When we reached the stairway beside the airfield, Bea stared at the thoppers and babbled about pressure valves and rotation speeds. Then she stopped short, halfway up the hill. “That’s a twelve-spark repeating tes-array!” “Bea!” Hazel tugged her arm. “C’mon.” “But Cap’n, look at her.” She pointed to a twin-hulled thopper with a gleaming engine and exposed gearworks. “She’s purple as a mayfly!” “As a what?” I said. “She looks like a mayfly.” Actually, she looked like a thopper, but I knew better than to argue. Once Bea gave an airship a nickname, she refused to budge. Swedish nodded. “She’s a beaut.” “Except for that condenser,” Bea said. Loretta said, “Huh?” “The condenser,” Bea explained. “He’s grumpy as an upside-down sundial.” “You mean the pilot?” “She means the condenser,” Swedish told her. “It’s grumpy?” I hunched my shoulders, disgusted at Loretta’s confusion. How could she be a crew member if she didn’t even understand Bea?
