R.W. III - The Dark Design

by Philip José Farmer

  Amazed, Firebrass asked him why he had not mentioned this.

  "Because I knew some all-fired fool would want to drop all the work on the boat faster than a burglar drops his tools when he sees a policeman! He'd want to abandon the Riverboat and put all work and materials into a flying machine!

  "No, siree! This boat takes precedence over everything else, as Noah said when his Wife wanted to knock off work to go to a rain dance.

  "By the blazing balls of the Bull of Bashan, there'll be no dirigible! It's a chancy thing, a dangerous device. Why, I wouldn't even be allowed to smoke a cigar on it, and if I can't do that, what's the use of living?"

  Clemens gave additional objections, most of them more serious. Firebrass, however, perceived that Clemens was not going to voice his main reason. Getting to the tower was not genuinely important to Clemens. It was the voyage itself that mattered to him. To build the greatest Riverboat that had ever been built, to be its captain, its lord, to voyage for millions of kilometers in the splendid vessel, to be admired and adored and wondered at by billions, that was what Sam Clemens desired.

  Moreover, he wanted revenge. He wanted to track and then to catch up with and destroy King John for having robbed him of his first boat, his first love, the Not For Hire.

  It might take forty years to get from Parolando to the mountains that ringed the polar sea. Sam did not care. Not only would he be the revered owner and operator of the biggest and most beautiful Riverboat mankind had ever seen, he would be going on the longest voyage any vessel, bar none, had ever taken. Forty years! Put that in your pipe, Columbus, Magellan, and smoke it!

  Also, he would be seeing and talking to hundreds of thousands. This delighted Sam, who was as curious about human beings as a housewife was about new neighbors.

  If he went in an airship he would have no strangers to talk to.

  Though Firebrass was as gregarious as a flock of ducks, he did not understand this attitude. He himself was too eager to solve the mystery of the tower. The key to all that puzzled humanity might be there.

  He did not point out to Clemens what he believed to be his real reason for his objections to the airship. It would do no good. Sam would look him straight in the eye and deny everything. However, Sam did know that he was in the wrong. And so, sixty days before the Mark Twain was to depart, he called Firebrass in.

  "After I leave, you can build your highly inflammable folly, if you insist on it. Of course, that means you'll have to resign as chief engineer of the most magnificent creation of man. But you must use the dirigible for observation only, as a scout."

  "Why?"

  "Now how by the brass balls of burning Baal could it be used for anything else but that? It can't land on the tower or anyplace else, can it? According to Joe Miller, the mountains are sheer and there's no beach. And . . ."

  "How would Joe know there's no beach? The sea was covered by fog. All he saw was the upper part of the tower."

  Sam had puffed smoke that looked like angry dragons. "It stands to reason the people that made that sea wouldn't make a beach. Would they make a place from which invaders could launch a boat? Of course not.

  "Anyway, what I want you to do is to find out the lay of the land. See if there's a passage through the mountains other than what Joe described. Find out if the tower can be entered otherwise than by the roof."

  Firebrass had not argued. He would do what he wished to do when he got to the pole. Clemens would have no control of him then.

  "I took off then, happy as a dog that's rid of his fleas. I told von Parseval about Sam's decision, and we had a big celebration. But two months later poor old August was swallowed by a dragonfish. I barely missed going down its gullet with him."

  At this point in his story, Firebrass revealed a secret to Jill.

  "You must swear by your honor not to tell anyone else. I wouldn't be telling you, except that the boat is long gone, and there's no way you could get the information to King John. Not that you would, of course."

  "I promise to keep it to myself – whatever it is."

  "Well, one of our engineers was a Californian scientist. He knew how to make a laser with a range of 404 meters. Within that distance, it could slice the Rex in two. And we had just enough materials to make one. So Sam had it done.

  "It was a highly secret project, so secret that there are only six men on the Mark Twain who know of its existence. The laser is concealed in a compartment known only to these six, of whom Sam is one, of course. Even his buddy, Joe, doesn't know about it.

