‘How long can Breeze remain hidden?’ Maggie whispered close to Jupiter’s ear. He had just begun to rig The Jupiter for flight, for battle.

‘He’ll need to eat, and drink and…’ Maggie said.

‘I trust the imp to look after himself.’ Jupiter adjusted the tightness of the stay cables holding the outrigger’s mast in place. ‘And he has a job to do. Hide the gems from these others’ Jupiter held his hand up to stop her protest. ‘. But I agree with you. They’re our best hope of finding our way home.’

‘Extorting and bribing our way you mean.’ Maggie grinned.

‘Well, yes there is that.’ Jupiter paused. ‘The more urgent task is to work out a way to steer The Jupiter when flying.’

The skyship crew had been stirred to frantic preparation for the possible battle. He needed Maggie’s help, and it kept her close and out of the way of the rest of the crew. Once the captain had ordered him to get The Jupiter ready for flight the crew had accepted him, or perhaps they just ignored him more now.

‘I thought you could already do that.’ Maggie stared at him puzzled. ‘Fly I mean.’

‘Not really.’ Jupiter grinned as he remembered the crazy escape from Narushkam. ‘When we fly close to the water we keep the rudders in the water, the times we’ve been airborne were pretty hairy.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘I managed flying free of the water because I steered like a wind surfer would, tilting the sail forward and back. Sort of. But it only worked downwind, which was where the fleet had sailed… so it didn’t matter.’ Jupiter held his hand up again. ‘Yes, you don’t know what a windsurfer is. Or how it worked. But trust me — we need a better way.’

He waved Tamm over. The imprinted manisaur stood always nearby. Even if he did not hover, he had a way of always being ready to serve his Naraqhami.

‘Tamm. Ask for me. I need someone to make something, a sort of sail.’

‘Your sail has a problem?’

‘No. I need to add something to the outrigger. I need a rudder that works with the wind.’

Tamm fell silent. Jupiter realized the sejrat’sha — turned-blade had no idea what to do.

‘Just ask one of the crew that works on repairing the sails to come talk to me. Can you do that?’

‘Yes. At once. Nar…’ Tamm corrected himself. ‘Jupiter.’ Tamm loped off, his long backwards legs taking him across the wooden deck and around the command house.

Some time later Tamm returned with a manisaur with a rounded body, but powerful arms that swung in constant motion as if seeking something to strike.

‘What is this?’ The manisaur had the air of command as she regarded Jupiter and Maggie. ‘There is a battle to prepare for. I am sailmaster and I can’t afford…’

Jupiter held up his hand. The action meant the same to manisaurs as well as humans. ‘This is preparation for the fight. The captain has ordered me to prepare my craft…’

‘Which is the sole reason I came.’ She flexed her hands as if strangling something while her aura flickered with impatience. ’Now what is it you want?’

Jupiter described the rudder he wished built. Something like those tail fins he knew from airplanes. Those had long tails had vertical flaps. He figured could use something that would work in air the same as a rudder steered in water.

‘What nonsense?’ The sailmaster scoffed at him. Her aura flashed contempt to emphasize the words. ‘You do not steer a skyship with sails, unless it is to rig one set to port, while you furl those to starboard. You can rotate a skyship in the wind, but not steer. The winds do that.’

‘Yes. I understand the concept…’

‘It is no mere concept. It is fact.’

‘But you’ve never seen a flying craft like mine have you?’

Jupiter raised the sail up the mast, the triangular shape flapped until Jupiter pulled the boom in. The sail filled, and the aerofoil shape flowed into being.

The manisaur’s aura flickered with a rush of reaction too quick for Jupiter to catch. She puffed out her feathers as if Jupiter had challenged her to a fight.

Jupiter had to sit on the side to keep the outrigger level before he let the sail flap once more.

‘Stuff and nonsense…’ the manisaur swung her arms. Jupiter smiled, glad to be well away from her. ’But I will task one of my juniors to assist. The layabout is of little use to me in any case.’ The sailmaster wandered off muttering like a brook rattling down a slope. Tamm trailed after as if to enforce the promise.

Jupiter had expected a young inexperienced sailmaker to return, but the manisaur that limped over appeared to be the oldest in existence. Their eyes were clouded, but their aura flickered in constant ripples and pattern flow, as if they signaled to all they met — this is a manisaur full of questions needing answers!

