Aboard the Lucy Stone

Eight hours later, the captain and passengers of the Lucy Stone were out of the dark at last, working in the muted, violet-tinged sunlight. They were clearing a tangle of vines that blocked their passage from the cave mouth. The Captain wielded a machete, Herr von Hedwig  mangled his sword cane, and Madame, rather more efficient than her companions, attacked with her trusty pruners.

“I’m beginning to envy that yeti,” Herr von Hedwig grumbled. “A sedative dart sounds better and better. Have we slept, at all, recently?”

“I don’t know,” his wife answered. “I can make more coffee if you’d like.”

“I’ll have one of your tasty espressos, Hera,” Captain Charette said, “just as soon as we’re flying. Then von Hedwig can have a nap while we get the lay of the land.”

Herr von Hedwig slashed through a thick vine, then grimaced as he inspected his sword blade. “I’m not as young as I once was.”

“What of it?” Hera said. “As enthralled as I was with you in youth, I find I love you even better now. Youth isn’t everything.”

“Perhaps. But with one ton of angry muscle, claw, and tooth inches behind you, youth has much to recommend it.”

“If we can focus over here just a bit,” Charette interrupted, “I think we’ll be clear.”

Shortly they were, and Herr von Hedwig forgot his nap in the discovery of a new land. The Lucy Stone rose gingerly, her envelope scraped by branches. Captain Charette took her up slowly above the trees. At last they floated above the canopy, between the trees and swirling purple clouds. They mountain range they’d emerged from curved in an arc to the southwest, crowned in its center by a smoking volcano. Most of the mountains were covered in trees, and the ship floated above a sea of dark green.

Herr von Hedwig consulted their compass and log.

“I believe we’ve come out somewhere in the south Pacific,” he said. “Not so far south as Australia, not so far east as Hawai’i. Wonder how big it is? Has anyone been here before?”

“Is anyone here now?” Eve said. “There’s no sign of life – no smoke.”

“Well,” Madame answered, “no industry, perhaps. We’re so used to columns of coal smoke – there may be a pre-industrial society.”

“We won’t see much through these trees,” Phineas said.

“We should skirt these mountains,” the Captain said, “and look for the river your children followed.”

She steered her ship along the curve of the hill, Hera studying the flora beneath, Phineas scanning the landscape but also peering at the sky above. The found the river within the hour, and, finding no children camped at the cave mouth, began following it. The violet sky darkened to purple.

“We won’t see them in the dark,” Hera worried.

“My love, we won’t have to. They will see us.”

“And hear us, I imagine,” Eve said. “Even though it’s gotten dark, there are still no signs of fire – no light, no smoke. This land is uninhabited.”

“Good,” Hera said. “If only there are no large predators, then the children should be fine. The lush vegetation should provide them with food, the river with water. Since there are no hostile natives, they have nothing to fear.”