Claude rigged up a still and tended the ever-bubbling decamole pot while Richard and Martha traced the control circuitry and made sense of the quaint in-ship environmental system, which was capable of recharging itself once they got a little water into the powerplant. After one day of fiddling with the alien controls, Richard felt confident enough to carry on with the analysis alone, letting Martha transfer her efforts to the Spear. For safety’s sake, on the off chance that the flyer might blow during one of the groundside tests, they transferred the work camp to a shelf-like clearing in the maquis several kloms downslope from the aircraft, where a spring gushed through the crater wall.
On the evening of the third day, as they gathered around the campfire, Richard announced that the ancient machine was ready for its first flight test.
“I’ve scraped most of the lichen off and dug all the bird and bug nests out of the vents. She seems damn near good as new, for all her thousand years of squatting.”
“How about the controls?” Claude asked. “Are you sure you’ve figured them out?”
“I turned off all the audibles, of course, since they weren’t speaking my language. But the flight instrumentation is mostly graphic, so I can get by. Can’t read the altimeter, but there’s a terrain-clearance and position monitor that shows a nice picture, and eyeballs were made before digitals anyhow. Numeralwise, the engine cluster is hopeless. But each reader is equipped with three idiot lights, cyan, amber, and violet for go, watch-it, and bye-bye. So I should do all right there too. My big problem is going to be the wings. Putting wings on a gravo-mag aircraft is weird! They must be a cultural relic. Maybe these folks just enjoyed gliding!”
“Richard,” Martha said breathlessly. “Take me with you tomorrow.”
“Oh, Marty-babe…” he began.
Madame intervened. “You may not, Martha. There is a risk, even though Richard is confident.”
“She’s right,” he said, taking Martha’s hand. It was cold in spite of the warm evening. The firelight threw cruel shadows on the engineer’s sunken cheeks and eyes. “Once I’ve checked her out, then we’ll go for a spin. Promise. We can’t let anything happen to you, kid… Who’d put that damn zapper back together?”
Martha moved closer to Richard and stared into the fire. “I think the Spear will work. The powerpack shows half-charge, which is really remarkable, and none of the tiny little internal components of the lance unit seems to have been damaged. The main difficulties have been cleaning out the barrel and replacing the chewed-up cable. It was lucky that the flyer had some stuff that seemed compatible. I’ll need one more day to finish and reassemble, and then we can test it and begin practice.”
“How powerful do you think it will be?” Claude asked.
“There are several options, I believe,” the engineer said. “The lowest setting is the only one lacking a caplock, so they might have used that for their ritual fighting. I’d guess its power to be within light-pistol range. The four higher settings under the lock must have been for special purposes. At the top of the line, we could have us a portable photon cannon.”
Richard whistled.
“I don’t think we dare test it on max unless, we want to risk draining the powerpack,” Martha said.
“No chance of recharging?” asked Richard.
“I can’t get the pack open,” she admitted. “It takes a special tool and I was afraid to lark around with it. We’ll just have to save our big zap for the war.”
The gnarled branches of the maquis burned with a pungent resinous odor, snapping and throwing sparks that had to be smacked out. Only a few insects buzzed in the drought-stricken jungle. When it was full dark, the remaining birds and small mammals in the area would come to the spring to drink, and Felice and her bow would glean food for tomorrow.
The blonde athlete said, “I have Lugonn’s place nearly clean now. There’s no sign of the torc.”
Only Martha was able to voice a regret.
Richard said, “Should be plenty of the things lying around if we make good at Finiah. You won’t have to beg the little King for one. Just reach down on the battlefield and grab.”
“Yes,” sighed Felice.
“How have you planned to mount the Spear, Richard?” Claude asked. “I can’t see how we could rig up a pilot-operated trigger given the short time we have left.”
“There’s really only one way to handle it. I hover the aircraft and somebody else shoots the zapper out the open belly hatch. I suppose we could trust one of Chief Burke’s bully boys to…”
The old man said softly, “Every exopaleontologist knows how to handle big zappers. How do you think we cut the rocks to get the specimens out? I’ve carved up a few cliffs in my day, even moved a mountain now and then to get at some really choice fossils.”
Richard chortled. “I’ll be damned. Okay, you’re hired. We’ll be a two-man crew.”
“Three,” said Madame. “You will need me to provide a metapsychic screen for the flyer.”
“Angélique!” Claude protested.
“There is no helping it,” she said. “Velteyn and his Flying Hunt would see you hovering there.”
“You’re not going!” the old man stormed. “Not a chance! We’ll come over Finiah at high altitude, then drop down vertically and take ’em by surprise.”
“You won’t.” Madame was implacable. “They will detect you hovering. We can only hope to surprise them if I conceal the vessel metapsychically during its initial maneuvers. I must go. There is nothing more to be said.”
Claude got to his feet and stood hulking over her. “The hell there isn’t. Do you think I’d let you fly into the middle of a fire-fight? Richard and I have one chance in a hundred of getting out with whole skins. We’re going to need every gram of concentration to do the job and then get out. We can’t afford to be worrying about you.”
“Tchah! Worry about yourself. Radoteur! Who is the leader of this group? C’est moi! Whose plan is it, de toute façon, for the entire attack? Mine! I go!”
“I won’t let you, you stubborn old she-goat!”
“Try to stop me, senile Yankee-Polack viellard!”
“Shrew!”
“Salaud!”
“Ball-breaking old bat!”
“Espèce de con!”
“Shut the hell up!” thundered Felice. “The pair of you are as bad as Richard and Martha!”
The pirate grinned and Martha turned away, nibbling her lip to suppress laughter. Claude’s face blackened with embarrassed rage, and Madame was stunned out of her hauteur.
Richard said, “You two listen to me. The rho-field of the flux-tapper will prevent any of the Tanu Hunt from touching the aircraft. It’ll probably deflect lances and arrows and whatnot, too. So all we really have to worry about is mental attack. For countering that, our only hope is Madame’s metapsychic screen.”
“If I had a torc…” Felice muttered.