“They did so-when Firebrass says jump, everybody sets a new record-and . . . ? What? My assistant, Randy, says everybody can’t set a record at once. Who cares? Anyway, the hydrogen leakage is nil.
“So, the control room and all the motors are inside the hull except for those in the nose and tail gondolas.
“The hydrogen, by the way, is 99.999 percent pure.
“In addition to the crew of ninety-eight men and two women, the Parseval will carry two helicopters, each with a thirty-two person capacity, and a two-man glider.
“But there won’t be any parachutes. One hundred parachutes makes a heavy load, so it was decided not to carry any. That’s sheer confidence for you. More than I have.
“Look at her, folks! Ain’t she something! The sun shines on her as if she’s the glory of God herself! Beautiful, beautiful, and magnificent!
“A great day for mankind! There goes the orchestra, playing The Lone Ranger Overture. Ha! Ha! Just a little joke that’d take too long to explain to you folks. It’s really the William Tell Overture by Rossini, I believe.” Chosen by Firebrass as the take-off music, since he’s hung up on that fiery piece. Not to mention a few others, some of whom I see in the crowd.
“Hand me up another glass of ambrosia, Randy. Randy’s my assistant M.C., folks, a writer of fantasies on Earth and now Parolando’s chief quality-control inspector for the alcohol works. Which is like appointing a wolf to guard a steak.
“Aah! Great stuff! And here comes the Parseval now, moving out of the hangar! Her nose is locked into the only mobile mooring mast in the world. The take-off will occur in just a few minutes. I can see through the windscreen of the control room or bridge, which is set in the nose.
“The man in the middle, sitting at the control panel-you can see his head, I’m sure-is chief pilot Cyrano de Bergerac. In his day he was an author, too, wrote novels about travel to the moon and the sun. Now he’s in an aerial machine the likes of which he never dreamed of, just as he never envisioned himself on such a voyage. Flying to the North Pole of a planet which nobody, not a single soul on Earth, as far as I know, had described in the wildest of tales. Soaring in the wild blue yonder in the greatest zeppelin ever built, the greatest that will ever be built. Headed for a fabled tower in a cold, foggy sea. An aerial knight, a post-Terrestrial Galahad, questing for a giant grail!
“Cyrano’s running the whole operation all by himself. The ship’s completely automated; its motors and rudder and elevators are tied into the control panel with electromechanical devices. There’s no need to have ruddermen and elevator men and telegraph signals to the motor engineers as they did in the old dirigibles. One man could pilot the ship all the way to the North Pole, if he could stay awake three and a half days, the estimated flight time. In fact, theoretically, the ship could fly itself there without a soul aboard.
“And there by Cyrano’s right is the captain, our own Milton Firebrass. He’s waving now to the man who’s succeeded him as president, the ever popular Judah P. Benjamin, late of Louisiana and ex-attorney general of the late but not necessarily lamented Confederate States of America.
“What? Get your hands off me, friend! No offense intended to any ex-citizen of the C.S. A. Take the drunken bum away, officers!
“And there, standing at the extreme left, is pilot third officer Mitya Nikitin. He promised to be sober during the flight and not hide any booze behind the gas cells, ha! ha!
“To Nikitin’s right is first mate Jill Gulbirra. You’ve given some of us a hard time, Ms. Gulbirra, but we admire . . .
“There go the trumpets again. What a blast! There’s Captain Firebrass, waving at us. So long, man capitalne, ban voyage! Keep us informed by radio.
“And there go the cables from the tail. The ship is bobbing a little, but she’s settling down. I saw the balancing done a couple of hours ago. The ship’s so equili-bub-bub-rated that one man standing on the ground under that mighty mass could lift it with one hand.