I and Miss Carlyle were politely but firmly confined on the flight deck of the Jennifer Carlyle, the biggest and fastest zeppelin outside of Germany, and owned by the lady’s father.

Unfortunately, her father unwittingly kept company with an impostor, and the men who kidnapped us after rescuing us from a sure to be fatal attempt at landing a biplane believed Miss Carlyle to be the fraud.

All thought so, except the cowboy with the black eye, who sat glowering at the rubber coated iron plates of the deck.

Eventually, we arrived in stiff silence at the Kansas City Aerodrome’s Tower, and got pulled to the ground, and we unloaded under the watchful eyes and ready guns of our captors. The locals were unhappy until our kidnappers explained they were kicking some troublemakers off of the Carlyle Ranch which was the magic word. Even a hundred miles away, they had heard of that spread.

I looked at my hands, and made some idle comment about what a bunch of wimps they were. If they were real men they would put down their guns, and come try to punch me out.

They resisted, so I started laughing softly. The first guy came at me, sloppy, but strong, and quick with no concern for protecting his legs. So I swept his feet, and hammered him in the ribs. Too my surprise he got up again. It took two more falls to finish him off.

Others wanted to help, but the straw boss refused noting that I had training in the secret fighting arts of the mysterious East, and if Otto couldn’t handle me, they ought to be glad they had guns.

Drat. Well it had never been much of a plan to begin with. Hoping they would politely line up and let me punch them all unconscious and take back the zep would not work.

They got back on the zeppelin, and the cowboy commisserated with me. Then we looked around for Miss Carlyle. She had disappeared. Fearing more kidnappers armed with chloroform cloths, I prepared to raise a hue and cry, but a sharp-eyed boy with a dog he called Indiana pointed out that …

“The stupid girl is climbing on the netting under the zep!”

I threw him a gold coin, and we sprinted out after the zep, but it gained on us as it began to raise off from the ground.

The cowboy grabbed a fellow’s English riding horse, and showed him a dirigible to silence the protest. Then with him guiding the horse, and me riding apillon, we raced out. He urged every last bit of speed out of the startled beast, and soon we came under the dirigible.

I stood on the tip of the back of the English saddle, and then as the front edge of the gondola came even with us, I launched in a two-step sure to make a back ache by using the cowboy’s back and right shoulder as my runway, and just barely caught the edge of the gondola’s bottom.

Pain shrieked through my fingertips, and without my titanium fingernail underlays, I would surely have lost more than just the one nail I lost.

I wobbled near helpless in the buffeting air, and I heard people wonder about the sound, until the quick thinking cowboy blasted his derringer of in a faux but convincing display of fury.

Distracted, they went back to their game of poker, and I extended my claws, and began to climb up the side of the gondola using the wooden supports as my “scratching post”.

I slipped and near fell twice. Once due to a weakness in the wood and I had put my fingers too closely together (I was not well practised in this skill), and the other, well, my arm started trembling from outrage at the abuse I subjected it too.

But eventually, I obtained the netting under the dirigible, and found a note with perfume in the steadily increading torrent of wind.

“Are you crazy? Meet me up top, M.C.”

So, Miss Carlyle had not hung around waiting to see if her heroic rescuer made it, or went splot. A most driven young woman, and liable to induce her admirers to grind themselves into paste to impress her. Luckily, I smiled as I fingered my simple gold ring, I had no need to win her.

The thought brought new strength to me, and cheered my heart. It took several minutes of climbing the rigging on the outside of the zeppelin for me to wonder if a genuine appreciation of a love was a magic here.

I’d heard from di Vars that he’d been in a world where a lady’s favor, say a scarf, could blunt a sword strike. Its a wise verser who pays attentions to little discrepancies, if he has time.

Finally, I achieved the top, only to find that Miss Carlyle was again tied up by a dark-eyed man with a sinister smile. He waved me closer, and then with a flamboyant gesture, he pulled from his elegant jacket, a radio control. One flip, and the engine of the dirigible stopped.

“I find it so much easier to have a conversation without that incessant wind, don’t you?”

“Run away, stay away, he can’t catch you.” Miss Carlyle gave me some advice which showed she actually did like me a bit. It was bad advice. I shook my head.

