"The City of Gothia" "one degree is not a large distance on a compass it is scarcely the thickness of a finger nail" "but in certain conditions... one degree can be a very large distance" "enough to unmake a man jasper!" "jasper, a letter!" "it had been three months since my last voyage and id begun to believe that i'll never fly again thus when my embarkation order arrived from the authority i felt like a condemned man reprieved from the gallows i hoped that captain griswald had seen fit to pardon me as well" "get off my ship!" "i see the authority has given me little choice but i'm not tolerate another mistake, do ye ken?" "yessir!" "some assistence, gentlemen?" "its' an honour to have you with us, sir though i had not been informed that we were carrying a passanger i was delighted to see it was dr claude belgon controversial biologist from the academy" "get away!" "the sickness!" "he is infected!" "come away child!" "morello!" "coils and oils mr kemp?" "charged and hot sir!" "mr kemp, airscrew to 100 revolutions one hundred, sir" "morello, we are in your hands is there a difficulty, sir?" "mr morello?" "no, captain" "ready to lift buoyancy" "pressure steady lines away" "up ship" "as the airship lifted so did my heart but my joy at leaving was tampered by the knowledge that amelia was not" "get them inside, there are others coming yes, matron administer sulphur, saline drip and to ward 12 yes what is it?" "surgery's clear our city was ravaged by a sickness of appalling virulence" "in my absence i prayed that my darling would stay safe through the horizontal and the vertical we draw faith their bodies shall become ash and they will become the air itself until once more" "august 10th a new traderoute has opened up with the republic of lawrentia allowing supply ships to reach our beleaguered realm" "our task was to lay beacons to enable wireless communication the doctor's task was to study us" "that man as airmen rarely contracted the sickness he had convinced the academy to fund a study in the belief that some quality of elevation might lead to a cure" "yes doctor" "his critics thought it unlikely" "so did the crew" "the ant has a marvellous society though the doctor was more than a decade my senior, we got on famously" "the formicidae are remarkable each can lift ten times its own weight" "perhaps we should fashion our diet after theirs" "many pleasant hours were spent in hypothesis and postulation morello!" "get back to yer chart!" "aye, sir!" "you're a patient man morello i could not bear that oaf hounding me he was captain on my last voyage i made an error" "starboard 2 degrees are you certain mr morello?" "no, starboard 3 degrees" "but it was enough to kill a man" "as with the ant every man has a purpose he must serve that purpose, no matter the cost" "when this voyage is over, we will never again be parted then we can begin our family yeah" "fly safely home, my handsome navigator women doctor!" "they can carry themselves into the future through their ability to procreate but a man can only do so through his work!" "we, men of science, should stick together" "august 12th a violent tempest came upon us" "increase buoyancy steam and iron were useless in the face of nature's onslaught for 14 hours we ran before the wind far from the trade route" "triple revolutions burn the bearings if ya have to" "position, mr morello momentarily, sir" "ship ahead starboard turn, full reverse!" "lumen, lumen!" "the envelope's ruptured!" "we're sinking!" "abandon ship, abandon ship!" "in one fell stroke, the resolution was destroyed and with it, my career" "ahoy the hieronymous ahoy!" "ahoy the hieronymous i'll teach these damned fishermen to run without lights ahoy!" "morello" "get off ya cots, ya laggards" "what the blazes?" "!" "attacked by pirates is my guess" "genus lepidoptera...?" "surely not... inside the refrigeration chamber the fetour struck me like a blow" "but apart from putrefying piscine carcasses the place was empty" "did ya think ya find something fishy here, sir...?" "my god!" "we cannot ignore what has occurred, i must insist!" "we have a duty to science to discover exactly what happened!" "science be damned!" "i'm taking her back!" "captain!" "mr morello?" "they were fishing in uncharted air perhaps they caught something unexpected the academy would compensate us generously for a new species do ya not understand?" "i've lost my ship i'm ruined!" "the laws of salvage will give you this ship if you take me to the island, i'll make sure the academy doubles your fee i'll remind ye - we have nae compass but we have a navigator" "do we not, mr morello?" "august 13th without a compass, I set our course by dead