The Voyage of the Iron Dragon

by Robert Kroese

  As they ran past the buildings of the campus, Osric noticed the place was practically deserted. Did everyone know about this demonstration but him? Ingrid, heading up the gravel path into the hills, continued to outpace him, and Osric ran faster. After rounding several small hills, he found himself coming up on a crowd of several hundred people who had lined up along a fence made interlinked wire. All of the uniformed security officers who ordinarily patrolled the campus at Svartalfheim, armed with swords and pistols, seemed to be here.

  As Osric approached, he saw that beyond the fence was a road made of asphalt that extended over a hundred yards both to his left and to his right. At the end of the road, on his left, was a large rectangular building that was about three stories tall. In the side facing him was a large door that was open, and emerging from the opening was the most amazing contraption Osric had ever seen—more amazing than even the steam shovel.

  The thing rolled on the ground on three rubber tires of the sort that the Eidejelans used on many of their vehicles. It had on the front of it a device that moved so quickly that it took Osric a moment to realize that it was moving at all: it was a sort of bladed fan that spun like a screw, blowing wind along the contoured edges of the machine. The machine made a terrible racket, louder than any of the machines he had heard at Svartalfheim. Osric realized as the machine gained speed that the screw was a means of propulsion: rather than using an engine that caused the wheels to turn, the machine relied on the movement of the fan blades to pull it forward. But why use such an absurd method of locomotion? The long, fixed wings extending from the body of the thing should have been a clue, but Osric didn’t figure it out until the machine had leapt into the air.

  It leapt into the air! Osric could hardly believe it. A great metal machine, as big as a karve, soaring into the air like a bird. Gasps and cheers went up from the crowd. Some, like Osric, were shocked into silence; others seemed to have had some idea what to expect from the demonstration. Osric couldn’t imagine how many engineers had worked on this thing. As the machine continued to rise, the sound of its motor faded and it became a barely visible dot in the sky, its painted gray exterior blending into the clear blue sky. Osric supposed the machine was made of steel, or perhaps the lighter metal the engineers called aluminum, which was mined somewhere north of Svartalfheim. He would not have guessed that even a machine made of the lightest wood could fly, but he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. It was wonderful.

  The machine turned to the left, making a broad arc in the sky to turn back toward the crowd. Osric supposed the machine could go higher, perhaps higher even than the birds flew, but it stayed low so the spectators could see it—or perhaps because the pilot was still learning how to fly it. There was, Osric saw now, a sort of glass bubble at the top of the machine, in which the head of a man was visible as the machine roared overhead. Cheers went up again, and several people congratulated Helena and O’Brien, who stood nearby. Osric supposed that O’Brien had worked on the design of the craft, but as the machine circled back again, he saw the reason for the broad smile on O’Brien’s face: the pilot was his son, Michael.

  Michael, who was only eighteen, was a combination of the best and worst of his parents: he was brilliant, handsome, arrogant and supercilious, with a seemingly endless supply of nervous energy. He held the title of engineer, like a thousand other people at Svartalfheim, but it had been clear to Osric since Michael was a boy that he was a different breed. Everyone took notice when Michael entered a room, and Osric realized now that he hadn’t seen Michael for several weeks. Was there another secret facility, somewhere even more remote, where they tested flying machines?

  “It’s called an airplane,” Ingrid said, coming up alongside him. “I’ve known about it for a year, but I couldn’t say anything. They needed me to teach their engineers how to perform something called differential equations. They were having problems with turbulence.”

  “Turbulence,” Osric repeated. It was one of those pidgin Latin words the Eidejelans used for some arcane concept of interest to engineers, like amplitude, acoustic or refrigerate. Whatever turbulence meant in the context of airplanes, it was clearly undesirable.

  “It’s called a P-51 Mustang,” Ingrid said. The airplane had arced again, and Osric saw that it was lined up with the road it had launched from. Michael was bringing the airplane back to the ground.

  “What on Earth is a Mustang?” Osric said.

  “I asked the same thing,” Ingrid replied. “Apparently it’s a kind of horse. A corruption of the Latin mixta.”

