Mistress of the Air Ch. 32

Once the alarms calmed down, and her maid and gentlemen had finished fussing around her, Captain Wyndham drew Lady Sally to one side.

"Your ladyship," he whispered, "it was no accident, the electro-massager was tampered with. There's no doubt our stowaway has broken into your private quarters, seen the device and switched the earth and live wires."

Lady Sally was furious, "Bugger me! When I catch the blackguard, I'll cut his bloody balls off. What are we to do captain?"

"There'll be little sleep for the crew tonight, most of them will have to stay on watch. We've narrowly averted two threats to your life, your ladyship. You're at serious risk until we catch this stowaway. First thing tomorrow morning we start another sweep of the whole airship, and we won't stop until we find him."

"Yes, captain, we must. I'll join the hunt. I will devise such tortures for this miscreant when we capture him."

"Is that all, Lady Sally?"

"Oh, one more thing, captain. Thank you for your decisive actions back there. Victoria is a loyal maid, but a blithering idiot when it comes to a real crisis. Tell me, captain, did you save my life?"

Their eyes met. Captain Wyndham looked into hers with admiration and affection.

"Honestly, madam," he replied, "I don't believe so. Your heart was weak but still beating. I only did what had to be done. I'd have done the same for anybody, though I've got to say I was mightily relieved when you recovered consciousness. We all were. We all... revere you so much, Lady Sally."

"You are too modest, captain. Still, you did get an opportunity to grope a tit; not many men are afforded that privilege," she said, a provocative smile spreading across her red lips.

"No, indeed, madam. I'm a very lucky man."

Lady Sally went back to the dungeon and told her gentlemen to retire for the night. It had been an exciting day. Meanwhile the captain gathered the rigger-men and crew to organise shifts for watching the airship. It was the early hours of the morning before he got back to his quarters for a sleep, but he didn't get much before there was an excited knocking on the door of his cabin.

There had finally been a breakthrough in the hunt for the stowaway. One of the rigger-men posted outside the kitchen spotted a tiny figure creeping out of it and go scuttling along one of the gangways. He followed but the figure mysteriously disappeared into a ventilation shaft before he could catch up with him.

The captain put a guard on entrance to the ventilation shaft.

He reported this news to Lady Sally first thing in the morning, and they met with the rigger-man and Victoria where the culprit had mysteriously disappeared into the tube of galvanised tin.

"Did you see the scoundrel?" asked Lady Sally.

"It were dark, milady, so I couldn't make out any features. It were just a shadowy figure. What were strange is it were so small, like a little animal... and it had short, stubby legs, and kind of shuffled along the passage as it were."

"A little animal, how odd," pondered Lady Sally.

"And look at the ventilation shaft," the captain pointed out, "it's far too narrow for a grown man... or woman to squeeze into."

"Indeed, captain. It's most curious. And where does this shaft lead?"

"It goes back into the fuselage and the hydrogen bags. It draws fresh air into the living quarters. The good news is I've had it guarded overnight, so we know that whatever it is, it's trapped inside the fuselage."

"Excellent. Let the hunt begin. I will not rest until it has been caught."

Lady Sally entered into the spirit of the pursuit by dressing in her red hunting jacket, jodhpurs and riding boots, the lightning blunderbuss slung over her shoulder.

"There we are, Victoria. I'm so pleased I packed my hunting apparel; I knew I'd get the chance to wear it during my adventures."

"Yes, madam. You look incredibly sexy in it."

"Really, Victoria. This is a serious business. This is no time to get aroused."

Captain Wyndham unlocked the padlock on the metal door leading from the gondola into the fuselage. Victoria, the captain and a band of the crew entered.

Lady Sally recalled the day of the maiden flight, her tour of the fuselage and her chief engineer's detailed description of the airship's construction.

She gazed around in awe and wonderment. The duralumin frame of the airship was vast; it was like stepping into another world of gleaming metal. There was a hard, erect girder, rounded like a massive pole, stretching the whole length of the airship's frame. Lady Sally wrapped her hand around it, its girth too thick for her fingers to stretch around it. It felt firm in her grip, but surprisingly light with a certain amount of flex in it. Duralumin was an incredibly light metal; it would have been impossible to construct an airship this size with anything else, but it was its ability to bend with stress or strong winds that provided the airship with its durability.

The pole penetrated a series of holes. These were the joints around which the polygonal frames were centred. There were a whole series of these along the length of the structure, reducing in size at the front to produce the airship's distinctive, bulbous tip. The sensual curves of shining duralumin filled the fuselage. They were supported by both a wheel of girders and a series of wires. This was the sub-structure which gave The Corseted Domme its pleasingly, sleek, bullet-like shape.

