Aerial Board

The board, answerable to proprietors, that builds and works Britannia's chain of skyship mooring masts and relay yards, carrying mail, small specie, medicines, persons and machine parts. It is loss-making in strict accounting and kept up for prestige and as a signal system; other aerial companies also hold masts.

Named with it

• Aerial Board Chairman Gervase Underhay
• Aerial Master Ignatius Crewe

Ties

• lift chambers proved by the Collegium
• charter houses hold stakes in its masts
• underwriting rooms limit what it may carry
• Admiralty has come round to second masts

At the table

A mast is consecrated at its raising, as a lighthouse is, and the names of the men killed in the building are cut at its foot. Crews keep their own house lists of things that are never taken aboard. Should there be a disturbance, a mast's superintendent has standing orders to destroy the store and abandon the mast head, and three times it has been done. A fresh argument is now opening over the building of second masts; and the firms close to the board, which did well out of the last two, look for more construction work. Medicines may be carried ahead of paying freight, at the master's discretion.