Flaming Zeppelins

  WHY NOT JUST PUT IT IN THE CRUISER?

  “We will pack the cruiser as well, but I suggest we take all we can. There’s room in Steam for a lot of stuff, and who knows when we’ll need it.

  “First, we’ll take care of that poor child. My God, it makes me think of my own tragic family.”

  I AM SO SORRY.

  “Me too, Ned. Life just keeps throwing darts.”

  BUT WE KEEP DODGING.

  “You are one remarkable seal, my friend.”

  THANKS. YOU ARE NOT SO BAD YOURSELF. ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE ANYMORE ABOUT HUCKLEBERRY FINN? OTHER THAN THE ONE WHERE THEY GO TO AFRICA BY BALLOON. I DON’T COUNT THAT ONE.

  “Not your meat, I take it.”

  I REALLY THOUGHT IT BIT THE HIND END OF A MOOSE. BUT I SURE LIKED HUCKLEBERRY FINN AND TOM SAWYER. I LIKED THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER. I LIKED A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT. HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT WRITING A BOOK ABOUT A SEAL?

  Ned paused to erase and write again.

  I WOULD READ A BOOK ABOUT A SEAL. I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD. I THINK IT WOULD SELL A LOT. SEALS ARE INTERESTING. I CAN BE FUNNY TOO. I KNOW SOME JOKES.

  “It’s something I will consider seriously, Ned. And, yes, seals are interesting. Later, I can hear your jokes. But for now, let us go back to the house and attend to this rather dreary duty.”

  Back in the farmhouse, Ned pulled a blanket off of a bed with his teeth and dragged it into the kitchen area where the little girl lay. Twain, using the shovel because the body was too decayed to touch, rolled the little corpse onto the blanket. He wrapped the blanket around the body, and Ned jerked down some curtain cord with his strong teeth, and Twain tied up the ends of the blanket.

  Gently, Ned holding the blanket in his teeth at one end, Twain lifting it at the other, they carried the corpse outside. Twain started to dig.

  It was hard there, and there were plenty of small stones. It took considerable time to dig a grave deep enough to contain the body, and by the time Twain finished, he was covered in sweat, his great mane of hair plastered to his head like a tight bathing cap.

  They lowered the unfortunate victim into the confines of the earth, then, with Twain using the shovel and Ned pushing dirt in with his flippers, they covered her up.

  Ned used his flippers to push some of the rocks into a pile, to form a sort of makeshift marker at one end of the grave.

  “Sleep well, darling. May angels attend thee. Even though I doubt there are any, and if there are, they’re nasty little shits and God is a malign thug.”

  THAT WAS A VERY NICE CEREMONY. YOU ARE NOT A RELIGIOUS MAN, ARE YOU?

  “Not when God allows children to die. Mine or any other. God can kiss my ass.”

  THAT’S NOT VERY NICE.

  “I suppose not.”

  IT IS A VERY DIRTY ASS RIGHT NOW.

  Twain turned, brushed dirt from the seat of his pants. It had collected there during the two breaks he had taken while digging the grave, sitting with his back to the fence.

  “Well, Ned. We should gather our goods and try and find our friends and Steam. It is growing dark.”

  Ned made a noise, a barking sound.

  “What, Ned?”

  Ned clapped his flippers.

  “What?”

  Ned wrote:

  BIG GODDAMN MARTIAN MACHINE.

  Twain looked over his shoulder. And sure enough, stalking between the house and the woods was a machine, striding about like a three-legged spider. From that distance, they could not see the Martians behind the view glass clearly, but they could see bloblike shapes working the controls.

  “In the house, quick, Ned.”

  They leaped onto the cruiser and geared it toward the house. The house wall was torn open on one side from previous Martian attacks, so it was easy for them to glide inside.

  They collapsed the machine and rolled it against the wall near a bedroom window at the back. Then, sitting to the side of the bed, their backs to the wall, they listened.

  It was then that they heard the sound of guns in the distance. “My God, the British are fighting back,” Twain said.

  This thundering went on for a time, shaking the cottage, causing the window to jar so fiercely, for a moment it seemed as if it would break free of its moorings.

