[Snip/Teaser] Liftoff
So towards the end of March, my attention was pointed toward an anthology that was taking submissions to the 31st. Thus encouraged, I put together a short story and sent it in.
Consequently, I am due to be published in September or so, in QUEER FISH, Volume 2 by Pink Narcissus Press. "The Clockwork Menagerie" features an eccentric inventor, the metalsmith whose life he wanders into, and the things they get up to around that first encounter.
This is not part of that text. But it is part of that story. I might well draw the escapades in question out into a longer piece, a full-length novel, and see if PinkNarc might be willing to publish it. With that in mind, I don't intend to put the full text online unless it gets turned down for paper publishing.
But this might be, if not the very beginning, the sort of "preview scene" that can sometimes be found on the inside cover. It's set some days prior to the beginning of "The Clockwork Menagerie."
It was settled, then.
Edwin Attaway held the page up to the morning sunlight, giving it another brief scan. He needn't have bothered; the missive was not lengthy, and Professor Darvy's hand was not nearly so erratic a scribble as some. There was little enough to misinterpret in that message.
Darvy was one of the foremost ornithologists in these lands, and where many spent their days learning what separated a yellow-winged vireo from a yellow-throated vireo or such minutiae, Darvy knew much of what it meant to be a bird. If there was some question of shape and structure to be answered, there was none finer to answer it.
Edwin rolled up the paper and tied it with a band of gray silk, tucking it for the moment into a breast pocket. He swept the sprockets and springs of his latest effort into the scrap pail and tucked it under the workbench. Truly, he should have gone with his instincts on this one; the sketches hadn't made for a convincing hen, and he shouldn't have tried to bring one to shape based on them.
Ah, well. Live and learn. He'd try again after comparing notes with the Professor. All that remained, of course, was to get to Cambridge.
From Toulouse.
Well, the journey wouldn't grow shorter for lamenting it, would it? He had fuel aplenty and the winds were from the southwest. If that wind held, he could be at Calais before nightfall, and make a quick trip across the Channel the next day.
So be it.
Up to the wheelhouse he went. The boiler gauge showed a comfortable idle pressure; that was as it should be. He squeezed the handle of the throttle lever, pulling the release handle as he did, and pushed the arm forward. The rumble of the boiler through the decks became a little more pronounced, and the pressure gauge started to climb into working range.
Good enough. He turned his focus to another lever - this one the clutch for the main dynamo. An array of glowing indicator lights told him that all was in readiness there.
A series of quick tests, to the port and starboard propellers in turn, told him that all was well there. All that was left was to release the ratchet on his anchors. He hesitated for one moment with his hand clutching the pull lines, wondering if there was anything else he'd meant to do in Toulouse, but nothing came to mind. He wasn't expecting any mail so urgent that it couldn't wait for him a time in France.
First he yanked the line leading to the bow anchor, and the Heron shifted slightly; then the stern, and the deck shifted under Edwin's feet as the gasbag's levity bore the Heron off the ground. It was a slow process, driven by that alone; but once the anchor winches had pulled their burdens back up, the keel was free of the ground, and the supports had been drawn back into the hull, he sent power to the motors again - not a trickle, meant only to ensure that the blades turned freely, but gradually pushing the throttle to full.
And under her own power, the Heron rose into the skies of France, and the miles went by beneath her.
Consequently, I am due to be published in September or so, in QUEER FISH, Volume 2 by Pink Narcissus Press. "The Clockwork Menagerie" features an eccentric inventor, the metalsmith whose life he wanders into, and the things they get up to around that first encounter.
This is not part of that text. But it is part of that story. I might well draw the escapades in question out into a longer piece, a full-length novel, and see if PinkNarc might be willing to publish it. With that in mind, I don't intend to put the full text online unless it gets turned down for paper publishing.
But this might be, if not the very beginning, the sort of "preview scene" that can sometimes be found on the inside cover. It's set some days prior to the beginning of "The Clockwork Menagerie."
It was settled, then.
Edwin Attaway held the page up to the morning sunlight, giving it another brief scan. He needn't have bothered; the missive was not lengthy, and Professor Darvy's hand was not nearly so erratic a scribble as some. There was little enough to misinterpret in that message.
Darvy was one of the foremost ornithologists in these lands, and where many spent their days learning what separated a yellow-winged vireo from a yellow-throated vireo or such minutiae, Darvy knew much of what it meant to be a bird. If there was some question of shape and structure to be answered, there was none finer to answer it.
Edwin rolled up the paper and tied it with a band of gray silk, tucking it for the moment into a breast pocket. He swept the sprockets and springs of his latest effort into the scrap pail and tucked it under the workbench. Truly, he should have gone with his instincts on this one; the sketches hadn't made for a convincing hen, and he shouldn't have tried to bring one to shape based on them.
Ah, well. Live and learn. He'd try again after comparing notes with the Professor. All that remained, of course, was to get to Cambridge.
From Toulouse.
Well, the journey wouldn't grow shorter for lamenting it, would it? He had fuel aplenty and the winds were from the southwest. If that wind held, he could be at Calais before nightfall, and make a quick trip across the Channel the next day.
So be it.
Up to the wheelhouse he went. The boiler gauge showed a comfortable idle pressure; that was as it should be. He squeezed the handle of the throttle lever, pulling the release handle as he did, and pushed the arm forward. The rumble of the boiler through the decks became a little more pronounced, and the pressure gauge started to climb into working range.
Good enough. He turned his focus to another lever - this one the clutch for the main dynamo. An array of glowing indicator lights told him that all was in readiness there.
A series of quick tests, to the port and starboard propellers in turn, told him that all was well there. All that was left was to release the ratchet on his anchors. He hesitated for one moment with his hand clutching the pull lines, wondering if there was anything else he'd meant to do in Toulouse, but nothing came to mind. He wasn't expecting any mail so urgent that it couldn't wait for him a time in France.
First he yanked the line leading to the bow anchor, and the Heron shifted slightly; then the stern, and the deck shifted under Edwin's feet as the gasbag's levity bore the Heron off the ground. It was a slow process, driven by that alone; but once the anchor winches had pulled their burdens back up, the keel was free of the ground, and the supports had been drawn back into the hull, he sent power to the motors again - not a trickle, meant only to ensure that the blades turned freely, but gradually pushing the throttle to full.
And under her own power, the Heron rose into the skies of France, and the miles went by beneath her.