The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

Though he’d gone up in aerostats many times, Frigate was always gripped by ecstasy during the first minutes of lift-off. No other form of flight-even gliding-could thrill him so. He felt as if he was a disembodied spirit, free of the shackles of gravity, of the cares and worries of flesh and mind.

This was a delusion, of course, since gravity had the balloon in its paws, was playing with it, and was likely to bat it around at any moment. Nor was there much respite from worries and cares. There was often work for both body and brain.

Frigate shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and he got down to the work that keeps a balloon pilot busy during much of the flight. He checked the altimeter. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine meters. A little over 6000 feet. The verimeter, or statoscope, indicated that the rate of ascent was increasing as the sun warmed the gas in the bag. After checking the O and H storage chambers were full, he disengaged the battery from the water. For the present, he had nothing to do except keep an eye on the altimeter and verimeter.

The Valley narrowed. The blue-black mountains, splotched with vast patches of grey-green and blue-green lichen, sank. The mists that ribboned the stream and the plains were disappearing as swiftly as mice that had gotten word a cat was in the neighborhood.

They were being carried southward increasingly swifter. “We’re losing ground,” Frisco muttered. However, he spoke only to re­lease nervous tension. Test balloons had shown that the stratosphe­ric wind would carry them northeast.

Frigate said, “Last chance for a cigarette.” Everybody except Nur lit up. Though smoking had been forbidden on all hydrogen balloons previous to the Jules Verne, it was permitted on it at lower altitudes. There was no sense in worrying about burning tobacco while an operating torch was present.

Now the balloon had risen above the Valley, and they thrilled at the sight of more than one at a time. There they were, row on row. To their left were the valleys-broad, deep canyons actually- which they had passed in the Razzle Dazzle. And as they soared higher, the horizon rushed outward as if in a panic. Frigate and Rider had seen this phenomenon on Earth, but the others gazed in awe. Pogaas said something in Swazi. Nur murmured, “It’s as if God were spreading out the world like a tablecloth.”

Frigate had all the ports closed, and he turned on the oxygen supply and a little fan which sucked carbon dioxide into an absor­bent material. At 16 kilometers or almost 10 miles altitude, the Jules Verne entered the tropopause, the boundary between troposphere and stratosphere. The temperature outside the cabin was – 73 C.

Now the contrary wind seized the aerostat and in so doing slightly spun it. From then on, unless they encountered an opposing wind, they would have the view of a rider on a lazy merry-go-round.

Nur took over the pilot’s post. Pogaas got the next, and Rider had the third watch. When Farrington became the pilot, he lost his nervousness. He was in control, and that made all the difference. Frigate was reminded of how Farrington had described in a book his fierce exultation when, at the age of seventeen, he’d been allowed to steer a sealing schooner in rough weather. After watching him for a few minutes at the wheel, the captain had gone below. Farrington was the only one above decks, the safety of the ship and its crew in his hands. It had been an ecstatic experience never surpassed in a life filled with perilous adventures.

However, as soon as Frigate relieved him, he lost his smile, and he looked as uneasy as before.

The sun continued to rise and with it the Jules Verne. The envelope was near its pressure height now, which meant that the joy ride was over. Since its neck was sealed, instead of being open as in most manned aerostats, it would keep rising until overexpanded. At this point the bag would rupture, and down would come everybody posthaste with a postmortem afterward. But provisions had been made for this.