“He’s quite right, you know, my dear. Why I have only to flip this other switch and a small, but powerful incendiary device will turn this bag of hydrogen into a bag of fire. I shall be well off this thing by that time with my parachute, but not you or the delectable Miss Carlyle, or those poor brave men, the dolts gambling below us.”

I walked over the yielding surface closer.

“Why? And Why?”

“Why? I was hired to kill you both, or more precisely eliminate any problems, and it took some time to get things set up. I really want the zeppelin to go down in wild country far from towns.”

“And this will look like an accident?”

“A student of the fine art of murder. Excellent.” He said giving me what later generations would call a golf clap, as Miss Carlyle suppressed the urge to swear while laying tied up in front of his feet.

“I don’t murder.”

“No?” He raised an eyebrow.

“I execute criminals.”

He looked a bit put out.

“Well, I am an artist of physical violence. And I was much impressed by your handling of that great oaf at the landing. So, I thought to try my European skills against your secret fighting techniques. See which was better.” So saying he whipped out a rapier, and hop stepped over Miss Carlyle who tried to bite his ankle ineffectually.

As he advanced, I realized he intended no great fairness. He had a sword, and I had my hands, as far as he knew.

“You have heard of the Iron Hand technique, haven’t you?” I asked as I backed up to get him away from the lady. He nodded, and knowingly accepted my ploy since it pushed me closer to an edge.
“Some teach an Open Palm Iron Finger technique” I said and presented my palm to him while extruding my titanium nails. He lunged under my arm, and I drove my fingers down into his blade snapping it.

“Oopsie.” I said with a nasty smile. And then I realized a mistake. The rapier point fell toward the zep’s skin, and pierced it, and fell further. It had at least seventy feet to fall, and if it hit anything metal on the way that would mean sparks, and maybe a catastrophe.

Trying to recover my error, I dove forward and knifehanded the fencer in the throat and also knifepunched, and ripped off his parachute, and tried to charge across billowing piles of zep fabric like it was a track meet.

I got to Miss Carlyle, and my nails made short work of the ropes. I shoved her into the chute, and knew we were safe.

No fire yet.

I turned around to see the fencer pull out his knifepunched rc device.

“Who are you? What was that?” He asked in surprised dismay. We had to give him our word that he would stand trial before he surrendered the hilt of the sword. Otherwise he would have tried to do what I almost accidentally did. He would have flung his blade into the belly of this great beast and hoped for fire and annihilation.

He traded his broken blade for the ropes that had tied up Miss Carlyle.

And questioning him revealed little. He was a hired killer, the second son of a lord, and disinherited for cheating at cards.

He only knew that his employer looked exactly like Miss Carlyle and had a ring with the insignia that looked like a skull.

Miss Carlyle whispered to me that she thought he probably worked for the Worldwide League of Crime of which Fu Manchu was a founding director. And I suddenly realized, I had been here before. We had found Copernicus’ lost treasure, and been involved with the first astronaut travel into space on this world.

But it might be earlier than that here. If I stayed long enough, might I meet myself here? That could cause all sorts of problems with causuality. I resolved to avoid such a situation.

I seem to remember David telling me of some time loop he’d been caught in. Not a cool thing.

We restarted the zeppelin after I fixed the wiring in the rc control, and a chilly trip later found us back at the ranch.

Another half-hour of waiting with a charming and witty killer, and we left him tied up there, secured to the zep, and gagged, and we slipped down.

Luckily the gondola’s had thin windows easily broken, and the suspension bridge walkway between the gondola and the tower was easily pulleyed back into position by Miss Carlyle.

We descended to the ground, and I felt quite grateful for solidness. So I breathed a prayer of thanks, and we silently made our way around the barn, and the stables to the main house by a circuitous passage pioneered by a certain young woman who as a child had been intent on escaping chores.

And thus we walked into a trap. Two sneering men with tommy guns, and a woman dressed in black that looked almost exactly like Miss Carlyle except for her cigarette holder and the Luger held in her gloved fingers waited behind several giant rolls of hay back of the stables.

“When the Zeppelin came back I knew something was up. Well, I did need something to demonstrate my point of view. So this really works out for the best.” The other woman said with a German accent.

Miss Carlyle choked, and looked astounded into her twin’s face. I had been expecting as much. In some universes, well, cliche’s are more common in reality than in most.

We were tied up again, and the other Fraulein Carlyle explained.

