David Clarke

Excelsior

Chapters 13-16

Chapter Thirteen

Alex and Joe spent the rest of that week settling in and adjusting to schooling in the Victorian style. In fact I liked being in a much smaller class, because at least if I had a question I could ask without fear of being jeered at by the rest of the class, although the discipline took a bit of getting used to. So did maths without a calculator and writing longhand – I had got far too used to having computers available for everything.

I wondered how they had managed to square their absence with the school – this was the middle of term-time, after all. Alex had apparently told them that his family was in the process of moving house out of London, and Joe had somehow persuaded his doctor to sign him off for a couple of weeks due to stress, largely brought on by seeing his 'best friend' imprisoned. He was expected back at school after the half-term holiday, which gave him up to three weeks with me, although he said he might have to leave earlier than that because of the unpredictable nature of the hole between worlds.

On the Thursday evening at supper Uncle Gil said that he was intending taking Excalibur out that weekend to check that everything was in good working order, adding that of course I would be welcome to bring my friends along for the ride. I was a bit surprised when Joe said that he wouldn't be able to come with us.

"Why not?" I asked. "Don't you like flying?

"No, that's not it. It's just that this Saturday…"

"What?"

"Well… look, MM, I don't know how things are in this world. Do people have any problems with… well, religion?"

"No, not at all – in fact we go to church every wee… ah. No, I don't think anyone here will have any problem with your religion, and if they do, well, it's my house, so you won't be the one who has to leave. So, you were saying?"

"Well, this Saturday is a really important festival, so I won't be able to do anything much that day. I don't think flying would be a problem for me normally even on a Saturday, as long as you didn't need me to tend a furnace or something, but I really can't this week."

Uncle Gil wasn't stupid, so although the actual word 'Jewish' hadn't been uttered he'd got the picture.

"Any friend of Leo's is welcome in this house," he said, "regardless of religion. Which festival is it?"

"Yom Kippur," Joe told him.

"Right. I believe there is a small synagogue in Oxford. If you like we can take you there tomorrow before sunset and collect you again on Saturday night or Sunday morning. I'm sure someone there will be able to offer you a room for the night. I can't tell you which strand of Judaism they follow, but I imagine that in any event their company would be better than none. Would you like to do that?"

"Yes, please," said Joe. "Thank you very much, Sir."

"Very well. And we'll postpone our flight until Sunday. We're not quite so strict about not working on the Sabbath, and I can give the crew Saturday off instead."

So Joe left us late on Friday afternoon and had reappeared by the time we got back from church on Sunday morning, and after lunch we went to get changed for our flight. I still hadn't done anything about choosing a uniform, but it turned out that I was the only one: Billy had managed to get crewman's uniforms for himself and Sparrer, and they joined us in the hall decked out in sky blue; Alex and Joe were wearing their school uniform – Alex had thought it would do well enough as a flying kit (and since it was mainly in varying shades of blue it went very well with the crewmen's uniforms); and Wolfie appeared at the top of the stairs resplendent in a white military uniform complete with riding boots, sword and a magnificent silver helmet surmounted by a silver eagle.

"Hail, Caesar!" I greeted him. "Nice hat."

"Thank you. Actually I probably won't wear it all the time – it gets a bit heavy."

"So what's the uniform and how come I haven't seen you in it before?"

"I'm a General of Brigade of the Prussian heavy cavalry," he told me. "I actually do hold that rank, even though the brigade itself isn't exactly active these days – though I suspect that if it was my uncle wouldn't have made me its general, because I don't have any combat experience. And you haven't seen it before because I only ordered it after our last flight. I wanted to celebrate your return."

"Then I'm flattered. You must tell me who made this for you, too – I definitely need to order something. I feel positively scruffy like this."

I was wearing ordinary clothes, though at least in this world that was a little better than jeans and trainers: I was wearing black trousers and proper leather shoes, though the jacket I was wearing – the one I'd brought with me from Alex's world – looked rather out of place.

In due course my uncle arrived, wearing his tail coat and ruffled shirt as usual and accompanied by Mr Hall in his psychedelic Sixties militaria, though he still hadn't got around to designing a hat to go with it. We all made our way out to the mast in the field next to the ridge and waited there while my uncle and Mr Hall went to supervise the preparation of the ship.

"So," I asked Joe, "did your festival go okay?"

"Yes, it was great. They're a little more liberal than we are, but nobody expected me to do anything I wouldn't have done at home, and they were really welcoming. If I did decide to stay and bring my family through we'd definitely be able to go there."

"Good. We'll have to teach you to ride a horse, and then you'll be able to get there on your own."

"I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do that – somehow horse-riding has never come up. I suppose in theory it ought to be okay… I'll have to ask the rabbi. I know I'm probably not supposed to use your steam-car actually on Shabbat because that involves burning something, and I think maybe riding my bike would count as work too… but then again, we're allowed to break the rules in order to get to synagogue if there's no other way."

"Sounds far too complicated to me. Do you really think God would get annoyed if you broke one of the rules, even if you weren't sure what the rule really says?"

"Probably not. We think God loves us and cares about us, and if we mess up he doesn't lose his rag. If he did he'd be permanently furious, I should think."

"But what about… you know, what Carmody found out about? Isn't that against the rules?"

"Well, yes, strictly. Certainly the place we go back in London wouldn't be happy if they knew. But some of the more liberal congregations seem okay with it, and I guess that means God probably is too, despite what it says in the Torah. After all, it's not like I chose it."

"I suppose not. Still, if God's angry with you you'd better make it up with him now, because I don't want him trying to hit you with a thunderbolt while we're hanging underneath a load of hydrogen."

"Thunderbolts aren't really his style. He's more into sending a plague of frogs, or something like that. Locusts, maybe."

"You're allowed to joke about God?"

"Of course. If God hasn't got a sense of humour we're all in trouble."

I realised I didn't actually know Joe very well at all, but I was starting to like him, and I thought that if he did decide to stay he'd fit in pretty well.

The ship emerged from its hangar and Joe positively gaped at it.

"Are we really going up in that?" he asked. "Is it safe?"

"So far. Of course the last one I was in before this one crashed, but that was because a lot of Russians were shooting at it. As long as we steer clear of the Tsar's Eagles I should think it's safe enough."

We waited until the ship had been moored to the mast and then I ushered them into the bridge gondola, and once the preliminary checks were complete and we had sufficient steam we were ready to go. I watched my friends as the ship rose: Joe and Sparrer had their faces pressed to the gondola windows, pointing things out to each other and talking excitedly, and on the other side of the cabin Alex and Billy were doing the same thing – this was only their second trip, after all.

"The other world must be a very dull place if there are no ætherships," Wolfie observed. "It's obvious how much Alex and Joe like this, and I would certainly miss it if I was unable to fly."

"Me, too. Actually, there are flying machines in the other world, but they fly high above the clouds, so you can't often see very much – at least, that's what Alex says. He's been to Cyprus a couple of times. I never flew in that world at all. But… will you be allowed to come with us if we go to Greenland? Won't your uncle object?"

"I'm not going to tell him. You surely don't think I'd let you go off on a mission without coming with you?"

"I hope not, but I don't want you getting into trouble."

"I'd far sooner get into trouble than have to sit at home on my own for days and days without knowing what was happening to you."

"Then we'll just have to make sure your uncle doesn't find out," I said.

Today we were heading west, rather than east towards London, and so I asked my uncle where we were going.

"That will depend on your navigation," he replied. "There are two reasons for today's flight. One is to check the engines and make sure everything is running efficiently. The other is to make sure you can run the ship yourself."

I stared at him. "But… I've been away for four years!" I protested.

"But you had plenty of training from your mother before that. The thing is, Leo, if we go to Greenland it's going to be a very long flight, and it will be easier if we have three capable officers on board instead of two. We'll be flying non-stop for more than a day if we have to go to Greenland, and that means three full watches – which, incidentally, means that your friends will need to take a turn too. We won't have room for passengers on a trip like that. So today we're going to find out whether you can all pull your weight or not. So, time for a change of crew, I think. Leo, you're now Second Officer and officer of the watch. Wolfie will act as your Number One. As for the rest of you… Mr Demetriou, gas control, if you please."

He indicated one of the desks on the right side of the cabin. Alex gaped at him.

"But… I don't know anything about it!" he protested.

"Obviously, but you'll learn. It's not difficult: you just have to keep an eye on the various gauges, keep the steam envelopes at the optimum pressure, watch the hydrogen envelopes for leaks, and be ready to vent immediately if a fire breaks out. You'll pick it up in no time.

"Mr Silver, communications, please. You've got tubes connecting you to the observation points, engine rooms, gun decks and turrets. You'll soon work out which is which. Can you read semaphore?"

Joe shook his head slowly.

"Oh, well, you'll learn," said my uncle. "Mr Sparrow, assistant helm. You've got the telegraphs for the engine rooms, and a speaking tube to each as well in case you need direct contact. You've also got the elevator wheel – that controls up and down. Turn it to the left to go down, and to the right to go up – you'll see there's a little dial that will give you an exact angle. So any time I give an order to the helm that includes 'up' or 'down', that means you, understand? And finally, Mr Rodgers, if you'd be so good as to take the main wheel?"

Now I was convinced he was joking – Sparrer, who had never set foot in an æthership until ten minutes ago, in charge of the elevators and engines, and Billy, who had only flown once, at the helm? But apparently he was dead serious: the various crewmen stood up and vacated their seats and the helmsman moved to one side, though he kept hold of the wheel until Billy was ready to take it from him.

"Now, Mr de Courtenay, if you'd like to step over to the navigation desk you can plot our course. I want you to aim first for Bristol, and when we get there take us to Hereford, and then back home. We're currently here." And he pointed to a spot on the chart just to the west of Abingdon.

Frantically I tried to remember everything my mother had taught me. Of course it was easy enough to get a grid bearing from the map, convert it to a magnetic bearing and tell the helmsman to point the ship that way, but there were other considerations, of which wind speed and direction were the most important. If I didn't take that into account we could end up miles off course.

There were some gauges at one end of the chart desk showing, among other things, the barometric pressure and the state of the wind, so I did the basic calculation, adjusted as best I could for a westerly breeze blowing at about five to ten knots, swallowed and muttered "two-five-five?" to my uncle who, the bastard, said nothing at all. I knew that if I didn't sound decisive the crew wouldn't trust me, so I turned to Billy and said, "Bearing two-five-five. Ben, take us up to fifteen hundred feet [450 m] and fifty knots – that's the segment of the telegraph that's marked 'cruise'."

The original helmsman showed Billy where his compass was, and his assistant made sure Sparrer knew where the altimeter was and explained how to read it. He also demonstrated how to take the ship up gradually and how to keep it level when the correct altitude was reached. I was grateful for the fact that the two of them, like the other senior crewmen, were still there: if my uncle had really wanted to throw us in at the deep end he could have withdrawn the usual crew altogether and left us to sink or swim. But I suppose the thought of us crashing into the tower of Gloucester Cathedral or ploughing into the Bristol Channel kept him close at hand.

Once we reached the higher altitude – which was quite a lot higher than the ætherships usually flew, but which I'd chosen so that we could see further, because I lacked confidence in my ability to get the bearing right – the ship levelled off and we settled into a steady cruising speed. According to my calculations Bristol was about sixty miles [100 km] away, and so we ought to have reached it in a little over an hour, and so once the hour was up I started scanning the horizon anxiously. I didn't see Bristol, but a few minutes later I did see the sun glinting on water, and as we got a bit closer I saw what had to be the Severn estuary below us. But it didn't look wide enough to me, and I realised that we were a bit too far north.

"Helm, turn to port and follow the river," I said, and only a couple of minutes later I saw the city appear ahead of us.

"Not too bad," commented my uncle. "You allowed a bit too much for the wind. You'll need the extra on the next leg, though, because we'll be just about beam-on to the wind. You may turn onto the second leg when you're ready."

The rest of the trip went well – the bearing I chose for Hereford was close enough that I could see the city, which was slightly to our left, without having to cast about for it. Flying beam-on to the wind made Billy's job a lot harder, though, and the senior helmsman had to stay close at hand to advise him on how to maintain the bearing without the ship bumping about too much. The third leg was even better, because my course took us straight over Abingdon. By then Joe had got some practice at using the speaker tubes and Alex had, with a nudge from the usual crewman, spotted a minor leak (manufactured, I'm sure) in one of the hydrogen envelopes and arranged for it to be repaired. We'd also taken the engines up to full power and run them there for half an hour without any problem.

My uncle wasn't prepared to risk letting us land, however, and so the regular crew took over for that manoeuvre. But once we were safely back on the ground my uncle said that he was satisfied with our performance, particularly that of Sparrer – my uncle said that the elevator position was just about the most difficult job on the ship, and was normally only done by very experienced crewmen.

"You kept us a lot steadier than I had expected, to be honest," my uncle concluded. "So I'm now prepared to say that I'd be happy to take all of you on the Greenland trip – if any of you actually wants to come, of course."

"Of course we want to come!" said Alex, enthusiastically.

"Are you sure? It'll be very boring," Uncle Gil warned him. "You'll have nothing to look at except the sea, and it will mean hours and hours of just droning along in a straight line. Even when we get to Greenland it'll be the same, except that you'll just have ice and snow to look at instead of water. I wouldn't blame you at all if you said you'd prefer to stay at home."

"If Leo's going, so are we," said Alex, firmly. "Someone has to keep him out of trouble."

"And of course you and I would be perfect for that," commented Joe. "I mean, we never get into trouble at all, do we?"

"That's why we'd be perfect," said Alex. "We know all about trouble, so we'll be able to steer him clear of it before he does something stupid like we did… well, to be fair, it wasn't really your idea to go, was it? Okay, like I did, then. Anyway, you're not getting rid of us, Leo. I'm coming, anyway, and I hope Joe will too, if he's still here when we leave, of course."

"He might not be," I said. "It could be weeks before a meteor appears, and if Joe's going home at half term…"

"But I might come back," said Joe. "If it's going to mean being able to fly again I'll certainly want to think seriously about it. I suppose it'll depend on whether or not I can persuade my family to come with me."

"You'd definitely be welcome," I told him. "See how you feel about it by half term."

That night Wolfie and I decided to sleep in our HQ on the third floor.

"I didn't think my uncle would let me come on the mission," I confided to him as we got undressed. "That first bearing I gave was pretty useless."

"You think that was bad? The first time he got me to calculate a bearing I ended up missing London altogether. And I can't even blame the wind: I forgot to convert the grid bearing to a magnetic one. If I did that on the real mission we'd probably hit Africa before we hit Greenland."

"Well, not quite. And it's an easy mistake to make, especially when you're under pressure. And I'll bet you didn't do it again, did you?"

"Well, no, but I still felt a complete idiot. So I think you did fairly well today by comparison."

"I'm still a bit worried about it, though. Today I got away with it because we had the river to guide us, but over the middle of the Atlantic there'll be nothing to show us the way at all, so if I get it wrong I won't find out about it until we're miles, or even hundreds of miles, away from where we should be."

"You won't get it wrong," he said, sitting down to unstrap his leg. "We're not going on this trip on our own, remember. All you have to do is let the Frenchies go first and just follow them. That way if we end up in the wrong place it'll be their fault and not yours."

"I suppose so," I said. "I'd forgotten about that, to be honest."

"See? There's nothing to worry about. Now are you going to massage my leg for me?"

So I did, and then I helped him into bed, turned the light out and got in next to him. He wriggled his way next to me and put his arm around me.

"Of course we won't be able to do this on the mission," he pointed out. "There's only limited sleeping space, and we certainly won't get a place to ourselves, so probably we ought to make the most of this while we can."

"Damn! Perhaps we ought not to go after all!"

"Now I know you don't mean that, Leo. You wouldn't miss a chance to go on a proper mission."

"If you uncle finds out about it and stops you going, maybe I'll stay."

"No, you won't. Duty comes first, remember? And, anyway, if my uncle tries to stop me coming with you I'll just stow away. I had to go four years without you, and I'm not risking that starting again."

I gave him a hug, and for a few minutes we just lay quietly together.

"So when are you going to do the tunnel forfeit?" he asked. "Because, now we've found the rest of the system, I think you should do the whole thing, starting from the ice house."

"What, naked and without a light? Get lost! Besides, I don't think it would be possible – I'd never be able to find the keyholes for the skewer in the dark."

"No, you'd only need it once, for the door at the bottom of the old stairs, and we could just leave the skewer in the hole ready. You could find it perfectly well like that, and then you just have to come up the stairs until you reach the attic, the same as you did last time. You wouldn't need to visit the secret room, so you wouldn't need the skewer again."

"You've been thinking hard about this, haven't you?" I asked. "Well, hard luck. The ice house tunnel was never in our agreement, and it isn't going to start appearing in it now."

"Scaredy-cat!"

"Not at all. It just wasn't part of the bet. But if you think it's so easy, why don't you try it?"

"Because I won the bet, remember? But… I suppose we could do it together. That might be fun."

"Are you serious? That tunnel would be really nasty in the dark. It's long, and it would be really cold, too."

"Yes, it would, but we could do it together. I think it could be a very interesting challenge for us."

"Well… okay, maybe it would, but it would be pretty dangerous, too. If we were both stuck inside the system with no light and no clothes we'd be in serious trouble if anything went wrong – if one of us fell and got badly hurt, for example."

