Before Aggie could add anything more snide, Rue replaced the tube.

“I could grow to hate that woman,” she said to Primrose.

Prim patted her back condescendingly. “You handled it well – bad language never won fair maiden.”

“Prim, dear, I don’t think that’s how the saying goes. Nor do I think Phinkerlington would like being called a fair maiden.”

Prim grinned. “Precisely my point.”

The decklings scrambled to bring in the sail. Rue watched, plotting how to run speed drills. Also, they’d benefit from one among them being put in charge of the others for the sake of efficiency – there seemed to be a lot of squabbling. One of the deckhands was supposed to have them under orders, but he seemed at a loss coping with an overabundance of youthful exuberance. An internal hierarchy might work to everyone’s advantage.

By the time the mainsail was down, they were almost upon the beacon.

“Professor Tunstell, three, two, one, mark,” Rue said, trying not to sound panicked.

The Spotted Custard sank as Percy activated the anti-puffer. Rue’s stomach went up into her throat. It was rather like bobbing on a large wave. They slid through the Charybdis currents easily this time, but unfortunately hit a strong current below that dragged the airship westward away from the beacon.

“Again, professor,” ordered Rue.

Down they bobbed a second time. And a third. And a fourth in quick succession. This was followed by a buffeting spin through another set of fiercer Charybdis currents. Then they were blessedly out. The aether mists cleared and they were floating down through a star-filled sky. Rue wondered, not for the first time, what the aetherosphere looked like from above. And what, in fact, the layer above the aetherosphere was made of – was it even breathable? She was not alone in this curiosity – aether scientists discussed the outersphere as if it were a desirable undiscovered country, and were always concocting new ways to go higher. So far, however, no one had managed to break through.

Percy cranked up the propeller, and The Spotted Custard farted excitedly. Slowly, they swung around to face their original direction of travel, and before them, under the silvered moon, was the upper docking section of the Maltese Tower, the beacon rising above into the aetherosphere.

Rue scurried to the front rail of the forecastle, looking out over the bowsprit at the Sixth Pinnacle of the Modern Age.