The Gate of Time

by Philip José Farmer

  Erik Shop, the chief, said that he had heard nothing. A man interrupted them to report that the dirigible from Tyrsland was sighted. Two Hawks turned to see a small object on the horizon to the seawards. A second later, a shadow fell on them, and the hum of faroff propellers came to them. They looked up. Another airship, its silvery side marked with a black boar’s head, was above them. It was going northward at a speed of fifty miles an hour and at an altitude of 500 feet.

  Shop swore. “Perkunishan, Mammoth class!”

  Two Hawks said, “What chance does your ship have against that monster?”

  “The Guthhavok is only a light cruiser,” Shop replied. He was pale. “Can you fly across the Baltic to Tyrsland?”

  “I’d never make it.” He looked at the huge airship, shrugged, and said, “There’s only one thing to do, like it or not.”

  14

  He strode to the plane, the tank of which had been refilled in case just such an emergency happened. He asked Shop some questions about airships and then got into the cockpit. He started the motor and taxied down to the extreme end of the beach. The men, who had run after him, held onto the wings while he put his brakes on and then revved the motor up as far as it would go and still not move the plane.

  The others had run after him, so he was able to call Ilmika to his side. Above the roar of the motor, he shouted, “If I don’t get back, you and Kwasind leave on the fishing boat with the others! They’ll get you home!”

  Ilmika reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him.

  “You’re a brave man, Two Hawks! I haven’t told you that because I was too proud! After all. . .!”

  “I don’t have blue blood, and I’m a red-skinned Hotinohsonih,” he said. “Thanks, anyway! I know what it took for you to bend your stiff Blodlandish neck!”

  She must not have heard his final words, since she smiled at him. Then she was busy hanging on to the wing, working with the others to hold the plane down while he held his brakes and sped up the motor. He chopped his hand down, the men let loose of the wings, he released the brakes, and the Raske II shot forward. It sped down the beach, bumping, lifted and climbed as steeply upwards as he dared direct it. The black cliffs rushed towards him. He could not clear them if he continued straight ahead, but he could make a sharp bank to the left. He was on his side, the waves directly below him. Then the plane righted, and he began to climb. The throttle was all the way out, since it did not matter how much gas he used.

  The long sinister shape of the dirigible, small at first, grew larger. Even though it had a headstart, its top speed was 55 mph; his, 120. The Blodlandish airship had not turned tail. It was continuing straight towards its larger and more heavily armed foe.

  Brave but foolhardy. Yet he had to admire them. They had a duty to perform, and if it involved battling an enemy that had them hopelessly outclassed, they would not shirk. The Blodlandish, despite many dissimilarities to their counterparts of Earth 1, resembled them in courage and stubbornness.

  The airships were a half-mile apart when Two Hawks caught up with the Perkunishan. He began climbing to get above it, noting as he did so its nomenclature painted in black letters on its side. Pilkas Tigras. The Grey Tiger. Mammoth Three Class. There were square windows above the letters. From them came barrels, followed by needles of flame. The fabric on his right wing ripped as several bullets tore through it. He pulled away, seeing at the same time a rocket soaring towards him. It passed fifty feet in front of his nose and exploded. The shock wave rocked the plane; some fragments hurtled by it.

  Two Hawks continued to climb while four more rockets exploded around him. Shrapnel or case fragments stitched the side of his cockpit, but the energy was spent and they did not get entirely through the fabric and thin wood. He attained his desired height of three hundred feet above the dirigible and turned. He dived, his angle of descent 45 degrees, then 60. Black squares in the forward upper skin of the airship flicked out little red tongues. Two rockets raced each other to get to him first. Both passed above him and blew up behind him.

  When he was five hundred feet away, he fired his twin machine-guns, He kept firing until he was so close he had to veer away or crash into the airship. As he turned, he felt, then heard, the explosion. He looked back and up, since he was now past and below the ship. The center part was wrapped in flames. Quickly, the fire spread throughout the great craft. It settled slowly towards the sea while blue dolls—men—fell from it. They preferred a swift fall and a quick painless death against the hard waters to burning.

