Part One – Our Journey is Decided
The decision is made: our destination (& Destiny) is New Horizons.
And, only two days ago, we left the Outlands Mooring Station where we provisioned one last time and took on our three passengers: a Scientist, a Painter, and an Astrologer. Now the fact that all three are women failed to escape my notice, but as I boasted to the Navigator, “three always was my lucky number.”
Now, I stand on the open Command Deck of the Magnum-Class Modified Dirigible, The Resurgent Lady, and take in the blue sky and open lands below us as the engines purr and we Progress.
“Better update your chart, Navigator.” I toss her the dividers. “We’ll be at Citadel Waypoint in fifteen minutes.”
“Yes, Captain,” she says. “I’ll check it three times, which, as you told me recently, is your lucky number.”
I sense her derision, the object of which is elusive to me. Perhaps an encounter back of the mooring station?
But I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been an arduous journey so far for the merry crew of The Resurgent Lady, of which I am not only the captain, but the single Franchise Owner, and on the Command Deck of which I currently stand.
“Course is now north-northwest, sir,” the derisionish Navigator says.
“You’re a ruminatively thoughtful this morning,” I say.
She ignores me and points with the dividers to a darkening mass of clouds port of the airship’s tawny bow. “You do see that storm forming ahead?” Then, after a pause, she adds: “Sir?”
I’m about to tarry her verbally, but, alas, the Astrologer comes hither.
“May I join you, Captain de Stancy?” the Astrologer asks.
She stands in a non-forlorn way at the base of the wooden stairs that facilitates access to the Command Deck and me.
“Why of course, miss,” I say.
She begins to mount them, and, after a moment, she joins me at my vantage. Her scent washes over me like a pollen breeze on an early Summer day.
“What a view!” she says.
I nod and observe that her teal corset suits her as I forgo a visual inspection of the region associated with the plunge of her cleavage. After all, an officer and gentleman must be respectful to his paying passengers at all times. At least that’s what the handbook says.
“I trust you and your fellow travelers were able to obtain a state of slumber last night on my humble airship,” I say.
She smiles, but does not answer my interrogative. She places a decorate wooden case on the flat of the gunnel and, upon opening said case, I gaze upon a sextant-type instrument.
“Excuse me, captain,” she says.
The Astrologer leaves me with her Curious Instrument in hand and makes her way to the airship’s bow.
I look towards the Navigator who rolls her eyes and returns to her charts.
I should be sporting a cutlass, the sword’s sheath fastened high-altitude style to a decorative belt wrapped securely around my manly waist, but I find such a blade cumbersome given the cramp confines of “The Resurgent Lady.”
I do, I confess, carry a dagger of no merit that, back at the Station, I applied in a different sort of combat, namely accessing the feminine contents of a persnickety corset, the back strings of which I may have, through no fault of my own, knotted in a manner most perplexing and, consequently, this turn of events vexed the Lady wearing said corset and whose Passions, once aroused, were dashed.
“I thought you knew knots?” she said.
“I’m not in the Navy, my dear lady,” was my response to her inquiry, a response that was approaching taciturn.
“But you’re a Captain!” she said. “My husband never has this problem!”
She turned to me with a look that I must acknowledge bordered on Extreme Irritation and, as I will not Compromise the Lady’s Indiscretions, we met a mutual compromise and, eventually, left each other in good measure, the knotted corset strings on the floor of her apartment after being swiftly dispatched by my dagger.
Such are the Trials of an Officer and a Gentleman.
And, as my gaze returns to the Astrologer, I expect this journey on which I’ve embarked will present such Trials.
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