Up to the Sky in Ships

by A Bertram Chandler

  I emptied my magazine at the one who did not run. My last shot must have wounded him—even so, he was on me, and bore me down, his jaws at my throat. I tried to fight him off, but it was a losing struggle. He was strong. Then, suddenly, he collapsed on me —dead. By the light from my torch, which was still burning, I saw Susan standing over us. Her own torch was out. It had never been designed for use as a club.

  "Thanks," I said inadequately.

  She pulled the stinking carcass off me, helped me to my feet.

  I shone the beam of my torch around the storeroom, fearing further attack from the surviving dogs. They might well, I thought, be lurking behind the machines, gathering their courage for a fresh attack.

  Then, somehow, I became interested in the machines themselves. The only ones that I was able to identify were the Mannschenn Drive units—there was no mistaking that complexity of gleaming wheels that, even in rest, seemed to draw the eye down unimaginable vistas. Several of my bullets, I saw, had hit the nearer of the Drive Units. One bullet—there was no mistaking that bright, silvery splash of metal—had struck the rim of the main rotor a glancing blow.

  Suppose the wheel had turned, I thought. Suppose the wheel had turned.... Suppose that, somehow, a temporal field had been set up.... What would have happened? Nothing—according to widely publicized laboratory experiments. Or—to judge from the rumors one heard of other experiments that were given no publicity —quite a lot.

  The thought of what might have happened scared me. I blessed the technician who had set up the safety clamps tightly enough to hold the rotor immobile, even under the impact of a bullet.

  But ...

  I remembered the absurd entry in the ledger in that deserted office.

  Who had tightened those clamps?

  I've been writing this to pass the time for the remainder of the voyage. I have to pass the time somehow. Rayner the Leper — that's me. I'm in bad with the Old Man and the senior officers, and once that happens aboard any ship you might as well pack your bags. The Captain has not forgiven me —I don't think he ever will—for disturbing his sleep that night; the duty cadet sounded the General Alarm when he heard the shooting inside the spaceport buildings. All in all, I shan't be sorry to arrive at Port Austral. I've asked for a transfer and I pay off there.

  What really does hurt is the lack of any sympathy from Susan Willoughby. I think I'm entitled to it, but I'm not getting it. She had a long session with Welles and Caulfield, apparently, and thinks that she knows all about the Mannschenn Drive now. She thinks that if those clamps had not been tightened, if the main rotor had turned, she and I would have gone back in time, would have found ourselves in Port Weldon at the time of the evacuation of the planet —and that, she says, would have been material of a kind that comes once in a lifetime, if then.

  I raised the point of the impossibility of our returning to our own time—except by the slow way —and she said that it didn't matter, that good writing sells no matter when it's written. I pointed out that she had held the pistol on the technician while I tightened the clamps."

  "But," she said, "I can't remember it."

  "No," I said, "you can't—because it never happened. But it would have happened if I hadn't tightened those clamps.

  "So you admit it," she flared. "I'll never forgive you for it!" And that was that.

  When I first got to know her I had allowed myself to dream, to hope that a casual, shipboard acquaintanceship might develop into something more permanent.

  That's all over now —and all because I'm haunted by my own ghost!

  —It's back there on a planet in deep space. And I can't help wondering if I'll ever be tightening those clamps again—for another ship putting in for repairs. Most of all, I wonder if I'll be on it....

  A New Dimension

  NOT LEAST AMONG THE effects of the Australian Revolution was the sudden modernization of the art of warfare. In 1880 there were already in existence many weapons, or potential weapons, which, thanks to the conservatism of the admirals, generals and politicians, were either derided or completely ignored. There was, for example, the steam-operated Gatling cannon, with its rate of fire far higher than that of the hand-operated models. There was the Andrews Airship, a dirigible that flew successfully, with a crew of four, over New York in 1865. Quite fantastically its inventor, Dr. Solomon Andrews, was unable to obtain the backing of either military or commercial interests. (Today's readers, of course, will be familiar with the Andies, the small, unpowered airships that are now used only for sport and pleasure.)

