Thunder crashed so harshly within the encircling storm, Lonny was certain something on the Scallion was shattered. Clouds were roiling before them as the constant updraft tried to push them ever higher, an ever-swirling canvass of deep greys and blackness. The thunderstorm, with its blustering and crackling wild energy, coiled a new spray of thunderbolts from the next unexpected direction. The small crew had little choice except to be tossed in this sea of violent symphony.
They were dreadfully high into the sky now, and that sudden fear of extreme heights bubbled up within Lonny. He hadn’t been afraid any of the times he’d been flown around the old Estrian port, but all those times had been under sunlight and puffy clouds. They had caught the warmer front up into the dense trunk of the thunderhead, flying much higher than Lonny thought anybody’d dare. No more stretches of land below them to anchor to or get oriented with. Lonny only had the bowels of the Scallion between him and unlimited falling.
“Hold’er here in this position, Mason. An’ John…” Captain Shallous barked as he hopped down the stairs and back into the lower deck, where the crew was waiting. Lonny grew to understand that the captain’s eyes never halted long on one thing, and his feet were just as anxious to get moving to their next spot. Shallous only stopped, for less than a moment, when he saw Lonny standing at the edge of the ship’s hull.
“...John, git Emmeret an’ the mister to attach the lines. Two pots each. Asa stays eagle fer now, I’ll see to the instruments that they aren’t already damaged. After, let the mister know what’ e’s for.”
The captain didn’t hesitate to turn away and let his orders stand. Lonny hadn’t heard his name mentioned, but John’s bulky frame grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the fore of the ship. As he stumbled on, half dragged, Lonny saw the captain duck into the open door of the engine room away from them. He could hear almost hear the voice as it continued a conversation with the mechanic who lurked in the aft.
Lonny caught on that Emmeret was ahead them by the time he managed to get his feet straight. John was just taller than Lonny, and with broad enough shoulders that it gave Lonny the impression of an ox. He played with his brown hair constantly, in a manner of speaking, as if he could never find a way he liked the shock of blond hair to fall. Despite his appearance though, John never lumbered around the ship or clumsily knocked into things. He seemed methodical and calculated in all manner of things as first mate.
Emmeret wasn’t too different from his older brother, John. They had an almost identical face, just one was slightly younger in the jowl and the eyes, and Emmeret wasn’t as tall. Lonny judged Emmeret to be about the same age as himself. He would ask, but there was something about Emmeret’s quiet nature which prevented him. In the few days Lonny had been aboard the Scallion, Emmeret hadn’t said a single word.
The fore hold was past the small space set aside for the crew’s quarters, which was barely enough room for four people. Three of them entered a room Lonny hadn’t been inside yet. A few dull bulbs were lit, and seemed wired in from a runner line on the ceiling. Sickly yellow light shined onto heaps of paper-wrapped goods, supplies bundled together with rope, and the kinds of electrical equipment he assumed were what they’re after. The room wasn’t small, yet the disorganized mess made it feel more cramped than necessary.
John spoke his instructions dispassionately to Lonny, “Take the cables there—the thicker, rubber ones—and drag’em back to the mast with two ‘pacitors.” He looked at Lonny and then to some half-coiled rubber tubes bigger around than his closed fist. As John pointed to them, he continued, “Put the capacitors as nearby as you kin get to the mast, the cables are short and you’ll have to wrestle their sockets to align. Connect’em up—time’s wasting already—then report back ta me.”
He wasted no more time with them, although before leaving entirely John grabbed a small package off of a crate. It was wrapped in wax paper with a red stamp and tied closed by twine. Lonny didn’t get a good look before he turned to watch Emmeret handle a large ceramic cylinder. It had a perfectly crafted smoothness on the exterior, yet the haggard brown color gave it the ugliness of a rotten tree trunk.
In a short time of watching Emmeret bodily heave a pot, Lonny felt a rush of unease. They were decidedly heavy, and the motion of the ship would do him no favors in being gentle. Emmeret was clearly skilled in moving them, as it seemed he barely let it make a sound against the floor when he set it down. He rolled it slowly from side to side, never fully picking it up or setting it down.
“What are these?” Lonny asked, unable to help himself. He was used to a fluid discussions which happened at the port. Emmeret didn’t answer, and instead gave a grimaced look which Lonny couldn’t decide was produced from disgust, exertion, or both.
Not wanting to delay further, Lonny shrugged and shouldered one of the remaining pots to understand its weight. The squat size was as long as his pant seam, and it had a fully-sealed lid in-laid at the top. In the very center was a rubber cap he guessed hid something for the cable to connect to. With a small shove, he exhausted his curiosity about the task: the pots must weigh more than a man, and sloshed in a way which liquor might.
Lonny struggled to move his pot as gently as Emmeret did, but he grinned when he saw Emmeret wipe his brow as they finally succeeded in meeting the mast. John stood at the mechanisms which surrounded the mast of the ship. Lonny recalled there was no rigging or sails when he boarded, and it was unusually plated in metal to its tip on deck. Below deck, the mast grew in diameter as it extended to the floor and then curled upward like a girl’s skirt. This skirt and the trunk of the mast were one long piece of formed copper, which he saw reach to the gap between the mast and the deck. What Lonny couldn’t see was how the mast connected to the floor due to a several grated cages which extended floor to ceiling as a guard.
