MW woke up back on the Beau Rosin. He'd called the police, and they'd told him don't worry about it, they'd handle it. He would have expected some kind of follow-up visit by a harness bull or some such, but no, nothing.
The blimp wallowed on the water, as a big, full-rigged loggerhead schooner motored out to the channel. He had kept the original configuration of the ancient airship, complete with the cabin scow/gondola, weird electric "peek-a-boo" gatling mount, the electrically-adjustable cables that held the gasbag on, and what had to be the most ancient diesel four-lunger in existence, not because of its history, but because it made it less expensive to operate and maintain. And the gatling making its sudden appearance from below the main deck always made would-be pirates or sail-by shootists think twice, after their initial pass. He'd only kept two of the original four breech-loading1/2-pounder deck guns, because who really used broadsides these days?
The blimp was his cutoff point; the place at which he cut himself off from the worlkd when things got too hot, or too dead, or too whatever to stick around. Just aether(or whatever they called it these days) the local AT controller, get clearance, and he was gone on the breeze.
he jiggled the crank on the chronojumper, and got the local time. Eight o'clock and a few cents. the thing sort of popped, or coughed three or four times, and the world around MW suddenly felt slightly different, an almost greasy, slippery sort of sensation, as if it turned around but th eworld outside the portholesrevolved up and over. then it was gone, and the world was the same.
Except that it wasn't.
Something undefinable was slightly different about just about everything. Except aboard the Beau Rosin, the universe had changed. again. Except that it hadn't...yet.
MW cursed sulphurously. He knew he needed to overhaul the jumper, but the thing was such a cast-iron glitch to work on. If he ever built another, he vowed, he'd make it simpler and easier to repair.
He boiled some water to shave with, lathered with a bar of soap in his bare hands, and dragged the safety razor around his face until his wide handlebar moustache was the only facial hair in evidence. He put on a clean shirt and a different tie, the same pants from last night, strapped on the shoulder rig, stuck the mauser in it, combed his hair, put on his hat, and absconded out the rear deck hatch, locking it behind him, as he went out for another day of finding the lost ones...