"I suppose that's true. Then perhaps we could take your magic lamp but swear not to use it except in a real emergency. That would make it safer, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, but perhaps that would be a bit too easy. It would be too easy to declare an emergency and cheat. I was thinking more about taking three or four lucifers with us – just enough to let us find a door catch in case we got stuck, like I did on the last panel last time. But I also think we should leave a letter for Alex or Billy, just to be sure."

"That seems fair. So when do you want to do it?"

"I suppose it'll have to be next weekend. Saturday or Sunday afternoon," I suggested.

With that agreement reached we fell silent again, but after a few minutes I realised that there was something else I wanted to ask him.

"Alex said something to me a while back," I started. "He said that the problem with being part of a noble family is that probably we'll have to get married to someone our families choose for us. And I was wondering – is that likely to happen to you too?"

"I think it would depend on where I was in the line of succession," he replied. "Provided that nothing happens to the Crown Prince or my other cousins I'd probably get a lot more say in it, but if a couple of them were to die – or even all three – then I'd almost certainly have to do what I was told. If I'm all that's left of the main line I'm sure they'd insist on me getting married and producing an heir, but once the Crown Prince is married and has an heir of his own I should be able to disappear into obscurity and live my own life. But why ask that question now?"

"I was wondering what sort of a future we've got – together, I mean."

"As much as we want, I should think."

"Yeah, right. And what happens when you're married to Princess Haybag of Ruritania and I'm married to some horse-faced mare whose only qualification is that her coat of arms has seventy-two quarterings?"

"I'm sure it won't be a problem. People expect monarchs and noblemen to marry for reasons of state, and so nobody worries too much about whose bed they actually sleep in. Look how many mistresses the French kings got through before the first Napoleon – and they weren't remotely discreet about it, either."

"It would be a bit different if you were sleeping with a man, though, wouldn't it?"

"Why? If anything it would be preferable, because at least then people could be fairly sure I wasn't producing bastards who might decide to contest the throne one day. Yes, I know the churches say you're not supposed to do stuff with another man, but frankly I don't care what the churches say: as far as I'm concerned, you and I are together. We've sworn an oath, remember? So as long as you want to stay with me we'll always be together, whether I'm king or just some irrelevant forgotten cousin. I might have to sleep with Princess Whatever-you-called-her sometimes, but surely what's important is who your heart belongs to, not whose bed you sometimes end up in."

"And what if you end up actually enjoying the Princess's bed?"

"Well, that'll just be a bonus for me: it'll make the duty of producing an heir a lot less unpleasant. But I don't think for a moment that I'll end up preferring women."

"Are you sure? I mean, we're barely into puberty yet."

"Fairly sure – and speak for yourself! Some of us have actually got some hair, you know… why, do you think you're going to change?"

"I don't really know. I mean, apart from what you and I did before I got lost – and that was more like a game than actual sex – I'd never done anything with anyone until this summer. Yes, it's true that I've enjoyed everything I have done over the past couple of months, but for all I know I'd enjoy doing stuff with girls, too."

"If you're lucky you will," he said. "Some people can happily have sex with boys and girls. But the actual mechanics don't really matter. After all, you can have sex on your own if you just want a physical feeling. What really matters is sharing sex with someone you really like, and that's a million miles from doing it yourself. I know you and Alex really like each other… you have done stuff with Alex, I assume?"

"Well, yes. And with Sparrer."

"Ah. Well, you like him too, so perhaps it's the same as with Alex… although maybe I should have locked Sparrer in the cellar after all…"

"No, you shouldn't. With him it's just having fun, and really that's all it is with Alex, too. Being friends makes it better, but it's way better doing stuff with you because… well, because I feel differently about you. You're more than just a friend."

"Then I really don't mind you having fun with your other friends. Maybe Sparrer can teach you some new tricks."

"Funny you should say that – there's something I want to show you."

"Later," he said, firmly. "I'm comfy how I am at the moment. So, do you think he could teach me some new tricks too?"

"Probably," I said, a bit surprised. "But I thought you didn't really like him that much?"

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose he's quite nice-looking. But… no, I'm only teasing."

"I wouldn't mind," I assured him. "It isn't fair that I get to do stuff with him and Alex and you don't… if you want to, of course… Or I can stop doing anything with them, if you prefer."

"Leo, we're not married, and even if we were I wouldn't mind you seeing other people. As long as you come back to me afterwards I'm happy – just as long as you really don't mind if I do the same thing if the opportunity presents itself. Some of the stable-lads are quite cute…"

"Now you're teasing again. I can't imagine you actually lowering yourself to do stuff with a mere stable-lad."

"That was before I met the New Leo. He's taught me that there's no reason not to be friends with stable-lads, kitchen-boys, beggars and thieves. All right, I still have my doubts about the way you act with Billy and Sparrer, but it doesn't seem to have done any harm – in fact they both seem to be devoted to you. So maybe you're right, in which case there's no good reason why I shouldn't find a stable-lad of my own to cuddle with when you're away."

"Somehow it's hard to imagine you cuddling a stable-lad," I said. "And in any case, you won't have to, because I'm not going anywhere without you again."

And I gave him a kiss and settled down for the night.

***

That week at school began where the previous one had left off, with myself, Alex and Joe displaying our ignorance and Mr Devlin marvelling that teachers in the other world actually got paid at all, given that they apparently weren't actually teaching their students anything.

But then on Tuesday morning our routine was interrupted again, this time by the arrival of the French æthership Alfred Dreyfus, which came in to land at the mooring mast in the Long Meadow at around half past eleven.

"Go on, then," said Mr Devlin to me, resignedly, when one of the footmen came into the schoolroom to request my presence. "The rest of you might as well go, too. But I don't care if it's Napoleon himself on board, I still want you all back here at the start of afternoon school."

I thought it highly unlikely that Napoleon would be on board: this wasn't the French flagship, and in any event I thought it improbable that the ruler of the Empire would deign to talk to a provincial like me. And of course I was right about that: when Allchorn ushered the visitors into the front reception room we found that the party consisted only of the æthership captain, a man in a uniform I didn't recognise but with a colonel's insignia on the collar, and a dark-haired boy of around my own age who I assumed was the son of one of the men. But it turned out that I was wrong.

"Two months ago," the colonel began, in reasonable English, "you were told of the progress that we were making in developing lightweight armour to balance that used by the Tsar's Eagles. At that stage we had ascertained that they were obtaining some of the material they use from meteors, and of course we are still waiting for a chance to obtain a meteor ourselves… Well, to make it short, at around the same time our special forces mounted a raid on the Tsar's æthership-building facility at Friedrichshafen on the Lake Constance and succeeded to remove a quantity of material, and our experts have worked on it since.

"Our leading scientist had already made good progress when we discovered, unfortunately, that just as the Friedrichshafen works are dangerously close to our territory, so our laboratories were, as it also turned, dangerously close to theirs. Three days ago the Russians launched an audacious raid, dropping a special unit into the grounds of our facility at Thann. They destroyed our laboratories, killed all the scientists – and everyone else they found, presumably to make sure that no knowledge survived – and blew up the whole complex before withdrawing. By the time our forces got there, there was nothing left. Except that the Russians missed someone.

"Here" (and he indicated the boy) "is Timothée Duvallier, son of the chief scientist. Of course he was not himself involved in the work and was at school at the time, but his father every day took his notes home from the laboratory and Timothée typed them up for him, because his father suffered from the arthritis and found typing painful. His father also explained the progress of the experiments, and on occasion had taken Timothée to the laboratory to see for himself what was being done. And so we have a full set of notes – the carbon from each report was kept at the home of Dr Duvallier. Further, Timothée is intelligent and can remember what his father had told him. So we will be able to repeat the work.

"We have decided, however, that we should set up two centres, distant from the frontier, and because of your involvement in the meteor project we hoped that you would allow one research centre to be set up here, or nearby – perhaps using the facilities of the Oxford University? Here there would be little danger that the Russians could attack. We have placed our own new research facility to the west of Paris, where again attack is unlikely. Would you be able to accommodate us?"

Uncle Gil looked at me, and I shrugged and then nodded – I could see no reason not to agree to this.

"Of course," said Uncle Gil. "I don't know how much room you would need, but we already have some buildings that you could use to make a start – the old stables, Leo. I think they would do, don't you?"

"Well, we might have to do some work on the furnace and boiler, but otherwise I don't see why not," I agreed. "And I'm sure the colonel is right to say we could find additional space at one of the colleges, although if we're trying to keep it secret it might be better not to do that."

"Perhaps that would be sensible," agreed my uncle. "Will you be supplying the staff, or do you want us to try to find some suitable people locally?"

"Well, we lost most of those who were acquainted with the project, so perhaps if you can find some British scientists – asking discreetly, of course – that would be best. May I leave you to arrange the details with Timothée?"

"He's staying, then?" queried my uncle. "Won't you need him at your own research centre?"

"To be honest I am concerned for his safety. Should the Russians discover that they failed to kill everyone associated with the project they may come looking for him, and I feel that he would be safer here than in France. I have told him that his knowledge will be of more use here, because nobody here has any knowledge of the project. Unfortunately he has little English, but I am certain that you can find a translator for him."

"I am sure that we can," said my uncle. "I speak some French myself, and I believe that Mr Devlin, our tutor, is quite proficient in the language."

"Then we will be on our way," said the colonel. "If we return immediately, few people will know that we have been here, and that will increase Timothée's safety."

I escorted them as far as the door, where Timothée spoke to the colonel – in what sounded like strongly-accented German. The colonel replied in the same language and both he and the captain shook the boy's hand. The two officers then strode off towards the waiting ship.

"Do you speak German?" I asked the boy, in that language.

He smiled. "I do," he replied. "Alsace is a German-speaking province. We learn German before French. If you can speak German it will be a lot easier for me here. I'm afraid Colonel Schaeffer didn't explain who you are, though…"

"Ah. Well, I'm Leo de Courtenay, and I'm the Duke of Culham. This is my house."

"Oh! Oh, God, I'm really sorry… Your Lordship. I thought the man with the beard was the Duke. I didn't mean to offend you."

"Hey, don't worry! Nobody round here calls me anything except 'Leo', and that includes my personal attendant and…"

I wasn't sure how to describe Sparrer, whose somewhat anomalous position confused most of the household. Technically he was a guest, but he seemed to view himself as Billy's assistant.

"And his friend," I went on. "I get uncomfortable if people keep calling me 'Your Grace' and stuff. Anyway, the man with the beard is my uncle, Lord Folliot of Chisbury. He's also my guardian, so basically he runs the place and decides what I can and can't do, which I suppose is fair enough.

"Come with me – I'll arrange a room for you and then you can come and meet my friends. I'm afraid they don't all speak German, but I expect you'll pick up English quickly enough. And then after lunch I expect my uncle will want to show you the old stables and find out from you what sort of equipment you'll need."

We found Allchorn, who was ahead of us as usual: he'd already asked Mrs Sweeting to prepare another of the second floor guest rooms. And then I took Timothée up to Wolfie's room, where my three fellow students were waiting.

"This is Timothée Duvallier," I told them in English. "He's going to be staying here and setting up a laboratory in the old stables to carry on with his father's work on æthership armour. His father was killed three days ago when the Russians attacked their research centre in Alsace, so be careful what you say, okay? He doesn't speak English, but he does speak German, so at least Wolfie and I will be able to talk to him."

I switched to German and introduced my friends. "Can we call you Tim?" I added. "It sounds English, and if we don't want too many people knowing who you are – not that I think I have any Russian spies here, but still – it would be better not to make it too obvious that you're French."

"Well, I arrived in a French æthership and accompanied by two French officers," he pointed out, reasonably enough, "so I expect most of the staff here will have guessed that I'm not English. But I don't mind being called Tim. To be honest, 'Timothée' is a bit old-fashioned anyway – I've never met another one."

My friends said hello, and Wolfie then asked what exactly he was going to be working on. I don't think I would have understood much of the answer even if it had been in English, but it demonstrated clearly that Tim wasn't an ordinary fourteen-year-old: clearly his father had already given him considerable training. By the time he'd finished talking about meteors of the classification Schweitzer-Garfield from which could be obtained a catalyst that modified the molecular structure of something or other, and then there was a bit about a mix of metallic oxides and silicates, and something else about the end product being a form of lightweight ceramic, which could be treated in such a way as to…

I gave up completely at that point, and from the expression on Wolfie's face he hadn't even got that far. And even if Alex or Joe had been a scientific genius, which they weren't, there was no way I could have translated all that into English, and so they weren't going to get the chance to understand it.

"Great!" I said. "Well, I didn't understand any of that, but if you can make it work we'll all be very grateful indeed. Just tell my uncle what you need and he'll get it for you."

"Thank you," he said. "Of course, the main thing I need is a lot of meteor. We did manage to retrieve a small amount from what was left of the research centre, but it isn't really enough to do very much with."

At that point we were summoned to the dining room, and after lunch my uncle whisked Tim away to have a look at the old stables and to find out what equipment he would need, how many people he would require to help with his experiments and what qualifications they should have. Fortunately my uncle's French was a lot better than mine.

I didn't see Tim again until shortly before supper, when I went to his room to make sure he was settling in properly. I knocked on the door and went in, and found him sitting on the end of the bed holding a photograph. It was obvious that he had been crying.

"Sorry," I said in German. "I'll come back later."

"No!" he said. "No, come in. It's alright."

He put the photo on the table beside the bed, and I saw that it depicted a slightly younger-looking version of him with a middle-aged man in glasses.

"Your father?" I asked.

He nodded. "That was taken just over a year ago," he said. "See, my mother died during my birth, and so it's always just been him and me. And now I suppose it's just me."

"No," I said. "Now it's you and us. See, Wolfie's parents are dead, and so are mine, so we both understand how you feel. And the same goes for Sparrer, who you'll meet later this evening, I expect. My father died just before my ninth birthday. He was in the army – his portrait's on the first landing of the main stairs, in the red uniform, if you want to know what he looked like – and he died during the winter campaign at the end of 2005. And my mother died in 2007 – she was an æthership captain, and her ship was shot down by the Tsar's Eagles. Wolfie and I were on that ship too, but we had a jumpshade and so we escaped. So the Russians killed my parents, too – so you're not alone. Stand up for a moment."

He did so, and I looked at him. Like me, he was small for his age – in fact I was probably an inch or so taller. He also had brown eyes like me, though his hair was darker than mine, so dark it was almost black. And of course he was a lot cleverer than me, too. But right then I was more concerned with our similarities than our differences. I stepped closer to him, put my arms around him and gave him a brief hug.

"If you need anyone to talk to," I said, "come and find me, or Wolfie, any time you want. Or if you need an adult to talk to, my uncle is a good man and I'm sure he'll always make time for you. You'll never have to feel alone here, I promise."

He managed a nod and a sort of wan smile.

"Good," I said. "Now maybe you ought to wash your face before supper. And afterwards you'd better meet Billy and Sparrer – though I suppose I ought to try to get used to calling him Ben now. I'm afraid they don't speak German or French, but they're likely to be with us a lot of the time, so you ought to be introduced at least."

I'm not sure what Tim made of Sparrer. He certainly couldn't understand a word he said, but then even we native English speakers sometimes had problems with that; but all the same they seemed to get along well enough. At least Sparrer didn't challenge him to a fight within a minute of meeting him, as he had done with Joe.

We didn't see a great deal of Tim after that: even on the Saturday he disappeared straight after breakfast – apparently he was in conference with Uncle Gil sorting out equipment for his laboratory. He said he wanted it to be up and running as soon as possible.

And that was just as well, because barely a week after he arrived we heard that our meteor had landed. And it wasn't in Greenland, either.

Chapter Fourteen

We didn't find out about the meteor until the following Thursday, which was October 20th, and by then the weather had changed: it had been unseasonably warm right through September and as far as mid-October, but on October 15th the temperature dropped and it started to feel like autumn. It wasn't quite cold enough to start lighting the fires yet, but coal scuttles appeared in the bedrooms and I started to think about ordering some winter clothing.

I'd allowed Wolfie to talk me into making my second attempt on navigating the secret passages naked and without a light, and I'd even agreed to start from the ice house, provided that he came with me. And so straight after breakfast on the Saturday morning we went down to the cellar and opened the panel the led to the foot of the original stairs. As I had hoped, there was a keyhole here that opened the door to the ice house tunnel, and that at least saved us from having to go down through the secret room.

We closed the panel behind us, left the skewer in the keyhole on the tunnel side so that we could find it by touch when we came back, and then walked down the tunnel to the ice house, and I was thinking that it was quite cold in here even fully dressed. Still, I suppose neither of us wanted to back out – at least, Wolfie didn't say anything, and so neither did I. So we kept going until we reached the ice-house. We locked the outside door from the inside, got undressed and left everything on the ice-house floor except for the key and the box of lucifers that Wolfie had brought with him. Then we stepped into the passage and pulled the door closed behind us. Wolfie blew out the lucifer he'd struck to allow me to close the door, leaving us in complete darkness.

"Have you decided this is a bad idea yet?" I asked him.

"I decided that when I realised how cold it was. Still, I suppose that's what an ice-house is for – perhaps it'll get warmer once we get back to the house."

"Then let's get on with it," I said, and took a couple of steps into the tunnel.

