The Memoir of Wendell Wylie

By

Seth Kallen Deitch

copyright 1997 by Seth K. Deitch

      "Hogwash!" snarled Hammond, "What insipid hogwash!"

      He tossed the newspaper aside contemptuously and rose from the desk to face Mollot. "In my country, we would treat this as no less than libel!"

      Mollot heaved a sigh. The Baron had been a bit tightly wound on this visit to Mulweeno and the humorous picture stories by Mister McKay had served to infuriate him. In spite of this he insisted on reading the feature entitled "Little Nemo" every morning and then wasting half an hour pointing out in minute detail how the story misrepresents reality.

      The incongruously tiny round reading glasses were still stuck on the nose of the hugely muscled black man, and the effect was comic enough to make Mollot chuckle. Woodrow Hammond was brought up short.

      "Doctor Mollot, do you find my public mockery amusing?"

      "Good heavens no, Lord Hammond, but here in the States, public figures learn to have quite a thick skin. Satire always aims for a large target, you should be flattered."

      "Flattered!?" He retrieved the paper and thrust it beneath Mollot's nose. " 'Pip continues his narrative about the Jungle Imp's adventure beyond the wall of ice'. Jungle Imp! The little creature is a cannibal in a grass skirt! Is this what the work of good men like Doctor Booker T. Washington has come to in this crazy land of yours? For Heaven's sake man, its 1908, the twentieth century! Not only is this a personal insult to me and the entire Negro race, it also totally misrepresents the purposes of my country in Bromfkidor!"

      Mollot had been with Hammond on his last trip into the hidden republic of Bromfkidor beyond the Antarctic ice. In spite of the dangers and rigors of that journey, he found the comic strip rather amusing and clever. The Jungle Imp is a hero in spite of himself as he almost inadvertently thwarts dinosaurs and gray giants.

      He had not been personally offended by the "Professor Mallet" character in an earlier McKay newspaper strip which depicted a dream of another world inspired by an improperly digested meal of Welsh Rarebit. He drew with architectural precision a universe filled with crate-like kites powered by gas engines and an American Union which commanded both oceans, rather like that formerly inhabited by the unfortunate Wendell Wylie.

      Both Mollot and Hammond had briefly visited this world along with the entire crew of the Norton when they had used an exotic piece of equipment to save themselves from destruction. When they returned, poor Wylie came back with them. Mollot doubted that he even noticed the things said of him in public discourse. He quietly applied to the school that corresponded to the one he had attended in his own world and disappeared into his studies.

      As stated before, Hammond had been peevish this entire visit. The government of the United States had refused entrance to either his wife or his son on the grounds that she was Bromfkidoran and he half Bromfkidoran. Two weeks before that He had been "retired" as chairman of the California Skyship Corporation and given an aristocratic title by the Californian Emperor in a transparent political maneuver to get him out of the public eye.

     He had decided to come to the Dilmount Institute in Mulweeno to see Mollot in the hopes that he could develop with his help new mechanisms to improve skyshipping. Perhaps they might form their own corporation. At least they might produce some valuable patents. He just wanted to reclaim his place in the industry. He had gotten wind of some of the research that had gone on at the Institute in the last year. Mollot had entered into collaboration with a certain Nikola Tesla who had done much significant work with high frequency currents of electricity.

      Hammond had swiftly grown tired of the life at court in San Francisco. His new title had brought him no joy. Given public reaction, it in fact had caused him some embarrassment. Just a few months before he had been created the Baron of Monterey in a mass ceremony along with about a dozen others who were granted titles. The Emperor had felt that the time had come to establish an aristocracy. It was his feeling that it would create a greater respect for California among the other nations. Instead, it aroused ridicule.

     No American nation of the twentieth Century had a population of dukes, lords and ladies. William II, the great Emperor of the west, granted fewer and fewer titles and finally made it clear that no others would be given in his reign.

      So Hammond was one of thirty-four who made up the tiny cadre of aristocrats in the Californian Empire. Of those few, only ten held titles which were hereditary. His son would also be Baron. Woodrow Hammond was unimpressed.

      Woodrow Hammond would never be able to be very enthusiastic about the doings of the imperial court, he was more concerned with the ins and outs of the skyship business and technology. To his chagrin, his interest was that of an amateur for the last year and a half. The parliament had felt it was best to remove him as chairman of the California Skyship Corporation following his failed business venture (and his unauthorized "borrowing" of a military skyship) in the hidden republic of Bromfkidor.

      He had been drawn to the Dilmount Institute by information he had received regarding some potentially astounding discoveries by Molott and the immigrant physicist Tesla.

      Tesla had been in and out of the institute throughout the period of Hammond's visit. The tall Croatian would sometimes burst into Mollot's office and babble a few words about "high frequency current" or "specific radiance" or "rotating fields" or any number of other incomprehensible things. He and Mollot had been at work on the prototype for a very fast skyship. Just how fast they would not say.

      The machine certainly didn't look like anything which had preceded it. It was small enough to be kept in a hut next to Tesla's lab. Because of the use of the parallel field devices, it required a bare minimum of gas to buoy it aloft. It merely rested on three spidery legs when the device was shut off. The polished steel and aluminum airframe was worked into a perfect streamline, utterly smooth without any control surfaces to break the contour. Tesla had said that its steering and attitude was controlled entirely by parallel fields.

     Hammond had seen the ship lift only once during a power test without it making any particular impression except for the horrendous amount of noise. He was used to skyships producing only the throbbing drone of gasoline motors but this machine was lifted seemingly upon loudly discharging bolts of artificial lightning. He would learn more soon enough, for he intended to pilot the machine.

      The entire line of research seemed to be a major departure from what he had known of skyship technology. While highly intelligent, Hammond was not a man of visionary imagination. He had done well in business, not because he had the disciplined mind of a scientist, but because he had the courageous heart of a warrior. He had been lucky enough to bring the original technology out of Bromfkidor and then smart enough to find the right people to help him develop it commercially. He had been able to run a business so successfully because he had had to succeed under much more dire circumstances at other times in his life. Now here he was, having suffered set backs and trying to regain his footing, with this gleaming mystery providing the means.

      Mollot, realized that Hammond was in a somewhat sensitive state, and needing his financial help, had willingly spent much time helping to calm him down over what ever real or imagined offenses the world had handed him.

      "Well, Lord Hammond..."

      Hammond interrupted him. "For God's sake man, stop calling me that! Mister Hammond is more than sufficient."

      Mollot breathed a deep sigh. "Mister Hammond, In the city of Mulweeno, for that matter in the entire state of Napoleana, Negroes and Whites have a little bit more of a sense of humor about these things. And I do believe that Mister McKay depicts humorous Scotsmen far more often than he does Negroes."

      "Scotsmen were not enslaved to tend your farms!"

      "No one was here, Hammond. This was the only place in the USA where it never happened. Never forget that. People here take great pride in that fact."

      "Any way, that man is a New Yorker."

      Hammond's petulance notwithstanding, the work was proceeding at a faster pace now that his name and cash was attached to the project. In the USA Hammond's name had a lot of weight and the American people very much wanted to see their nation catch up to the technological jump that California had on them. There was nothing that the population of the United States wanted more than to be first in all things. So much of the American self image depended on it. They had even claimed the generalized nationality of "American" as their own, which was seen with a somewhat resentful amusement by the Canadians, Colombians, Mexicans et. al. .

      Alexander Rodman Mollot, who at the age of thirty-five had made a worldwide reputation for himself by engineering the miraculous escape from Bromfkidor of the Californian skyship Norton by passing it through what has been referred to as another "dimension". In this "other world" the southern continent was an ice covered wasteland all the way into the interior and sheltered no hidden temperate land, let alone a flourishing society. The opening of the so-called xenocontinua was an unplanned and unexpected effect of the machine that Mollot had built to control the effect of gravity on skyships. The heart of this machine was the static gravity focus matrix, better known as the "Mollot cell". This device creates a field where gravity has reduced effect. Within this field the borders between previously unknown "alternate realities" break down. In these fields objects can be accelerated to very high speeds when fed high frequency currents of electricity. Mollot had contacted the world's leading expert on the generation of high frequency fields, Nikola Tesla, and together they had been laboring to create a method of using this property as the basis for a new type of skyship engine. Tesla had predicted three generations of development. The first would be a principal test vehicle which would exist to identify engineering problems and to test the theories of propulsion. The second generation would be a ship which would be able to cross the gulfs between the planets within a few days. The third, he said, would be able to achieve the "absolute speed of the Universe" , as he put it.

      Despite Tesla's colorful rhetoric, the actual work had shown that much of this was in fact, no fantasy. The first test, conducted one month before, had clocked an unmanned shell at over eight hundred miles per hour. The drive field had been very unstable and had generated several bursts of xenolitic material, that is matter which has its origin in a xenocontinuum. The ship in the shed next to Tesla's lab was a much more complex affair in which five men would cross the Pacific ocean in less than an hour if all went well.

      Hammond wanted to perform this test under the combined auspices of the Dilmount institute and a new skyship products and research corporation which he would head up, Hammond Aero inc. He had been making a strong case to personally pilot the vehicle. His name was now among the world's most famous and any enterprise he participated in was eagerly watched by the public.

     There was no question that the upcoming test was contributing to Hammond's state of unrest. As the day drew nearer issues even less important than the comic pages were seen to push him near apoplexy.

      Woodrow Hammond as well as members of the support crew had been enduring daily lectures on the minutiae of the ship's operations from Mollot and Tesla. Today's was the final one and was a refresher and overview of the peculiar ship's general mechanics.

      Tesla was referring to a full sized model of the engine as he spoke. "These twin triads of coils at either side of the drive casing produce rapidly rotating fields which engender high frequency pulses that intersect at a series of points governed by a Fibonacci sequence. Axial drift is counteracted by both forward and rear passive ballast cells which damp all static gravity emanations save for those with a specific radiance of plus or minus 61.48 hartleys, which, as we now know, is the radiance at which the least amount of stelching will occur.

      "Within the drive casing is a self correcting parallel resonant field translator with a series of redundant bleeder pins which, instead of controlling the balance of a third Mollot cell, monitor the radiant discharge of the fluxion tube. It is here that the main driving field is applied. The fluxion tube is the single portion of the engine which can be described as revolutionary. It is unique in that the energy state of the high pressure gas contained within can be minutely controlled. Care must be taken, however because the response rate of the field translator can fall behind the activity of the fluxion tube, particularly when the energy level crosses more than a balanced number of nodal points in phases six, twenty-four or eleven of the zoned power cycle. For this reason the fluxion tube can be ejected if the energy phase rises above fifty percent at those nodal points. A free fluxion tube in such a state is profoundly dangerous. There is a high probability of its entire mass converting to energy at once resulting in an explosion of unprecedented force. The ship can land safely without the fluxion tube but will not be able to maintain speed for more than a few seconds following the jettison. The conversion which takes place within the fluxion tube will step the energy across several xenocontinua while it is operating but the passive ballast cells should stabilize the xenospatial position of the ship."

      Speeches like this tended to leave Hammond glassy eyed. He had learned the controls but felt his needs for a lot of theory were limited. He understood that, like all aircraft, this ship could kill him very fast if his attention strayed. At this point, the man of action within him was ready to just go. Enduring one more lecture for him would be a fate worse than death. Luckily, the test was now only a week away.

