8:12

Edward hated flying. It hurt his ears, clogged his sinuses and generally put him in a bad mood. It had, in his opinion, been a thoroughly bad thing when that French fellow launched his hot-air contraption and signalled the end of the steam engine as the preferred method of travel. And if these ludicrous dirigible thingies continued to grow in popularity, even the unutterable elegance of the mighty ocean liner might not survive the end of the century.

And that, Edward firmly believed, was a fate not to be considered.

And flying. The deaths that had resulted from such an unnatural act were unforgivable. On that account alone he would have refused to participate in such voyages. But it truly was the queasiness and underlying instability that made flying something Edward had vowed never to indulge in again. His first, and only, flight had been quite short, a day trip from Berlin to Strasbourg, but it was sufficient to confirm that no unnatural act would remain unpunished. And so Edward had not set foot in an aerodrome all these many years and found himself none the less for that.

But here and now Edward had been faced with a choice. Either remain on the ground and let the moment pass, or seize the day, as it were, and board this flying death-trap for destinations unknown but with an eye to finally making some progress with this latest wrinkle.

As the crew had slowly begun to cast off the coarse hemp lines and shift ballast aft in preparation for disengaging, Edward had sat at the base of the mooring tower and weighed his options. To balance Flaccus’s carpe diem there was always Demosthenes: “The man who runs away may fight again.”

“No,” Edward spoke suddenly to the vast iron and canvas flying behemoth, “there is no need. Either you will go crashing into the sea like a giant, misshapen Icarus, thus solving my problem, or I will catch up with you in the new world at a time more suited to my purposes.”

Edward turned away as the dirigible cast off, and headed off the field and back to his quarters in the city. There will be time. There is always more time.