The Dark Design

"Forty-five degrees, Nikitin," Jill said. "Full speed."

The radar operator reported that the helicopter was on his scope. It was going south and downward at a maximum velocity at a forty-five degree angle to the horizontal.

By then, the deck of the control room was tilted downward. The others hastened to strap themselves into chairs bolted to the deck. Jill took a seat by Nikitin. She would like to have taken over the pilot's chair, but even now protocol forbade that. However, it did not matter that she was not at the controls. The wild Russian would get the dirigible down as swiftly as she could. Her job would be to make sure that he did not overdo it.

"If Thorn has a transmitter," Cyrano said, "he can use it now. We'll never make it."

Though he was pale and wide-eyed, he smiled at her.

Jill looked from Cyrano to the control panel indicators. The ship was parallel to the Valley, so there was no problem about clearing the mountain tops. The Valley looked narrow, but it was rapidly broadening. There were some lights down there, bonfires around which would be sentinels or late-night revellers. The rain clouds had dissipated swiftly, as they almost always did. The star-packed skies cast a pale light into the space between the two mountains. Was anybody down there looking up at them? If so, they must wonder what this huge object was and why it was coming down so swiftly.

Not that it was going fast enough to suit her.

Cyrano was right. If Thorn did intend to set off a bomb, he would be doing it now. Unless... unless he would be willing to wait until the ship had landed. After all, he had spared Graves, and he could have killed the other two guards.

Keeping an eye on the panel radar-scopes, she called the hangar bay.

Szentes answered.

"We were all in our quarters, "he said. "There's no guard posted in the bay."

"I know," she said. "Just tell me ... quickly ....hat hap­pened?"

"Thorn stuck his head in the door. He pointed a pistol at us. Then he ripped off the intercom, and he told us that he was going to close the door. He said he had a bomb rigged to explode if the door was opened. Then he shut it. We didn't know if we should believe him, but no one was willing to find out if he was lying or not. Then Officer Katamura opened the door. There wasn't any bomb; Thorn had lied. I'm sorry, Captain."

"You did what you should have done."

She told the radio operator to transmit their situation to the Mark Twain.

At 915 meters, a little over 3000 feet, she ordered Nikitin to tilt the propellers to give the ship an upward thrust. Also, to raise the nose by three degrees. The inertia would keep them diving despite the braking effect of the propellers. In a minute she would order the nose raised by ten degrees. This would flatten out the dive even more.

What to do when the ship straightened out at about 915 meters or somewhat over 3000 feet? If it leveled at that altitude. She was really cutting it close, though she knew the capabilities of the Parseval almost as well as she knew hers.

Should she land the ship? There was no way to moor it, and the hydrogen would have to be valved off so that it would not rise as the crew abandoned it. Otherwise, some of the men would not get off in time, and they would be carried away.

But what if Thorn had no transmitter, what if there was no bomb? The airship would be lost for no reason.

"Too fast! Too fast!" Nikitin said.

Jill was already leaning forward to set the ballast switch for a discharge of 1000 kilograms of water. She punched the button, and a few seconds later the ship rose abruptly.

"Sorry, Nikitin," .she murmured. "There wasn't any time to waste."

Radar indicated that the helicopter was hovering north of them at 300 meters altitude. Was Thorn waiting to see what they would do? If so, he did not intend to set off the bomb if they crash-landed or abandoned the ship.

What was she to do? The thought of either alternative made her grind her teeth. She could not bear the idea of wrecking or losing this beauty. The last airship.

The safety of the crew, however, had to come first.

"One hundred and fifty-two meters altitude," Nikitin said.

The propellers were turned fully upward and biting into the air at full speed. The mountains loomed on both sides; The River sparkled in starlight on the port; the plains ran smoothly beneath them.

There were dwellings below, frail bamboo structures filled with people, most of whom would be sleeping. If the dirigible landed on the plain, it would crush hundreds. If it caught fire, it would burn many more.

Jill ordered Nikitin to steer it over The River.

What to do?

Of the people along The River who had to stay awake or who wanted to, a few had looked into the white-and-black-spangled sky. These saw two silhouetted objects, one much larger than the other. The smaller one was composed of two spheres, one below the other, the larger of the spheres above the other. The greater object was long and shaped like a fat cigar.

They were moving toward each other, the smaller emitting a faint light from the lower sphere, the other sending out bright beams. One of these beams began to go on and off in measured lengths of time.

Suddenly, the larger object dipped its nose, and it came down swiftly. As it neared the ground, it emitted a strange noise.

Many did not recognize the shape of either object. They had never seen a balloon or a dirigible. Some had lived when balloons were not unknown, though many of these had only seen illustrations or photographs of them. But most of this group had never seen or heard of an airship except in illustrations of what might be expected in the future.

A very small minority recognized the larger, now diving, object as a dirigible.

Whatever their knowledge, many ran to wake up their mates and friends or to sound a general alarm.

By then some had seen the helicopter, and this caused even more curiosity and apprehension.

Drums began to beat; people, to shout. Everybody was awake by then, and the dwellings were emptied. All looked up and wondered.

The questions and the shouts became one great cry as one of the flying objects burst into flame. They screamed as it plunged, bright orange fire trailing like the glory of a falling angel.

70

Tai-Peng wore only a garment of irontree leaves and vine blossoms. A cup of wine in his left hand, he paced back and forth, extemporizing poems with the ease of water flowing down a hill. A poem would tumble out in the court speech of the Tang dynasty, sounding to non-Chinese like dice clicking in a cup. Then he would translate it into the local Esperanto dialect.

Much of the sublety and reference were lost in the mutation, but enough was retained to move his listeners to laughter and tears.

Tai-Peng's woman, Wen-Chun, softly played on a bamboo flute. Though his voice was usually loud and screeching, it was subdued for the occasion. In Esperanto it was almost as melodious as the flute. He wore only a garment made for the occasion, red-green-striped leaves and red-white-blue-striped blossoms. These fluttered as he walked back and forth like a great cat in a cage.

He was tall for a man of his race and time, the eighth century a.d. , lithe yet broad shouldered and heavily muscled. His long hair shone in the late noon sun; it glittered like a dark jade mirror. His eyes were large and pale green, blazing, a hungry-but wounded- tiger's.

Though he was a descendant of an emperor by a concubine, he was nine generations removed. His immediate family had been thieves and murderers. Some of his grandparents were of the hill tribes, and it was these wild people who had bequeathed him the fierce green eyes.