      The details of the test were publicized eliciting both wonder and some ridicule from the press. It was claimed the new ship would travel from New York city to Nagasaki in Japan in one hour and forty minutes. Hammond and Tesla had agreed that if the engine performed well over that distance that a circumnavigation might be attempted without a landing in Japan. Hammond hoped that this would be the case, the publicity would be worth its weight in gold. The date of July first had been set for the flight.

      Hammond, along with Tesla and two Dilmount engineering students would serve as crew on the test. The ship would carry few supplies as the maximum expected trip time would be about three hours and that was only if a circumnavigation was attempted. The relaxed feel that typically accompanied air travel would be absent from this trip, particularly for Tesla who would have to monitor the engine's activity constantly.

      Hammond was surprisingly calm on the morning of the test, the train had been very comfortable and he had been left to himself to go over notes and get some sleep. The test site on Staten Island had been mostly cleared of onlookers and would stay that way until about two hours before takeoff .

      The King's county skyport had its entire west side cleared for the experimental ship's takeoff. In an hour or so, a crowd was expected to gather, but now all was quiet. Woodrow Hammond would make use of the next few hours double checking every system involved in the flight.

      As Hammond was looking over the equipment at the test site, Mollot approached him.

      "Mister Hammond, there is a gentleman here who wishes to make your acquaintance."

      With him was a rather nondescript balding gentleman.

      "Lord Hammond", he gushed as he pumped his hand vigorously, "I have long hoped to meet you face to face! I'm working on a motion picture which might be of interest to you! I understand you have quite a bit of experience with live avisaurs." The man seemed to speak without taking a breath. Hammond had indeed confronted live avisaurs. These creatures were the animals that inhabited the land of Bromfkidor and had come to be identified with dinosaurs of Earth's ancient aeons. They could be found in sizes several times that of an African elephant. Some were quite dangerous.

      "Excuse me sir", said Hammond, "but you to seem to have the advantage of me."

      The man blushed and released Hammond's hand "Good heavens! I'm so sorry Lord Hammond! Allow me to introduce myself, My name is Winsor McKay."

      Hammond stepped back and his pupils dilated ever so slightly as he regarded McKay. His face looked as if he smelled something bad.

      McKay looked nervous now , "Lord Hammond, I certainly hope that you haven't taken umbrage from my little fairy tale, it was all in jest I assure you!"

      "Mister McKay, Professor Mollot and I really have a great deal of work to do here, so if we could perhaps speak another...."

      The cartoonist interrupted, "If you would agree to see my motion picture, I promise you shall be amazed as you have never been before!"

      McKay was rewarded with the first smile to cross Hammond's face in quite some time. "That would have to be amazing indeed, Mister McKay."

      Encouraged, McKay continued. "I have undertaken a project to create a motion picture from thousands of drawings. Animated drawings."

      "Living drawings?"

      "My drawings run, jump and perform at my command!"

      "Well, sir, that would be at least one novelty that I have never seen."

      "It is a vaudeville entertainment about a trained avisaur."

      "As wonderfully diverting as that sounds, Mister McKay, it will have to wait until after the test has been completed.

      Mollot spoke up. "We hope you will attend the launching of the ship this afternoon."

      "It would be a great honor gentlemen! I have already made several drawings of your astonishing skyship."

      Hammond excused himself as McKay and Mollot continued conversing, to enter the ship and start checking out various of the systems. Seating himself in the thickly padded pilot's chair, he went step by step through the power up and power down check list while noting the position of each lever, switch and wheel for the hundredth time. He was as prepared as he could ever hope to be. The seats onboard had no belts or restraints because the crew was going to be protected from inertia by the static gravity field. Even a high speed crash should cause the occupants nothing more than a slight whiplash so long as the engine was still functioning. Woe be to them, however, should they lose power at a crucial moment, the end could come quickly indeed.

      By noon, a mob of several thousand had pushed their way into the sky port to witness the great experiment or great calamity, whichever it might turn out to be. The papers had made much of the event and it had become socially required to be seen here this day. Last moment adjustments ran into hours and the ship wasn't declared ready to lift until 5:00 PM, but the crowd waited patiently to view the new wonder.

     In the front of the crowd was the stage magician Houdini who had petitioned Mollot for a place on the flight crew, a notion which Mollot dismissed out of hand. He had actually worked in Mollot's lab for a short time trying to see what sort of new illusions might be developed using the parallel field equipment. After a few rather bizarre mishaps, the professor determined that the vaudevillian was a menace who took absurd chances with his own safety and brought his research to an end.

      The well wishers were loudly celebratory and the music of Sousa's band inflated the mood. Sousa played "California" to honor Hammond and his own "Spirit of Mulweeno" march which he had composed for the Dilmount Institute baseball team.

      The crew tipped their hats to the crowd as the boarded the ship, but did not stop to make speeches. They now would be totally focused upon their jobs. Particularly focused was Tesla who had spoken less and less as the day progressed and he prepared to spend the next two hours with his undivided attention on the several dozen meters attached to the new engine. His mind must not waver and his eyes must not close for even an instant.

      The five man crew of aeronauts seated themselves at their posts in the ship's cramped cabin. Tesla announced final equipment checks and called out, "Up ship, Lord Hammond."

      Hammond flipped a small lever on his control console and the ship gently rose from the ground. As it rose he pulled it about its yaw axis to point due west.

      "Twenty seconds to fluxion initiation." called Tesla. A small gasoline motor was revving a compact dynamo up to speed as Tesla worked his way through his lengthy check list.

      Outside the vessel miniature lightning bolts were crawling along its silvery skin.

      "Ten seconds." called Tesla. A mercury pump was driving up the pressure within the fluxion tube and the gas started to glow a dull red. The rear ballast cell loudly discharged filling the cabin with the strange odor of ozone.

      "Initiate." said Tesla quietly. Hammond flipped another switch.

     The glow of the fluxion tube suddenly jumped from its deep red to a brilliant pink illuminating Tesla's face eerily. The ship appeared to grow hair made from thousands of rippling sparks. A powerful blast of electric fire reached out from the tapered tail of the ship which hurtled to the western horizon in the blink of an eye.

      The entire skyport crowd was left open mouthed and silent by the disappearance of the ship. Houdini shook his head and then laughed, the only sound for many seconds.

      On board the ship, all was calm and measured procedure. The initiation had gone like clockwork and Tesla continued through the startup checklist and began to monitor the fluxion tube.

      The scrolling map on his console showed Hammond that three minutes into the flight, New Jersey was already behind them.

      To Hammond, piloting the vehicle felt much like driving an automobile. The response time of the controls was quick and sharp and there was the constant sense of friction from the ship's passage.

      Twenty six minutes in to the flight he saw that they were all ready over the fields of Indiana and were approaching their cruising velocity. Having reached a speed of eighteen hundred miles per hour, they had broken several times over the speed record of any vehicle that had ever come before. Because of static gravity effects, the full inertia from that velocity was not felt by those within the cabin. Also, Mollot had cleverly arranged that the floor of the ship's cabin would always feel like it was down no matter what the attitude of the ship might be.

      Hammond, although he had known the sort of speeds they would be traveling, was still astonished to actually see it. Looking straight ahead he saw himself passing clouds like trees along a rail route. Looking at the distant ground he saw all features reduced to only a blur. Features of the land could tell him nothing about his position, he could barely tell if they were over land or water.

      Mollot was calling out for periodic equipment checks from the students while Hammond and Tesla silently attended to their respective tasks. Mollot was performing measurements of atmospheric friction and taking photographs inside the ship as well as through the windows.

      To Hammond, it seemed as if almost no time had passed before they were over his native land and then in short order over the wide Pacific. The next expected landmark would be the Hawaiian Islands in less than twenty minutes.

      Tesla was now dictating notes to one of the students as he monitored the fluxion tube. Its performance was apparently optimal and Tesla voiced satisfaction.

      As the coast of Japan approached, Mollot spoke up. "I think we should continue on to New York."

      Tesla and Hammond agreed. Because of the electrical interference created by the ship's engine, there was no attempt to inform anyone on the ground of their decision. The wireless set would simply not function while the drive was operating. The course of the little ship was adjusted to the north west so that the crossing of the Eurasian land mass would be mostly over the less populated regions.

      Japan disappeared behind them as the little ship relentlessly drove for the Asian mainland. Here was the broadest piece of land on the entire planet and they were estimating that they would cross from Siberia to western Lapland in approximately one hour.

      It was as they passed into southern Siberia that trouble struck. As predicted, all that happened passed within a very few seconds.

      Hammond felt a slight bump at almost the same instant he heard a curse from Tesla's lips. He turned from the controls for an instant only to see that the cabin was no longer bathed in the pink glow of the fluxion tube. Looking back out the front port, he now saw that the ship was pitching end over end, which he could only see visually but not feel due to the controlled gravity within the ship. It was like the vision of one of mister McKay's unfortunate dreamers.

      As he fought to right the ship he called, "What happened?"

      Tesla called back "The tube made a massive energy jump! I had to dispose of it!"

      "Land the ship! Land the ship!", Mollot shouted excitedly.

      Hammond had successfully straightened out the ship which was now coasting at about one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Rapidly setting switches he was able to slow it further. He now saw that they were over a land of rocky soil dotted with stands of tall fir trees. A few miles behind them was a medium sized river. He knew that they were something more than one hundred miles north of lake Baikal. The river must be the Stony Tunguska. They were coming to a landing in a very remote region indeed. The ship settled just to the west of a stone strewn creek bed.

      The shaken crew stepped out of the crippled aircraft, happy to have returned to the ground in one piece.

      Hammond was the first to speak. "What happened to the fluxion tube? I thought it would have released enough explosive force to at least be seen from here."

      Tesla answered, "More than merely enough to be seen, Lord Hammond, more by quite a tremendous margin."

      Mollot said, "It must have precipitated to a xenocontinuum. Most likely one of the more accessible ones, X-7C, X-12b or X-3f are the most likely. Hopefully this land is as barren there as it is here."

      Tesla said, "Had it remained here, we would not have been far enough from it to survive."

      With the ship's drive now shut down, the wireless would now function and thus they were able to signal their position to the outside world. The crew made camp and repaired the ship enough to get airborne again. another six days after that they arrived at Vladivostok where they were picked up by a Californian sky freighter and brought to Honolulu and so on. A month had passed before they had returned to Mulweeno to continue with work on the new engine. In spite of the failure, the original objective of the mission had been surpassed, and there was no question in the minds of Mollot, Tesla and Hammond that a revolution in aeronautics had occurred.

      Hammond sat in a darkened theater marveling at the glowing image which flickered before him. The crisp line drawings moved with the smooth precision of living beings.

      He had watched as the fictional narrative unfolded on the screen of black man capturing an egg in the secret land of Bromfkidor and conveying it through much misadventure to mister McKay in New York. Hammond caught himself laughing at the various humorous situations depicted as they led to the story of how mister McKay came to have this trained avisaur, Gertie, a gigantic long necked beast before this audience today.

      Mister McKay himself then stepped onto the stage beside the screen and engaged the living drawing in a most realistic manner resembling the way a man might relate to a loyal canine. Gertie did tricks upon McKay's command and comically disobeyed him when his back was turned. In all it was a fine show and left Hammond in good humor. He thought that this man might have just opened the door to a truly original form of entertainment.

      On the last day of June the Stony Tunguska cut its way through the peaceful landscape as it had for millennia. Although hunting parties would occasionally pass through this remote land, the local wildlife lived mostly without the fear of man.

