Dinosaurs & A Dirigible

by David Drake

  Carl came out of his numb surprise. He dropped the water bucket and ran to the line. It was of horsehair, supple and strong. Someone played it out above as Carl carried the grapnelled end to the pump. He hooked it to the underedge of the concrete well-cap.

  As soon as Carl had set the grapnel, the line stiffened. There was another rattle from above and a whine like that of an electric pump. The airship began to settle. Four jointed, mantislike legs were extending from the belly of the gondola. Carl backed toward the house a step at a time while the great form sank into the farmyard. The legs touched, first one and then the four of them together. Their apparent delicacy was belied by the great plumes of dust which the contact raised. The whine rose to a high keening, then shut off entirely. The light died to a glowing ember in the night.

  Behind Carl the screen door banged. “Carl,” called Mrs. Gudeint, “where are—oh, dear Lord have mercy! Fred! Fred!”

  The gangling man reappeared at the gondola door. He swung three metal steps down with a crash. The stranger wore a brown tweed suit of coarse weave with a gold watch-guard and a fob of some sort hanging across the vest. He smiled at Carl, crinkling the full moustache that looked so incongruous beneath his high forehead. Looking back into the gondola he said, “Oh—if you will snuff the light, my dear?” A girl appeared in the doorway, turning down the wick of an oil lamp. Carl stared at her as he had at the airship itself. There was a bustle behind him as his father and brothers pushed out of the house with eating utensils still in their hands.

  The girl was beautiful even in the dim light. Her hair, caught neatly in a bun, was as richly black as the pelt of a sable. She wore a patterned percale wrapper, simple but new and of an attractive cut.

  “Carl, what have you brought here?” Mr. Gudeint rumbled from close to his youngest son’s shoulder.

  “Gentlemen,” said the stranger, turning again with the girl beside him and the airship a vast gray backdrop beyond, “I am Professor John K. Erlenwanger, and this is my daughter Molly.” The girl curtsied. Erlenwanger caught sight of Carl’s mother beyond the wall of broad-shouldered men. He made a little bow of his own. “And madam, of course, my apologies.

  “Madam and gentlemen,” he continued. “I am, as you see, an aeronaut. My daughter and I are travelling from Boston to California, testing my airship, The Enterprise—which, I may say, contains certain advances over all earlier directable designs. We have stopped here for a safe mooring during the night and perhaps some assistance in the morning.”

  “You’re from Boston?” demanded Fred, the eldest of Carl’s brothers. “You flew this thing a thousand miles?”

  “We have indeed flown a thousand miles,” the Professor said with a quick nod, “and I expect to fly twice again that distance before completing my endeavor. But although we have set out from Boston, I am myself a Californian by birth and breeding.”

  “Well, they’ll have dinner with us, surely,” said Carl’s mother, twisting her hands in the pockets of her apron. She looked up anxiously at Erlenwanger. “You will, won’t you? We’ve a roast and—”

  The Professor cut her off with another half-bow. “We would be honored, Mrs. . . ?”

  “Gudeint,” Carl’s father grunted. He wore a blue work shirt, buttoned at the throat and cuffs as it had been all day despite the heat of the Indian summer Sun. His sons wore sleeveless undershirts or, in Carl’s case, only a set of galluses that had blazed a white cross in his otherwise sunburned back. Mr. Gudeint extended his hand, broad and as hard as the head of a maul from fifty years of farming. “I’m Fred Gudeint and that’s my wife Maxine there—”

  “Fred, I’ll take the stoneware off and put out the china and the silver since—”

  Carl’s father turned on her, his red forehead furrowed like a field in springtime. “Maxine, you’ll pretend you’ve got the sense God gave a goose and do no such thing. We’ve already started eating from the stoneware!”

  Mrs. Gudeint bobbed her head and scurried back into the house with a worried look on her face. Carl’s father shook his head and said, “Your pardon, Professor, but we’re not used to guests dropping out of the sky on us. It upsets the routine.” He grinned perfunctorily, as if that would make his statement less true. “That’s Fred there, my oldest”—Fred, his father’s surrogate in form as well as name, shook hands in turn—“George, Danny, and that’s Carl, the last by six years. Boy, be sure to fill that bucket before you come in.”

