The Black Pearl lies at anchor, stays and lanyards creaking and whipping in the
stiff offshore breeze, bobbing and swinging on the vast, heavy chain that reaches down into the depths.
Some three hundred yards distant is a black and slippery rock face, tumbled with angular boulders and
scored with deep crevices and cracks. The sea pounds against the bottom of the cliff, grey fists streaked
with white knuckles, throwing salt spray and foam into the air where it mingles with the thick smell of
approaching rain. They aren't in the tropics any more.
The denizens of the Cake Stop hang over the rail, looking at the way the sea surges and sucks at the
rocks, shivering in the sudden cold.
The cliff ends in a sharp promontory, and beyond that, to the west, is a small and sheltered bay, well
protected from the wind and the storms that would come screaming across the ocean for a full frontal
assault in the territory war between land and sea. The Black Pearl would have anchored there, were it
not for the presence of the ship already moored and the report from Kehaar that the secret base they
seek is in that bay, built into the ridge of rocks that walls off this coastline. To try anchoring their ship
in that shelter would have ruined everything.
Westley is coiling a rope around his shoulders and eyeing the cliff face. He has dressed as 'The Man In
Black', who had once scaled the Cliffs of Insanity, defeated Inigo Montoya in a supreme battle of
swordplay, bested Fizzik the Giant in a match of strength and dispatched Vizzini the Sicilian in a fatal
philosophical exchange. With the black kerchief tied tightly around his head and the rope coiled like a
great snake, he looks rakish and almost sinister. Certainly not someone one would wish to bump into in
a dark alley.
"How are we going to get the bikes over there?" Miiinee asks suspiciously as a longboat is lowered and
a couple of burly sailors take the oars to row Westley over to the base of the cliff. "I mean, it's all very
well for him, with his unrealistic and unnaturally superhuman skills of cliff-climbing and Spaniard-
bashing. Not to mention lack of bicycle. What about us? That's not Falkland Hill, you know."
"We'll think of something, I'm sure," Kathy says bravely, a little horrified by the way the longboat, now
pulling towards the cliff, is being tossed around by the swell as if it were naught but a cork.
The Cake Stoppers watch, aghast and agape and unable to look away, as the wooden longboat draws
closer and closer to the furious tumult of white water drumming against the glistening rocks.
"He's going to be smashed to splinters," says TimC, not daring to look.
"Nah," Captain Jack scoffs. "He'll be fine". His usual rolling gait, which gives him his permanently
inebriated appearance, is apparently perfectly adapted to an environment that includes a constantly
shifting and heaving ground. He stands absolutely balanced, nonchalant, watching Westley's progress
with no sign of worry.
Jack Shandy stands by the main mast, the ship's peristyle, a bottle of rum and a sharp blade in one
hand, and a big bag of sherbet UFOs and a cigarette lighter in the other. As Westley nears the bottom
of the cliff, Shandy, who had been muttering and chanting with his eyes closed, in one swift movement
slits open the bag, takes a swig of rum, and then spits the rum over the falling candy, lighting the liquor
into a burst of aromatic flame.
The sea at the base of the cliff immediately ceases its ravenous seething and the wind stills. Westley
leaps out of the longboat and onto the cliff, scaling the rocky heights as if he were spider. Once at the
top he vanishes from view for a short time, then reappears on the cliff edge with what looks like a short
bow and arrow. The cyclists duck as he fires the arrow. It hits square on the mizzen mast, and attached
to it is a length of light line that spins back up to the top of the cliff.
A couple of members of the crew grab the leader line and start hauling the main rope down from the
top of the cliff. By this time the longboat has made it back to the ship. As soon as the main rope has
been tied off, Westley attaches a weighted harness to his end and then sends it skeetering down the
rope, attached to another light line for hauling it back up.
"Right then ladies and gents," says Captain Jack. "I need some volunteers to go up the cliff and help
Westley. We're going to haul your bikes up that rope, see."
"Um," says Ridgerider dubiously.
"Well, you do want your bikes, don't you?" Captain Jack inquires, faintly exasperated. "We're on a
bloody pirate ship! How else do you think we're going to get them up there?"
"Perhaps we could be of assistance?"
A pair of scruffy black balls of feathers land on the deck and start preening. The Cake Stoppers turn
round to see their Priestess, grinning broadly and accompanied by Logan and a man who appears to be
Logan's rather more effeminate twin brother. With them is a beautiful woman in an Assos skinsuit,
riding a bike the likes of which they have never seen. She is strangely painted in blue decoration and is
smiling at Aeroflash.
"Ravenbait, Wolverine," Macleach greets them. "Are you going to introduce us?"
"Cake Stoppers, Captain Jack, Jack: this is Aglaea, the wife of Hepahestus; and Van Helsing, a secret
monster-assassin working for the Vatican whose last working memory of his life before his current
position was being at the Battle of Medea. He also used to be a werewolf, but don't tell anyone as he
doesn't like to talk about it."
This earns her a surprised and filthy stare from Van Helsing. Aglaea murmurs "Pleased to meet you" in
a winsome way.
"Hmm," says Kathy, pondering. "Doesn't he ever get to be someone who doesn't have
amnesia?"
Gunner approaches Aglaea's elbows with firm intent.
"Well, there was Swordfish," the Priestess offers. "But that doesn't count as it had John Travolta in it.
Speaking of whom, are we too late? Did we miss the fun?"
"No no, Priestess," says Captain Jack with a lewd grin. "We were just about to get the bicycles hoisted
ashore, as I know how the League and the Intrepid Sorority hate to be without your bicycles, as it
were."
