“No, sir. The people on ancient Earth used to call this a flying saucer.”
It took Hedric all of three seconds to make a decision. “We’ll stay here. I’ve had too many shocks lately to go zipping around the universe in…” He glanced down. “My bath robe.”
“Very good, sir. If you and Miss Alexandra would please sit in the control chair, we can begin.” Behind them one of the loveseats had morphed into a sleekly padded, chrome and leather chair, wide enough for two—if they were close friends. Hedric sat, and Lexi snuggled in beside him. In front of them floated the image of the rocky asteroid.
“Now what?” Hedric asked, a little hesitantly. Lexi was clutching his arm with a fearsome intensity.
“You are going to want to move the asteroid this way.” A bright yellow arrow attached itself to the rock, pointing off into the distance. “Push here.” A bright red arrow appeared on the other side of the rock, pointing inward. “I will tell you how to correct the movement: left, right, up, down, faster, slower.”
“You navigate and we are the engines.” Lexi murmured quietly.
“Correct, miss.”
Hedric looked over at his beloved, and they both took a deep breath. “How do we form the foursome, Medin?”
“Look into each other’s eyes.” Medin’s sonorous voice began. “Let yourself fall into the other. You’re more than halfway there already, and THAT was the hard part.”
On the control chair the two reclining shapes seemed to blur, becoming creatures of pure light, and then to merge. The asteroid began to move.
“No, No!” Medin said quickly. “Slow it down. If you don’t, it will punch a hole straight to the core of Thalassia. We really don’t want that.” The asteroid slowed. “Better. A little more to the right. There! Now slow it down a little…there. Perfect.” The asteroid glided along silently for several more minutes, before Medin shut the image off. “You have to come back now.” He said gently. “The work of the foursome is completed, for the moment.”
There was a deep sigh from the glowing entity, and then it split. Slowly the two glowing beings coalesced into the forms of Hedric and Alexandra. “We’re back.” Hedric said simply, a note of regret and loss in his voice.
“I was concerned, Hedric, for you and Miss Alexandra. I was afraid you might become, lost.”
“We didn’t my friend.” Hedric stood, and helped Lexi to her feet. “I think we’ll take a quick swim right now. It will help to get our minds off the—experience.”
“Shall I transport you to the lake?”
“Thank you Medin, but we know the way now.”
The presence that was Medin was gone, and Hedric stared deeply into Lexi’s sapphire eyes.
He heard both Lexi and Dawn laugh.
Hedric conceded, grudgingly.
Two weeks later, bundled against the chill winter morning, Hedric, Lexi, Dolores and Benjamin stood outside the ruined estate and watched the sky catch fire. The shaking, just after the initial impact of the asteroid, had been terrible, and many weakened buildings in New Boston collapsed with ear splitting roars, and great clouds of dust. Since they knew it was coming, the buildings had been evacuated and nobody was injured. Then came the fire in great sky-tearing sheets, somewhere out beyond the Taconic Mountains. Eventually that too was gone, and an exhausted, victorious silence fell over the city.
Several days later, as they tended to the many wounded and injured, minor miracles tended to go unnoticed in the crowded hospitals, they heard familiar screaming begin outside. A terrified woman banged open the sick room door, and shrieked. “Monsters! Monsters in the sky! They’ll eat us all.”
“Sky?” Hedric frowned as he stood up, touching the shoulder of the injured man at his feet, who was suddenly not as gravely injured as he had been a moment before. “I’ve never heard of flying monsters.” He rolled down his sleeves and followed the hysterical woman outside.
“There!” Her voice trembled as she pointed up into the cloudless blue sky.
Hedric took one look, and began to laugh. He was laughing so hard that Lexi found him sitting on the ground, wiping the tears from his eyes. In the distance they could hear the muted thrum of an engine, as the airship slowly edged up and over the ruined buildings. “They’ve finally found me.” Hedric gasped. “It’s the Daedalus.”
Padraig Hansen wasn’t as tall as Hedric remembered, or maybe HE was just bigger. The man slid down the ladder from the front gondola, followed almost immediately by his Uncle Gorku. Hedric noted with chagrin that there still wasn’t a back gondola.