"Wait! I think it would be a good idea if we stayed in contact – just in case, you understand."

And he took hold of my hand. I didn't think that was strictly necessary, but on the other hand I liked holding hands with Wolfie, so I didn't raise any objection.

"So what do you make of the French boy?" he asked me.

"I don't know, really. Brainy, certainly – I didn't understand a quarter of what he told us about the armour. Quiet, too, but I suppose you'd expect that, considering that he's just lost his father. That's about it, really."

"Don't you think he's good-looking?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so. I wouldn't have thought he'd be interested in joining in with our games, though."

"I wasn't thinking of asking him to do that. I thought I might ask him if he'd like to spend some time with me one evening. Just me."

I stopped moving. "Wolfgang-Christian, you can stop that right now!" I said. "Stop trying to wind me up – it isn't going to work!"

"I'm not trying to wind you up. I'm serious – after all, he's clearly nearer our class than a stable-lad would be, and I'd feel far better about cuddling him than a stable-lad."

"You only chose to tell me that here because you knew that if I could see your face you'd never be able to stop yourself from cracking up," I accused.

"No, not really… well, all right, perhaps that's true. But I am sort of serious – not about cuddling him, obviously: even if he likes boys, he probably wouldn't be in the mood right now. But I thought it might help him settle in a bit – after all, he's a German speaker, which limits his options socially to you and me, and you're usually a lot busier than I am. But I wanted to ask you first if you think it's a good idea – and, joking aside, I didn't want you to think I was doing stuff behind your back."

"I think it's a great idea," I said, starting to walk once more. "I've already told him he can speak to either of us if he needs someone to talk to, and you're probably right about you having more free time than me. So, yes, I think you should suggest it to him. And if he does end up wanting a cuddle, go right ahead. I promise not to hit you too hard afterwards!"

I was glad Wolfie had come up with the idea, because I'd hardly spoken to Tim in the past couple of days and I thought it would be a good thing if he had someone to talk to – after all, it's hard enough to move to a new country at any time, even if you haven't just become an orphan.

"Here's the alcove with the lever," I reported a couple of minutes later. "I think it was about halfway between the cellar and the ice-house, so we're getting there."

"Let's speed up a bit," said Wolfie. "I'm freezing."

So I walked a bit faster for the next hundred paces or so, but then I slowed down again because I didn't want to walk at full speed into a wall and I wasn't sure how much further we still had to go. If I'd thought about it sooner I would have counted the steps so far, but it was a bit late for that now.

It wasn't getting any warmer, either – in fact by now I was actually shivering, and I decided that, whether we managed to get out of the system without using the lucifers or not, there was no way that I was going to do this again until next Easter at the very earliest.

Finally – by which time I'd been flinching away from an anticipated end wall for several seconds – my outstretched hand, which I'd been keeping in contact with the left-hand wall, encountered empty air.

"Here's where the tunnel divides," I said, finding the wall again and following the left-hand tunnel. This soon came to an end, and a bit of feeling around led me to the skewer. The door opened, leading us to the bottom of the stairs.

It was surprising how much easier and less scary this was with a companion than it had been on my own. It was still pitch dark, there were still cobwebs in places – those damned spiders seemed to rebuild almost as soon as we'd cleaned up – and I still wasn't completely sure of where I was a couple of times. But having someone to talk to and to hold on to made this experience far less of an ordeal. Eventually we found our way up to the attic, and this time I managed to open the panel without any difficulty. We stepped out into the attic.

"Mission accomplished," I said. "Agreed?"

"Well, obviously the original bet was that you had to do it on your own," Wolfie began.

"It was your idea to come with me!" I protested.

"You could have always said no. But… no, I think it would be a bit unfair to claim that this doesn't count. So, yes, as far as I'm concerned the debt is paid."

"Good. If you hadn't agreed I think I'd have knocked you out, dumped you in some random part of the passage system and taken your leg as well as your clothes. I bet having to crawl through the system would have taught you a lesson!"

"You wouldn't do that," he said confidently. "You're not that nasty."

"You're probably right, but maybe if you push me too far… anyway, if we'd been thinking ahead we'd have left a set of clothes up here, but we didn't, so what do we do now? Are we going to risk going back to my room the normal way and risk running into one of the maids, or are we going to play it safe and go back through the secret passages?"

"I think it might be fun to run naked through the house," he said, grinning at me. "In fact I dare you!"

"You're on!" I said recklessly.

I wasn't too worried about the stairs down from the attic to the third floor, but then we'd have to run the entire length of the third floor corridor, past Sparrer's and Billy's rooms, and then down another staircase to the second floor, and then along another corridor which went past Joe's and Alex's rooms before reaching first Wolfie's room and then mine. Quite apart from the risk of bumping into a servant, it seemed entirely likely that we might bump into one or more of our friends, which would also be embarrassing. Still, I thought it would be sort of fun to make the attempt.

We tiptoed down the stairs to the third floor, peeped out into the corridor, found it to be empty and ran along it to the stairs that led down to the second floor. I was impressed by how fast Wolfie was able to move: for the past four weeks he'd stuck grimly to his resolution not to use his chair at all, and by now he was managing both distance and speed without causing himself too much pain.

We sneaked down the second staircase, which came out opposite the guest room where Joe was staying. Again the coast looked clear, so we stepped out into the corridor and had taken three paces when Tim appeared at the top of the main stairs. It was far too late to go back because he was only five yards away and staring straight at us.

"Good morning!" I said in German, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Good morning," he replied. "What happened to your clothes?"

"Didn't anybody tell you?" said Wolfie, before I could think of a good answer. "Saturday is Naturist Day. It's traditional for everyone to go naked on Saturdays. You'd better go and get your own clothes off before people start laughing at you."

"Really? How is it then that Alex and Joe are playing chess on the terrace outside the front door with all their clothes on?"

"They must have forgotten," said Wolfie somehow keeping a straight face. "Maybe you should go and remind them as soon as you've taken your own clothes off."

"And maybe I'll just stay as I am until I hear it from someone reliable."

"Nice try, Wolfie," I said, "but I think Tim's a bit too clever to fall for that. Actually, Tim, this is the result of a bet. We were hoping not to meet anyone… can you do us a favour and not tell the others? Alex would never shut up about it if he knew you'd caught us like this."

"You must have some strange bets in this country," said Tim. "At my school people normally bet money or sweets. And how did you both manage to lose?"

"Well, actually I lost, but Wolfie agreed to come with me," I said. "Just for fun. We used to do lots of stuff like this when we were younger – running about on the roof with no trousers on and stuff like that. I suppose we're just a bit strange."

"A bit?"

"Well, okay, we're very strange. Anyway, we're going to go and get dressed, okay?"

"Actually, Tim," said Wolfie, "would you mind coming to help me get dressed? That way I won't have to wait while Leo goes and gets his own clothes on first."

"Yes, if you like," agreed Tim, and he followed Wolfie along the corridor and into his room. I carried on to mine, found myself a clean set of clothes and got dressed. Then I went back to Wolfie's room, but before I could knock I heard both of them laughing loudly. I knocked and put my head around the door.

Wolfie was lying on the bed, still naked but without his artificial leg, and Tim was rubbing the marks that it had left around his knee. They were both still laughing, and I was delighted to see it: Tim had barely smiled since his arrival, which I suppose was understandable, but now he looked positively happy.

"I'll go and see how Alex and Joe are doing," I told them. "Come and join us when you're ready. Take your time, though – there's no hurry."

"No, wait," said Tim, as I started to close the door again. "Did you really make a bet about whose hair would grow first when you were only ten?"

"Well, yes," I said. "I'm a few months older than Wolfie, so I was sure I was going to win, and he was a bit taller than me, so he was sure he was going to. And as it turned out he was right."

"So I noticed," said Tim, grinning at me.

I don't know what Wolfie had been saying to him, but clearly he had not only managed to get Tim laughing, but he had also convinced him that I hadn't been joking about wanting him to feel he was our friend, rather than adhering to protocol.

"Hey, I have got some, you know!"

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Anyway, you're even smaller than me, so I bet you haven't!"

"And you really want to have a bet about that, do you? How much?"

I came right into the room and closed the door behind me.

"We don't bet money," I said. "It wouldn't be fair, because I don't suppose you've got very much."

"That doesn't matter, because I'm not going to lose. But if you prefer having to run about the place undressed again instead, I don't mind – except that, unlike Wolfie, I won't be doing it with you. I'll just watch and laugh."

"Either you're bluffing, or it would be very silly to bet against you," I said, "and if you're bluffing, you're doing it really well."

"How badly do you want to find out?"

"Not that badly. Getting caught once was embarrassing enough, even if it was only by you. Next time it could be a whole bunch of maids."

"Good decision, because – and I'm not bluffing – you would have lost. I've got about the same amount as Wolfie. I wouldn't really have made you run about the place naked if you'd taken the bet, though."

"You should have done," said Wolfie. "We can't let him get away with stuff."

"That's true," I said. "I wouldn't have let you off… well, maybe I would, since you're a guest. And… I'm glad to see you relaxing a bit, too."

He shrugged. "I feel safe here," he said. "It isn't what I expected, to be honest: when Colonel Schaeffer said I was going to be staying with the Duke of Culham I was afraid that everything would be stiff and formal and that I'd be the only person in the house who was under fifty. But your uncle's been really kind, and you told me you didn't want any formality, and Wolfie convinced me that you really meant it, so I thought I'd see if I really could joke around with you. And it looks as if I can."

"Any time," I assured him. "Anyway, like I said, I'll go and see what the others are doing. You two come down when you're ready, okay?"

In fact they didn't come to join the rest of us for another half hour, which suggested that they were getting on very well together. By that time I'd had a game of chess against Joe, who turned out to be a better player than Alex.

"Are you allowed to play chess on a Saturday?" I asked him, hoping to distract him from the game, in which he was killing me.

"Oh, yes. A lot of the Sabbath is about sharing time with family and friends, and there's nothing wrong with games like chess."

"So you're not supposed to spend all day at the synagogue?"

"God, no. Obviously we try to get there for a service if we can, but that's all."

"But you didn't go today?"

"Well… your uncle arranged for me to go on Thursday for Sukkot," he reminded me. "I didn't like to ask twice in three days."

"Don't be silly! I'm not exactly so short of money that I can't afford a bit of coal for the car. As long as you're my guest, you can go as often as you like, okay?"

"Well… if you're sure?"

"I'm sure. I'll fix it up for next week."

But in the event Joe didn't go to the synagogue the following Saturday, because on the Thursday morning an æthership of the British Home Defence fleet landed in the Long Meadow, and when, to Mr Devlin's exasperation, I was summoned to the front reception room shortly afterwards I discovered that the visitor was Air Admiral Faulkner.

"We've got a meteor for you," he told us. "It's not quite where we were expecting it to be, but it's too good to miss because it's less than a mile from the coast, which means we'll be able to load it straight onto a freighter. There's even a dock we can use. We've already despatched a freighter with a warship escort, and we've notified the French and asked them for help with providing air cover. I'm assuming you're still willing to take part?"

"I don't see why not," said my uncle. "And I know two or three others would be willing to come with us."

"Well… there is some risk involved," said Faulkner, staring out of the window rather than looking at us. "You see, the meteor isn't in Greenland."

"Then where is it?" asked my uncle.

"It's in the Lofoten Islands."

"Where are the Lofoten Islands?" I asked, thankful that Mr Devlin wasn't in the room to witness my geographical ignorance.

"They're in northern Norway, on the west coast."

"But… isn't Norway occupied by the Russians?" I asked.

"Yes. That's why it's a bit risky. But to the best of our knowledge they don't have any bases anything like that far north – in fact the most northerly base we know about is the naval base at Bergen, and that's no further north than the Shetlands, and a good eight hundred miles south of the Lofotens. Of course, there is a big Russian naval base near Murmansk, but that's almost as far away. We sent a reconnaissance flight as soon as we tracked the meteor down, and there seems no sign of Russian activity. We think that probably enough of them land on Russian territory for them not to need to look elsewhere. And this one landed so close to the coast that, unless their astronomers are very good, they probably think it landed in the sea. That's what we thought at first, but we thought it was close enough for it to be worthwhile to send an æthership to have a look."

"Will our freighter be able to get close enough?" asked my uncle. "Isn't there a danger of ice?"

"No. There's a sea current, a continuation of the Gulf Stream, which keeps the area very mild. Quite surprisingly mild, in fact – apparently the temperature there rarely drops more than a couple of degrees below freezing, even in the winter, and for most of the year it's well above. That's another reason we thought it was worthwhile going after it, because we won't even need arctic gear. So… are you still happy to go?"

My uncle looked at me and my heart sank, because I knew what was coming.

"Leo, I don't think…" he began.

"No!" I interrupted. "I'm coming, all right? If these islands are eight hundred miles north of Shetland we're still going to need to fly non-stop for twenty-four hours, and you said yourself that you need three full watches to do that."

"Yes, but this is much more dangerous than Greenland! If the Russians do know about the meteor they're sure to come looking for it, and then anything could happen!"

"That's why we're going, isn't it – to provide air cover for the people on the ground whose job it is to move the meteor material to the ship? Look, Uncle Gil, you said yourself that my mother trained me to succeed her. She didn't intend for me to confine myself to flying within fifty miles [80 km] of Culham."

"No, but nor did she intend for you to be flying into a war zone at fourteen years old. You know yourself that you didn't fly with her when she was going outside British air space, and if she'd known that the Russians were going to be mounting a big raid the day she died she wouldn't have taken you with her then, either."

"So how old do I have to be? Sixteen? Eighteen? Twenty-one? Fifty? Come on, Uncle, I have to learn to fly properly some time, and this mission is probably comparatively safe, because it's properly organised and there will be other ships with us. At least this way we're not going to be taken by surprise. Please?"

"We'll talk about it later," he said. "Right now we need to work out the details. So, Admiral, who else have you got lined up for this trip?"

"There are five or six on the list, though obviously we won't need more than two others, because we can count on the French sending at least three ships, and that should be more than enough to handle an odd patrolling Eagle. Who would you suggest? I thought perhaps Lord Cardington…"

I decided at this point just to keep my head down, listen to their discussion and say nothing. I thought the fact that my uncle hadn't actually sent me out of the room was a good sign, but I was pretty sure I'd have to fight to get him to allow me to come on the mission, and probably I'd have to fight even harder to get my friends on board as well, which I would have to do if I didn't want them to be extremely hacked off with me. And what about Wolfie? This was exactly the sort of trip that would cause his uncle to have kittens: there was no way he'd be allowed to come if his family found out about it. Perhaps he'd have to stow away after all…

Uncle Gil and the admiral discussed various names before settling on Lord Cardington and the Earl of Seaforth. As far as I knew I'd never met either of them, so I was none the wiser.

"The plan, such as it is so far, is to refuel at Scapa Flow and to leave there sometime on Sunday," said the admiral. "Unless the French have some other idea… in any case I've told them to rendezvous with you at the Scapa naval base no later than Sunday morning. I would imagine you'd do best to fly through Sunday night and aim to reach the Lofotens on Monday morning. That should get you there at about the same time as the surface vessels.

"Now, as far as I'm concerned this is a joint operation, but you're in charge, all right? We're supplying the surface vessels, so I think that makes it our show. On the other hand, we definitely need the Frenchies to stay with us, so I want you to be thoroughly diplomatic to whoever is in command of their lot. I know I can count on your for that. But…" He looked at me. "I know you've got doubts about this, but I think it would be a good idea if you were to take Leo along. After all, Seaforth outranks you, but Leo outranks him, and that ought to be enough to prevent him sticking his oar in too much. He's a good captain, but he doesn't seem to like English types like me telling him what to do. He respects the peerage, though, so with any luck he'll accept orders from Leo."

"I think we might spend Saturday night with Seaforth," said my uncle. "We'll probably get better accommodation there than we would at Scapa, especially if the whole of the French contingent decide to spend Saturday night there, too."

"That might be no bad idea," said the admiral. "Here's the dossier. Obviously it's incomplete because we don't yet know exactly what the French will send, but it's got everything you need to know about our surface fleet, the exact location of the meteor, the weather forecast for the next three or four days and so on. I'll leave you to study it."

He stood up. "Now I'll go and brief Cardington and Seaforth, and I'll see you at Scapa on Sunday. If anything unexpected happens, try to get a message to Cardington, or send a message to the Admiralty. They should be able to get a message to me by semaphore or, if necessary, by æthership."

We escorted him back to his ship and watched as it took off.

"Well?" I asked.

"Well, what?"

"Well, do I get to come on the mission?"

"Leo, if we'd been going to Greenland I would have had no problem with it at all: it would simply have been a long and rather boring training voyage for you. But this is completely different: even if we are only going to be one of a number of ships, there is definitely a danger that there will be fighting."

"And how am I going to learn proper tactics if I never witness a fight for myself? Sooner or later I'm going to be an æthership captain, and how am I going to learn how to deal with the Eagles if I never see one between now and then?"

"There's a time and a place, and this just isn't it. If the worst happens and we get shot down, having plenty of jumpshades isn't going to help us if we're over the ocean at the time."

"So we'll have to make sure we don't get shot down. Anyway, if we did get shot down there would be surface vessels underneath us to pick us up."

"Leo…"

"Come on, Uncle, you heard the admiral. You need me to make sure everyone else keeps in line."

