“Captain’s diary, October 28th, 2017, ten hundred hours, Captain Howard Crane recording.
“We’ve pulled out of Parkersburg, next stop Wheeling. We’ll refuel there, look about, then make the final push to Pittsburgh. Weather’s getting chilly and nasty, no ice yet but I won’t be surprised to see some on the river soon. As usual, we’ll keep our eyes open for survivors. In my opinion, the expeditions up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers should wait until spring, and this I will recommend to Her Majesty. After all, this boat is a converted barge, not an icebreaker!
“I can't help but wonder, will we even reach Pittsburgh? With the exception of Casimir, the dragons are NOT stupid. I’m sure their unicorn partners left something behind to watch over where they were. Vladimir has no reason to like us, us being this ship in particular. Needless to say, we’re going to be VERY cautious while we’re in Pennsylvania. It’s a long walk back to N’Awlins, and Bernie’s supposed to have her foal in Maasvlakte, not here!
“Oh, yes, we left Luke and Chopper with a fuel purifier, some tools, a radio, and two satphones. Luke reluctantly agreed to head across the ocean to join the WSU. Chopper did not need that much convincing. As he told me, he wants to get back to a place that has electric lights at night, heating and cooling, and customers. He’s interested in opening a convenience store of sorts there. If anyone can pull it off, I think he could.
“Howard Crane, Captain, Mississippi Voyager, out.” He tapped the proper key on his laptop to end the voice input and read over his diary. “Not bad. I’m glad Jessica warned me to speak slowly and clearly, otherwise it would not be so easy to read. Plus, my fingers don’t hurt!” he chuckled as he saved the diary entry. "I didn't know the laptop had its own voicetyper program!"
November 1st, 2017 1200 hours.
The Mississippi Voyager approached Wheeling from the south in a chill rain. Visibility was down to not a whole lot, so Howard took the wheel himself, Carroll on the charts and Esther on the sonar, looking for a safe place to moor and fuel. The first two places they looked at, half-sunken wrecks blocked the mooring points. It wasn’t until they were north of the I-470 bridge that they found a fueling place, on the west side of the river. Cautiously, they eased the Voyager to the fuel station before dropping anchor and shutting down the motors. ”Okay, we wait here until the weather clears, fuel up, then go to where we can explore the city. If there’s anyone here, I want a good shot at finding them,” Howard told his crew. “Esther, you have the deck until 1630.”
Esther, having secured the sonar, was looking out the window, to the starboard side gangplank. “Howard, we got company…” she said, pointing. Hanging off the guide rail is a hippogriff, its colors muted by the gloom of noon. The hippogriff waved a claw, Howard and Esther waved back.
“Esther, you have the bridge. I’ll go down and greet our visitor,” Howard said as he went to the starboard side door, going through and down the ladder. He hurried to the other hippogriff. “Welcome aboard the Mississippi Voyager! I’m Howard Crane, the captain. Care for something hot?”
The strange hippogriff got herself aboard. “Coffee or tea, if you got it,” she said. She looked familiar to Howard, but he could not place it right away. As he led her to the Lounge, into the brighter light, it hit him.
“Do you have a twin sister?” he asked as he led the strange hippogriff to the coffee bar. “One that was disabled in Afghanistan?”
The stranger stopped still, reaching for a coffee cup. “How could you have known that? She decided to leave a month after we changed into this, going downriver. Is she all right? I’ve been worried about her! What do you know?” she asked, sounding a bit desperate.
“Easy there, lady!” Howard said in soothing tones. “She’s alive and well, living now in Kansas with a colony of other ponies. She fell in with a dragon in Cincinnati, and she was sent to recover some meteor metal. We’ll tell you the full story over some coffee and pastry. What’s your name? We never got hers. All we know her as is ‘Gar’.”
“I’m Alice Smith, she’s my twin sister Candace. She joined the Army while I stayed home. She did good for herself in Special Forces until she got blown apart by an IED in Afghanistan. She came home missing some body parts, but I stepped in and made sure she got the help she needed. I was helping her into the van when the flash happened. We were surprised when her hand and leg came back. Surprised, but happy,” she explained to Howard as she poured a cup of coffee, adulterated it to her taste, and sipped. “Wonderful…”
Howard, while listening, was not idle. Over crystal, he contacted Impedimenta out at Lecompton and let her know what was going on. As she sipped, Howard’s phone rang. He removed it from its belt pouch and answered. He listened to the babble for a second or two. “She’s right here.”
He passed the phone to Alice. “It’s for you,” he said.