  "When the Mark Twain catches up with the Rex, the laser will be brought out and mounted on a tripod. The battle ought to be short and sweet. Sweet for Sam, bitterly short for John. It'll also cut down the casualties tremendously for both sides.

  "I was in on the secret because I was one of the engineers on the project. Before it was completed, I asked Sam if it could be left behind. I wanted to take it on the airship and use it to burn an entrance into the tower if we could not get in otherwise.

  "But Sam flat out refused. He said that if anything happened to the airship, the laser would be lost. I wouldn't be able to return it to the Mark Twain. I argued like mad, but I lost. And Sam did have a strong point. There's no way of knowing what dangers we'll run into, meteorological or otherwise.

  "However, it was very frustrating."

  Chapter 33

  * * *

  Jill was about to ask him if he had not sent scouts out to look for materials to make another laser. At that moment Firebrass' secretary knocked at the door. Would Mr. Firebrass see Piscator?

  Firebrass said he would. The Japanese entered and, after inquiring about their health, said that he had good news. The engineers making the synthetic diesel-oil fuel would be able to deliver the first supply a week ahead of time.

  "That's great!" Firebrass said. He grinned at Jill. "That means you can take the Minerva up tomorrow! Start the training seven days ahead of schedule! Fabulous!"

  Jill felt even happier.

  Firebrass proposed a drink to celebrate. The skull-bloom had no sooner been poured, however, than the secretary entered again.

  Smiling broadly, she said, "I wouldn't interrupt if it weren't so important. I think we've got a new airshipman for you, one with much experience. He just got here a few minutes ago."

  Jill's near-ecstasy whistled out of her, like gas from a ruptured cell. Her chest seemed to be caving in on her. So far, she had seemed to have the post of first mate secured. But here was a person who might have as much, or even more, experience than she. A male, of course. He might even be an officer of the Graf Zeppelin or the Hindenburg. A veteran of the large rigid dirigibles would have more clout, in Firebrass' estimation, than one with only blimp experience.

  Her heart beating hard, she looked at the man who followed the secretary into the office. She did not recognize him, but that meant little. There were scores of airship personnel of her day and of the pre-Hindenburg era whose photographs she had not seen. Besides, those pictures had been of middle-aged men who wore civilian clothes or uniforms. And many of them had facial hair.

  "Chief Firebrass," Agatha Rennick said. "Barry Thorn."

  The newcomer wore fish-skin sandals, a bright red-, white-, and blue-striped kilt, and a long black cloth fastened at the throat. The handle of his grail was in one hand and the neck of a large fish-skin bag in the other.

  He stood about 1.7 meter tall, and his shoulders seemed to be almost half that wide. His physique was massive, irresistibly evoking to Jill the image of a bull. Yet his legs, though thickly muscled, were long in proportion to his trunk. His chest and arms were gorilla-like, but he had almost no pectoral hair.

  Short, curly yellow hair framed on a broad face. The eyebrows were straw colored; the eyes, a dark blue. His nose was long and straight. The lips were full. Smiling, he revealed very white teeth. The jaw was thick, ending in a prominent rounded, deeply cleft chin. The ears were small and close to his head.

  At Firebrass' invitation he
put down the grail and bag. He flexed his fingers as if they had been carrying a load for a long time. Probably, though, he had been paddling a canoe for a long distance. Despite the broadness of his hands, the fingers were long and slim.

  He seemed very much at ease despite being with strangers and facing an interview on his qualifications. In fact, he radiated a well-being and a magnetism that inevitably made Jill think of that much overused and often inappropriate word "charisma."

  Later, she would find that he had a curious gift of being able to shut that off as if it were light from a lamp. Then, despite his obvious physical qualities, he seemed almost to become one with his background. A psychic chameleon.

