They tried Jenine’s idea and it worked. Her comment that Ewen did not have a monopoly on lateral thinking resulted in her being chased into the sea and subjected to agreeable punishment.
6.
“Another third list problem,” said Jenine during their evening meal. “When will be the best time to leave?”
Ewen looked uncomfortable. “It’s at the bottom of the list.”
“So the time has come to think about it,” Jenine insisted.
“Well… It’ll have to be when it’s dead calm - no wind.”
“But that’s crazy. We need the wind to carry us to the land.”
“Trying to control that envelope during inflation will be impossible in anything but still air,” Ewen pointed out.
It was true; whenever they had to move the cumbersome envelope, they had always had to wait for a calm day or a drop in the wind.
“Also,” Ewen continued, “the heat from the fire basket has to go straight up. We daren’t light up in even a light breeze.”
Jenine thought for a moment. “We have a conflict,” she reasoned. “We need calm conditions for take-off, and the wind for flight.”
They gave the problem silent contemplation.
“I know,” said Jenine suddenly. “We leave at night. Say an hour before dawn when it’s usually very still.”
Ewen didn’t like the idea of trying to launch the balloon at night.
“But it has to be at night,” Jenine argued. “The air’s much colder at night, therefore it’s denser, therefore it’ll provide more buoyancy - lift. Right?”
Ewen nodded.
“So we leave an hour before dawn and go as high as possible. It doesn’t matter if we use all our fuel going straight up. The wind comes with the dawn and blows us across to the land as we lose height. Simple.”
Ewen opened his mouth to object on principle, but closed it.
Jenine was right.
7.
It was Jenine’s turn to wake before dawn and keep watch on the weather. She opened her eyes and gazed up at the moon. It was no longer the thin crescent that she had first seen, but was full and brilliant. She studied its markings and wondered if it really was a huge rock drifting in a vacuum. Is that what this place was too, as Ewen believed? For a few seconds, like the brief lifting of a curtain, she was able to visualise a universe of space filled with worlds. It was an awesome image. She sat up and immediately sensed that something was not right. There an indefinable feel of wrongness about the atmosphere that she had never known before.
She wriggled fully-dressed from the shelter and stood, frowning in disappointment at the sharpness of the breeze that stung her cheeks. They had been ready to leave for six nights now, and each night there had been a wind. She rinsed her face and hands in a clay bowl, hoping to wash away the feeling of foreboding but to no avail. She contemplated the great tear drop shape of the balloon’s envelope lying on the sand. Nearby was the rickety reed scaffold they had built, complete with a makeshift ladder. Every exposed end of reed was heavily shrouded in seaweed to prevent damage to the balloon’s envelope when it was dragged into place. When the time arrived, they would drape the balloon’s yawning throat over the tall frame and light the bonfire. They had already experimented on a still evening and discovered that to try filling the balloon using the fire basket was impossible; a large, fierce fire was needed to provide the initial boost for the fire basket to sustain. Only when the balloon was fully inflated could they attach the fire basket and the two passenger baskets.
The wind strengthened but did nothing to alleviate the strange oppressiveness in the air.
She checked that the rain covers over the inflation bonfire, the fire basket and the fuel bags were well weighted down with rocks, and looked regretfully up at the scudding clouds lacing across the moon. Their escape from the island would have to wait another day.
A small, cold stone struck her on the forehead. And then another. Her first thought was that Ewen was playing a prank flicking stones into the air. There was a strange drumming sound. She looked around in bewilderment, trying to locate the source of the eerie noise and realised that the impossible was happening: sharp, icy cold stones were raining down from the sky.
“Ewen!” she cried out. “EWEN!!!”
She stumbled towards the envelope, spread out and vulnerable. At the moment lightning blazed across the sky, turning the clouds to flickering sheets of blue fire and illuminating the beach with a blinding, incandescent light. The crack of thunder that followed almost instantaneously was a mighty blast of terrifying sound that lifted Jenine off her feet and hurled her to sand. She tried to stand but another stupendous bolt of lightning lanced across the sky.