"That could take all day," the Priestess says, frowning. She beckons over Flying Monkey and
Aeroflash. "I'll open a hole into A-Time and make a passage through to the cliff top. You two keep this
side open. Once we've got everyone through, FM, you come through and Aeroflash will keep this end
open until you've made it, and then he can let this end slide and just waft over to join us like the
insubstantial glowing blue thing he is. There has to be some advantage to being dead. Might as well
make use of it. OK?"
Still astride Fingal, she aims for a spot on the deck a few turns of the cranks away, and frowns at it. At
first it appears she is going to ride into the bulkhead but at the last instant the strange, fibrous,
shimmering structure of the border regions rends and opens a gap into A-Time. She disappears through
it, quickly followed by Van Helsing and Wolverine. Macleach grabs his machine and dives through
after her, as does Gunner with the Giant OCR Team Replica.
Thought and Memory look at each other, shrug, and then flap lazily upwards, finding a thermal rising
from the wooden deck of the ship on which to glide to the height of the cliff top before soaring across
the intervening space. As they land on a boulder by Westley a similar hole to the one on deck opens up
on the cliff top and the five cyclists appear.
One of the crew unties the rope from the mizzen mast. It splashes into the water and then Macleach and
Gunner begin to pull it in while Wolverine and Westley keep watch.
There is then a slow procession of cyclists filtering through the A-Time conduit. The ranks of the
League and the Intrepid Sorority have grown somewhat since their humble beginnings so many moons
ago over a pint and a game of pool in the Cake Stop Bar and Grill. It will take some time.
"I don't think I should go with you," Aglaea says. "I only really came to deliver this."
She presents the new bicycle to Aeroflash.
"I'm sure you would be perfectly safe with us," Aeroflash says, hoping to dissuade her from
leaving.
"Dear Aeroflash," she says. "I do not want to be one of these useless women who are always getting in
the way of the action and squealing like girls. I am one of the Graces. I am not a warrior. I inspire
poetry and song, grace and beauty."
"Then before you go," Aeroflash says as the last of the cyclists and their steeds enters the conduit and
he gives the nod to Flying Monkey, who disappears through the rent, "allow me to sing to you my
appreciation of this splendid machine your loving husband has crafted for me."
He lets the opening into A-Time close, for Aglaea could find her way back there any time she chooses,
and, as they stand alone on the deck, with the crew in the rigging tending sail, the League and the
Soroity making ready on shore and the possibility of battle ahead, Aeroflash weaves for Aglaea the
Ballad of Aeroflash's Bike.
Hephaestus, crippled god of invention
Created a bike of grace unparalleled.
Making its frame from tubes
Of finest steel alloyed with gold,
Chromium, molybdenum and metals
Harvested from deep beneath
Olympus, red and yellow and blue,
And colours no man had seen, strong
Like the arms of Herakles, him who
Defeated the many-headed Hydra,
Pitting the power of his Mighty
Muscles against the Scales of
Its plated necks, avoiding deadly
Acids from the fell beast’s
Wounds that choked the hero
Even in the midst of mortal battle.
Such alloys melded at heats burning
Within the fires of Etna’s bellows
Bore strength unbreakable by mortal
Hands, and modulus of elasticity
Well in excess of that drawn by
Reynoldus, Dedaccius and Alexandrus
Columbus. The crippled god polished
These tubes to such a sheen –
You know when Phoebus Apollo
Draws his chariot into the sky,
And the burning orb ascends with
Brightness unmatched by any flame
In Mycaenae, Troy or Argos, even
Pharos which guides tall ships
Night or day into the safe harbour
Thus Hephaestus made the frame.
Brazed with platinum into lugs
Of such fine creation, beaten
And many layers folded so no
Moisture could ever penetrate.
These lugs, twirled and fancy
Formed into the likeness of scenes
Great and heroic in cycling lore.
Here on the head tube junction,
Anquetil attacks Poulidor on
The Puy de Dome, his eyes
Of blue flame – you know
When gas burns at unbearable heat,
Such was the glaze drawn onto
The gaze of the champion, fixed
On his eternal rival. Clashing as
Their steel-forged steeds swayed,
Pedals forced by worn legs round
Aching circles, lactate thumping
In burning pain. Like when birds
Of prey fight over a prize,
Spiralling and wheeling up into
The empty sky, calling and
Keening. And the prize, some
Helpless rabbit or game bird
Passes first from one, then to
The other, gripped in
Sharpened talons, wrenching into
Flesh. Time and again it is
Ripped free and falls as if
It would plummet to the hard
Earth below, only to be seized
By skilful claws again. Thus
Did Anquetil and Poulidor fight
Over the lead. Here, meanwhile
On the seat tube was Eddy Merckx
And Frans Verbeeck in the Tour
Of Flanders, there on the bottom bracket
Lug, Armstrong fights back from
Falling on the Luz Ardiden.
Of the drivetrain such legends
Have been told. Chainset of
Forged alloys, beaten cold.
Levers to brake and move gears
Sweetly with no need to re-index
Or replace, moulded exquisitely
From carbons black an pure as
Obsidian and smooth like no
Earthly moulding process achieved.
Such was the cycle’s perfection
I could tell of such wonders in the
Geometry as made the steed ride
With handling so sweet and quick
But stable like a Trojan team.
Finishing kit there was to cushion
All contact points from any shock.
Hephaestus had fashioned this machine
Of such glory and strength, stiff
Yet comfortable, light yet powerful.
He named it Atalanta, for the fleetest
Maiden in legend – Desired by all,
Death to those beaten by her.
Aeroflash could not have dreamed
Of a bike so fine on which to race and ride.
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