Confused, Alice took the phone. “Yes?”
“Allie?” she heard.
“Candy?” Alice said, tentatively, before they both started screaming joyfully.
Howard took Alice by the arm and led her to a stateroom. “How about I let the two of you catch up. We can talk later,” he said gently before leaving the room and shutting the door. He met Carroll in the Lounge.
“What was that screaming I felt?” she asked the captain.
“We found Gar’s twin sister. I thought it would be a good idea to let them reconnect. Looks like I was right. Until this rain lets up, we’ll just wait right here,” Howard told his exec.
“Sounds like a plan to me. We can use a refueling, but we don’t need it yet,” Carroll said as she made steps to the coffee bar. “Your usual mix?”
“Please,” Howard confirmed.
The Lounge, 1600 hours
Much of the crew of the Voyager had gathered in the Lounge, chatting with Alice. Outside, the rain still came down hard. The pegasi had a betting pool up for when the rain would stop, Harry saying an hour after sunset, Frack after midnight, and Brenda saying they’re both wrong, but not saying exactly when the rain would stop.
Alice was describing the other inhabitants of Wheeling, both of them. “There’s Doctor Peterson, the vet. He changed into a big walking dog. Not a nice guy, though. He really creeps me out. The other guy, Frank de la Rosa, he’s a bird like Liz is. He’s not bad, he just likes being alone. We meet sometimes, and I trade him fish for canned goods,” she told the assembled crew.
“Think they would like to be picked up when we come back down?” Carroll asked.
“Frank, maybe. I will wait for the next trip if you ask Peterson and he accepts. He treats Frank and I like experimental subjects, not people!” Alice said with a shiver.
“Sounds lakh a doctor ah wouldn’t want tuh have neah me,” Lucien drawled before sipping from his tea mug.
“I knew someone like that in medical school,” Jessica said in her slow English. “She was tossed out in the final semester for ‘unprofessional attitude’. May she not come back for some time to come.” Her distaste was obvious.
“The Doctor hangs out at Redwood Vet Hospital up north of here. May he not be looking when you pass by, in both directions,” Alice said before chugging some coffee.
“So you definitely want to hitch a ride when we come back through, Alice?” Howard asked.
“You bet!” she said brightly. “Candace and Impedimenta invited me to join them in Lecompton. I don’t blame Candace for wanting to go out on her own once she was restored to full health, but I want to get together with her again. When we were kids, we were inseparable. When she joined the Army, I supported her. When she came home without her left side limbs, I supported her without question. Now we can be together again.”
“You’re going to have to lay over in Memphis until there’s a northbound boat going to Saint Louis and Kansas City, or Memphis runs a train west. They’re looking for a second small locomotive in good enough shape to fix. Know anything about mechanics?” Frack asked.
“I can maintain a car, but not rip into it. If I had guidance, I could assist,” Alice said honestly.
“I’m sure that would be accepted. Each town or colony in the WSU tries to contribute something unique to the whole of the WSU. Havana provides canned food, cigars, rum, and other products, Mexico provides oil, I know the colony in Brazil contributes something, but I forget what…” Frack said.
Bernie picked up the narration. “Kansas City provides potions, Memphis is working on rebuilding a train link, Saint Louis farm goods and systemic looting of the city for trade goods. Natchez is still getting organized, and Louisianne has its own goals. One thing we try to instill is that there are too few of us to continue old hatreds. Only together can we pick up the pieces and restart civilization.”
“What about the dragons?” Alice asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Harry Bell answered. “They were strung out along the Ohio River until the end of June, when the three remaining dragons abandoned their cities and fled to Pittsburgh.”
“Candace told me about that. The one dragon who tried to take Saint Louis who decided to work with the colony instead of against it, and the one who tried to take the meteor and got changed into a flowering bush. How could such a thing happen?” Alice asked, confused that she was even having to ask.
“Directed and focused magic, young lady, is a very potent force. The Kettles are a very determined family, and they had already figured out how to use the meteor metal. They gave Zvezda what she wanted, power over the meteor metal, but in just such a way as to keep her from learning how to use it,” Lucien lectured. “She had plenty of magic as a dragon, but as the Starbush, her power is limited. If you want to harvest meteor metal, yuh have to give her an offering of something she would want, like precious metals, gems, and jewelry. If she accepts, you can take as much as you give her, or less.”
“Candy told me about that. She and the other hippogriffs are working in the lake, feeling out and dredging up raw pieces of the meteor, when not doing other work along the river. The impact must have broken an aquifer, because there’s more water than she thinks there should be. She says by this time next year, you should be able to sail into the crater lake,” Alice told the group.