“Our Mother was visiting Europe with Father when he got called away to negotiate sales of beef to the Tsar. Well, she suddenly began to give birth early. And so she was forced to rely on her German cousins. Twins were born, and the cousins had always known of the greed and nastiness and lack of culture of the American so they took it upon themselves to make sure that one of the blood had a good education. But they come upon hard times, and they see the Carlyle Ranch, and a great plan is born.”

Just checking something, I murmured “Heil Hitler.” And I saw her begin to snap to attention.

“I do not think you are Nazi despite your Aryan bloodlines. You are a clever tool of inferior races; you Americans could be great, but you prostitute yourself…”

At which point my Miss Carlyle said something snippy about prostitutes and the other one’s immodest gown, and our little conversation ended with murderous glares all around.

Our chairs and our bodies got dragged by some henchmen into the dining hall making awful scrapes on the silk smooth wooden floor.

We interrupted a large dinner party of the local social elite.

“Daddy!” Miss Carlyle yelped, and then a gag got shoved into her and my mouths. The worried looking, but distinguished rancher at the head of the table looked sadly at her with disapproval at her attempt at ‘trickery’.

“Good people, good people of this valley between the mountains. As you know, the Carlyle Ranch is the biggest and richest of all the ranches here.”

“Only because Old Man Carlyle got my great-granpappy drunk on the night before pappy was going to prospect, and Carlyle got the jump on him.” A man called out in good humor. General laughter echoed around the comfortable and elegant room.

Fraulein looked irritated.

“None the less…”

“Get to the point, miss, iffen you don’t mind.” One man said with what he thought of as politeness.

Fraulein pulled out her luger and shot it into the ceiling.

“You louts with your inch thick steaks and warm wools will shut up, now! I am speaking. I, the Carlyle daughter tell you your insignificant plots of land will be sold to the Carlyle family, and tonight.”

Pa Carlyle tried to protest, but the Fraulein merely pointed out his ill health and the power of attorney he had just signed.

Then her henchmen came in, and handed out pens with smirks, and tossed contracts onto the table.

“Sign.” the Fraulein ordered.

“Why, what purpose do you do this to your friends, your neighbours?” Pa Carlyle said quietly, but with an obvious to me smoldering anger.

“Peace and quiet.” She replied dismissively not noticing her father’s anger.

Suddenly, I had a vision of German troops being airlifted into a secluded but expansive and well-stocked valley. Over my dead body. Problem was the Fraulein tied really good knots, and my nails could not reach the ropes.

No one had moved yet.

Fraulein Carlyle grabbed a pen from the table and shoved it into the hands of the man closest to her.

“Sign or die.”

“You’re not…” Pa Carlyle began.

And then we all heard a click next to the extortionist. And the woman seated next to the first man coldly spoke.

“I recognize the accents of Bavaria even if you try to hide them. But the past always follows us; like my past as a slightly less reputable girl than some, I always carry a gun in my purse. Now you will be surrendering, won’t you?”

In a matter of moments, the goons had the guns taken from their hands, and the solid citizens were opening up the gun cabinets and getting out Winchester rifles.

We were freed, and the story told, and a troubled Mr. Carlyle, after arranging for a sweep of his property had the doctor who had attended sedate the criminally inclined young woman who was a sort of “impostor” in lieu of any better plan for the night.

I did not envy them their attempts to reform her that they doubtless intended, but here I said my adieu’s and left for the night.

I had seen an Indian mound going cross country on the zep, and it made me curious. So I got dropped off there by a cowhand with a Model T.

It being a clear night with a full moon, I gathered some food I had brought into a basket, and a couple gold coins, and walking widdershins around the mound seven times while telling the tale of Johnny Appleseed.

Soon enough, I was joined by a brave who took the basket I offered, and told me a story of Geronimo. And thus we went through the night, each trading stories of far off places and great men.

“So, paleskin, what do you want?” He asked as dawn brightened the horizon.

“Passage to another world of dirt. I fear the lines of cause and effect might be tangled if I stay here.”

“Well said, and thought. But I will require that you owe me a favor.”

We haggled about the terms a bit as dawn never got brighter, and then I nodded. And we walked into the mound, and out the other side into a different world.

“Good hunting, Ghost.” He bade me farewell, and I turned to wave, but I was not surprised that the spirit or ghost was already gone.

Tired, I found a spot to relax, and sank into slumber. I’d explore this world in the daylight.

Tadeusz