  More pidgin Latin, Osric thought. Animalia mixta were mongrels. Fitting for a machine built by Vikings to be flown by a man who was half-Greek and half-Irish. He liked the sound of this word.

  The airplane was now on the ground, still moving fast but slowing as it neared the building at the far end of the asphalt road. The crowd erupted into cheers again.

  “It’s marvelous, isn’t it?” Ingrid said.

  Osric nodded. It really was. He had been expecting a Tower of Babel, but the Eidejelans had surpassed his wildest imaginings, building a machine that could carry a man higher than the tallest building ever built. It was an act of phenomenal hubris, and yet Osric couldn’t help feeling proud. It was an unprecedented accomplishment, and Osric had contributed to it, in a small way. For the first time since arriving at Höfn, he felt he was where he needed to be. Perhaps he was not called to save the Eidejelans. Perhaps it was enough for him simply to be a part of this.

  As the Mustang rolled to a stop, one of the uniformed officers opened a gate in the fence to let O’Brien and Helena onto the asphalt. The glass canopy on the top of the Mustang folded to the side on a hinge, and Michael climbed out of the machine and dropped to the ground. O’Brien and Helena met him at the plane, shaking his hand and hugging him. O’Brien pointed across the strip of asphalt to where Reyes, Gabe, and several other members of the Committee waited on chairs lining the rear of a raised wooden platform. Michael waved to the crowd and then the three of them turned to walk to the platform.

  While Michael and his parents traversed the asphalt, Reyes got up from her seat and walked to a podium at the front of the platform. With a smile on her face, Reyes raised her hands to silence the crowd. She reached forward to adjust a device of some kind that had been affixed to the podium, and for the moment the air was filled with a horrible screeching sound. Osric, seeing that the engineers in the crowd didn’t seem concerned, swallowed his worry that something had gone terribly wrong.

  “Sorry about that,” Reyes said. “We’re still working out the bugs with amplified audio.”

  Amplified audio, Osric thought. What a bizarre way of speaking.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Reyes went on. “As I’m sure you realize, this is a big day for us. We’ve worked a very long time to be able to accomplish manned flight, and all of you here have been a part of that—many of you without even realizing it. All of us on the Committee and the aeronautics team appreciate your faith in us and this project. You may not have known what you were working toward, but you put your all into it anyway, believing that we are building a better future together. Secrecy was necessary to get us to this point, because there are those who would stop us or steal our wealth and technology for themselves if they could. Secrecy will still be paramount going forward, but this flight marks a milestone in this project. To be honest, it simply isn’t possible to keep an aerospace project secret from the people working on it. As I’m sure most of you know already, the overarching project that Svartalfheim and all our auxiliary sites are working toward is something called Pleiades. In Greek mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of the titan Atlas. It is also the name of a constellation of stars, billions of miles away from us. Pleiades is where we are going.”

  Confused murmurs and a few cheers went up from the crowd. Many, including Osric, seemed to be waiting to see if Reyes was joking.

  “I know it sounds absurd,” Reyes went on, “but an hour ago, most of y
ou would have said the same of building a machine that allows a man to fly. Frankly, I never really believed we would get to this point, and we still have a long way to go. But this flight today proves it’s possible. We are going to put a human being into space. We are going to do this not simply to show it can be done, although that’s reason enough. We’re doing it because the future of humanity depends on it. In this world, the nations quarrel with each other, but where I am from, all of humanity is united in a war for its survival against a single enemy. If that war is lost, humanity is doomed. The Norse call it Ragnarök, the end of all things.

  “I intend to win that war, and to do so, we must take the fight to our enemy, across the stars. The ship that will take us there will be called the Iron Dragon, and today we have made the first small steps toward making that ship a reality. I may be crazy, but I’ve gotten us this far.”

  The crowd erupted into cheers. Even Osric found himself cheering. It was good to hear Reyes talk this way. She seemed twenty years younger, the way she must have been when she and the others first founded this settlement.

