The two men crossed the gondola, opened the cabinet and began to put on their parachutes. Hardy said, "What about him?"
"You can put Newton's chute on and throw him out before you
go-"
"And what about the engineers?"
"They'll have to take their chances."
"They'll die if you're shot down!" Samhradh said.
"Too bad."
When the two men had strapped on their packs, they dragged Newton to the middle of the gondola. Greystock, holding pistols on them, backed away while they did this. He then pushed the button which lowered the port plexiglas screen. Newton, groaning, half-conscious, was pushed over the ledge. Samhradh pulled Newton's ripcord as he fell out. A moment later, the Irishman leaped. Hardy paused with one leg outside the port.
"If I ever run across you, Greystock, I'll kill you."
"No, you won't," Greystock said. "Jump before I decide to make sure you won't ever have a chance."
He turned the transceiver on.
Clemens bellowed, "What in blue blazes is going on?"
"Three of my men drew lots to see who leaves the ship," Greystock said smoothly. "We decided that the ship should be lightened. It's better that way; we need all the speed we can get."
"Why in hell didn't you tell me?" Clemens said. "Now I'll have to put about and fish them out of the water."
"I know," Greystock said under his breath.
He looked out the port screen. The Minerva was past the Mark Twain now. Its decks were crowded with people looking up at the dirigible. The airplane, a low-wing single-seater monoplane, was on the catapult, which was being swung around to face the wind. The balloon was still being reeled in.
Greystock seated himself before the control panel. Within a few minutes he had brought the ship down to about 91 meters or 300 feet from The River. He turned it then and headed toward the boat..
The vast white vessel was stopped in The River, its four paddle-wheels spinning just enough to hold it steady. A big launch had put out from its port in the stern and was gbing around the boat to pick up the parachutists, now struggling in the water.
Both banks were crowded with sightseers, and at least a hundred watercraft were sailing or being paddled toward the three chutists.
Steam spurted from the catapult, and the monoplane, shot out from the deck. Its silvery fuselage and wings shone greyly as it began to climb toward the airship.
Clemens' voice yammered from the receiver. "What the damna-tion-to-hell-and-gone are you doing, John?"
"Just coming back to make sure that my men are safe," Grey-stock said.
"Of all the numbskulls!" Clemens screeched. "If your brains were expanded tenfold, they would still rattle around in a gnat's ass! This is what comes from trying to make a mink cap from a pig's anus! I told Firebrass that he shouldn't let a medieval baron near a dirigible!
" 'Greystock's from the dumbest, most arrogant, most untrustworthy class you could find!' I told him. 'A medieval nobleman!' ,
"Jumping Jesus H. Christ! But no, he argued that you had the potentiality, and it would be a nice experiment to see if you could adjust to the Industrial Age!"
Joe Miller's yoke rumbled. "Take it eathy, Tham. If you pithth him off, he'll refuthe to attack Chohn'th boat."
"Thyove it up your athth!" Clemens said mockingly. "When I need advice from a paleoanthropus, I'll ask for it."
"You don't need to get inmulting chutht becauthe you're mad, Tham," Miller said. "Thay! Did it occur to Your Machethty that maybe Greythock ith up to thomething rotten? Maybe he thold out to that aththhole, King Chohn?"
Greystock cursed. That hairy, comical-looking colossus of an apeman was much shrewder than he looked. However, Clerhens, in his towering fury, might ignore him.
By then the airship, her nose down at ten degrees to the horizontal, was heading straight for the boat. Her altitude was now 31 meters and dropping.
Von Richthofen's plane zoomed by within 15 meters. He waved at Greystock, but he looked puzzled. He would have been listening in on the radio conversation, of course.
Greystock punched a button. A rocket sprang from its launch under the port fore engine gondola. The dirigible gained altitude as it was relieved of the weight of the missile. Spurting tailfire, the long, slim tube swerved toward the silver plane, the heat locater in its nose sniffing the craft's exhausts. Richthofen's face wasn't visible, but Greystock could imagine his expression of horror. He had about six seconds to get out of the cockpit and take to his parachute. Even if he escaped, he'd be lucky at this altitude if it opened in time.
No, he was not going to jump. Instead, he had wing-overed the plane and sent it diving at the water. Now it was straightening out just above the surface. There flashed the rocket. And now the missile and the aircraft disappeared in a ball of flame.
By then, the flight crew was frantically running another plane to the catapult. The balloon crew, distracted by the sirens and horns and the sudden frenzied activity, had stopped hauling their charge down. Greystock hoped they would not have the presence of mind to cut it loose. The huge aerostat would be a drag when the boat tried to maneuver swiftly.
Through the transceiver, the wail of sirens and Clemens' voice, almost as high pitched as the alarms, came faintly.
The boat began to pick up speed and to turn at the same time. Greystock smiled. He had hoped that the Mark Twain would present her broadside. He punched a button, and the airship, relieved of the weight of two heavy torpedoes, soared. Greystock raised the elevators to depress the ship's nose even further, and he pushed the throttles in to full-speed position.
The torpedoes struck the water with a splash. Two wakes foamed from behind them. The transceiver yelped with Clemens' voice. The giant boat quit turning and sped at an angle toward the bank to the left. Rockets spurted up from its decks. Some of them arced down toward the torpedoes and exploded immediately after plunging below the surface. Others headed toward the dirigible.
Greystock swore in Norman French. He hadn't been quick enough. But the torpedoes would surely hit the boat, and if they did, King John's orders would have been carried out.
But he did not want to die. He had his own mission.
Perhaps he should have dropped the bombs while he was passing over the boat. She had veered off when he had tried to get directly over her, and be had not wanted to change course too abruptly. He should have neutralized the crew earlier and then told Clemens he was bringing the airship in close so everybody could have a good look at her.
During these thoughts, he had automatically punched the button which released all his rockets. They headed toward the boats' missiles, their heat detectors locked into the tailflames of the boat's, just as the boats' rockets were locked into the tailflames of his missiles.
The explosions from rockets meeting rockets shook the airship. Smoke spread before him, veiling the boat. Then he was through the dark clouds and almost on the Mark Twain.
By God's wounds! One torpedo had just missed the starboard corner of the stem, and the second was going to hit it! No, it wasn't! Its side had touched the corner, and it had veered off! The boat had somehow escaped both!
Now Clemens' voice, yammering, told him that no more rockets would be released. Clemens was afraid that the airship would explode and, carried by the wind, would fall flaming onto the boat.
The balloon, trailing its plastic cable, was floating down-River, rising at the same time.
Clemens had forgotten that the airship's bombs had not yet been released.
The second airplane, a two-seater amphibian, shot below him. Its pilot looked upward in frustration at him. They were too close to each other and he was going too fast to swing up to the right and shoot the nose machineguns. But the gunner in the cockpit behind the pilot was swinging his twin machine guns around. Every tenth bullet would be a tracer, phosphorous coated. Only one in a gas cell was needed to ignite the hydrogen. The Minerva was only 152 meters from the Mark Twain and was closing fast. Its motors were going at top speed. This, plus a 16-km/ph tailwind, meant that the boat could not possibly get away in time.