Koot worked quietly in the starlight, assembling the PVC gridwork that would serve as the platform of their gondola. While Kynan finished tightening connections, Koot attached the ducted fans which would provide propulsion and steering capability. The triangular lifting wing began to swell against the restraining cables as it filled with buoyant hydrogen gas.
The hydrogen was one reason Margo had chosen PVC for the platform. She didn't want metal fittings anywhere on her ultralight. Metal fittings might generate sparks. For the duration of their journey, they would be paranoid about fire prevention. She eyed the slowly filling gas bag and wished again they could have transported in enough helium to do the job, but wishing was pointless. They had what they had and Margo was darned proud of her ingenuity.
Their airship was finally ready. Kynan had covered the PVC gridwork with a "floor" of ripstop nylon to prevent things from falling through. Koot attached cables to the hydrogen wing, then helped Kynan load on their supplies. Margo shut down the generator and packed it in the wheeled crate it had come in, then returned it to the vicinity of the gate. Next time the gate cycled, Goldie would send some down timer through to retrieve it.
Margo ran through her checklist one last time. Food. Water purifying equipment. Picks and shovels. Her little M-1 carbine and ammunition for it. Blowgun and anesthesia darts. Extra batteries for the laser sight. Koot's .458 Winchester bolt-action rifle. Emergency medical kit. Lightweight sleeping bags and mosquito netting. Ballast they could dump later on when the gas bag inevitably leaked some of its buoyancy .....es, they had everything.
Margo had even made certain they were all inoculated against cholera, hepatitis, typhoid, meningitis and diphtheria. They'd begun anti-malarials well before departure. And even with the extremely good water filters she'd purchased, she wasn't taking any chances on contracting bilharzia -- she planned to boil all local source water for a minimum of ten minutes before using it. The idea of becoming infected with vicious parasitic worms in her bloodstream left Margo queasy. Malcolm and Kit had trained her too well to take stupid risks.
"Are we ready?" Margo asked brightly.
Koot van Beek turned from slinging his rifle across his back. He grunted in the moonlight. "Yes, English. We're ready."
The transparent airship, a ghostly sight in the moonlight, strained against its cables. Margo grinned, then climbed onto the gondola platform and made sure everything was secure. She gestured the Welshman to a place near the front of the platform. He eyed the gas bag straining overhead with an uneasy glance, then muttered something entirely incomprehensible and took his seat. One hand strayed to the case which held his heavy longbow and quiver of arrows. Margo shrugged. They were the weapons he was most familiar with, so she hadn't begrudged him the privilege of bringing them along. How Goldie had weaseled them out of Bull Morgan was something Margo would like to have known.
"Okay, everyone, this show is about to hit the road!"
Margo signaled Koot, who loosened his tether at the same moment she loosened her own cable. The airship rose silently into the starlit African night. A strong offshore wind pushed them steadily into the interior. Margo waited until they were well out of sight of the little bayside community below, then fired up the ducted fan engines..
Their noise shattered the night. Kynan covered his ears and glanced over the edge of the platform. He lost all color in the silvered moonlight. The airship dipped and plunged in the air currents like a slow-motion roller coaster. Poor Kynan squeezed shut both eyes and swallowed rapidly several times. Margo grinned and handed him a scopolamine patch, showing him how to put it on, then steered a course northward around the edge of Delagoa Bay for the mouth of the legendary Limpopo River.
Margo thrilled as the dawn came up, spreading fingers of light across the heart of Africa. Beneath their floating platform the distant Drakensberg mountains snaked away southward along the rugged Wild Coast. Directly below, the Limpopo glinted in the early light, a treacherous ribbon of water navigable only during flood stage. According to her ATLS readings, they had emerged in early December, the beginning of the summer season in this part of sub-Saharan Africa. Far to the south, clouds boiled up over the mountains. Flickers of lightning split the predawn sky as the Drakensbergs roared with another of their legendary storms.
Fortunately, Margo's route lay to the north, following the Limpopo valley in its long, arcing curve through the Drakensberg foothills. With any luck, they'd avoid the worst of the summer storms. Margo peered over the side and grinned even while pulling her jacket tighter. The crystalline chill of the high air invigorated her. The river valley below was a vast carpet of green rising steadily into the foothills. Animals moved in the early sunlight. Vast herds rippled like brown rivers. She wondered what they were. She understood being hungry; but how could anyone hunt such beautiful animals for sport?
She glanced at Koot and wrinkled her nose. He hunted for sport and scuttlebutt had it he'd guide down-time safaris, too, but he probably knew what those herds were. She could ask, anyway. "Koot?"
The grizzled Afrikaner glanced back without speaking.
"What are those?" She pointed.
"Wildebeest," he said shortly, "and Cape Buffalo. Very nasty. Most dangerous animal in Africa, the Cape Buffalo. Crocs in that river. Hippos too. Good you decided against rubber rafts."
The sarcasm was heavy enough to weight down the airship. Margo trimmed their attitude by adjusting the amount of ordinary air contained in ballonets inside the hydrogen bag. Her argument with Koot on the subject of air versus water transport had been short, violent, and conclusive. He'd won. That was all right. Flying was more exciting, anyway.
Up in the "bow" the Welshman, too, stared at the tremendous herds. Then he glanced at the hydrogen bag and shivered. Margo felt a moment's pang of pity. What must it be like for him, coming into a time and place where everything he saw smacked of "witchcraft" and left him fighting to hide his fear? She wondered if Goldie had been right to include him. He needed the work, clearly; but he was having such a difficult time adjusting, Margo would have preferred to leave him on the station and hire someone a little more familiar with modern languages, machinery, and philosophical concepts.
Then she, thought about their ultimate destination and grinned. Soon she would fulfill a goal she'd set herself the day her mother had died. A few weeks from now, Margo was going to walk into that prison hospital in Minnesota and show her father just how incredibly wrong he'd been about her, her dreams, everything.
Sunlight flooded the landscape and streamed through the triangular lifting wing which carried them forward into adventure, burning away all trace of bitterness.
Today is the most beautiful, perfect day of my life! Margo consulted her compass, corrected the direction of the propulsion fans, and came about on the right heading.
She thrilled at the touch of the controls. This was her airship, her expedition, her success come to life.
At last, something she had planned was going exactly as it should!
Finding the Seta gravel deposits Goldie had identified was so easy Margo spent the next several days gloating over her success. They anchored the balloon, broke out digging equipment, and busied themselves excavating ore from the potholes along the Limpopo River bank.
When she encountered her first inch-wide sapphire, Margo whispered, "Oh, my God..."Then at the bottom of the pothole, they hit diamonds. "Oh, my Gad..."
Even the Welshman grinned ear-to-ear as he worked.
They removed yard after cubic yard of matrix, piling it carefully onto the gondola platform, and began hauling it upriver to the site Goldie had marked on her map. Margo had trouble finding that spot. She hovered over the Shashe River, studying the lay of the land, trying to correlate what she saw with Goldie's chart and navigational notations. She finally took an aerial snapshot with the digitizing camera that was part of her personal log, scanned in Goldie's map, and made the best correlation she could.