  “Make no mistake,” Reyes went on. “Our enemies are still out there, hunting us, waiting for us to slip up and reveal ourselves so they can strike. It should go without saying that not a word of what I’ve said must leave Svartalfheim. Our purpose and our location must remain secret. My hope is that knowledge of our goal will inspire all of you to redouble your efforts on this project. We’ve made a lot of progress, but there is still much work to be done. And on that note, I will turn the podium over to our pilot, Michael O’Brien.”

  Cheers and applause went up from the crowd as Michael walked toward the stage, stopping along the way to shake hands with many of the men and women clustered to the side of the stage, whom Osric assumed were the engineers who had built the airplane. As he neared the stage, though, a disturbance broke out among the engineers farther back. One of the security officers was trying to prevent a tall, lean man from getting to the stairs. A loud bang rang out, followed by shouts and screams. The security officer disappeared from view, and the tall man ran up the stairs. Osric’s chest tightened as he realized he knew the man: it was Nikolai.

  The weather was sunny and warm, but Nikolai wore a bulky wool coat. Reyes, still at the podium, began to back away, holding her hands in the air. The Committee members at the back of the stage got to their feet. All around the stage, people continued to shout and scream. The crowd was in chaos.

  Thoughts raced through Osric’s head. What had Nikolai said to him? I have done terrible things. I am afraid I will do more. Had Nikolai been talking about his work on Pleiades or about what he was planning today? Perhaps both.

  Osric realized during those surreal seconds, watching him cross the stage toward Reyes, that Nikolai had never changed his opinion of the Eidejelans. He’d always believed they were evil. He’d played a long game, the same as Osric, but he’d been better at it. He’d insinuated himself into the heart of the program, making them dependent on him. Maybe he’d been sabotaging the project in subtle ways up until now, but decided he wasn’t doing enough to stop them, or maybe this is what he’d had in mind all along. At the last moment, he’d given Osric a chance to stop him, to talk him out of it, but Osric, blinded by his own need to see the good in both Nikolai and the Eidejelans, had failed.

  It might have been far worse if that security officer at the base of the stage hadn’t noticed something was wrong and drawn attention to Nikolai. It gave Eckart just enough time to tackle Reyes, putting himself between her and Nikolai.

  The blast ripped the stage to pieces, knocking those standing nearby to the ground. Osric was a good hundred yards away, and he felt it in his eardrums. Hot wind roared over the crowd, and they were showered with pebbles and wood debris. Sand got in Osric’s eyes, blinding him, and he heard nothing but ringing. Something hard struck his forehead, and he fell to his knees, choking on the smoky air, tears pouring from his eyes.

  When he could hear again, his ears were filled with screams. Someone tripped over his legs, and a boot trampled his hand. Slowly, the smoke began to clear, and as he blinked away the last of the sand, he looked around. The crowd around him had mostly cleared out, but a few dozen people remained in the immediate area, nursing minor injuries or helping others who were hurt. Ingrid and his students seemed to be gone. On the other side of the asphalt, things were much worse: the stage was a mass of charred, smoking debris. Dead and bleeding people lay on the ground all around. A security officer was cradling a small, dark-haired woman in his arms. Reyes. She wasn’t moving.

  Osric became aware of a man shouting orders. He tore his eyes away from Reyes’s limp body to see Gabe standing to the side of the stage, looking unhurt. Many others were standing around, looking dazed, but Osric didn’t recognize any of them. He didn’t see Michael, O’Brien or Helena. He couldn’t tell if any of the other Committee members had survived. There was only Gabe, standing there in the rubble, unscathed, as if he’d been spared by the Devil himself. Of course Gabe had survived. This was his moment. Osric had somehow always known it. There had been good in Reyes, but Reyes was dead, and now Gabe was in charge. And he was going to rain hellfire down on anyone who had anything to do with this sabotage.