  “Yes, Father,” Carl said. Professor Erlenwanger’s hand was cool and firm and smooth as a farmer’s hands can never be. As Carl’s father and brothers led the guests into the house, the Professor’s daughter tilted her eyes at Carl and gave him a timid smile. Why, she looks as nervous as I am, Carl thought as he pumped the bucket full again beneath the airship.

  Carl entered the house through the side door to leave the bucket beside the sink. His mother had already slipped a third leaf into the table and replaced the checkered oilcloth with her best Irish linen table cover. As Mr. Gudeint had insisted, the stoneware plates still remained with the mashed potatoes and slices of beef with which they had been heaped before the excitement. The two new place settings, to right and left of the head of the table where Carl’s father sat, were of the Sunday china. The delicate cups and saucers looked particularly incongruous beside the heavy mugs at the other places. From the front room came the creak of Grandpa Roseliep’s rocker; nowadays, he always ate before the rest of them.

  Carl sat quickly between his mother at the foot of the table and his brother George. He began serving himself. Danny was saying, “I’d read a story about your balloon in the Register last week in the barbershop, Professor, but I recall it gave the name as Cox. Sure, Cox.”

  Professor Erlenwanger ladled gravy onto his mashed potatoes with a liberal hand. “I can’t say who Mr. Cox may be, sir, but I assure you that he and I are not the same. I have eschewed all publicity for the Erlenwanger Directable Airship—not balloon, I must protest, any more than your Guernsey milkers are steers—eschewed all publicity, as I say, until I have proven the capacity of my invention in a fashion none can doubt. Unless I am fully satisfied, no one will hear a word from my lips about it. Except, of course, for the good people like yourselves who have acted as hosts to my daughter and myself. Madam,” he added, nodding to Mrs. Gudeint, “these fresh peas are magnificent.”

  Erlenwanger ate like a man who appreciated his food. His bites were gentlemanly and were chewed with the thoroughness demanded by a roast from a superannuated dairy cow, but he cleaned his plate handily despite the constant stream of questions directed at him by the Gudeints. Carl noticed that Molly spoke rarely and then with a distinct Irish brogue at variance with the Professor’s cultured accents.

  Carl said little himself. The Professor’s descriptions—sunlight flaring from cloud tops, tailwinds pressing the airship along faster than a railway magnate’s special—were in themselves so fascinating that Carl was unwilling to interject a question. It might break the spell.

  At last Fred, speaking through a mouthful of roast and gesturing with his fork, said, “Look here, Professor. You’re an educated man. What do you think about all this business about Cuba? Isn’t it about time those Dagoes’re taught what they can and can’t do on Uncle Sam’s doorstep?”

  Erlenwanger paused, staring across the table. The light reflected from his high forehead. He looked half the bulk of the big farmer, but at that moment, the stranger’s dominance was no less certain than that of a diamond over the metal of its setting. “I think,” he said with neither conciliation nor overt hostility in his firm tones, “that misguided men will fight a foolish war over Cuba very soon. The world as a whole will be none the better for such a war, and many individuals will be very much the worse.” He stared around the table as if daring anyone to disagree with him.

  In a sudden rush of bitterness, Carl said, “The Army might be better’n the back end of a plow horse, day in and day out.”

  “There are roads to adventure that a
re not built on the bodies of your fellow men, lad,” Erlenwanger said. He turned back to Fred and added more harshly, “And there are ways of honoring the flag that do not call for ‘civilizing’ native races with a Krag-Jorgensen rifle. It will take men a long time as a race to learn that; but until we have done so, we have done nothing.”

  Mr. Gudeint sopped the last of his gravy in a slice of bread, swallowed it, and pushed his chair back from the table. Professor Erlenwanger cleared his throat and said, “You have been so generous to my daughter and myself that I wonder if I might impose on your time for one further moment? You will have noted the cases I brought in with me.” Erlenwanger nodded toward the leather grips now standing against the wall next to the curio cabinet. “They contain my camera equipment. I would be most appreciative if you would permit me to photograph your whole family together.”

  “You mean in the daylight, don’t you?” said George, who had his own Kodak. “You can’t take one now?”