“It’s the GoD power!” she screamed, trying to bury herself in the sand as the second mighty avalanche of thunder rolled above her tormented body.
“Oh, GoD, forgive us! Please forgive us!”
The hail storm intensified, the stones became larger, raining a deafening tattoo of destruction on the balloon’s envelope.
8.
At first light Ewen took proper stock of the damage. The reed scaffold had survived the storm, but their camp had been flattened, the fire extinguished. Most of clay bowls and cups that Jenine had spent so long shaping and getting right were smashed. The two passenger baskets were intact, but the pile of fuel plugs had disintegrated into a sodden mass of seaweed. The big clay mould for making the plugs, and the clay hexagon templates had survived. He ignored Jenine who was lying beside the ruined camp. She was still rolled into a tight, protective ball, but was no longer sobbing piteously. Maybe she had finally fallen asleep. He decided not to disturb her but trudged across the curiously pock-marked sand towards the big untidy heap that was the balloon’s envelope. He passed a deep hole where the hailstones had collected but not completely melted. He picked up the fused, ragged lump of ice and examined it as though it might contain a clue regarding the mystery of its origin. He broke off a hailstone and watched it melt in his palm. He tasted - freshwater. Frozen raindrops. How could that happen? It was cold at night but never cold enough to freeze water. He gave up pondering the mystery and squatted down by the envelope, carefully removing the sand that he had piled over it during the height of the storm. When the thunder and hail had woken him, instead of wondering what it was, he had dashed to envelope and, ignoring the hailstones beating on his back, had done his best to fold the envelope into a pile and heap sand over it.
The sun rose higher above the eastern horizon, casting long dark shadows as he worked carefully clearing away the sand. It was warm on his back by the time he had spread the envelope out.
There were hundreds of punctures in the membrane fabric, some so large that he could put his fist through them. It was then that he realised that the damage was not as bad as it looked. Although the large holes looked bad, he reasoned that it didn’t matter if the holes in individual hexagons were large or small - either way damaged panels would have to be replaced. And the task of cutting out and replacing punctured hexagons was relatively straightforward. He carefully turned the envelope over, shaking off the drying, loose sand as he did so. Large areas of the envelope were unharmed. All in all, he estimated that less than five per cent of the hexagons would have to be replaced. He turned his attention to the sea. Large, intimidating waves were still breaking on the beach, but the storm had washed ashore a plentiful supply of the prized streamer seaweed.
Much encouraged, he returned to Jenine and stood looking down at her. She was awake, sitting up, staring out to sea; her blonde curls matted with sand, her face streaked and puffy, but she didn’t seem to care. Her lips were moving soundlessly. He guessed that she was reciting a Tenth Day prayer. He sat beside her. She scarcely acknowledged his presence but continued gazing listlessly at the horizon as he told her of his findings.
“So,” he concluded. “A couple of days spent clearing up and rounding up fresh supplies, and week’s work on the balloon, and we’ll be ready again.”
> Silence.
He turned her chin towards him. The customary vibrancy and light had faded from her wondrous green eyes.
“Well?” he asked.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Her voice was curiously subdued, as if she was struggling to keep an overwhelming emotion in check.
“What don’t I understand?” Ewen asked.
“About last night. The GoD power. The noise. The rain of ice stones. We’ve offended against GoD. We’re not meant to escape from here. We chose to enter hell - the outdoors - and now we have to endure it until we die.”
“We don’t have to endure anything,” said Ewen quietly. He knew her well enough to know that in her present mood to raise his voice would only make matters worse. “The means of escape are here, therefore it’s up to us to make use of them.”
“We had to endure last night!” Jenine snapped. “What does it take for you to see sense! A storm of ice stones sent to destroy the balloon!”
“It wasn’t destroyed. Only damaged.”