"I don't think that will be a problem. I wouldn't have put Seaforth's name forward if I'd thought he'd cause trouble."

"Well, then suppose I pull rank with you? I'm the duke, after all, so what I say goes, doesn't it?"

"Nice try, Leo. You might be the duke, but I'm still your legal guardian."

"Well, actually, I'm not sure…"

I broke off, realising that it wouldn't do any good to try to claim that Uncle Jim and Auntie Megan were my most recent legal guardians: firstly, they weren't even in the same world as me, and secondly, if they had been I knew perfectly well that they would side with Uncle Gil on this issue. But then I thought of another line of attack.

"All right," I said, "but how are you going to know if the meteor is any good?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, when Tim told us about it he said that the meteor has to be a certain type – a 'Garfield-Swizzel', or something. There wouldn't be a lot of point in shovelling tons of meteor onto a ship and bringing it all the way back here, only to find out then that it's the wrong type and we can't use it for making armour. So I suppose that means he's going to have to come and check it out on site before we start moving it. And since he's younger than me…"

"You really want to come on this trip, don't you?" my uncle asked. "The problem is that people of your age seem to think they're immortal, and so it doesn't matter what they do or where they go, nothing bad is ever going to happen to them. Unfortunately…"

"Uncle, you know I don't think like that," I interrupted. "I was on Daedalus, remember? My mother died that day, and so did a lot of other people I knew. And what happened to Wolfie is enough to show clearly that kids aren't invulnerable, too. I know that ætherships are dangerous, and I know this might be a dangerous mission. But in this family it's what we do, and I think I'm old enough to decide for myself. Don't you?"

He looked at me in silence for a few seconds.

"All right," he said, finally. "It's not so very long ago that boys of your age, and indeed younger, were serving as officers in all three branches of the defence forces. And you're right to point out that you really need some combat experience if you're going to command your own ship one day. But if you're coming, it'll be as Second Officer, and that means you obey any orders given by myself or Mr Hall immediately and without question, understand?"

"Of course," I said quickly, wanting to get in before he changed his mind.

"I'm serious, Leo. You'll have the bridge for a watch on both outward and inward flights, but if anything remotely unusual happens – anything at all – you're to summon me to the bridge. I hope we don't have to fight, but if we do your job will be to keep quiet, watch and listen, because that will be the way for you to learn.

"As for your friends, I want you to tell them honestly where we're going and allow them to make their own decision on whether or not to come – I don't want anyone being made to feel that they have no choice in the matter, alright? I think you're right about taking Timothée with us, but you can leave him to me – you just need to worry about your friends, and in particular the two from the other world. This isn't their fight, after all, so make sure they know you won't mind at all if they decide to stay here."

"What about Wolfie?" I asked. "He's already threatened to stow away if we try to leave him behind, but I don't suppose his uncle will be at all happy if he finds out that we let him come with us."

"Well… to be honest I'd like him to come, because he's got four more years' experience than you have, and he'll be able to advise you during your watches. But I think it might be a good idea if he did his best to make sure his uncle doesn't find out about it. If the worst happens I'll take responsibility, but there would, I think, be a serious danger that his uncle would take him away from here if he found out. You'd better make sure Wolfie is aware of that before he decides for certain to come."

"I will," I said. "And… thank you, Uncle. I won't let you down."

"You'd better not. Now you'd better go and round up your friends."

I ran the rest of the way back to the house. Billy was at school in the village, so I wouldn't be able to talk to him until he returned at lunchtime, and Sparrer was still having his private lessons with Foulkes and I didn't want to interrupt those either, but there was no reason why I couldn't talk to Wolfie, Alex and Joe straight away. So I ran back upstairs to the schoolroom and asked Mr Devlin if I could talk privately with my friends for a few minutes.

"Can it wait half an hour?" he asked, pointing at the clock, which was currently indicating twenty past eleven.

I considered saying 'No', but when I thought about it I supposed nobody had to make a decision right that moment, and since we were likely to miss a couple of days' school at the start of the following week I thought that maybe it would be best not to annoy Mr Devlin unnecessarily.

"Yes, Sir, it can," I said, sitting at my desk.

"Good," he said, not quite managing to stifle an expression of surprise – I'm sure he was expecting me to insist on disrupting the class again. "Then perhaps you could open your maths book to page seventy-four and solve the first three equations."

I hate algebra, and I absolutely detest quadratic equations, and I couldn't for the life of me see what good they were ever likely to be to either a duke or an æthership captain: if I ever by some amazing chance needed to solve one in either role I'd employ a certified genius like Tim to solve it for me. But for some reason they were in Mr Devlin's curriculum and that meant I had to try to do them. The result was that for the next thirty-five minutes I didn't think about the mission at all: every brain cell I had was tied up in trying to work out the values of x and y.

Finally we were dismissed and I was able to take the other three downstairs to the conference room. Leaving them there I nipped through to the servants' quarters, found Sparrer and asked him to run and meet Billy and to bring him as quickly as possible to the conference room. Then I went back there and told my friends that we'd got a meteor and that we'd probably be leaving on the mission on Saturday, but I refused to tell them any more until Billy and Sparrer joined us – after all, there didn't seem any point in going through it all twice.

When they arrived I got everyone to sit around the table and then placed a map of northern Europe in front of them.

"We've found a meteor," I told them, "but there's a slight snag: it's not in Greenland, it's in Norway, and Norway is occupied by Russia. The meteor is right on the coast – it's up here, in these islands," and I indicated the Lofotens on the map. "We're fairly sure there are no Russian bases anywhere close to it, and if we're lucky the Russians don't even know there's a meteor there, but if they do find out about it this is likely to be a far more dangerous mission than it would have been if we'd gone to Greenland. So we don't have to go, okay? My uncle asked me to make sure that you know that. Joe, I know you want to be back home before the end of half term, and if you were to come on this trip it would only leave three or four days for you to get back home, and if you have to wait for the hole to appear…

"Anyway, I don't want to hear your answers yet: I want you to think about it over lunch and then come back here once you've eaten and let me know."

"Jus' one question," said Sparrer. "Wot abaht you? Are you goin'?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean anyone else has to."

Sparrer opened his mouth again, but I got in first.

"After lunch," I insisted. "We'll talk about it after you've had time to think, not before." And I stood up and walked out of the room.

Wolfie followed me out, but the others stayed behind.

"You know they're all going to want to come, don't you?" he asked me as we headed for the dining room.

"Well, yes, but I'd prefer them not to. I don't think I could take it if anything happened to any of them."

"It's not your choice," he pointed out. "I'll wager your uncle tried to talk you out of going, didn't he? Yes, I thought so. And that didn't do any good either, because you've got a mind of your own. Well, so have your friends, and I will be astonished if they don't all decide to come with you. None of us will want to be left behind."

"Yes, well, maybe you should all think about it," I said. "You in particular, because I imagine your uncle will bust a blood vessel if he finds out that you flew into enemy territory."

"He can bust as many as he wants, I'm still not letting you go without me."

"Yes, but Uncle Gil thinks he'll be so angry about it that he'll take you away and make you live somewhere else, and I couldn't stand it if that happened."

He was silent for a moment.

"He won't be able to do that unless he's prepared to lock me up," he said, "because I'll run away and come back here every time. Even if he packs me off to France or Ireland I'll still find my way back. Eventually he'll realise that I'm not going to give you up. Or I'll just hide in the secret room every time he comes looking for me and stay there until he gives up and goes away again."

"I'm not sure if that's a very good idea. If he thinks Uncle Gil is deliberately hiding you it might cause a serious diplomatic incident. It would be a lot better for you to talk to him and try to explain that you want to stay here."

"He'll just go on and on about duty and why it's more important for me to stay alive than to do what I want. I can almost hear him now."

"Then maybe you should stay here… okay," I said hurriedly, seeing the look on his face. "If you don't want to stay here we'll just have to hope that he doesn't find out about it. After all, we should only be away for four or five days…"

I was anything but surprised after lunch when all of the others told me they were coming too. Billy said that a personal servant follows his master everywhere; Alex said that he wasn't going to let me go and get into trouble unless he came too to pull me out of it again; and Joe said that this was likely to be the most exciting thing that happened in his entire life and that he wasn't going to miss out, even if it meant that he got back to school again later than he'd intended to.

"What about you, Ben?" I asked Sparrer. "At least you're sensible enough to know that it's not too bright to put yourself in danger if you don't have to."

"Stuff that! I ain't gonna miss aht on a chance of a proper trip in your flyin' machine, an' nor am I gonna let all me mates go somewhere dodgy wivaht me. Now I got some proper mates – proper friends, even – I ain't lettin' 'em dahn. Besides, if Joe's goin' I'll 'ave ter come too, 'cos uvverwise I won't 'ave no-one ter keep me warm at night!"

I stared at Joe, who looked horribly embarrassed: I'd had no idea he and Sparrer had been sharing a bed. Still, this wasn't the time to talk about that.

"All right, thank you," I said. "We're leaving early on Saturday, so you've still got plenty of time to change your minds. But if you decide to come you'll be a proper part of the crew, and that means you'll have to work your watches, and I'm pretty sure you won't have an experienced man supervising you all the time, so if you're not sure about something, shout and one of the officers will come and help. Anyway, we can worry about that once we know for sure who's coming. And now I suppose we ought to get ready for this afternoon's classes…"

I stood up and headed towards the schoolroom, but Joe caught up with me before I reached the foot of the stairs.

"Look, Leo, about me and Ben… I'm sorry. I should have told you – in fact, I really should have asked your permission before I invited one of your servants to share my room. It's just that we spent a lot of time talking to each other after the flight last Sunday, and we got on really well. And then on Tuesday evening after supper he came up to my room so we could talk some more – he was telling me about living in the sewers and I told him a bit about my world.

"That kept us talking for ages. It got dark and I lit the light, and we still kept talking, and eventually I said I thought we probably ought to go to bed because it was nearly eleven o'clock, and he asked if he could just sleep in my room so we could go on talking, because the bed was certainly big enough…. Look, we're going to be late for classes. I'll tell you the rest later."

I suspected that he didn't want to say any more right then because Alex and Wolfie were coming towards us, and so I just said, "Okay" and carried on up the stairs. But after supper he invited me to his room, and when I got there I found Sparrer sitting beside him on the bed.

"Like I said at lunchtime, I'm sorry about not asking you first," Joe began.

"I didn't get a chance to say this at lunchtime, but you don't need to ask my permission to do anything," I told him. "And Spa… I mean, Ben isn't a servant anyway; he's a guest… well, more or less. But even if he was a servant you wouldn't need my permission to talk to him, or to share a room – okay?"

"Yes, but we weren't just talking, or even sharing a room…"

"I don't care. Joe, in case you haven't realised this yet, Wolfie and I share a bed a lot of the time, and I'm pretty sure Alex and Billy do too, so if you two are going to do the same thing, good luck to you."

"Toldja," said Sparrer. "I sed 'e wouldn't care, dint I? I don't fink 'e'd even care if we 'ad sex 'alfway up the main stairs."

"I wouldn't," I assured him. "But my uncle might, and I don't think the servants would be too happy, either, so keep it for in here, alright? Sorry, Joe," (Joe had gone bright red), "I'm afraid Ben here does have a bit of a habit of saying what he thinks without beating about the bush. You'll get used to him eventually. But I'm a bit surprised, Ben: I thought if you were looking for a bed to share you might have picked Tim. Isn't he a bit more… well…"

"You mean, 'e ain't as ugly as Joe?" said Sparrer. "Well, I spose 'e's prettier, but 'e can't speak English, fer a start, and 'e's too serious. Joe's perfect – an' anyway, if 'e was ter grow 'is 'air longer I reckon 'e'd look good. Besides, 'e's got uvver fings wot are more important: 'e's nice ter talk to, an' 'e don't treat me like shit… not that anyone else 'ere does, eiver, but still, 'e talks like we're the same. And of course, 'e's got a massive prick…"

Joe promptly turned scarlet again.

"Didja know that Jewboys 'ave the skin cut off the end of their prick?" Sparrer went on. "I ain't never goin' ter become a Jew, that's fer sure, 'cos it must 'urt like fuck…"

"I told you, it was done when I was a week old," said Joe. "You can't remember anything that happened that far back."

"Yeah, but if I decided to become a Jew I'd 'ave ter 'ave it done now," Sparrer pointed out. "And I don't want nobody cutting bits off me prick, 'cos it's small enuff as it is."

"I think it looks nice," said Joe, before realising that I was still there, at which he went, if it were possible, even redder.

"So do I," I said, hoping to relieve his embarrassment a bit.

"It's still too titchy, though," said Sparrer. "But Joe's is massive, an' 'e's got loads of spunk," (by now Joe seemed to be trying to make himself invisible by curling up into a tiny ball), "an' best of all, 'e ain't got no…"

"Ben!" interrupted Joe, loudly. "He doesn't need to know that!"

"What don't I need to know?" I asked, my curiosity aroused.

"Nothing!" said Joe.

"Come on, spill," I said. "Whatever it is, it can't be any more embarrassing than what I've already heard, surely?"

"I'm not so sure," said Joe, not looking at me.

"Don't worry, 'cos Leo ain't gonna larf atcher," said Sparrer. "E's orlright. See, Leo, Joe ain't got no 'air, and you know as 'ow I prefer it like that. So, like I said, I reckon 'e's perfect."

I looked at Joe, who was as tall as Alex and whose voice, like Alex's, had broken ages ago.

"How come?" I asked.

"Well… it was Danny Carmody's idea," he admitted. "He thought it would be funny to make me shave, and when he suggested it to Simon – my brother – he thought it was brilliant, especially because he's already got some pubes – almost as many as Carmody, actually, though I made sure I didn't laugh at Carmody about it. So after they'd cut it all off the first time they clubbed together and bought some cream stuff that dissolves hair, and they made me use it twice a week.

"I thought I'd be able to stop after Danny got arrested, but Simon really liked me having no hair, and since I'd sworn to do what he told me I carried on. And before I left to come here, Simon made me promise to keep using it – which is how come I still haven't got any. And now I know that Ben likes me like this I suppose I'll have to go on using it…"

"You won't 'ave ter," Sparrer assured him, "'cos I ain't like your bruvver an' 'is mate: I ain't never gonna make yer do nuffink. But I'd really like it if yer did."

"But don't tell Alex – please?" begged Joe. "He'd die laughing if he knew."

"I don't think he would," I said. "Alex is safe. But I won't tell him, anyway, or Wolfie. And it might be best if neither of you mentions it to Billy, either, because he'd be sure to tell Alex."

"Ah," said Sparrer. "It might be a bit late for that, 'cos I might 'ave sort of mentioned it to 'im already, like…"

"You git!" said Joe, glaring at him.

"I don't fink it's a problem. I ain't got none, nor 'as Billy, and Leo ain't got very much, so it ain't like you're the only one. And if Curly takes the piss I'll sort 'im aht for yer."

"How do you know what Leo's got?" asked Joe, and now it was my turn to feel embarrassed.

"We've played strip games a couple of times," I admitted. "And if he challenges you to a game like that, watch him. Last time we played he cheated."

"No I never! Well, orlright, maybe once or twice," said Sparrer, grinning at me. "But I wouldn't do that ter you, Joe, 'onnist!"

"Is that how come you won last night?" asked Joe, suspiciously. "You sneaky little sod – just you wait till Leo goes! I'm going to sort you out properly!"

"Don't let me stop you," I said, standing up. "I'm sure he deserves it!"

I went to the door, told them to have fun, and left them to it. I was happy that they'd got together, because I reckoned they were both due for a bit of happiness, but at the same time I was still worried about them coming to Norway with us. I know it was their choice, just as it had been mine, but I could understand why my uncle was worried about me going on the trip, because I felt the same way about my friends coming. If the mission went wrong and something happened to any of them I didn't know if I would be able to deal with it…

Chapter Fifteen

I still hadn't got around to ordering myself a flying uniform – or perhaps 'costume' would be a better word, since apparently I was free to wear anything I wanted – and so when Saturday morning came around I just dressed in my usual clothes. But it turned out that I was going to be at least partly in uniform anyway, because once we'd finished breakfast, at the unusually early time of seven o'clock, my uncle handed me and each of my friends a long heavy black coat.

"You'll need this tomorrow," he told me, "and you might as well put it on now, because it's cold out there."

So I took it, put it on and followed him out of the house, and he was right: it was cold. The sun hadn't quite risen and the clear sky suggested that it would be warmer later in the day, but as it was I was glad of the coat. The others had decided to wear their coats too, although the uniform quality was rather spoiled by the headgear: Wolfie was wearing his Eagle-crowned helmet and both Alex and Joe were wearing baseball caps. As usual I wasn't wearing a hat, but I wondered if I'd wish I'd brought one once we got to Norway.

We waited by the mast while the tractor towed the ship across from the hanger, and once it had been moored we followed my uncle into the bridge gondola.

"I've divided your friends into different watches," he told me, pinning a list of names in three columns to the panel above the chart table. "It wouldn't be fair on you to give you a crew that was two-thirds novices. I've kept you and Wolfie together because he's got more experience than you, so he'll be able to advise you. And I won't be asking you to take a night watch, either, so really there's nothing to worry about. If I didn't think you could handle it I wouldn't have brought you with us.