      The sky had been clear when the light appeared, brilliant pink, rapidly inflating to an immense fireball. An explosive blast struck the earth like the fist of a vengeful God. Those trees which were not immediately blown over lit like candles in a spreading firestorm. Nothing directly below the blast survived for more than a tiny fraction of a second. A roiling cloud of unforgiving hellfire consumed all in its path. Almost every tree for ten miles was flattened.

      Thirteen miles away, one of the only humans in the region, a lone hunter, was blown off his feet and nearly deafened by the sound of the mighty explosion. When he again looked up he saw that the new Sun which had been born over the forest had given way to a pillar of black smoke reaching all the way to Heaven. Later it rained black drops from the sky. He would be the first of many to tell the story of this day.

      In Irkutsk, Moscow, Java and as far away as Washington, seismographs registered an earthquake. It was dutifully noted by geologists, but it was years before they compared notes.

      For many years mystery would surround this catastrophe. The men of wisdom would insist that it was the result of a meteor impact, but, no crater existed on the site and of course no piece of the hypothesized cosmic body would ever be found.

      I drew the brisk autumn morning into my lungs. The gentle wind stirred the fallen leaves into tiny mad maelstroms of red and gold which I further divided as I waded through. Harvard square swarmed with a thousand students, each and every one on some nameless mission of overwhelming import. I am happy to say that quite a few of them seemed to be on their way to the Harvard Bookstore.

      I had made my living writing about the history of the world's contact with Bromfkidor, the land beneath the world.

      Today, I was on my way to the Harvard bookstore to sign copies of "Black Pirate of the Lost World", my biography of Woodrow Hammond.

      Hammond was, of course, the Californian adventurer who brought a skyship out of Bromfkidor in 1903 thus bringing flight to mankind. He was also a man who I was proud to call friend in the last years of his life. It was he who told me the tales of his first sojourns in the Antarctic which it was my good fortune to publish as the books, "The Land Beneath the World", and "People of the Sky". He lived a long and fruitful life that included several professions, diplomat, businessman, politician and academic. He was a man of great energies which is well illustrated by the fact that when he was killed in an auto accident at the age of 103 he left a twenty-five year old widow.

     Rebecca Hammond and I remain friends to this day.

     Hammond was one of only about a dozen people granted titles during the brief period in which the Californian Empire experimented with the introduction of a titled peerage. He used the title of Baron of Monterey only very rarely and was rumored to dislike the concept of an aristocracy altogether. He served in the cabinets of three Prime Ministers, that of his son, D.D. Hammond, and William Richardson's as well as defense minister to Richard Milhouse Nixon the only PM to ever be removed from office by Imperial order for ethics violations.

     Hammond was a rare man and one I was lucky indeed to have known.

      I arrived at the bookstore and was seated at a table which would be my personal torture chamber for the next few hours. I would sign endless copies of my book to sons and nephews of elderly ladies who were "crazy about aviation". It was always a great disappointment to me that so very few pretty young women showed up at these things. For the hundredth time I made a mental note to try my hand at a "bodice ripper".

      As book after book was stuck under my nose, I was surprised to see a dirty old envelope placed in front of me. It was about 12"x 18" and tied up with a piece of twine.

      Looking up I saw before me a peculiar looking young man. He had somewhat unkempt brownish blonde hair of no particular length surmounting a rather pallid face which sported a pair of thick-lensed spectacles awkwardly repaired with tape.

      "I, you know, found this and thought you might, you know, want it." He spoke in a sort of nasal whine which I found utterly distasteful.

      "What is it?" I inquired.

      "Its an old manuscript. I found it in a file cabinet that they were throwing out at M.I.T. I think its about the first war."

      "Thanks." I said, wishing to keep the line moving at any cost.

     He withdrew a pen from a plastic pocket protector and tore a corner from the envelope. He started to write.

      "Here's my number if you have any, you know, questions. Or if you just want to talk about something."

      I was having difficulty imagining what peculiar circumstance would result in my "just wanting to talk" to this fellow. I pocketed the scrap of paper and thanked him. as he left I noticed that he wore mismatched socks which were ill hidden by trousers a few inches too short. Obviously a screwball.

      I threw the envelope into my bag and forgot it. Hours later, when I arrived home, I tossed my bag on the kitchen table spilling its contents every which way. The old envelope split upon hitting the table creating an unwelcome mess.

      My heart almost stopped when I saw the name on the title page, Wendell Wyley. Surely not Admiral Wendell Wyley. The title was "War Memoirs, 1914-15". My God! This was impossible. Wyley had written several books including "Understanding the Bromfkidorans" and "Modern Air Combat" but the only one which could be seen as autobiographical would be "Rising to the Challenge" in which he chronicled his unsuccessful run for the presidency. Never before had anything emerged written in his own hand of his exploits during the first Bromfkidoran engagements.

      Wendell Wyley was first known as the "Man from Another Dimension", who had come from a nearby xenocontinuum as a result of a Parallel Resonant Field Translator mishap. After 1910 this technology was outlawed as dangerous to the general public,* but before then experiments in using them to lighten skyships by displacing a substantial portion of their mass looked promising. Unfortunately the slightest miscalculation could result in the displacement of an entire ship. On just such an occasion, Wendell Wyley and a peculiar flying machine were brought to this world.

      Wyley quickly adapted to life here and used his love of aviation to gain him a place in the U. S. Aeroforce.

      Today, he is mostly remembered as the great Republican elder statesman. FDR's loyal opposition. Others will surely wish to note that he was the prime mover of the first lunar mission which placed the first foot prints on the Mare Imbrium in 1927.

     The reputation on which he built his remarkable career was forged years before in the Antarctic circle.

      I searched desperately for the piece of paper with the phone number on it but in vain. I had recently given up cigarettes in favor of Double-Bubble and, to my chagrin, I realized that I must have wrapped my gumwad in it and thrown it out.

      For weeks I asked questions around the M.I.T. campus but was unable to turn up any evidence of the youth who had brought me the envelope. On the very day that I had decided to give up I found evidence of who the mystery man was. When looking through some recent Boston Globes doing entirely unrelated research, I saw his picture and a short article. His name was Ruben Howard Cox and he had met with accidental death in a bizarre and unfortunate fraternity hazing incident six days after he had brought me the envelope.

      Wyley had no living relatives or heirs and the library that he had left all his papers to did not count this among them so it looked like I was free to publish the manuscript as I saw fit.

      This so-called manuscript was a disorganized collection of letters, lists, notes, a couple of phonograph recordings, some photographs and souvenirs and random scrawlings. Ultimately it would take me a year and a half to compose a readable account from what I had here.

     Much of what the reader will find here is recreated from the notes of Wendell Wyley supplemented with surmise based on historical fact and various memoirs which spoke of him and his times. I drew heavily on the writings of that first lunar cosmonaut, Charles Lindbergh, for background on Admiral Wyley for they had known each other well.

      The only known written memoir by Woodrow Hammond actually deals with Admiral Wyley a great deal in unflattering, brutally honest terms. Hammond and Wyley met many times but never quite connected as human beings. It was rather well known, for instance, that Wyley disliked Blacks, Chinese and Bromfkidorans. Whenever he reviewed troops or inspected equipment at the air base at Mulweeno, he was always heard to ask the commanding officer,

     "How are things here in 'Nigger Heaven'?".

      This intolerance, some have said, was the result of the shock of being transported across space-time. Others have said that he was just a narrow minded bigot. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to support either position. Perhaps this volume will serve to clarify this at least a little.

      Much of his time was spent visiting various universities hoping to find a way back to his own world. In 1943 he was projected back to xenocontinuum X-12-B for only sixteen hours. After that experience, of which he never spoke, he discontinued his efforts to return to his home dimension. He wrote, lectured and advised until his death in 1950.

      So let us journey back, gentle reader, to the early days of mankind's mastery of the air. Allow me, if you will, to paint a picture of those thrilling times when the world was drawn into the greatest conflict of the twentieth century. The scene is in southern Patagonia, October 1914

_____________________________________

* This technology was, of course, eventually applied to the problem of space flight and revived as a result.

______________________________________

† Although this is a common nickname for the city, frequently used even by its own residents, and this has been used to defend Admiral Wyley's use of the term, it still reflects poorly on the Admiral's disposition toward minorities.

      The lush green of the pampas was now far behind us having give way to this rocky, semi arid land.

     From the aerie of the USS Andrews I watched a flock of rheas as they coursed through the scrub spotted plain, come just a little too close to a clump of bushes. The creature that emerged to take one of the massive birds down looked, at first glance, like a bird itself, only with a lot more teeth.

      "That's why we're here?" I asked.

      The man behind me was a tall muscular Negro, the Californian foreign minister, Woodrow Hammond, Baron of Monterey. I admit that at that time I had yet to get used to the idea of a black man, even one as erudite as Lord Hammond, in a position of power.

      He responded, "That is the reason. They keep them as pets, watchdogs, but this one was probably born here from parents gone feral. A wild specimen could be quite dangerous."

      As I watched the feathered, quasi-reptilian, monster dismember the big bird using the knife-like claws on its toes, I felt I had to agree.

      "How do you think it got here?"

      "They brought them. They have most likely had exploration teams coming here for over two years."

      That was the day that we knew it had begun. They, of course, were the Bromfkidorans, militant inhabitants of the lost Antarctic civilization.

      The United States government had sent the Andrews under my command into southern Patagonia to prove or disprove reported sightings of avisaurs, the dominant vertebrate class in Bromfkidor, unknown elsewhere in the world. It was now generally agreed by the world's most eminent zoologists that these creatures were direct descendants of the great dinosaurs of the long past Mesozoic Aeon. And they were only a tiny part of what made this lost empire so unique.

      Locked in a strange region of the Antarctic continent, this land seemed to defy all reason simply by existing. And yet, there it was, squatting beyond its protective shell of icebound wasteland creating the greatest threat to world peace in history.

      The first man I met in this new world was a Bromfkidoran, Wolard Bidzhiro who is now a ship's captain in the Californian Aeroforce.

      These gangly gray-skins, those who told in my orders from the Admiralty was that he was an expert on Bromfkidor. What I hadn't been told was that he was not to be dissuaded by danger, by God he was even drawn to it! He informed me in no uncertain terms that he would not be removed.

      He wasn't a military man, so I just assumed that he had no understanding of the necessity of following orders. It turned out that he understood perfectly. He merely didn't care.

      There was a rumor that he had once hijacked the flagship of the Californian fleet. Had conditions been different, I might have assumed this to be an exaggeration.

      I would have been incorrect.

      Hammond had in fact taken the ISS Norton into Bromfkidor without permission from his government resulting in loss of lives of civilian personnel as well as a Californian ship, the San Francisco. As a sidelight of that particular escapade, I was snatched from my own world and deposited in this one without so much as a "by-your-leave"!

      His entire attitude reflected a lack of respect for authority. Not only authority held over him, but authority that he held over others. By claiming that he "valued autonomous thought" he served as a poor example to his subordinates.

     Because he discovered the Bromfkidoran government's plans to invade the outside world he was, instead of being thrown in prison as he richly deserved, granted a title and quietly replaced as chairman of CSC in favor of someone more predictable. Shortly after that he was selected as a cabinet minister by William Richardson who's party had come to power that year.

      For the last ten years he has been visiting foreign heads of state and giants of industry spreading moonshine about the peril from the south. At least I was certain that it was moonshine until today.

      I was still not totally convinced by the one peculiar creature, for the world has many unknown wonders, but it would have to be a mighty coincidence.

