R.W. III - The Dark Design

by Philip José Farmer

  "The skin is of stressed duraluminum and it contains eight large gas cells with smaller cells in the nose and tail fairings. Originally, she was to have thirteen gondolas suspended outside the hull, the control gondola and twelve motor gondolas, each containing two motors. This exterior mounting was required because of danger from the highly flammable hydrogen. But tests of the gas-cell material, the Riverdragon intestinal layers, showed that it did pass some gas – that's a joke, folks! – and so Firebrass ordered his scientists to make a plastic material that wouldn't – in a manner of speaking – break wind.

  "They did so – when Firebrass says jump, everybody sets a new record – and . . . ? What? My assistant, Randy, says everybody can't set a record at once. Who cares? Anyway, the hydrogen leakage is nil.

  "So, the control room and all the motors are inside the hull except for those in the nose and tail gondolas.

  "The hydrogen, by the way, is 99.999 percent pure.

  "In addition to the crew of ninety-eight men and two women, the Parseval will carry two helicopters, each with a thirty-two person capacity, and a two-man glider.

  "But there won't be any parachutes. One hundred parachutes makes a heavy load, so it was decided not to carry any. That's sheer confidence for you. More than I have.

  "Look at her, folks! Ain't she something! The sun shines on her as if she's the glory of God herself! Beautiful, beautiful, and magnificent!

  "A great day for mankind! There goes the orchestra, playing The Lone Ranger Overture. Ha! Ha! Just a little joke that'd take too long to explain to you folks. It's really the William Tell Overture by Rossini, I believe. Chosen by Firebrass as the take-off music, since he's hung up on that fiery piece. Not to mention a few others, some of whom I see in the crowd."

  "Hand me up another glass of ambrosia, Randy. Randy's my assistant M.C., folks, a writer of fantasies on Earth and now Parolando's chief quality-control inspector for the alcohol works. Which is like appointing a wolf to guard a steak.

  "Aah! Great stuff! And here comes the Parseval now, moving out of the hangar! Her nose is locked into the only mobile mooring mast in the world. The take-off will occur in just a few minutes. I can see through the windscreen of the control room or bridge, which is set in the nose.

  "The man in the middle, sitting at the control panel – you can see his head, I'm sure – is chief pilot Cyrano de Bergerac. In his day he was an author, too, wrote novels about travel to the moon and the sun. Now he's in an aerial machine the likes of which he never dreamed of, just as he never envisioned himself on such a voyage. Flying to the North Pole of a planet which nobody, not a single soul on Earth, as far as I know, had described in the wildest of tales. Soaring in the wild blue yonder in the greatest zeppelin ever built, the greatest that will ever be built. Headed for a fabled tower in a cold, foggy sea. An aerial knight, a post-Terrestrial Galahad, questing for a giant grail!

  "Cyrano's running the whole operation all by himself. The ship's completely automated; its motors and rudder and elevators are tied into the control panel with electromechanical devices. There's no need to have ruddermen and elevator men and telegraph signals to the motor engineers as they did in the old dirigibles. One man could pilot the ship all the way to the North Pole, if he could stay awake three and a half days, the estimated flight time. In fact, theoretically, the ship could fly itself there without a soul aboard.

  "And there by Cyrano's right is the captain, our own Milton Firebrass. He's waving now to the man who's succeeded him as president, the ever popular Judah P. Benjamin, late of Louisiana and ex-attorney general of the late but not necessarily lamented Confederate States of America.

  "What? Get your hands off me, friend! No offense intended to any ex-citizen of the C.S. A. Take the drunken bum away, officers!

  "And there, standing at the extreme left, is pilot third officer Mitya Nikitin. He promised to be sober during the flight and not hide any booze behind the gas cells, ha! ha!

  "To Nikitin's right is first mate Jill Gulbirra. You've given some of us a hard time, Ms. Gulbirra, but we admire . . .

  "There go the trumpets again. What a blast! There's Captain Firebrass, waving at us. So long, mon capitaine, bon voyage! Keep us informed by radio.