Between, each of the polygonal structures were a network of walkways and steps. It was like being in a massive puzzle or three-dimensional version of snakes and ladders. Lady Sally was reminded of the work of one of her favourite artists, an Italian engraver named Piranesi, who produced a series of prints called Le Carceri which depicted prisons with stairs and walkways that led nowhere. She had a signed set of these engravings on the wall of her dungeon in Rudston Hall to remind her submissive slaves that, once they were in her clutches, there was no escape.

The gangways and stairs provided access to every part of the frame, for the purposes of servicing and maintaining both structure and air bags. Between each polygonal frame was an air bag, twelve of them in all, on two levels.

Another feature of the airship's frame was the feeling of silence and calm, in marked contrast to the engine room. The only thing that could be heard was the wind blowing against the silver-coated linen covering the frame which engendered a sense of eerie calmness.

"You see our problem," the captain pointed out, "there's a maze of gangways in here and we have to search them systematically because the view through the frame of the ship is obstructed by the air bags."

"Yes, indeed, I can see. And the whole frame is so vast. It's quite incredible," said Lady Sally.

The captain divided them into four teams, two went left to sweep the rear end of the airship whilst the other two (one team consisting of himself, Lady Sally and Victoria) scoured the front end. They had to cover systematically every walkway and stairway. Meanwhile, the ventilation duct was permanently guarded, so there was no escape from the airship's frame.

They set out on their task. It was exhausting work. They went up and down stairs, along what felt like miles and miles of gangways and then up and down yet more steps. They had been conducting this painstaking search all morning and were getting demoralised, having seen no evidence of the mysterious stowaway.

Suddenly, Lady Sally discerned a ripple of movement along one of the air bags, which was strange because they were usually so still. Suspecting she might be on to something, she rushed ahead of the others where she could see around the corner and beyond the air bag. She paused, standing there in her red, hunting jacket, pulled the sight of the lightning blunderbuss up to her eye, and started to squeeze the trigger.

"Right, I've got you now. I'm going to zap you to kingdom come!" she shouted in triumph.

"Lady Sally, nooooo!"

"Madam, nooooo!"

The captain and Victoria called out in tandem.

"You'll blow us up!"

Lady Sally arched an elegant eyebrow, lowered the lightning blunderbuss, turned to the captain and said, "Well, yes, captain, of course I knew that. Do you take me for a fool?"

The captain had his doubts, he reckoned Lady Sally was about to shoot, though he certainly wasn't going to contest the issue with his employer.

"Did you see him?" asked the captain, rushing up to her side, with Victoria following behind.

"Yes. It was a funny looking thing. Definitely human, though small. I didn't see a face because it was wearing a duffle coat with its hood up."

"Small, madam?" queried Victoria.

"Dwarf-like. Yes, my maid, I have my suspicions. But we must capture the thing first to be sure."

The captain looked around. He was familiar with the structure of the airship's frame, and he was working out a strategy to trap the stowaway.

"Lady Sally, you follow him along this gangway," the captain explained pointing to where she had spotted the figure. "Victoria, you take the steps up in that direction, and I'll go down the other walkway. I'm hoping we can force him into the cone of the frame where there's no way to escape."

"Him?" questioned Lady Sally, "How do you know it's not a her?"

"It, then. Why, do you think it's female?"

Lady Sally shrugged, "I believe all will be revealed when the thing is caught."

They set off in their respective directions. After clambering down a set of steps, the captain looked up to see a black, hooded figure scuttling along one of the gangways above him. This was the gangway Lady Sally had followed and, sure enough, she soon emerged from behind one of the air bags in pursuit of her quarry. The captain ran on ahead hoping to cut any means of escape by blocking one set of stairs, hopefully Victoria would reach the other gangway in time.

He lost sight of it momentarily but as he turned a corner, there it suddenly was, a short, stocky figure facing him. It was close enough for him to make out the snarling gaze it threw back at him. Beyond it, Lady Sally was in pursuit, whilst Victoria stumbled down one of the staircases to block off another direction. There was only one route away from them, and that was into the tip of the airship... where there was no escape. They had it trapped.

The figure dashed along the one walkway that wasn't blocked, not realising there was no exit from it. It ran along, its little legs trying to go as fast as possible, but no match for the captain's long strides and Lady Sally's determined dash to confront her enemy. It realised the error when it saw the curves of the duralumin frame looming ahead.

It turned to face them. A tiny figure framed against the shining, duralumin curves at the very apex of The Corseted Domme. There was no way out; only a leap off the walkway to plunge deep into the bowels of the airship's frame, and certain death.

"Aha!" exclaimed Lady Sally as she drew up alongside the captain. "Now I have you."