Chapter 22: Flight

There must be something in the airship in which he could swathe himself for the trip across the boiling seas. With this in view he made a frantic search of the entire cockpit. Doggo’s rifle and the ammunition were still there, but his own he had left in his room on his hurried departure. Here, too, was the little stone lamp, by the light of which they had watched their instruments beneath the kayack covering. Even some of their provisions were left.

Finally he came upon some boxes which he did not recognize. A rank smell became evident upon closer examination. Gingerly he opened one of those boxes.

It contained flesh, finely ground and putrid. And in this carrion there wriggled and swarmed scores of small white grubs! The last of Cabot’s doubts vanished. These were the devil-souls which he and Doggo and Quivven had been expected to carry to Cupia, to found there a new empire of Whoomangs. Evidently his hosts had expected some possible trouble from him, and therefore had prepared the plane for a quick get-away by Doggo and Quivven.

Indignantly the lonely earth-man emptied out box after box onto the ground, and mashed the contents into the dirt with his sandaled feet.

By this time it was nearly pitch dark, but of course, this would make no difference while flying through steam clouds, for visibility under such circumstances would be impossible even in daylight. If he only had some covering for the cockpit to keep out the steam, he could fly just as well at night as by day, except for one danger; how could he be warned of flying too high, passing through the circumambient cloud envelope, and being shriveled to a crisp by the close proximity of the sun.

In despair the earth-man sat beside his beached airship, as the velvet blackness crept out of the east and enveloped the planet. So near, and yet so far! He had successfully transmitted himself through millions of miles of space from the earth to Poros. He had escaped the clutches of the Formians and the Roies.

He had built a complete radio set out of nothing, and had talked with Cupia across the boiling seas. He had traversed those seas once without accident. He had eluded the machinations of the Whoomangs, with their moth grub “souls”. And yet here he was, with only a few miles of ocean separating him from his loved ones, and, nevertheless, blocked effectually by the lack of a few yards of cloth. What fate!

As the last purple flush died on the western horizon, Myles suddenly jumped to his feet, and laughed aloud. The solution was so obvious that it had completely escaped him until now. It was the setting sun that had suggested the escape from his dilemma.

There is no sun at night!

Of course not!

Therefore why not soar straight up, pierce the cloud envelope and fly above it to Cupia, letting the clouds protect him from the heat of the boiling seas, as they normally protect the planet from the light and heat of the sun? At any rate, it was worth trying. To remain where he was would mean either eventual starvation, or recapture by the terrible Whoomangs.

So, by the light of his little Vairking stone lamp, he made a hasty lunch from his few remaining provisions, and then took his stand at the levers for a new experiment in Porovian navigation.

Up, up, he shot through the dense blackness, up to a height which in earth would have filled his blood with air bubbles, and have suffocated his lungs. But on Poros, with its thicker atmospheric shell and its lesser gravity, the change was not so evident.

Far to the eastward he saw the lights of Yat, the city of the beasts; but this was his only landmark. There was nothing but his gyro-compass to tell him exactly which was north, and south, and east, and west; nothing but his clinometer to indicate whether he was going up or down; nothing but his altimeter to indicate his approximate height above the surface of the planet. And these instruments he must read by the flickering light of a primitive open wick stone lamp on the floor of the cockpit.

What if this faint illuminator should become extinguished? He certainly could not leave the controls for long enough to use flint and steel to rekindle it.

During the early part of his stay in Vairkingi he had always gone to some one of the constantly burning lamps which were the primitive fire source of the furry Vairkings. Later he had found several pieces of flint, when investigating a small chalk deposit as a possible alternative for limestone in his smelting operations. After the manufacture of steel had begun he had practiced striking a light in this more modern method, and thereafter had always carried flint and steel and tinder with him in one of the pouch pockets of his leather tunic. It was with these crude implements that he had kindled his oil lamp for the present flight.

But this fire source would avail him little if a gust of wind should extinguish his primitive lamp. In such event, what could he do?

This question was immediately put to the test, for his ship struck a small air pocket and dipped. Out went the light! Now he could no longer read his compass nor his altimeter, but—happy thought—he could determine the inclination of the plane from time to time by touching his clinometer. So, on upward he kept.

