“It’s okay,” Matt shouted. “It’s time.”
Mallory shrugged as if to say, You’re the skipper, and motioned to one of the ’Cats stationed near another panel. “Bring her up, Tikker!”
The sable-furred ’Cat with a shiny brass tube in his ear nodded and advanced a small lever. Immediately, the noise increased and the paddlelike object whirred even faster, redoubling the gale of wind and noxious fumes. Jenks began to feel a little ill. Sandra coughed violently and patted Captain Reddy on the arm. Matt looked at her and nodded, noting Jenks’s expression as well. He patted Mallory, and when he got his attention, he made a “cut it” gesture.
Tikker noticed and backed the throttle down until the engine finally wheezed and died. The sudden, relative silence was overwhelming.
“Mr. Mallory, you’re going to choke all your workers,” Matt said with a grin. Ben looked around. If anything but excitement made him feel light-headed, it didn’t show.
“Well, yes, sir,” he said, beaming, “but it works! The damn thing works! Uh, begging your pardon.” He glanced at Jenks and his euphoria slipped a notch. “Yeah, it stinks, I guess, but we’ve been trying to keep things under wraps.”
“I know. That’s over now.” Matt clapped Ben on his good shoulder and nodded congratulations to the others. “Besides, it looks like we’ll be ready for flight testing soon and there’s no way to keep that a secret. I think it’s time Commodore Jenks, at least, sees what we’re up to.”
Jenks finally surrendered to a coughing fit of his own, but when he composed himself, he pointed at the engine. “What is that thing?” he asked. “Some sort of weapon?”
“Not by itself,” hedged one of the other workers who’d joined the group. He was a former Mahan machinist’s mate named “Miami” Tindal.
Tikker stepped closer. “We put it on a plane, and it’ll be a weapon,” he said excitedly. A lot of Lemurians acted uncomfortable around the Imperials and were hesitant to speak to them. Tikker never seemed uncomfortable talking to anyone.
“What’s a ‘plane’?” Jenks asked.
Matt looked at Ben. “If you and… Captain Tikker would accompany us?” He paused, his amused, understanding eyes on Perry. “You as well, Commander Brister.”
Workers raised awnings to vent the exhaust while together, the growing entourage returned to the larger, open shed. There they showed Jenks an array of ungainly contraptions. Some were mere skeletons, made from laminated bamboo strips, cannibalized even before they were complete. A couple had a kind of taut fabric stretched across their bones to which some kind of sealant or glue had been applied. One, the nearest to the shop, rested on a cart or truck much like the earlier gun tubes. This one not only appeared almost finished, but was painted a medium dark blue. There were darker blue roundels-significant devices of some kind, Jenks was sure-in several places, with large white stars and small red dots painted within them.
“So this is it?” Matt asked appreciatively. It didn’t look much like the NC craft he remembered seeing pictures of. If anything, it looked like a miniature PBY. The fuselage/hull form was virtually identical, except there was a single open-air cockpit behind a slip of salvaged Plexiglas where the flight deck would have been. Another open cockpit was positioned halfway to the tail, where the PBY had possessed a pair of observation blisters. The large single wing was supported by an arrangement of struts instead of being attached to the fuselage by a faired compartment. It was easy to see the motor would go in the empty space between the wing and fuselage-with the prop spinning mere feet behind the pilot’s head.
“What about wing floats?” Matt asked. By the tone of his voice, he was reviving an old argument.
“They’ll be cranked down mechanically by the observer/mechanic in the aft cockpit.” Ben looked a little sheepish. “I know you wanted to keep it simple, Skipper, but this is a lot simpler than putting fixed floats on a lower wing. Not to mention we don’t have to make those lower wings.” He gestured at one of the incomplete skeletons. “This way she’ll be lighter, faster, more maneuverable, and honestly, we should be able to put her down on rougher seas. With that bottom wing so close to the water, I was really worried about that.”
