The pilot continued. “There will be a carriage when we land that will take you the rest of the way.”
“And how long will that be?”
“Longer if you don’t leave the cockpit and let me do my job.”
Caleb absentmindedly chewed on the piece of fingernail he’d bitten off while waiting for the airship to land. He bounded down the ramp before it touched the ground and searched for the carriage that should be waiting for him.
There were no horses. There was no carriage.
He approached the group of men tethering down the airship. He singled out the man who was directing the other men as they struggled to keep the airship steady while others tied the tether ropes to a large truck. Once the airship was tied down to the tether truck, one man could drive the truck to reposition the airship anywhere they needed.
He tapped the foreman’s shoulder.
“There’s supposed to be a carriage waiting here.”
The foreman looked him over with a frown. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Where is it?”
The foreman glanced at him. “We’re a little busy right now?”
Caleb grabbed the foreman’s shoulder.
“I must have that carriage immediately.”
The foreman knocked Caleb’s hand away with his arm and took a step back. “Do we have a problem?”
Caleb held his hands up, palms out. “No. No problem. I’m sorry.”
“Good. You just be glad we got here in time to tether the ship. Anything else can wait.”
Chuffing sounds drew Caleb’s attention to the tether truck that blew white puffs of steam from the boiler while it idled in position as the men tied the airship tethers to it. He remembered watching an airship launch from a tether truck before. The tether hooks on the truck were spring-loaded and controlled by mechanism in the driver’s cabin that allowed all the tether lines for an airship to be released simultaneously. While it took an entire ground crew for an airship to land, mechanizing the launch process meant that, once an airship was tethered to the truck, one man could tow the airship to the launching field and release it from the controls inside.
Caleb glanced up and down the road. He could see a kilometer in both directions. Neither way showed that a carriage was on its way here.
The hybrid colony was burning and he was too far away to help.
A metal clanging sound drew his attention back to the tether truck as someone loaded more logs into the firebox, that heated the boiler, before slamming the iron door shut again and joining the rest of the crew in tethering the last of the ropes to the truck.
Caleb studied the group of men. Those who had finished tying ropes to the truck had gathered around the foreman, the same man who had shooed him away earlier. Nobody was paying attention to him. Nor were they paying attention to the fact that he was slowly making his way to the front of the tether truck.
Caleb considered himself to be smarter than most, and he’d seen men with more brawns than brains operate a tether truck. How hard could it be?
He took one last look around to confirm that nobody was paying attention to him and hopped into the cabin of the steam-powered tether truck. He grasped the steering wheel with both hands and scanned his eyes over the numerous gauges in the dashboard before him. Each gauge had a needle that twitched to show the status of things he knew nothing about.
He quickly realized he had no idea how to make the carriage move. He twisted the steering wheel back and forth like he’d seen drivers do anytime a horseless carriage went by on the street.
Nothing happened. The truck stayed perfectly still.
He could feel his heart pounding heavily in his chest. He frantically searched for any indication of what made the truck move. He could see only two levers. One stuck up out of the floor by his seat and the other protruded from the dash.
He glanced out the dirt-smeared window and saw that the last of the tether lines had been secured to the truck. All of the men huddled together, except for the foreman, who broke from the group and headed for the truck. If the foreman caught him trying to steal the truck, he would definitely decide that they had a problem.
Caleb reached out and yanked on the lever on the dash. Several angry shouts came from the group of men who scrambled to grab the tether lines he had just released before the airship floated away without a pilot on board.
A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed the foreman was now running toward the truck yelling at him to get out.
Caleb grabbed the second lever and shoved it forward. The pilot of the airship had chosen to land at the top of a low hill, so when Caleb released the brake, the truck began to roll forward down the hill.
Behind him, several men joined the foreman in running after the truck and barking orders at him to stop.
Even if he knew how to stop the truck’s accelerating descent down the hill, he would have refused. The colony needed him now, more than ever, and he was going to do everything he could to get there before it was too late.
Of course, he would need to learn how to stop this thing sooner or later. Preferably, sooner.
As the truck barreled downhill at increasing speed, he twisted the wheel back and forth and felt the truck lurch from side to side. He quickly discovered that small adjustments of the wheel kept him going, more or less, in a straight path down the hill.
He looked back with relief to see he was leaving the men far behind. But he was almost out of hill and the ground was leveling out. The truck was starting to slow down and he still had no idea how to make it move under its own power.
He frantically searched around inside the cabin of the truck, but he’d already pulled the only two levers he could see. The truck slowed to a fast walking speed, and was still slowing down.
He jumped forward in his seat, trying to force the truck forward with his own body weight. It was no use. The ground had leveled out and all the momentum gained from the hill had been spent. The truck rolled to a dead stop.
He craned his neck back to see the men still running down the hill after him. If he couldn’t get this thing moving again, they would catch up with their stolen truck and most likely take their frustration out on him. As he twisted back around in his seat, his foot hit something on the floor and the truck lurched forward a couple of feet before stopping again.
He peeked under the steering wheel and saw there were two more levers poking up out of the floorboard. He tentatively pushed down on the first lever with his foot and nothing happened. He pushed it all the way down to the floor and still nothing happened. Leave it up to the humans to create something with extra levers that didn’t do anything.
He pushed down on the other lever with a little more confidence and the truck shot forward, throwing him back into his seat and knocking his foot off the pedal. The truck motored down to a stop again.
A quick glance behind saw the fastest of the men were already at the bottom of the hill. But all was not lost. He knew how to make the truck go.
He eased his foot down on the lever, and the truck rolled forward under its own power. It didn’t take long for him to learn how to alternate pushing on the pedal and easing up on it to keep the truck going at a more controlled speed.
