1 For six days, Croggon Hainey watched the Rockies scroll beneath the borrowed, nameless dirigible, until finally the last of the jagged ridges and snow-dusted plateaus slipped behind the ship on the far side of Denver. He’d made this run a dozen times before, in fair weather and foul, with contraband cargo and passengers alike; and on this particular trip a tailwind gently urged the ship forward. But the speed that took him from the Pacific Northwest, over the mountains and down to the flatlands, did not improve the captain’s mood. With his hands balled into fists and jammed atop his knees, he groused, “We should’ve caught them by now. We ought to be right on top of them.” “The breeze moves us both,” the first mate said, and he shrugged. He adjusted his goggles to guard against the glare of the sun on the clouds and added, “But we’ll catch them. Any minute now.” Hainey shifted in the captain’s seat, which had been built with a smaller man in mind. He removed his hat and squeezed at his forehead as if he could massage it into greater wakefulness or concentration. “They’ll have to dock soon. They didn’t even get a full tank of hydrogen back in Grand Junction. Simeon?” he asked the first mate, who was likewise crammed into a seat beside him. “Yessir?” “They have