  Two Hawks leveled off and watched while the Grey Tiger sank past him, its stern high, its nose down. It crashed into the sea, and, still flaming, broke up, the light wooden skeleton shattering on impact.

  Four minutes later, the Grey Tiger was gone. Only some large spiral pieces of wood, a few sections of fabric, and little islands of burning oil were left. He returned to the beach and landed. Ilmika embraced him while the others danced and laughed. He should have felt exultant. He was the victor of a historic event, the first battle in this world between an airship and an airplane. But the sight of the men leaping from the doomed Grey Tiger, some with their uniforms blazing, had dampened him. He had too much imagination, or too much empathy, not to feel some of their terror. He had been close to that time of not-to-be-avoided and utter end too many times himself.

  The Guthhavok, the Blodlandish cruiser, approached the airplane upwind and at a height of fifty feet. The wind was about eight mph and steady, and the big craft did not bob enough to cause Two Hawks concern. When the dirigible was directly above, it lowered a net on the end of a cable from an opening in its belly. The net was spread out on the beach, and the plane was pushed over it. After the net had been lifted up and wrapped around the plane, Two Hawks signalled the airship to start hauling up the cable. The dirigible, tempering the thrust of its propellers to the wind, hovered in one spot. There was an unavoidable jerk when the cable first lifted. Then the plane was rising smoothly, its nose pointing downward because of the weight of the motor, yet so securely wrapped in the net that it did not slip through. The pressure of the net might crush the plane a little, but Two Hawks did not worry about that. It could be repaired when it got to Blodland.

  The plane disappeared into the belly of the aerial whale. A few minutes later, the cable was let down again. A large basket, probably taken from an observation balloon for this trip, was at the end of the cable. Ilmika, Kwasind, and Two Hawks climbed into it, grabbed the supporting ropes, and the basket was lifted. The dirigible began rising and at the same time turning northwards. Before the three were inside the airship, it had begun its journey across the sea to Tyrsland.

  The basket went up through the hole and was swung to one side, away from the port and onto a small platform. They climbed out with a feeling of relief. An officer conducted them down a catwalk which ran above the longitudinal axis of the lyftship. Two Hawks stared at the perforated spiraling wooden frames and the huge spherical cells containing hydrogen. The officer, answering his questions, said that the cell coverings were made of goldbeater’s skin. Two Hawks had thought that they would be made of this material, since a rubberized fabric in a world without rubber would be impossible. And so far no one had invented synthetic rubber. He was no chemist, but he could give the scientists enough hints for them to begin research. This world needed him far more than his native world, he thought. The only trouble was, he needed his native world far more than he needed this one. There was no winning. Just fighting.

  With which unhappy but not unendurable thought he went down through the port and down a slidepole into the gondola, the bridge. There the heretoga (captain) and his chief officers were introduced to the new passengers. Two Hawks was congratulated on his victory over the Perkunishan airship. The heretoga went up with Two Hawks to look at the plane, the exit being made on a very steep and narrow staircase and two handropes. Aethelstan, the captain, was not as jubilant about the plane as he should have been. Two Hawks was puzzled at first, th
en began to understand. Aethelstan loved his command; he loved the great gas-borne ships. And in this fragile little machine nestling inside the airship like a baby bird in its nest, he saw doom. When enough heavier-than-air machines were built, they would sweep the dirigibles out of the sky. His career would soon be over. He could either go back to surface ships or learn to fly a dangerous and unfamiliar machine, and for the latter, he was too old.

  There would be many like him. The war would bring on changes, like all wars, and men would find themselves deprived of that for which they were fitted and which they loved. And the introduction of Raske and Two Hawks into this world was a catalyst to precipitate change even faster than it would normally have occurred and in a far stranger fashion.