  Eventually, Twain rose, and leaving Ned to wait in the bedroom, slipped into the kitchen, where the wall was broken down.

  Out in the dark, Twain could see the machine stalking about, a light glowing from its head and flashing over the landscape. The head wheeled on its gears and sockets, and the light shot out in Twain’s direction.

  Jumping back, Twain hoped he had not been spotted. He crouched low against what remained of the kitchen wall, half expecting a ray to strike and cause the whole thing to crumble down in a heap on top of him.

  The light rotated away, and Twain eased his head around the broken wall for a peek. The machine was stomping off into the darkness. He was glad to see that it was not moving toward the woods where the others and Steam waited.

  Back in the bedroom, Twain briefly and quietly reported to Ned what he had seen. There was the continuous sound of gunfire now, and it seemed to be moving closer, as if being pushed along by a current. Then, abruptly, the thundering of guns stopped.

  Looking out the window, Twain saw a strange sight. A white mist appeared to be rising out of the distance. He could see it clearly in the moonlight, and soon it was like a gossamer gown thrown over the face of the moon.

  “Smoke,” Twain said. “Explosions. And now silence. I fear the Martians have knocked out the gun batteries. The goddamn shit-eating dick-sucking bastards.”

  WAS THAT ONE WORD?

  “No.”

  WHAT NOW?

  “Our only recourse is to return to Steam. Taking our goods with us. I’m going to look about in the house a bit more. Living out here in the country, perhaps there is a bird gun.”

  Twain looked about, but found nothing of the sort.

  Outside, Twain took hold of the wheelbarrow handles and started to push. Ned mounted the cruiser, which was also packed with goods, and floated alongside of him.

  To the north, they could see not only smoke now, but great fires, and there were distant cries as well.

  “The machines are winning,” Twain said.

  At the edge of the woods, Twain found pushing the wheelbarrow a hard go. The ground was too mushy. He managed it to the spot where they had left the pile of wood and stopped. “I’m leaving it here,” Twain said. “We can get Steam to come for the wood and the barrow. There’s a path here. It might be tight, but he can make it. I’m all tuckered out.”

  Twain climbed on the cruiser, and Ned geared it along the trail, toward where they had left their friends, and Steam.

  But when they arrived on the far edge of the woods, near the road, neither Steam nor their friends were about.

  Lying in the road with its legs bent and twisted and broken was one of the Martian machines. The club Rikwalk had made for himself was stuffed through what had been the face glass of the machine.

  Twain climbed down from the cruiser, went over for a look. It was dark, but near the machine lay a Martian. It looked as if something had taken hold of it and squeezed until what was inside of it had come out the top of its head.

  Steam.

  Ned slid the cruiser over close to Twain. He wrote: WHY DID THEY LEAVE?

  “I don’t know,” Twain said. “But they wouldn’t have left us had they not had to. My guess is, from all the marks in the road here, the place was swarming with machines. Steam got this Martian and Rikwalk got the machine. And then they fled. It was the smart thing to do. I would have done the same. They were most likely outnumbered.”

  Ned slapped a flipper to his side, pointed with the other.

  Lying in the woods was another machine. Twain climbed onto the cruiser, and they glided over for a look.

  This machine had been bent up too, and this Martian pilot had suffered the same fate as his partner
. He lay near the machine, part of his body draped over a log.

  “Steam just reached inside the glass, took him out like a baby grabbing a chocolate,” Twain said. “Then, he squeezed him.”

  IS THAT MARTIAN SHIT HANGING OUT OF HIS TWO ASSHOLES?

  “I doubt it’s flour gravy, Ned.”

  THEIR SHIT IS THE WRONG COLOR.

  “I suppose they might say the same about ours. And my guess is that shit is mixed with a lot of other things. Blood. His guts. And we’re seeing it in moonlight… I can’t believe I’m standing out here discussing Martian shit with a seal.”

  WHAT DO WE DO?

  “We go on.”

  INTO THAT MESS.

  Ned pointed a flipper down the road. At the far end of it and beyond there were great red and yellow flames lapping at the darkness with the enthusiasm of a hound licking an ice cream cone.

