Anti-Ice

Phaeton. But these would not be driven by a human pilot; instead an adaptation of my navigation table, with its gyroscopic guidance system, could serve to guide the rocket to its landing point.”

I was mystified. “But what would be the purpose of these manless Phaetons? What would emerge after they landed?” I wondered vaguely if they would carry ammunition or food in to the beleaguered Parisians, but Traveller was shaking his head.

“No, Ned; you don’t see it yet. And I don’t blame you, for it takes an imagination of a particular devilishness.

“The rocket boat does not land. It is allowed to crash into the earth, in the manner of artillery shells. When it does so a Dewar of anti-ice shatters; the anti-ice spills out into the heat of the earth, and a monstrous explosion ensues.”

He spread his arms wide and turned about, as if drunk. “You have to admit there is a certain grandeur in the concept,” he said. “From my own garden, here, I would be able to launch a shell which would reach across the Channel, all the way to Paris, and fell the pride of Prussia with one hammer blow—”

“No!”

Traveller and Pocket stared at me.

A thousand emotions coursed through my poor heart. The conflicting images of Francoise warred in me: the sweet face which had become, during our perilous voyage around the Moon, a talisman to me, a symbol of hope and the future, of all to which I would return; but underlying it, as the skull underlies the fairest visage, was the specter of the franc-tireur, a totem of all those who would unleash war and death on the fragile bowl of Earth I had watched from above the air.

How my mind reeled with these perceptions! And how far I’d come from the simple lad who had boarded the Phaeton barely three months earlier!

My course of action, I found, was decided.

Scarcely a second had passed since my single syllable of protest. Without thinking further I turned on my heels and ran toward the covered form of the Phaeton. I heard Traveller’s call after me and his slow footsteps in pursuit, but the craft filled my attention.

I had to reach Paris—I had to confront Francoise, to save her if I could, to deflect the British bombs—and to do that I would travel there by the fastest means possible—at the controls of the Phaeton!

13 THE BALLOON PILOT

The Smoking Cabin had been lovingly restored. The various scuffs and rents left in the upholstered walls by our weeks of incarceration had all been invisibly repaired, and I offered up a quick, silent prayer that the craft’s motive systems were in as pristine a condition.

I scrambled up a rope ladder to the Bridge. For a moment I stood there returning the gaze of the serried ranks of instrument dials, as unsure as some barbarian entering a religious shrine.

But I shook away this mood and clambered without further delay into Traveller’s couch.

As the soft upholstery took my weight some hidden switch was activated, and the electric lamps within each instrument sparked to life. I fancied I heard a hissing, as pipes bore the increasing pressure of the ship’s various hydraulic systems.

Like some huge animal the craft was coming alive to my touch.

I lay in that couch and surveyed the instrument constellation with dismay. But I had seen Traveller fly this craft from the Moon to the Earth, and it had looked simple enough; surely I would have no trouble with a minor jaunt across the English Channel!

With renewed determination I turned to the control levers beside the couch. The levers terminated in handles of molded rubber which were a little too large for my hands. Fixed on the handles were light levers of steel; these, I recalled, controlled the ignition and force of the Phaeton’s rocket motors.

As my hands closed around the handles I felt sweat pool in my palms.

I squeezed at the steel levers.

The rockets shouted their awakening. A huge shuddering beset the craft.

“Ned!”

Traveller was climbing with some difficulty through the hatch from the Smoking Cabin. He had lost his hat and his hair lay in white sheets about his forehead. He was breathing hard and sweat trickled over his platinum nose; and the glare he fixed on me was as intense as sunlight.

“Don’t try to stop me, Traveller!”

“Ned.” Now he stood on the deck, towering over me. With a voice whose quietness defeated the racket of the motors he said: “Get out of my couch.”

“You told me what Gladstone’s plans are. As a decent Englishman I cannot stand by and allow such an atrocity to proceed unchallenged. I intend to fly to France and—”

“And what?” Now he leaned over me, the sweat pooling under his deep eyes. “What then, Ned? Will you use the Phaeton to swat Gladstone’s shells from the air? Think it through, damn it; what can you possibly achieve save your own death in the resulting holocaust?”

I stuck out my chin and said, “But at least I may be able to warn the authorities—”

“What authorities? Ned, at this moment nobody knows who the authorities are! And as for the Prussians —”

“At least the warning will be delivered. And I may rescue a few souls from the devastation which is to come, and so in turn recover a little of the lost honor of England.”

His mouth worked; then some of the anger seemed to seep out of him. “Ned, you’re a fool, but I suppose there are worse ways to throw away your life… And, of course, there is your Francoise.”

I glared, as if daring him to mock me. “Mademoiselle Michelet has become a symbol to me of all those unfortunates who have become caught up in this war. If she lives still aboard the stolen land liner I pledge to rescue her—or to die in the attempt!”

“Oh, you damn idiot. I’ll give you good odds that the blessed woman is precisely where she wants to be: that she’ll shoot you down as you approach her, with your face split into the grin of a fool.” He glared harder at me, and something of that hidden perceptiveness about folk which I’d discerned in him earlier shone through his stare. “Ah, but that doesn’t matter. Does it? It’s not the thought of the rescue that’s exercising you so. You have to know the truth about your Francoise—”

I resented this insight into my soul. “Leave me be, Traveller! I won’t be stopped.”

“Ned—” Traveller reached out uncertain hands. “You cannot fly the ship. You would destroy her even before gaining the air! Why, you did not even close the hatch before trying to launch the craft.”

“Traveller, don’t try to stop me!—I suggest you return to your friend the Prime Minister, and, in return for the money he has promised you, proceed to build him his Angels of Death.”

A frown lengthened the lines in his brow.

I felt a pang of shame, but I dismissed it. “Sir Josiah, I will grant you ten seconds to get off the craft. Then I leave for France.”

With a calmness that shone through his shouted words he replied: “I disregard your ten seconds. I have no intention of leaving the ship; I cannot allow you to destroy the Phaeton.”

“Then we are at an impasse. Must I eject you bodily?” He sighed deeply, buried his face for a moment in his cupped hands; then lifted his head to face me. “That will not be necessary, Ned; for I see you are determined to go. And therefore I have no option but to accompany you.”

“What?”

“I will fly the ship. Now, kindly vacate my couch so that we may proceed—”

I studied him with the deepest suspicion, but on his long face I could read only a new determination. “Traveller, why would you do that? Why should I not suspect you of some trickery?”