An irritated voice with a clear Texas twang rang out from a pile of cloth bags in the officer quarters laundry room, one level down from where Aaron was sitting on the auto-lad. "Consarnit, Doc! What in tarnation did you do?!?" it demanded as the accompanying head poked out of the pile and looked around.

Jeb Tanner got to his feet and recovered his Stetson from the hallway. As he walked over to the auto-lad, he dusted his hat off and smoothly slid it onto his head. Pulling the brim low, he poked his head into the auto-lad shaft and looked up at Thorn. Before he could start chewing on him, Jeb heard Nicole's proclamation about constabulary and possibly being in America. "Well how 'bout that! Let's head fer Texas!"

He jumped onto the other auto-lad platform and rode it up to the observation deck, where he approached Nicole from behind. "Miz Jones." he said with a tip of his hat as he stepped up beside her and pulled a spyglass out of the pocket of his modified duster. He opened it up and took a look at the boats and coastline, his mouth promptly dropping open. "What in the nine hecks of Dante?!"

He then remembered he was in the presence of a lady. "Scuse ma language, Miz Jones."

"What in blazes!?" Jeb hollered, reflexively drawing his twin Colt steam pistols, as a flying woman in her unmentionables floated past the window. She had started to wave, but when she saw the guns pointed, she smirked saucily and blew a kiss at him. Jeb holstered his pistols and grinned goofily, suddenly remembering that she was his friend. It wasn't until she had been out of sight for several seconds that he shook his head.

"What the... why that brazen hussy! She done muddled ma mind! Where'd she go?" he demanded. Jeb walked over to the door and threw the wheel over, opening the door. As he stepped through the portal, he drew his guns and started to look up... only to promptly bounce off of something hard and unyielding. "Dagummit, who put a wall there?!" he yelled as he reached up to resettle his hat so it wasn't blocking his vision. Once he was finished, he looked up at the wall, only to realize that it was an absolutely enormous man in a gaudy costume who was studying him. Jeb just sighed and looked back through the door. "Hey Doc, ah think ya ought ta see this."

From below came a man dressed in all black with brass buttons. Not an inch of skin showing, his hands in gloves and his head hidden by a brass mask, helmet combo. The eyes of the mask was two reddish gem stones that seem to shine from within. He moved up beside Miss Jones looking at the flying people as well his right hand on the hilt of his saber. "M'lady is correct. Please explain your presence on board this craft." Looking out to the city "And any information you might have on where we are? I don't recognize this city."

"I am Darryl Sinclair, as for why we are in these waters is kind of clear we crashed. As for how we crashed, well that is for the Skipper to speak about as the good Mr. Tanner stated." Jebediah made a slight bow then. His hand was still on the hilt of his sword.

"And I'm Nicole Diane Jones." She looked over both Ubersoldat and Lightheart. [i]If that woman is wearing a corset, I'll eat it,[/i] she thought, considering what her aunts had thought required apparel for a respectable woman. On the other hand, Nicole wasn't wearing a corset, either. A skirt over her trousers was as far as she'd been willing to go...
"Is that the flag of the United States of America on those vessels?" Way too many stars, even if they did insist on claiming the Confederate states...

Nicole was fascinated by the voder, most she had heard before sounded much more ...mechanical. But what was said was more important than how she said it... "Has there been expansion lately, or do the number of stars no longer reflect the number of states?" Her hand had come away from her weapon, indicating she accepted their claim of peaceful intent.

Nicole had learned a bit about the U.S. flag; something that had struck her as unusual about it was that they kept changing it subtly. Originally it had thirteen stripes and thirteen stars. At the time Napoleon the First ruled the French Empire, it had fifteen of each, after two more states had been added. By the time of the seccession of... one of the Carolinas? in 1860, they had thirty-three stars (for thirty-three states) but had gone back to thirteen stripes; when Nicole had been at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire it had been 38 stars... Those flags had to have much more than forty stars... possibly around fifty...

Ms. Lightheart cocked her head to the side and then began typing again. "The U.S. Flag has had 50 stars since Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union within a few months of each other. That was in 1959 and the flag has not changed since."

She then looked over at Dr. Thorn after his estimation of twenty-three new states being admitted and typed some more. "The last time the United States had 37 states was just before Colorado's admission in August of 1876. When and where are you from?"

As this conversation was going on, Jeb was looking out over the rail of the ship while listening to it. He whistled slowly to himself and wondered what things were like in Texas.