  “I suppose we must find our friends. They will be worried about us. They might even circle about to find us.”

  “They think you’re dead.”

  Ned and Twain whirled at the sound of the voice.

  The speaker came staggering out of the woods holding his head with one hand, a rifle with the other. It was Jules.

  Twain leaped from the cruiser, grabbed his old friend, who suddenly collapsed to the ground.

  “Jules. My God, man, what happened?”

  “As you might suspect, the machines, my friend.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “Gone on. We were looking for wood, then we were looking for you.”

  “We were detained by a machine. Ned and I were trapped in a farmhouse. We had supplies. But then we found this business.”

  “They came on us suddenly. Steam was stoked up, though. Wood had been brought back and there was a fire in his belly. Or wherever the damn fire is. The machines saw us. Rikwalk took to them. He scampered up the side of one, tugged it down by hanging off it, letting his weight take it to the ground. He shoved a tree into it.

  “Steam stomped the machine, grabbed the Martian out. Steam and Rikwalk got another one before the others came. Ten machines. Rikwalk and I decided we would detain them. There was a rifle in Steam. I took that and dropped out. The others were reluctant that we should do what we intended, but Rikwalk and I wanted them to go on. Passepartout knows how to reach Herbert. Herbert is the only reason to go to London. He is the only one who might save us. Our very planet. Either him, or Professor Challenger, if he can be found. But we sent them on. Rikwalk and I scampered into the woods, and the machines tried to follow. A ray was shot at me. It missed, but it hit a tree near me and the tree fell and I was hit.

  “I don’t know why I wasn’t finished off. Maybe they thought I was dead. All I remember was hearing Rikwalk yelling at them. Trying to get them after him. I passed out. Then I awoke to the sound of your voice, Samuel. I have no idea what happened to Rikwalk. But I fear the worst.”

  “If Wells is our best bet,” Twain said, “I suppose we too should head that way, into London. If Steam doesn’t make it, then we must. And frankly, being a smaller target may work to our advantage.”

  “Agreed.”

  There was a little first-aid kit inside the cruiser, and Twain, using the meager resources of that kit, bandaged Verne’s head. Then, with Ned at the controls, they were off.

  Twenty: Ned’s Journal: Flaming London, Reunion, We Take a Captive of Sorts

  The great fire before us made London seem near. But it was not. In fact, it was not only London that burned, but much that surrounded it. We cruised silently through many a charred village. Humans and animals lay littered about like tossed garbage. Carts and other vehicles were crushed and burning, and homes were often little more than rubble. There was a stink that rose up from the dead that was almost unbearable. Fish, when rotting, do not smell that bad, and in fact, rotting fish, if dipped briefly in seawater, and then eaten, really aren’t that bad.

  We had food in the cruiser that we had taken from the farmhouse. It was simple but acceptable under the circumstances. There had been a couple tins of dried fish in the wheelbarrow we had left in the woods, but neither Mr. Twain nor Mr. Verne wanted to go back after it.

  I wanted to go back after it, but they overruled me. Sometimes democracy is not all it is cracked up to be.

  But there were some potted meats and some dried cheeses that stank, and we ate that with some bread near hard as hammers, and drank water from a bottle Mr. Twain had taken from the farmhouse. It was better than sticking a sharp stick up your ass and cranking it, but only a little better. In fact, if you could grease that stick with butter, it might even have been the better deal.

  We spent several days traveling, and along the way we encountered a couple of destroyed Martian machines.

  “Steam,” Mr. Verne said. “He got some more.”

  “He’s been lucky to miss the rays,” Mr. Twain said.

  “He didn’t always miss them,” Mr. Verne said. “I saw him lose one of his metal fingers to one, right before I bolted into the woods. He’s as fast as the Martian machines. It’s really quite remarkable.”

  “When they get to London, what are they going to do? Put him in their pockets? They can hardly sneak about with that big tin man.”

  “I have no idea,” Mr. Verne said. “But Beadle and John Feather, and my good friend Passepartout, they are resourceful.”

  “No doubt.”

  We traveled by night and slept by day. Sometimes we slept in the woods, or down in gullies, and on occasion in abandoned or near-destroyed farmhouses.

