Calandrx looked up at Hunter very queerly.
“That’s not how electron torches work,” he said bluntly.
Hunter stared back at him for a moment. “Are you sure?” he asked. This was news to him.
He began to explain, but Calandrx put up his hand.
“Later,” he said. “My poor brain already has too much to absorb this night. Let us return to the mystery of this machine.”
He stuck his head back into the propulsion area.
“This thing you call the power source,” he yelled out. “Where is it exactly?”
Hunter crawled into the access door. It took some wiggling and waggling, but he was finally able to point out a line of small black boxes he’d installed about midway down the bladed shaft. All the boxes were connected to each other.
“This was the only thing I had to improvise,” he explained. “After the machine came together I couldn’t figure out how to supply the power to it. I searched for anything aboard the wreck that might be capable of producing self-generating power. Nothing fit the bill. Then I came upon these boxes — they were deep down in the wreck, meaning they were somewhere near the nose of the ship. There were several dozen of them in all; each one had a connection where they could be coupled together. Something told me if these boxes were connected in the right sequence, they might be able to provide power.
“The strange thing was, I hooked up the first five boxes I could salvage, and on the first try, I discovered that arrangement provided more than enough of the propulsive force I needed.”
Calandrx’s frame was small enough that he was able to reach where the boxes were. He examined the alignment with his quadtrol and was startled by what he found.
“My God,” he said. “This shipwreck on your planet. Do you have any idea what kind of ship it was?”
Finally a question Hunter could give an easy answer to.
“Yes, it was a Kaon Bombardment ship,” he stated clearly. “The Jupiterus Five.”
Calandrx hit his head trying to get out from under the access door.
“A Kaon ship?”
“Yes… I think they are a type of—”
“Oh, I know what type of ship they are,” Calandrx cut him off. Then he started stammering a bit. “But what you’ve done here… with these components…”
He stood up and wiped his hands. Erx and Berx were still sound asleep, their interdimensional images just faintly visible on two of the garden’s hammocks.
“Those two…” Calandrx said, indicating the sleeping explorers. “Do they know about these inner workings? About those black boxes?”
Hunter didn’t think so. “I’ve never gone into much technical detail with them. They do know that the wreck was a Kaon ship, though.”
Calandrx nodded with new understanding. “I’m sure they do — and after finding that out, they were probably too smart to ask any more questions,” he said. “No wonder that pair has managed to stay out of trouble for so long. They’re experts in knowing when to play dumb.”
Hunter was having trouble following Calandrx. He could tell the famous pilot’s thoughts were running a million miles a second again.
“Does this thing have a hover mode?” he asked Hunter.
Hunter pointed to a set of openings in the craft’s belly.
“I’m able to direct the propulsive force downward through these. That was something I added on after completing the entire thing.”
Calandrx examined the movable nozzles and just shook his head.
“Ingenious,” he said with a laugh. “Strange… but extremely ingenious.”
He closed the access door and sealed it again. “This thing, do you think you can fly it now?”
“Now? Like right here and now?”
“Yes,” Calandrx insisted. “Can you?”
Hunter shrugged.
“Sure. Why not?” he replied.
Ten minutes later Hunter had the machine turned on and hovering.
Calandrx had to block his ears, the strange power plant was so loud. And while the flying machine looked strange enough sitting on its wheels, seeing it floating somewhat motionless just a foot or so off the ground was very bizarre. Unlike the Empire’s current crop of starfighters, which tended to stay very still in their hover mode, this craft looked like it was raring to go, bouncing up and down, as if the slightest provocation would be enough to make it rocket away.
He came up close to the hovering craft and had a conversation with Hunter.
“Have you ever opened this thing up to full throttle?” Calandrx asked.
Hunter just shook his head. “Never really needed to.”
“Want to give it a try? Do you think your airframe will hold together?”
“It should,” Hunter said. “It’s all melded electron steel. But where should I go?”
“Around the world,” Calandrx yelled back. “Right around the globe itself.”
“Really? You want me to circumnavigate the entire planet?”
“Precisely,” Calandrx replied. “It’s a test of a theory as to how your machine works. If this thing is powered the way I think it is, we will all be rich in a matter of days. If we don’t all go to jail, that is. Now just stay low, go as fast as you can for as far as you can — and don’t stop until you get back here.”
He held up a box of candles and a handful of ancient wooden matches. The candles were about two feet long.
“I will light this,” Calandrx told him, drawing one candle out. “And watch it burn down. Then I will light another, and another, if need be. We will measure the length of time you are gone by the how many candles we burn.”
That was fine with Hunter. He was just happy to be sitting inside his old machine again. Already he was drinking it in — the panel lights glowing, the control stick in one hand, throttle in the other. He was becoming part of it again. He jammed his helmet over his ears; luckily it had come through the twenty-and-six transport with no change in size.
“Okay with me,” he told Calandrx. “Full throttle?”
“Full throttle,” the elderly pilot confirmed.
With that, Calandrx stepped away, and Hunter commanded the flying machine to rise about twenty-five feet above the garden. He looked down at Calandrx, who was holding up the candle in one hand and the matches the other. Hunter saluted him, pointed the aircraft’s nose west, pushed his throttle full forward, and was off in a great blast of noise and power.
He was back, coming from the opposite direction, before Calandrx lit the first match.
13
It might have been the cheapest room in the city.
It certainly was one of the smallest. Located atop a sixty-six-story building hard by the edge of the east canal, the compartment measured a merc twelve feet by twenty. It had a tiny balcony, a small lavatory, a floating cot, one slightly cracked window, and a food tube that had been installed sometime in the previous century.
Several air bridges went right over the top of the diminutive apartment building. That was one reason for the room’s cheap rent. The fact that one of the ancient triad bridges ran close by further lowered its desirability. While the vast majority of people in the Galaxy were superstitious, Earthlings were the worst of the lot. No one wanted to be anywhere near a sacred span if they could help it. No one…
Which is why Zap Multx had to pay just six aluminum coins for the use of the small room. He wasn’t here because of the economics, though. Money was hardly a problem for someone in his position. No, he was here because he wanted to lay low for a while. Just him, his thoughts, his blaster pistol, and a few bottles of slow-ship wine. That’s what he thought he needed. So he’d leased the room a week ago, using an assumed name. And once the tense meeting up in Chesterwest had concluded, he beamed directly here, without even having to pass through the front door. It turned out to be a great place to hide.