by Scott McKay
“Some of them think that,” she said. “Not all, though. We have pretty good relations with a lot of the Peace Party delegates at the Societam. But President Greene isn’t a fan at all.”
“You all are Territorialists, right?” he asked her.
“Correct. That has a lot to do with it. You’re either on the Peacies’ team or some of them want to tax and regulate you out of a living.”
“Well,” Mark said, “I’m going to guess the Thornes are a bit larger bite than President Greene can chew.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said. “But you haven’t told me a lot about yourself other than that you’re the best young racer in Ardenia.”
“Oh, not much to tell,” Mark said. “Growing up on a farm south of Willow Falls we didn’t quite have all this. My father died when I was ten and Mama moved us to town and put us all to work. She remarried well and she’s comfortable now, and all of us kids have managed to do just fine. If it makes you feel any better, none of us needed the Peace Party’s help to pull ourselves up from poverty.”
“That’s inspiring,” she said. “You and Samuel will get along well, I think.”
“I don’t get to ask exactly what this job opportunity is, do I?” he asked.
“I’d tell you, but Samuel was specific in his instructions,” she answered. “He wants to do it. We’re almost there.”
The sedan followed the road as it veered left along the lakeshore, and then a few miles later it departed from the shore up a hill. After a few hundred yards past a thick grove of Blood Oak trees, the road took a tight left turn and then straightened, and Mark saw what could only be described as the most grandiose castle he’d ever seen.
“By the Saints!” he exclaimed as the sedan neared the estate.
Castle Thorne was something he’d heard about but never seen, not even in a photograph. It was a gargantuan sandstone structure, seven stories tall not counting its several towers, with decorative terracotta tiles along its façade, and huge stained-glass windows all along its eastern and northern walls that Mark could see. It featured a midnight blue slate roof setting off against the tan walls, and a massive steel-and-glass cupola sat atop its south-facing lakeside wall. As the sedan drove along the path into the estate Mark could see manicured gardens with huge decorative fountains every ten yards that circulated water through a maze of statues and topiaries. It all was bracketed by huge Blood Oaks in straight lines on all sides.
The sedan passed under a portico on the north wall of the manor and into a courtyard, and as Mark exited the vehicle he craned his neck to see the tops of its huge towers--as high as eleven floors, to the best of his estimation.
“How many rooms does this place have, anyway?” he asked Veronica.
“One hundred seventy,” she said. “Not counting the lakehouse and the other outbuildings.”
“And how many people live here?”
“Counting the staff, forty-nine. Another fifty or so live off-premises.”
“Not counting the staff, how many?”
“Eighteen.”
“Wow,” was all he could say.
A butler appeared and ushered them into a grand foyer with huge windows overlooking the Great Mountain Lake, a body of water so big it stretched to the horizon, even despite the massive peaks Mark knew ringed it on three sides. In the distance on the left was the city of Alvedorne astride the lakeshore, its lights beginning to glimmer against the darkening sky. The room was appointed with damask wallcoverings in a deep red set off against oak mouldings, with a fireplace large enough to fit a car along the left wall. It had the feel of a living room rather than a foyer, with chairs and sofas arranged in several box seating patterns affording the magnificent view of the lake. Mark mused that this one room had more living area than the house he’d grown up in.
“This way, Mark,” said Veronica, leading him to a hallway to his right. A few steps later they were in a large alcove containing an elevator large enough to fit twenty people.
As they ascended to the seventh floor, she smiled at him. “I think you and my brother really will get along,” she said.
“I hope you’re right,” Mark responded. “All he’s got to do is tell me I can move in here, and I’m his buddy for life.”
She giggled.
The elevator stopped, and an attendant swung open its doors. Mark stepped out into the most gorgeous room he had ever seen.
It was a parlor, and its walls were covered in blue velvet stitched in intricate floral patterns, with square columns set into the wall every few feet in white granite. Mounted on each was an electric lamp bathing the room in a soft white light setting off against the gathering dusk on the lake, which was visible through a series of floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. Its oak-paneled floors were covered in some sort of resin giving them a stone-smooth finish, and elaborate woven rugs dotted areas of the floor where sofas and chairs were arranged. Another giant fireplace poured out light and heat from the right-side wall. Mark saw to his right a grand piano near the far corner of the room. The wall behind him was covered floor to ceiling in bookshelves, and several reading tables were spaced along its length.
“Hi there, Mark,” said a tall dark-haired man of about thirty-five in a gray wool gabardine suit, approaching him from his left. “I’m Samuel Thorne. I take it your trip was enjoyable?”
“Yes, it was, sir,” he said, extending his hand to meet Samuel’s in a firm grip. “Veronica has been most kind and the accommodations and scenery have been truly first-class. This is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen, by the way.”
“It really is nice,” Samuel said. “My great grandfather built the place. Took him seventeen years to finish it, and then my grandfather added on as soon as old Arthur died. We’ve just tried to keep it up since then.”
“I don’t know how you can stay anywhere else,” Mark said. “I think I’d be spoiled rotten if I grew up here.”
