"I wish I'd had a camera," Kickaha said. "The only rawhide balloon in the history of mankind."
"Even if we find a material suitable for the envelope covering," Anana said, "it'll be from an animal. And it'll rot too quickly."
"The natives know how to partially cure rawhide," he said. "And they might know where we could get the wood and the covering we need. So, we'll find us some natives and interrogate them."
Four weeks later, they were about to give up looking for human beings. They decided to try for three days more. The second day, from the side of a shrinking mountain, they saw a small tribe moving across a swelling plain. Behind them, perhaps a mile away, was a tiny figure sitting in the middle of the immensity.
Several hours later, they came upon the figure. It was covered by a rawhide blanket. Kickaha walked up to it and removed the blanket. A very old woman had been sitting under it, her withered legs crossed, her arms upon her flabby breasts, one hand holding a flint scraper. Her eyes had been closed, but they opened when she felt the blanket move. They became huge. Her toothless mouth opened in horror. Then, to Kickaha's surprise, she smiled, and she closed her eyes again, and she began a high-pitched whining chant.
Anana walked around her, looking at the curved back, the prominent ribs, the bloated stomach, the scanty white locks, and especially at one foot. This had all the appearance of having been chewed on by a lion long ago. Three toes were missing, it was scarred heavily, and it was bent at an unnatural angle.
"She's too old to do any more work or to travel," Anana said.
"So they just left her to starve or be eaten by the animals," Kickaha said. "But they left her this scraper. What do you suppose that's for? So she could cut her wrists?"
Anana said, "Probably. That's why she smiled when she got over her fright. She figures we'll put her out of her misery at once."
She fingered the rawhide. "But she's wrong. She can tell us how to cure skins and maybe tell us a lot more, too. If she isn't senile."
Leaving McKay to guard the old woman, the others went off to hunt. They returned late that day, each bearing part of a gazelle carcass. They also carried a bag full of berries picked from a tree they'd cut out of a grove, though Kickaha's skin had a long red mark from a lashing tentacle. They offered water and berries to the crone, and after some hesitation she accepted. Kickaha pounded a piece of flank to make it more tender for her, and she gummed away on it. Later, he dug a hole in the ground, put water in it, heated some stones, dropped them in the water, and added tiny pieces of meat. The soup wasn't hot, and it wasn't good, but it was warm and thick, and she was able to drink that.
While one stood guard that night, the others slept. In the morning, they made some more soup, adding berries for an experiment, and the old woman drank it all from the proferred gourd. Then the language lessons began. She was an eager teacher once she understood that they weren't just fattening her up so they could eat her.
The next day Kickaha set out after the people who'd abandoned her. Two days later he returned with flint spear heads, axes, hand scrapers, and several war boomerangs.
"It was easy. I sneaked in at night while they were snoring away after a feast of rotten elephant meat. I picked what I wanted and took off. Even the guards were sleeping."
Learning the old woman's language proceeded swiftly. In three weeks Shoobam was telling them jokes. And she was a storehouse of information. A treasure trove, in fact.
Primed with data, the three set to work. While one of the three guarded Shoobam, the others went out to get the materials needed. They killed the plants which she had told them were likely to contain gallotannin, or its equivalent, in certain pathological growths. Another type of tree which they caught and killed had an exceptionally lightweight wood yet was stress-resistant.
Kickaha made a crutch for Shoobam so she could become mobile, and Anana spent some time every day massaging the old woman's semiparalyzed legs. She was not only able to get around better, she began to put on some weight. Still, though she enjoyed talking to the three and felt more important than she had for a long time, I she wasn't happy. She missed the tribal life and especially her grandchildren. But she had the stoic toughness of all the natives, who could make a luxury out of what was to the three the barest necessity.
Several months passed. Kickaha and company worked hard from dawn to long past dusk. Finally, they had three parawings much superior in lightness of weight, strength, and durability to the original made by Anana. These were stiffened with wooden ribs and were not to be folded.
Told by Shoobam about a certain type of tree the bark of which contained a powerful poison, Kickaha and Anana searched for a grove. After finding one, they pulled a dozen plants over with lariats and killed them. During the process, however, they narrowly escaped being caught and burned with the poison exuded by the tentacles. The old woman instructed them in the techniques of extracting the poison.
Kickaha was very happy when he discovered that the branches of the poison-plant were similar to those of yew. He made bows with strings from goat intestines. The arrows were fitted with the flint heads he'd stolen from Shoobam's tribe, and these were dipped in the poison.
Now they were in the business of elephant hunting.
Though the pachyderms were immune to the venom on the darts propelled by certain plants, they succumbed to that deriv from the "yew" trees. At the end of another month, they had more than the supply of elephant stomach lining needed. The membranes weighed, per square yard, two-thirds less than the gazelle hides. Anana stripped the hides from the parawings and replaced them with the membranes.
