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Meanwhile, the production of black gunpowder, bombs and rocket cases had started. The preliminaries of making sulphuric acid, and then getting enough zinc with which the acid could react to form hydrogen, had been passed. Iron, which also could have been used, seemed to be absent even in minute quantities. It was not altogether absent, of course, since it existed in many rocks. But the materials, labour and time needed to extract it were enormous—prohibitive, as far as Shegnif was concerned. Ulysses had trained a team to look for zinc, and within ten days a man had found it in the form of sphalerite. This sulphide ore was roasted to form the oxide, which was mixed with compressed charcoal and heated to twelve hundred degrees centigrade (or six hundred grengzhuyn). The zinc vapour was condensed outside the reaction chamber and then cast into spelter blocks. Using a low temperature process, the sulphide was roasted to the sulphate, later extracted with water. Zinc metal was then obtained by electrolysis, using the vegetable batteries.
The skin of the blimp was formed from the i
The main problem was the motor. There was not enough iron to make even one motor nor any bauxite available to make aluminium nor any metals that could be substituted. The only propulsive power was the vegetable muscle-motor used to drive the cars, trucks and boats. Ulysses tried the water in a ma
A solution to the problem came from Fabum, a human overseer on a motor plantation. He sent in a formal suggestion to Ulysses. The paper was lost somewhere in the administrative jungle that had grown up around the embryo air force. Fabum got tired of waiting for a reply and succeeded in getting permission from his immediate Neshgai superior to make the experiment himself. He enclosed two automobile motors in a gondola and grew the muscle ends of the two motors together. The result was that the energy output was tripled, not just doubled. Four such gondolas, containing eight motors, could turn propellers to drive a blimp at twenty-five miles an hour in still air.
Fabum's boss then went directly to Ulysses (an act which got him several reprimands later on), and he told Ulysses what Fabum had done. Fabum was lucky in that his boss did not try to take all the credit, but there were honest and honourable Neshgai.
Of course, the addition of more motors, and thus more fuel, added to the weight. But the trip to the base-city of the Dhulhulikh, Ulysses estimated, would be helped by a tail wind all the way. Getting back was a different matter. If the blimps had to be abandoned and the return made on foot, so be it.
Shegnif, hearing the latest reports, was pleased. He gave Fabum his freedom, which meant that he still, in practice, was a slave. But he could live in better quarters and could make more money, if his employer cared to pay him more. And he did not have to ask permission to leave the immediate area.
The Grand Vizier was not at all worried about the limited range or the speed of the blimps. He had no plans for using them except on the perimeter of The Tree close to the Neshgai borders.
Three weeks later, the first blimp took its maiden voyage. The day was bright, and the wind was only six miles an hour. The flight took an hour with several circles over the palace so that the populace could see it. Then, on the way back to the hangar, the blimp dropped twenty thirty-pound bombs over a target, an old house. Only one bomb made a direct hit, but that was enough to blow it apart. And Ulysses told Shegnif that practice would improve their aim.
Nine more blimps were built while the crews were given their ground training. Ulysses complained again about the excess number of Neshgai officers and the consequent reduction in range and bomb capacity. Shegnif said that that did not matter.
There were more reports from scouts about the massing of giant ursoids and leopardoids, and the clashes between border patrols and small groups of enemy became more frequent. Ulysses did not understand why they had not made a large-scale raid before now. They certainly had enough perso
Three times, a lone winged man appeared over the airfield, just out of arrow range, and observed them. Four times, a bat-man flapped alongside a blimp in flight. Other than a few insulting gestures, they offered no harm.
By then, Ulysses had moved his headquarters from the palace—with Shegnifs permission—to the airfield. This was ten miles outside the city, and he could not afford the travel time back and forth. He used the radio plants to report to Shegnif twice daily, however.
Lusha was gone. Although detailed to Ulysses, she had been promised in marriage to a soldier stationed on the border. Weeping—although she was glad to be married to the man—she took her leave. Even Thebi, who could not have been blamed for being jealous of her, wept and kissed her and said she hoped they would see each other soon. Awina seemed glad that she was getting rid of one woman but she took up her sullen attitude toward Thebi as soon as Lusha was out of sight. Thebi, by now sure of her position, had begun treating Awina as if she were a slave girl. Awina took the indirect insults and offhanded treatment without replying in kind. Apparently, she did not want to endanger her relationship with Ulysses by displaying the violence she normally would have used against an insulter. But she was seething. Ulysses could tell that. So he had reprimanded Thebi, causing her to burst into tears and Awina to smile like a cat that had just eaten a stolen salmon.
Ulysses was working so late into the night and getting up so early, he wanted only to fall into bed when his day's work was done. He permitted no one into his bedroom, and so Awina gloated over this. Thebi did not protest that she was allowed little chance to serve him. She was still a slave, and, moreover, she was not that sure of him. He was an alien, despite his similarity to her people, and he had very strange ways of thinking and acting. But she let Ulysses know in several ways, some subtle and some not so subtle, that she was hurt.
He was getting tired of balancing the one female against the other. He just did not have the time for delicate relationships, and he wished, sometimes, that both would leave him alone. Though he could have sent both packing with a few words, he did not want to hurt them that much. Besides, he liked both of them, though in different ways. Awina was very quick and very intelligent. She was from a preliterate society, but she learned swiftly, and she was able to act as a very efficient secretary. Such duties were beyond Thebi. She was proficient in domestic activities, but anything outside taking care of a man or children did not interest her.
One day he took out all ten of the blimps and put them through some very demanding manoeuvres. The wind was a stiff fifteen miles an hour from the seacoast, and the big gasbags moved sluggishly when pushing against the wind. Once, two collided, and they tore the motor gondolas off each other. Immediately, they swung away from each other and were carried away by the wind. Ulysses gave the order over the radio for the gas to be let out to bring the craft to the ground. The crews should then walk to the field, which was about twenty miles away. He would radio orders for cars to be sent out to pick them up.