     In any case, I could do nothing with a foreign dignitary aboard and even less until I had gotten word from the admiralty. A yeoman rushed onto the bridge and handed me a telegraph transcription. The name at the bottom got my attention before I had even read it, it belonged to the president of the United States of America. The text was straightforward:

      Defer to Hammond? War with the unknown republic?

      It had been agreed by a conference of world powers two years before that containment of the Bromfkidorans to their own land must be absolute and rigidly enforced.

      Hammond had journeyed there after that declaration had been issued to convey the message to their government. The king, Buerno Montolla, responded by having Hammond's ship shot down, causing Lord Hammond great difficulty in returning to California. I understand that thereby hangs a tale worthy of an entire book.

      I took the ship to the Drake Passage with Hammond still aboard and myself full of trepidation.

      The Andrews was not the largest or the most heavily armed in the U.S. Aeroforce. I was worried that She alone might have to stand for the U.S.. She was manufactured by the Goodyear yards at Akron, Ohio in 1912 as a midweight frigate. In shape she was a flattened cigar 400 feet long by 180 feet wide by 100 feet high. Her mass was about 85 tons which is explained by the fact that she was mostly made of empty space. That space was filled to a great degree with the buoyant helium that held the ship aloft. She was powered by five large gasoline engines and had a range of 1500 miles. Her compliment was two-hundred and twenty souls.

      In my home world people had been starting to develop ships of this type when "heavier than air" craft came along in 1903. In this world as in mine, that year marked the first powered glider built by Orville and Wilbur Wright. Today that great achievement is viewed as nothing more than a stunt rather than a milestone in the history of technology.

      Today, in this world, the Wrights are manufacturers of the world's finest bicycle, the famous Wright Flyer. I understand that they are doing very well and rarely talk about their aeroplane except among similarly enthusiastic friends. The technology of the aeroplane froze in 1903 in this world. That was because of Hammond who brought a Bromfkidoran skyship out of the far south that year. We were given a new technology fully formed out of this land of Bromfkidor which doesn't even exist in the world of my birth.

      I wondered if the Andrews would have to go there before this was all over.

      The waters of the Drake Passage were red with the bodies of a billion tiny krill. The water was tortured into whitecaps and whirlpools. Whales heaved their huge bodies among the waves, feeding off the krill in a leisurely fashion as the occasional albatross would find rest on one or another's broad back. The men who hunted these whales had been chased from the region a few weeks before when the Bromfkidoran threat had become apparent. They had complained bitterly, but in the end they had left, much to the relief, no doubt, of the whales.

      At our altitude, land was just barely visible in the distance. Hammond, standing unseen behind me, made me jump when he spoke.

      "Palmiroj of the Outer Waste." he said pointing to the land at the horizon.

      Attempting to inject some humor, I said, "'Pommeroy of the outer waste', it sounds like the title of some dime novel about a mountie."

      Hammond rolled his eyes. "Pal-Meer-Oy" he said, sounding out each syllable, "we call it the Palmer peninsula. It is the farthest extension of the ice-bound desert that the Bromfkidorans refer to as the Outer Waste."

      Good God! Had this man no sense of humor whatsoever? "Lord Hammond, I was only making a little joke."

      "Little indeed. 'Mister' Hammond is sufficient if you wouldn't mind. I dislike titles"

      "Mister Hammond do you never smile?"

      Hammond turned his great head toward mine and bent a little to place himself eye to eye with me. His lips split into a broad grin, his brilliant white teeth making a startling contrast with his dusky skin.

      "Odd fellow..." I muttered to no one in particular.

      Within a few hours, I received a wireless message from the Argentine Government. They were sending a squadron of light fighter ships to support our action. The new Argentine president, Victorino de la Plaza, wanted to impress the world with his decisiveness. The grays would have to face a lot on their first time out.

      The Brazilians were also sending some sort of advanced warship under the command of Captain Alberto Santos-Dumont, one of the few men who was actually involved in airship design before contact with Bromfkidor. Upon exposure to Bromfkidoran ideas, he was able to advance his designs by several decades in only a few years. No one outside of the Brazilian military had yet seen this new ship.

      Similar work was being done at that time in Germany by Count Zeppelin who built the world's biggest commercial aircraft company. Zeppelin Works and CSC together manufactured ninety percent of the world's aircraft in 1914.

      I was worried about Santos-Dumont, who was rumored to have an even bigger head than Hammond.

      Within a day, the Argentine flotilla had rendezvoused with the Andrews and together we hung above the gray ocean awaiting whatever would come next.

      I had asked Lord Hammond what sort of force we were likely to encounter. He responded with one word. "Cloud Masters."

      "Just what in blazes are 'Cloud Masters'?"

     "Huge, heavily armed, warships. They carry a thousand troops in addition to the crew. They serve as flying hangars for a flight of smaller ships. Unless you have a force at very least three times what we have here, run if you see one. I was able to destroy the prototype in '06, but I was unable to deter them from constructing more. How many, I do not know."

      I didn't even want to ask him how he had managed to destroy one of these monsters of the air.

      "So, California will be sending some ships....right?"

      My nervous query would be answered two days later when the ISS Stevenson showed up along with an escort of four smaller vessels. The international fleet was now a dozen ships with Brazil yet to make a showing and U.S. reinforcements still a thousand miles away. This was how things stood a few hours later when the first Bromfkidoran ship was sighted on the southern horizon. She or rather "it", for the grays don't personify their vessels, was a small patrol ship. Most likely small of crew and light of armament. Upon sighting us it sped in our direction. I saw no reason not to stand our ground.

      As it came closer the peculiar semaphore array, which is used for ship to ship communication in Bromfkidor, came to life. I called Hammond to the bridge as he was the only one on board who could read these signals. Presently he appeared at my side.

      "You summoned me Captain Wyley?"

      I pointed out the patrol ship which was now repeating the pattern it had previously signaled.

      Lord Hammond squinted into the distance. "...Hold fire...must talk..." he translated.

      "I thought these people saw 'diplomacy' as a dirty word."

      Hammond replied, "I thought so too. I'm going to have to go over there."

      "I beg your pardon?!?" I shot back, aghast. If I were to let Hammond get himself killed, I would be court-martialed and thrown in a deep, dark hole until Hades froze over! "That is absolutely out of the question!"

      Hammond took on the patient tone one uses to explain something to an inquisitive five-year-old. "We have no semaphore array. They have no wireless. I speak their language. Captain Wyley, if you can formulate some alternative plan, please do so."

      Lord in Heaven, this man was irksome! I tried to think quickly. "We will surround the ship closely. One of our smaller ships will take a single man from the gray's ship aboard. Thence he will be brought to you to be interviewed. Please teach one of the crewmen the Bromfkidoran phrase for 'send one man'."

      To my utter amazement, the Baron agreed to this and selected one of the bright young officers to drill in a few key phrases of the Bromfkidoran tongue. This man was transferred to one of the Argentine light ships which in turn carried him to the Bromfkidoran patrol ship.

      We watched through a telescope a gangway was extended to the side of the invader. One man walked across and the gangway was withdrawn.

      The man was brought to the Andrews and was escorted to my private office. Hammond and I were both in full dress uniform of our respective ranks and nations. I was surprised to see that among the medals on Lord Hammond's tunic were some of obvious Bromfkidoran origin.

      A phonograph was set running to make an accurate record of the conversation.*

      The man was brought in and Hammond caught his breath. Apparently he recognized the man, who seemed to me a typical gray. He was about six feet five inches tall with light gray skin. He had eyes that were the color green often seen on cats and his beak-nosed face was framed by shoulder length auburn hair.

     The conversation was carried on in gray lingo, so it was not until I consulted with Lord Hammond afterward that I knew what had transpired.

      This is that exchange.

      Hammond tried to control his initial surprise.

      "I believe that we have met. I am Woodrow Hammond of California, Baron of Monterey and Prince Consort of the house of Sharomna."

      The man looked him up and down appraisingly.

      "We have indeed met before. I am Captain Romiro Alprendauro commanding the Massad Kora. I am acting as an official representative of Stomo Nomchitka do Bromfkidoro by direct order of king Buerno Montolla. You have been required by that government to stand down and let pass all authorized transports of the Parliament of Nations of the United World. Failure to do so will result in the arrest and/or summary execution of those parties who continue to act against the laws humanity." "Partner Hammond", He continued, "on a more personal note, I want you to know that I hold you personally responsible for the death of Dzhidro Bogadnij Alprendauro, my brother."

      Upon reviewing the notes of this conversation for the first time, I must admit that I was confused by that last statement, for I had actually made the acquaintance of Dzhidro Alprendauro who was very much alive and happily married to a young Californian woman of some breeding.

      The Baron's reply set the record straight.

      "Dzhidro is still alive. Do you propose to hold me personally responsible for that?"

      "Yes, alive. He is a naturalized citizen of the Empire of California."

      Some wind seemed to have been taken from Captain Alprendauro's sails.

     "If that is the case, you have done worse than caused his death, you have taken the honor of our family and made a mockery of it. Get in my way, Woodrow Hammond, and I shall personally have your blood."

      "So you do not like me. Do you suppose that I have never been disliked before? You are here on business for your king. Please conclude it and return to your ship. I have no interest in your tantrums and I am unimpressed by your threats."

      Alprendauro bit into his lower lip but held his composure. At that point Hammond signaled me to read my statement which he translated.

     "To the King and Parliament of the Bromfkidoran Republic. The president and congress of the United States of America has declared that any hostile action by forces originating in your lands upon any lands below 75 degrees south latitude or hostile action upon any ships of sea or sky belonging to those lands or any planting of colonies of persons or livestock in those lands will result in the existence of a state of war between our peoples. Dated October second, nineteen hundred fourteen."

      Hammond read an almost identical statement from the Californian government. Captain Alprendauro was then handed written statements from the governments of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Australia, Colombia and New Zealand.

      He was then taken from my office and returned to his ship as quickly as possible.

      Our little fleet made room for the Bromfkidoran ship to depart peacefully, but before turning back toward the Antarctic mainland, the fired one shot across the bow of the Andrews.

      The gauntlet had been taken up.

*The conversation is here reconstructed from that disc which was included as part of Admiral Wyley's notes.

      Two weeks later found me in Washington having been summoned by the president.

      An aide showed me into the Oval Office where I was greeted by the spare, bespectacled gentleman who was my Commander in Chief.

      Standing at attention I said, "Captain Wendell Wyley, United States Aeroforce, reporting as ordered sir."

     The man looked me up and down like a Headmaster attempting to devise a particularly clever punishment for a wayward student.

      "Captain Wyley, you are not a native born American, correct?"

     I was taken aback. "Mister President, I grew up in Greenfield Massachusetts and I was born in Staunton, Virginia, which, if I am not mistaken, is your own home town!"

      "My understanding is that it was not my Staunton, as it were."

      "Perhaps not, not of your world but you were there. I heard you speak at Princeton in '05. I shook your hand afterward."

      The president looked perplexed. I do not believe he had yet understood how very like this world my home dimension was. Finally he spoke again. "Allow me to rephrase my initial question, am I to be assured that you harbor unadulterated loyalty to the United States of America?"

      I responded with sarcasm that I immediately regretted "Shall I recite the Pledge of Allegiance, Mister President?"

      The president shot back, "That is precisely all I wish to hear of that sort of talk, Mister Wyley! It is vital that I know the degree of your loyalty to the U.S., are we understood?"

      "Understood, sir."