reckoning" "our new direction would take us deep into unknown air out of transmitter range and any possibility of rescue" "a week longer, my darling, no more, i'm certain take what time you need your welcome will be all the warmer" "amelia!" "a cold, nothing more amelia!" "she has the sickness please captain, take me back!" "she is beyond your help, lad take me back!" "careful, man!" "kemp, stay level resume heading" "amelia" "borealis no, souls of the dead, that is" "that evening, lebrun came down with the sickness" "to my great relief the captain announced he was turning for home" "the academy will issue an ongoing contract then purse overcame compassion kemp, resume heading i began to believe that the next time i saw amelia would be in the hereafter" "course, mr morello?" "maintain course and speed are you certain?" "port!" "3 metres starboard 2 metres port 2. port 1!" "zero clearance!" "ah you've killed us all this time steer two-five-five degrees" "well done, navigator yes, yes, a triumph captain, will you give the order to land?" "take heart, lad you'll soon be with your wife" "kemp?" "i'll stand watch kovacs?" "let's see what victuals this mudheap has to offer" "the volcano, my boy!" "heat is a great begetter of life" "as we foraged the air rang with a sound like none i had ever heard" "it drew me with such power that i wondered if we had stumbled upon the abode of the fabled sirens" "it seemed impossible that such an unremarkable thing could create such euphony" "captain!" "help me!" "are ye injured, lad?" "a dead specimen is useless to the academy!" "one of these did for the men on the hieronymous i'll not give another the same opportunity" "though dead, the monstrosity did not go to waste" "no one was skilled in the culinary arts so the flesh was charred on the outside and bloody inside" "lebrun was too weak to eat so i made him a broth there was nothing more anyone could do" "a miracle!" "no, you fool." "the creature is the cure!" "we must obtain a specimen i told ya before." "you'll not bring a monster on board." "i won't have to claude insisted that we secure six cocoons in order to begin a breeding colony for production of the cure like heroes of myth, we snatched our prize then took to the air flying home to free our land from the microbial invader" "come out, little one there's my beauty" "for god's sake man!" "cast it overboard!" "then what remedy will you bring to your wife?" "i tried to feed them,but they would take nothing i offered then a slip with my knife provides the answer" "jasper!" "jasper!" "morello!" "do you wish to see a miracle?" "extraordinary, is it not?" "the captain must know the academy will send me back to the island i will insist that you command the voyage no." "morello!" "the crew will panic they'll kill it if the creature died, so did amelia i could not allow that to pass" "august 23rd kovacs caught a porkfish" "the crew saw this delicacy as an excuse to celebrate kovacs, king of the porkfishers!" "claude joined in though i had never before seen him take a drink" "that night, everyone staggered back to their bunks to fall into a drunken sleep" "evening!" "next morning, kovacs was gone kovacs!" "doctor!" "he is not here when the search proved fruitless the captain concluded that kovacs had fallen overboard" "two days later, lebrun was gone i could no longer ignore my feeling that claude was somehow reponsible doctor!" "a fascinating creature, is she not?" "it would have been a crime to let her die for lack of sustenance where are the others?" "sedated awaiting her need" "for pity's sake, claude, don't do this every man has his purpose yours is to get us home" "your wife is waiting" "had claude been the devil himself he could not have devised a more feindish torment" "my darling you'll burn in hell belgon no, no!" "is our voyage nearly ended my friend?" "if i'm right, the trade routes lie just beyond the ice,the beacons will guide us home" "i've become rather fond of you, morello i'll miss our conversations" "be of good cheer, however one degree had changed my life it might do so again" "help me!" "please, jasper, please!" "i beg you!" "i can't!" "do you wish to have more deaths on your conscience?" "no!" "if you are reading this you know that the creature is a treasure beyond price" "much blood has been spilt to acquire it i pray that mine will be the last" "With our temperatures lowered, it is my hope that my blood will sustain the creature until rescue arrives." "if i do not survive, my darling amelia know that my last thoughts are of you" "live and do not grieve for i will be with the great company of souls riding the borealis to eternity" "perhaps they will require a navigator"