  It was the Andrews Airship that added an extra dimension to warfare.

  Nonetheless it cannot be denied that chance played a great part in the history of our infant nation. Had it not been for the severe injuries sustained by Ned Kelly at the Second Battle of Glenrowan, as a result of which his days as a horseman were finished, it is unlikely that, even though he was an innovator, he would have taken the interest that he did in what many of his lieutenants referred to as "new-fangled contraptions."

  As it was, however, he took personal command of the first of the armored trains—although it is said that he wept openly when his quick-firing Gatling guns mowed down Colonel Sturrock's cavalry in the action just south of Wangaratta. He never took kindly to the painfully slow, armored traction engines, effective war vehicles though they were.

  But Francis Bannerman's salesman, representing both his employer and Solomon Andrews II (the son of the inventor), had no great difficulty in interesting him in the Aereon. One attractive feature was that the ship—or ships—could be manufactured locally. The gas cells would be made from varnished linen. There was plenty of light wood—or even bamboo—for the basket. The necessary cordage could soon be obtained from the Port Melbourne ship chandlers.

  With every ship constructed, however, a substantial royalty would have to be paid to Mr. Solomon Andrews in Perth Amboy. It is said that this factor almost persuaded Kelly not to go ahead with the deal, notwithstanding the substantial monetary contributions pouring in from Kelly sympathizers in the United States and elsewhere.

  The salesman played his trump card. If the deal were made regarding the Andrews Airship, then the Army of the Revolution could have, for no charge whatsoever, the complete specifications of Professor Lowe's mobile hydrogen gas generator, the device used for inflating the Northern observation balloons during the War Between the States.

  "What about an instructor?" asked Kelly, on the point of signing on the dotted line.

  "Surely you've a balloonist or two in your country, General," countered the salesman. "And don't forget that I'll be supplying all of old Dr. Andrews' records. Why, once you get the hang of it it'll be as easy as riding a horse!"

  For a moment—if we are to believe Kelly's own records of the war—it was touch and go. That reference to horses hit him where it hurt. And yet ... like riding a horse? Would it be like riding a horse? There would be skill required, great skill not unlike the skills of horsemanship. There would be speed, and the sensation of speed, and the wind in his hair and his beard.

  He signed.

  In essential details those early Andrews dirigibles differed little from today's racing models, although, of course, they were much larger. Positive buoyancy, however, was attained by the dumping of ballast; for negative buoyancy it was necessary to valve gas. Helium, as a lifting medium, was not yet dreamed of—but, apart from its flammability, hydrogen is superior. The battery-driven compressor, by means of which, in the modern Andy, lift is reduced, was still many years in the future.

  But there was the double "hull", the two side-by-side sausages. There was the intricate network of cordage from which depended the almost canoe-like basket. There was the rudder, mounted abaft the gasbags, with the control lines from it to a simple tiller. Just forward of the tiller and to one side was the inclinometer, no more than a pendulum and a graduated scale.

  In those days, however, there were no easily handled cylinders of helium gas. Instead there was th
e lead-lined wooden tank on wheels, in which were the shelves upon which the iron filings were spread. There were the carboys of undiluted sulphuric acid and the barrels of water and, from the tank itself, the pipe running first to the box-like purifier (in which a lime solution removed undesirable taints from the hydrogen), then to the cooler (in which the gas was bubbled through water), then to the slowly swelling balloons.

  It was a "Professor" Duval who became General Kelly's Chief Aeronaut.

  Duval, with free ballooning experience in both Europe and the USA, had come to Australia some weeks prior to the First Battle of Glenrowan (still referred to by the English as the Glenrowan Massacre), hoping to make money for himself by exhibition flights. With the outbreak of the Revolution, however, there was no great demand for such entertainment. The Francis Bannerman salesman knew of him, however, found him in his squalid lodgings in Melbourne, and persuaded him to enlist under the banner of the Harp and Southern Cross.

  His expertise was of great value in the construction of the first Aereon. He was inclined to sulk because there was no silk available for making the gasbags, but, said Kelly, if varnished linen had been good enough for Dr. Andrews it should be good enough for him. He refused, too, to have anything to do with Lowe's mobile hydrogen gas generator.

