Thurston's Letter to His Mother

To My Dearest Mother Lovelia,

You were certainly right about non-British women mummy.

I met a lovely lady, Ms. Roweena Preston who knew the Stevensons from Buttridge and many other common acquaintances. She had recently been widowed, not three days earlier! She begged for help recovering an experimental new Martian cloud ship of her husband's invention. This ship had been stolen, evidently by pirates, and her husband had been murdered during the attempt. Intrigue! Excitement!

Anyway, we got on rather well, and she swooned with gratefulness when I hired my own cloud ship and financed an expedition to pursue the thieving brigands. An adventurer, Mr. Harrison Challenger, and a Lieutenant William Montgomery of Manchester joined me, along with a Dr. Carstairs. Regarding Ms. Preston, this Mr Challenger felt he had to challenge 'er (ha ha, great pun, eh mummy?) as he suspected early on that she was perhaps not as British as she seemed. Something about her accent, though it sounded lovely to me - lilting and resonant like when you sing at bath time.

We travelled to a very distasteful Martian town, Karkarham, where we dispatched a few ne'er-do-wells and captured the pirate captain. His mongrel crew had the nerve to pursue us, but of course we evaded them, with the pirate tied securely to the mast of our ship.

Well, it turned that Mr Harrison was right about Ms Preston. It seems she was not Ms. Preston at all, but some German, name of Gutenburt or some such. I should have known that no self-respecting British lady would have a bloody Irish maid-servant! Anyway, this so-called lady actually shot me! With a gun mummy! I think I shall finally have a few fetching scars to show off. Anyway, we were on the cloud ship and I'd just done a really marvelous trick running along the railing (way up in the sky, mummy!) and jumped in behind to strike her (with the cane you'd given me. Remember it, with the sword inside?)

In the resulting fracas, the lieutenant helped subdue the German woman, and somebody tossed the Irish maid over the side. At the moment, things are calm again and I've got time to write this note over a well-deserved cup of tea. I expect we'll be heading to get the stolen ship back from the pirates next, after I get patched up a bit. Then I expect we'll turn the pirate and the German woman over to the authorities, and find an interested buyer for this new cloud ship technology. I wonder if that Edison fellow might be interested? I found him surprisingly bright for a colonist.

Wishing you all the best. I will post as often as possible.

All my love,

Thurston