A Green Eyed woman

Arthur awoke slowly, languorously.  

"How long has it been since I've been in a bed as comfortable as this?"  He asked himself.  Were it not for the rumblings in his stomach he would have blissfully retreated back to dreams and shirked his duties for another while longer.  It was the pieces of his surroundings that teased his wanting-to-be conscious mind from slumber even more than hunger.

The gentle rocking of the bed implied he was still aboard the Wonsoon, however the smells were off.  It was too clean.  The smell of wet wood, rusting iron and rat droppings were gone.  Lavender, sea salt and ozone had replaced those smells.

While he was snugged beneath thick blankets his face felt cool.  Gone was the boiler room heat that seemed to permeate every inch of the Wonsoon. Also gone was the groaning creak of the timbers and the iron joints.  Instead there was only a regular thrumming below the threshold of his hearing that was more felt than heard.

He popped open an eye, a clean white featureless ceiling greeted him.  Opening the other eye confirmed it.  The blankets he was under were thick furs.  He looked around his room.  The bed stood in the center.  This room was slightly smaller than the one he had been locked in on the Wonsoon, but was infinitely cleaner.  There was a small wooden dresser in the corner with a wash basin on top and a glass pitcher full of water.  Behind it a large mirror.  A thick door was too his left, curiously without a door knob, at least on his side.  To his right, however, was a sight that made him shrink into bed with a wave of vertigo.  A window stretched floor to ceiling, and ran the entire length of the wall.  Curtains were draped over half the window, but still he could see the ocean and its whitecaps far below.  Huge puffy clouds met him at eye level in the distance.  He looked down, the floor was covered in light colored wood, which looked solid enough.  Cautiously he put one foot down, then another.  The room had a gentle rock to it but nothing that threw him off balance.

With one large motion he slid the curtains to one side along a rail and basked in the sight before him.  Above he could see the gentle curve of the airship's balloon.  To his left almost as far away as a city block he could make out two spars with mounted engines' props spinning on them.  Below was not just ocean and whitecaps but an island.  Or at least a ring around what was once an island.  A thin beige band circled a tiny rock outcropping in its center.  Both inside the band and out the water was a dark and deep blue.  Arthur could make out trees on the band but nothing else.

To his right the sun was halfway down the horizon.  The light was still bright, the skies and ocean a brilliant blue, but the sun added a gold hue to everything.

Arthur's mouth hung agape at the scene when his stomach rumbled again.  Looking down he realized he was dressed in some sort of light weight uniform.  Gray top, black pants.  A pair of slippers were at the foot of the bed.  A wave of panic swept over him.  If his clothes were gone, there was no way for Vincenti and Sheung to find him.  He ran over to the dresser and stopped.  He had run.  He looked into the mirror and his old familiar face greeted him back. 

"Hello handsome" he grinned at mirror.  His height hadn't changed, but the glamor that made him appear much younger and human had either been removed or worn off.  He'd have to see what day it was when he had a chance.  Staring back his Lemurman features stared back.  He had his golden eyes back, a soft fuzz of fur over his body was very reassuring.  Best of all he could straighten his tail out again.  It had been wrapped around his right leg for days, one part of the glamor he'd convinced Sheung to leave intact.  He didn't know what he'd do without a tail. 

To his relief his clothes were in the dresser drawers.  They were neatly pressed and smelled as fresh as the day he had gotten them from the tailor.

He was just stepping into his boots when there was a knock at the door. 

"Come in."  He said, out of habit more than politeness.

The door slid open almost silently.  Two men stood there, faces dour.  Both were heavily armed. They wore dark uniforms made out of a combination of furs and leather.  The uniforms looked quite warm without being bulky in the least.  Leather vests and straps held an accoutrement of instruments, keys and other bits Arthur didn't have time to examine.

"You're to come with us."

"I'd be delighted, but can we stop by a galley or something first?  I'm not sure when I last... Say what day is it?"

"The fortieth of Largo.  Please come with us.  I'm sure food arrangements can be made."

"The fortieth?  Thank the gods, I thought I'd been out longer than that."  Then he began a mental tirade against Sheung as he followed the guards out of the room and towards the front of the airship.

The next time he saw that two bit parlor magician he would read him the riot act.  His glamor had only lasted until the fortieth?  He wouldn't have even made it to the refinery much less been able to infiltrated the abductees.  Not that people couldn't see he was under a glamor in the first place.  The whole plan had gone off half-cocked when Sheung's niece had been abducted.  He knew they should have merely gone to the authorities first.  But with the Trident staying mum on the disappearances and the Citadel seemingly more motivated to find the missing Cuttle children instead it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Arthur followed the two men down several hallways and up three flights of stairs and entered a large room surrounded on three sides by glass.  The view was astounding.  He could make out both tubes that made up the immense balloons above him.  The gondola where they were, for lack of a better was suspended between the two with both rigid metal struts and more flexible rope webbing.  Two steps lead into the main bridge, and a large window took up most of the floor so that the crew appeared to be walking on nothing at all.  Arthur assumed he was on the bridge.  Several knots of crew hovered around various stations talking in a level just above a whisper.   Two people stood at matching captain's wheels on the right and left sides of the bridge.  Several more people stood at various machinery and instruments that Arthur could only guess as to their purpose.  The guards stopped at the door and one knot looked up at him.  A woman dressed in a similar dark uniform stood at the center of that group.  She held half a smile while her green eyes locked with Arthur.  Her waist length black hair came down to the middle of her back in an intricate braid.  With a subtle dip of her head, the two guards turned on their heels and went back through the hallways heading back to wherever they had come from to begin with.