      "The real shooting is yet to begin but when it starts, you, Captain Wyley, are going to be near the center of the action. Bromfkidor must be permanently contained at any cost.

     "Now, tell me, what is the current strength of the international force in the Drake Passage?"

     "thirty four ships, only about half of them large and well armed. The largest seems to be the Pinzon out of Brazil. It is about the biggest I have ever seen. It is captained by Alberto Santos-Dumont. California has sent the Stevenson and the Norton under the command of Abraham Stein and Wolard Bidzhiro respectively. We have the Andrews, of course as well as the Akron and the Sequoyah. Argentina has sent a fleet of light patrol ships."

The president nodded as he received this information. "I have obtained cooperation and agreement from our allies that you shall be placed in charge of that entire force with the rank of commodore. The Baron of Monterey will remain with you for the time being as an advisor. In matters regarding Bromfkidoran culture and custom, you are to treat his 'advice' as orders."

      "Mister President, if I might..."

      "You will now return to your ship at the Drake Passage where you will have broad discretion in the use of that force. That will be all, Mister Wyley." His dismissal brooked no argument so I turned on my heel and left the White House. The Admiralty treated me in similar fashion, issuing orders without answering any questions. What the president had outlined, they presented in detail. I was given maps of the Antarctic coastline as well as a somewhat sketchy map of Bromfkidor itself with possible military targets marked. For several days I attended meetings and advanced training sessions. One of these sessions led me to a small cabinet in the Smithsonian Institution. Contained here were almost all of the Bromfkidoran artifacts in the United States. What caught my eye first was a pistol and rifle as good as any ever made in Europe or America. Next to them was one of their telephone devices, known as a "briodkoj", literally "far-talk". There was also a mounted avisaur that looked like a cross between a rat and a lizard. It was in fact the Bromfkidoran equivalent of a rat. There was a skyman's uniform, a small board game of some sort, a beer bottle and a few books that only two or three Americans could read. I would learn nothing significant here. Before I left, I visited the aeronautics wing. Hanging in a dimly lit corner away from the huge skyships was the single link to my origins the aeroplane which brought me to this world.

     I built it from plans I obtained from the Wrights themselves. Now it resides here as a novelty calculated to titillate the curiosity of the masses. This was the future of my world, more than likely still is. Here it is little more than a quaint gizmo, a pathetic shadow of some foggy might have been. whenever I come here, I think it will be hard to leave but it always turns out to be easy. The world from which this contrivance hails is impossibly far away, existing here in my mind alone.

      It was time to return to the fleet. After two weeks away from the Andrews I now had to take on the job of organizing the entire fleet into a unit that will respond instantly and unitedly.

     I was ready.

      That afternoon I set out for the south to take my place at the head of the international flotilla. A day and a half later I was in Bolivar boarding the Colombian ship which would carry me the rest of the way back to the fleet.

      It had grown while I was in the States. There was now a fair sized Colombian and British representation. The only South American power remaining unrepresented was Chile whose Aeroforce had been destroyed several years earlier in a war with Colombia. Now the task of their defense had fallen to their former enemies.

     Another week passed before we saw the first hostile action out of the south. Over distant Palmiroj hung a lens-shaped shadow.

      Hammond leaned close to my ear, "dreadnought" he said.

      I made a snap decision. "We're going in." I said.

      The Andrews left the rest of the fleet over the ocean and started for the Palmer peninsula at high speed.

      Hammond had insisted on having a Bromfkidoran type semaphore device installed on the Andrews which, I admit was a good idea, but I was horrified to see that he had brought a gray on board to operate it.

      "Lieutenant Tholando", he said, "is a Californian citizen and utterly loyal to the Emperor and to this cause. He is also the most experienced semaphore operator outside Bromfkidor."

      The Baron's input could not be ignored by me, but I had to

     walk a fine line in maintaining command. "That man is never to be alone." I had told him. It was a hollow victory for me. It was just this sort of thing which would continue to characterize the relationship between Hammond and myself.

      The land that the grays called "Palmiroj" was cold and forbidding. We had gained intelligence that they had been building towns out here and more importantly, military installations. the Admiralty had suggested that one of our goals in this conflict would be the control of this land as a base for containment forces.

      The dreadnought was about ten miles farther south. It was obvious that we had been spotted. The huge ship was now approaching us and semaphoring as it came.

      The gray lieutenant translated. "You have invaded the sovereign lands of the Republic of the United World.* As agents of rebellion you are commanded to stand down and surrender your ship." Speaking for himself, Tholando asked "Do you have a reply?"

      "Yes," I said, "I do." Calling to the Gunnery Officer I said, "Shoot it down!"

      A volley of shells issued from the forward guns all of which solidly struck the Bromfkidoran vessel taking out an engine but leaving it otherwise air worthy. The dreadnought fired back putting a hole in one of the gas cells. I sent a repair crew to the scene and ordered the ship forward to give chase to the vessel which had now turned from the fight.

      In spite of its damaged engine, the Bromfkidoran ship stayed ahead of us for most of a day as we pursued. The Andrews had now passed her maximum range and we had sent a wireless message for a tanker to meet us, but if we traveled much farther we would not even make it back to rendezvous with it.

      Lord Hammond urged me to turn around.

      "Commodore Wyley, we are heading for Bromfkidor and we are only one ship! Please turn back so that we will be able to return for reinforcements." We were in the region of the peak known as "Bontor Sharmodna" beyond which lay the Republic, so I had to agree with Hammond that turning back was the best course of action. I wish now that I had made that decision a little while earlier.

      As we passed into the foothills of Bontor Sharmodna I saw the dense clouds above the mountain part as three ships appeared to dwarf both the dreadnought and the Andrews. The Bromfkidoran dreadnought that we pursued was only a fifth the size of one of the new ships which now faced us. They resembled the dreadnought in general configuration save for two huge docking masts on their upper decks to which smaller ships were attached.

     The ships sides were decorated with a stylized image of a storm cloud emitting a lightning bolt. We were facing flying cities like Gulliver's island of Laputa.

      "Cloud Masters" said Hammond. I found it blasted annoying that this man insisted on identifying each type of ship we encounteredas if he were a bird watcher. A shot from one of the Cloud Masters across our bow galvanized me from my minor irritation intoaction.

      To stand and fight against these odds would have been irrational and irresponsible. I called for the Andrews to be turned and headed as quickly as possible for a gorge that I had spotted about a mile behind us. The ships moved to take advantage of our weaker position with no great haste, well they knew that escape was nigh impossible for us. If I could maneuver us into a place where our smaller size would serve as an advantage, there would be a chance of saving the lives of some of my crew.

     A second shot from one of the giant ships set our upper deck to flames as we beat a hasty retreat. The fire spread so rapidly that I had to assume that they had fired some sort of flammable substance at us. I called orders for crash stations to the crew as we became a shooting star in the Antarctic sky.

      I was still calling orders all over the ship as it plummeted into the ice filled canyon.

     The Andrews sat at an angle in the canyon bottom as crewmen scrambled to extinguish the flames which threatened to consume the upper deck.

      We were trying to radio a warning to the fleet as well as a distress call.

      We might be able to get the ship back into the air on our own but we no longer had enough fuel to reach the Drake Passage, let alone the mainland of South America.

     Snow blew into the canyon as we frantically worked to repair the damage. Enough gas remained to buoy the ship as long as we could get at least one engine functioning. It took six days during which it got colder and colder inside the ship. The wireless was entirely silent in all that time.

      I planned that we would go under power as far as we could and then would "free balloon" from that point while broadcasting a distress signal.

      We finally got into the air and started for the ocean trying to gain as much speed as we could. When we were still about fifty miles short of the coast the fuel ran out and we started to float free.

      I have always been a man of action and free ballooning the ship was an act of passivity. I could do nothing but let the fickle winds do with me as they would. By, I am sure, purest luck, the Andrews drifted out over the passage into a dark night.

      Luck, it turned out, went only so far. a storm caught us and the entire crew was tossed about the ship causing all manner of injuries for over six hours. When day broke the ship was damaged beyond all use. Over a third of the crew was either dead, missing or too injured or sick to stay at their posts. We were over land, the island of Tierra Del Fuego. We had no power at all, even for the wireless and we could see no persons on the land nor any ships on the sea or in the air. The ship was drifting and I felt that we had best land before we again drifted over water. I called to vent gas and our descent began. We drifted over Magellan's straits and came to a more or less gentle landing a few miles from Punta Arenas, Chile.

      We were a rag-tag lot that emerged from the wreck of the Andrews, clothing torn, little food and only limited weapons.

      It seemed that no one from Punta Arenas had seen us go down so we would have to go there. fearing that the ship would be looted by locals, I ordered that anything we might need be taken along. I had all crewmen load full packs of supplies for the march. Hammond had a worried look and I had no time to ask him why. He was distracted, Lieutenant Tholando, his friend, had been killed in the storm. He seemed to be sniffing the air.

      I had donned my dress uniform with its high cap and ceremonial sword for it was all of my clothes that remained unscathed.

      I saw that Hammond had also buckled on a sword and when he saw me looking at him he said, "Good idea, we'll want weapons."

     I thought "what for?" Lord Hammond evidently thought that we might be in some sort of danger, while I was smugly sure that our danger had passed.

      Our trek to Punta Arenas ended when we were about halfway there. One of the Cloud Master ships hung above the town. An enormous spiral ramp leading to the main street of the city with a constant flow of traffic moving both ways upon it was suspended by a myriad of large balloons.

      I sent a small scouting party to learn more of what had happened here. The news upon their return a few hours later was very bad. While we had labored to free the Andrews, the Cloud Masters had driven back the allied fleet and moved onto the continent.

     Everything south of the Santa Cruz river was now Bromfkidoran.

      At this point I felt that we must return to the wreck of the Andrews and set up a base there. The first great battle of the war had been fought and lost and the Andrews had not even been there. It was our misfortune to now find ourselves behind enemy lines. The president would be furious. With luck, I wouldn't survive and have to face him.

      Our return trip to the sight of the wreck also ended halfway.

     In the distance, I could see that the ship had been discovered by Bromfkidoran forces and was being salvaged. The manner in which it was being salvaged left me speechless.

      Just plain disbelief is how I would describe my reaction to the sight I now beheld. The enormous skyship was being hauled upon a huge sledge through the muddy valley. But it was not the vehicle so much as the choice of draft animal which made the scene one of utmost wonder. There were ten of them and each one had to be at very least the size of ten to fifteen full grown bull elephants. They were long necked and long tailed with barrel-like bodies. The legs that supported these bodies were pillars of flesh, bone and sinew as big around as the great redwoods of California. They had to be close relatives of the long extinct brontosaurus for they resembled them in every particular save size where they exceeded any fossil of that creature that I had ever seen. Although I'm not sure why, I was surprised to see that these creatures were brightly colored with great stripes of green and orange. They called out in voices like the orchestra from a madhouse. The sound climbed up my spine like electricity and I broke a sweat in spite of myself.

     Never in my wildest dreams did I suspect that monsters such as these still walked the earth. I was filled with awe and respect for the works of nature.

      The wreck of the Andrews was being conveyed to a spot near the base of a great hill where one of the Cloud Master ships lowered a multitude of lines that were in turn attached to the hulk. The monster ship would easily be able to carry the Andrews to some place where it could be studied in detail.

      This could not be allowed to happen, all of our newest devices were incorporated into the Andrews and would bring disaster were it to fall into gray hands.

      I had to think fast, for the moment we had been lucky enough to have not yet been spotted but that couldn't last for long.