  "And there go the cables from the tail. The ship is bobbing a little, but she's settling down. I saw the balancing done a couple of hours ago. The ship's so equili-bub-bub-rated that one man standing on the ground under that mighty mass could lift it with one hand.

  "Now her nose is uncoupled from the mobile mooring mast. There goes a little of the water ballast. Sorry about that, folks. We told you to stand back, not that some of you couldn't stand a shower.

  "Now she's rising a little. The wind's carrying her backward, southward. But the propellers have already been swivelled at an angle to drive the ship up and northward.

  "There she goes! Bigger than a mountain, lighter than a feather! Off to the North Pole and the dark tower!

  "My God, I'm crying! Must have had too much of the cup that cheers!"

  Chapter 44

  * * *

  Up above the world so high, the airship twinkled, threading the needle eye of the blue.

  At an altitude of 6.1 kilometers or a little over 20,000 feet, the crew of the Parseval had a broad view of The Riverworld. Jill, standing at the front windscreen, saw the twisting parallels of the valleys, running north and south directly below her but taking a great bend to the east about 20 kilometers ahead. Then the lines ran for 100 kilometers like thin Malayan krises, wavy blades, side by side, before turning northeastward.

  Now and then, The River bounced back a ray of the sun. The millions along its banks and on its surface were invisible from this height, and even the biggest vessels resembled the backs of surface-cruising dragonfish. The Riverworld looked as it was just before Resurrection Day.

  A photographer in the nose dome was making the first aerial survey of this planet. And the last. The photographs would be matched against the course of The River as reported via radio by the Mark Twain. However, there would be large gaps in the map made by the Parseval's cartographer. The paddlewheeler had traveled far south, to the edge of the south polar regions, several times. So the airship's cartographer could only compare his pictures with the maps transmitted by the surface vessels in the northern hemisphere.

  But he could make one sweep of his camera and cover areas where the Mark Twain would travel some day.

  The radar was also making altitude measurements of the mountain walls. So far, the highest point was 4564 meters or 15,000 feet. At most points, the mountains were only 3048 meters or 10,000 feet. Sometimes the walls dipped as low as 1524 meters or 5000 feet.

  Before coming to Parolando, Jill had assumed, along with everybody else she knew, that the mountains were from 4564 to 6096 meters high. These were eyeball estimates, of course, and no one she had known had ever tried to make a scientific measurement. Not until she was in Parolando, where late-twentieth-century devices were available, did she learn the true altitude of the mountains.

  Perhaps it was the comparative closeness of the walls that deceived people. They reared straight up, sheer, so smooth after the first 305 meters that they were unscalable. Often they were thicker at the top than at the bottom, presenting an overhang that would daunt any would-be climber even if he had steel pitons. And these were available only at Parolando, as far as she knew.

  At the top, the width of the mountains averaged 403 meters or a little more than a quarter of a mile. Yet that relatively small thickness of hard rock was impenetrable without steel tools and dynamite. It would be possible to sail north up The River until it curved for one of its southward travels. There, with enough drilling and blasting equipment, a hole could be bored through the mountain wall. But who knew what invulnerable ranges lay behind that?

  The Parseval had bucked the northeasterly surface winds of the equatorial zone. Passing through the horse latitudes, it had picked up the tail winds of the temperate latitudes. In twenty-four ho
urs it had traveled approximately a distance equal to that from Mexico City to the lower end of Hudson Bay, Canada. Before the second day was over, it would run into headwinds from the arctic region. Just how strong these would be was not known. However, the winds here seldom matched the winds of Earth because of the lack of differential between land and water masses.

  A difference in mountain altitude and valley width between the equatorial and temperate zones was apparent. The mountains were generally higher and the valleys narrower in the hotter region.