  Three days later, the three were in Bammu, the capital city of the empire of Blodland. Bammu was on the same site as the London of Earth 1. It had been founded by New Cretan traders who had renamed the Celtic village Bab Mu—the gate of the river. The city was not as large as its Earth 1 counterpart, having only a population of 750,000, including suburbs. The architecture of buildings was more like the city of the 12th century of Earth 1, in Two Hawks’ eyes, anyway. The business and government buildings had an alien flavor, a vaguely Levantine impression. Indeed, the west Semitic influence of the New Cretan colonizers was very strong. Many street names were of Cretan origin. The Blodlandish equivalent of Earth 1’s parliament, the Witenayemot, was a mixture of Oriental and Nordic elements. Even the king was not called by the old Germanic title; he was the Shof, drived from Shofet, the Cretan word for ruler.

  Two Hawks went through a period of interrogation, one very different from that in Hotinohsonih because the Blodlandish knew his value. It was only a week after he had begun making plans for an aircraft plant that he was given a rank of minor nobility. At an evening ceremony, the Shof made him a lord of the realm, the Aetheling of Fenhop. He became the owner of a castle and a number of farms in the north country, near the border of Norland (Scotland of Earth 1). In Bammu itself, he had a small mansion and a number of slaves and servants.

  Two Hawks asked Ilmika about the former owners. “The Huskarl of Fenhop was a heretic,” she said. “He was hung about thirty years ago, not for heresy but for murdering one of his slaves. If he had not been a heretic, he would have gotten only a large fine and a small jail sentence. His sons migrated to Dravidia, and the property reverted to the crown.”

  “And now that I am a nobleman,” he said, “does that mean I can marry a woman of the nobility?”

  Her face reddened. She said, “Oh, no, your patent is to be held by you while you live and is cancelled when you die. Your property goes back to the crown. Your children will be commoners. And you can’t marry a noblewoman.”

  “So my blood isn’t good enough to mingle with Blodlandish blood?” he said. “And my children, after being accustomed to the high life, can go begging. From castle to cabin for them, right?”

  Ilmika was indignant. “Would you have us be adulterated? Why, the purity of the ancient Blodlandish nobles would be sullied! Our children would be mongrels. Isn’t it enough for you that you’re a peer of the realm, even if...?”

  “Say it, Ilmika Thorrsstein! Even if I’m an outlander and a red-skinned savage, that’s what you didn’t have enough guts to say, right?”

  He spoke two words of ancient Germanic lineage and walked away. He felt an anger that had carried him to the point of striking her. Almost. It was anger that had deeper roots than reaction to being regarded as a mongrel. He knew that he had had some hope—however slight—that Ilmika might be his wife. Damn it! He was in love with a cold-hearted, superstitious, bigoted, illiterate, emotionally stupid, patrician snob! Damn it and damn her! He would do what he should have done at the very beginning! He would forget her.

  Yet, she was the one who had praised his courage, valor, and high worth to the Shof and the Witanayemot. She had suggested that he be given a patent of nobility.

  She would do the same for any man, no matter how base-born, he thought, who had saved her twice from the life of a slave-whore. Her gratitude went that far but no further, and she certainly was not in love with him.

  He hurled himself into the labors of creating airplanes. Day and night, he worked. In addition to the airplane factory and organizing the Blodland Shoflich Lyftwaepon (Blodland Royal Air Force), he designed a carbine and a tank for the ground forces. He also spent some time in trying to educate the military medical branch in cleanliness and treatment of wounds. After a short and fierce struggle, he had to give up. This world had no Pasteur as yet, and it was not about to accept Two Hawks as one. In the meantime, soldiers would die unnecessarily of infections, typhoid and smallpox, and women would die of puerperal fever. Two Hawks cursed the forces of darkness and prejudice and went back furiously to the business of building better tools for killing.

  A month after he had arrived at Bammu, the Perkunishans invaded the island. The Perkunishan and New Cretan fleets slugged it out with the Blodlandish navy in the Narwe Lagu. The defenders inflicted heavy damage and made the enemy pay with two ships for every one of their own. But it lost two-thirds of its own strength, including all but two dreadnoughts, and had to run for it. The Blodlandish air fleet had engaged the Perkunishan at the same time as the surface battle. It was a disaster for both sides; it ended in a draw with exactly forty airships on both sides going down in flames.