     I gave a few quick instructions and had everyone seek cover as quickly and as well as they could. I then ran out into the enormous rut left by the sledge. The Bromfkidorans who were guiding the sledge's progress turned from their work to see me running toward them hollering curses and slander of their parents.

      I leapt for one of the hundred or so lines dangling from the ship and grabbed it with one hand. With the other hand I drew my sword as I was swung up to the back of one of the gigantic avisaurs.*

      The man who was guiding the great creature looked at me aghast. I wasted not a second of time and ran him through with my blade before his expression could change. Desperately I started hacking at the thick ropes of the avisaur's harness. The gigantic beast seemed to be only dimly aware of me, it was my suspicion that the animal was actually quite stupid. First one rope, then another parted. By now the other teamsters had seen what was going on, but a beast of this size is not casually dismounted from thus giving me some time. I now held the strange "bridle" which was used to turn the dim-witted monster's head for steering. Slowly the weighty animal came about complaining with basso profundo ululations. I was hoping that I would be able to create a big enough disturbance to divert attention from the actions of the crew.

      It might seem odd that an Aeroforce commodore in full dress uniform with a drawn sword on dinosaur back would be worried that he was not causing enough of a stir, nonetheless this was precisely my situation.†

           At this point members of the Andrews' crew were emerging from their cover armed with torches. They spread themselves thinly enough that marksmen aboard the ship and on the ground were able to take down only a very few men. As they reached the sides of the Andrews they set it aflame. The wooden ship was engulfed within minutes mostly due to its ruptured gasoline tanks. The flames panicked the animals that remained connected to the sledge. They threw off their riders who were then crushed beneath the flaming wreckage as the terrified beasts hauled it over them. To my surprise, I was able to keep the creature I rode undercontrol. It was better trained than I might have hoped and had the advantage of not being linked to an eighty five ton bonfire.

      Out of the huge Cloud Master ship came what looked like a flock of birds. Due to the distance, it was hard to make out exactly what I was seeing. They looked a little like boomerangs with a line attached to the center with some thing hanging. Something small.

      As they banked for a turn in perfect formation, the scale of what I witnessed became apparent. the tiny thing at the end of the line was a man.

      It was a buoyant aerodynamic surface attached by a cable to a harness. The man in the harness controlled the movements of the wing by shifting his weight. Lighter lines were connected to control surfaces that determined the attitude and speed of these stripped down contrivances.

      The men at the controls were armed, but surprisingly not with guns. Each pilot carried a long sword with a curved barb halfway along its five foot length. Had I a pistol, I believe that there would have been little for me to worry about but, alas, I was armed with only the sword from my dress uniform.

     The wing men bore down upon me in a line with the clear intention of cutting me down from my mount. Some of them veered off to other areas in the vicinity where they might find targets among the torch bearers

      Pandemonium was the rule of the day as trumpeting, stampeding dinosaurs strewed flaming wreckage everywhere.

     I was engaged by first one wing man then another, wielding my sword with one hand as I reigned in the animal with the other. Each individual engagement lasted only a few seconds as a wing man would swoop past me. It was my great good fortune that I had excelled at fencing as a youth for all of that skill was being called upon today. The great length of the Bromfkidoran swords kept me from landing any effective blows against my opponents in my first two engagements, but the third man made an error which allowed me to cut the cable that suspended him from his wing depositing him roughly on my mount's back. I wasted not a second placing the point of my blade against his throat as I appropriated his. Having secured one of the long swords, I kicked the man off the back of the great striped beast who promptly trampled him underfoot.

     Now that I was better armed, the odds were somewhat evened. It became quickly evident that the hooked extension on the blade was for cutting control or suspension cables, a task for which it was admirably suited. I had goaded the animal into motion toward my own party who I now hoped to rejoin, thus forcing the wing men to follow. By poking my mount with the tip of my sword, I was able to convince it to go at a gallop which for a creature with twelve foot legs was fast indeed. Again and again the winged swordsmen descended upon me and again and again I fought them off. My right arm had become soaked to the elbow with the spilled blood of my adversaries. My mount was now bolting in panic and one way or another I would soon have to dismount. Ahead was a stand of trees where the wing men could not follow but the creature would also be slowed a great deal.

      Holding for dear life to the reigns, I used them to swing outward to the ground where I landed tumbling end over end only narrowly missing impaling myself on my own blade. I had done so close enough to the trees that the wing men found themselves entangled in the branches of the trees that were then bowled over by the terrorized dinosaur who indiscriminately pounded wood and wing men alike to smithereens. Behind me was a muddy field strewn with flaming wreckage, flattened bodies and screaming beasts. The gigantic skyship was now heading north, most likely for Punta Arenas. The events I have just described took place in only a few minutes.

      Hammond arrived at my side and helped me to my feet.

     "Subtle." he said with irritating irony.

      On the field we were able to collect some swords and guns as well as a few of the one man wings. My ship was gone but not my command, her crew was now an army. We would not be well enough armed to take Punta Arenas, not by quite a long shot. I would have to bring my command north of the Santa Cruz and harass the enemy along the way.

      It sounded easy.

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† Although Admiral Wyley refers to these animals as "dinosaurs," biologists prefer to hold the avisaura as a separate group distinct from the dinosaurs. This, however is a subject of great controversy even at the end of the twentieth century. The issues center around metabolism which most paleontologists insist was exothermic ("cold blooded") in the dinosaura but is very clearly endothermic ("warm blooded") in the avisaura. Those scientists who do not hold with this view are thought to be hopeless radicals.

      Two weeks had now passed since the Andrews was shot down in Palmiroj. My tiny "army" and I had marched one hundred miles to the Rio Gallagos just beyond the Argentine border. In that time we had encountered several abandoned towns but only a very few grays, two lone men that we didn't let see us and one patrol ship that Hammond brought down by flying up to it on one of the single man wings and disabling its engines and setting it aflame. No doubt the crew thought it was some kind of accident.

      It would be required for us to cover an additional one hundred miles to reach the Santa Cruz. So far all the roads that we had encountered had been torn up and there were no railways this far south, so we had to make our way through the country side entirely on foot. Hammond hoped that we might capture a skyship, but I didn't feel that we were well enough armed and besides, we had seen only one on the entire journey.

      The closer we got to the banks of the Santa Cruz, the more reports I got of strange sightings. Strange sightings of little brown men.

      Three days after I heard the first rumor, one of these fellows walked out of the night and into the light of my fire escorted by a pair of bemused skymen from my command.

      He was about five feet three inches tall, but carried himself with almost regal bearing. He wore a Colombian sky captain's uniform with a few modifications. For one thing, instead of the regulation cap, he sported a slightly pointed hood which was emblazoned with the golden condor of Greater Colombia. He grandly introduced himself as Captain Huascar Garza of the skyship Koricancha in the service of El Presidente Juan Edgar Bolivar y Van Der Kassel of Gran Colombia.

      His face bore the small eyes, high cheekbones and aquiline nose that marked him as an Andean.

      It was evident to me that it was members of this man's crew which had been "haunting" my crew.

      "Captain," I asked, "why did you and your men not make your presence known to us earlier?"

      "My ship is camouflaged near a gulch just this side of the Santa Cruz. We knew that your ship had gone down and formulated a plan to save you and as many of your men as we could. In order to do this I had to assign a small detail of men to locate your party. They were instructed to report to me before taking any action."

      A rather theatrically canny man, this Garza. He came out of the interesting military skyman tradition of Colombia. When Colombia had its second great expansion in which it incorporated both Peru and Bolivia in the 1860's, the nation gained as citizens the people who would become its greatest soldiers of the sky.

      These men were from Qosqo in the Andes mountains of the Colombian far west and were descendants of the once mighty Incas. The Greater Colombian government chose these particular people to become the cream of their air force because they had lived all their lives at high altitudes. In spite of their small stature, these flyers were so adept at their work that they were famous the world over. The air force academy at Qosqo was regarded as one of the most difficult schools of its type in all the world.

      We went with captain Garza about three miles to the north. My charts showed that we were a short distance from the town of Esperanza. The Koricancha sat in a rocky field near the side of a gulch. It had been painted to match the surrounding landscape so perfectly that it had to be pointed out to me. She was not made to accommodate as many people as all one hundred and sixty- seven remaining of my crew and would have to make it back across the lines at very low altitude. The reason that the Koricancha was selected for this mission was its speed, but with this load both its speed and stability would be compromised.

      Ahead of us was a journey of about sixty miles to the nearest friendly installation, the American base at Lago Viedma.

      Sunrise was approaching as we prepared to raise ship. Captain Garza was hoping to make the base in about an hour and a half even though the ship felt a bit unsteady. Almost as soon as the ship was airborne, the helmsman called to the captain that he had spotted a ship.

     "A dreadnought," said Hammond in my ear, "it will be able to easily outrun us."

      I resisted the urge to snap at him. "Perhaps you should tell captain Garza what you can about it."

      I called to my own men to brace themselves for evasive maneuvers just as the first one toppled most of them. The dreadnought had turned toward us and captain Garza called for a full about which had set the overloaded ship to pitching back and forth.

      At first, the dreadnought didn't fire but approached to see if we might be taken without damage. The Bromfkidorans wanted badly to get their hands on our wireless and gyroscope. They wanted equally badly to be able to look at the construction of our gas cells and gasoline engines.

      It was almost inevitable that sooner or later in this conflict the grays would capture a ship intact and delve its mysteries. Even so, the allies saw it as essential that that time come as much later as possible.

      The huge dirigible was bearing down on us at an uncomfortable rate and we were soon in its shadow. The captain called for more speed but to no avail, the extra weight born by the ship made our present velocity its highest speed.

      First one line then another dropped from the gigantic disc-shaped ship. We had but a single recourse.

      I seized the long Bromfkidoran blade and alerted the men under my command to gather behind the upper hatches. On my word over one hundred men and I swarmed up the lines that the enemy had planned to use to board us.

      The Bromfkidorans, being people of intelligence and no doubt believing us to be the same, never suspected that we would so dangerously overload a ship.

      Although the grays outnumbered us, it was not by nearly as much as they suspected, thus we had surprise on our side. Further, they were reluctant to use firearms on board ship lest they ignite the hydrogen which provided buoyancy for the vast dreadnought. One spark and the entire ship would be consumed within a few seconds. Over a period of a few minutes we had first twenty-five, then fifty, then a hundred men aboard the enemy ship!

      I swung my sword in wide bloody arcs, cutting down men like weeds before a scythe. The men had improvised weapons of various types, mostly bludgeons and knives, but they still did deadly work.

      Hammond had come, despite my orders to the contrary, and had proven to be useful by pointing the way to the bridge. In short order the Americans had gained control of the ships helm but there were still small battles being fought all over. I turned the great ship north and called for full speed. I had to draw a drop or two of blood from the throat of the gray helmsman before he would comply with the order.

      Lord Hammond was translating all of my orders into Bromfkidoran which sounded very natural coming from him. I remembered that he had married a gray and probably spoke it at home at least part of the time.

      The small Colombian ship rapidly pulled out ahead of us as we both crossed the waters of the Santa Cruz and left us behind now that it had been relieved of the extra weight it had been burdened with. I realized that the Koricancha was heading for Lago Viedma to get reinforcements to secure our tenuous control of the Bromfkidoran dreadnought. We would not be able to hold sway over the ship for more than a few minutes before those of its crew who remained live and free reorganized enough to seize the bridge back from us.