“That’s fine, Ben. I told you, when it comes to flying you’re the boss, and your arguments do have merit. I just want to make sure the things aren’t overly complicated. Like the ships, I want a lot of good ones, not a few of the best.”
“I agree, sir. But with this design, I think we get a little of both.”
Jenks interrupted. “Flying… you mean to say that thing will. .. fly?”
“Hopefully.” Matt nodded toward a large heap of twisted wreckage piled in the space between the two buildings. It was all that remained of the crashed PBY. “That one did.”
“Not very well,” Jenks observed skeptically, “if its present condition is any indication. And that one is metal. Why not these new ones?”
“You’d be amazed how well it flew,” Matt answered wistfully, “and for how long. But our enemy managed to knock it down. Do you think you could shoot down a flying target?”
Jenks didn’t answer.
“Anyway, the metal it was made of is called aluminum. It came from our old world, and I don’t know when or if we’ll ever be able to make it here. We’re having enough trouble with iron. When we get that sorted out, we’ll try steel-besides what we’re salvaging from the enemy ship. I’m afraid the lizards are probably ahead of us there… . Anyway, once we get real steel, and plenty of it, you’ll be amazed at what we can do.”
Sandra pulled him down to whisper in his ear and Matt’s face became grim, but he nodded. He straightened and looked Jenks in the eye.
“Now we’re going to show you something else,” he said. “So far, you probably haven’t seen anything that would assure you we aren’t a threat to your empire.”
“Quite the contrary, Captain,” Jenks answered honestly. “I could even argue that what I have seen here today proves you are a threat that should be quashed before you reach your stride, as it were.” There was no hostility in Jenks’s tone, only a dispassionate statement of fact.
“Very well. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll show you something that, up until now, we’ve been willing to kill your spies, if necessary, to keep them from seeing. I guess you could call it an industrial achievement of sorts”-he waved around-“but not like these others. Mainly, it’s an admission of vulnerability, I guess, more than anything.” His green eyes turned cold. “Something I damn sure wouldn’t show you if I was trying to intimidate you with our power. That alone should convince you we mean you no harm.”
“Does this have to do with your mysterious iron-hulled steamer you’ve been hiding from us since we arrived?” Jenks asked quietly.
“Follow me,” was all Matt said.
The group gathered on the dock overlooking the old shipyard basin. Oily brown water coiled with tendrils of iridescent purple and blue lapped gently against the old fitting-out pier. It was quiet where they stood, although considerable activity bustled nearby. Four of the great Homes had been flooded down across the mouth of the inlet in two ranks. Work was under way to seal the gaps between them, fore and aft, so there would ultimately be a pair of continuous walls from land to land.
A single “wall” was the customary dry-dock technique Lemurians had always used to build their great ships in the first place. Inspired by that, and realizing the need for a permanent dry dock, Spanky and Perry had designed one. It was a hard sell at first, since the effort required Walker to remain on the bottom even longer. Also, even though he helped design the dry dock, Brister had made a reluctant but strong argument against taking labor and resources away from construction of the new Allied fleet. It was actually easier, he’d reasoned, to build entirely new ships than it would be to fix Walker. He’d been in favor of using the Lemurian method to refloat the ship-and then only so they could stabilize her and prevent further deterioration. Perhaps someday they could attempt repairs. In the meantime, they should concentrate all their efforts on the new construction. As for the dry dock, it would certainly be a useful convenience, but one they could postpone.
Spanky argued that a permanent dry dock was essential, not only to refloat Walker -and do it right-but because the new construction Brister referred to would be much more prone to require repairs below the waterline than other ships the Lemurians built. He vividly remembered how difficult it had been to remove one of Mahan ’s propellers and install it on Walker. With the ravenous nature of the aquatic life on this different Earth, no underwater work could be performed without elaborate preparation. Besides, once they got her up, Spanky wasn’t ready to write Walker off. No one had any illusions that repairing the badly mauled destroyer would be an easy task;
