Zindaloo

Baron Zweihauser hit the ground running, the lumpy fog parting where his feet dashed it away from the ground and into tiny swirling storms for brief moments before it regained its sedentary decorum, the oily-perfumed mist flitting away from his bespectacled head, and the various other forms of earthlogged moisture obscuring his vision for all but a yard or so in front of him. The clouds were piled in rich layers, he noticed momentarily, as with a single fluid motion he stole the autogyro. In his near-panic (the good Baron was not known to enter fully into those states of mind marked by the loss of one's faculties entirely) he thought only of lateral movement, of distance away over the earth, as his best chance for escape, and neglected to ascend higher than would have been necessary to clear a single-story dwelling, which it was not. There was nothing really of note for quite some time; if the ground had been visible it would have shown itself to be a poor sort of ground for anyone's purpose save a few, and those unwise to name; that is, it was hard-packed soil high in clay and alkali, sprouting a few clumps of weeds and patches of brown grass from time to time, flat as a whole but with small bumps and divots to thwart anyone unlucky enough to be on foot, and steeped in mysterious, unsettling history. It was much like the ground on the edge of a pine forest he'd known in one of the boggier colonies of old Albion, and in fact a few clicks ahead a line of trees sprouted on his left. He turned slightly and saw no more vegetation. Forty minutes or so later he was above a field of some kind of grain.

The pursuers were still behind. This was not a new country to Zweihauser, but it was not well-known to him either, and he wondered about the forest and if he was likely to reach the manor of any of the reclusive personages of these parts, and if he would be wise to have anything to do with them if he did. He recalled a fragment of verse from his dreams:

Treat not with these lords of blasted earth:
They always want their money's worth.

Which, he reflected, was sage advice, as one of the faster pursuers was gaining on him. He engaged some gears on the machine he was fortunately an expert at operating and increased his speed a good deal. During one of his frequent, unhelpful glances over his shoulder - he still could not see for the mist, and had not had any knowledge of it or its fellows by the traditional senses since he had begun his flight - he caught a glance at the usual distance of three feet or so, a large harvesting engine of some kind. The forepart (the part he'd seen in most detail) was circular and rotating, and he had some sense of an operator somewhere behind, of a system which kept a cushion of air beneath it and some sort of propulsion behind. It wasn't moving terribly slowly, but the next one he passed and the one after it were both an inch or so closer, and he got the impression that they were in a staggered sort of line, all moving in the same direction. The idea occurred that the next one most likely would not hit him, nor the one after that, but a collision was certain eventually. He pulled the yoke to the right with the gentlest of touches, but at this speed the vehicle's stability was poor, and he found the tail of the craft swishing back and forth, making his course erratic and threatening to pitch him from his seat. He grabbed the yoke and fell backwards a bit, finally, accidentally gaining some altitude but not steadying his course in the least but fortunately clearing a stone wall. Thinking more clearly, he lessened his speed and balanced his machine somewhat, increasing his peace of mind but not in the least solidifying his notion of where he was flying to or what business he had there. The pop of a belt snapping and the immediate increase in the motor's speed when deprived of most of its load indicated that the differential gear connecting the driveshaft to the main rotor was out of commission. Belatedly, he realzied he was a good forty feet up. The superior make of this autogyro provided for the main rotor and the stabilizer to have separate mechanisms connected to the gearbox, and the stabilizer was still spinning. Without the force of air downward from the rotor, it had the opposite of its normal effect, forcing the tail sideways. The Baron was seated at the center of the craft's gravity, and found himself spinning as he would if he had been sitting at the center of a merry-go-'round as he lost altitude. When the motor banged and sputtered, running at a speed it could never have managed with the rotor's mechanism still in place, it was simply too much and he fainted.

This, at least, was fortunate. He was in someone's backyard, facing a wall like the one he'd passed over shortly before he lost conciousness. He could not see the first wall behind him, but the mist had cleared and he could see twenty feet or so before everything lost definition. Behind him was more of the yard, to the front the aforementioned wall with which he'd nearly collided, to the left his autogyro, which did not seem to have suffered any further injury, with another wall somewhat behind it. A small outbuilding was near to the wall he faced and to his right, and a tall, narrow house was past it and set further back from the walls, which he realized surrounded the place on at least three sides. Occasional, immense hardwood trees were evident, and he dragged the autogyro between a large one nearby and the wall, keeping it out of sight (he hoped) from the house and the smaller building.