"I think the wings'll be light enough now to work in the planet's field," she said. "In fact, I'm sure. I wasn't too certain about the hides."
Another plant yielded, after much hard work and some initial failures, a glue-like substance. This could seal the edges of the strips which would compose the balloon envelope. They sealed some strips of membrane together and tested them over a fire. Even after twenty hours, the glue did not deteriorate. But with thirty hours' of steady temperature, it began to decompose.
"That's fine," Anana said. "We won't be in the balloon more than an hour, I hope. Anyway, we can't carry enough wood to burn for more than an hour's flight."
It looks like we might make it after all," Kickaha said. "But what about her?"
He gestured at Shoobam.
"She's saved our necks or at least given us a fighting chance? But what're we going to do with her when we lift off? We can't just leave her. But we can't take her with us, either."
Anana said, "Don't worry about that. I've talked with her about it. She knows we'll be leaving some day. But she's grateful that she's lived this long, not to mention that we've given her more food than she's had for a long time."
"Yes? What happens when we go?"
"I've promised to slit her wrists." Kickaha winced. "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. I don't think I could do it."
"You have a better idea?"
"No. If it has to be, so be it. I suppose I would do it, but I'm glad I don't have to."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ANANA DECIDED THAT it would be better to make three smaller balloons instead of one large one.
"Here's how it is. To get equal strength the material of a large balloon has to be much stronger and heavier per square inch than that of a smaller balloon. By making three smaller ones, instead of one large one, we gain in strength of material and lose in weight. So, each of us will ascend in his aerostat."
She added, "Also, since the smaller ones won't present as much area to the wind, they'll be easier to handle."
Kickaha had lost too many arguments with her to object.
McKay resented being "bossed" by a woman, but he had to admit that she was the authority.
They worked frantically to make the final preparations. Even Shoobam helped, and the knowledge of what would happen on the day of liftoff did not shadow her cheeriness. At least, if she felt sorrow or drea
d, she did not show it.
Finally, the time came. The three bags lay on the ground, stretched out behind the wall of the windbreak. A net of thin but tough cured membrane strips enclosed each bag. These, the suspension ropes, were attached directly to the basket. Anana would have liked to have tied them to a suspension hoop below which the basket would be hung by foot ropes. This arrangement afforded better stability.
However, it was almost impossible to carve three rings from wood. Besides, if the ring was made strong enough to stand up under the weight of the basket, its passenger, and the fuel, it would have to be rather heavy.
The ends of the suspension ropes were tied to the corners and along the sides of a rectangular car or basket made of pieces of bark glued together. In the center of the car was a thick layer of earth, on top of which were piled sticks. Wood shavings were packed at the bottom of the pile so the fire could be started easily. A layer of tinder would be ignited by sparks from a flint and a knife or the axe.
The wall of earth serving as a windbreak had been tumbled over four times because of the shape-changing of terrain. The fifth one was almost twice as high and four times as long as the one built for the test balloon. It was roofed over by branches laid on cross-logs supported by uprights.
Three gallows, primitive cranes, stood near the open end of the enclosure. A cable made of twisted cords ran from the upper sides of the horizontal arm to the top of the balloon. One end was tied around the top of the balloon.
The three people pulled the envelopes up, one by one, until all three hung limply below the gallows arms. The ends of the hoist ropes were secured to nearby uprights. McKay, who had wanted to be first to lift off, probably because it made him nervous to wait, lit the fire. Smoke began to ascend into a circular skin hanging down from the neck of the balloon.
When the bag had started to swell from the expanding hot air, Anana lit the fire in her car. Kickaha waited a few minutes and then started a flame in his basket.
The bands of the "dawn" sky began to glow. Snorts and barks and one roar came from the animals on the plains, awakening to another day of feeding and being fed upon. The wind was at an estimated minimum eight miles an hour velocity and without gusts.
McKay's envelope began to inflate. As soon it was evident that it would stand up by itself, McKay leaped up past the balloon, reached out with his axe, and severed the cable attached to the top. He fell, hack, landing at the same time the cable did. After rising, he waited another minute, then pulled the balloon from beneath the gallows by the basket.
When Anana's balloon had lifted enough to support itself, she cut the cable, and Kickaha soon did the same to his.
Shoobam, who had been sitting to one side, pulled herself up on the crutch and hobbled over to Anana. She spoke in a low tone, Anana embraced her, then slashed at the wrists held out to her. Kickaha wanted to look away, but he thought that if someone else did the dirty work he could at least observe it.
The old woman sat down by Anana's basket and began wailing a death chant. She didn't seem to notice when he waved farewell.
Tears were running down Anana's cheeks, but she was busy feeding the fire.
McKay shouted, "So long! See you later! I hope!"
He pulled the balloon out until it was past the overhang. Then he climbed quickly aboard the car, threw on some more sticks, and waited. The balloon leaned a little as the edge of the wind coming over the roof struck its top. It began rising, was caught by the full force of the moving air, and rose at an angle.