"As far as today's trip is concerned I want you to take the second watch. That should be straightforward enough for your first time in command. But I want you to watch and listen closely to take-off and landing procedures, because sooner or later you'll need to be able to do both. Now, while we're waiting for steam to be raised, why don't you tell me the bearing you'd want us to take first of all?"

I looked at the chart. "I can't tell you for sure until we get up there and can see what the wind is doing, but for now I reckon somewhere around three hundred and forty," I said.

"Good answer. Calculate an exact bearing for Dingwall assuming no wind at all and we'll adjust it for wind once we get airborne."

Around me the crew took their places. Of my friends, only Joe and Sparrer were on the first watch, so Alex and Billy were able to relax, and of course Tim, who was also with us, wouldn't have to worry about duty at all. Since we weren't officially on duty Wolfie and I should have been able to relax too, but actually I was glad of the opportunity to make sure I was doing this right before I had to do it solo later on, and so I grabbed Wolfie and got him to double-check my calculations.

"I make it three-four-one, assuming no wind," I reported.

"What magnetic variation are you using?"

"One fifty-one west."

"Correct, but make sure you check the chart every time," said my uncle. "We're going a long way north and the variation changes a lot up there. There's about eight degrees difference in the variation between Dingwall and Lofoten, so it's vital that you adjust correctly each time we check our position. Understood?"

I nodded, thinking that there was a serious chance that I was going to mess up sooner or later: I had horrible visions of getting a bearing wrong in low cloud or fog, losing the rest of the fleet and ending up completely lost, on our own and in hostile air space. I supposed that at least I wouldn't have to worry about it for a few hours yet, but the thought was still nagging away at me even while I was off duty.

A few minutes later we were in the air. Once we reached eight hundred feet [250 m] I checked the instruments, made an adjustment to the bearing to take the wind into account and offered the result to my uncle, who nodded his agreement and called the bearing to the helmsman, and then we were on our way.

I spent most of the first part of the voyage looking out of the windows with Wolfie and the others: we were over land the whole way and visibility was good, so there was plenty to look at. At each check, generally once an hour, I joined my uncle at the desk and helped him to confirm our position with visible landmarks and then to calculate any necessary adjustments to our course.

Then, at midday, I took over as officer of the watch. To make matters worse, as soon as he had officially handed over to me my uncle disappeared up the ladder that led off the bridge. I'm sure he did it deliberately so that I wouldn't feel that he was constantly looking over my shoulder, but right at that moment I wouldn't have minded him looking over my shoulder one little bit.

But gradually I began to relax. The ship sailed serenely onwards, the wind remained light and fairly constant and nothing untoward happened: no sudden thunderstorms and no squadrons of Eagles suddenly bearing down upon us. Manchester came into view off our port bow as expected, and at the next course check Bradford was where it was supposed to be, too. By the end of that first four-hour watch I felt a great deal better about things.

Of course, as my uncle had pointed out, it was fairly easy to maintain course over land and in clear conditions, but when I handed over to Mr Hall at the end of my watch I still felt good. Maybe I wasn't going to mess up after all.

Once the handover was complete I beckoned Wolfie to follow me and headed up the ladder. It was hard to find anywhere private: there was a small cabin for the captain, but since my uncle wasn't on duty he was probably in it, and I was pretty sure that all the other cabins would also have off duty crew in them. But then I remembered something, and I led Wolfie up to the top of the ship.

"My uncle told me that only one turret is manned while we're over British soil," I told him. "So that ought to mean that there's nobody in two of them. Let's try the rear one."

Sure enough the rear rocket turret was unmanned, so we let ourselves in and closed the hatch. I checked that the speaking tube was stoppered – I didn't want the communications officer listening in – and pulled Wolfie into my arms.

"We should make the most of this," I said. "I don't suppose we'll get a lot of opportunities to be on our own for the next three or four days."

"I don't think we'd want to do very much anyway," he said. "I think that taking our clothes off north of the Arctic Circle would probably be a bad idea. I would be very unhappy if your personal areas got frostbite."

"Not half as unhappy as I'd be," I said, shuddering to think of it. "I know the admiral said it won't be particularly cold in the Lofoten Islands, but on the whole I'd prefer not to risk it. On the other hand, I can think of some good ways to warm it up again if it happened to you."

"I'm sure you can," he said, grinning, "especially if you've been talking to Ben again."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me about another way of doing sex. He seemed a bit surprised that you haven't suggested it to me yet, actually. He said that when he told you about it he was hoping you'd share it with me."

"Ah. Well, I was going to, but… to be honest I wasn't sure how you might react."

"You thought that I wouldn't like to try something new with you? Why would you think that?"

"Well, it is a bit weird."

"Do you think so? I think it sounds interesting, and I definitely want to try it. But I think it might be best to do it somewhere good and warm and where we have a comfortable bed, so I suppose that it will have to wait until we get back home. So that is another reason why nothing is going to go wrong on this mission, you understand? Anyway, Ben told me that you had practised with him, so… what is it like? Is it as good as Ben says it is?"

"I thought so. It was really nice having it done, and I didn't mind doing it for him, either. But I think it'll be better with you. You're bigger than he is, for a start."

"And are there other ways in which I am better than Ben?"

"Obviously. You've got beautiful hair, for a start. Of course I can't really see it at the moment – any of it, in fact. Why don't you take that silly bird off your head?"

"Don't insult the Eagle of Brandenburg," he said, trying unsuccessfully to conjure up a scowl. "Not unless you want me to refer to your crest as a mangy pussy-cat."

"My lion could take your eagle any day."

"Oh, yes?"

"Obviously."

Let's see, shall we?"

He took his helmet off and then grabbed me, and for a couple of minutes we rolled around on the floor, play-fighting. But there wasn't a lot of room in the turret, and trying to jerk back from one of his attacks I banged my head on the rocket launcher. I swore loudly.

"Suddenly I wish I'd got a steel hat myself," I said, rubbing my head and wincing. "That really hurt."

"I'll order you one when we get home," he promised. "Maybe we can even find one with a mangy pussy-cat on top."

"You can tell this is hurting," I said. "I'd never let you get away with that otherwise. Come on, let's go back to the bridge. It's a lot warmer down there."

There was a heating system in the front gondola – basically it was just a tube that carried hot air from the furnace in Gondola Two, but it did quite a good job. Most of the rest of the ship was less warm, because although some hot air was channelled into the deck area, it would have been unwise to have hot metal pipes running next to the hydrogen gasbags, and so only the area close to the gondolas got the benefit.

We returned to the bridge and found that it felt pleasantly warm compared to the turret, and I found myself wondering if we would be able to find a way to install electric heaters in the turrets and other extremities of the ship once we'd sorted out the legal stuff. I thought that it would be perfectly feasible to install a generator which could be driven by steam from the furnace in Gondola Two, and that would allow us to put in some internal lighting as well as heating. At the moment lighting was a real problem: oil lamps need great care if you're using them while surrounded by envelopes of hydrogen.

By now we were approaching Dingwall, our destination for today. Already I could see the expanse of the Moray Firth ahead of us, and then we passed over Inverness and Mr Hall, who was officer of the watch, called out the order to begin to descend. Billy was at the wheel at this point and I expected him to be relieved, but Mr Hall gave no such order, although it was noticeable that one of the regular helmsmen was on the bridge and keeping an eye on things from a distance. Alex was on duty too, and in his case there was a more senior crewman next to him: a certain amount of venting, mainly from the steam envelopes, is needed when an æthership comes in to land, and of course Alex had never done this before.

"Engines, one quarter. All right, Mr Rodgers," said Mr Hall, "wind direction is three-two-five, speed five knots. See the mast down there? Then line us up and bring us in."

The senior helmsman stepped forward and muttered something in Billy's ear but then stepped back again and let him get on with it. I looked out of the window nervously: if we overshot the mast we'd have to go round and come at it from the same direction again, and if we landed short we'd make life very difficult for the ground crew. But what really worried me was the prospect of colliding with the mast, because if we did that the mission would be over before it had really started.

"Vent three and nine," commanded Mr Hall, and Alex, with some help from the senior man, managed to select the correct envelopes. The ship began to drop a little more.

"Engines, station holding. Gas, three-second vent of five and seven… release mooring cables. Port engine, five second burst at one quarter… that should do it. Port engine, return to station holding. Gas, another three second vent of five and seven… that's it, they have us. Engines, all stop."

Outside the ground crew had successfully grabbed our mooring cables, and soon we were safely tethered to the mast and the other cables were being pegged down.

"Finished with engines," ordered Mr Hall. "Thank you, everyone. Desk, tell the crew they may disembark. Mr Rodgers, well done: that was a tidy job. The approach hardly wavered at all, despite the wind gusting."

I don't know how Billy was feeling, but I did know that all of that juggling between engines, helm and gas envelopes had made me nervous again: I was convinced that if I tried to land the ship I'd make a complete mess of it. Venting the envelopes, for example: Mr Hall had the experience to know which envelopes should be vented for how long, but I certainly didn't, and if I got it wrong we'd either sail serenely over the mooring mast and have to go around and start all over again, or we'd drop too quickly and hit the ground.

"Come on," said Wolfie, nudging me out of my semi-trance, "let's go and see if we can persuade our host to find us a quiet room a long way from everyone else."

"Don't get your hopes up," I said, looking at the stately pile in front of us.

It was rather smaller than my own place, being neither as tall nor as wide, and I thought that there might not be quite as many guest rooms, and therefore not much chance of us getting a room that wasn't next door to someone else, probably my uncle. And that would certainly act as a bit of a deterrent to too much misbehaviour overnight.

Our host was waiting for us about fifty yards away. My uncle had told me a bit about the earl and his exploits as an æthership captain, and as a result I'd had this mental image of a giant of a man with a massive, Brian Blessed-type beard, wearing a kilt and striding about the place bellowing at us in an impenetrable Scots accent. Instead we were greeted by a man of average height, clean-shaven and dressed in perfectly ordinary trousers and a tweed jacket. And although he had a Scottish accent, it was perfectly understandable.

"Good afternoon to you, Gilbert," he greeted my uncle, offering him his hand. "You're nicely on time: supper should be ready in about half an hour. And… good Lord, is this Caroline's boy?"

"It is," said my uncle. "This is Leo. Leo, this is Alasdair Mackenzie, Fourteenth Earl of Seaforth."

"Pleased to meet you, Sir," I said, offering my hand, which was shaken politely.

"Last time I saw you, you were about five years old, I think," said the earl. "Welcome to Brahan Castle".

I have to say that it didn't look remotely like a castle: when you think of a Scottish castle you imagine something like that one that always appears on biscuit tins and turns up in films whenever the director wants somewhere remote, solid-looking and surrounded by water. This place looked like a standard stately home.

"And this is Wolfgang-Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth," my uncle went on, and Wolfie shook the earl's hand in his turn. "So – how's Nessie?"

"If you are referring," said the earl, glaring at him, "to His Majesty's Scottish Æthership Caberféidh, she is fine, as you will see in the morning." He grinned. "I gather it was you who put my name forward for this venture. If that is so, thank you: it's been a while since I last had an opportunity to twist the Tsar's tail."

He turned and led the way to the house, giving me no opportunity to introduce the others. I suppose he thought they were servants of some sort: maybe he saw Alex and Joe as my personal bodyguards, Tim as my advisor and Billy and Sparrow as valets. Or maybe he was simply used to filtering out anyone who didn't come with a title.

Inside the house we were met by a couple that I assumed to be the butler and the housekeeper. Both looked a little surprised at how many of us there were.

"Will all of these young gentlemen be staying?" asked the butler.

"Is that a problem?" I asked.

"Ah," said the earl. "We'd counted on four rooms, you understand: Gilbert, his First Officer, you and the Margrave. We'd assumed that the remainder of the crew would sleep in our barracks."

I could see that my friends weren't too keen on that.

"Don't worry," I said. "If you don't have any other rooms ready we can always share. If you can just find some blankets – and maybe a couple of mattresses…"

"Let it not be said that Clan Mackenzie is lacking in hospitality," said the earl, firmly. "I am sure that we can prepare at least two more rooms. That will still call for some sharing, but I'm sure your servants won't mind too much – it will still be better than sleeping in the barracks."

"That's very kind," I said. "And I'm sure you're right: sharing will be no hardship for them." Quite the reverse, in fact: I was pretty sure that even if we'd been supplied with a room each, some of the beds would not have been slept in.

Supper was excellent: the main course was venison, a meat I'd never eaten before, but I thought it tasted really good. Apparently the deer-stalking season had just ended and the earl thought it logical to share the results of his final stalk of the year with us. I wasn't sure whether or not Joe was allowed to eat deer, but he was tucking in quite happily, and so I assumed that it didn't contravene any of his dietary laws.

"Well, yes and no," he said, when I asked him about it. "Yes, we're allowed to eat deer, but no, because this wasn't killed the kosher way. But there is quite a lot of leeway when you're a guest in someone's house – after all, I don't suppose anything I ate at your house was strictly kosher, either. But I don't think God minds too much."

"I reckon 'e's orlright, your god," said Sparrer, who was sitting next to Joe. "After all, 'e ain't smote yer yet, even after orl the bad stuff you an' me 'ave done wiv each uvver – like last night, when I…"

"Ben!" interrupted Joe, blushing again. "For Heaven's sake shut up – we're in public here!"

"Oh, yeah, so we are," said Sparrer, though it was obvious that none of the adults was listening to us. "Sorry. But, anyway, if God can put up wiv that, I don't reckon 'e's gonna get too mad about the wrong type of meat."

Personally I thought that God, if he existed at all, probably had other things to worry about than who was sleeping with who, but then I knew very little about Joe's religion, and so I decided to keep quiet. Instead I asked Billy how he had felt being at the helm when we were landing.

"Scared," he said. "Proper scared when we started to descend – I hadn't expected as how I'd keep the wheel for the landing. But Mr Green – he's the senior helmsman – told me that all I really had to do was to keep the ship pointing at the mast and not to worry about the descent. He told me that everything else would be done by other people – like angle of descent, engine speed, gas venting and so on – and that my job was easy. I was still a bit nervous-like, but it were a bit less scary after that. I reckon as how I could do it on my own now if I had to."

"Good," I said. "So by the time I get to take over as captain you should be expert at it. Looks like I've found my own senior helmsman."

He stared at me. "Do you really mean that?" he asked.

"Sure. Why not?"

"But… wow! See, I thought as how if I even got to fly at all it would be as a stoker, seeing as how that's all I knew how to do. But to actually fly a ship… that's so much better!"

"Of course, if we make a mess of this mission, probably none of us will ever fly again, including me," I warned him. So we've all got to do the best we can to make sure it all goes smoothly. But if it does I'm hoping my uncle will let me fly some missions without him and Mr Hall – maybe in a couple of years, when I'm sixteen. And by then all of us should be pretty experienced, and I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be helmsman. Just listen to everything Mr Green and the other helmsman tell you and watch what they do. After all, that's what I'm trying to do with my uncle."

At that stage I was feeling quite confident – after all, we'd all completed our first day of a real mission without anything going wrong, and from now on we'd have another ship at least alongside us, which ought to go a long way to ensure that nothing would go too far astray. At least, I hoped not.

After supper the earl invited Wolfie and me to join the other men for a cigar and what I suspected would be quite a lot of alcohol. I declined before my uncle could do so on our behalf.

"I think we'll need to be at our best tomorrow," I said, "so we'll leave the drinking to those who are used to it. So thank you, but I think we'd do better to get an early night."

"How come I didn't get invited?" complained Alex, as we followed the butler to the guest rooms. "I wouldn't have minded a few drinks."

"I don't think we were talking about a half of shandy there," I said. "I don't suppose you like whisky anyway."

"Hey, I can handle a lot more than shandy – and how am I going to find out if I like whisky if you don't let me try some?"

"It wasn't me who didn't invite you," I pointed out. "But personally I don't want you on the control board tomorrow if you've got a hangover. I can just imagine you emptying all the hydrogen bags by mistake and dumping us in the Norwegian Sea."

"We're not all like you," he replied. "Some of us don't puke up after half a glass of wine."

"That was three years ago, and it wasn't half a glass, either. It was more like half a bottle."

"Yeah, right. One sip and you're anyone's."

"You wish! I bet you were just hoping I'd get so drunk you'd be able…"

I noticed that Wolfie and Billy were both listening in and decided to shut up.

"Okay, if you want to get shown up, we'll have a drinking contest when we get back home" I said, rashly.

"You're on," he replied at once. "I reckon two of anything and you'll fall over."

I thought he was probably being a little harsh there – after all, I did drink a glass or two of wine at mealtimes, so it wasn't as if I never drank alcohol at all. On the other hand, I knew that he did too, at least since he'd moved into my place. Even so, there was no reason to think I was sure to lose.

As I had expected, the original four guest rooms were at the front of the house. I suggested to Tim that he should take the third one, leaving the first two for my uncle and Mr Hall, and that Wolfie and I would share the fourth one.

"You shouldn't have to share," protested Tim.

"Oh, we're used to it," I told him. "Besides, you ought to get a good night's sleep tonight, because we'll be relying on you once we get to Norway."

"Well, if you're sure…"

"I am," I said. This one's yours. Wolfie, you might as well get settled in; I'll go and see where the others are in case we need them later."