"The answer to both the 'when' and the 'where' would seem to be 'else', Miss Lightheart. The closest answer I can give you for myself would be Great Britain, Eighteen hundred and Ninety-two. Or at least a version of it." Nicole looked around. "If Mr. Sinclair is correct, we come from what a traveller I once met would call 'a different line in paratime'."

"New world same problem, PIRATES!" He ran for the side of the ship to take control of one of the guns "We might not be airborne anymore but do we have some means of maneuvers? We are sitting ducks in the water here."

Übersoldat and Ms. Lightheart took off immediately and headed for the Aether craft. While Ms. Lightheart surrounded herself with a shield and began firing psionic blasts at any pirate that dared to poke his head out, Übersoldat accelerated and flew straight into the largest craft, his fists extended out in front of him. The combination of his invulnerability and his speed allowed him to punch right through the keels armor plating and blow out the stern. As he circled around, Aethers began firing on him with their steam rifles.

Jeb ran to a nearby rack attached to a wall, shrugged into a jump pack, and clipped his feet into spring boots. One of the nearby Martians jumped onto the back of the pack and fired it up, then yanked Jeb's hat off and fitted a helmet onto his head. The Martian slapped the top of the helmet to indicate he was good to go before jumping off and Jeb fired the steam jets, rocketing into the air. He flew through a parabolic arc and landed on the deck of one of the smaller airships, where he pulled his pistols and opened fire on the Aethers with a "YEEHAAA!"

"Cray? I was sure that you were joking when you told me about him..." Nicole aimed at another hovercraft's engine, and sent all twelve trounds from the magazine through the hull into the firebox. Bricks shattered, and heat began flowing out, away from the boiler tubes. Nicole paused to scoop up her brass. "And he can really control metals around him? Have any of you considered wooden bullets? Or maybe ceramic?"

All the time that was happening Darryl was at one of the working guns keeping the pirates at bay. He was tempted to use a grappling hook to swing over till he heard Cray was there. "Cray..." A flashback to a fight where Cray used the metal of the pipes and the blast of steam that nearly killed him. His fist bashes into the wall before he took a deep breath to calm himself.

"Thank you my friend." He tugged on his shirt regaining or at least restoring the mask of the calm navy officer. "At least we know this world seems well protected from the likes of him."

Jeb walked back over to the jump-pack mounting rack and placed his pack back on it to start charging again. He left the spring boots underneath the pack and the helmet over it, then reclaimed his boots and hat. He then set to work assisting with repairs.

Übersoldat and Ms. Lightheart tried to chase after Cray, but neither of them were particularly fast flyers, so his ship soon outdistanced them. They returned to the Icarus to help however they could to get the steamship working so that it could be gotten out of the harbor. Ms. Lightheart stuck pretty close to Jeb and it was fairly obvious she was rather taken with the rugged cowboy.

"I think we must first find out about money. Do they use bank-notes or coin precious metals? Or do they have some other medium of exchange? I rather doubt they rely on barter, it would make the bookkeeping very hard..." Nicole's thoughts drifted off topic slightly. "Books, like an almanac if they have them, though we should take care that it is more like Whitaker's than Poor Robin's..."

[i]A few hours later[/i]

It had been a while since Karhythadrizsa had been farther out of her lair that the Central Library's front doors. Longer still since she had been out over the Atlantic. And then, she hadn't been deliberately small. But here she was, approaching an oddly designed steamship. [i]Icarus[/i], proclaimed the legend across its stern. [i]Just the ship I was looking for[/i], she thought. As if there was likely to be another vessel from another continuum for her spell to lock onto. She contiued to approach across the wavetops until she judged she was within voice range. Then she popped up to deck level and called out, "Ahoy, Icarus!"

Jeb poked his head out of a hatch near the stern. He was sweating profusely and his face was smudged by grease. He'd swapped out his Stetson for a bandanna, which he pulled off his head to wipe his face and neck down with.

Ms. Lightheart, or Cassie, as she had asked Jeb to call her, poked her head out as well. She'd elected to don coveralls at some point and her face was equally smudged, her red hair tied back in a tight bun. It turned out she was pretty handy with tools and fixing things, having grown up around cars. However, there was a huge difference between internal combustion and steam power, so she couldn't work on any of the more advanced machinery. But she could still turn a wrench.