  “On the contrary, the process I am using is so sensitive that what the eye can see, my lens can record,” the Professor replied. He turned to Mr. Gudeint. “With your leave, sir?”

  Carl’s father frowned. “Strikes me that you’re wasting your plates, but then, I never saw a fellow fly before, neither. Sure, we’ll sit for you. How do you want us?”

  “In your front room, I believe,” said the Professor, his hands already busy with the contents of one of his cases. “In whatever grouping seems good to you; though with seven subjects to fit into the plate, I trust you’ll group yourselves rather tightly.”

  “Seven?” repeated Fred. “There’s only—oh, sure,” he broke off, looking at Grandpa Roseliep in his stuffed rocker.

  “You will join us, will you not, sir?” Professor Erlenwanger said, looking up at the old man as he fitted his camera onto its collapsible wooden tripod. Beside him, Molly had removed a plate from the other grip and was carefully polishing dust from its surfaces with a soft cloth.

  Roseliep was reading Der Kanarienzüchter, one of the three bi-weekly issues that had arrived from Leipzig in yesterday’s mail. From the shelter of the paper he grunted, “What do you want with me? I know nothing about cows, so I am useless—nein? And with these hands, I am surely no cabinetmaker anymore.” The paper shook, perhaps in frustration rather than from a deliberate attempt to emphasize the arthritis-twisted fingers which gripped its edges. “Go on, leave me alone.”

  Professor Erlenwanger stood, the brass and cherry-wood of his camera glinting under the light of the dining room lamp. He spoke in German, briefly and fiercely.

  Grandpa Roseliep set down his canary-breeders journal. His full, white beard blazed like a flag. The old man fingered the stem of his pipe on the end table, but he left that sitting as well. In deliberate English he said, “An old man is a man still? Wait till you become old, Professor.” The two men stared at one another. Abruptly, Grandpa Roseliep said, “But I will be in your picture, since you ask.”

  The old man levered himself out of his chair, stiff-armed. Carl moved to him quickly, holding out an arm for his grandfather to grip. The old man’s shoulder brushed the covered canary cage beside his chair. One of the birds within peeped nervously. Absently, Roseliep soothed it with a murmur from deep in his throat.

  Carl’s parents and brothers were standing by the fireplace, looking a little uncomfortable. The Professor had set up his tripod in front of the staircase across the room. Molly stood beside him, holding out the photographic plate. Carl led his grandfather into the center of the group between his father and Fred. He knelt down in front of them, facing the camera as the Professor loaded it.

  Granda Roseliep turned slowly. His foot caught on the edge of the fireplace fender. He stumbled, gripping Mr. Gudeint’s arm to keep from falling. The farmer jerked back. He looked down at the knotted fingers with instinctual distaste.

  Roseliep followed his son-in-law’s glance. “Yes,” he said, “but once they were strong, were they not? Strong enough to build this house for my daughter on her marriage.” With his left hand he rapped the carven oak mantelpiece. “And the house gives shelter yet.”

  Mr. Gudeint bit his lip. He put his arm around his father-in-law, gripping him under the arm and absorbing enough of the weight that the old man’s body could stretch back to its full six feet of height. “We’re ready for your picture now, Professor,” he said. Across the room the camera lens winked, and the Professor’s bright eyes winked above it.

  Carl and his father returned from the barn together for breakfast. The three older sons were already at their pancakes, along with Professor Erlenwanger and Molly. Mr. Gudeint called into the front room, “George? Come on in and sit with us, will you? Your birds can take care of themselves for a while. I want to rig a pole and winch to load bales into the barn, and I figure you can help.”

  Grandpa Roseliep walked slowly into the kitchen on his crutch-headed cane. “You know, Frederick,” he said, “I am no longer a woodworker.”

  Carl’s father grunted. “I know you can figure how to make a piece of wood do everything but talk,” he said. “We’ll do the muscle work, me’n’the boys, if you’ll tell us what to do. For that matter, we’re not talking about fancy work—and I don’t know but what swinging a hammer’d loosen your joints up some. But that’s up to you.”

  The big farmer took his usual place at the head of the table and noticed for the first time that all the place settings were china. He poured milk into the wine goblet beside his coffee cup and said with half-humor, “Professor John K. Erlenwanger, hey? From the way Maxine’s acting, I’d judge the ‘K’ must stand for ‘king.’”

