Book 5: Chapter 47: Assimilation
Howard
April 2344
Jabberwocky
It took two days to get the Hunter over to the Alexandrian flotilla. To compare floaters to aerial barges would be an insult to barges. But they could be persuaded to tack, and even to swim slightly upwind using the keel as a sort of fin. I became curious enough about how this was done that I took a flight around our temporary home. It took no effort at all to convince Bridget to come along.
I found a number of Alexandrian troops perched up around the base of the keel, occasionally prodding it with spears. “What are they doing?” I asked Bridget over the intercom.
She thought for a moment. “My first guess would be that they’re using something like acupuncture to get the floater to behave how they want. Poke here and it turns left, poke there and it starts to swim, and so on.”
Wow. The dragons were literally hanging upside down on the underside of the floater, digging in with their clawed feet. Dragons were not like bats; this wasn’t a normal lifestyle choice. That couldn’t be fun. Or comfortable.
We circled around and landed back on the floater, then merged with the crowds. It was noteworthy that once the Alexandrians had taken over, they really didn’t change anything. The village elders were given a few instructions on what would or would not be allowed; workers were ordered to make some modifications to all equipment that contained fire. It soon became obvious why, as well. When the Hunter had been allowed to drift with the wind, the air currents on top had been minimal to nonexistent. Now that we were beating across the wind, there was a definite breeze, which made fires harder to control and more likely to flare up. The Alexandrians had obviously done this before.
As we slowly pulled up to the flotilla, I got my first good look close up. It was impressive. The Hunter, large as it was, lost some perspective against a distant background. But up close with other floaters—some larger, some smaller—the scale of these behemoths became apparent.