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he been fighting? Why had he been studying in Richmond? Half the schools were more than half empty. The study of anything but war had become a tricky thing, almost a socially prohibited thing. Still, someone had to read the books, she figured. She’d never been much of a reader herself, but she wouldn’t begrudge anyone else the privilege. God knew the Confederacy needed doctors and military tacticians as surely as it needed mechanics and oilmen, engineers and pilots. Rationally she knew that no one learned these things spontaneously, and that few people even learned them as apprentices. But still, all the young men she’d known for the last few years had been soldiers, and rarely anything else before or after.
    As the
Zephyr
continued to fly without incident, Mercy relaxed enough to close her eyes from time to time, even dozing off. She only realized the ride was changing when the dirigible settled in Winston-Salem for a fuel refill.
    The captain told them they were welcome to stay aboard or disembark in the Carolina airyard, so long as they returned to their seats within half an hour. The students and Mr. Rand did just that. But the elderly man was asleep with his head on his wife’s shoulder, so she remained.
    Mercy decided to stay, leaning her head against the cool surface of the window and watching and listening as a tank on a rail just like the one in Richmond approached, docked, and began the hissing pump of hydrogen into the tanks above their heads.
    When the students climbed back aboard, they were chattering, like always; their patter was a background hum, blending into the whir and wheeze of the gas flowing from tank to tank through the rubber-treated hoses with heavy brass fittings.
    Mercy ignored them, leaving her eyes closed until she heard one of the students say, “. . . farther south, around Nashville by a wider berth.”
    She blinked to awareness, enough to interrupt and ask, “The troops?”
    “Beg your pardon, ma’am?”
    “The troops? Are you talking about the troops?”
    Dennis, the one with the unmarred feet, was a brunet with watery blue eyes and a young man’s mustache. He told her, “We overheard a bit, that’s all. They’re saying the Yankees have made a push to the southeast, so we’ll have to fly out of our way to dodge a battle. I almost hope we don’t,” he added, and the words were tickled by a flutter of excitement.
    “Don’t talk that way,” Mercy said. “We end up over a battlefield, and we’re all of us dead as stones.”
    “What makes you say that?” he asked.
    She shook her head, either sad for him or amazed that he simply didn’t know. Before she could answer, Gordon Rand’s head popped up into the cabin, followed by his torso and a trailing string of gossip.
    “The fighting’s going on clear out over the Appalachians, that’s what they’re saying,” he contributed.
    Mercy said, “Jesus.”
    The young brunet wanted to know more. “Do you think we’ll see fighting?”
    To which Mr. Rand said, “We won’t see any, or we’ll all see entirely too much. Mrs. Lynch is right. The moment this little passenger rig brushes up against a hit or two of antiaircraft fire, we’re doomed.”
    “Your hearing must be quite remarkable,” she observed, since he hadn’t quite been present when she’d made her observation.
    He beamed, and in his near lisp of an accent he continued, “I wouldn’t worry about it too much, if I were you. The captain ispresently taking note of the very latest telegraph information from the front, and he’ll adjust our course accordingly. I have the utmost faith in this. In fact, so utmost is my faith that I plan to stay aboard and ride on to Fort Chattanooga in the civilized comfort of this very fine ship.”
    “That’s confidence for you,” piped up the old woman, with enough cool sarcasm to surprise them all.
    The captain rejoined them before anyone could comment further, and he led the first mate back to the cockpit while urging