“And the GoD power? Those flashes? Don’t deny that they weren’t the GoD power being unleashed at terrible levels.”
“I’m not,” said Ewen evenly. “I just don’t believe in your interpretation. If the Guardian of Destiny had anything to do with this place, why weren’t we dumped on a barren patch of nothingness? As it is, we have everything we need. Food and water; fire; plenty of fuel.”
“To ensure that we survive to be punished! Isn’t it obvious?”
Ewen saw no point in continuing the argument. She needed time to calm down. He rose and set about rebuilding their camp, repairing the ravages of the storm, and salvaging as much as possible. He worked steadily through the morning, stacking palm fronds to dry and spreading out seaweed. He lit a fire at midday when the sun was at its hottest and went in search of membrane leaves to make new water bags. When he returned Jenine had stripped off and was bathing in the sea, combing out her hair with the jawbone of a sea creature that she had found. She looked so stunningly lovely standing in the surf, the sun shining with a strange luminescence on her golden skin, that he wanted to seize her and smother her with kisses. Instead he rinsed her clothes in fresh water and hung them up to dry before preparing a meal. She looked in surprise at the bowl of fruit and biscuits he offered her.
“I thought all my bowls were smashed?”
“Not all of them. The vengeance of the GoD is remarkably inefficient.”
She took the bowl without a word and sat a little away from him to eat, not looking at him or speaking. Ewen finished his meal and decided that he would sleep better that night if he made some sort of start on repairing the balloon. He spent an hour under a salvaged shade cutting out membrane hexagons which he had carried to the envelope together with his cutting slab and tools, and had settled down to work. He used the clay template to cut out the damaged panels and soon got into an easy rhythm of removing the punctured hexagons and scoring in replacements.
The evening sun was low when a shadow crossed him. He looked up in surprise. Jenine dropped her cutting slab and tools on the sand and sat opposite him. She drew a fold of damaged balloon envelope over her slab and set to work.
“You’re right, Ewen,” she said after a few minutes. “We don’t have to endure anything.”
“But I have to endure you and your moods, of course.”
She looked up sharply and saw the makings of an impish smile pulling at the corners of his mouth; the same smile that she had seen when she had challenged him over the debacle of the campus’s zargon lights turning blue. Her instinct was to snap a curt rejoinder but she chose to concentrate on her work.
9.
“Ewen!”
The insistent tone in Jenine’s voice cleaved through Ewen’s sleep. He was awake in an instant, wriggling out of the camp and standing. They stood staring at each other in the firelight. Their naked bodies would have sensed the slightest air movement, but the chill night air was perfectly still. So still that the smoke and sparks from the campfire were rising in a column that was absolutely vertical. Apart from the crackle of the fire, the air was eerily, almost frightening quiet. Even the sea was a muted dead calm. These were the conditions that they had been awaiting for six days.
“Okay. Let’s go,” said Ewen tersely.
There was no time to waste in debate. Without a word the couple swung easily into a drill that they had rehearsed many times. They had learned to work quickly and efficiently without rushing or getting in each others’ way. They climbed the scaffold and hauled the balloon up throat first by the passenger basket ropes. Once the open neck was hanging down, they hauled up the rest of the envelope hand over hand, pausing to position it carefully in stages so that is was folded on itself progressively and evenly concertina-fashion. Next the restraint vines attached to the balloon’s reinforced neck were looped over the circle of pegs that Ewen had driven into the sand. They had practiced moving about without tripping over them. Next they lashed handfuls of sopping wet seaweed around the legs of the scaffold and to the ropes to protect them from the intense heat.
Jenine’s whipped the membrane rain cover off the huge mound of fuel plugs and started piling them into the shallow depression that they had dug out beneath the balloon’s yawning throat.
They dragged the fire basket into position so that it was close to hand when needed, and double-checked the contents of the two passenger baskets. Once they had taken off, there could be no turning back. To save weight they would be taking only a few tools. The holdall that had served them so well was to be left behind.
