the lightning bolts dancing across the horizon, etching patterns of lighting. Most of these bolts he watched struck the ground, some lit up the thick layer of clouds above. These dry storms were particularly dangerous, already Mohammed could sense static charges building in the air. No sane captain would stay in a storm like this, but would quickly climb above or circle around it. This time though neither he nor his boat were going any where. They would just have to ride the storm out together - on the ground.

Suddenly one edge of the horizon light up in a giant fireball - a flame reaching for the stars. For a moment Mohammed thought lightning had ignited the tank, but he knew better - somebody had set off the fuel tank on purpose. This could only mean one thing, radio contact had been established with a search team. The burning tank obviously was a visual beacon for them to home in on. It looked like he was wrong - The Gray Lady would be riding this storm out without him. Mohammed knew his boat was dead, but he still felt somewhere deep inside that he was deserting her.

Then out of the dark he saw the silhouette of dirigible descending. They were rescued. Five crew members came scrambling out of the dark toward Mohammed. Wrapping a blanket across two long poles they constructed a workable stretcher, obviously they were about to move him to the landing site. "I'll walk, if you don't mind!"

"Are you sure, Captain?" Ensign Swartz, as acting pharmacist mate, voiced concern about Mohammed's decision.

"Yes! You can look to your other patients, ensign. You, boy, get that crutch for me. You others pack up the autodoc and secure the area. Let's get the move on, crew. I'm sure that boat has a schedule to keep."

With that Mohammed began impatiently to unplug the wires and tubes running to his leg cast from his autodoc station. The cast had gone a long way toward healing the break, enough for him hobble along on crutches.

"Let me help you with that, Captain."

"Damn it, I can do this ensign."

"Yes, sir. I know, sir. I was only trying to be of help, sir."

Looking up at Swartz's face, Mohammed stopped struggling with the cast, took a deep breath, considered his words and actions, then in more subdued fashion addressed the ensign. "My apologies, ensign. I didn't mean to snap at you. I guess I've spent far too many days flat on back, leaving the work to others. Ensign Swartz, will you help unleash me from the autodoc. I would appreciate your expertise in this matter."

"Yes, sir! Right away sir!"

=10= LANDING SITE

At the best of times a dirigible landing was a difficult venture, but darkness and the impending storm was making this a truly event chaotic. As Mohammed arrived the dirigible was edging into position overhead. Someone yelled "Lines down!". A couple crew scrambled to the sidelines. Heavy anchor lines dropped and then began dragging across the ground as the dirigible slid downwind toward the dune face. Mohammed's crew began wrestling these lines toward anchor points they had selected within the wreckage - the Gray Lady being the only anchor mass available in this land of shifting sand. Repel lines had also been dropped and additional men were sliding down to join Mohammed's crew in the anchor dance. No competent captain would okay a landing of his dirigible that his own ground team hadn't at least checked out. Then again a captain would ordinarily wait until a storm passed before he attempted a landing. Mohammed understood the risks and appreciated their effort to extract his crew before the storm rolled through. Mohammed had no desire to test how well those emergency domes stood up to a blowing sandstorm. For a man used to open skies and distant horizons, the thought of being cooped up in a windowless shelter for what could be several days was appalling.

Triple checking the anchor points and double checking the crew safety, the ground chief signaled a grudging approval to the boat bridge to initiate winching. The sound of winch drums engaging could be heard even through the growing wind. Line slack disappeared, tension climbed and the anchor points began to groan. The ground chief, a cautious woman, waved everyone to move further back - for if the dirigible didn't come down, the wreck might well come up. The winches were strong, the lines unbreakable, and right now the airborne dirigible massed more than its crashed sister ship. Something was going to give somewhere.

It was friction that gave. The Gray Lady began to slide noisily across the ground, breaking up even more as she adjusted to this new mode of travel. The ground chief went nuts, screaming into her comm-link. Everyone else stood quietly out of the way, watching the scene unfold. Mohammed could imagine what was happening in the dirigible above. Bridge officers, in a well trained panic, were relaying orders to the docking bay. There operators were hurriedly acting to engage winch clutches. But there are limits imposed by the nature of men, machines and physics. And before these all these limits could be played out the Gray Lady had fetched up against the dune, the added mass of the sand hill changing the dynamics around. Mohammed was glad to see the emergency resolve itself, but cursed inwardly when he realized the pickup point had moved nearly to the top of the dune.