  The narrowness of the valleys and the height' of the mountains made for conditions comparable to those in the glens of Scotland. Generally, it rained every day about 15:00 hours or 3 p.m. in the temperate areas. Usually, a thunderstorm accompanied by rain occurred about 03:00 hours or 3 A.M. in the equatorial zone. This was not a natural phenomenon in the tropics or at least it was believed that it was not. The Parolando scientists suspected that some sort of rain-making machines concealed in the mountains caused this on-schedule precipitation. The energy requirements for this would be enormous, colossal, in fact. But beings who could remake this planet into one Rivervalley, who could provide an estimated thirty-six billion people with three meals a day through energy-matter conversion, could undoubtedly shape the daily weather.

  What was the energy source? No one knew, but the best suspect was the heat of the planet's core.

  There was speculation that some kind of metal shield lay between the crust of the earth and the deeper layers. That there was no volcanic activity or earthquakes tended to strengthen this hypothesis.

  Since there were no vast ice or water masses making a temperature differential comparable to that of Earth, the wind conditions could have been different. But, so far, the pattern seemed to be Terrestrial.

  Firebrass decided to take the ship down to 3600 meters altitude, a little over 12,000feet. Perhaps the wind there might be weaker. The mountain tops were only 610 meters or about 2000 feet below the vessel, and the effect of the up-and downdrafts were strong at this time of the day. But the ability to change the angle of the propellers swiftly compensated somewhat for this roller-coaster motion. The ground speed increased.

  Before 15:00, Firebrass ordered that the vessel be taken up above the rainclouds. He brought it back down at 16:00, and the Parseval rode majestically above the valleys. As the sun descended, both the horizontal and vertical winds would weaken, and the ship could plow through the air more evenly.

  When night came, the hydrogen in the cells would cool, and the vessel would have to lift its nose even higher to give it more dynamic lift to compensate for the loss of buoyancy.

  The pressurized control room was warmed by electric heaters. Its occupants were, however, in heavy cloths. Firebrass and Piscator were smoking cigars; most of the others, cigarettes. The fans sucked the smoke away but not quickly enough to remove the cigar odor which Jill so detested.

  Hydrogen-emission detectors placed by the gas cells would transmit a warning if there were any leaks. Nevertheless, smoking was permitted only in five areas: the control gondola or bridge, a room halfway along the vessel's axis, the auxiliary control room in the lower tail fin, and rooms attached to the quarters of the crew fore and aft.

  Barry Thorn, first officer of the tail section, reported some magnetic readings. According to this, the North Pole of The Riverworld coincided with the north magnetic pole. The magnetic force itself was much weaker than that of Earth's, so slight, in fact, that it would have been undetectable without the use of instruments known only in the late 1970's.

  "Which means," Firebrass said, laughing, "that there are three poles on one spot. The North Pole, the magnetic pole, and the tower. Now, if only one of our crew was a Pole, we could have four on the same place."

  Radio reception was excellent today. The ship was high above the mountains, and the transceiver of the Mark Twain was carried by a balloon towed by the boat.

  Aukuso said, "You can talk now, sir."

  Firebrass sat down by the Samoan's side and said, "Firebrass here, Sam. We just got word from Greystock. He's on the way, heading northeastward, ready to alter course the moment he gets wind of the location of the Rex."

  "In some ways I hope you don't find Rotten John," Sam said. "I'd like to catch up with him and so have the pleasure of sinking him myself. That's not a very practical attitude, though it's mighty satisfying. I'm not a vindictive man, Milt, but that hyena would make St. Francis himself long to kick him off a cliff."

  "The Minerva's carrying four forty-six-kilogram bombs and six rockets with nine-kilogram warheads,'' Firebrass said. "If only two of the bombs make a direct hit, they could sink the boat."

  "Even so, that royal thief might get away safe and sound to shore," Clemens said. "He has all the good luck of the wicked. How would I ever find him then? No, I want to see his body. Or if he's taken alive, I want to wring his neck myself."

  De Bergerac spoke softly to Jill. "Clemens talks big for a man who's appalled by violence. It's easy to do as long as the enemy's sixty thousand kilometers away."

  Firebrass laughed and said, "Well, if you can't twist his head off, Sam, Joe's the man to do the job."

