Paragaea by Chris Roberson Page A

the airship rose towards the blanketing gray clouds above.
    Hieronymus blanched, averting his eyes from the view.
    â€œMan was not meant for such heights,” he said, his voice quiet and strained.
    Balam laughed again, a leonine rumble deep within his chest, and Leena was tempted to join in.

    That afternoon, once Laxaria had disappeared in a haze of clouds and fog behind them, and the Rukh had climbed above the cloud line, Vorin insisted that the quartet leave the cabin together, to share a mealin the dining compartments in the rear of the passenger gondola. Hieronymus was reluctant to leave behind the security of his chair, safely bolted to the deckplates, and Balam made some minor noises about the potential security risks, but in the end Vorin was dead set on going, and his were the purse strings.
    The dining compartment commanded the rear of the gondola, three walls dominated by large reinforced-glass windows. Steps led down from the passageway to the floor of the dining area, so that the ceilings were twice as high as elsewhere in the passenger sections. Tables and chairs were secured to the deck, here as everywhere through the ship, but aside from this minor concession to air safety all else was just as it would have been in the finest of restaurants on firm ground. Every table was covered in linens imported from the far east, across the Inner Sea, and each place setting had cutlery of the finest ceramics, fired in the Rim Mountains, and delicate porcelain plates and mugs hand painted by the craftsmen of Hele.
    The menu was sturdy fare with slight cosmopolitan flourishes. The standard meat and vegetable dishes of the Sakrian plains, but with a scattering of clay-baked items borrowed from the Roaming Empire, and even a few piscine dishes prepared in the manner of the city of Drift.
    Vorin and the three companions were seated by the far aft windows, and after they had placed their orders, they sat sipping mugs of mulled wine, looking down on the crenulated landscape of clouds below.
    The jolly businessman raised his mug, looking amongst the three companions, and said a few rhyming syllables, the meat of which Leena was unable to follow.
    â€œHe wishes us good fortune on the journey,” Balam translated, as Hieronymus was still looking uneasily out on the curtain of clouds below them.
    â€œSchast’e,” Leena answered in her native Russian, raising her own mug and downing the contents in a single pull.

    The next morning, after a simple meal served by the ship's stewards in their suite of cabins, Vorin insisted that they repair to the open-air deck.
    Leena was well rested and relaxed, perhaps more so than she'd been since Vostok 7 took off from the launchpad in Baikonur. They'd passed the night in shifts, each taking watch for a span of hours while the other two slept, but she'd taken the first shift, which meant that she'd gotten more uninterrupted sleep in the comforts of the cabin's bunk than she'd gotten in weeks. If on rising their employer wanted to take in the morning air, it was all one to her.
    Hieronymus was less enthused about the open-air deck. He'd slowly gotten his air-legs under him the previous night, with the distant ground safely masked by a blanket of clouds, but the morning sun had burned the clouds away, and now the view from the Rukh was of the Sakrian plains, hundreds of meters below.
    The open-air deck was situated at the forwardmost point in the passenger gondola, just before the control gondola at the prow of the ship. The control gondola held the flight deck, access panels leading into the body of the gas-filled envelope, and the quarters of the captain and crew, and was connected to the passenger gondola by an umbilicus of a passageway, airtight and sealed against the elements. Between the two depended the platform of the open-air deck, which afforded a full circumference view typically enjoyed only by the stoutest of passengers.
    The air was cold and sharp outside the safety