Padraig stopped, scratched his neat Van Dyke beard and looked at the destruction around him. “This your work?” He asked simply.
“Yup.” Hedric grinned, then stepped forward to embrace the tall man. “I’ve been worried for you, Uncle.”
Padraig Hansen looked slightly embarrassed at the display of affection. “You always were good at breaking things.” He noted the smiling people walking by, waving to Hedric and Lexi. “You’ve learned to fix things too, I see.”
“I learned the fixing part from you, Uncle.”
“Did you solve your little problem in Pangea?”
“Yup.” Hedric replied dryly.
“Selene’s furious with you. It seems that you knocked down the Finger of God. It’s a mere thumb now.” Hansen’s eyes were sparkling.
“It suits her better.” Lexi quipped as she took Hedric’s arm.
“A few months back,” Hansen continued. “Selene contacted me and told me to find a quiet little island somewhere and relax. The situation, she said, was under control. I’m glad to see you passed the test.” Hansen grinned.
Hedric gave him a wry look. “I passed it by doing Selene’s job for her. She and Rhiannon had no idea what to do.”
“And who is this beautiful young wildcat?” Padraig asked, quickly changing the subject.
Hedric gave Lexi a long, loving look. “This is my wife, Alexandra.”
“Wife?” Padraig’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
Hedric chuckled.
< Since you put it like that…> She purred.
“Wife.” Hedric confirmed, stepping forward, and embracing the startled man again. “I’m glad you survived my stupidity, Padraig.” He winked at Gorku, who gave him an uncertain grin in return. “So, tell me, Uncle. Are you staying long?”
Padraig Hansen looked long and hard at the young confident couple that stood before him. “My job here is done. I was asked to help you mature. You seem to have accomplished that without my help.”
Hedric laughed aloud. “You helped more that you can know, Padraig. I started my new life as an engineer in a steamboat, thanks to the knowledge I got from you and Uncle Gorku.”
“An engineer on a steamboat.” Padraig mused. I wish I could have seen that.” He gave Hedric a crafty grin. “So, you think you still like traveling?”
Hedric frowned. “Yes, why do you ask?”
Padraig’s grin was threatening to split his face. “The Daedalus is yours, lad. See the world with your lady. I’m overdue for a reunion with Selene, and my crew needs rest and recuperation.” Hedric began to chuckle. “What’s so
funny?”
“I transferred about twenty five hundred widows and orphans to Medin and Elysium, along with assorted D’Tril, fairies and intelligent cats. You may not find life quite as restful as you remember.”
“You did?” Hansen looked shocked, and then he too began to laugh. “Good for you.” He gave a loving look at the airship behind him. “Kraus and Deva Iskander, brother and sister, are engineer and navigator respectively. They’ve elected to stay with the ship and train the new crew. The rest of the crew and I will get home by a slightly faster method.” He touched his chest lightly with his fingertips, where Hedric knew a blue crescent moon, Selene’s symbol, lay buried in his flesh. He then continued the motion, reaching under his jacket to remove a small book with a shiny green cover of some unknown material. He handed it to Hedric. “You might find this interesting. It’s the ship’s log from the starship Valley Forge; among other things.” He gave the young man a level look. “It tells about the crash of the fourth starship, the Copacati from South America, and the probable landing site for the lifeboats from the lost K'uei-Hsing, the Chinese ship.”
Hedric took the slim volume with a trembling hand. “Thank you. I don’t know what to say.” Lexi was staring at the book with something approaching awe.
Padraig’s face hardened as he took another look at the devastated city. “It might be a little difficult to find suitable people to crew the airship in all this mess, don’t you think?”
Hedric smiled, and turned to Dolores Isenhart, who had been standing quietly behind him. “I don’t think it will be all that hard to find a crew for our new ship. Don’t you agree, Captain Isenhart?”
Dolores Isenhart’s eyes were radiant as they swept the fine lines of the moored airship. “I should think not, son. I should think not.”
END
The Finger of God: a Thalassia novel Page 30