  "I'm an aeronaut, General!" he exclaimed, "not a chemist!"

  "How did ye fill yer balloons, then?" asked Kelly.

  "Even in Australia," said Duval, "almost every town has its gasworks."

  "An' am I to fight my battles, Mr. Duval, only in places where there's a gasworks handy?" Kelly asked rhetorically.

  "But ... but, General, do you mean to fight in that thing?"

  "What else?"

  "But I thought it was just for observation."

  "Who wants to observe when he can be doing something useful?"

  So it was a Mr. Brown, erstwhile chemist's assistant, who became what was, in effect, Chief of the Ground Staff. The men detailed to assist him hated the work.

  But Brown drilled them, and drilled them, and by the time that the first dirigible was completed the chemist was confident that, using two generators, inflation could be carried out in-less than six hours.

  Actually it was nearer to seven.

  Work was commenced at sunrise, at about 5:30 AM, and at 12:30 the double gasbag was taut-skinned, the sunlight reflected from the shiny brown surface. The bottom of the car, however, was resting on the ground, Duval having seen to it that a considerable weight of stones had been loaded into it. Fortunately there was no wind; the ground crew had yet to gain experience in handling an airship prior to lift-off in all conditions.

  Kelly emerged from the tent in which he had been lunching with his officers. He looked, Joe Byrne said later, as though he were dressed for a wedding. He was wearing a well-tailored green uniform, high-collared, double-breasted, with brightly gleaming brass buttons. There was more gold at his collar and on his sleeves, and the golden harp badge shone brightly on the band of his wide-brimmed green hat. His flared breeches were thrust into highly polished black boots.

  "All that was missing," said Byrne, "was a pair of golden spurs.... " But he was limping badly, lurching, almost. It must have spoiled the effect.

  Duval, too, was in uniform, one of his own design, based on that of a Hungarian Hussar officer. (It was the rig that he had always worn as a showman when making his free balloon ascents. He looked, said Byrne, like an organ grinder's monkey.) He was a little man, dwarfed by the giant, bearded Kelly.

  According to all accounts, despite the bravely upthrusting points of his waxed moustache, he looked scared. "But Ned," (Byrne again), "he looked like a boy on his way to tumble some fair colleen.... "

  While Brown, in his shabby, acid-spotted clothing, fussed around like an anxious mother hen, the two men clambered into the car—first Duval, then the General. Duval —who, after all, was an experienced balloonist—negotiated the network of suspension lines without great difficulty. The much larger Kelly had trouble. But he got through at last.

  Then an argument started, audible to all around the dirigible. Kelly, it was obvious, was insisting that he was in command for this maiden flight.

  "But, General," Duval was expostulating, "you're not a balloonist. I am. Am I not your Chief Aeronaut?"

  "Have ye ever flown one o' these things, before, Mr. Duval? Tell me the truth."

  "No, but.... "

  "Then just do as ye're told. Start heavin' out the rocks!"

  The little man obeyed while General Kelly stood in the after part of the car, his big right hand grasping the tiller. Brown was looking more and more worried. According to his calculations—and to those of Duval — there was enough lift in those two-hundred-foot-long sausages to carry five men of Kelly's weight aloft, all being well....

  Then the forward end of the car was lifting from the ground. There was a ragged cheer as men saw that the dirigible was gliding ahead, was lifting. She was airborne, gliding upwards at a shallow angle, with General Kelly standing tall and proud at the tiller. She was increasing speed through the air as she lifted. Something green fell from the car, fluttered slowly earthwards. It was the General's hat.

  But would she clear those tall eucalyptus trees? Men heard, faintly, Kelly roaring orders to Duval. More rocks were jettisoned and then the little man scampered aft to trim the ship further by the stern. She cleared the treetops with feet to spare.

  She was turning then, coming around in a great, lazy arc, still rising. When she returned over the camp she was all of a thousand feet high. "It ain't natural!" somebody was shouting. "It ain't natural! It's the Devil's own work!"