Stopping was another matter, but one he didn’t need to worry about until he got to his destination.
Caleb motored along through the countryside, and as he got closer to the colony, what he had feared before was becoming the reality. The amount of smoke billowing up from inside the boundary of the electrified fence could mean only one thing. Half the colony was already in flames.
He pushed the lever all the way to the floor and clung to the steering wheel as he fought to keep the truck on the dirt road that led to the hybrid colony.
A mad buzzing sound erupted from inside the dashboard right before there was a loud pop and several of the needles spun wildly in the gauges. The truck lurched under him followed by the loud hiss of steam escaping the boiler. He pushed down several times on the lever that made the truck go, but this time nothing happened.
The truck rolled to a stop in the middle of the road and nothing he did made any difference.
He was close enough to smell the fires burning inside the colony. And if he was close enough to smell it, he was close enough to run the rest of the way on foot.
He crested the low hill and caught sight of the main gate to the colony. Hybrids were walking out of the burning compound; single file.
It didn’t look like everyone was carrying everything they owned, but it certainly looked like everything they carried was now all they owned.
He ran down the line toward the front gate. Nobody talked as they walked. Even the children labored under their belongings as they shuffled alongside their parents. Anyone who made eye contact with him as he ran, rather than say hello like they usually did, quickly looked away.
Even though the only houses that burned were on the far side of the colony, he could feel the heat from the fires that hungrily consumed the hybrid village. And it chilled him to his bones.
Up ahead, Zee guided the small horse that pulled a hay wagon filled with her family’s possessions.
She spotted him running toward her and ducked her head as she urged the horse to move faster.
“Zee, what’s going on?”
She ignored him and pulled harder on the heavy noseband of the horse’s hackamore, a bit-less bridle. The horse responded by bucking his head and stamping a front foot.
Caleb grabbed Zee by the shoulders. “Talk to me Zee.”
She twisted out of his grip. “I have nothing to say to you.”
He stepped in front of her, blocking her. “What happened?”
Her eyes pierced his, water forming around the edges as tears welled up. “You want to know what happened?”
Her sudden ferocity took him by surprise. He nodded his head slightly, unsure if he really wanted the answer or not.
“I’ll tell you what happened. You happened!”
“Zee, I…”
She shoved him back violently. “Shut up! Just shut up! You don’t get to talk, you get to listen. Are you going to listen? Or am I wasting my time?”
He relaxed his balled fists and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible as he nodded silently.
“You want to know what’s happening here? I’ll tell you. We are running and hiding, erasing any trace that we were here, because our chosen leader refuses to lead us.”
He opened his mouth and she put up a hand. “You don’t get to speak. You haven’t earned that right.”
He closed his mouth and let her continue.
“A secret cabal of world leaders, known only as the Directors, are coming. They want the Brahmastra. And once they have it, they will use it to kill all of us before conquering the rest of the world.”
The words escaped his lips before he could stop them. “Why kill us?”
She ignored his infraction. “We are hiding from them because we are the only ones who still know how to use it. We needed you to get it before they did.”
Allowing him to speak a moment before emboldened him to try again. “But why me?”
“There is a girl whose blood is needed to unlock the box that contains the Brahmastra. You were supposed to take her with you and get it before the Directors could steal it from us again.”
“But why me? Why am I the only one who could do this among all the hybrids?”
“It had to be you, because the girl asked for you by name. She said she would only help us if you went along to help her.”
He shook his head, clearly not getting the point she was trying to make.
“Why would she ask for me? I don’t even know who this girl is.”
She exhaled sharply in exasperation. “Yes you do. It’s Dorothy.”
Deep in the bowels of the Southern Marshal’s castle, Caleb urged the guard in front of him to walk faster as they made their way through the maze of underground passageways. As soon as they reached the door to Nero’s underground warehouse, Caleb brushed past the guard and took the steps two at a time down into the partially lit chamber.
His feline eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light, yet the true depth of the warehouse remained unknown. He had never managed to reach the other end of the warehouse the last time he was down here. The multitude of odd trinkets, contraptions and carvings, from civilizations long since dead, could have stretched on into infinity for all he knew.
Nero remained seated on a stool with his back to the door. He was at the table that held the large stack of ancient scrolls and sat bent over an open scroll, a magnifying optical lens clutched in his scarred hand. Caleb wasn’t sure he had even heard him come in until his raspy voice broke the silence. “What changed your mind?”
“You could’ve told me Dorothy was going on your little escapade.”
Nero kept his back to Caleb and continued to study his scroll. “Would that have made a difference?”
“If I knew you were going to put her life in danger, I would have…”
Caleb let his words fade to silence. He would what? He was a prisoner in the Southern Territories, despite the best efforts of everyone to convince him otherwise.
Nero finally stopped studying his scroll and faced him. He parroted the same thing that was running through Caleb’s head.
“And just what would you have done?”
This line of thinking was going to get him nowhere. If he wanted to keep Dorothy safe, he had to come up with something else.
Nero placed the magnifying glass on the table and stood up with considerable effort.
“Her father built the box that contains the Brahmastra. Her blood is the key to opening that box.”
“I won’t let you kill her.”
“Who said anything about killing her? We only need a few drops of her blood. She will barely miss it.”
“Why don’t you bring the box to her? Why does she have to go anywhere?”
“The box her father built is big and heavy. The Brahmastra is much smaller than that. Much smaller. Believe me when I tell you, getting her to the box will be far simpler than bringing the box to her.”
“Okay, so we get this Brahmastra first and stop the bad guys. Then what?”