Arthur began to make his way down the two steps from the doorway when he saw the green eyed woman arch an eyebrow and cock her head.  Arthur stopped on the first step.  She turned to give her attention to three in the group.  They were dressed darkly, but, now that Arthur paid attention, significantly differently than everyone else.  The conversation concluded and the three men turned towards the step that Arthur had paused on.  His blood froze.  On the upper right breast of each stranger's jacket was a black winged moth.  One again, Arthur's tirade against Sheung began.  This time with epithets and language that would have made his rough and tumble father blush.

The three black winged moth men walked by Arthur, each one making eye contact with him and each one smiling.  The last one stopped.

"You're lucky you have such powerful benefactors Mr. DiMedilan.  But we'll be seeing you soon enough."

Arthur did his best to suppress a shiver.  Dressed in his regular clothes he realized how chilly it was, the abject terror he was feeling doing nothing to warm him.

"Leave him alone." the Green eyed woman said.  Her voice was both melodious and utterly impossible to ignore.  The Black Winged Moth man turned, gave her a smirk and left.

"Mr. DiMedilan please come here.  Eyes, have you spotted it yet?"

"Yes Ma'am" a man holding a telescope replied.  "Course is dead on.  Base is below us.  A new course downwards at .9 degrees will intercept."

"Helm, you heard him.  Angle us down .9 degrees."  Arthur now stood next to the Green eyed woman.  She was a full two heads taller than he was.  Granted, even for a lemurman he wasn't terribly tall, but she was still at least half a head taller then everyone else on the bridge.

"Arthur DiMedilan, pleased to make your acquaintance."  She held out a long fingered gloved hand which he took in his and gave it a tentative shake. 

"We'll be back at base within the hour.  I'd be pleased if you would join me for dinner.  We have much to discuss.  You are very popular, especially for being such a seemingly unassuming Lemurman."

Regaining his composure and not knowing what was a better outcome, he had to think twice if being in the custody of the black winged moth crew was a better fate then being held captive with the Cirrus gang.  Arthur knew little of the Cirrus gang except for that their dirigible preyed on ships all along the seaboard.  It was assumed their base of operations was positioned somewhere halfway up the continent's seaboard in some small forgotten island.  The city he left had spent the better part of a decade looking and pouring money into fruitless searches.  Now Arthur was being taken to their base.  This information would be worth thousands!  And Sheung would be tracking him via his clothing ward.

"I trust you're feeling better?  That was quite a blow you took to your head.  We found you just before you drowned."
"I must say I'm feeling better due to your hospitality.  Your reputation precedes you, however, I've never heard of the Cirrus gang taking prisoners?  Is this part of a new public relations campaign on your part?"
"Oh you were the only one, and I'd rather say you're more of a commodity as opposed to a prisoner.  This was quite the profitable run for us.  Between you and the fourteen tons of rum the Wonsoon was carrying.  Its a pity the boiler room was breached so quickly as there was an additional twenty tons of tools that would have been useful.  But those are now at the bottom of the shallow sea."
"Well thank you captain..."
"Levkov.  You are on board the Cumulus.  Now excuse me I have some matters that need attending to.  The view is best from either here or the dorsal observation bubble.   We have a little under an hour until we dock.  Please be back here before then."

She spun on her heel and left the bridge.  Everyone on the bridge seemed to be making sure to avoid eye contact with him.  All questions were rebuffed in silence.  His stomach rumbled again.  He asked one of the crewmen at the large wheel where the galley was.  That was met with simply "Aft, deck two"

Twenty minutes later, carrying a sandwich, Arthur arrived on the dorsal observation bubble.  He looked around admiring the view.  The deep thrumming of the engines had chaged pitch, they were slowing down.  Ahead, Arthur could spot their destination.  All searches had been far wide of the mark.  No wonder a search team had never found them.  The structure was lit from below.  A roughly five sided disk suspended from the bottom of no fewer than 35 enormous dirigible balloons.  The structure dwarfed the Cumulus, which, by itself had dwarfed the Wonsoon.  In the shadows Arthur could make out windows shining like gems.  He peered through the telescope that was mounted in the dorsal bubble.  He could make out walkways that were wider than streets back home.  Vehicles, not just pedestrians zipped along the thoroughfares.  Three other ships the size of the Cumulus were already docked.  Tens of others flitted around the structure.  Some carried cables from one area to another.  He could just make out people with arc welders working on some structure underneath.  The workers were only suspended by cables as they swung from section to section.  Huge proplellers jutted out at virtually every angle from the disk, keeping the whole structure still.

Two singled hulled dirigibles were in the final process of attaching themselves to the Cumulus to tug the large ship into its berth.  A whistle came from a brass tube near Arthur's hands and a hollow voice came through:

"All hands prepare for docking prep.  Arthur DiMedilan please return to the bridge.  Repeat all hands prepare for docking prep.  Arthur Dimedilan please return to the bridge."