  Osric, feeling Gabe’s eyes on him, turned and stumbled, unthinking, away from the site. He had to get away from here. Away from Gabe. He made his way up the path back to Svartalfheim, ignoring the people in his way who shouted questions at him. He found himself some time later, sitting on his cot in his little room in the dormitory, staring into a little hand mirror one of his students had given him as a gift. A rivulet of blood was drying on his forehead, stemming from a place on his scalp where he’d been struck by piece of the stage. He went down the hall to the wash room and cleaned up as best he could, then returned to his room. His faculties were beginning to return to him, but thinking about what to do next made his head hurt. He was so tired. He just wanted to lie down on his cot and go to sleep, but something in the back of his head told him there was no time for that.

  Nikolai had told him what he was going to do. I have done terrible things. I am afraid I will do more. How much more obvious could he have been? Nikolai was a member of Osric’s congregation. He had confessed to Osric. Osric would have to admit to this. If Osric lied to them, they would know. They always knew. Helena could see right through him. Helena was dead, though. Or was she?

  It didn’t matter. Gabe wouldn’t wait for confirmation. He would have Osric tortured to death just to make a point. They couldn’t punish Nikolai; he was already dead. But they would need to punish someone. Osric was not afraid of death, but he was afraid of Gabe. Gabe would make him suffer for what he had done, and for what he had failed to do.

  He had to run. A crazy thought. No one runs. Running will just make you look guilty. There’s no place to go. The people in the settlements to the west will send you right back here. And to the east….

  To the east. The lone shepherd. What had he said, so many years ago? I won’t shed a tear if they lose a few strays. Did that shepherd still live in his little house against the cliff? Was he still alive at all? Would he take Osric in, perhaps help him get to the fishing village to the northeast? The workers had nearly completed a defensive fence around Svartalfheim, but there were still gaps where a person could slip through.

  It was worth a try. He had no other options. If he stayed, he would die, slowly, and in great pain. If he ran, he might still perish, but even death from exposure was preferable to what Gabe would do to him. Osric would not commit suicide, but he could not be blamed if he died in an effort to save his own life, no matter how vain that effort might be. He had one chance, now, while Svartalfheim was in chaos and no one was looking for him.

  He would run.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Tharres had lost all his possessions in the flight from the estate in Burgundy, including his personal computer with the record of Earth’s history. He now had only his own memories to rely on. H
e only remembered the locations of the gold deposits in Salsigne and Jutland because he had spent a great deal of time since the crash studying such things. He’d lost his compass as well, which meant that he would be relying on medieval navigational technology to get to Iceland.

  They purchased a boat in southern Jutland, proffering enough gold dust to forestall any questions about who they were or how they had come into such wealth. They sold their horses and their tunics and banners that bore the markings of Bruno’s family, convinced that Tharres would lead them to enough riches to buy a kingdom of their own.

  The ship, which they christened Goldleaf, was a Danish-built knar that could be rowed by a crew of twelve men. As none of the men had any sailing experience, Tharres also hired a Danish coxswain named Ask, who assured Tharres he’d sailed from Jutland to Norway and Iceland on many occasions. They set sail on a sunny June day, with a strong wind out of the south.

  The wind carried them along the eastern coast, and they rounded the tip of Jutland two days later. The wind remained strong as they bore to the west. When they reached the Orkneys, they would turn northwest toward Iceland. Tharres hoped to make landfall just to the southeast of Reykjavik and then sail along the coast to the east, looking for the settlement the foreman had called Höfn. The man, delirious with pain, had been consistent in his description of the settlement, saying it was located just inland of a natural harbor in the southeast of Iceland.

  They were about two hundred miles south of Iceland when the weather changed. A wind blew from the south, carrying with it black clouds that obscured the sun. The inexperienced men struggled vainly with the sail as the sea turned rough and they were pelted with stinging rain. Before they could get the sail furled, the mast cracked, and oars were useless against the maelstrom. Over the next two days, as the storm raged on, Goldleaf was blown hundreds of miles off course. The clouds finally cleared, and one of the men spotted land off the port bow. As another bank of storm clouds moved in, they rowed furiously toward land. They pulled the boat in on a desolate, rocky shore and turned it upside down to huddle underneath it as the rain and wind continued for several hours. They spent a night sleeping under the boat, shivering in the cold.