did not depend on his battery were a lightmaker which had a tiny battery of its own, and a radiation counter, which Purple said needed no battery at all.
The battery was a heavy object — heavier than one would expect for its size. There were two shiny metal nodes at one end of it. Purple twisted the free end of each copper wire around these nodes, one to each one.
“Now,” he said, “all I have to do is turn the battery on. This dial tells me how much power I have. This knob controls the rate with which I release it. When I switch the battery on here, I will activate the spell and the gases will separate.”
With a knowing look, he did so. We waited.
I heard a — sizzling — and looked into the pot.
Tiny bubbles were forming on the ends of the wires, breaking free and streaming toward the surface.
“Ah,” said Purple. He turned the knob. The water began bubbling more vigorously. He smiled proudly. “Hydrogen and oxygen,” he explained. “From this wire comes oxygen. From the other comes hydrogen, which is lighter than air. We will want to trap the hydrogen. It will lift the airbags.”
“Oh,” I said. I nodded as if I understood. I didn’t, but I felt that I should at least pretend. Besides, I had expected something more impressive.
I stayed long enough to appear polite, then returned to my bone carving. I had seven apprentices now — and al-though they were quite capable of doing the work without me, I still felt it my responsibility to check on them as often as I could.
We were using sheepbone now. We had great amounts of it drying in the sun. It would not be the petrified bone that was so hard, of course, but it would still be usable. Such was the difference between wet bone and dry bone.
The apprentices themselves were working busily. Purple had suggested that they work in a new manner. One lad cut the bone into flat segments, another sanded the pieces down to fit into the loom slots, a third cut grooves into the bases so they would lock into the frame, a fourth and fifth cut the slits into the edges, while the sixth polished the finished pieces. The seventh serviced the tools of the first six and kept them sharp. Thus they were able to produce more loomteeth than they could have working alone.
Purple called it a “division of labor’ — every job could be reduced to a few simple tasks. If all a person had to do was learn one task only, it would simplify and speed up all methods of production. Nobody had to know everything.
Except Purple, of course, but then — he was the magician.
He had set up his put-it-together lines all over the village. There were put-it-together lines to spin the thread, to weave the cloth, to build the looms, to make the spinning machines. Everywhere there were great numbers of things to be made. Purple taught the people his put-it-together magic.
In fact he once explained to me that the whole region had become a put-it-together line for a flying machine. We could build others in the future, he said, if we so wished. All we had to do was keep the put-it-together lines going, and we could build as many as we wanted.
It was a staggering thought!
When he heard it, Shoogar’s ears perked up. It was no secret what he wanted. An evil gleam came into his eyes, and he headed off to the mountains, to await the fall of darkness and a chance to glimpse the moons.
Fortunately, the nights stayed cloudy.
Purple had odd ways of speaking — even odder ways of doing things — but if we gave him the chance, his ways worked.
He proved it time and time again.
For instance, he had figured out a way to keep Gortik from crashing his bicycle into trees. He had suggested that Wilville and Orbur add a pair of smaller wheels to it, one on each side of the rear wheel. It kept the machine from falling over.
Gortik was so grateful at finally being able to ride his bicycle that he allowed Wilville and Orbur to trade their other machines in the Lower Village — but only if they did not have “Gortik wheels” on them. He wanted to be the only one with a “crashproof” bicycle.
Wilville and Orbur were pleased at this turn of events. They had figured out a put-it-together line of their own — with only four apprentices they might be able to build as many as two bicycles per hand of days. They were eager to try it out as soon as they finished the flying machine.
At the moment, however, they had more than they could handle building spell devices for Purple.
For instance, he wanted bagholders — great frameworks to hold the aircloth bags over the bubbling pots of water. Thus he would trap the gas as it rose from his hydrogen wires.
Bellis the Potter had been asked to make great funneled pots for these frameworks, and had already finished the first one. In addition to the opening at the top through which the water would be added, it had two long spouts reaching up from either side. One was narrow and delicate; the gas-making wires were set so that the hydrogen gas would rise up through this spout. The other gas would bubble away harmlessly through the other spout which was wide and stubby.
An airbag — completely empty — would be hung on the framework over the pot and its mouth would be attached to the proper spout. When the wire was attached to the battery, Purple hoped the bag would fill with hydrogen.
But none of the airbags had yet been sewn together, only two of the frameworks for holding them had been built, and only one of the water pots had been finished. Bellis the Potter was being recalcitrant.
Originally he had been delighted at Purple’s request for great amounts of pottery — but he was not delighted at Purple’s suggestion that he use women to help make the pots. Not for gathering clay, he said, not for turning his wheel; not for polishing the finished pots, and not for cleaning his tools — not for nothing! No women, he insisted. Women were for breeding — and that was all they were for.
Purple said that it had already been proven that women could do such simple labors as spinning and gathering.
Bellis shook his head. “Spinning does not require much thought. Pottery does.”
“H’m, that’s what Lesta said. Only he said it was pottery that did not require much thought.”
“Lesta is an old fuzzwort. There will be no women working on my pots —”
“Is that your final word, Bellis?”
“It is.”
“Oh, dear. I had hoped you wouldn’t say that. Ah, it’s just as well. I have already sent for some potters from the other villages. They have said that they are willing to work with women. I guess I will have to deal with them. I will be seeing you —”
“Wait!” said Bellis. “Maybe it is possible. We will have to try it and see.”
In other words, everybody wanted to work with Purple now — even if it meant changing one’s way of working.
And something else: just as we were learning from Purple, it had become obvious, just from listening to him bargain, that he had learned something from us as well.
By now Shoogar had completed the cultivation and consecration of every housetree in the region except for three wild ones he had left for Purple to use for his aircloth.
For a day and a half, then, Shoogar wandered around the village looking for things to do, amusing himself with minor spells here and there to patch up minor problems.
Finally he complained to me. “Everyone has something to do with the flying machine, but me! There are no spells that I have to cast to make it work properly — all of them are Purple’s spells.”
“Nonsense, Shoogar. There are many spells you can cast.”
“Name six!”
“Well, ah — surely you can use your skill on the preparations for the flying machine. The aircloth for instance.”
“What is there to do with the aircloth? They weave it, they dip it — it holds air.”