The old manisaur hunched over as they walked, their legs had less spring to them. They moved in a slow and deliberate manner in contrast to the sense of coiled energy of Tamm’s movements next to them.

‘Jupiter Drake.’ Tamm introduced the old manisaur to Jupiter as his naraqhami. ‘Sailmaker Nalamashet — Sailor Skies, Upariqami — Jupiter.’ As an afterthought he added — ‘And Maggie.’

‘You know what we want?’ Jupiter considered the withered old manisaur with dismay and wondered if he would ever get the steering system he needed.

‘What you want and what you need might be different things.’ The manisaur wheezed and pumped their chest with a subtle movement of their arms as if to get more air into its body, almost like a bird about to take off.

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‘As long as we can steer the outrigger when we fly…’ Jupiter began but the old manisaur interrupted.

‘I have heard you seek the unlikely…’ Nalamashet croaked in a quick rattling tone. ‘But I will be your hands. I do not see so very well these days.’

The old manisaur’s four thumbs made him smile as he recalled back home, to describe someone as all thumbs referred to an uncoordinated bumbler.

Over the next few minutes Jupiter described what he wanted, and the way he wanted to control it. Something similar to an airplane’s rudder, but only the turning part. Except he had to do it without reference to airplanes. He glanced up at the wind vane at the top of the mast.

‘Like that.’ Jupiter pointed, and recalled how Breeze had placed it there so many days and weeks before. A lot had changed since then as all became a different world somehow.

‘I can not see,’ the old manisaur’s voice broke as they ran out of breath.

Jupiter hoped Breeze had kept safe and did not think badly of him. A pang of guilt pushed at his gut when he thought of the imp’s loyalty. Was there a touch of imprinting there? Jupiter shook off the thought.

‘But I have a sense of what you require.’ Nalamashet left and returned sometime later with canvas and sat on the wooden deck. Then together they marked out the shape, but soon realized the rudder would need a little mast to hold it up.

‘The tiller can act like the boom.’ Jupiter moved the tillers on the two rudders, and decided they would need two rudder sails, one for each tiller. They set to work. Nalamashet somehow had the ability to sew with a needle and thread using just one hand even as he used his other to stretch the fabric. Almost as if Manisaurs had two hands on each arm since the two thumbs could work independent of each other.

A sudden piping whistle broke the air and a rapid stamping of feet over the deck brought Jupiter out of his focus on the rudder sails. He could not see Maggie. Somehow she had slipped away unnoticed.

Tamm rushed up. ‘You must take cover in the hull.’

‘Why? What’s happening?’

A whistling screech spun from one side of the skyship to the other and a crash of a huge collision thumped the deck.

‘We’re within firing range.’ Tamm pulled at Jupiter’s shoulder. The manisaur’s thumbs pressed through the wetsuit in a firm grip. ‘The captain is setting the altitude higher to engage the enemy. But we’re too close to avoid some missiles.’

‘Missiles?’ Jupiter saw there had been no explosion, only smashed deck work. Already the crew worked on clearing the broken rigging. Nalamashet remained oblivious to everything and kept their focus on completing the second of the rudder sails. ‘I have my orders from the captain. You, find Maggie, and make sure she is safe. Then return to me and report.’

Jupiter had learned the sejrat’sha seemed most comfortable when taking orders, and acting them out. Perhaps he could not yet think for himself but only of his Naraqhami. To him the imprinting effect upon Tamm was not useful in creating loyalty — just an obedient servant. Jupiter did not think that was in anyone’s interest.

‘Got to work out how to break Tamm from this imprinting.’ Jupiter mused as he returned to fitting the first rudder sail to the tiller. ‘It’s just plain annoying.’

He could not help but be impressed at Nalamashet’s skills. The strong but supple canvas had been shaped by the sailmaker in a way cut and shaped to make the resulting sail seem almost factory made. The small vertical mast, or spar, fitted well to stretch the rudder sail out without bending too much. At one meter high, Nalamashet had fitted and lashed it into place with expert attention. Jupiter gave the sail rudder a wobble. The lashing and bracket were firm in all directions. Now he stretched the bottom of the triangle out along the length of the tiller. With a series of loops tied through the bottom of the sale to the tiller Jupiter could pull it tight with a hitch. The old manisaur had stretched and fixed the bottom of the rudder sail close to the horizontal tiller and in effect replicated the triangular mainsail in miniature.

