Blue Gold (NUMA Files 2)

“What was that?”

“I said that whatever it is lurking in the shadows, the damned thing is as hungry as hell.”

“You two are spooky,” Contos said. “It sounds as if you’re talking about Godzilla.”

Austin said nothing. He stared out at the bow cleaving the waves as if the answers to the questions whirling around in his head could be found beneath the blue-green of the sea.

12

The Hand of God

THE AIRSHIP GLIDED over the rain forest like a huge, elongated Japanese lantern, pulsating with a soft blue-and-orange light as twin tongues of flame from the propane burners heated the air inside the big sausage-shaped envelope. Except for the occasional burner blast, the only evidence of the craft’s existence was a silent shadow that blotted out the moon and stars like a passing cloud.

What Paul and Gamay thought to be a blimp was actually a thermal airship, an ingenious cross between a hot-air balloon and a dirigible. Hot-air burners provided lift, but unlike a balloon, which goes where the wind takes it, the thermal airship had an engine and could be steered under power. The more streamlined zeppelin silhouette had replaced the customary pear-shaped air bag known as the envel

ope. The envelope kept its shape with internal air pressure instead of a rigid blimp skeleton.

The Trouts sat side-by-side at the front of the aluminum-frame gondola, held in their comfortable padded seats by full harnesses. From their perspective, slung under the belly of the envelope, the blimp looked enormous. The polyester fabric bag was one hundred feet long and half that in height. It had a full rudder at the back end for steering and large, thick fins for stability. Behind the passenger seats were the propane tanks that fueled the burners, the fuel containers for the Rotex two-stroke power plant, the engine itself, and the three-blade propeller that provided lateral thrust.

Paul and Gamay had taken turns acquainting themselves with the airship’s controls. Both Trouts had ridden in balloons and knew the principles of hot air. The airship’s operation was relatively simple. A foot-operated valve controlled the stainless-steel burners that kept hot air flowing through a metal chute into the envelope. The instrument panel had only half a dozen gauges. The Trouts watched the altimeter with gimlet eyes, keeping the airship at about two thousand feet, an altitude that would give them a reasonable safety margin.

Keeping the airship aloft had drained the propane from one tank, and they were operating on reserve. They had been waiting for daylight to use the power plant, so a plentiful fuel supply remained for the propeller drive. A pearl-gray glow in the east announced the coming of dawn. Soon the sky turned rose-petal pink. Even after the sun rose the visibility was obscured by fog. The vapors rising off the tree canopy absorbed the sky’s hue, and a roiling, reddish sea of mist stretched off to the horizon. While Paul operated the airship Gamay rummaged around in a storage box between the two seats. “Time for breakfast,” she announced cheerfully.

“I’ll have mine over easy,” Paul replied. “Crisp on the bacon, please, and the home fries burned around the edges.”

Gamay offered Paul a choice of granola bars. “You can have raspberry or blueberry.”

“I’ll try room service.” He flicked on the radio, but all they heard was the crackle of static. “Bet Phineas Fogg never had to rough it like this,” Paul said with a frown. “Aw hell, I’ll take blueberry.”

She handed him a bar and a bottle of warm mineral water. “That was quite a night.”

“Yes, I would say that having a brush with ruthless bio-pirates, witnessing a cold-blooded murder, and escaping from savage Indians would certainly qualify as quite a night.”

“We owe our lives to Tessa. I wonder how she got hooked up with Dieter.”

“She’s not the first woman to show poor judgment in men. If you had married a lawyer or a doctor instead of a fisherman’s son, you would be floating in your backyard pool instead of being up here.”

“How boring.” Gamay chewed thoughtfully on her breakfast bar. “Any idea where we are, Mr. Fisherman’s Son?”

He shook his head. “I wish my dad were here. He learned how to navigate the old-fashioned way before we started to depend on electronic gear.”

“What about the compass?”

“Not much use unless you’ve got landmarks or navigational buoys to go with it. That’s obviously east.” He pointed to the sun.

“The Dutchman’s settlement was south and west of Ramirez,” Gamay said. “What if we aimed this thing northeast?”

Paul scratched his head. “That might work if we were sure we were still at the exact spot where we climbed into this rig. There was a breeze last night. I don’t know how far it could have pushed us. Could make a big difference, and we’ve only got a limited amount of fuel left for the burners. Any decision will have to be the right one. The engine tanks are full, but it won’t do much good to go forward if we lose altitude.”

Gamay gazed over the ocean of green. “Sure is beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as three eggs over easy and bacon with home fries.”

She handed him another granola bar. “Use your imagination.”

“I am. I’m trying to imagine how they got this airship into the forest. They could have flown it in, but that’s doubtful because this isn’t big enough to carry all the supplies and spare fuel it would need. My guess is they launched it from the ground not far from where we found it.”

“Since there are no roads,” Gamay said, picking up the thread of logic, “they probably came in by water. If we found the river or tributary we could retrace our way back to Dr. Ramirez’s camp. Perhaps if we went higher, we’d see more of the forest.”