“Makes me wonder if the Starbush is making the area better watered and more fertile, just so she can thrive better on her hilltop,” Howard said, thinking out loud.
“That would not surprise me,” Chad said, after a puff on his pipe. The crew allowed it, because he used good tobacco and it was raining outside. They just insisted he sit with his back to an open vent and a fan in his face. Whatever smoke strayed from the breeze, they could tolerate it. “From what I have been learning about dragons, they always look after themselves first. Even Casimir looks after himself first, but will always help the colony.”
“Da.” Ivan said from his custom chair. “Casimir, he wants his own comfort, but he is realizing that by having ponies working with him, his life is much better. He just loves little Rosa.”
“That’s something I would like to see,” Alice said as she watched Jason bringing trays out from the galley for dinner. Her nose was dancing in anticipation for a cooked meal done by someone who knows how!
“If you go through Saint Louis, you will,” Howard said as Chad and Brenda got up to help Jason set up dinner, Chad leaving his pipe in its holder.
Alice left after dinner, promising to find Frank ‘when the weather cleared up’ and send him by. During the dinner, she pointed out several good salvage places, the only problem being they were on the EAST bank of the Ohio, and there weren't many good mooring places there.
The rain had cleared by morning, but low clouds and cold air remained. The crew were glad they had managed to find warm clothing earlier down the river, so all dressed warm while refueling ops were performed, the exceptions being the pegasi, who had better cold tolerance than most, and Howard, who, being a hippogriff, can take the cold of the deeps, or any cold at all, much better than the others.
Frank de la Rosa arrived a little after noon, as fueling was nearing completion. He was well-bundled up in sweats and jackets, declaring ‘It’s too damn cold to fly!’ In talks with Howard, Carroll and Ivan, he requested passage ‘to a warmer climate’. “Dios mio, I can’t take the cold like I used to!” he told the trio.
“Do you speak Spanish, Frank?” Carroll asked.
“Second language, but quite good at it. Why do you ask?” Frank asked in return.
“Havana is a colony of the WSU,” Howard told the Ornithian. “Lots of parrots there, they mainly speak Spanish, and it doesn’t get cold down there. Interested?”
Frank hesitated for maybe three seconds before replying. “How do I get there?”
“Ride with us to New Orleans, wait there for the Havana Trader or a WSU ship heading that direction, and go there. Report to the colony governor, tell him what you can do, and he will assign you a position there. Or, you can settle at any other colony along the rivers, or go to New Orleans. The choice is yours, Mister de la Rosa,” Howard explained to the parrot.
“Pick me up on your way south. I’m a retired construction contractor, so I’m sure I can earn my way around just about anywhere,” Frank said quickly. “How much can I bring along?”
“Not your whole house. A steamer trunk should be enough, maybe two. Much of our space is contracted. Will that cause trouble?” Carroll asked.
“Two should do it. The problem would be getting them here. Any ideas as to how?”
“Give us your address, and we’ll come up with a way,” Carroll replied.
Frank gave it, adding “It’s on the island. Any trouble with that?”
“Not at all. Good reason to give the truck a workout. Haven’t used it since Cincinnati,” Carroll said with a smile. “We’ll also give you a satphone and a portable shortwave radio. Up to you to find batteries.”
“Consider it a done deal. Anyone I should call?”
“I’ll make up a copy of our latest ‘phone book’”, Carroll said with a smile. “Just have to print one up, after I add you in. I’ll include both White and Yellow Pages for what we have as of now, okay?
“Good enough for me!” Frank said with a grin. Carroll led Frank to the ship’s office (meaning, the Captain’s office), issued him a satphone and a solar charger for it, before printing up the ‘phone book’, which ran to sixteen pages, broken up into sub-categories depending on organization, city, profession, and several others. Pulling out a highlighter, Carroll marked a few.
“These are colony leaders, and these,” marking some with a different color, “are different offices, like the River Patrol division for Louisianne, or the duty offices for the WSU. When you get aboard, there are some books for you to read about the different species and the state of the world,” she told the interested Ornithian.
“Something to look forward to. Thank you,” he said, bowing gallantly. “Now, for the radio?” One was swiftly issued, and after a little instruction, the WSU worldcast was heard.
“Just remember, one in the afternoon here is eight at night in Maasvlakte,” Carroll cautioned.
“Maasvlakte? Did you say that or gargle it?” Frank said with a laugh.
Carroll laughed along with the parrot. “I have trouble with it too, Frank!”