Episode 14: Onward, To Venus!

Wilhem and Waldmont and two friends they have met in the Explorer's Club are approached by a Mr John Brisbane (Colonial Office) who persuades the brave heroes to undertake a mission to Venus in order to discover who is smuggling the dread Death Flowers from the deep swamp there.

The Heroes share their suspicions about the involvement of the Brotherhood of Luxor and exchange a few tid-bits of information with Brisbane, who offers to fund the team to the tune of four first class passages on The Empress of the Stars, a Cunard Line "Venus Rated"¹ space vessel due to depart in a few days on the 42-day trip to Venus.

After grabbing a few essentials each person deem vital to their needs on this jaunt, the team board the Empress and set about exploring the lavish (for a space vessel) ship. Wilhelm and Waldmont, being rich as Croesus and valuing comfort above all else after roughing it in desert camps, canal barges and so forth (we will not dwell on their Explorer's Club lodgings nor the decadent comfort of the staterooms of the Persephone) decide that they should kit themselves out with the only available "Sovereign Class" staterooms, deeming the squalid luxury of First Class as beneath them. These enormous staterooms feature huge windows, opulently luxurious fittings and a real-time repeater to the bridge orrery showing the ship's position with regard to the major bodies of the Solar System as a sort of mechanical mural on one wall. The staff fall over themselves to be helpful and several of the annoying limitations on personal baggage and firearms are lifted as a "courtesy".

The team fans out as the ship lifts and they explore their new surroundings. The ship is quite luxurious by the cramped standards of space-going vessels. The prime gathering places for passengers are the promenades that run down the length of each side of the First Class Staterooms, and which feature full-length windows through which the splendour of the heavens can be enjoyed while strolling up and down, and the forward observatory, which encompasses the entire bow of the ship and features a wrap-around window, telescopes, an orrery and field glasses available on request from ever-present stewards.

Captain Mallard welcomes everyone aboard, and advises everyone to strap into their stateroom chairs for takeoff, which goes swimmingly. Then the passengers mingle on the observation deck before dinner, where each of the heroes by turns is put in their place by Miss Elsie Thompson when they attempt to converse with her young ward Claire. Waldmont comes in for special attention by Miss Thompson, who sees in his persistence the actions of a wanton rake, entirely in character with what she has read of him in the Martian gossip columns.

The first day out is enlivened by the ship crossing Mars' aether wake, which gives the ship a good shaking but does no actual damage other than a few bruises taken by those passengers too silly to strap down when advised to do so by the captain, and later in the ship's evening, by the sighting of a ghost! Miss Claire excitedly reports seeing a woman clad in a black cloud walk the second class deck. The heroes run to check this out along with a crowd of other passengers, and Waldmont uses his inventions to enhance his senses as they examine the stateroom from which the ghost appeared, and that into which she disappeared. A faint tinge of ozone might have been detected in the first cabin, Wilhelm thinks.

In no time at all rumours of the reason for the ghost run rampant in the ship, to the point that Captain Mallard angrily denies in a public announcement that the Empress has ever been wrecked, salvaged, the scene of any murders, suicides, deadly epidemics, crib deaths or the subject of pirate incursions.

He is, of course, not believed.

And so to bed.

1. This means that the ship can be landed safely on Venus, and be sure of lifting off again. This miracle is achieved by utilizing "Hydrogen Lift" along with a keel of Liftwood sealed against the pernicious atmosphere of Venus² ↑
2. Which, as everyone knows, is highly corrosive to the lifting property of liftwood↑