  Jill, glancing at Piscator, saw that he was intensely curious about the stranger. His black eyes were narrowed, and his head was cocked slightly to one side, as if he were listening to some soft, faraway sound.

  Firebrass shook hands with Thorn.

  "Wow! What a grip! Glad to have you aboard, sir, if you are what Agatha claims you are. Sit down, take a load off your feet. Have you traveled a long way? You have? Forty thousand stones? Would you care for food? Coffee? Tea? Booze or beer?"

  Thorn declined everything except the chair. He spoke in a very pleasant baritone without the usual pauses, hesitations, and incomplete phrases that distinguished the speech of most people.

  Finding that Thorn was a Canadian, Firebrass switched from Esperanto to English. In a few minutes of questioning, he got a capsule biography .of the newcomer.

  Barry Thorn was born in 1920 on his parents' farm outside Regina, Saskatchewan. After getting a degree in electromechanical engineering in 1938, he enlisted in the British Navy while in England. During the war, he was the commander of a naval blimp. He married an American girl and after the war went to the States to live because his wife, an Ohioan who wanted to be close to her parents, had insisted. Besides, the opportunities were better there for blimp pilots.

  He picked up a commercial pilot's license also, intending to work for the American airlines. But after his divorce he quit Goodyear and became a bush pilot for several years in the Yukon. Then he had returned to Goodyear and married again. After his second wife died, he had gotten a job with a newly formed British-West German airship company. For some years he had captained a great blimp-tug which towed floating containers of natural gas from the Middle East to Europe.

  Jill asked him a few questions in the hope that his answers would jog her memory. She had known a few airshipmen at Thorn's company, and some of these might have mentioned him. He replied that he remembered one of them – he thought. He wasn't sure because that had been so long ago.

  He had died in 1983 while on leave in Friedrichshafen. He did not know the cause of his death. Heart failure, probably. He had gone to sleep one night and when he had awakened he was lying naked on a bank of The River – along with everybody else.

  Since then he had been wandering up and down the Valley. One day, hearing a rumor that a giant dirigible was being built down-River, he had decided to find out for himself if the tale was true.

  Firebrass, beaming, said, "This is luck! You're more than welcome, Barry. Agatha, will you make arrangements to house Mr. Thorn?"

  Thorn shook hands with everybody and left. Firebrass almost danced with delight. "We're coming along famously."

  Jill said, "Does this change my situation?"

  Firebrass looked surprised. "No. I said you'd be the head instructor and captain of the Minerva. Firebrass always keeps his promises. Well, almost always.

  "Now, I know what you're thinking. I made no promises about who'll be the first mate of the Parseval. You're a strong contender for the post, Jill. But it's too early to decide on that. All I can say is, 'May the best man win. Or the best woman.' "

  Piscator patted her hand. At another time, she would have resented the gesture. Now, she felt warmed.

  Later, after they had left the office, Piscator said, "I am not certain that Thorn is telling the truth. Not all of it, anyway. His story may be true as far as it goes. But there's something that rings falsely in his voice. He could be concealing something."

  "Sometimes you frighten me," she said.

  "I could be wrong about him."

  Jill got the impression that he did not believe that.

  Chapter 34

  * * *

  Each day, before dawn, the Minerva lifted for a training flight. Sometimes it stayed aloft until an hour after noon. Sometimes it cruised all day, landing at evening. For the first week, Jill was its only pilot. Then she let each of the trainee pilots and the control gondola officers handle the controls.

  Barry Thorn did not enter the blimp until four weeks after aerial training started. Jill insisted that he attend ground school first. Though he was experienced, he had not been in an airship for thirty-two years and it could be presumed that he had forgotten much. Thorn did not object.

  She watched him closely while he was in the pilot's seat. Whatever Piscator's suspicions of him, Thorn handled the ship as if he had been doing it steadily for years. Nor was he any less competent at navigation or at dealing with the simulated emergencies which were part of the training.

  Jill felt disappointed. She had hoped that he was not all he claimed to be. Now she knew that he was the stuff from which captains could be made.