  Nature seemed to be allied with the invaders. The channel was unnaturally smooth and the winds were slight the day the enemy landed. For five days, the weather conditions held. At the end of that time, the enemy had established a beach-head five miles wide and five miles deep. To accomplish this, they had sacrificed 20,000 men.

  A New Cretan army landed on the southern Irish shore and advanced rapidly, again with disproportionate casualties.

  Then, winter struck. It was such a winter as Two Hawks had never known. Within a month, the two islands were covered with great drifts of snow. The arctic winds howled down from the north; the temperature dropped to 30 below. Two Hawks shivered and dressed in polar bear furs. Yet this was only the beginning. Before winter was finished with its icy rage, the thermometer would be the equivalent of minus 40 degrees fahrenheit.

  He thought that surely the fighting would stop now. Nobody could carry on efficiently—if at all—in this frozen hell. But the invaded and invader alike were used to the severity. They fought on, and where armored cars and trucks bogged down, men on skis or snowshoes pulled toboggans of supplies. Men fell and were buried in the snow. Mile by bloody mile, the Perkunishans claimed Blodlandish territory, and near winter’s end were holding the white lands which corresponded to the Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire of Earth 1’s England.

  By then, Two Hawks had twenty monoplanes, all armed with machine guns and with skis for landing gear. He had trained four young men to fly, although in this cold it was difficult even to get the motors to start. The four then became instructors. By the spring thaw, the Lyftwaepon had a hundred fighter planes, a hundred and fifty pilots, and two hundred students.

  Espionage informed Two Hawks that Raske had five hundred first-line craft and 800 qualified pilots.

  It was then that he got the idea for his self-propelled icesleds. Why not build a vehicle that moved on runners and was propelled by an airplane motor? A fleet of such could operate on the frozen surface of the straits and channel. It could cut up the lines supplying material to the invading forces. If enough supplies could be destroyed, the Perkunishans on the island would find themselves short of food and ammunition when the spring thaw came. The waters between mainland and island would be unnavigable at that time. Before the waters were fit for renewal of supply, a big push by the Blodlandish could destroy the food-short, ammunition-short, personnel- short enemy.

  His suggestion was rejected. The High Command thought the idea was too radical. Two Hawks told the Command he did not understand their pig-headed blindness. His only answer was a savage lecture on keeping his place. Old Lor
d Raedaesh, a stiff old man with bushy white whiskers and eyes pale and cold as sea-ice, delivered the lecture. Raedaesh had made it plain from the start that he regarded Two Hawks as an upstart who was not quite sane. He had opposed the use of the newfangled flying machines for anything other than observation purposes. If it had not been for the orders of the Shof, Raedaesh would never had permitted this wasting of men and materials for such nonsense.

  Two Hawks listened until he could control himself no more. Interrupting Lord Raedaesh, he pleaded with the others to listen to him. The iceboats could do more than cut off the enemy supply lines. They could destroy the entire Perkunishan navy. The ships were all in icelocked harbors, and the Blodlandish knew where each was. A fleet of iceboats could cross the ice, even into the North Sea and Baltic, and could torpedo every immobile dreadnought and cruiser, destroyer, troop ship, supply ship.

  Now was the time to act, this day, before the spring thaw started. The propellers and motors of his planes could be mounted on the iceboats. These would carry a crew, machine guns, torpedoes, even small cannon. Iceboats to carry commando troops could be built. If the idea sounded fantastic, a desperate situation demanded desperate action.

  Lord Raedaesh, his face scarlet, thundered at him to get out of the council room. He was to get back to his flying toys and his unsportsmanlike rapid-fire weapons. Let him not dare to annoy the High Command any more with his madman schemes.

  Trembling, inwardly raging, Two Hawks obeyed. He could do nothing else. Returning to his house, he told Kwasind, “I’ll adopt a what-the-hell attitude. Laugh at Raedaesh and his fellow asses. After all, they’re just being human, that is, living fossils, stupid tradition-shelled turtles. They are no different from their counterparts on my Earth, past and present. Kwasind, I could tell you the history of man’s stupidity on Earth, especially the stupidity of the typical military mind. You’d be shocked.”