Paul said, “Those falls make Niagara look like a herring brook.”

“All that water has to have an outlet.” Gamay scanned the perimeter of the lake. “Paul, over there! I can see the river. It's flowing out of the lake. All we have to do is follow it.”

“Not unless you see a gas station, too,” Trout said with a glance at the propane fuel gauge. The tank was practically on empty. “We're about to drop out of the sky.”

“We can still move forward. Get us as close to the river as possible. We'll ditch this thing and use the raft.”

Trout did a mental rundown of a water splashdown. The gondola's weight would pull it under the water. Residual air in the envelope might keep the gondola from going down immediately, but the hundreds of square feet of fabric would pose a hazard, trapping them in its folds. They should both be clear of the airship before it hit water and do their best to keep the raft in tact. It could be their ticket out of the forest.

Paul quickly outlined his analysis and plan. “I think we should cut the raft loose before we land. Otherwise we could lose it.”

Gamay took another look over the side. Nine nylon lines, three at each corner, were attached to the dangling raft.

“There's a Swiss Army knife in the storage box,” she said.

Paul tested the sharpness of the blade with his thumb and tucked the knife in the big pocket of his cargo shorts.

“You take us in,” he said. “Get us as low to the water as you can. I'll cut the raft free.”

“Then I bring this buggy to a hover and we abandon ship and go in for a swim,” Gamay said.

“As easy as one-two-three,” Paul said with a grin.

Gamay took over the steering wheel and put the airship into a slow turn away from the falls. Sunlight streaming through the mists that rose off the lake created multiple rainbows. Gamay hoped it was a good sign.

The gondola tilted from Paul's weight as he climbed out onto the right side of the framework. He looked down at the red triangle swinging about thirty feet below and made his way to the rear of the gondola behind the tanks and burners. He sawed away at the lines attached to the rear left corner of the raft, then continued across the gondola's framework and repeated his work. Attached to the gondola only by its nose lines, the raft bobbed and twisted in the wind.

Using a light foot on the burner control, Gamay aimed for a spot near the river, bringing the airship down in a long, easy glide. She was starting to think that his crazy scheme might work. Her optimism vanished as the burner went ploof; then was silent. They had run out of fuel at an altitude of a thousand feet.

There was no immediate change in the airship's behavior. The heated air maintained the envelope's streamlined shape, and the propeller kept the craft at a shallow angle. The airship continued on its heading. At five hundred feet altitude the situation began to come apart at the seams. As the air cooled, lift was lost, and the angle of descent became steeper. Pressure inside the envelope diminished as well, and the front end developed a dent. The airship assumed the shape of a rotten tomato and swung to the left.