  Erlenwanger touched his napkin to his lips. “Kennedy, sir. To my parents, a greater man than any king could ever be.” Mr. Gudeint looked puzzled, but before he could speak the Professor added, “Last night you thought it would be possible to take my daughter and me into town to purchase supplies. Is that still the case?”

  Carl’s father nodded with his mouth full of pancake and molasses. “Sure, the boy can haul you along when he carries the milk into the dairy after breakfast. But I’d have thought you’d just fly?”

  “I prefer to avoid built-up areas,” Erlenwanger explained. “The appearance of my airship would arouse more interest than I desire at this time, and maneuvering a construct as large as The Enterprise becomes a . . . difficult proposition in close quarters.” The shadow of the great, gray cylinder darkened the dining room, lending weight to the stranger’s shrug.

  “Look,” said George abruptly, “I’ll carry the milk in today instead of the kid.”

  Carl jumped to his feet, flushing, and cried, “Look, I’m going to take them in. And get off this ‘kid’ business—I’m eighteen and I’m as much a—”

  “Carl, sit down!” Mr. Gudeint snapped. “And George, you be quiet, too. I’ll decide who’s going to do what around here.”

  “Though I was rather hoping that Carl would drive us to town, as you’d said,” Molly interjected unexpectedly. She gave a nervous smile to Mr. Gudeint, who blinked at her. She was wearing a bengaline cotton dress with vertical stripes of green and olive this morning. The silk threads gave it a sheen like that of her black hair.

  “The boy’ll do it,” Carl’s father said. “It’s his chore.” He turned to Carl. “About time you got started, isn’t it? The Sun’s high enough, though you don’t see it with that great metal thing out in the yard.”

  “Yes, sir!” said Carl, bolting the last of his breakfast and washing it down with his milk. To the visitors he added, “I’ll have the wagon loaded in two flips of a lamb’s tail. I’ll holler when it’s ready.”

  It was killing work to hand the heavy, tin-plated milk cans up to Danny on the wagon bed. Carl finished the job in record time, however, and without any spillage past the pressure-fitted lids. Erlenwanger and Molly came out of the house just as Danny ran the safety rope across the box of the wagon to keep the cans from oversetting on the bumpy ride. “Just in time,” Carl called to them. “
I’ll get the horses and we’re off.”

  Molly sat between Carl and Erlenwanger as the pair of bays plodded along the familiar trail with only voice commands. A light breeze from the south kept the worst of the road dust from the travellers, but a plume rose behind the wagon like smoke from a grass fire. “It’ll be all over us coming back,” Carl said.

  “And you have to drive this every day?” Molly asked. “There’s so much work on a farm.”

  “Not enough for four sons,” Carl said gloomily. He caught himself and added, before anyone could follow up his earlier comment, “I guess you need food, hey?”

  “Not at this point, I think,” Erlenwanger replied. “What we particularly need is lamp oil.”

  “Lamp oil?” repeated Carl. “Good Christ, Professor—sorry, miss—we’d have given you lamp oil if you’d spoken. We’re not electrified out where we are!”

  The older man smiled past Molly’s bonnet. “Not a hundred gallons, I think.”

  “Good Christ—oh hell, I’m sorry again,” Carl blurted. “What on earth do you want with that much lamp oil?”

  “It’s for our motor,” Professor Erlenwanger explained. “Other researchers into directed airship flight are concentrating on petrol-burning motors of the Benz type. This is a serious error, I believe. Compression-ignited kerosene engines built to the design of Herr Rudolph Diesel are far more efficient. In addition, lamp oil is available at even the most out-of-the-way farmstead in a pinch, no small recommendation on a journey which crosses the very continent.”

  The city limits were marked by a metaled road. It was bright with the rich yellow limestone gravel crushed out of the bluffs on which the city was built. A bicyclist passed the wagon, free-wheeling with the momentum he had picked up coming down a side street. “Darn fool,” Carl grunted, noting Molly’s attention to the speedster. “In town, a gadget like that’s good for nothing but running you under a wagon. Now I’ve rode ’em, but it was at Starways Rink where they belong.”