He clearly wished to be of use. I had no idea of how much laudanum remained in his body, however, and I was not at all certain he should be undertaking anything strenuous until his head had cleared. When I protested, though, he waved me off. “I am steady enough now that my feet are on the ground. And besides, they may need medical aid.”
I could not argue that latter point, and he proved his fitness by scaling a nearby boulder. The sight alone was enough to exhaust me, for even a small exertion is utterly draining at such heights, and our flight meant we had not been given the usual chance to acclimate. It must have set Tom’s heart to pounding, for bright spots stood out in his cheeks against the general pallor of his skin; but the laudanum at least seemed to have loosened its grip, and so we sent him off with Chendley.
The rest of us—myself, Suhail, Thu, and the four pilots allocated to the two remaining vessels—set about examining our craft for damage. I was relieved to see that while the canvas sides of the gondolas had torn in a few places, there was no harm that could not be mended.
While I helped cut a few pieces of spare canvas into patches, I heard Suhail address Adler. “What are your orders now?”
Silence followed this—apart from the wind, of course, which did not cease for even one minute during my time in Tser-nga. Then Suhail spoke again. “You cannot tell me, of course.” He sighed in frustration. Or perhaps he was only catching his breath; none of us could speak in more than brief bursts, as our lungs clamoured for more air. “Then let me rephrase. Should we empty the balloons? There will be much less risk of attention if we do so.”
“No, we’ll keep them filled.”
They had more than enough spare lifting gas to refill all three balloons and fly back eastward. If the pilot wanted them to stay as they were, it could only mean that they intended to fly onward, west across the Mrtyahaima—or at least as far as they could get. Could they return from their scouting mission the same way? I doubted it. In which case, how did they intend to get home? It was one thing for us to jest about the Tser-zhag taking us into custody and marching us back to the Vidwathi border. We were not in friendly territory, but neither were we at war with the locals. Every place the caeligers might plausibly reach, though, was either sufficiently inhospitable to life as to be uninhabited, or in Yelangese control. Unless the pilots managed to find and loot some caeliger supply depot over there, they could not hope to fly back. They would have to abandon the caeligers—likely destroying them first—and somehow sneak back to friendlier territory.
It says something about my own temperament, I suppose, that such a plan seemed astonishing to me. To creep into a hostile environment for the sake of scientific study, I understand; to do the same for military advantage is too daunting to contemplate—even though most would call the latter purpose far more comprehensible.
Had we landed without difficulty, I think the caeligers would have flown on as soon as they could repair the torn gondolas and unload our gear. But our pilots were military men, and would not so easily abandon their companions. Although they were clearly not happy with the delay (and concomitant risk of discovery), they settled in to wait for Tom and Chendley’s return.
Our companions did not appear before dusk, which came shockingly early in that region, the sun vanishing behind the snowy rampart to our west. What warmth the air held—not remotely enough for my taste—vanished as if it had never been, and after some conference, we moved down to a more sheltered spot.
I sat looking at the western sky, still brilliant with light, but cut by the dark knife of the mountains. Suhail sat next to me and said, “Even if the caeliger crashed, most of our gear will have survived. Though it may be scattered halfway to Akhia, and the gathering may be difficult.”
It sounds heartless, when I recount such words and thoughts. Yes, our gear had been on that caeliger—but so had Marbury and Lowe, two corporals in the Royal Scirling Army. What of them? But it was easier for us to talk of inanimate objects, while the fate of two people was in doubt. Both Tom and Chendley were experienced in field medicine; if anyone were injured, they would do everything they could to help. Until we heard from them, we could do nothing to assist. Forming contingencies for our own expedition at least gave us something else to think about.
Without our tents, the best we could do was to construct a makeshift shelter from stones and fallen branches, enough to cut the wind and hide our fire from eyes down below. Even in Gelis, which for that hemisphere is summer, the air was unpleasantly cold. I huddled next to the little flame, trying not to ask myself why I had volunteered for this lunacy, until Thu said, “I see light.”
He had been keeping vigil since the shelter was done, watching in the direction the third caeliger had gone. We all scrambled to see. Sure enough, a fire twinkled in the distance. Then it vanished—and came back. And again.
“They’re signaling,” one of the junior pilots said with relief. “Army code. One of them has got a broken arm, but they’re alive.”
It is truly a wonder, how thoroughly circumstances can alter one’s perception of a situation. I will not claim I slept warm and happy that night, but knowing the others were relatively unharmed did much to improve my outlook. In the morning, when there was sufficient light to travel safely across the intervening ground, the four of them trekked back to our camp.
According to Tom’s report, our equipment had taken a bit of a tumble, but nothing we could not redress. “Then we stay?” I said, looking from him to Suhail, to Lieutenant Chendley, to Thu. I knew my own inclination—but this was our last chance to change our minds. After this, we were on our own.
They nodded. Adler said, “We can’t fly the third caeliger out of here, not when one man has a broken arm.”
I must confess my heart leapt a little, before logic caught up and hauled it back to earth. There was no way they would leave the vessel with us, and the gas and fuel to fly it: the risk of it being captured was far too great, and we had no real piloting experience among us. “I expect you will want to destroy it,” I said.
Suhail made a muffled sound. The caeliger represented a tremendous outlay of resources and effort on the part of Scirland; now I proposed to simply throw that away. But he understood my reasoning—and, more to the point, that my reasoning was merely a guess at the army’s.
“We’ll cannibalize some of it for parts,” Adler said. “But yes. And we have to move quickly, before others find us here.”
He meant what he said. Crossing back to the broken vessel took us what remained of the morning, but by mid-afternoon they had stripped it of whatever equipment and spare components they thought they could use. “Now what?” Tom said. “Try to start a rockslide to cover it?”