You sip your complimentary gin and tonic and watch the waters of the Med glide by below. These past few days have given you an awful lot to think about, but now you'll have time to ponder. A long Louisiana summer lies ahead of you, with space for reflection and regret.
Then something starts to happen. The world before your senses starts to shimmer and flicker. The insectile buzz of the airship's propeller bleeds into a different sound—the low, rasping, erratic wheeze of the engine of a dirty old tramp steamer on the South China Sea.
Your senses clear, your memories fade, and you are back aboard the good ship Semiramis, lashed tight to your chair in the cargo hold, looking into the face of a man you first saw all those years ago under a blazing desert sun outside the Bull's Horns.
Present Day, South China Sea