The mechanisms themselves were separated into two large sections, port and starboard. Towards the port, a mess of interconnected wire boxes hung on the outermost cage, with a variety of dials Lonny didn’t understand, and many thick cables which led down under the skirt. On the starboard side was a large, mysterious black case which seemed more directly tied to the mast instead of below. Multiple levers appeared to control it’s bizarre function, with one he had discovered dealt directly in diverting a portion of the engine room’s power to the box through a pipe driver.
He hadn’t had the chance to question the oddities to the captain. With it on his mind, Lonny sputtered the beginning of the question to John, “What’s this all—…?” but John’s expression turned stern as he nodded for Lonny to go back to the fore hold. Lonny left quickly with some embarrassment, as John began to smear something onto the cables that had been brought.
Before Lonny could reach for the next pot, he heard a voice hollar through the bowls of the flying ship. It was urgent, though not panicked, and before he could comprehend the words Emmeret ran past in the direction of the yelling. He followed quickly, and found most of the crew huddled to see through the window around the mast.
“There’s not a spot of it ‘ere, yet Asa swears to a blot a’wood in the clouds. Mayhap the Dolly Hart, if he be see’in right,” Captain Shallous said as he peered upwards. “We’ve no more time for slack’in, hook yer two pots and fire up the scraper. We need to recover a charge.”
“Captain, if it’s the Dolly, I know a man on it—we needn’t be quick on the shock sir,” John started, and began to pale slightly. He held his tongue as Shallous stared blankly—emotionless—and yet the fire contained there responded darkly to what John said.
“On my order you get my shock, John.” It was a calm voice. Then Captain Shallous raced upstairs to wherever Asa stayed.
John had a mind to first search Mason’s face, and then Emmeret’s in turn. There was something in his posture which affected Lonny—a slight sag in a shoulder, or something imperceptible—before everybody whirled into motion and the incident was forgot.
“Mason, gimme 20 and take the dolt with you. Emmeret, take a pot…” said John, but Lonny didn’t hear more once the lever for the mysterious black box was pulled. It was as loud as the grain mills he had worked on, and its name of scraper was a perfect fit for its sound.
In the engine room, it dawned on Lonny how difficult Mason’s job was alone. He had barely enough room to move due to the need for the engine to deliver its power to the lifting fans and scraper midship, a blower which propelled the Scallion forward, and at least half a dozen pots scattered about. Cables like wild grass grew from the heart of the machines in every direction.
Lonny attempted to help, but Mason often gave an instruction by doing the task before Lonny could react. Mason was a lean man, and fitted with a leather apron to block the oil grime. He had sharp eyes behind framed glass, and hands just as sharp which seemed to move with a mind of their own. His balding crown and groomed brown beard caused Mason to look older, although Lonny couldn’t be sure how old.
Almost without Lonny’s assistance, Mason increased the engine’s output as directed by John. Mason asked Lonny to double check the gauges for oil pressure and temperature when they both paused as a new feeling arose. It began as the smallest itch of sensation on the skin, and the taste of metal on the tongue. The hair on Lonny’s arm rose and the sensation of an imminent event took hold of him. He pushed through the engine room door just in time to witness the strike.
The wild energy of nature’s storm—hot, white fire of pure free movement unrestrained by the firmament of heaven—danced free within the lifespan of a single thought. It was attracted irresistibly to the rod of the Scallion and danced upon the metal surface with a terrible clash. The pots responded through the man-made devices, and captured as designed a paltry sum of the magnificent display.
Lonny watched, dazed by how the cages filled fully with light and by the noise of strong lightning. He didn’t understand what was happening around him, or what was to come. He felt like he was spiraling from the movement of the ship and the quickness of the action around him. His mouth and nose felt coated in a taste he couldn’t escape. It was too much to take in, and he became disoriented. He felt himself pulled up from the ground and pulled up the stairs. By the arm of Mason, dragged through the double doors onto the deck.
Lonny tried not to hold his breath, but he couldn’t help keeping a whole swallow of the light air in his mouth and chest. The deck of the ship rocked under the storm’s control, battered to and fro among the clouds. Captain Shallous was out there with a grip on the railing around the ship’s edge. Lonny suddenly emptied his stomach on the deck to Mason’s dismay, and Mason disentangled himself to leave Lonny there.
The men’s frames were profiled slightly in the wet darkness. Lonny’s eyes were soft from the yellow light of indoors, and it prevented him from seeing more than their vague shape in a sea of clouds. He was still disoriented when the next lightning bolt reflected in thousands of water droplets. It wasn’t ordinary, if Lonny could call anything with the tremendous electrical force of lightning ordinary. It seemed focused, or deliberate to him; too deliberate to not be caused by man.
The white line split apart the heavens in the direction Captain Shallous and Mason faced, and new colors filled Lonny’s vision. Bright orange fire erupted and expanded outward as something exploded. They all knew what it meant. Unpleasant sickness suppressed Lonny from formulating meaning from the event as it happened. He would come to understand the meaning, though. He used his maps to predict where this storm might appear; he led them to this spot. Lonny interpreted the lines of elevation, seasonal interferences, moisture, unusual occurrences, and more to pinpoint what the captain requested.
He would come to understand why the captain ushered Mason and him back inside when the storm clouds suddenly turned a wicked sea green, after they watched the ashes of an unknown ship float away forever.