Getting to this stage had taken an hour. Everything had gone without a hitch and their spirits were high. The cold was forgotten and their bodies were running with sweat. They rinsed themselves in the sea and climbed into their clothes. They would be necessary to protect them from the heat. Ewen put his hand to his chest. The tiny capsule radio that Father Dadley had given him was a reassuring bulge in his top pocket. Next he picked up one of the torches he had made by binding a clumps of seaweed to stout reeds, and gave it to Jenine. “You do it.”
“So you can blame me if it all goes wrong?”
They both laughed to cover their nervousness. They had never been able to rehearse beyond this point. Jenine said a prayer under her breath and thrust the torch into the campfire. It flared up instantly. Holding it high above her head, she ran towards the scaffold with Ewen close behind, and plunged the blazing brand into the pile of fuel plugs. The explosion of heat from the strange, inflammable seaweed drove them back. They stood in silence as the bonfire became an incandescent ball of blue light of such blinding intensity that it hurt their eyes to look at it. The scaffold’s seaweed-wrapped legs started to steam. The balloon’s gaping throat flapped against its restraints as it swallowed the huge quantities of searing heat. They were now powerless; a sequence of events had been set in motion that would end in either disaster or triumph.
Ewen ran a little away from the scaffold to see what was happening. To his joy he saw a blister rising from the folds of the balloon.
“It’s working! It’s working,” he cried ecstatically, and ran back to Jenine who had begun lobbing fuel plugs into the conflagration to keep it going. The hollow in which the fire had been built guided the plugs into the midst of the blaze.
Slowly, like the growth of an awesome, gargantuan fungi, the balloon swelled and rose above the beach to greet the coming dawn.
10.
Ewen wanted to stop and gaze upon their mighty creation but there was no time. While Jenine doused the inflation fire with sand now that it was dying down, he ran once in wide circle around the huge tear-shaped envelope to ensure that it had inflated evenly. He had expected it to be spherical but reasoned that the temperature difference between air at the top of the envelope and air at the bottom accounted for its odd, ovoid shape. Nevertheless, the bloated envelope was perfectly filled and symmetrical; no creases or strain lines, although convection currents within the great mass of trapped hot ai
r caused the green skin to ripple and writhe as though it was about to give birth to a formless monster.
“It’s fine!” he yelled. He ran back under the scaffold and helped Jenine smother the bonfire’s last embers. The ring of restraint ropes were now taunt. He looked up into the darkness of the balloon’s mighty cavern. No part of the envelope was touching the scaffold. The neck was distorting and pulling at the circle of restraint ropes but it would hold. Everything was crucial now; there was no time to lose. They dragged the fire basket into position on the hot sand where the bonfire had been and lashed it by its six well-splayed ropes to the neck ring.
The passenger baskets were heavy and cumbersome because each one had a cargo of bags slung over the sides containing ballast rocks and fuel plugs. The circle of restraint ropes suddenly relaxed like a giant preparing to flex its muscles. They both looked fearfully up, expecting the balloon to collapse about them.
“A breeze!” Jenine cried.
At that moment the ropes suddenly snapped tight and strained at the pegs like an impatient animal. Two of the long pegs were jerked from the sand. It was the gentlest stirring of the air now that light was streaking the eastern horizon but it was enough to lend a frenzied urgency to their tasks. Even the weakest of zephyrs before they were ready would be enough to spell disaster for the enterprise.
Jenine’s basket was secured. They stood Ewen’s basket upright and fastened its suspension lines. The restraint ropes relaxed again and then the balloon gave a mighty heave that plucked another peg from the sand.
“Get in!” Ewen snapped, gesturing at Jenine’s basket.
“But the restraint ropes! We both have to-”
“There’s not time! I’m going to light the fire basket now!”
Jenine scrambled into her basket just as another tiny gust struck the envelope. The pressure caused the throat to exhale a mighty rush of hot air around her that distorted the image of Ewen racing back to the campfire.
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