      Hammond used the on board fartalk to make sure that the engine rooms were secure and then broadcast a message throughout the ship for the grays to stop fighting and they would be well treated. I received no evidence of their being convinced. The helmsman seemed to be positive that he would be killed sooner or later, perhaps this is how they treated prisoners and expected the same from us.

      When I asked, Hammond said that they would most likely view our actions as treason, for they saw us as Bromfkidorans in rebellion, and therefor would treat us as traitors.

      "What is the Bromfkidoran penalty for treason?" I asked.

      "Death." said Woodrow Hammond.

      I thought that given this view, they must see us as very desperate men who would stop at nothing. In their view, we had rejected the very basics of civilization and might do anything at all. I suppose that my display of swordsmanship when taking the ship might have been construed as the excessive act of a violent man. Hammond had said as much, but these gray barbarians had to be shown that Americans cannot be trifled with.

      The Koricancha reappeared from the north with three American ships close behind. One of the U.S. ships fired a warning shot over our heads. We brought the captured dreadnought to a stop and allowed ourselves to be boarded by American skymen.

      We were safe at last.

      The grays were placed in pens and Hammond summoned a specialist from San Francisco to deal with them. He would arrive in a few days.

      These Bromfkidorans seemed so very sure of their fate that they made no attempt either to escape or to cooperate. They were resolved to die with honor.

      Their ship was named Sorad'Alina and it had been the most advanced of its class before they had been superseded by the Cloud Master type ships. Hammond wanted the ship for California, he argued that they were best equipped to study it. Garza insisted that it must go to Colombia but I pointed out that this was an American base and the capture had been made by American troops. The ship was towed north for Havana in the U.S. the next morning.

      I was given but a short time to bask in my triumph, the president, via telegraph, informed me that I, in cooperation with officers from other American powers, was to lead a mission into Bromfkidor. Our goal was to be contacting leading citizens and convincing them that continued pursuit of this conflict would only lead to the ruin of their civilization. At the same time, we were to establish a defensible base within the Republic of Bromfkidor.

      I set to work selecting my command crew from a list of officers provided to me by the state department as well as a few "volunteers" whom I was instructed were to be included. To my chagrin, one of these was the Baron of Monterey.

      The day after I received my orders Hammond's expert arrived.

     His name was Dzhidro Alprendauro and he was as gray as they come. He was the presumed dead brother of the messenger aboard the Andrews. My understanding was that this man was a leading citizen of California, president of CSC and a native Bromfkidoran by birth.

      Alprendauro spoke perfect English with a Californian accent but would blithely throw in Bromfkidoran words whenever he started speaking fast. He sounded like an inept spy. Hammond recommended this man to me for our mission. He had served with distinction aboard a Bromfkidoran vessel. I agreed to give him a position on the mission.

      Although he was not on the list, I requested captain Huascar Garza as my second in command and the Colombian government obliged by making him free of duties for the mission.

      The Argentines recommended a Lieutenant named Kiyotimink Shilchan* who was born in the occupied territory of Tierra Del Fuego. His people were called Ona and he wore the standard issue uniform with a skull cap of guanaco fur which was part of his people's distinctive garb. He was a small, brown-skinned man who's bearing made him seem larger. he was a warrior and like his people, he still preferred the longbow over the gun.

      Although I would command the mission, Brazil was providing the ship and its captain. It was the huge and experimental "Pinzon" under the command of Santos-Dumont. Within its hull it would house two smaller ships, one Californian and one from the U.S.A., the Californian being captained by another Bromfkidoran named Homar Mekeiro, the American by Robert E. Howard of Texas.

      From Chile came the radio man, Ramon O'Leary, and from Uruguay came master engineer, Jose Giro. Other officers and crewmen originated from Canada, Mexico and the Dominican Republic creating a truly "American" crew.

      Fully half of the crew spoke Spanish as a first, and in some cases only, language. There were also those who spoke Portuguese, Quechua, Ona and Bromfkidoran. For this reason, and no other I assure you, I found it convenient to have Woodrow Hammond by my side most of the time during preparations for the mission.

      Captain Santos-Dumont spent all of his time with his crew and fussing with technical matters. I almost had to make appointments to see him.

      President Wilson sent a group of men along who's purpose I wasn't sure of. They were a group of scientists of various disciplines headed up by two men from the Dilmount Institute in Mulweeno, Doctor Alexander Rodman Mollot, Inventor of the dimension warping device which brought me to this world and Doctor Nikola Tesla, a tall Croatian immigrant who was the U.S.A.'s leading authority on advanced electrical applications.

      This party was quartered on a rear storage deck and I, quite frankly, forgot all about them.

      At a meeting of senior officers a few days before departure, I had asked for suggestions as to a possible sight for us to set up our base within Bromfkidor. Mister Alprendauro had a few ideas for places in the Outer Waste, but it sounded like the environment there was so hostile that a long term occupation might prove impractical.

     It was then that Woodrow Hammond revealed that he owned a large estate in Bromfkidor.

     "Harro's blood, Woody, I had all but forgotten!" Cried Alprendauro.

     "Lord Hammond," I asked, "how is it that you came to own property in Bromfkidor?"

     He seemed a little embarrassed. "I am married to a very wealthy Bromfkidoran woman who was the head of her family. The society of her homeland is such that wealth is controlled principally by men and by custom all of a woman's wealth becomes her husband's to dispose of as he wishes. When I took her out of Bromfkidor we lost access to her fortune, but I have learned that the family has kept up the estate and recognizes me as the family patriarch. As Prince Consort of the house of Sharomna of Pojona I will offer the use of the estate of Nomchit Sharomna for our base of operations."

      I had to admit that this sounded like a real possibility.

"Do you believe that we would be able to reach this place without incident?"

"California and Great Britain have a cooperative base in the Antipodes Islands to the south of New Zealand. Nomchit Sharomna lies very close to the edge of the Outer Waste on the Molad river. The part of that empty region that is nearest our goal is very infrequently patrolled by the military and can be reached in a short time from the Antipodes."

      "This is true," said Alprendauro, "the region of the Ross Ice Shelf, know to Bromfkidorans as the Eastern Ice is little explored. I believe that even a ship the size of the Pinzon could cross it unseen. Only a small portion of inhabited land would have to be traversed to reach Nomchit Sharomna."

      "It sounds to me," I said, "like this will be the easiest course to follow. I assume that the Baron will be able to make I would like to see us underway in two weeks time."

      Five days later found me aboard a Californian ship in the South Pacific just a few miles north of the Antipodes. The largest island was our destination and its shore was covered with at least ten thousand seals. The noise of our engines sent them all dashing into the water whipping it into a white foam.

      The center of the island was dominated by a large hill with the grandiose name of Mount Galloway.

      The base was built atop Mount Galloway in the Bromfkidoran mode with a huge mast newly installed to accommodate the gigantic D.B.Pinzon† which had arrived the day before.

      The smaller Californian ship docked below in the shadow of huge Brazilian vessel.

      When I set foot on the ground I was met by Mister O'Leary who was installing the main wireless station which would communicate directly with our ships and our base within enemy territory.

      I was settled into an office near the radio room which had a large map of the Antarctic regions on the wall with a liberal supply of pins. On the desk sat three telephones one of which was a direct line to Santos-Dumont on the bridge of the Pinzon.

      I wasted three days in this little room conferring with a staff who all knew already what they were going to do. We were all itching to get underway.

      The Pinzon flew over the tossing sea with an easy grace. Never in my life had I seen such a steady vessel, had the allies twenty ships like this, the Cloud Masters would be no threat. As it was, this ship, impressive as it might be, would have to stand alone against a mighty nation.

      During the trip, I finally got the chance to speak at length with captain Santos-Dumont. On our first night out I requested that he dine with me. He accepted, but insisted that we dine in his quarters, served by his personal chef. In the U.S. the military way of life was somewhat more simple. My sense of the contrast was reinforced when I saw his cabin.

      "Victorian" was the word which came to my mind when I saw it. The room was hung with velvet curtains and the walls bore paintings in ornate frames. There was actually an organ against one wall next to a small table bearing a silver tea service.

     The man himself was not as big as his surroundings seemed to imply, although he had worn every medal he had ever earned with the amazing dress uniform of the Brazilian Aeroforce. It was obvious that this little man had big ideas. I was reminded of some Machiavellian character from a Jules Verne novel.

      "Commodore Wyley," he said gesturing to a comfortable looking easy chair, "come in, please be seated."

      "Thank you very much captain Santos-Dumont." I sat down, the chair was every bit as comfortable as it looked.

      "My crew refers to me merely as captain Santos. You may do so as well. I am pleased to have you as a guest in my quarters."

      He seemed so stiff and formal without any real warmth or cordiality. He played the host in a mechanical manner.

      The dinner was remarkable, Argentine veal with asparagus in hollandaise and wild rice served with a fine Californian wine.

      I wanted to get to know Santos, become friends with him if possible, for it was he of all people on this mission that I had to depend on.

      Our conversation throughout dinner was light, regarding management of the ship but after the cognac and cigars were broken out he relaxed a little.

      "You know, commodore," he said, "I hate the Bromfkidorans."

      I was taken aback by his abrupt expression of sentiment. I answered, "I assure you that they aren't my best friends either."

      "You do not understand, sir. I hate them. They stole from me what was mine by right. I was going to give the world the dirigible airship."

      "I had heard that you had made a few somewhat primitive experiments in lighter tha..."

      He cut me off, rising from his chair and coloring as red as Satan himself. "You," he said waving a finger in my startled face, "have No idea..." He tried to calm down. "Excuse me, sir, but you have no idea how close I was. Within a few decades I could have shown the world wonders even greater than those that emerged from that provincial backwater of humanity!"

      "I'm game," I said nervously, "tell me about it."

     Santos-Dumont poured himself more cognac and then as an afterthought, offered me some.

      When I was young," he began, "my father sent me to Paris to learn how to be a man. He believed that it was the most dangerous of places for a young man with a lot of money to be. If I could pass this particular trial of fire, he believed, I would have accomplished something momentous.

      "To the his surprise, I was lured more by fast automobiles than fast women. More prone to get drunk on the heights reached in the basket of a balloon than on wine.

      "Do you know that I built my own balloon that I could carry with me in the rumble seat of my car and made ascensions all over Europe? I started to work on the problem of a steerable motorized balloon. I made hundreds of tests of shapes of envelopes. I did an experiment that involved hanging a motorcycle from a tree to test the vibration of the motor out of contact

with the ground.

      "In '98, I made my first directed flight although it was not without its problems. I had to be guided home like a kite by some school boys.

      "Isn't it strange how things that we think have no connection to our lives can end up being pivotal to our fate. I had heard rumors of a lost civilization having been discovered, but that seemed to have little bearing on my work.

      "My ships grew bigger and better and I became the toast of Paris, a circumstance which was much to my liking. I was gay and flamboyant. Even in defeat I made sure that I would be talked about. After a terrible crash in a tree, I asked my rescuers for a glass of beer before I was down. On another occasion a hydrogen filled ship exploded. Those who came to find my body were treated to the sight of me sitting on a window ledge calmly smoking a cigarette. Both success and failure increased my reputation in this way until '03 when Woodrow Hammond crashed a true skyship in southern Patagonia.

      "A month later, it was as if I had never existed. The skyships of Bromfkidor had stolen my thunder. At first, I blamed Hammond but I realized that at that time he could not possibly have behaved any differently. The Bromfkidorans, on the other hand, were another matter. Not only had they destroyed my life's work, they also harbored desires for world conquest.

