She saw immediately what he had in mind and hesitated only a moment before stepping forward and crying, “My Lord, don’t kill him yet! You still have need of him!”
The Prince turned to her, his face a mask of rage. “What?” he demanded. “What are you talking about, girl? This filth assaulted me. He must die.”
Jan stepped close to him and clasped his face between her hands. “My master, listen to me, please,” she pleaded. “I know he must be punished but not yet. The Lord Pangloth is in serious trouble and only you and the Chief Engineer working together can save it. You must let him resume his duties, and fast. Every second counts, my Lord. Look!” She made him turn and look ahead. The range of high hills were looming dangerously close.
Caspar stared at them for several long and tense moments, then let his sword drop back into its scabbard. “Dalwyn, release him. Gorman, do what is necessary.”
Dalwyn let Gorman go. Pausing only to rub his throat Gorman said calmly. “Helmsmen, reverse thrust, then give us full power straight up.”
“And did our beloved monarch have him executed afterwards?” asked Milo cheerfully.
“No. Lady Jane talked him out of doing anything so drastic. He’s been suspended from duty and restricted to his quarters. I heard there’s going to be some sort of trial, but they need Gorman too much to kill him, or even keep him suspended from duty for very long.”
“The Aristos needed them too, but look what they did. …” He indicated the columns of black smoke that were still visible above the distant valley of Bandala.
“They did argue a lot before they came to the decision to bomb the Bandalans,” she said. “Lady Jane was the voice of reason again but she was out-voted. Many of the Aristos were hysterical … they wouldn’t listen to her.”
“So they destroy the one place within their ever-shrinking empire that supplied them with metal, not to mention most of their gunpowder.” He laughed. “That kind of thinking brings empires to a hasty end.”
“I told you, they were scared,” said Jan. She wrapped her arms around herself. It was cold out on their usual meeting place, the small observation deck, and her thin garment gave her no protection. “Probably more scared than when we Minervans attacked. We didn’t do any damage but the Bandalans certainly did.”
“They did indeed,” agreed Milo, almost gleefully. “Even I was becoming a little worried about the outcome.”
It had been a close thing, as Jan realized when she had later learned what had happened. Gorman had been right that the three balloons had been carrying large amounts of explosives. A lucky hit with a bullet had set off the explosives in one of the balloons but the other two succeeded in rising up and over the Lord Pangloth, where they then dropped large grappling hooks towards the hull. A man perched precariously on each hook prevented them from being destroyed by the automatic lasers.
Both grappling hooks got a purchase on the hull, a considerable distance apart, and the Bandalans were then able to haul their balloons down along the ropes, at the same time making the balloons less buoyant by shutting off the supplies of hot air.
Each cage contained about ten men. One group survived for only a short time, having come down near a large unit of Sky Warriors, but the second group was more fortunate, landing a long way from the nearest hatchway. By the time Sky Warriors reached them they had succeeded in detonating their crate of gunpowder, ripping a large hole in the hull and also puncturing, possibly beyond repair, one of the gas cells, allowing its irreplaceable supply of helium to escape into the atmosphere. If, of course, they’d happened to have set off their explosive above one of the hydrogen-filled cells the Lord Pangloth would have been doomed. As it was the airship had sustained serious damage and might even be permanently crippled if it proved impossible to repair Cell number Seven and fill it with hydrogen. At the moment the Lord Pangloth was still listing slightly to port and was flying only at a thousand feet, the best altitude it could manage.
Milo sighed. “And with all those distractions you missed a perfect opportunity to test those new sequences of symbols I gave you for the terminal.”
She glared at him. “Distractions? I thought we were about to crash. And if it hadn’t been for Gorman we would have. The last thing on my mind was your precious box of lights.”
“I keep telling you—my ‘box of lights’ holds a key that will allow us to unlock a source of great power. You could have tried afterwards, when the emergency was over and everyone was squabbling as to whether to bomb the Bandalans or not.”
“I was too busy with the Prince, trying to keep him calm. He was still demanding that Gorman be executed. But don’t worry, I’ll try again at the next opportunity. With Gorman out of the way for the time being it’ll be easier for me. He’s the only one who keeps watching me when I’m playing with your box of lights. I’m sure he suspects something.”
Milo shrugged. “From what you tell me you saved his life. Even if he gets his old post back his attitude towards you will be different.”
“I doubt that. He’s cold, like you. He follows his own secret set of motives and doesn’t let personal feelings get in the way. Just like you.”
He laughed and put his arm around her bare shoulders. “How could you accuse me of being cold. You know how I feel about you.”
She pulled away from him. “Don’t. Yes, I know how you feel about me. First you needed me for sex, now you need me for something else, but as soon as you don’t need me at all I will be nothing to you.”
“All human relationships are based on need—on selfishness. And all human emotions too. Selfishness equals survival. To believe otherwise is to indulge in romantic self-deception.”
“So you admit that as soon as you stop needing me I’ll be expendable?” she asked him coolly.
He smiled at her. “Jan, I can’t imagine a time when I won’t need you.”
“I’m sure a lot of women have heard you say those same words during your long life. And where are they all now, I wonder. All dead and forgotten by you, no doubt.”
He looked pained. “You’ve become a cynic terribly fast.”
“I’ve had a good teacher. And now I’ve got to go. The Prince is showing one of his favourite Entertainments to his inner circle tonight and he wants me to be there.”
“The Aristos are going to spend tonight watching old movies?” asked Milo in surprise. “After all that’s happened today and with the Lord Pangloth in the state it’s in?”
“That’s exactly why. They want to retreat back into their cosy, insulated world as soon as possible. They want to pretend that today never happened.”
But even though she knew this Jan still found the atmosphere at the Prince’s screening party that night very strange. No one mentioned the Bandalans’ near-successful attack, no one discussed what might happen if the Lord Pangloth couldn’t be repaired; instead there was only small-talk about nothing in particular, jokes and forced laughter. They were pretending everything was the same as usual. And maybe, she suspected, they even believed it.
After the food had been eaten and a lot of drink had been consumed they all settled down in their fur-covered seats and faced a wall that seemed to be made of black glass. Jan sat beside the Prince. He put his hand on her upper thigh and began stroking it through the fabric of her gown. She could tell that he was sexually keyed up and took it as another reaction to the day’s traumatic events. She guessed that he would be very active in bed that night.