The Flying Sorcerers

watertight. The boys were delighted with this suggestion. They had been having trouble with the balsite wood anyway. It was the lightest wood they had been able to find, but it was hard to work with. They had been using it on a frame of spirit pine, but it was too weak. When they tested it in water, the balsite became waterlogged and soggy. It came off the frame in shreds. The only way to keep the boatframe in one piece was to keep the balsite wood dry — and that was impractical: the machine had to be able to land on water. Purple’s suggestion to use aircloth lining solved that, and the boys went eagerly back to work on the large boatframe. But they needed aircloth — and the production of it was still our biggest problem.

“There is not enough thread,” Lesta grumbled. “We have not the men to spin, and not enough to weave!”

“I don’t understand —” Purple was saying when I arrived on the scene. “You have enough spinners for all your other types of weaving — why not for aircloth?”

“Because aircloth isn’t just woven! The thread has to be spun fine and dipped, then it has to be dried. That requires three times as many men working on spinning. Then after the cloth is woven, it has to be dipped again. That’s a whole new step! Where am I to get the men for such work? It takes almost twice as long to weave a patch of aircloth as it does to weave anything else — and that patch is only one fourth the size of what we could be weaving because you want it compacted!”

“It would not be aircloth if it weren’t compacted,” said Purple.

“Fine,” said Lesta. “You want aircloth, you’ll get aircloth. It’ll take only eight hundred years.”

“Nonsense,” said Purple, “there must be a way to —”

“Not if you want it the way you want it —” Lesta was adamant. “It takes nearly a hand of days to spin enough thread for a single patch of the stuff.”

“Well, then bring in more spinners —”

“And where am I to get them? I cannot ask my weavers to accept such a demotion, and there are not enough boys in either of our villages to take on as apprentices.”

“Why not hire spinners from the other villages on this island?”

“What? — and let them have the secret of aircloth too?”

“They would not have to know about the final step of the dipping of the cloth,” I offered.

“Hm. You are right there — but they will never do it.”

“Why not?”

“What would their weavers do for thread?”

“Hire their weavers to help spin.”

“And how will we feed them? We are but a poor village.”

We thought about it. During the time of ungrowing, most food came from the swollen oceans. If Ang, who had turned to seafarming, had enough nets at his command, he was likely to catch enough sea leeches and crawlers to feed the army of weavers Purple was trying to assemble. Of course, Ang would need some help, but we could bring in some extra seafarmers as well.

We discussed it that evening at a special joint meeting of Our two Guilds of Advisors. We met in a clearing in the Lower Village. There were almost a hand of hands of tradesmen in evidence, and more were arriving all the time.

Almost everyone who spoke, began with: “We cannot do it —”

Ang, for instance: “We cannot do it — I have not enough nets.”

“Weave some more.”

“I cannot do it — it will take too long to weave enough nets to feed that many people.”

“Perhaps Lesta’s weavers can help.”

“Nonsense, we cannot — my men do not know how to weave nets.”

“It’s a form of weaving, isn’t it?”

“Of course, but —”

“Then they can learn. Ang, will you teach them?”

“Yes, but —”

There are no buts about it If we spend the next hand of days just weaving nets for Ang, by the time the new weavers arrive we should be able to feed them regularly. By that time we will have enough aircloth thread on hand to demonstrate the proper weaving techniques to them.”

“We cannot do it —” That was Lesta again.

“Why not?”

“I have been figuring. We have enough fiberplants and fibertrees. We will have more than enough thread. As long as there are wild housetrees, we will have the sap — we do not have to worry about these things. But we still do not have enough spinners in proportion to the weavers. Our problem “ now is that we are not producing enough aircloth thread to keep our own weavers busy — if we bring in new weavers and spinners, we will only be multiplying our own problem by five. We will have five times as many weavers sitting around idle waiting for thread. We cannot do it.”

“Nonsense,” said Purple. “The problem is that we have not enough people spinning, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” retorted Lesta. “Isn’t that enough? If we can’t find enough people in our own village to make a significant difference, do you think we will be able to find them in another?”

“I have been doing some figuring too,” said Purple. He held up a skin which looked suspiciously like a blue- drawing. I However, he did not attempt to explain it, he merely waved it conspicuously about. “Now, using our present number of weavers and looms, at the rate of one patch of aircloth produced per hand of days, it will take almost 12 years to make enough for my needs.”

This produced a mutter and mumble of voices among the advisors. “Sure, it’s fine stuff, but who needs it if it takes that long to weave —”

Purple ignored the interruption. “Now, if we bring in all the weavers and all the spinners of the other villages on this island, that multiplies the rate of production by five and cuts the waiting time down to two and a half years.”

“Oh, fine,” muttered Lesta. “I’m not sure I could survive even one more year of Purple, let alone two and a half.”

Gortik shushed him. Purple ignored this interruption as well. He said, “Now, let’s consider the problem — it’s not that it takes such a long time to produce a piece of aircloth that is delaying us, not at all — it’s just that we don’t produce enough of it. If we had more looms and more men to operate them, we could produce larger amounts.”

“Of course,” nodded Lesta; “and if I were a bird, I could fly — and I wouldn’t need aircloth at all. This produced laughter from all the men — and an angry look from both magicians. Shoogar spat in Lesta’s direction — it sizzled when it hit the ground.

Purple waved his skin at Lesta. “I have figured this out very carefully. Counting all the weavers in all five villages — and counting all the journeymen and all the novices — and even all the apprentices, there are more than enough —”

“Pfah! Nonsense!”

“— More than enough,” Purple repeated. “If all of them are weaving.”

“And who will spin the thread for them if all are weaving? Little creatures will come in at night and do it?”

Again laughter.

Purple was one of the most patient men I have ever seen. He cleared his throat and said slowly, “Not at all. First off, I Fm surprised you didn’t ask where they will weave this cloth.”

“Without the thread it doesn’t make any difference.”

“Let’s take this one thing at a time. If every man who is a member of the weaver’s caste could become a full-fledged weaver, and if we had enough looms for all of them and each man worked a full day at his loom, we could make as much aircloth as I need within four — huh, let’s see — huh, well before Lant’s wife delivers her child.”

“A little more than two hands of hands of days,” I said in explanation.

Lesta was scratching in the dust. “Purple, you’re a fool — that’s 175 looms we’d need. We have but six in this village. Where are we supposed to get the rest? You’d change us from weavers to loom builders — and we’d be