Jeb looked aft and his mouth dropped open just a bit. "Huh... a talkin' dragon. Well, thar's sumthin' ya don't see every day."

"Sir thought I am sure we can trust this ... Um.. Lady's Honor. Some of our books have information about our technology. Reliant as it is on the Martian rocks, it be hard to reproduce. But do we want to run the risk. Thinking on it I believe that why we were attacked by those pirates as soon as we appeared. If that... Scoundrel working with them, I believe he doesn't have a supply. So he sent his allies to retrieve some."

"Like I said Miss I trust your Honor, but information can lead to temptation. You read about a device in our books, think you can improve it or use it to improve something else. Then you be here asking for one of our power sources." Sinclair said as he nodded to the Dragon. They saw people fly without any sign of devices, now a Dragon. Clearly what ever this reality was, myths and legends are more real here.

Jeb was busy watching the dragon interact with Aaron, so Cassie punched him in the arm to get his attention. "Ey! Y'know, it ain't very lady-like to go 'roun punchin' folk." he griped.

Cassie punched him again in response, harder this time, then gestured back down the hatch. She pointed starboard, held her hands in the shape of a circle, grabbed her wrench, then whistled a high tone in imitation of a steam-pipe leak.

"Yeah yeah, ah know we gotta get back ta that thar pipe leading outta tha pontoon. Ah jes' wanted ta get some air an' see what tha ruckus was." he said, still griping as he headed back down and Cassie closed the hatch behind them.

Kahry shook her head. "Oh, I'm not a traveler. This trip is the farthest I've been from my horde in almost a century. I do have a cousin who collects currency, but he lives in the Alps. I can't think of anyone else who might be interested in your currency, people who deliberately travel between dimensions seem to be rare here. Or maybe they just don't draw attention to themselves... And copies can be made if you only have one of a volume, though I'd pay more if I got to keep the original and you the copy."

"Yes, my network is very good. As for locating you, earlier this year, I developed a spell to pick out extra-dimensional auras. Objects from other realms retain traces of their origins for a time. When I heard about your arrival, I cast this spell and followed the largest new trace." Karhy looked over the list, then pulled her tablet out of - somewhere - and put two caps on her right thumb and foreclaw. From an image of the manifest, a character recognition program generated a document, which Kahry then had to correct...She made some notes, and then showed the tablet to Aaron. "The ones I've highlighted in green are titles I have, I'd need to read them to find out if they were different before I could make an offer on them. In yellow are the ones I don't have; my offer to the right side of the screen is in grams of gold." One title, [I]Paris au XXe siècle[/I], by Jules Verne, 1883 edition, was highlighted in green and yet there was a fairly hefty price to the right...

"Sorry, it's electronics, which means it's as mysterious to me as magic is to most humans in this world. But it's fairly easy to learn to use, even if one has no clue of how it operates. This one cost me about thirty grams a few years back. The same price for current models would get one that can hold about twice as much information. I even know of some people who keep their libraries on such devices. I prefer my books in more tangible form..." Karhy tapped the screen and looked at the information displayed. "No signal out here. If we were closer to civilization I could show you how to use the Internet; it would be an excellent way to find what you need to make your repairs..."

"Of course we could study this technology wile we are here. As for contamination... well it seems these folks haven't been invaded by our Martians so the timelines are vastly different already. There no proof that this tech would even work in our reality, or is compatible to our tech. We made great strides in advancements after the invasion we might not be as far away from this level of tech then you first thought Aaron."

Karhy looked with passing interest at the Martians. They didn't seem to be the type to invade, but then, there was usually a lot of variation in personality in any sapient race. And maybe they had been desperate. "To me, information is worth what I can sell it for, plus any use I might have for it personally. One factor is how easy it would be for my potential customers to find out from other sources. Regrettably, the sort of information you want, where can you get materials and supplies, is readily available; in good conscience I can't charge you for that. Well, readily available if you have access to the Internet...The internet is all the devices like this tablet, and larger computers, devices with similar functions, that are connected by communications links. Mostly cables, and some radio links. The result is a very great deal of information of various sorts being passed around, with varying degrees of security. Some people only use it to keep in touch with friends and family, some use it to play games, some use it to advertise, some use it to place orders for delivery. The advertising is easy to find." She picked up the copy of [I]Paris au XXe siècle[/I] as it was sorted out. She opened it carefully, sniffed at the bindings, and began leafing through it. Her claws didn't so much as scratch the cover. "In this continuum's version of this book, M. Verne predicted something very similar to the internet. But it didn't get published until 1994..."