=11= RESCUED

With Swartz's help Mohammed once again made it to the top of the dune. He stood resolutely atop the dune watching his crew ascend the ropes to the waiting dirigible. When the ground crew waved him over to a rope hoist he not so politely ignored them.

"Is something wrong, Captain." He'd forgotten Ensign Swartz was still at his side.

"No ensign, nothing's wrong. I'll be the last off the ground if you don't mind."

The ensign visibly flinched. This was her captain berating her. "Uh Sir, need I remind you it is the responsibility of the ground crew to be the last ones up the rope. You know that Sir and you know their duty is to their captain and their boat, not to you Sir. I suggest Sir, you take a seat in that basket now Sir."

Captain Mohammed couldn't someone stringing together so many Sirs with a capital S so times before. Well not he was an ensign standing before his own captain.

"Uhm ensign?"

"Yes Sir."

"Tell me one thing. Did Leda put you up to this?"

"Yes Sir. She did, Sir."

"I swear my crew will never be the same after that femme gets done with them." And with no time for her to reply within he continued, "Well ensign, let's go. Time's awasting. We can't stand atop this dune all night."

Unable to manage a rope latter the captain was hoisted up to the docking door. Excepting an invitation to the bridge he now watched the ground crew busily breaking loose the anchor points as the ship slowly ascended on unwinding winch lines. Leda, also on the bridge, had ghosted in from the desert at the last minute - her smoke blackened face showed she had seen some excitement of her own out there at the fuel tank site.

"Looks like we made it, Captain."

"Yeah it looks like Ferguson's magic worked, though the people back in the real Touchdown City are not going to be too happy with the precedent we've established."

"Come now, Captain. That isn't what bothering you."

"No, Leda. That's my boat lying down there in pieces. Not a very pretty sight right now, but she was my boat. Tradition has it the captain is the last one to leave his boat, not the ground chief from another command. Frankly you were far more in charge the last few days than I was. Nothing seems to going right lately."

"Cut yourself some slack, Captain. We made it. When it comes to battling the elements, a retreat without loss can be full well considered a success."

With a noticeable lurch the last anchor point was released, the ground chief and two crew clung to the lines still dangling from the now fast climbing boat. When comfortably clear of the ground the boat began to circle the crash site, taking pictures, gaining altitude with each pass. The wreck was already half buried in sand and unless the investigation team arrived soon these pictures might well be the only hard evidence they would obtain. From the west a wall of wind driven sand rolled across the dunes. In a manner of minutes the crash site would be enveloped by another storm, it was time to head for home. The flames from the burning fuel tank still raged on, a fire burning on the burning desert. Mohammed knew his career as a dirigible captain was over, for he too would be buried. Buried not in sand, but rather in administration busy work. Without the flight logs the board would almost assuredly be ruled 'pilot error' - the blackest of black marks. No matter, even an equipment failure ruling would reflect badly on his record.

Then again, with Leda's help and Ferguson's inventiveness, Mohammed was bringing everyone but the bridge crew home - alive and well. Also as a desk commander he would be seeing his family every day. It would be nice to see his kids grow up gradually instead of in spurts. If push came to shove he could always quit the service - take a position as advisor for one of the outback trading companies. The future was the future and would certainly take care of itself - no matter how much he might worry over it.

AUTHORS NOTES

This is the second story I wrote in the Aurora / Leda Series: a series of stories about the people who, at least momentarily, share events with Leda - wilderness guide extraordinary. At this time I am contemplating further stories in this vein. In this story Leda is approximately 37 years old, has been part time guide and part time Academy field researcher for the last 10 years. Her funding comes from guide fees, Academy teaching, the government and her adopted family - the Pascal Trading Company.

As for Zeppelins or dirigibles: things like trains, boats and dirigibles make sense to me from an energy and ecology perspective. Excluding water transportation, the industrial countries seem to have rejected these modes of freight movement in favor of fast freeways and faster airports. I see Aurora as a world of very mixed technologies: horse drawn wagons and diesel trucks; pocket abacuses and supercomputers; coal fed smelters and fusion reactors; a mixture of high, low, and no tech. This is a world of many resources and great potential, but still shy in infrastructure and human population to act upon them.

I enjoyed writing this story and still enjoy reading it. Other than cleaning up a few typo's and a couple glaring grammatical errors, it is much like I wrote it yesteryear.

Carl A Smith
Spring `98

Last Words

If you have any thoughts about this story - good, bad or indifferent - please don't hesitate sharing them with me. I value your thoughts and your words might well make me a better writer. Thanks

Carl A Smith
Spring `98
 

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