“I only got a glimpse of the dining hall before, so after breakfast I took the chance to wander around more. It is still a strange feeling, knowing that under the floor there was air, but I am growing used to it. At least that is what I thought until I looked out the big picture windows that take up the wall of the dinning hall. I have never counted myself afraid of heights but I do now. The thought that only helium is holding us up is a frightening one, though it does make me more sympathetic to the smoking ban on the ship than I was before. The thought of being so high up and catching fire doesn't bare thinking about.
“I was still cautiously peering out of the windows, trying to get used to the idea of being up in the air, when the captain came over. I instantly got to thinking of anything that I might have done wrong but I couldn't think of anything. It didn't help that he didn't instantly talk but instead just stood sternly, gazing out at the sky all around us. Finally he commented that if I wanted a really good view I should see out the ones in the cockpit, this after telling me when we first met that I wasn't to go up there without invitation.” Here I stopped my story again, the next part wasn't for the purser to know about. I wasn't willing for him to know how close my captain and I had become and the ties that we shared. I wasn't sure how, but I was sure that could be used against us somehow. Having said his piece my captain had turned to walk away and than stopped. I guess he must have seen how confused I was. “I used to be a sailor, before air took off. I served under your father,” was all he said though. Then he had actually walked away, leaving me if anything more confused than ever. I couldn't tell at the time if the man was my friend or if he hated me. I knew that my father could be a very harsh person and for all I knew he had mistreated my captain in someway or something. It had unnerved me even more because for a minute I had thought that he had looked at the sky with the same look in his eye my father had had that night on the dock. The purser didn't need to know any of this but he did notice that I paused for a bit because he looked up from his writing again.
“Do you need another glass of water?” he asked me. “I'll see if I can get you one but it's normally rationed.”
“No, that's alright, I was just thinking about what happened next,” I said quickly. “I think I remember now. We had the storm. We've been tossed through the air for several hours and I began to feel ill again. Yesterday was fun, the captain sent a man to guide me around the dirigible and I got to see everything, though I know very little about what any of it was. It's use and function was lost in a jumble of technical jargon but it all looked impressive anyway. Most of it was machinery, all tailored down so that it would be light. Then I got to writing since I had decided that I had seen enough to write a good article for the paper. I had thought that I would continue my writing today but instead I woke up to see the crew tying down anything that might shift. The storm moved in fast, and there are no friendly ports around that we can dock at to ride it out so we'll just have to endure and hope that we don't get blown off course by too much. I thought that we would be fine fighting against the wind but I was told that that was extremely dangerous and that it was safer and better to just let the wind take us where it wanted to when it is this harsh. I don't mind so much, it delays any chance we have of seeing action, which is not something I am looking forward to. I am starting to hate this unpredictable sky though, father was right, it can't be trusted.”
To be continued...
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