The other two rooms were in the East Wing, and were fairly clearly intended for servants rather than actual guests: they were smaller, sparsely furnished and featured iron-framed twin beds. Still, I was sure they would be a great deal better than the barracks.

"Dump your bags," I said to my friends, "and then come back to my room. I know I told my uncle we'd have an early night, but it's a bit too early to go to bed just yet. We can talk about what's going to happen tomorrow."

I made my way back to our room, where I found Wolfie sitting on the bed waiting for me.

"It seems a bit early to go to bed," he said. "Can you think of anything we could do to pass the time first?"

"I'm sure I can;" I replied. "Unfortunately it'll have to wait, because we're going to have company: I invited the others to come and join us."

"Well, that wasn't very clever, was it?"

"Sorry. We can always throw them out in ten minutes' time."

"I suppose we could. But I bet we don't – I know what you're like."

I was saved from having to answer that by the arrival of Alex, Joe, Billy and Sparrer. I told them to come in and grab a chair, which was tricky because the room contained only a sofa and a hard-backed chair that was in front of a writing-desk, and oddly nobody seemed keen on that. Instead they all tried to squeeze onto the sofa, which really wasn't big enough for four of them. Sparrer solved the problem by parking himself on Joe's lap instead.

I asked Joe and Sparrer how they felt about their first real turn of duty, and they both said that they'd been nervous at the start of the watch but happy enough with their performance by the end of it.

"I suppose that means that you all want to stay aboard tomorrow, then," I said. "You don't have to – there's no reason why you can't stay here. We can pick you up on the way back…"

A chorus of abuse greeted that suggestion, which didn't actually surprise me at all.

"Well, when the ship has crashed and you're about to drown in the middle of the Norwegian Sea, don't say I didn't offer," I said.

"Even with you in command I don't think that'll happen," said Alex.

"Thank you for that vote of confidence," I said.

"Oh, it's not confidence in you. As long as Wolfie's beside you I'm counting on him to make sure you don't mess up."

"Yes, well, don't laugh too loudly, because when I get to fly missions without my uncle and Mr Hall I'm going to be looking for a Second Officer, and it might well be you – so maybe you ought to start learning how to read a map and find a bearing. Once you see how complicated it is, maybe you'll start to appreciate my genius."

"Are you serious? You'd actually make me an officer?"

"You must be desperate," commented Billy, which led to a minor scuffle.

"Billy maybe has a point," I allowed, once the fight had subsided, "but actually, yes, I am serious. I don't suppose it'll happen before I'm sixteen, so we've got a year and a half to train you and that ought to be enough. You're not completely dim, after all. Seriously, if I start out with a crew of my own age, by the time I'm twenty-one we'll have had five years flying together, and a crew that is used to working together is really important if you're going to be a successful captain.

"But let's get this mission done first. Tomorrow morning we'll be flying to the big naval base in the Orkneys – it's not too far from here, so it will only take a couple of hours – and there we'll refuel and hopefully meet up with the French ships that'll be coming with us. And then it's non-stop to the Lofotens, which will mean flying through tomorrow night. My uncle says he won't expect us to work the night watches, but after that things will get serious because we'll be in enemy air space. So no messing around, okay? Have any of you got any questions?"

"Yeah, I fink so," said Sparrer. "It's not abaht termorrer, but… See, them little beds in our rooms are gonna be a bit small fer two of us. So I was finking: wot if we wuz ter challenge you ter a game of cards? If we win, we get to sleep in 'ere and 'ave that proper-sahzed bed yer sittin' on."

"Good point," agreed Alex. "I reckon me and Billy wouldn't mind sleeping in here, either. So we're definitely up for it if there's going to be a game."

"I don't think so," I said. "I mean, what's the incentive for me and Wolfie? If we lose, we have to sleep in the small beds, and if we win we just get to stay where we already are."

"Well, if we play a strip game you'll get ter take the piss aht of us if we lose," said Sparrer. "And then I got sumfink else ter offer: see, yesterday afternoon I sort of fahnd myself in the pantry, and while I wuz there a couple of bottles of cider sort of fell inter my bag. An' I fort that maybe yer might like to 'elp us drink 'em, sort of fing."

"You mean, you stole some cider from my pantry?" I asked.

"Nah, of course not! Not stole – I don't steal nuffink no more! I wuz jes' lookin' after 'em," he said, virtuously. "An' I fort maybe we could sort of share 'em rahnd while we play. Wot abaht it?"

"Sounds good to me," said Alex, before I could speak. "After all, you're always saying you want us all to just treat you like one of us, so it seems only fair that we should sort of draw lots to see who gets the decent bed."

"I don't think I said anything like that," Wolfie pointed out.

"That's just tough. You're with Leo, so you have to stick with his rules. So, what about it, Leo – or are you too chicken?"

"Don't start that again," I said. "You know the 'chicken' thing doesn't work. But… yes, okay, I'm game. One condition, though: Ben doesn't get to deal."

"Wot? Don't yer trust me?" asked Sparrer, pretending to look wounded.

"Now that you mention it – no, at least not where cards are concerned. So how are we going to do it – are we playing in pairs, or what?"

"No, let's all play separately," said Alex. "Whoever wins, he and his partner get this bed – so if Wolfie wins, you two stay here, or if Billy wins, he and I get the decent bed."

"Okay, why not?" I agreed, trying not to look at Wolfie, who didn't seem particularly enthusiastic. But clearly the others were much happier about it. Alex and Joe moved the sofa to face the bed and then went and collected a small table from a corner of the room and put it between the two. Meanwhile Sparrer delved into his bag and produced not only a bottle of cider, but four glasses as well.

"Are those mine too?" I asked.

"Nah, of course not! I fahnd these in our rooms. I 'spect you've got one, an' all."

In fact it turned out that there were two on the little shelf above the washbasin, which was handy, since it meant that we now had one each. Sparrer pulled the cork on the bottle and filled the glasses, and Alex pulled his pack of cards from his pocket and started to shuffle.

"What about a toast?" I said, lifting my glass. "A successful mission and a safe return!"

We all drank to that, and then: "An' a comfy bed!" added Sparrer.

"Only if you can win without cheating," I said, darkly. "Let's cut for deal."

We did that and Joe won, which I thought was good because I didn't think there was any real danger of Joe cheating – at least, not compared to the chances of Sparrer trying it on again.

With six of us playing, and all of us wearing several layers, both because of the weather and because we'd been dressed fairly formally for supper, it was quite a while before anyone needed to worry about embarrassment. Nobody had a losing streak, and if Joe was losing slightly less than the rest of us that was only natural, because the dealer always has a slight advantage at Pontoon. Sparrer kept our glasses topped up, producing a second bottle when the first one was empty, and then a third.

"When you said 'a couple of bottles', I asked, "What exactly did you mean?"

"A couple," he said. "That means sumfink close ter two, dunnit?"

"How close?"

"Well, free… ish."

"Ish? Come on, Ben – exactly how many?"

"Four," he admitted. "But I left one in our room, 'cos I fort you'd 'ave a fit if we got too ratted, seein' as 'ow we 'ave ter fly termorrer. So we got 'alf a bottle each."

I didn't think that would be too much: Wolfie and I regularly drank wine with meals; Alex had always claimed that he drank beer at home, and I knew that Sparrer had drunk gin while he lived in the sewers. That left Billy and Joe, whose drinking habits I knew nothing about. But both seemed quite happy to drink whatever was put in front of them, so I decided just to wait and see what happened.

We'd just about finished the second bottle when I lost three hands in a row. This reduced me to my underwear and greatly increased the level of pointed comments about both my physique and my chances of sleeping in a decent bed. I did my best to ignore them and watched closely as Joe dealt the next hand, but if he was cheating he was doing it so well that I couldn't spot it.

I survived the next couple of hands, both of which were lost by Alex, and that at least meant that maybe I wouldn't be the first one to lose. But I certainly wasn't going to win: Sparrer had only lost a couple of times, and Billy was also wearing most of what he'd started in. And a couple of hands later I lost again, and that was me finished. I removed my boxers and dropped them on top of the rest of my clothes and then sat back to watch the others play and to cheer Wolfie on. I wasn't quite so worried about being naked in front of my friends this time: by now they had all seen me in a state of nature except Joe, and he was far too polite to comment. He did clearly check me out, though, and had to be nudged to remind him to deal the next hand.

Alex was next to lose, and this time Joe tried to be a little less blatant in his inspection. I waited for one of the others, or perhaps Alex himself, to make the usual 'compare and contrast' comments about the difference between him and me, but nobody did, so perhaps I was judging my friends too harshly.

Sparrer broached the third bottle and the four survivors played on. Joe himself hit a bad streak but still managed to outlast Wolfie by one hand, which meant that Wolfie and I were clearly going to be sleeping in a smaller bed tonight. And then Joe lost once more, and he was very obviously nervous about removing his underwear.

"If anyone laughs – and I'm especially looking at you here, Alex – I'll kill them. Okay?" he said.

"From where I'm sitting, I'd say you've got nothing to be ashamed of," commented Alex, eyeing the bulge in Joe's boxers.

"That's what you think," said Joe, slipping his boxers off, revealing a very large, hard piece of meat – a good six inches [15 cm], I estimated – with balls to match but a complete lack of hair. I don't know what sort of depilatory cream he was using, but whatever it was, it was good: there wasn't even a trace of stubble.

Of course Sparrer and I knew about this already, and so did Billy, but it looked as though Billy hadn't told Alex, because Alex did a massive double-take.

"Bloody hell, Joe," he said, "That's… wow! How come you haven't…? I mean, it's well huge, but…"

"It's 'cos of…" started Sparrer, but that's as far as he got.

"Shut up, Ben!" interrupted Joe. "I'll tell you about it later, Alex – or probably Billy will. Leo, I'm sure you can fill Wolfie in."

"I didn't think as how I ought to say anything, without you saying as I could," said Billy. "To be right honest, I didn't think as how Ben should have told me."

"You're right, he shouldn't," said Joe. "But thanks for keeping it to yourself, Billy. I appreciate it. To be honest, though, I don't really mind Alex knowing – after all, he's a friend, and he knows more about the background than any of you, so you can certainly tell him. And thanks for not laughing, Alex. Now let's finish the game. My glass seems to be empty, Ben…"

Having successfully changed the subject he picked up the pack, shuffled – as he had done each time someone had dropped out of the game – passed the cards to Billy to cut, and dealt fresh hands to Billy and Sparrer. Rather to my surprise it was Billy who eventually won, so I decided that I owed Sparrer an apology for having thought that he might be cheating.

"Well done, Billy!" said Alex happily. "We get the comfy bed. So that makes this our room. Out, peasants!"

"Not till we get froo the bottle," said Sparrer. "I ain't leavin' it 'ere for you two."

I suppose we'd been getting a bit loud, which is what generally happens at parties as the amount of alcohol drunk increases. Those doing the drinking don't usually notice, and I certainly hadn't, but clearly the noise had carried because the door opened and Tim put his head around it.

"Don't tell me," he said in German. "This is Naturist Evening."

"No," I said. "It's just us being strange again. Sorry if we disturbed you. Do you want a drink?"

"No, thank you. I'd just like to be able to get to sleep fairly soon."

"Sorry," I said again. I switched to English. "Let's drink up and go to bed. We probably ought to, because I expect we'll be leaving early in the morning."

Tim said goodnight and went back to his room and the rest of us finished the bottle and put on enough clothing to be decent in case we ran into any of Seaforth's servants between here and the other two rooms.

"There's no point in moving all our stuff," I said to Alex. "We'll swap back first thing in the morning."

Alex agreed to that and wished us goodnight, managing not to gloat too much, and then Wolfie and I went with Joe and Sparrer back to the servants' wing.

"Sorry," I said to Wolfie, once we were alone in our new room. "I bet you think I should never have agreed to this, don't you?"

"No, actually," he said, surprising me. "After all, these beds are about the same size as the one in our headquarters, and the best thing about sharing that bed with you is that we stay touching each other all night. I really like waking up first and finding you draped all over me, or me all over you. You look really beautiful when you're asleep, you know."

"Do I? I must change a hell of a lot when I go to sleep, then. Of course, you look perfect asleep or awake…. Come on, let's get to bed."

Five minutes later we were cuddled up together. It wasn't the softest bed I have ever slept in, but the company meant that I didn't care. Wolfie was right: sleeping two to a fairly small bed felt great…

***

I woke up first next morning. It was still dark, but I'd left my flashlight on the table beside the bed and so I was able to use it to check the time. It was only around seven, but I expected us to be called fairly soon: the sun would be up in an hour, and I was fairly sure my uncle would want us to be in the air as soon as it was light enough to see what was happening. But before I got out of bed I shone the torch on Wolfie…

I realised once again how amazing he looked, and just for a moment I got the shivers: what the hell was I doing taking him with me on such a potentially dangerous trip? It was all very well saying that it was his decision, but I was sure I'd still hold myself to blame if anything happened to him. I wondered if I could possibly persuade him to stay here instead of coming with us, but I realised straight away that it wasn't going to happen: if he'd tried to talk me into staying here I'd have told him where to put that idea. I decided that instead I'd just have to stick to him really closely, so that whatever happened, it would happen to both of us.

The torchlight shining on him had disturbed his sleep and he was starting to stir, so I completed the process by kissing him until he opened his eyes and smiled at me sleepily.

"Come on," I said. "We need to get up and get back to the other room – I left my washing kit there, and it would probably be an idea to make sure the others are awake anyway. It would probably better if Seaforth's servants don't have to wake them up – I'd prefer to avoid questions about why some of the beds haven't been slept in. In fact, we'd better do something about that right now."

I got up, lit the gaslight and crossed the room to the second bed, climbing into it and rolling about for a couple of minutes so that it would look as if it had actually been slept in. Then I got dressed, went next door and made sure that Joe and Sparrer were awake, and then led Wolfie back to our original room. Alex and Billy were still asleep, and very cute they looked too, curled up in each other's arms – though they clearly hadn't made much use of the wider bed: they seemed to be using only about a third of it.

I woke them up by shaking them gently. Alex just told me blearily to go away, but Billy looked really embarrassed, rolling away from Alex and then looking at me nervously.

"What's the matter?" I asked him. "Do you think I object to you and Alex sleeping together? Of course I don't. I'm glad you're together, actually – and it would probably be a good idea if you were to keep each other warm over the next few nights, because it's not likely to be very warm on Excalibur. Anyway, you need to get up and get dressed, and then go and have a wash, get your kit together and meet us in the dining hall in about fifteen minutes. And it would probably be a good idea to make sure that the other two haven't gone back to sleep, too…"

***

When we made our way out to Excalibur after breakfast we found another ship moored next to it, and now I understood my uncle's crack about 'Nessie': this ship was painted grey-green all over. It was a little smaller than Excalibur, with two rocket turrets instead of three, and where our ship had the cross of St George across the nose, this one, not surprisingly, was carrying the saltire of St Andrew. The crest above the name Caberféidh showed a red stag's head with curly antlers, which I supposed must be Seaforth's personal crest. And now he did go some way towards restoring my original expectations, because both he and his entire crew were resplendent in greeny-blue kilts. The crew were wearing warm-looking green pullovers, but Seaforth himself – we hadn't seen him at breakfast – was wearing a ruffled shirt like my uncle's, a velvet dress jacket and a heavy cloak, and on his head he had a black highland bonnet with a long feather in it.

"We've a fine day for it," he greeted us. "Clear skies and a following wind. We'll be in Orkney before ten. I'll let you lead the way, Gilbert." He handed my uncle a silver hip flask. "A quick nip to see us on our way?"

"Why not?" said my uncle, accepting the flask and taking a quick pull. "A successful trip, and all to come back alive."

"I'll drink to that," agreed the earl, doing so. "Happy hunting, Gilbert."

"Happy hunting, Mac," returned my uncle.

They shook hands and the earl went over to his own ship while we followed my uncle into the bridge gondola of ours. I suppose the stokers had been at work for some time, because as soon as we were aboard we were able to take off. My uncle didn't ask me to work out the bearing for Scapa Flow – presumably by now he was confident that I could do it without messing it up – and so I was able to stand at the window and watch Caberféidh slowly ascending behind us. And then we swung round to the north-east and began to pick up speed, and I felt that now the mission was truly under way…

Chapter Sixteen

We flew up the Cromarty Firth and then followed the coastline all the way up to John O'Groats, and from there it was just a quick hop across the Pentland Firth to the Orkney Islands. Scapa Flow, the body of water in the centre of the island group, was the largest of the British naval bases, and as we flew across it – by now we were losing height – we could see at least thirty warships of various sizes at anchor. On the north side of the anchorage was the Orkney Islands' capital of Kirkwall, and just to the west of the town there was a huge æthership base containing enough room for twenty or more ships. As we approached the base the semaphore tower on the control building began to signal us.

"Mast Seventeen," the duty signaller told my uncle. "Wind at ground level one-six-three, seven knots."

"Helm, you heard that," said my uncle. "Pass the base to the west and approach on that bearing, and watch out for that idiot in the navy ship."

A coastal defence ship was climbing away from one of the other masts and looked certain to cross our path, but the helmsman steered a little more to the west and successfully avoided it before turning to approach the mast from the north-north-west. I listened closely to my uncle's orders as the ship approached the mast and lost height, and while I still wasn't sure how he knew which gas envelopes to vent and for how long, there was no denying that he knew his stuff: this was a textbook landing.