Presently he found it difficult to breath, and this difficulty was soon increased by a damp fog, which choked his nostrils and windpipe, causing him to cough and sneeze. The water condensed on the airship, and dropped off the rigging onto the matted hair and beard of the earth-man. Yet still he kept on up.

Finally he breathed clear air once more. He pushed back the dripping locks from his forehead, and wiped out his water-filled eyes with the back of one wrist. All was still jet darkness, yet in front of him and above him there glowed some tiny points of light. Rubbing his eyes, he looked again. Stars! The first stars he had ever seen on Poros—a sky full of stars!

With some surprise Myles Cabot noted that above him were swung the same constellations with which he had been familiar on earth, among them the two dippers, Orion and Cassiopea.

He strove to recall the inclination of the axis of Venus to the ecliptic, but all that he could remember was that it did not differ appreciably from that of the earth. This information was enough for his present purposes, however, for it meant that the star which we call the pole star on earth was approximately north on Poros, and that its altitude above the northern horizon would give approximately the latitude of the location of the observer.

The pole star, which he readily identified by means of the two pointers of the great dipper, now hung about twenty degrees above the horizon, thus showing that Cabot was opposite the southern tip of that part of the continent of Cupia which formerly was Formia; so he leveled out the plane and, turning its nose northwest by the stars, scudded along above the cloud envelope of the planet.

It was not long before he noticed a quite appreciable increase of temperature. Gusts and swirls of hot vapor assailed him from below; so that if it had not been for the gyroscopic steadying apparatus, he must surely have foundered. Even as it was, it took all his efforts to control the ship. He suffered fearfully from the heat, but it was not absolutely unbearable.

Navigation so compelled his entire attention that he lost all track of time; he struggled on as in a dream, and had not the slightest idea whether he had been flying for hours or only for minutes.

On and on he drove through the terrific heat until at last he got so used to it that it actually seemed cooler. By Jove, he could almost believe that the air really was cooler!

So cautiously he tipped the nose of the plane downward, and entered the clouds below him. Feeling his way at a low rate of speed, and ever ready to slam on the full force of his trophil engines and shoot upward once more, he gradually penetrated the cloud envelope which surrounds the planet. Yet the heat did not increase.

At last he was through. And below him twinkled lights, the lights of a small city or town. Throwing the plane level once more, he hovered down in true Porovian fashion.

The light of the town showed closer. Cabot’s heart beat fast, there was a lump in his throat, and his hands trembled at the controls. Was this Cupia, his own kingdom of Cupia at last? Was he home?

Or—and his heart sank within him—was this some still new continent, with other nightmare beasts, and horrible adventures?

Whichever it was, he ought not to land too near the town. His trophil-motor was making a loud racket, but he was not afraid of being heard, for Cupians have no ears, and their antennae can receive only radio waves. So he skimmed low over the houses, straining his eyes to try and make out their style of architecture. But it was no use; the jet blackness of Porovian night obscured all below. Accordingly he planned to land about half a stad from the village, and then reconnoiter at daybreak.

This was to be accomplished as follows. His distance from the ground he could gauge from the lights of the houses. Therefore he would hold his craft as nearly as possible level, and hover softly down, taking a chance of landing on some bush or tree.

The plan worked to perfection. After just about the expected drop, he felt the skids grate on solid ground. Land once more, after his sensational flight above the clouds! Exhausted and relaxed, he shut off his motor, and proceeded to crawl over the edge of the cockpit.

Of course he could not even see his own machine in the intense darkness. As he started to clamber out the plane suddenly tilted a bit under his weight, then gave a lurch, and slid out from under him, dislodging him as it did so.

He struck the ground, but it crumbled beneath him, and he felt himself slipping and sliding down a steep gravel bank until finally some sort of a projection stopped his descent. To this projection he frantically clung. During his slide he had heard the loud splash of the airplane below him, so he knew that there was water there.

As he hung to the projection on the side of the steep sand bank, he looked about him in the jet black night; and, as he looked, he noticed the edge of the bank above him, just showing against the sky. The edge became more and more distinct. The sky above turned to slate, then purple, then red, then pink, then silver. Day had come once more.