The airship was docked to the tree tower, we followed Grimmington up the rope ladder from the roof of the tower onto deck. He showed us the control panel which consisted of three levers, a button, and a winch.

“This is quite simple, really,” Grimmington begun. “This deploys the main sail,” he pointed at the middle lever. “These are for the left and right steering sails,” the two other levers. “You spin this to rotate the main sail,” the winch. “Pushing this depressurizes the hydrogen, so only push it when descending to land,” he pointed at the button.

“It’s as easy as riding a bike! Shall we take a trial flight?” Mike asked.

Grimmington unhooked the anchor from the tower: “Deploy the main sail!”

Mike pushed the button. Wrong.

Spun the winch. Wrong.

He noticed things weren’t going according to plan, so he spontaneously pulled all three levers down at once. A sudden gust of wind accelerated the ship, which sent us all flying backwards. Luckily the aft railing kept us from having a fate similar to that of Harald.

I looked up and saw the ship heading straight towards a big white tower: “Uh oh.”

Grimmington had also spotted what was about to happen, so he threw himself onto the control panel, fiercely spun the winch, and pulled the rightmost lever.

We made a hard turn. The left pole only lightly brushed against the tower, nothing broke. An unnecessarily near death experience.

“You know, on second thought, why don’t you come along on our adventure?” Mike scratched his head and smiled at Grimmington.

“I just bought a toy that I wanted to play with, but if this is any indication of your competence, I suppose I have no other choice,” Grimmington said.

“It’s settled then. You’re coming with us.”