“You get used to it,” Samuel said, “but we’re all very careful not to take it for granted. We’re fortunate in ways others aren’t, but that carries a lot of responsibility with it.”
“Veronica’s told me about all the different companies you have and how many people make a living as a result,” Mark said, “and she’s mentioned a little about the charitable work you do. It’s impressive.”
“My sister Agatha, who’s about your age, heads our charitable foundation,” Samuel said. “She lives in town. You’ll meet her tomorrow, I think.”
Veronica nodded.
Samuel directed Mark to sit on a giant sofa facing the fireplace, while he sat in a luxurious chair to Mark’s right. Veronica descended onto a loveseat to his left. A butler arrived with a tray of cocktails for the three.
“They’re whisky naturals,” Samuel said. “A little something that we imported from our old-money friends in the Morgan Valley.”
Mark smiled. He knew there was a rivalry between the landholders along the Morgan toward its mouth, and particularly just upriver from the capital at Principia, and the Thornes. In fact, that rivalry had played a part in the split of the New Enterprise Party ten years earlier, which had paved the way for the Peace Party to assume control of the Parliament and dominate Ardenian politics ever since. The Morgan Valley barons looked upon the Thornes as upstart interlopers despite the fact they were now on their fourth generation of near-immeasurable wealth, while the Thornes saw the Morgan Valley blue bloods as wastrels and layabouts existing on past commercial success. From his slight exposure to both sides of the rivalry, Mark knew both criticisms were rubbish.
Mark had tasted the delicious upper-class cocktail before, but he couldn’t say what was in it. So, he asked.
“It’s Beacon Point’s Finest, mixed with dry vermouth and a dash of bitters, shaken with cherry pulp,” Veronica said. “But when we’re entertaining in large numbers here, we’ll experiment with lemon, orange or even blackberry to give it a variety of flavors.”
“Consider me refreshed,” Mark said. “I could drink these a
ll night, though I promise not to.”
Samuel laughed. “Veronica,” he said, “you were right. I like this guy.”
“Yes, you were,” Mark agreed. “I like him back.”
The conversation continued with various items of small talk, and then the butler returned to inform them that dinner was ready in the “small” dining room. Mark then followed his hosts down a hallway into a cavernous chamber with a table that could easily accommodate thirty guests. Tonight they would use only three seats at one end.
“This is the small dining room?” Mark asked. “How many people can the large dining room hold?”
“Three hundred fifty,” Veronica answered, matter-of-factly.
“Oh.”
As they sat, seven courses of the most fabulous meal Mark had ever consumed made their way to the table one by one. By the time the entrée was served, a roasted rack of lamb encrusted in herbs and garlic, Mark had completely lost his composure.
“Guys,” he said, “you’ll never get rid of me now. You’re going to have to find a daughter or a niece or somebody to marry me to, or something, because I want in this family and I’m not sure I can take no for an answer.”
Samuel laughed so hard he could barely breathe, and Veronica smiled knowingly.
Finally, when dinner was over, Veronica made her excuses and Samuel took Mark into the study, pouring him a brandy as the two reclined on opposing couches.
“All right,” he said, “I’m going to stop with the pleasantries and tell you why you’re here.”
Mark had been anxious for this all day, but he’d almost forgotten the purpose of the trip due to the grand hospitality of Castle Thorne.
“Your letter said something about aviation,” Mark noted, “and going really fast.”
“It did. What do you know about flying?”
“Very little,” Mark said. “I flew on Justice about a year ago on the Principia-to-Alvedorne run. That was a noteworthy experience. But it didn’t teach me a lot about airships other than you get in and sit down and a few hours later you’re back on the ground where you wanted to go.”
“Well, this isn’t about airships.”
“There’s aviation beyond airships?”
“Yes, there is.”
Mark was particularly interested now. Especially when Samuel got up and brought over a large wooden box from a credenza on the side wall and laid it down on the coffee table between the two couches. He opened the box by the lid and flipped open a latch, which allowed its walls to lay flat. On display was a model of something Mark didn’t recognize.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“We’re calling it an airfighter,” Samuel said, “but a more general and more descriptive term for it is a biplane. So called because of the two wings top and bottom.”
“Ahhh,” Mark said. “So, the pilot sits here in this cockpit and…”
He trailed off.
“How does it fly?”
“The propeller turns, and it pushes the plane forward,” Samuel said, “and the forward movement drives air under the wings to provide lift. The movable fin on the tail aids in steering.”
“And this works?”
“We successfully tested a prototype one month ago. It took off, reached an altitude of 1,000 feet and then landed safely.”
“You’re calling it an airfighter,” Mark said. “It’s a military weapon?”
“It’s that at the moment, yes,” Samuel said. “Or at least it will be when testing and quality control is complete. Eventually, as this technology is perfected, we’ll use more advanced designs to move on to larger aircraft that could displace the airship for passenger and cargo transport.”
Mark nodded. “How fast does this thing go?”
“Top speed so far is 87 miles per hour,” said Samuel. “As we develop it, we expect to well more than double that.”
“Faster than an airship, for sure,” Mark said.
There was a pause, as Mark continued gawking at the model.
