Land and Overland Omnibus - By Bob Shaw Page 0,1

seemed an age, his enhanced vision enabled him to discern hurried movements behind the ship’s foredeck rails. A few seconds later there were puffs of grey smoke along the gondola’s left side, indicating that its lateral drive tubes were being fired. The airship’s envelope rippled and the whole assemblage tilted as the craft slewed to the right. It was rapidly shedding height during the manoeuvre, but by then it was actually grazing the cloud, being lost to view now and again as it was engulfed by vaporous tendrils. A wail of terror, fine-drawn by distance and flowing air, reached the hushed watchers along the shore, causing some of the men to shift uneasily.

Toller guessed that somebody on board the airship had encountered a ptertha and he felt a thrill of dread. It was a fate which had overtaken him many times in bad dreams. The essence of the nightmare was not in visions of dying, but in the sense of utter hopelessness, the futility of trying to resist once a ptertha had come within its killing radius. Faced by assassins or ferocious animals, a man could—no matter how overwhelming the odds—go down fighting and in that way aspire to a strange reconciliation with death, but when the livid globes came questing and quivering, there was nothing that could be done.

“What’s going on here?” The speaker was Vorndal Sisstt, chief of the station, who had appeared in the main entrance of the supervisors’ building. He was middle-aged, with a round balding head and the severely upright posture of a man who was self conscious about being below average in height. His neat sun-tanned features bore an expression of mingled annoyance and apprehension.

Toller pointed at the descending airship. “Some idiot has travelled all this distance to commit suicide.”

“Have we sent a warning?”

“Yes, but I think it was too late,” Toller said. “There were ptertha all round the ship a minute ago.”

“This is terrible,” Sisstt quavered, pressing the back of a hand to his forehead. “I’ll give word for the screens to be hoisted.”

“There’s no need—the cloud base isn’t getting any lower and the globes won’t come at us across open ground in broad daylight.”

“I’m not going to take the risk. Who knows what the…?” Sisstt broke off and glared up at Toller, grateful for a safe outlet for his emotions. “Exactly when did you become empowered to make executive decisions here? In what I believe to be my station? Has Lord Glo elevated you without informing me?”

“Nobody needs elevation where you’re concerned,” Toller said, reacting badly to the chiefs sarcasm, his gaze fixed on the airship which was now dipping towards the shore.

Sisstt’s jaw sagged and his eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether the comment had referred to his physical stature or abilities. “That was insolence,” he accused. “Insolence and insubordination, and I’m going to see that certain people get to hear about it.”

“Don’t bleat,” Toller said, turning away.

He ran down the shallow slope of the beach to where a group of workers had gathered to assist in the landing. The ship’s multiple anchors trailed through the surf and up on to the sand, raking dark lines in the white surface. Men grabbed at the ropes and added their weight to counter the craft’s skittish attempts to rise on vagrant breezes. Toller could see the captain leaning over the forward rail of the gondola, directing operations. There appeared to be some kind of commotion going on amidships, with several crewmen struggling among themselves. It was possible that somebody who had been unlucky enough to get too close to a ptertha had gone berserk, as occasionally happened, and was being forcibly subdued by his shipmates.

Toller went forward, caught a dripping rope and kept tension on it to help guide the airship to the tethering stakes which lined the shore. At last the gondola’s keel crunched into the sand and yellow-shirted men vaulted over the side to secure it. The brush with danger had evidently rattled them. They were swearing fiercely as they pushed the pikon workers aside, using unnecessary force, and began tying the ship down. Toller could appreciate their feelings, and he smiled sympathetically as he offered his line to an approaching airman, a bottle-shouldered man with silt-coloured skin.

“What are you grinning at, dung-eater?” the man growled, reaching for the rope.

Toller withdrew the rope and in the same movement threw it into a loop and snapped it tight around the airman’s thumb. “Apologise for that!”

“What the…!” The airman made as