  Thorn was, however, a strange man. He seemed at ease with everybody and he could appreciate a joke as much as anybody. Yet he never cracked one himself, and off duty he kept to himself. Though he was given a hut only 20 meters from Jill's, he never dropped in on her or invited her to visit him. In a way, this was a relief to Jill, since she did not have to worry about advances from him. Inasmuch as he made no effort to get a woman to move in with him, he could have been homosexual. But he also did not seem interested, sexually or otherwise, in either gender. He was a loner, though, when he wished, he could open up and be very charming. Then suddenly his personality would close like a fist, and he became pale neutral, almost a living statue.

  The entire potential crew of the Parseval was under intense surveillance. Each had to undergo psychological tests for stability. Thorn passed both the observation and the tests as if he had made them up himself.

  "Just because he's a little odd in his social life doesn't mean he isn't a first-class aeronaut," Firebrass said. "It's what a man does when he's aloft that counts."

  Firebrass and de Bergerac proved to be natural dirigible pilots. This was not surprising in the American's case, since he had many thousands of hours in jetplanes, helicopters, and spacecraft. The Frenchman, however, came from a time when not even balloons had existed, though they had been envisioned. The most complicated mechanical device he had handled then were matchlock, wheel-lock, and flintlock pistols. He had been too poor to afford a watch, which, in any case, required the owner only to wind it.

  Nevertheless, he quickly absorbed the instruction in ground school and aerial flight, nor did he have much trouble with the necessary mathematics.

  Firebrass was very good, but de Bergerac was the best pilot of all. Jill reluctantly admitted that to herself. The Frenchman's reactions and judgment were almost computer-swift.

  Another surprising candidate was John de Greystock. This medieval baron had volunteered to be part of the crew that would man the semirigid Minerva when it attacked the Rex. Jill had been skeptical about his ability to adapt to aerial flight. But, after three months of flight, he was considered by both Firebrass and Gulbirra to be the best qualified to command the ship. He was combat wise, ruthless, and utterly courageous. And he hated King John. Having been wounded and thrown overboard by John's men when the Not For Hire was hijacked, he lusted for revenge.

  Jill had come to Parolando near the end of the month called Dektria (Thirteenth in English). Parolando had adopted a thirteen-month calendar since this planet had neither season nor moon. There was no reason except sentiment to keep the year at 365 days, but sentiment was good enough. Each month was made of four seven-day weeks, twenty-eight
days in all. Since twelve months only made 336 days, an extra month had been added. This left one day extra, which was generally termed New Year's Eve Day, Last Day, or Blow-Your-Top Day. Jill had landed three days before this in 31 A.R.D.

  Now it was January of 33 A.R.D., and though work on the big airship had started, it would be almost another year before it was ready for the polar flight. This was partly due to the inevitable unforeseen difficulties and partly due to Firebrass' grandiose ideas. These had caused many revisions of the original plans.

  As of now, the crew had been chosen, but the appointment of the officers had not been determined. As far as she was concerned, the list was fairly definite – except for the posts of first and second mate. One would go to Thorn and the other to herself. This had not caused her much anxiety – except in her dreams – since Thorn did not seem to care which position he got.

  On this Wednesday of January or First-Month, she was happy. The work on the Parseval was going so well that she decided to quit early. She'd get her fishing pole and cast for some of the "chub" in the little lake near her hut. As she climbed the first of the hills, she saw Piscator. He was also carrying fishing tackle and a wickerwork basket.

  She called to him, and he turned but did not give her his usual smile in greeting.

  "You look as if you've got something on your mind," she said.

  "I do, but it is not my problem, except that it concerns one whom I like to think is my friend."

  "You don't have to tell me," she said.

  "I think I do. It concerns you."

  She stopped. "What's the matter?"

  "I just learned from Firebrass that the psychological evaluation tests were not finished. There is one more to go, and every one of the flight crew will have to take it."