“It’s no good,” he declared, resignedly. Even if she got him free, there wouldn’t be time to escape the firestorm. “Get out while you can.”
Anya grunted as she kept working, but said nothing as another minute passed and the detonator began ticking down the last sixty seconds. Then, miraculously, Dodge felt his wrists move apart. Anya gave the wire one more twist and he was free.
Dodge scrambled to his feet. He reached out, as if to pull Anya along, but his hands were numb and useless. She needed no such assistance, however. Together, they dove for the breach in the side of the gondola and out onto the floor of the hangar.
“Run!” he yelled, and heeding his own advice, sprinted pell-mell out from under the sagging blimp.
They were halfway to the hangar door when the bomb exploded.
Chapter 7—The View from the Top
Findlay Newcombe could not remember ever feeling quite so giddy. While he did not think of himself as being especially staid, he rarely had occasion for the sort of elation he felt now. The last time he had felt anything approaching his present emotional state had been when Dodge provided him with one of the strange devices taken from the Outpost in Antarctica. He hadn’t felt this way about a girl since he was a teenager.
He did not allow himself to dwell on the fact that neither of those earlier instances had ended terribly well.
He was up as soon as the first rays of the rising sun streamed into his stateroom. His quarters were luxurious, far nicer than any apartment he had ever lived in, and he found himself humming cheerily as he performed his morning ablutions and got dressed. As promised, his suit had been expertly mended and cleaned. The only thing that could have possibly made his morning better would have been donning his own glasses. The lenses Fiona Dunn had loaned him didn’t give him the clearest view of the world.
Still, they were better than nothing. And they had come from her. That gave them a certain talismanic property. No, he decided, these glasses are just fine.
“Good morning, Miss Dunn,” he said to the mirror. Too serious. He tried several more times, varying the level of enthusiasm in his voice, affecting humor, even attempting casual indifference, but quickly realized that if he couldn’t make a good impression just being himself, then he had no business trying to woo her.
A knock at the door startled him out of his musings. Was it Fiona? The knock continued insistently, and he hastened to answer. When he threw back the door, his heart sank. It was Lafayette.
The red-haired writer looked exactly as he had the previous day when Newcombe had first been introduced to him, sporting his silk jacket and red ascot. He swept into the room like it was his own.
“Ah, good. You’re finally up.” Newcombe frowned, but Lafayette didn’t give him a chance to respond. “So, what are we going to do about all of this?”
“Do?”
“I don’t mind saying, I’m not happy about this business of going to… Persia, is it?”
“Well, I’ll confess to having some reservations myself. But Mr. Barron did say he’d put you off in Europe, if that’s what you really want.”
“It’s madness,” Lafayette continued. “What do we even know about this place we’re going to? It’s wild country. Armed mobs on horses… warlords.”
“You’ll be quite safe here on the Majestic,” intoned a familiar voice from the open doorway.
“Fiona… ah, Miss Dunn.” Newcombe thrilled a little at the sight of the woman who had so occupied his thoughts, and who now stood at the entrance to his stateroom. She wore what looked like a safari jacket, with matching khaki trousers, but a bright green silk scarf tied around her throat softened the almost masculine ensemble. Newcombe noted that she now wore a pair of spectacles identical to those she had given him.
“Fiona will do just fine, Findlay. Good morning to you. And you, Rodney. I’m just on my way to the dining room for breakfast. Care to join me?”
“Breakfast?” Lafayette grumbled. “Yes, well the food is tolerable here, I’ll give you that.”
Newcombe stepped forward. “I’d like that very much, Fiona. Lead the way.”
“Splendid. And I’ll try to put your minds at ease about our upcoming adventure.” She turned back into the hallway, with Newcombe beside her and Lafayette, still mumbling under his breath, close behind. “You’re exaggerating the dangers of our journey, Rodney. Iran — that’s what they call Persia nowadays — is a modern industrial country, and the ruins of Alamut are less than a hundred miles from the capital city. With Majestic, we can go directly there. Of course, there’s no need for you gents to even leave. You can stay right here, safe aboard the Majestic.”
“Safe?” exclaimed Lafayette. “On this floating bomb? All it would take is one hooligan to shoot a flaming arrow into us, and we’d go up in smoke like the Hindenburg!”
They arrived at the doors to the dining room and Newcombe hastened forward to open them, primarily for Fiona’s benefit. She thanked him effusively; Lafayette did not.
A buffet had been set up near the dining table, which was occupied by a scattering of a few men wearing uniforms of officers and crew, dining informally. Lafayette went immediately to the buffet, and although he continued to mutter complaints about the fare, he nonetheless began heaping food onto his plate.
“There’s not much chance of us burning up like that zeppelin,” Fiona explained, as she poured a cup of tea. “Majestic is filled with helium.” Her brogue, which had previously been almost undetectable, surfaced for just a moment: “hay-lium.”
“Helium isn’t reactive like hydrogen,” Newcombe supplied. “It’s completely safe, though it doesn’t provide quite as much lift.”
Lafayette was persistent. “If it’s so wonderful, why didn’t the Germans use it on the Hindenburg?”
“They planned to. But the largest reserves of helium are in the United States. For strategic reasons, there’s a moratorium on helium exports. Hydrogen is much cheaper to produce. And if proper precautions are taken, the flammability danger can be mitigated.”
“Hmpf. Hydrogen or helium, I can’t fathom why anyone would want to travel this way. What if the gas bag springs a leak?”
“There are risks in traveling, no matter what method you choose,” Fiona said. “Ships can sink, planes crash all the time. So do motor cars.”
“Exactly my point! Better just to stay at home.”
She laughed. “Rodney, you need to stop fussing about so much. Enjoy life. Live in the moment.”
“I would think this adventure would provide excellent fodder for your stories,” Newcombe said.
“I have an imagination for that,” Lafayette replied acerbically.
“I take it you are not enjoying your stay aboard my ship, Mr. Lafayette?”
Newcombe looked up and found that Barron had joined them. He now wore a blue uniform, identical to that of the Majestic’s officers, but without any insignia or badge of rank.
Lafayette seemed to shrink a little, as if intimidated by Barron’s presence. “I just prefer to have solid ground beneath my feet.”
“But Miss Dunn is correct. What is the value of being alive if you do not truly live?”
“I was enjoying my life quite well until yesterday, thank you very much.”
“And what of Dr. Newcombe’s suggestion? Will you be writing of this experience? Will we read about the Majestic in one of your fictional stories?”