Abe smiled sadly and then, on impulse, extended his right hand.
Jurak hesitated, then finally extended his own hand, taking Abe’s in his. “I hope we don’t meet again, Abraham Keane, for you know what that would mean.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Ride with the wind. I will let no one pursue you. That should give you fifteen leagues or more. Avoid the Gilwana Pass. That’s the grazing grounds of the Black Speckled Clan. They more than most have no love for you. Nearly all their warriors died in the Chin Rebellion.”
“And what shall I tell my father?”
Jurak smiled and shook his head. “Nothing. His message was clear enough.”
“Farewell, Qar Qarth Jurak.”
““Then farewell, Keane.”
The Qar Qarth picked up his reins and spurred his mount, which leapt forward with a start.
Abe held his own reins in tight, his mount shying as Jurak’s stallion surged forward. So it’s war, Abe thought coldly. Strange, I half want to see it, to understand it as my father did. And yet he found it difficult to hold back tears as he watched Jurak ride back to the Bantag encampment.
The train, pulling a single car, glided to a stop at the station, out of which descended a woman, followed by several of her assistants.
“Varinnia, how are you today?” Andrew asked, coming forward to take her hand.
Richard immediately recognized her. Varinnia Ferguson had often lectured at the academy to senior year cadets on applied engineering. She was, of course, yet another legend of the war, and that legend stilled any comments when she had first come into a classroom. Her face had been horribly burned, she was barely able to write with one wilted hand, but the flames, if they had touched her mind, had done so in a different way, making her seem as if she would burst into fire from sheer energy and passion for her subject. By the end of her first lecture all had forgotten how she looked, and there wasn’t a cadet who wouldn’t thrash anyone who dared to make a crude joke about her appearance.
She had another side as well, for as the wife of Chuck Ferguson, she had worked not only as an engineer and inventor but also as a political revolutionary, bringing about the amendment for women to vote and, at the same time, creating a tradition in the young Republic for women to go into medicine and engineering.
At her approach, Richard instinctively came to attention. She nodded to William Webster, secretary of the treasury, then turned to look appraisingly at Cromwell.
“Young Lieutenant Cromwell, I understand you are the reason for all this excitement.”
“Commander Cromwell as of this morning,” Andrew interjected with a smile.
Stunned, Richard turned to the President.
“Sir. I hardly think-”
“No self-deprecating comments, Commander. Admiral Bullfinch was an admiral at the age of twenty-two. Age doesn’t matter in this country. It’s wisdom, guts, and more than a little luck that counts.”
Cromwell was silent.
“Besides, you need the rank to do some of the things expected of you. Plus, it’s a statement on my part as well.”
“A statement, sir?”
“That he believes you,” Varinnia said. “When word of this becomes public, your promotion will make a statement.” She looked back at Andrew. “I assume Gates will be pulled in to do the proper articles on him, and on everything else.”
“I’ve already talked to him. That’s why you don’t see any newspaper scribblers following us down here this morning. He agreed to hold off on the story.”
“Oh, really?”
“Either that or I shut down his papers for a few days and he loses thousands. There’s a fine line between censorship and a nation’s security. I convinced Gates it was the latter rather than the former.”
She nodded approvingly. “Let’s get to work.”
She led the way from the station, which was empty on this Sunday morning, down to the naval dockyard on the Neiper, fifteen miles south of the city.
As the procession headed out, Cromwell noticed that Adam Rosovich was one of her assistants, and he fell in beside his old acquaintance from the academy. After offering a smiling salute, Adam extended his hand.
“On the train ride down here Ferguson told us a bit about what happened to you,” Adam whispered. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is it true that the Gettysburg was lost with all hands?” Richard nodded.
“Damn, I had a couple of friends on her. Poor O’Donald, he was a good man.”
“Yes,” Richard sighed, “a good man.”
“You look like hell, Richard, like you took the worst end of a brawl at the Roaring Mouse.”
Richard smiled. “If only it had been that easy. So how is it with your plush and comfortable job at the ordnance design office?”
Adam sighed. “Boring. I wanted to fly, but I’ve been up exactly once, to test.” He fell silent and gave him a conspiratorial smile. “But that’s supposed to be a secret. Anyhow, even then I just rode in the backseat. There’s a lot of good ideas floating around. I’ve been trying to push that pet project we talked about at the academy.”
“The aerosteamer carrier?”
“Exactly, but you should hear the old admirals howl. I thought Admiral Petronius was going to have my head when I presented a paper on it a couple of weeks back. ‘It goes against all doctrine,’ he roared. ‘We need more guns, not buzzing gnats,’ were his exact words.”
Richard nodded. He’d seen the exact same type of ship Adam was dreaming about riding at anchor in the harbor of Kazan.
“I keep trying to tell them that with the new weapon we’re developing, aerosteamer carriers will become crucial. We’ll no longer just use them for scouting. But they’ll have none of it. I think Dr. Ferguson agrees, but the rest of the board moves like a snail in a snowstorm.”
The group slowed as they approached the main gate of the shipyard, and the two fell silent.
Nothing stirred in the early morning except for a few surprised sentries guarding the entry gate, through which hundreds of workers flowed during the regular work week. One of two guards accompanying Andrew went over to the sentries and quietly but forcefully began to impress upon them that the president had never been here. A nervous lieutenant, coming out of the guardhouse inside the gate was turned back and taken inside.
Andrew walked through the gate, Varinnia on one side, Webster on the other. Richard and Adam followed. Just inside the gate Richard recognized the stooped-shouldered form of Theodor Theodovich, head engineer of the Republic Aerosteamer Company, chief contractor for all airships built for the Republic. Beside him stood a tall gray-haired naval officer, still slender in spite of his obvious sixty years or more of age.
“Admiral Petronius,” Adam whispered.
The two offered their salutes, which Petronius answered without comment.
When Richard looked over at Theodor, he smiled.
“Old Jack Petracci told me you were a damn good pilot,” he said, extending his hand.
Richard, who normally fought at all times to contain any display of emotion, could not help but be impressed and gladly took the hand.
“Later today I want to sit down with you and go over every detail you can remember of their flying machines. I read the notes you jotted down. They show good technical judgment, Cromwell.”
“I just wish I could have brought the plane all the way in.”
“You’re lucky you made it as far as you did and spotted that ship. That was damn near good enough.”
“You once flew with General Petracci, didn’t you?”
Theodor grinned. “Scared the hell out of me. After the war I swore I’d never go up with him again, and I’ve kept that promise.”
Richard looked at him admiringly. He and Petracci were the only two flyers from the Great War who were still alive.
Clearing the gate, the small entourage maneuvered through the railyard, weaving around flatcars loaded with steel plates, keels, beams, masts, and all the thousand other ship parts cast in the foundries north of the city. All was silent, and a cool fog was drifting in from the river, heavy with the less than pleasant smells that drifted down from the teeming city to the north.