  An unhumanly deep voice rumbled, "No, I'll tear off hith armth and legth. Then Tham can turn hith head around tho he can thee vhere he'th been. He von't like where he'th going."

  "Tear off an ear for me," Firebrass said. "Old John almost hit me when he shot at me."

  Jill presumed that he was referring to the fight aboard the Not For Hire when John had seized it.

  Firebrass said, "According to calculations, the Rex should be in the area we'll be over in about an hour. You should be in the same area but about one hundred forty kilometers to the west of the Rex. Of course, we could be way off. For all we know, the Rex may not be traveling as fast as it could, or King John could've decided to dock for repairs or a very long shore leave."

  An hour's conversation followed. Clemens talked to some of the crew, mostly those he had known before he'd left Parolando. She noticed that he did not ask to speak to de Bergerac.

  Just as Sam was about to sign off, the radar operator reported that the Rex Grandissimus was on the scope.

  Chapter 45

  * * *

  Staying at 452 meters altitude, the Parseval circled the boat. From that height it looked like a toy, but photographs, quickly enlarged, showed that it was indeed King John's vessel. It was magnificent. Jill thought that it would be a shame to destroy such a beautiful craft, but she did not say so. Firebrass and de Bergerac felt very strongly about the man who had hijacked their fabulous Riverboat.

  Aukuso transmitted the location to Greystock, who said that the Minerva should reach the Rex the following day. He also checked the location of the Mark Twain.

  "I'd like to fly over her so that Sam can get a good look at the ship that's going to sink the Rex," Greystock said.

  "It won't take you out of your way to do that," Firebrass said. "And it'll give Sam a big thrill."

  After he had quit talking to Clemens, Firebrass said, "I really think Greystock's on a suicide mission. The Rex is loaded with rockets, and it carries two planes armed with rockets and machine guns. It all depends on whether or not Greystock can catch the Rex by surprise. Not much chance of that if John's radar detects the Minerva. Of course, it might be off. Why should it be on? The sonar is good enough for daytime navigation."

  "Yes," Piscator said. "But the people on the Rex must have seen us. They'll be wondering about us, though they won't know who we are, and they might start using the radar because they'll be suspicious."

  "I think so, too," Jill said. "They can figure out easily enough that only Parolando could build a dirigible.''

  "Well, we'll see. Maybe. By the time the Minerva gets to the Rex, we'll be behind the polar mountains. I don't think we can expect good radio reception there. We'll have to wait until we come back over them."

  Firebrass looked thoughtful, as if he were wondering if the Parseval would return.r />
  The sun sank behind the ground horizon, though at this altitude the sky remained bright for a long time. Finally, night came with its blazing star clouds and gas sheets. Jill talked for a few minutes with Anna Obrenova before going to her cabin. The little Russian seemed warm enough, but there was something in her manner which indicated that she was not at ease. Was she really resentful because she had not been given the first mate's position?

  Before going to her quarters, Jill took a long walk through the semipressurized passageway to the tail section. Here she drank some coffee and chatted briefly with some of the officers. Barry Thorn was present, but he, too, seemed a little nervous, even more reticent than usual. Perhaps, she thought, he was still unhappy at being rejected by Obrenova. If, indeed, that had been the cause of their argument.

  At that moment, she was reminded that the two had spoken in a language unknown to her. Now was not the time to ask him about that. It was possible she might never be able to bring up the subject. To do so would be to admit that she had been eavesdropping.

  On the other hand, she was very curious. Some day, when there were not more pressing things to consider, she would ask him about it. She could claim that she just happened to walk by – which was the truth – and had heard a few words of the dialog. After all, if she did not understand what they were saying, she could not be eavesdropping, could she?

  She went to her cabin, where she crawled into the bunk and went to sleep almost at once. At 04:00 hours a whistle from the intercom awoke her. She went to the control room to relieve Metzing, the third mate. He stood around a while, talking about his experiences as commander of the LZ-1, then left. Jill did not have much to do, since Piscator was a very competent pilot and the atmospheric conditions were normal. In fact, the Japanese had set the automatic controls on, though he kept a close watch on the indicator panel.