About this story
A secret Brotherhood, meeting in a Clapham house, offers to fund the real airship no government will admit wanting — if you build it on their terms. You take the money, keep your own conditions, and the full-scale Ariel rises in a guarded shed. When Natasha, Natas's daughter, is captured on a mission into Russia, Ariel's first real flight becomes a race to stop her prison train before the bridge.
How it opens
Richard Arnold's model had flown at last, but his South London rent was due by morning.
ColstonYour machine can command the air while its inventor cannot command twelve shillings.
ColstonI know your poverty and the million the Russian Tsar offers for precisely this power.
I will not sell an engine of war directly to the ruler of an empire I despise.
Colston invited you to demonstrate it before a secret society with resources beyond any government grant.
I will show the principle, but no one receives my plans before naming the intended use.