  "God made the laws of nature." said Brown, who, it seems, had his pious moments. "God made the laws of nature, and we're doing no more than to use what He gave us.... "

  The airship was no more than a speck in the northern sky, almost invisible in the glare of the sun, when she turned again. She was losing altitude slowly, gliding in at a shallow angle. Before long those with keen eyesight could see that Duval was now at the tiller and that Kelly was in the middle of the car, leaning outwards. He was holding something in his hands.

  In spite of Brown's protests somebody had lit a cooking fire, although it was some distance from the gas generators. Over it was a tripod, and hanging from this a cauldron in which was cooking a mutton stew for an evening meal for some of the men. The falling rock struck one leg of the tripod, which collapsed. Contents of the cauldron were scattered over the grass and into the fire.

  Everybody, except the men whose meal had been ruined, thought that it was very funny.

  Then, slowly, the ship settled, almost in exactly the same place from which she had lifted. Brown and his men took hold of the edges of the car and the suspension network, while others hurried to the scene with more rocks. It would not do to waste too much hydrogen to compensate for the loss of weight when the two aeronauts disembarked.

  Joe Byrne lounged up.

  "And so ye're goin' ter drop rocks on the English bastards, Ned?"

  "Not rocks, Joe," said the General. "Not rocks.... "

  At that time the only military explosive in general use was gunpowder. The bombshell, fired from muzzle-loading cannon, was a hollow ball filled with black powder and with a fuse ignited by the discharge. Nonetheless dynamite was in existence, although used only in mining operations. Fulminate of mercury and guncotton were both available.

  Until the Australian Revolution, Francis Bannerman in New York had dealt only in second-hand arms. Among his employees, however, were those who were sympathetic to the Australian rebels (as he was himself) and who, like Ned Kelly, were innovators. It could be argued, of course, that Kelly's use of body armor during his early career was a backward rather than a forward step—but had it not been for this protection it is probable that he would not have survived to become the founding father of the Australian Republic.

  There are fragmentary records of a meeting held between Francis Bannerman and his more imaginative s
alesmen in the offices of the Army & Navy Surplus Stores on Broadway, New York.

  One of the salesmen said, "The trouble with you, Frankie, is that you're selling the weapons of yesterday's war to fight today's battles."

  "As long as the customers pay, cash on the nail, why should I worry, Mick?"

  "Sure, Frankie, they're paying. But that's not the way for us to make real money."

  "Show me a better one."

  "Sell the customers the weapons of tomorrow's war to fight today's battles. We've a marvelous proving ground Down Under. There'll be observers from all the major powers. We'll buy the rights to construct the Andrews Airship from old Dr. Solomon Andrews' son. We'll encourage Dr. Gatling to do what he's always talking about—make a machine gun worked by a little steam engine instead of some poor bastard sweating his guts out turning a handle. We'll.... "

  "That airship," said Bannerman thoughtfully. "Would it carry guns? Could it lift one of those new-fangled Gatlings you're talking about, complete with ammunition and the steam engine and the coal to boil the boiler ...?"

  "The Steam Gatling," said the salesman, "will be an ideal weapon to fit aboard steamships and armored trains. But not aboard an airship. Apart from anything else there's the fire hazard.... "

  "So what'll your bold aeronauts be using, Mick? Bows and arrows?"

  "No, Frankie. Bombs."

  "Then, taking the words from your own mouth, what about the fire hazard? Somebody'll have to strike a match to light the bomb fuses before droppin 'em."

  "I've a man, Frankie, who's a mining engineer. He's used to working with dynamite. He's told me how a dynamite bomb could be made. There'll be the main charge and, sitting inside it in its own little cannister, what he calls the primer. Guncotton he's thinking of using. And inside of the primer there'll be the detonator —fulminate of mercury. I don't need to tell you that that's very touchy stuff. So—you drop the bomb. It hits, hard. The fulminate goes off. The guncotton goes off. Then the dynamite. I, for one, wouldn't want to be around when the Big Bang happens."