"You fold the parachute like this, and hold it against the weight," Jacob demonstrated before handing it back to Antonio. "Then you throw it into the air."
Antonio threw the pocket knife and parachute into the air, and smiled as the chute opened and the knife drifted down to the ground. He picked it up, and while he refolded the parachute he turned to Jacob. "If you made one big enough, could it support a man?"
Jacob nodded. "You should talk to Dad. He used to jump out of airplanes using a parachute when he was in the US Army."
"It seems I should indeed talk to your father. Where will I find him?"
"At the clinic," Jacob said.
"That's close enough to walk. Lead the way."
****
John Sullivan saw them coming-his son and their patron. "Oh, God, what's your son gone and done now?"
"My son?" Annamarie Rivera-Sullivan said, edging John aside so she could see out the window. "Since when has he been only my son?"
"Since he attracted the attention of Don Antonio."
Sebastian Ferrer, one of the Franciscan lay brothers they were training at the clinic, joined the Sullivan's looking out the window. "Don Antonio is not angry. If he was angry, he would be leading the boy along by the ear."
"I wonder how Don Antonio met my son?"
"So now that he's not in any trouble, he's your son again."
John grinned at his wife. "Well, of course he is. My son would never get into trouble, whereas your son . . ." He knew who he was dealing with, so he had no trouble avoiding the expected retaliatory kick.
"Mom, Dad, Don Antonio says he can get me in to see the duke's airship," Jacob called as he charged into the clinic.
Annamarie caught her son and hugged him. "That's very good of Don Antonio. I hope you haven't been bothering him."
"Your son hasn't been bothering me. In fact, we've been having a most interesting discussion. Senor Sullivan, Jacob tells me you know something of parachuting?"
John felt a twinge in his hip just thinking about parachuting. The look in Annamarie's eyes told him she too remembered the incident that got him medically discharged and the long years of rehabilitation that followed. "I used to be parachute qualified."
"So Jacob said. Would it be possible to parachute from an airship?"
"Sure. You can jump from anything high enough. Back up-time, some silly daredevils were jumping off high cliffs, bridges and buildings."
"Could you teach people to parachute?" Antonio asked.
"No way!" Annamarie insisted, "You promised!"
John laid a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder. "What Annamarie means is I can't really afford to risk parachuting again. I was very badly injured in my last jump. Very badly. If you want to learn parachuting, your best bet is the new jump school Tracy Kubiak's started up in Magdeburg."
"If we could make parachutes, I'm sure you could teach some people to use them without putting yourself at risk. Jacob made a simple parachute." Don Antonio held up the handkerchief parachute he and Jacob had been playing with. "It doesn't look too difficult."
John tried to ignore the flaming daggers from his wife's eyes. "That's just a toy."
"Of course it is," Antonio agreed. "Jacob has already indicated that there should be a hole in the middle to let air through, to stop the parachute swinging. But surely, with a few modifications, it can be scaled up?"
Don Antonio has a one track mind that puts Annamarie to shame. John tried to deflect him, before Annamarie's daggers became too real. "It'd be a lot easier to work with Tracy Kubiak. She used to be a rigger, and she's already making her own parachutes, as well as teaching parachuting."
"That will take time. I was hoping for something a little more timely," Antonio said.
John swallowed. Annamarie's heels were digging into his toes, and he knew she was sending him a warning. If he wasn't careful, he could find himself medically unfit to teach anybody anything. "Is this just a matter of getting people out of an airship quickly, or is there some special purpose?"
"It's just a thought." Antonio sighed. "My son was involved in His Excellency's airship project before his accident. However, since his accident he has fallen out of favor. I thought a demonstration of parachuting from the Richard Peeke might be sufficiently impressive to bring my son to His Excellency's notice again."
"Ah, impressive." John nodded. "I can maybe give you impressive, without involving parachutes. We used to call it fast-roping. You get a thick rope and grab it, and slide down it from somewhere high. You can get a platoon on the ground pretty quickly that way, and you don't get blown every which-way on the way down like you would with parachutes."
"And you did this from airplanes?" Antonio asked.
"Heck, no, none of us were that crazy. We did it from helicopters. They're a flying machine that can hover in place, rather like an airship; only they're a lot smaller."
"Would you be able to teach this technique?" Antonio asked, casting a questioning eye in the direction of Annamarie.
"Just as long as he keeps both feet planted firmly on the ground. It'd put too much stress on his hip."
"I won't," John promised. "You'll need some suitable rope, but more importantly, if you want something impressive, we'll need a good vertical drop."
"We have plenty of rope, and there is the Richard Peeke's hangar. That is eighty feet high. Will that be sufficient?" Don Antonio asked.
"Eighty feet will be perfect," John said.
"You bet it'll be perfect. I can't see John getting eighty feet in the air without the help of an elevator," Annamarie said.
A few days later
The hangar was a barn on steroids. It looked to be about two hundred feet long, with a central span that looked nearly as wide as it was high. John Sullivan looked up to the apex of the roof, where a platform had been suspended alongside a length of five-inch rope that reached to the ground. It'd been a long time since he'd last done a rope climb. He just hoped he hadn't forgotten how to do it.
Eventually, he arrived at the top, where he was quickly joined by five scaffold workers who'd volunteered, for a small consideration, to participate in the demonstration. From nearly eighty feet up he looked down, to see and wave at the reason why he had made the climb. Jacob waved back. Annamarie would surely understand that a man couldn't ignore his son's expectations.
He pulled on a pair of the heavy leather gloves he'd insisted each man would need. "Right. Remember what we practiced. Grab the rope. Get a firm grip. Then swing free and let the rope slide through your gloves. Remember to tighten your grip to slow down before you hit the ground, and get clear as soon as you can, because the next guy down is right above you." He waited a moment, hoping that everyone understood. "First man, go!"
The first man went down fast. To be followed by the next person, and the next, until John was the last man. He grabbed the rope, and pushed off from the platform. It'd been a long time since he'd done this, and he relished the thrill of the rapid decent. With his feet free of the rope, he was easily able to land mainly on his good leg and walk away, although his landing was a little heavier than he would have liked.
On the ground, the six of them bowed politely toward the duke and his hangers-on. The scaffolders then hurried over to their friends while John joined his son, who was beaming with hero-worship, beside the de Aguilera's major-domo. He planted a hand gently on Jacob's shoulder. "Remember, what do we tell your mother?"
"That half a dozen scaffold workers did the demonstration and that it was real exciting seeing them sliding down the rope."
They shared a mutual smile. Father and son had grown closer since arriving in Spain. A lot of it had to do with the mutual agreement that what Annamarie didn't ask, she didn't have to be told.