      "I obtained a job with the California Skyship Corporation as an engineer and learned all I could. A year later back in Rio, I started my own operation. My family had strong connections with the government. Brazil formed its Aeroforce a month before California founded its own.

      "Hammond's skyship works stayed steadily ahead of mine for the first four years but by 1907, AeroBrasil Ltd. had introduced designs unlike any others.

      "My recognition in the world community was still not what it might have been, they had taken it from me, and eventually they would pay!"

     I had gotten the feeling as he spoke that Santos-Dumont might not be in his right mind. I felt cold when he expressed his irrational hate for the grays.

      As soon as was polite, I noted the late hour and said my good night.

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* His surname translated as "soft Voice and he was in fact one of the least boisterous men I have ever known.

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†D.B.= Dirigabile Brasil

      I am certain that there were much more than one million penguins on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. Every so often, as if of one mind, the entire nation-sized flock would run for the waves in orderly lines and then plunge into the frigid water. Suddenly their awkwardness on land is replaced by their extraordinary grace in the water. The crystal clear ocean revealed that these birds had not forgotten the art of flight but had merely moved it to a new medium. In the water they flew revealing their true avian nature as they hunted the millions of small fish which crowded these waters. They, in their turn, were hunted by sea lions who would ambush them in the shadowy depths.

      The ice shelf itself was of such a stark whiteness that the eye had trouble determining detail. Even at our altitude this whiteness extended all the way to the horizon.

      Santos, Hammond and I stood on the upper deck of the Pinzon swathed in deep fur parkas looking toward the far southern horizon. We were comparing our chart to the landscape and noting changes to be made. Ahead of us lay a journey of a little more than six hundred miles, mostly over ice, until we made landing at Nomchit Sharomna. We charted a course which would insure that only sixty miles of that journey would actually be within the Republic of Bromfkidor. Luck of our goal's location had it that we would also not have to cross any mountains and thus rise so high in the sky that we might be spotted from tens of miles away.

      Eight hours later, from the bridge, I spotted a patch of blue in the sky near the horizon and in that patch of blue I saw birds.

      "Birds?" I asked Hammond.

      "Daurodnaj, avoid them. They are flying avisaurs. The daurodna lives at the edge of the Outer Waste where they can ride on the rising currents of warm air. They grow huge feeding on the corpses of animals and men who get lost out there. The daurodna, with a wingspan of forty feet, is the biggest natural thing in the sky and they get their moisture by flying through clouds where it condenses on their skin and hair. They lick it from each other's bodies. They have an instinct to fly into anything large they see in the sky as they assume that it is a cloud.

      Not knowing this is how I once lost a ship in this land. Dozens of them threw themselves at our hull and into our engines. Eight good men were lost in the crash. Avoid them."

      This was the first time that I was grateful for the Baron's habit of telling me more than I wanted to know about something. I called to the helm, "Come in well below that flock of bir...avisaurs."

      The sky around us gradually shaded from gray into blue, the earth from white into brown, then green. A forest of umbrella pines now dominated the landscape. Avisaurs of various types and size made their way amongst the trees as tiny flyers filled the air with their songs.

      We were in Bromfkidor.

      To hear about this land in no way prepares one to actually experience it. I still regarded it in the back of my mind as some kind of fairy tale until I had actually seen it with my own eyes. This hidden country was made even more wondrous by its very improbability, this land of blue skies and lakes. Mountains and forests. A land of secrets and adventure.

      Shortly after we made this transition the Molad river came into view, a silver ribbon against the green. It didn't take us long to spot Nomchit Sharomna, a vast manicured estate standing out from the wild land which surrounded it.

      The great house was an immense structure surmounted by a dome over the central hall. This was a palace that had been erected two and a half centuries earlier in the years following the Convention of Establishment. The great house was surrounded by more than twenty other buildings of varying size. More than just a family estate, this was a little city which served as the capital of a clan which extended over all of the "stoma"¹of Pojona. The house of Sharomna had been the last ruling family of the land of Pojona before the chaos which led to the Formation War. The Baron of Monterey had the great good fortune of marrying into this important (and very rich) family.

      We were aware that our sudden appearance in the sky might cause apprehension among the residents so I decided to send Hammond down to the surface in a drop-pod with a portable wireless telegraph set. It took almost an hour, but we finally got the signal to pull up to the mast at the edge of the estate and dock the ship.

      A group of officers and myself went to the surface where we were greeted by Hammond and a very handsome young man who was several inches taller than Hammond. The youth was a gray, of course, and had a regal bearing and poise beyond his years.

      "This," said Hammond, "is Ferthijan do Sharomna, my brother-in-law. He is the younger brother of my wife Ola Sharomna and the local head of the family. He speaks no language but Bromfkidoran and Pojojan² so he has asked me to welcome you in his name and to inform you that he has stepped aside as head of the household while I am in residence."

      It started to dawn on me that the Baron was a very rich man in this country, even more so than he was in California where he had amassed a great fortune through his introduction of the skyship to that part of the world. I was a little concerned about his loyalties when I saw that he had a large family and fortune here. I had to discipline myself to understand that our war was against the expansionist policies of the king and government of this land, not the great mass of it's people.

      The next two weeks saw us installed in several of the buildings of Nomchit Sharomna. I had the ship landed in a large field about a half mile from the estate so it would not be too readily visible.

      Alprendauro took it upon himself to give me language lessons, spending an hour a day with me pointing to and naming things. Later I was introduced to the cumbersome alphabet of Bromfkidor. To my misfortune, I did not posses the aptitude for language that Hammond had. He said that he picked up the basics in about a week, I never developed very good pronunciation or grammar and to this day grays smile when they hear my version of their mother tongue.

      Nonetheless, in a short time, I found that I was able to make myself understood at least in a limited fashion.

      One remarkable thing was that I found myself rather enjoying the company of Alprendauro. He was full of good humor and amusing anecdotes. He struck me as a civilized and educated man, not at all fitting my vision of the gray man. This man was no imperialist and my fears concerning him eased.

      In that same period of time the sylvan estate was in the process of being transformed into a military base. Ferthijan do Sharomna had had all explained to him by Hammond, but was still worried at what might result from Nomchit Sharomna sheltering an invading force. Honestly, I could not bring myself to tell him that he had nothing to fear, for I knew that he did.

      Those fears were to be realized a few days later.

     I was just on the verge of waking when my aide burst into my room shouting that we had captured a spy.

      The man sat in a chair in the library of the great house looking dejected. He looked more or less like an average gray with a few exceptions. He was dressed in bright and gaudy clothing adorned with silver buckles and grommets. His long hair was black rather than the more typical brown or red found among these people and he wore a full beard rather than the more commonly seen mustache. Although the hair and beard were liberally peppered with gray, he was huge and burly and obviously still in his prime.

      Hammond appeared in the room behind me. "A Kozar," he said in Bromfkidoran, "and a tough looking one at that."

     I turned to the Baron and asked, "What the devil is a Kozar? and please speak English."

      He answered, persisting in Bromfkidoran. "They are the last nomads of this land, making their way by trading and sometimes stealing."

     The man shot his eyes at Hammond and spoke. "Woodrow Hammond," he said hotly, "you know that I am no thief! Why do you wrong me so cruelly?" Curiously, he then started laughing.

      "You know this man?" I asked in ungrammatical Bromfkidoran.

     Hammond replied, "His name is Halord Bishindi, He is a very good friend of mine. He is no spy, you can bank on that."

      The Kozar turned to Hammond and asked, "Who is the baby-talking white man?"

      "He is Commodore Wendell Wyley, He is in charge of our mission here. The war has begun, Halord, they invaded us, here is where we will fight back from."

      "Lord Hammond," I protested, "please do not reveal anything that he need not know to this man!"

Hammond turned to me with a face as threatening and black as

a swollen thunderhead. "This man has saved my life several times.

He is entitled to, and has, my complete trust. Assuming that I have yours, there should be no problem here, right?"

      "Right..." I said. It was clear to me now, that Hammond was in charge here whether or not I headed the mission. "So, Partner³ Bishindi," I said, "to what do we owe the honor of your visit?" Actually, that is what I wish I had been able to say. What I said in reality was, "What you do be here Partner Bishindi?"

      He laughed, "I saw a strange ship in the sky. I have learned that this is a sure sign that my dear friend Woodrow Hammond is near. That why me be here."

      "Halord," said Lord Hammond, "you need the Commodore as a friend, you should not mock him."

     "I am most sorry Commodore Wyley," said Bishindi, "it will not happen again. I came because I live for adventure and Woodrow Hammond always brings that into my life. The Kozars have not been traders throughout their history, we are a great warrior people and in me runs the blood of my ancestors!"

      A "warrior". I must say that as a military man, I get worried when I hear that term rather than "soldier". Soldiers take orders and practice self discipline. Their behavior is predictable. One who styles himself as a "warrior" is operating on his own agenda, is undisciplined and unpredictable. They can be brilliant fighters but they are utter hell for a commanding officer.

      This time having Hammond translate so that there would be no misunderstanding, I spoke to Bishindi. "I admit that it would be to our advantage to have as many Bromfkidorans as possible involved in this operation, but you must understand that if you volunteer, you are under my command."

      Bishindi replied, "I am no friend of the king and I am a disciplined man. Please do not insult me by presuming that I don't know how to behave."

      Hammond stepped in. "Halord, are the rest of your clan here?"

     "Those that were not conscripted. Imagine Conscripting Kozars! Never has the government trusted us with weapons."

      This was only the beginning of a long stream of complaints which Bishindi would spew forth that I had no time to listen to. I left the man for Hammond to deal with and headed for my office.

      I summoned Garza and Shilchan as well as Santos-Dumont. We were to make our first move very soon and I needed to plan with my officers.

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¹The Republic of Bromfkidor, at the time of its discovery, was divided into seven nations, or "stomi" as they are known in the native language. They are, Pojona, Mekhrandur, B'Dobna, Bizaich, Brant, Ranse and Keld.

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² The original national language of Pojona.

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³"Partner" is the common Bromfkidoran honorific used for both men and women to whom no other title applies.

      The weeks we had spent at Nomchit Sharomna, while overloaded with work for the command crew, were very dull for the average skyman. The young bucks of the crew, ever creative, sought ways to fill the idle hours. They made friends with one another. They sketched, whittled, knitted, hunted and wandered in the little village. They drank with the local young men and they flirted with the local young women. The Bromfkidorans taught them songs and they taught the Bromfkidorans baseball which both groups played incessantly. They also brawled and gambled until Hammond put a stop to it. I was a little taken aback that most of the crew now spoke Bromfkidoran far better than I.      Because our men were of international origin, I noticed that it became a frequently used tongue among the crew being that it was the language they had in common.

      Our first mission would be to cut fartalk¹ lines between the capital city of Tippilina and the lands of the upper Molad. Having done that, we would head up river destroying anything military we could find. As we raised ship I heard from members of my crew a song which had been adapted from the Bromfkidoran to become an American sky shanty. These were rough voices of rough men. They sang as they set the propellers and they sang as they stretched the gas cells and primed the engines and as

      I heard their voices in unison from all over the ship I knew that these men from all over the Americas had grown into a single team who could act as one when they were called upon to do so.

      The verses were endless, some of them originally Bromfkidoran, it was clear, and others distinctly American.

      For the first time in this mission, I felt that this was my crew and that they were bound to the purpose that had united our respective nations for it.