Anana's craft ascended a few minutes later. Kickaha's followed at the same interval of time.
He looked up the bulge of the envelope. The parawing was still attached to the net and was undamaged. It had been tied to the upper side when the bag had been laid out on the ground. An observer at a distance might have thought it looked like a giant moth plastered against a giant light bulb.
He was thrilled with his flight in an aerostat. There had been no sensation of moving; he could just as well have been on a flying carpet. Except that there was no wind against his face. The balloon moved at the same speed as the air.
Above and beyond him the other two balloons floated. Anana waved once, and he waved back. Then he tended the fire.
Once he looked back at the windbreak. Shoo-bam was a dim tiny figure who whisked out of sight as the roof intervened.
The area of vision expanded; the horizon rushed outwards. Vistas of mountains and plains and here and there large bodies of water where rain had collected in temporary depressions spread out for him.
Above them hung the vast body of the primary. The great wound made by the splitoff had healed. The mother planet was waiting to receive the baby, waiting for another cataclysm.
Flocks of birds and small winged mammals passed him. They were headed for the planet, which meant that the moon's shape-change wasn't far off. The three had left just in time.
Briefly, his craft went through a layer of winged and threaded seeds, soaring, whirling.
The flames ate up the wood, and the supply began to look rather short to Kickaha. The only consolation was that as the fuel burned, it relieved the balloon of more weight. Hence, the aerostat was lighter and ascended even more swiftly.
At an estimated fifteen miles altitude, Kickaha guessed that he had enough to go another five miles.
McKay's balloon was drifting away from the others. Anana's was about a half a mile from Kickaha's, but it seemed to have stopped moving away from it.
At twenty miles-estimated, of course-Kickaha threw the last stick of wood onto the fire. When it had burned, he scraped the hot ashes over the side, leewards, and then pushed the earth after it. After which he closed the funnel of rawhide which had acted as a deflector. This would help keep the hot air from cooling off so fast.
His work done for the moment, he leaned against the side of the basket. The balloon would quickly begin to fall. If it did, he would have to use the parawing to glide back to the moon. The only chance of survival then would be his good luck in being on the upper side after the shape-change.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by warm air. Grinning, he waved at Anana, though he didn't expect her to see him. The rapid change in the air temperature must mean that the balloon had reached what Urthona called the gravity interface. Here the energy of the counterrepulsive force dissipated or "leaked" somewhat. And the rising current of air would keep the aerostats aloft for a while. He hoped that they would be bouyed long enough.
As the heat became stronger, he untied the funnnel, and he cut it away with his knife. The situation was uncertain. Actually, the balloon was falling, but the hot air was pushing it upwards faster than it descended. A certain amount was entering the neck opening as the hotter air within the bag I slowly cooled. But the bag was beginning to collapse. It would probably not completely deflate. Nevertheless, it would fall.
Since the balloon was not moving at the speed of the wind now, Kickaha felt it. When the descent became rapid enough, he would hear the wind whistling through the suspension ropes. He didn't want to hear that.
The floor of the car began to tilt slowly. He glanced at Anana's balloon. Yes, her car was swinging slowly upwards, and the gasbag was also beginning to revolve.
They had reached the zone of turnover. He'd have to act swiftly, no hesitations, no fumbles.
Some birds, looking confused but determined, flapped by.
He scrambled up the ropes and onto the net, and as he did so the air became even hotter. It seemed to him that it had risen from a estimated 100° Fahrenheit to 130° within sixty seconds. Sweat ran into his eyes as he reached the parawing and began cutting the cords that bound it to the net. The envelope was hot but not enough to singe his hands and feet. He brushed the sweat away and severed the cords binding the harness and began working his way into it. It wasn't easy to do this, since he had to keep one foot and hand at all times on the net ropes. Several times his foot slipped, but he managed to get it back between the rope and skin of the envelope.
He looked around. While he'd been working, the turnover had been completed. The great curve of the planet was directly below him; the smaller curve of the moon, above.
McKay's balloon was lost in the red sky. Anana wasn't in sight, which meant that she too was on the side of the balloon and trying to get into the harness.
Suddenly, the air was cooler. And he was even more aware of the wind. The balloon, its bag shrinking with heart-stopping speed, was headed for the ground.
The harness tied, the straps between his legs, he cut the cord which held the nose of the wing to the net. There was one more to sever. This held the back end, that pointing downward, to the net. Anana had cautioned him many times to be sure to cut the connection at the top before he cut that at the bottom. Otherwise, the uprushing air would catch the wing on its undersurface. And the wing would rise, though still attached at its nose to the balloon. He'd be swung out at the end of the shrouds and be left dangling. The wing would flatten its upper surface against the bag, pushed by the increasingly powerful wind.
World of Tiers 05 - The Lavalite World Page 20