There was a naval lieutenant waiting for us when we stepped ashore.

"Admiral Faulkner's compliments," he said to my uncle after saluting him, "but would you and your senior officers please come with me? Your ship will be refuelled while you're with the admiral, and if you need any further supplies our ground crew will be happy to oblige – if we have what you want in stock, of course."

My uncle spoke briefly with our chief engineer and then beckoned to Wolfie and me, indicating that we were to come with him and Mr Hall. The lieutenant stared at us but chose not to say anything, instead turning and leading us across the field to a low building at the north end. Here we found Air Admiral Faulkner, a small man in a black cloak and top hat, and a collection of French officers in naval uniform and one in the uniform of an army captain. My uncle greeted the admiral, said "Morning, Charlie!" to the short man and bowed to the French, who in turn bowed back, although I was conscious that some of them were staring at us.

"Who are these children?" asked one of the French officers.

"This is His Grace the Duke of Culham and His Highness the Markgraf von Brandenburg-Bayreuth," my uncle told him, at which the French guy had the grace to look embarrassed. "They're jointly my second officer. And this is Mr Hall my First Officer, who sadly doesn't know any good tailors."

That lowered the tension nicely, and when a minute or so later Seaforth and his two equally kilted officers arrived my uncle added, "And neither do these gentlemen."

Of course the earl didn't know why the French were laughing until my uncle apologised to him and introduced them properly.

The French had sent four ships in all: the fighting ships Pierre Bosquet, Joseph Joffre and Jean Rapp – the one we'd met on my first ever flight – and the troop carrier Perpignan. I wasn't sure why they had brought a troop ship, but nobody enlightened me at that point, and since my uncle didn't ask I didn't think I should either.

For the next half hour or so the senior officers discussed the mission, deciding which ships would be responsible for what. Clearly we were going to have to land at the meteor site because we needed Tim to examine the meteor before anything further was done, and the troop carrier might have to land if we did have the misfortune to find any Russians in the vicinity (so that was why it was there), but the others were intending to remain in the air to watch out for hostile forces and to provide air cover in the event of an attack. Obviously this had to be discussed now because all communication once we were in the air would have to be done by semaphore, something that might not be possible in bad visibility. But this was the point at which I had something to contribute. So I asked permission to speak and then pulled from my bag one of the radios Alex had brought back from his own world.

"This is called a radio," I told them. "Before too long I hope that we'll be able to equip every ship in both our fleets with these, and also with a way to run them constantly, because at the moment they can only be used for short periods. It allows you to speak to someone who is quite a long way away from you."

"Like a semaphore?" asked one of Seaforth's officers.

"No, like actually talking. We'll show you."

I turned the second radio on, checked that it was on the same channel and gave it to Wolfie, who took it and walked out of the room. I waited until he was a hundred metres or so away – we could see him through the window – and then pressed the 'transmit' button and said, "Hello, there. Can you hear me?"

"Yes, perfectly," came Wolfie's voice from the speaker, at which the audience seriously sat up and stared.

"Good. Come back in, then."

I waited until he was back with us and then forestalled the expected questions. "Don't ask exactly how it works, because I'm not scientist enough to explain it," I said. "Just accept that it does. We can use this mission to test them. Unfortunately we only have three of them, so we can't put one in each ship, but I thought that we'd keep one on Excalibur, put one in one of the French ships, and keep the third one to be used on the ground when we get to Norway. Obviously we'll still need semaphore to talk to the other ships, but it will make it easier for us to react quickly if anything unexpected happens. So, who wants the second one?"

The French conferred briefly before Captain Beauclair of the Rapp said he would take the radio. "Two of my communications officers speak good English, and the third can get by," he said. "If you would like to bring your device to the ship after this meeting you can explain them how it works. We are on Mast Eight."

So once the meeting was over I collected Tim, just in case I needed a translator after all, and took the second radio to Mast Eight. The interior of the French bridge was rather classier than ours, with lots of polished wood panelling and plenty of brass fittings. Their wheel was ornate where ours was merely functional, and their chairs looked more stylish, too. And at the front of the bridge, on a panel next to the chart table, was a portrait of a man in classic Napoleonic uniform and a brass plaque telling me about Jean Rapp, Comte de Colmar, born 1771, died 1821, created Marshal of the Empire in 1817 as a result of his part in the Battle of Steinbrück, wherever that was.

At that point my reading was interrupted by the return of Captain Beauclair and his signallers. I explained how to turn the radio on and which button to press if they wanted to speak and told them not to touch the other controls, especially the one used for changing channels.

"Stick to Channel One," I told them. "You shouldn't have any problem with range – in these conditions, with no interference, these sets are probably good for a hundred miles – but they won't last indefinitely. The more we talk, the quicker it will run out of power, so we should only use it during the actual operation, or in case of emergency. You'll get at least thirty hours out of the battery if it's on standby, but a lot less if we're talking all the time."

"What is a battery?" asked one of the signallers.

"This is a battery," I said, producing the spare. "When the first one stops working – you'll know because this little light won't come on when you press the 'on' button – you have to change the battery."

I demonstrated how to do that and got all three of them to show me that they could do it.

"Keep it on your communication desk," I said. "I'd suggest you turn it on at sunrise tomorrow, unless there's a storm or we lose contact with each other during the night, in which case turn it on straight away. Leave it on now and I'll call you when I get back to Excalibur, just to make sure it's working."

I shook Captain Beauclair's hand, went back to Excalibur and performed a radio check, but got no answer.

"Don't forget to press the button when you want to speak," I reminded them, and this time a voice came back.

"Good. We'll do one more test once we're in the air," I said. "Call me when you reach a thousand feet… three hundred metres. Turn the radio off now and turn it on again when you take off."

That got no answer either.

"Say 'Roger' if you understood my last message," I said.

"'Oo is Rojair?"

"It's just what you say when you've understood a message. And when you finish speaking, you say 'Over', to tell me you've finished and it's my turn to talk, okay? Over."

"Rojair," came the reply. Well, good enough, I thought, and I turned the radio off.

We were ready to take off shortly after midday. Because the troopship was a little slower than the rest of us we were going to hold our speed down to around forty knots, and that meant that the journey would take in the region of twenty hours, which would get us to our destination close to the hour of sunrise. My uncle not only asked me to take the first watch, but also altered the watch personnel so that all four of my friends were on my watch.

"That's so that none of you have to take a watch at night," he explained. "I might well ask you to take a night watch on the return journey, but none of you are used to working at night yet and I want you to ease into it. We'll be working six hour watches – more or less – on this trip instead of the usual four, because it's unlikely that anything will happen at night, so you'll have a little while in the dusk this evening.

"Now: do you feel that you're ready to handle the take-off?"

I took a deep breath. I certainly didn't feel ready to try landing the ship, but take-off was a great deal easier: the ground crew had already turned us into the wind, so all we had to do was release the mooring lines, drop the extra ballast that had been added by the ground crew on our arrival, point our nose up a bit and engage the engines.

"All right," I said. "Engines, do we have steam?"

Silence.

"Ben?" I prompted.

"Oh, shit, that's me, innit?" responded Sparrer. "'Ang on a mo…"

He set the two main engine telegraphs to 'Confirm status' and both pinged back to 'Engines ready.'

"Yeah, we're ready to go," he confirmed. "Sir," he added, belatedly.

"Engines, station holding. Signal ground crew to release cables. Are they clear? Okay, drop extra ballast. Helm, up five degrees. Engines, ahead one quarter…"

My one concern was hitting the mast, but I needn't have worried because we cleared it comfortably.

"Engines, ahead one half. Helm, take us slowly up to one thousand feet and head zero-two-five," I ordered. "Maintain half speed until the others are with us."

I checked the wind speed and direction, adjusted the bearing to zero-two-eight to compensate and watched as the other ships formed up on us: the grey-green bulk of 'Nessie' to our right, Charlie Cardington's more orthodox off-white Sparrowhawk on our left and the four French ships in line abreast behind us.

"Engines, ahead three-quarters," I ordered.

"Nice job," said my uncle. "Very well, you have the bridge. Just hold this bearing until you're relieved. If anything happens – anything at all – call me, do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," I replied, and my uncle smiled at me and disappeared up the ladder.

"Desk, call Rapp and see if they remember how to use the radio," I said.

Joe picked up the radio. "Excalibur calling Jean Rapp. Excalibur calling Jean Rapp. Do you receive me? Over," he said, demonstrating that he'd only learned how to use a radio by watching bad war films.

"Once is enough," I told him. "And you don't need to ask if they receive you, either. If they do, they'll answer, and if they don't, they won't. Keep it short."

After a few seconds – I guess they forgot about the 'speak' button again at first – a voice came back with "This is Jean Rapp. We hear you."

"Don't forget to say 'over' when you finish speaking," Joe reminded him. Anyway, we hear you perfectly. Can you hear me clearly? Over."

"We hear you clearly. Over."

"Okay, now tell them to turn the radio off until sunrise tomorrow," I said. "We need to conserve the batteries."

Joe did that and put the radio back on the desk, and really that was the last thing of note that happened for the remainder of my watch. I kept an eye on the wind gauges and made an occasional small course correction to compensate, but the other ships stayed in formation, which suggested that they were happy with my choice of heading. The Shetlands appeared below us and I did a final visual course correction as we flew over Unst, the northernmost island, and then it was just open sea beneath us.

The light began to go at around half-past five, and at that point my uncle returned to the bridge.

"I'd light the markers about now," he suggested to me.

I couldn't remember ever flying at night before, and so at first I didn't know what he was talking about.

"We're flying with other ships," he explained. "We need to show them where we are so that they don't collide with us, so we use coloured lights – oil-lamps with coloured glass. They're permanently mounted in the observation ports, so you've probably noticed them. All you need to do is to call Gondola Two and tell the duty Petty Officer to light the lamps."

"You heard the captain," I said to Joe. "Call the lamp geezer."

Joe did that, although he used the term 'petty officer' rather than 'geezer', which was probably just as well. Shortly after that I noticed lights appearing on the other ships: white on the nose of each, green on the port side of Caberféidh, blue on the starboard side of Sparrowhawk.

"Make sure you remember the colours," my uncle said. "Green to port, blue to starboard, white ahead and red astern. That way if you see another ship's light's at night you can visualize her position and direction. You'll also notice that the rest of the fleet will go into line astern shortly – that way all the helmsman of each ship has to do is to follow the red stern light of the ship in front."

A man in petty officer uniform came into the bridge and lit the lamps hanging above the chart table and the various desks. When they were all alight he saluted my uncle.

"All lights are burning," he reported.

"Thank you, Mr Stacey," replied my uncle.

We flew on for another half an hour or so. By now it was dark outside, and the only light I could see was the white nose light of Sparrowhawk, which had fallen in line behind us. I couldn't see anything at all ahead of us: clouds blocked the stars and there was no sign of the moon either, and I really didn't like the feeling of just sailing straight ahead at forty knots when I couldn't see what we were flying into. Logically I knew there was nothing there but empty sky, but it's a scary feeling to be moving ahead into absolute blackness. It was like walking through the tunnels at home, except that here I was responsible for an entire shipload of people who would die if I flew them into some unseen object.

Finally my uncle relieved me, and relieved is certainly what I felt. Okay, we might still hit something, but at least it wouldn't be my fault if we did.

"We've cleared the store on Deck Two as a cabin for your friends," my uncle told me. "You can use the officers' cabin, or stay with your friends if you prefer. Go and get something to eat and then you can decide, but make sure you come back and tell me, in case we need you during the night."

On long journeys the furnace in Gondola Two doubled as a galley: hotplates on top of it allowed hot food to be prepared, and there was a crew area close to the top of the gondola ladder that was equipped with tables and lightweight folding chairs. Of course the lack of space in the gondola prohibited any really complicated meals, but the stew the cooks had prepared on this occasion was hot and filling and tasted pretty good too, which was basically all I wanted.

The dining area was fairly warm because there was a heating tube connecting it to the gondola below, but once we'd finished eating and had made our way up to Deck Two we found that the rest of the ship wasn't very warm at all. The store-room that had been made available to us certainly wasn't very warm, even though one wall of it was against a steam gas envelope, which did provide a little faint warmth, and I thought it highly unlikely that anyone would be getting undressed tonight. There was just about enough room for eight thin mattresses, and there was a large pile of blankets and enough small pillows to go around. There was also a single oil lamp permanently attached to the ceiling, which Mr Stacey had presumably lit on his way around the ship. And that was all there was.

"Bloody 'ell, it's bleedin' parky in 'ere!" commented Sparrer. "Even the sewers woz 'otter than this!"

"Anyone fancy a game of strip poker?" I asked, which drew the expected reaction. "No, me neither. I'd suggest you grab a couple of blankets each and wrap yourselves up in them. You'll warm up a bit like that."

I grabbed a couple myself, turned out the lamp and went and lay down beside Wolfie, wrapping my blankets and his around both of us. It wasn't half as nice doing this fully dressed as when we were naked, but there really wasn't too much choice here: quite apart from the cold, we needed to stay dressed in case there was a sudden emergency during the night.

For the same reason Wolfie declined my offer to help him to remove his leg. He didn't like keeping it on in bed, but it made sense to do so here.

"Anyone know any good stories?" I asked, and for the next hour or so we told each other ghost stories. But eventually we ran out, and after that we settled down and tried to go to sleep.

It wasn't the best night's sleep I've ever had: I woke up two or three times, and when one of the crew came in to wake us up next morning I really wasn't feeling at my best. But at least the washrooms in a steam-powered æthership have hot water, and after a good wash I felt a bit better.

It was still dark when we reached the bridge, but that didn't stop us from taking over the watch. Mr Hall handed over to me officially and my watch took over the wheels and the various desks and we flew on into the darkness. Looking back past Gondola Two I could see a white light following us, so at least one of the other ships was still with us, but there wasn't anything else to look at outside.

Mr Hall stayed on the bridge at first, which was comforting, but once I'd made my first course correction he nodded to me and left me to get on with it.

Around a quarter past seven the first hint of light appeared in the east and as it grew I could see that there weren't quite as many clouds about today. Maybe we would have good weather, which would certainly make it easier to hunt for the meteor. On the other hand, the wind had veered round to the north, so it probably wasn't going to get any warmer.

Once I could see the sea below us I ordered the lamps to be extinguished, and shortly after that the other two British ships swung out to either side of us again. I couldn't see the French ships, though, so I asked Joe to call the Rapp to check that they were okay. There was no answer, which worried me a little, but I told myself that they had probably forgotten to turn the radio on. And when we tried again half an hour later they answered us, confirming that all four French ships were fine. Of course with no external points of reference they couldn't tell us exactly where they were, but they confirmed that they were flying on the same bearing as us, and so hopefully they wouldn't be too far away.

And then, shortly before eight o'clock, Wolfie spotted a line on the horizon off the starboard bow, and a few minutes later we could all see it without telescopes: we'd found a coastline. I got out the Norwegian charts that Admiral Faulkner had supplied, hoping that we'd be able to recognise a distinctive feature, although since the entire Norwegian coast is a mass of wiggly inlets and squiggly coastline I thought it might not be too easy to find anything unusual.

As we drew closer to land we saw that there were scores of islands off the coast, some quite large and some mere rocks, and the sheer number of these made identifying where we were difficult, especially since I wasn't completely confident that the charts were accurate.

"Helm, turn and follow the coast," I ordered. "Maybe we'll find some little fishing village that shows up on the map."

There were indeed some fishing villages here and there, but we couldn't be absolutely sure which was which until about fifteen minutes after we started following the coast. Then we found some large islands which did seem to be shown on the chart, and as we flew over them Wolfie handed me his telescope and pointed off to starboard.

"See that town? I think that's on the map."

I looked through the telescope and saw quite a large place with a wide inlet immediately south of it. Sure enough, there was a corresponding town on the map.

"That's Bod… how do you pronounce an O with a line through it?" I asked.

"Like a German O with an umlaut, I think. They use the same letter in Denmark."

"Okay, it's Bodø," I said, trying to sound the last letter properly. "That big rectangular inlet south of it has to be this one, see?" I pointed to the chart. "And in that case we're a bit too far east. Helm, new heading three-two-five and engines, full ahead both. And if the French still get there first we'll say that we were scouting around for Russian shipping."

Caberféidh and Sparrowhawk followed us onto the new heading. It was around sixty miles [100 km] from Bodø to the Lofotens, so they were visible on the horizon inside half an hour, though it took us a bit longer than that actually to reach them. We still hadn't seen any trace of other ætherships, but as far as I was concerned that was good news: any ship that we saw here was just as likely to be Russian as French.

My uncle came onto the bridge when we were still about twenty miles [30 km] short of our destination.

"Are we there yet?" he asked me, sounding exactly like a back-seat teenager.

"Almost," I said. "That's Mosken… Moskeneso… our destination, dead ahead, however you're supposed to pronounce it."

"Moskenesøya," said my uncle, sounding irritatingly sure of himself, though of course there were no native speakers around to tell him he was saying it wrong. "I can see Mac and Charlie are with us, but where are the French?"

"They were fine at sunrise," I said. "We can find out, if you like. Desk, give the Rapp a call and ask for an update."

"They estimate arrival in about forty-five minutes," Joe reported. "They hit the coast a bit too far south, the same as we did, but they know where they are now."

