If only he could drop the bombs before the tracer bullets struck. Perhaps the gunner would miss. By the time he got his guns around, the airplane would be past the airship.
The side of the boat loomed up. Even if the dirigible wasn't hit by the tracers, she was so near the boat that the bombs would blow up both vessels.
Estimating the arrival tune of the. Minerva over the paddlewheel-er, he set the release mechanism of the bombs with a twist of his wrist. Then he got out of the seat and dived through the open port. no time to put on a parachute. Besides, he was too near the water for it to open in time. As he fell, he was struck by a wave of air like a colossal winnowing fan. He spun, unconscious, unable even to think fleetingly of how he had lost his second-in-command under John Lackland. Or his plans to get rid of John and take over the captainship of the Rex Grandissimus for himself.
52
Peter Frigate had boarded the Razzle Dazzle a week after New Year's Day of year 7 A.R.D. Twenty-six years later, he was still on the schooner. But he was getting sailweary and discouraged. Would the ship ever arrive at the headwaters?
Since he had first stepped aboard, he had passed, to starboard, 810,000 grailstones. That meant he'd traveled about 1,303,390 kilometers or 810,000 miles.
He had started in the equatorial zone, and it had taken a year and a half to get into the arctic regions, going not as the crow flies but as the snake wriggles. If The River had been as straight as a ruler, it would have taken the ship there in less than six months, maybe five. Instead, it was as twisted as a politician's campaign promises after election.
The first time the ship was in the arctic, just after The River had definitely turned for its southward journey, Frigate had proposed that they proceed northward on foot. The polar mountains could not be sees, yet they must be relatively near. Tantalizingly so.
Fanington had said, "And just how in blue blazes can we get over those?"
He had gestured at the unbroken stone verticality to the north. Here it rose to an estimated 3630 meters or a little less than 12,000 feet.
"In a balloon."
"Are you nuts? The wind blows south here. It'd take us away from the polar mountains."
"The surface wind would. But if the meteorological patterns are the same here as on Earth, the upper polar winds should be flowing northeastward. Once the balloon got high enough to get in their stream, it'd reverse direction, get blown toward the pole.
"Then, when we got near mountains that're supposed to ring the supposed sea, we'd come down. We'd have no chance of getting over those mountains in the balloon, if they're as high as they are said to be."
Farrington had actually turned pale when he'd heard Frigate's proposal.
Rider, grinning, said, "Didn't you know that the Frisco Kid doesn't even like the idea of air travel?"
"That isn't it!" Martin said, glaring. "If a balloon could get us there, I'd be the first to board it. But it won't! Anyway, how by the high muckamuck are we going to make a balloon even if we could travel on one?"
Frigate had to admit that it couldn't be done. At least, not in this area. To make a balloon and fill it with hydrogen was impossible. There were no necessary materials here. Or anywhere else, as far as he knew.
However, there was another method they might consider. How about a hot-air balloon to carry a rope up to the top of the mountain?
Even as he spoke, he had to laugh. How could they make a rope 3650 meters long, one strong enough not to break under its own weight? What size of balloon would be needed to lift the enormous weight of the rope? One as big as the Hindenburg?
And how could they anchor the rope at the top of the mountain?
Grinning, Frigate proposed sending a man up in the rope-carrying aerostat. He could get off at the top and secure the balloon.
"Forget it!" Farrington said.
Frigate was happy to do this.
The Razzle Dazzle continued to sail southward, the wind behind it, its crew glad to get away from this gloomy, chilly area. There were some Old Stone Age people living here, but they had dwelt in the arctic regions on Earth. They did not know any better.
Since men, the schooner had crossed the equator and entered the south polar region nine times. At the moment, they were in the equatorial zone again.
Peter Frigate was sick of shipboard life. Nor was he the only one. Shore leave had been getting longer and longer for some time.
One day, while eating lunch on the bank, Frigate experienced two thrills in rapid sequence. One was the offering of his grail. For years he had been hoping to get peanut butter and a banana at the same time. Now, as he opened the lid of his grail, he saw the realization of his dream. '
A grey metal cup in a rack was filled with smooth, delicious-odored peanut butter. Across another rack was the yellow-brown-spotted form of a banana.
Grinning, slavering, chortling, he unpeeled the fruit and smeared one end with the peanut butter. Close to crooning with delight, he bit off the combination.
It was worth being resurrected if only for the food.
A moment later, he saw a woman walking by. She was very attractive, but it was what she wore that widened his eyes. He got to his feet and, speaking Esperanto, approached her.
"Pardonumin, sinjorino. I couldn't help observing that unusual armlet. It looks like brass!"
She looked down, smiling, and said, "Estas brazo."
She accepted his proffered cigarette with a murmured, "Dank-on," and lit it. She seemed to be very amiable. Too much so, one person thought. Scowling, a tall, dark man strode up to them.
Frigate hastily assured him that his interest was not in her but in the armlet. The man looked relieved; the woman, disappointed. But she shrugged and made the best of it.
"It comes from up-River," she said. "It cost one hundred cigarettes and two hornfish horns."
"Not to mention some personal favors on her part," the man said.
The woman said, "Oh, Emil, that was before I moved in with you."
"Do you know where it came from?" Frigate said. "I mean, where it was made?"
"The man who sold it to me came from Nova Bohemujo."
Frigate gave the man a cigarette, and this seemed to ease the tension. Ernil said that New Bohemia was a rather large state about nine hundred grailstones up The River. Twentieth-century Czechs made up its majority. The minority was composed of some ancient Gaulish tribe with, of course, the usual one or two percent of peoples from everywhere and every time.
Until three years ago New Bohemia had been small, just one of the mingled Slavic-Gaulish peoples in this area.
"But its chief, a man named Ladislas Podebrad, launched a project about six years ago. He thought there might be mineral treasures, especially iron, buried deep under the soil. His people started digging at the base of the mountain, and they made an enormous and deep hole. They wore out much flint and bone. You know how tough the grass is."