At this speed (which doesn’t sound like much in the era of the jet airplane, but which is pretty fair for a vessel propelled by sheer human muscle-power alone) the armada could cover some three hundred miles or more during the hours of day. We could also, if necessary, cover about the same distance during the night, by rotating shifts of wheel-gangs on a watch-and-watch, or four-hours-on-and-four-hours-off basis, although that would be a grueling pace to keep up, and would only be used in direst need.
But if needs must, the armada could do it. And, at that pace, we could fly from pole to pole in about eight days, thus covering something like forty-three hundred miles in little more than a week’s time. This we did not contemplate; at least, we did not look forward to the task. Generally speaking, the wheel-gangs do not power a sky-ship night and day; there are lengthy rest periods in which the vessels maneuver into the grip of one or another of the complex system of prevailing winds the Zanadarian pirates had traced and charted with great care and exactitude.
It was not my plan to do thus on the flight to Kuur.
On this trip we would be flying through skies whose winds had never been charted, for the simple reason that―insofar as any of us knew―the Sky Pirates had never ventured this far from home.
Neither had we.
With Tharkol lost behind in the mists of distance, we flew on over the easternmost extremity of the Great Plains of Haratha which dominate most of the southern hemisphere.
At noon my officers and I lunched in the long, low-ceilinged dining room. Dr. Abziz had testily set aside his books and papers for the occasion, so that we could use the long table for the purpose for which it had originally been designed, although he did give voice to a few pointed remarks about the mentality of men who think more of their bellies than of the recondite and abstruse questions of theoretical geography.
He was not in the least pleased when mischievous Lukor agreed heartily, begging us to hearken to his “learned cousin” and to take our empty bellies elsewhere, so that a “true son of Ganatol” might be allowed to get on with his work. Frostily declining to accept my amiable offer to join us for luncheon, the fussy little doctor decided to take his repast in the privacy of his cabin. Lukor alone professed to be disheartened by his decision.
Even an admiral works on the Jalathadar, so, after lunch, I served my scheduled term of duty at the wheels and retired quite early to my cabin. I occupied myself until dinnertime by bringing up to date this narrative of my most recent adventures. During the months between the collapse of Zamara’s mad schemes of world conquest and the departure of the armada for Kuur, I had recorded these recent events in the first half of this manuscript* and I carried with me on the expedition the complete manuscript, to which I added from time to time.
That night I went to bed rather early, and, as the second day of our expedition proved uneventful, spent most of my off-duty time at the writing desk, keeping my journals up to date. In this I had the assistance of the aged savant, Zastro. During the past year or so we had worked together, he and I. The old sage was fascinated by what I could tell him of life on my native world, to the extent of desiring to learn how to read and write and even speak English, which by this time he had thoroughly mastered. In return for my tutoring him in my native tongue, he assisted me in completing my mastery of his own language. For, while by this point in my adventures on the Jungle Moon, I could, of course, speak the universal Callistan language with great ease and facility, my acquaintance with the written characters and grammar was still cursory, if not rudimentary. So we spent the long, uneventful hours of the first two days of the expedition in our mutual exchange of language lessons, and portions of my recent journals I dictated to Zastro in English, so that he could practice his familiarity with the handwritten tongue.*
Again quite early in the evening of the second day of the voyage, after a turn at the wheels, I retired to my bed, wincingly aware of muscles I had forgotten I possessed. A few turns at the wheels will do that for even the most practiced athlete.
The second day had been, as I have said, much like the first. We flew over crimson meadows in no way different from the leagues of the Haratha plains we had traversed the day before.
But, towards dawn, I woke suddenly and sat bolt upright in my bed, aware of a stirring of inward excitement I could not at first account for. Then, looking at the dimly-burning time-candle in its glass bottle across the cabin, and counting the carefully-measured rings painted thereupon, I became cognizant of the time, which was about four A.m., and realized with a thrill what had awakened me. It had been my subconscious, which had evidently been counting the hours away. We had by this hour covered two hundred and thirty-seven korads.
That was making good time. But we were making more than just good time―we were making history!
For, at about the moment I had awakened from my slumbers, we had flown beyond the eastern limits of the map of Callisto.
We had, in fact, just flown over the edge of the world … .
Book Two
OVER THE WORLD’S EDGE
Chapter 6
Attack of the Zarkoon
Dawn broke like an immense, soundless explosion, filling the skies of Callisto with clear, brilliant, sourceless golden light.
The event which had transpired shortly before was too momentous to permit me to resume my interrupted slumbers. I rose, threw on my plain leathern tunic and boots, buckled the heavy girdle about my midsection, and slipped my baldric over my shoulders so that my rapier hung in its scabbard at my left hip. Then, because the winds of morning were likely to be chilly at this height, I drew about my shoulders the folds of a heavy cloak of dark wool and left my cabin, ascending the narrow, winding stair to the observation belvedere atop the pilothouse.
Peering over the carven balustrade, I had my first glimpse of an unknown world.
The landscape below was dim with morning mist, but I discerned the level plain stretching beneath us, and could make out the dark, shaggy rondure of wooded hills. Far away on the gloomy horizon a river or lake glittered fierce silver.
Nowhere could be descried a hilltop castle, town, city, paven road or cultivated field. Nothing in view suggested that this nameless land was inhabited by men.
After a long look at the unexplored terrain I descended into the pilothouse and exchanged a few words with the duty officer. As might have been predicted, he had nothing to report. The wind we had been riding most of the right had slackened off at dawn and our speed was now cut in half. With the first light of morn, he had hoisted signal flags, receiving from the other ships in our armada the intelligence that nothing of note had transpired during the hours of darkness. Our approximate position at dawn he had then noted on the rough map which Dr. Abziz had completed the evening before. He had also roughly sketched in the line of the hills which were visible by morning, and the distant glint of water on the horizon.
As for Dr. Abziz, the irascible little geographer had risen as early as had I, and was already engaged in making his first notes on this new world whose periphery we had crossed in the early hours of morning. He gave short replies to my questions, for his entire being was concentrated on the landscape which gradually unfolded to our gaze below, as the warmth of dawn dissipated the morning mists. His keen eyes were intent on the spectacle beneath our keel, whose details resolved themselves bit by bit as the white fog vanished, and he was scribbling notes and sketching natural features busily. Receiving a few curt and even snappish responses to my queries, I turned away and left the little savant to his work.