  Finally one morning, just as light was slipping through the shadows, we came to signs that told us we were on the outskirts of London. I would normally have been excited. I have always heard of, and have of course read much of London. But now I knew there would be nothing fine to see. From where we stood, was a view of black churning smoke and spits of flames, and even from that distance, the smell of death.

  “We should find a place to hole up for the day, and even the night,” Mr. Twain said. “We need to be rested. Tomorrow we make London. Such as it is.”

  We did find a place. A small grove of trees. It was comfortable enough, and we slept away the day, awakening at nightfall.

  It was decided we wouldn’t travel this night, or the next day. Instead, we would rest, eat plenty of food before proceeding on our journey.

  We had a cold supper of canned meat, hard bread and water. There was little water left in the container, and it was decided, though it was dark, that we should venture out of the grove and cross over into the village to look for water.

  On this last night before entering London, we had chosen to sleep outside the village for the simple reason that at night the Martian machines roamed such places looking for survivors. But with our water running low, and me needing a rubdown and feeling dehydrated, we took the cruiser back into town, came to a house where we found a water pump and were able to fill our bottle and douse me good.

  We had no sooner accomplished that than we heard movement amongst a pile of ruins not far from us. Mr. Verne had the rifle Beadle had given him, a kind of scoop-cocking affair that Mr. Twain said resembled an American Winchester. He lifted it and listened.

  No doubt about it. Something was moving amongst the debris near us, behind what remained of the ray-blasted walls. And it sounded huge.

  We scampered back onto the cruiser and glided behind the remains of a cottage. Mr. Twain leaned out from the edge of the wall for a peek.

  “My God,” he said.

  “What is it?” Mr. Verne said.

  “Ned, bring the cruiser out into the open.”

  I hesitated for only a moment, then did as Mr. Twain instructed. Coasting out from behind the cottage I saw a wonderful sight, and even though my vision was clouded by night, there was enough light from the stars and the scattered fires from the burning village for me to know exactly what I was seeing.

  Rikwalk, squatting, staring at us. When he saw us, he let out a whelp and came running
, thundering along on back legs and front knuckles. In that moment he looked like nothing more than a huge gorilla.

  As he came to the cruiser, he snatched Mr. Twain out of it, hugged him, set him on the ground, then did the same with Mr. Verne. I was third. Grabbed from the floating cruiser and hugged furiously, he placed me back gently behind the controls.

  Mr. Twain and Mr. Verne remained on the ground. Mr. Twain said, “My god, you are all right. We feared the worst.”

  “And so you should have. But here I am.”

  “Come, let us go back to our place in the grove,” Mr. Verne said. “We can talk there. We have food.”

  “So when they came, and I saw they were after you, I yelled to them, and they came after me —”

  “And I thank you for that, my brother,” Mr. Verne said. “It was a brave and noble thing to do.”

  “No. Not at all. You would have done the same. I ran, and they pursued. I went deep into the woods. On our world, my Mars, there is much foliage, and we use it to travel from place to place. There are even nets amongst the great trees for lounging, and many of our people go there for leisure, and there are homes built there as well. I live in such a place, not far from the locks where I work…worked. So I felt right at home. Except the trees are smaller… And it wasn’t home.”

  Mr. Twain reached out and touched Rikwalk’s huge hand. “Easy, friend. If there is a way for you to return to your Mars, we will help you do it. I promise that.”

  “I know,” Rikwalk said.

  “Please,” Mr. Twain said. “Continue with your story.”

  “There isn’t much to tell. They pursued me through the woods, firing their rays, knocking down trees, causing a fire. I found a creek bed, and though I’m large, it was deep enough that I was able to make some passage down it, and then scamper up and into the trees. High up, amongst a thick growth of leaves, I hid. Wondering if the tree I was in would be hit by one of their rays.

  “It wasn’t, but as the machines came through, one of them smashed against the tree where I hid, and the might of the machine caused it to shake, and then the machine, somehow standing on two of its metal tentacles, used the other tentacle to grab the tree, and the machine pulled it up by its roots and threw it.”