Maggie dashed up. ‘Jupiter. There are three skyships firing at us now. We seem to be gaining height on the navy. Which is a good thing they say. But they are bigger than us.’

Jupiter stood and ran to the rail. The air had become cold and thin again. He shivered and sucked in a few breaths. When he breathed out steam hung in the air. In the lack of wind, or perhaps just a little, the fogged breath hung about his head until it faded like a dream at dawn.

Two huge skyforts chased behind the skyship. These navy vanziyaq loomed much bigger than the Karakatun and he flashed back to sail racing terms. If the vanziyaq were behind then they would shadow the wind, and so would catch up the small leeward skyship. Perhaps that’s how they had got so close. But could that be still true when you sailed at the same speed as the wind? The vanziyaq acted more like balloons than sailing vessels.

He saw then that one enemy vanziyaq floated in front of another but lower. As he watched a rope appeared under the leading skyship. Something dropped from below but then seemed to slow. Just as it stopped its fall it began to swing back up higher, it loomed larger too.

His vision spun then as he understood what he saw. They had launched a catapulted missile at Karakatun. A pendulum with a missile able to swing from the trailing vanziyaq on a rope held by the other. A piping warning alerted the Karakatun’s crew, a missile came at them on target, it could hit anywhere.

‘That’s why they sail in pairs.’ Jupiter yelled. He and Maggie rushed back to The Jupiter. He did not think anywhere on the ship could be safe now they were in range.

An expectant pause hung over the vessel as the missile rose high above the leading navy vanziyaq and headed in a looping fall towards them.

Nalamashet worked with feverish speed now, and Jupiter wondered in that second, how the old sailmaker could be so junior and yet be so very good. A strange story lay behind the sailmaster’s attitude.

A crash came from above, and a rain of pulverized timber spars and ropes began to rain down. Tamm pulled Jupiter and Maggie down and under The Jupiter’s outrigger platform. A few pieces rattled on the deck. Once all fell quiet again Jupiter shrugged out of Tamm’s grip.

Nalamashet had the second sail rudder in place and their two thumbed hands threaded the leach onto the tiller and cinched it tight on the cleat. They had not stopped working even as debris rained down. Jupiter could not decide if the old manisaur’s deafness or bravery had been the reason. Except the job had been completed now.

In the steering position Jupiter tested the tillers. The old rudders were still in place, but he had rotated them up as if to clear the water they usually bit into. The new sail rudder vanes worked and filled well when he pulled the tiller towards himself. They had a similar aerofoil shape to the mainsail.

Jupiter regarded Nalamashet with respect. The old sailmaker had to be a craftsman with many years experience, and yet had changed and adjusted to the unusual task. The sailmaster had perhaps given him her best worker after all.

‘Thank you old crafts-master. I am grateful.’ Jupiter paused. ‘Nalamashet…’ He did not know what more to say and instead he bowed his head in respect to the old manisaur.

‘Jupiter,’ Maggie pulled at him. ‘It’s too dangerous on deck. We’ve got to get below. And the air… So hard to breathe this high.’

‘Tamm. Get me a breathing helmet. Maggie. Tell Breeze to bring two catalyst gem. One for us, and one… give to the Captain. If it helps, a fresh gem might give Karakatun an advantage.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to get The Jupiter flying.’

‘What? Why?’

‘That’s what Captain Qharham needs isn’t it? A second skyship like they have. To fire missiles at the navy.’

‘How can you do that in The Jupiter? It’s too small.’

‘Yes. But Gan’s skyship is not…’ Jupiter pointed. Below and behind the navy ships the third vanziyaq flew in the distance. ‘He needs a fully lit zharaqsa gem, and if I can get a rope…’

‘You’re crazy…’

Jupiter began to dance then. ‘Just a little bit crazy…’

Maggie shoved him in the shoulder and he staggered back. Jupiter sobered up and gave Maggie a look worthy of a manisaur’s aura blast.

‘But if we’re going to survive.’ Jupiter’s voice rose firm and confident. ‘We need a little bit of…’

‘Crazy? You’ll kill yourself and there where will both be? Crazy is not always a good thing.’ Maggie’s eyes filled with tears.