"Thought in other ways we seem to be ahead. Those ships the Pirates used are below our standards, and I don't see larger airships being used. We should visit the City's authorities first. We can give them information about Cray they bound not to have, clear up any lingering fears about us. Perhaps we could even aid in some bounty hunting, lest threat of contamination, on the other hand higher risk of personal harm."

The last thing to do before the AutoLad would be fixed was to check the ignition piston. Jeb had to stick his arms into the guts of the AutoLad up to his elbows, but he was just able to reach the piston casing. With a few deft twists, he unlocked the casing and swung it open. What he saw inside the casing was not what he expected. After peering at it for a few seconds, he closed the casing back up, then began disassembling the AutoLad.

Once he got to the point where he'd disengaged the piston, then removed it and its casing, he wriggled out with it in his hands. Cassie eyed the pile of parts he'd steadily handed her over the past half-hour, then looked at Jeb with a bewildered look on her face. She tapped something out on her keypad and the pleasant female voice emerged from its speaker. "What's wrong, Jebediah? You look worried."

Jeb set the piston casing down and pulled the bandana off his head. He took a slug of water, then wet down the bandana and rubbed it along the back of his neck. He looked over at Cassie after her question. "Ah ain't got no clue, darlin'. But sumthin' ain't right with that there piston. Ah gots ta talk with Doc."

He grabbed the piston off his maintenance cart, then began climbing the maintenance shaft that paralleled the AutoLad shaft. Cassie followed right along behind him. He emerged on the floor with the library and headed on in. The dragon was there along with Doc and her had to dodge Nicole as she bustled out of the room.

"Hey Doc, ah think we might have a problem here." he said, setting the piston casing down on the table and opening it to reveal the piston, which was now silver instead of orange.

"Sorry!" called Nicole as she continued down the inert auto-lad. In her quarters she opened her locker, and pulled out the lone book. She had had this book with her when the Traveller had picked her up, and had kept it through adventures that had seemed quite strange at the time, though somewhat less so, now. She returned to the deck to hear the Captain's admonition about safety equipment. "Silver Martian rock? I'm not familiar with that one. Miss Karhy, do you know this title?" She held out her copy of Mark Twain's [I]Roughing It[/I].

Karhy nodded. "Oh, yes, Sam wrote that one here as well. Does your version include the chapter 'Assaults by the Unabridged'?" Both human and dragon began giggling. A deal was struck, a copy of both versions and some gold for Nicole and Nicole's original for Karhy. Then Karhy addressed the Captain. "Captain Thorne, did I hear you correctly? You intend seeding the caves? To make more Martian Rock?" There was a slightly worried tone in the dragon's voice.

Jeb spun again as things went all wrong behind him. He threw himself forward and just managed to catch Aurélie before she whacked her head on the table. He carried her over to a reading couch and gently laid her out, then turned to Cassie and asked to get some water. The redhead nodded and quick-stepped out of the room. "Ah'm sorry, Doc. Ah didn' even notice ah was so close to tha lamp. Is everyone else alright?"

Nicole grabbed a blanket from nearby equipment locker and spread it out over Aurélie. She held Aurélie's wrist, checking to see if the pulse was fast, or erratic, or weak, and if it was getting steadier or stronger...

"Well, I think I'll let you get your ship together. I'll just take a few books with me..." Kahry slipped the Verne and the Twain and a Shelly into wherever the tablet had com from, then set the tablet on the table. "No more room... I'll be back, with your copies of these and payment for them, in a few hours, we can finalize transportation arrangements. If you need to move, you can leave a message for me at the Central Library in the Alexandria District. That's the peninsula just northwest of the amusement park on the shore closest to where you first arrived..."

Hearing something that almost sounded like something falling he shut off the device and disconnected the hoses. It took just a few moments more for him to put the mask back on and secure his shirt before he headed to the lab. "I heard a commotion what happened?"

Over the speaking tube came a reply. "I can't speak for them, but I intend to accompany you, myself," said Nicole. "And don't forget that Karhy mentioned that permits are required for citizens to carry weapons. So I advise concealing them."

At the other end of that tube, Nicole looked herself over in the mirror. While wearing the petticoats, there was no sign of either her Darling pistol or the slit in her skirt that allowed her to reach it.