The Sensaurum and the Lexis by Richard Dee

Author:Richard Dee [Dee, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781999637668
Publisher: 4Star Scifi
Published: 2020-03-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

They were called early. After a hurried mug of Char they travelled by tram to the flying field, which was located in the city at the place where Ralf had first landed on his maiden flight from Northcastle. The sign at the gate said ‘Metropol City Aero-port’. Jessamine was not as excited as Jackson clearly was. “I have flown in an Aero before,” she said. “Stay close to me, I will keep you safe.”

“Tell me, why do you call it by different names, an Aero, a plane, a flying machine. Which is it?”

“They are so new that no name has been settled on, people use all of them.”

“And this Ralf, has he no other name?”

“I’m sure he does but it is never needed. He is just Ralf, everyone knows who is meant if you say Ralf or Ralf the flyer.”

That is fame, thought Jackson, even the King had two names, yet this man had only the need of one.

Using a card that she had in her bag, Jessamine collected their tickets for the flight to Hammerham, the nearest town to Nethersole’s estate. “There is no rail nearby,” she said, “as we saw on the map yesterday. We would have to travel by road from the nearest station, a bone-shaking journey of at least a day, even without any complications, this is much better.”

At least you were safe on the road, thought Jackson, despite what Fairview had said. Apart from the brigands, your bones might be shaken but calamity in an Aero and they would be worse affected. He wondered if whatever had happened to the aerialway could strike a plane in flight.

Their cases were put on a clockwork cart and taken away; they both kept their backpacks with them, as they contained all their secret equipment and devices. “We have an hour before we may board,” Jessamine said. She pointed to a small stand, containing news-sheets and periodicals. “We should buy one of Draftman’s journals, it would look strange if I knew nothing of my ‘father’s’ work. This whole expedition is so hastily arranged that the finer details have not been considered.”

They purchased the journal ‘About Town’, and Jackson also took a copy of ‘An Illustrated Guide to Flight for the new Traveller’.

Sitting, they read avidly. Jackson was desperate to learn all he could about flight before he had to face the event, he learned the names of the parts of a flying machine, but he was continually interrupted by Jessamine, who insisted on showing him examples of the inducements that the pages of her publication appeared to be full of.

“Never mind flying,” she said. “I can explain all that to you when we are aloft, you need to know what we are supposed to be expert in first. The job in hand takes precedence.”

Looking at what she showed him, it seemed to him that anything could be purchased from the pages, without the need to ever enter a shop, there were drawings of the articles, everything from devices

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