Without further ado The Spotted Custard cast off, wound up her propeller, farted gently, and eased her way out of the Maltese Tower docking port. She glided sedately up into the aetherosphere, a fat satisfied ladybird.

Little differentiated this series of hops from those previously except that they were a great deal more bumpy. The Custard handled the intervening Charybdis currents with aplomb, as did Percy who was now almost comfortable with the procedure. The first two hops went as specified by charts and calculations, but the Tripoli Twister was one of the highest, and one of the hardest to stay the course. They’d need to reef the mainsail for the rough breezes. The decklings were scrambling about belaying ropes and tying items down as if The Spotted Custard were facing a storm. They were all more seasoned floaters than Rue and her officers. A few of them had even run the Twister before. For all of them, the Tripoli Twister was considered a worthy challenge, one that would yield bragging rights once they returned to London. Very few ships dared the Twister for any distance and the Custard was about to try for the full course.

Percy eased them up several more puffs – there must have been a dozen in total. Then the Mandenall Pudding Probe spat and they knew that directly above them swept the Tripoli herself.

Rue shouted to the deckhands, “Everything secure?”

“Aye aye, captain.”

“Decklings?” Rue asked.

“All buttoned down, Lady Captain, ready on your mark,” answered a familiar chipper voice.

“Spoo? What are you doing abovedecks?”

“Transferred position, captain. Bit of a snafu down below. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve worked topside before.”

“Certainly not.”

Spoo seemed to have become unofficial leader of the decklings in a very short space of time. Some kind of coup? Rue supposed she would have to make it official if the girl proved capable. For now she was glad to have someone whose name she knew to yell.

“Wait for it,” Rue instructed the girl and turned to her next concern. “Primrose?”

Her friend was solemn-faced, seated primly off to one side of the navigation area, parasol raised against the grey nothingness of aetherosphere, hat pinned firmly down. Rue trusted her to have warned the steward, cook, and purser so that the inside staff was prepared.

Prim tilted her chin in acknowledgment.

To free her hands, Rue tossed Prim Sand and Shadows on a Sapphire Sea for safekeeping.

Prim caught it easily.

Rue picked up the speaker tube. “Boiler room, are you ready?”

“We have never been more so,” came Quesnel’s reply.

Rue said to Percy, still holding the tube so Quesnel could overhear, “Make the hop, Professor Tunstell, on my mark. Three, two, one, and… mark.”

Percy pressed the puffer. The Spotted Custard jerked up, caught the current, and began to shudder uncontrollably. It was as if the whole gondola section of the ship was shivering from cold.