“And this has to do with me--how?” he asked.
“We want to teach you how to fly it, and then we want you to be the test pilot as we perfect it,” Samuel said. “And when we use these machines to create an air force within the military, we’ll want you to lead it.”
“You want me to go into the military?” Mark said. “I’ve been in two fights my whole life and lost both of them.”
“It wouldn’t really be like being in the cavalry or infantry,” said Samuel. “You fly above the enemy, and you’d drop explosives on them or strafe them with a chain gun.”
“You’re going to put chain guns on this thing?” Mark said. “Sounds deadly.”
“Definitely,” Samuel said. “It’s the kind of innovation that would make a certain adversary give up trying to make war against Ardenia.”
“That would sure be nice,” said Mark.
“We’d pay you well,” Samuel pressed. “Three thousand decirans per month, guaranteed. Plus, a stock option on whatever commercial spinoffs this product development generates.”
Mark did some quick math in his head, with a goal in mind. He and Horace had worked out what it would cost to buy back the old Bradbury farm, plus some extra land from the neighbors, and turn the place into a cattle ranch. Horace was convinced the reason their father had such a rough time of it as a farmer was that the land was simply not suited to wheat. Cattle, Horace figured based on a study of the successful agricultural interests in the upper Morgan Valley, would offer a significant return on that investment. All the Bradbury kids wanted to get the family’s property back, though it would probably fall to Horace and Mark to front the money for the purchase, and James had said he would move home from Port Adler to run the farm if they did in fact pull the trigger.
They needed about twenty thousand decirans to make it happen. Mark wanted to do it, but he didn’t want to pour his last dime into the investment. This opportunity would get him to the point where he could soon cover his half of it.
“That’s a hell of an offer,” Mark said. “But why me? I’m not a pilot.”
“Yes, you are,” Samuel said. “In fact, you’re just about the best in the world--being a race car driver. We’re looking for a skill set nobody on this planet has right now. This is a machine only a few people have even seen, so mastering it is something we’d only entrust to the best of the best. You have the hand-eye coordination, the nerves and composure and the stamina necessary to fly this thing.”
Mark grunted.
“Well, it seems I’m between race teams at the moment,” he said, “so if I were to take you up on this, now would be the time to do it.”
He sipped his brandy and looked at Samuel, who mirrored his actions.
“What’s the obstacle?” asked Samuel.
“The military piece,” Mark said. “My brother James just finished his five years in the cavalry. He seemed to like it okay, though he never had much to say about it. He was stationed at Fort Murtaugh; he said he never even saw an Udar the whole time.”
“You never even considered it,” Samuel observed.
“Heck, no,” said Mark. “By the time I would or could have, I was driving race cars. Who leaves race cars to go get shot at?”
“It’s a fair point,” Samuel said, chuckling as he finished his glass.
Then Samuel reached for the bottle to pour a second drink. His eyes lit up with a proposal.
“I’ll tell you what,” he offered. “We’ll leave the military option open, because when it’s time for this to develop into an air force, your role might just be as a trainer of pilots. In that case you’re just a military contractor making a tidy fortune doing that.”
“Not a bad option,” said Mark.
“Or maybe you do for this machine what Sebastian Cross did for the airship,” Samuel mused.
“You want me to fly around the world?” Mark asked.
“It worked pretty well for him.”
“That it did.”
Mark finished
his brandy and refused a second glass when Samuel offered.
“All right,” he said. “I’m in. I just hope I don’t crash the thing on my first trip.”
With an early morning planned, the two new friends parted ways and a butler showed Mark to his room, which was bigger than his entire apartment back home. He noted the intoxicating view of the lake and the brightly lit city of Alvedorne out of the bedroom window…just before he crashed on the bed and went right to sleep.
And not long after dawn the next morning, a beaming Mark found himself driving that Centennial Model D, with Samuel navigating from the passenger seat, as they hurtled south into town.
Thorne Technology Group’s facility, located on the northeast side of Alvedorne, was something more akin to a campus than a factory. Mark noticed a huge car-park filled with motor sedans and other automobiles on their way in, and remarked that it was quite something how many of the employees could afford cars; in Willow Falls, the streets were filled with horses and pedestrians, not to mention trolley cars, and while motorcars weren’t exactly rare, they certainly weren’t this common.
“Alvedorne is a very prosperous city,” said Samuel. “And we pay our folks well. We can afford to. It enables us to draw the best talent available, and the effect of having lots of people with money to spend on the local economy here is fantastic. Spins off terrific opportunities for everybody.”
“Bet it costs a fortune to buy a house, though,” Mark said.
“The market is definitely strong. But Alvedorne has a building boom going on, and new houses which aren’t that expensive are coming on the market all the time, particularly on the east side of town. And with the highways we’re building ringing the city, you can live on the outskirts and drive into downtown in less time than people are spending walking to work in other places.”
It was nothing Mark was used to.
Samuel directed Mark to a dedicated parking area near the main building, and the two walked through the front door of a six-story glass-and-steel behemoth like he’d never seen before.
“Quite a modern-looking building,” he remarked. “Reminds me of the aerodrome in Principia.”