"Excellent," said my uncle. "So let's go and see if we can find our meteor, then. According to the admiral it's here, close to the north end of Moskenesøya. We're lucky it's on one of the flatter parts of the island, because we'd have had a real job landing if it had been in the mountains…"

We flew on until we were over land once more. From a distance the islands look like a long peninsula jutting out into the ocean, and it isn't until you get close that you realise it's actually a collection of islands that are almost locked together. Our destination was close to the northernmost point of the southernmost island, and to get there we had to fly over most of the island and part of the adjoining one. Here and there we could see small villages, but nothing large enough to be called a town, and virtually every place we found was right on the coast.

Finally we drew close to the point where the meteor was supposed to have impacted.

"Engines, half ahead both. Helm, take us down to six hundred feet [200 m], but be aware of the mountains to port. Semaphore, signal the other ships and tell them to take a wider station and commence searching," ordered my uncle, and the semaphore crew lowered the signalling arm and transmitted the message, first to Sparrowhawk and then to Caberféidh. Wolfie and I took up positions on each side of the gondola and started scanning the ground beneath us.

I was expecting to see a huge crater and couldn't understand how we could fail to spot something half a mile across, but when Sparrowhawk actually found it and signalled us to come and see I saw that this hole was only a few metres across.

"Is that it?" I asked Tim, in disbelief.

"That's it – or part of it, at least. Why, were you expecting something bigger?"

"Well, yes."

He shook his head. "We'll see for sure when we get down there, but if it had been a lot bigger it would have obliterated this entire end of the island."

"Can we land here?" he asked my uncle, sticking to German. "I'd like to make a start at checking it out."

My uncle looked uncertain. "The wind's getting up," he said. "Yes, we can probably land, but we won't be able to stay down for too long. How long do you need?"

"Half an hour should be enough for me to do a fast scan. I suppose I could try drilling out a small sample and then run the tests here, but it would be a lot better if I could do the tests on the ground. That way if I don't get conclusive results I'll be able to take another sample straight away"

"I don't think we'll be able to stay that long. We can't risk getting caught up in storm clouds, and with the mountains around here we won't be able to stay underneath them either. We know where it is now, so we can come back once the wind drops."

"That might be a while," said Tim, looking at the clouds gathering in the distance. "Look, we don't want to waste too much time here, do we? We want to get in and out as quickly as we can before someone reports seeing us to the Russians. So drop me off now, I'll get the tests done, and when you come back we'll be able to start digging straight away, assuming it's suitable, of course."

"I can't just leave you here on your own!"

"Then maybe Leo or Wolfie can come with me? Give us a tent to shelter in if the weather gets really bad, and we'll get the tests done and be ready to start work as soon as you get back."

"Well, it's true that I'd prefer not to waste time, and you're unlikely to run into anyone out here, so if you're absolutely sure..?"

"It's why I came," he said. "Just give me a moment to collect my equipment…"

He headed off up the ladder.

"You don't have to go, Leo," my uncle told me. "I can send a couple of crewmen if you'd prefer."

I shook my head. "He'll need someone who speaks French or German," I pointed out. "And you can probably spare me more easily than a trained man. Take us down and I'll go and find a tent from the stores…. You did bring some tents, I suppose?"

He nodded. "I didn't know that the French would be bringing troops with them, and since I didn't know how long it would take to dig the thing out I brought enough for a complete watch to sleep on the ground if necessary. I'll admit that I was expecting something bigger, too."

I went and collected my bag and then a tent and a roll of blankets from the store, and when I got back to the bridge I found that we were dropping slowly. The wind was gusting a bit, making the landing much more difficult, but my uncle had found a low ridge running north to south not too far from the impact site, and that gave a little shelter from the north-easterly wind.

"I'm not going to try mooring," my uncle told me. "Once we get low enough I want you to use the ladder, and we'll climb again as soon as you're clear. We'll probably try landing here when we come back unless the wind shifts, in which case we might have to use the other side of the ridge. In any case you just stay here until we come for you, all right?"

Predictably my friends wanted to come with me, but I told them we'd be fine.

"Once Tim's done his tests we'll probably get bored," I said. "You'll be better off here. Besides, there's only room in the tent for two."

"Three," said Wolfie. "And don't even think of arguing."

I took one look at his face and decided not to argue – and in any case I thought I'd be glad of his company.

Tim returned to the bridge carrying a large bag and we waited by the gondola door as the ship sank closer to the ground.

"Get ready," said my uncle.

I opened the door and unrolled the rope ladder that was anchored above the top of it, and when the foot of the ladder was just above the ground I dropped the tent and blankets, hoisted my bag onto my back and scrambled down the ladder. That wasn't as easy as it sounds, because there was still some wind blowing me about, but eventually I reached the foot of the ladder, trod on the bottom rung to stabilise it and called on the others to follow me. Tim scrambled down easily, but Wolfie had to take it a bit more slowly. Finally he reached the bottom, at which I released the ladder and called to my uncle that we were safely down. The ship began to rise once more, the ladder was pulled back inside and the door closed.

"Come on," I said to Wolfie, "let's find somewhere for the tent. The way those clouds are building I reckon it's going to rain before very long."

As we'd approached the impact site I'd noticed a kink in the ridge, and a short distance south of where we were we found a small spur sticking out of the main ridge. By putting the tent at its southern foot we had some protection from the wind from the east and from the north, so as long as the wind didn't change direction completely we'd be comfortable enough. Wolfie and I left our bags in the tent and then the three of us walked to the impact site a couple of hundred metres away.

Once again I was surprised by how small the crater was – in fact close to it looked even smaller.

"Surely you're not going to get enough material out of that to do anything with?" I said.

"You'd be surprised," Tim told me. "What we're looking for is a catalyst, remember, and that means that comparatively tiny amounts can have a major effect on a reaction. Besides, this won't be quite all there is – I would guess that it broke up before it hit the ground. Probably some of it landed in the sea, but there'll be other bits scattered about, probably smaller than this one. Have you got a compass on you?"

I had – it was in my jacket pocket. I took it out and watched the needle swing around to point at the crater.

"Good," said Tim. "The material is highly magnetic, so we should be able to find it using a compass. Now I'll get a sample so that we can see what we're dealing with."

He scrambled down into the crater, took what looked like a small drill from his bag and set to work.

"Make it quick," I said. "Any time now there's going to be a lot of rain."

"Five minutes," he replied.

The rain started after three, but he stuck to his task until he had enough material to be tested, and then he climbed out of the crater once more and we ran for the tent. It took us less than a minute to get there, but by the time we arrived our coats were very wet, and so were our shoes and the legs of our trousers. We scrambled into the tent, taking our shoes off and putting them in the bit at the end that was outside the tent but still under the flysheet, and then removing our coats. There wasn't enough room to spread them out to dry, so instead we piled them at the other end of the tent out of the way. Then I took my trousers and socks off.

"This really isn't the place for naturism," Tim pointed out.

"No, I know, but I don't think wet feet are a good idea. We're not going to be going anywhere for a while, and I reckon a dry blanket would be better than wet socks."

"Sounds sensible to me," agreed Wolfie, and he too removed his trousers and sock – he only had one, of course – even though his long boots had ensured that his trousers hardly got wet at all. Then we sat next to each other and stared at Tim.

His first reaction was to swear – at least, I think it was swearing, but I can't really understand everything he says in his dialect, and the only word I understood was 'kopf' or 'head' – in an exasperated tone of voice.

"Suppose I'm happy as I am?" he asked in rather more standard German when he'd finished with the abuse.

"If you're going to be working with your head by the entrance, you're going to be sticking your wet feet into our faces," I said. "And obviously if you catch flu you'll be no good to us, either."

He gave a theatrical sigh. "Well, if you absolutely bloody insist," he said, pausing to give us a chance to change our minds, and then, when neither of us said anything, he sighed again, shook his head but still removed his trousers and socks. Then he turned his back on us and started unpacking some of the kit from his bag.

I grabbed a blanket and thrust it at him, and then took another and wrapped it round myself and Wolfie, doing my best to keep out of Tim's way. We had no idea what exactly he was doing and he didn't bother to explain, but for the next forty minutes or so he played about with a little stove, added scrapings from the meteor to various liquids, and generally fiddled about with stuff. We watched with interest at first, then with less interest, and finally we stopped watching at all, preferring to lie on our backs and listen to the rain beating on the canvas. It didn't seem to be easing off at all.

Finally Tim stopped what he was doing and packed his kit away. He backed into the tent proper and sealed it, wrapped his blanket around himself and lay down beside us.

"Well?" I asked. What's the verdict?"

"Better than I'd hoped, to be honest. If the structure is consistent we will get at least fifty grams of the catalyst from it."

"Fifty grams? Is that all?"

"Well, if we can find more of the meteor we'll get more of the catalyst. But you're really not getting it: fifty grams would be an amazing result, and we could use it to produce quite a lot of armour. See, my father didn't think the Russians were getting the best results – he was fairly sure that different proportions would give a stronger structure that would weigh even less, and if we can collect even half of this meteor… anyway, it's probably best if I wait until we get back to the laboratory before I commit myself too much, but the important thing is that we have definitely found what we're looking for."

Well, that sounded like good news. Provided that the storm blew over fairly soon we might even get the bulk of the collection work done today, even if the freighter with the digging equipment was held up. I sat up, opened my bag and pulled out the radio.

"Leo to Excalibur, over," I said, and waited ten seconds before trying again.

"Excalibur to Leo," came Joe's voice, eventually. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, we're fine. Tell my uncle the meteor is good, over."

"He's happy to hear it, but we're not going to be able to get back to you just yet. There's a strong wind here and we're more or less having to go with it, so we're being driven away from you. We'll get back to you as soon as we can, over."

"Did you find the French? Over."

"Yes, they're close to us now, and they found the surface ships. They're still heading your way – the surface ships, that is – and they should reach the island in two or three hours. Over."

"Great! Anyway, we're fine. It's still very wet and windy here, but we're in the tent and we don't have to go anywhere. We'll see you when you get back. Out."

I put the radio back into my bag but left it turned on, just in case. Then I removed my jacket and folded it up to use as a pillow.

"Good Idea," said Wolfie. However, the amount of braid and buttons on his jacket made it a bit uncomfortable as a pillow, so in the end we put my jacket on top of his and shared it. Tim did the same with his own jacket, and once again we lay quietly for a while, listening to the wind and rain. I supposed it could have been worse: at least it wasn't snowing – in fact it wasn't even that cold, and we were comfortable enough in the tent.

Shortly after midday Wolfie sat up, delved into his bag and produced a loaf of bread and a large chunk of cheese, which we ate hungrily – we hadn't got round to eating breakfast before we left the ship. He'd brought a couple of water-bottles too.

"I should have thought of that," I admitted. "I'm supposed to be in charge. I suppose that shows that I'm not really ready for command yet."

"No, it shows that you need a good First Mate to take care of things for you," said Wolfie. "We're supposed to be a team, aren't we? But I bet you're glad you let me come with you now, aren't you?"

"I don't think I could have stopped you," I pointed out. "But I'll happily admit that I'm glad you're here."

Once we'd eaten we lay down again, and I actually dozed off for a while, probably because I hadn't slept too well the previous night. When I woke up the rain had eased off a bit but the wind still sounded quite strong. Wolfie seemed to be asleep, but Tim was sitting up drinking from one of the bottles.

"What time is it?" I asked him – my watch was in my trouser pocket and I couldn't be bothered to retrieve it.

"About three o'clock," he said. "It's still pretty wet and windy out there, but just before you woke up I thought I heard voices. I was going to put my head outside, but then I decided I'd simply imagined it. Would you like a drink?"

He passed me the bottle and I took a quick drink, but before I could hand the bottle back I heard something outside the tent myself, and a moment later the tent opened and a boy of around our own age looked in.

"Hej!" he said. "Kan jeg komme inn?"

Well, I can't speak Norwegian, but that was easy enough to understand.

"Ja, komm herein," I replied, hoping that the German was close enough to Norwegian to be understood. He gave me a broad smile displaying lots of very white teeth and then turned and spoke to somebody outside the tent, and somehow what he said didn't sound like Norwegian. I couldn't make out the reply, but then the boy gave a one-word answer, which sounded like 'Kharasho' and I realised that we might be in trouble here: Joe had taught us maybe a dozen words of Russian, and one of those was 'Kharasho', which means 'Very well'.

"So," said the boy, coming into the tent, "Hva gjør ni her?"

"I'm sorry," I said in German, "but we don't speak Norwegian."

"I see," he said, also in German. "So what are you, then? Are you English?"

If I hadn't heard that one word of Russian I might well have answered that truthfully, but as it was I thought it would be a really bad idea.

"Why would we be English?" I asked.

"Why would you be German? Either way you're a long way from home."

"I suppose that's true. We were in Oslo until recently. Right now we're doing a bit of walking, and we thought it would be interesting to see the other end of the country."

"That sounds reasonable, I suppose. I just wondered if you came from the æthership that flew over here this morning."

"Oh, we saw that one, too – around mid-morning. It was over the hills to the west of here… you mean that was English? We thought it was Russian."

"Nope. Russian ships have an eagle on the front."

"I know, but we only saw this one from the side. So what was it doing here?"

"I've no idea, but I'd like to find out. Anyway, tell me more about how you come to be living in Norway."

"Well, we used to live near Berlin – at least, I did. My parents decided it would be better to get out of Prussia when the fighting started again – of course I was only a little kid then. They moved to Oslo, and we've lived there ever since."

"So how is it that you can't speak Norwegian?"

"Well, I don't go to school – at least, not a normal one. There are a lot of German families where we live, and so we have our own sort of home school. Besides, most Norwegians seem to understand German – at least, in Oslo they do."

"I see. And what is your name?"

"Lukas Böttcher," I said. "This is my friend Klaus Schmidt, and that…"

"Thomas Thalmann," interrupted Tim. "Hello. I'm from Freiburg, and I only met these two recently, because we only moved to Norway a few months ago. Do you live around here?"

"I don't think anyone lives around here except for a few old fishermen," the boy said. "That's why we were surprised to see your tent. We were just passing through, sort of."

"So what do we call you?" I asked.

"People call me 'The Black Flash'," he said, striking a theatrical pose. "Actually my name is Pavel Mikhailovitch, but my friends call me Pasha."

"So you're Russian?"

"Good guess," he said, giving me that unnaturally wide smile once more.

"Wow – I don't think I've ever met a Russian before. But I thought Russians all had three names?"

"They do, but you really don't need to worry about my family name. So now the question is, what are we going to do with you?"

"Why do you need to do anything? We're just on holiday, and we're really not interested in anything you might be doing round here."

"Well, even if that's true – and I'm not convinced, to be honest – we can't just leave you wandering around in a wild place like this. Anything could happen to you. I think we'd better take you with us. We'll find somewhere a bit more comfortable, and then we can have a proper chat. I don't suppose any of you are orphans, are you?"

"Why would you want to know that?"

"Well, I collect orphans. What's great about them is that if anything happens to them – like if there's a nasty accident, for example – nobody worries about them, and so nobody does anything about it. See, I'm a scientist, and I often use orphans to help me with my experiments, because if they die, nobody cares. Very useful things, orphans."

I stared at him, wondering if he really was insane or if he was just trying to scare us. Either way I was starting to think we were in deep trouble here.

"So you'd better get dressed," he went on. "And make it quick: if you're not outside in two minutes we'll start shooting the tent." He grinned once more and went outside.

We looked at each other and got dressed as quickly as we could. I grabbed the radio and switched the setting so that the response was only on the earphone and not on speaker. I realised that Pasha was probably listening outside and so instead of the usual announcement I said "N13" (the postcode of Palmer's Green), "Arthur's Sword, Mayday, Mayday, sons of Stalin." I didn't dare repeat it or stay to listen for an answer, but I pressed the lock to keep the 'transmit' button open and shoved the radio to the bottom of my bag. Obviously nobody in this world would know who Stalin was, but Joe would, and he'd be able to warn my uncle that we'd run into some Russians.

"Ten seconds," called Pasha. "Nine, eight, seven…"

I scrambled outside, my laces still undone, and was dismayed to see eight adults in Russian uniforms pointing rifles at the tent.

"Hurry up!" I yelled in German. Tim crawled out dragging his bag behind him, and then Wolfie's head appeared.

"Three, two…" said Pasha,

I grabbed Wolfie and heaved, and his feet had just about cleared the tent when Pasha shouted "Fire!" and the soldiers did so. Eight rifles being fired a couple of yards away make a hell of a noise, and when I recovered and the smoke cleared I saw the tent was now thoroughly ventilated.

"Just in time!" said the Russian boy, grinning at me again. "I think I'm going to like you. We're definitely going to have a lot of fun together… well, I'm going to have fun, anyway. You, I'm not so sure.

"Now, as they've just demonstrated, my men know how to use a rifle and they can hit a tent at a range of two metres. They can also hit a boy at a range of fifty metres, so it would be a really bad idea for you to try running off. So come along quietly and you'll be just fine. Well, for the next hour or so, anyway…"

He clapped me on the back in a comradely fashion and indicated which way he wanted us to go, his soldiers formed up around us, and we set off. I was feeling more than merely anxious. But if our situation looked worrying then, it was going to look a great deal worse before the day ended…

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