“The automatic factories on the moon were not set up properly when the Call first began. They took a hundred times longer than they were designed to, but they got the job finished. Both the factories and Mirrorsun are intelligent, after a fashion. Zarvora tricked Mirrorsun into fighting the Sentinels, then learned to talk to it using a machine driven by electrical essence.”
“Ha yes, the Sentinels destroyed active electrical machines as well. She had to destroy the Sentinels so that she could contact Mirrorsun. Brilliant.”
“She was also the most ruthless autocrat in Australica’s history, but I digress. Mirrorsun controls the mines and factories on the moon where its own fabric was built, but these also contained templates for building machines for use on Earth. Zarvora thought it was also an experiment in moving dirty, dangerous factories off the Earth. She persuaded it to manufacture certain devices from an inventory of templates, and to transport them to Australica. They landed in ceramic shells beneath parachutes. Some shells were the size of baskets, others were bigger than a town hall. The Ozone Regeneration Sunwings came in the big ones.”
“The what?”
“Sailwings half a mile across, powered by electrical essence and sunlight. They were easy to assemble, but we left out some gas production machinery that didn’t seem to do anything useful. The aviad universities were meant to use them to explore the world, but then the radicals took over.”
“Did Zarvora take that lying down?”
“She had to, she was dead. All contact with Mirrorsun had been through Zarvora, but this did not suit some of her fellow aviads. They were confined to a thin strip of Callscour land around the Australican coast, while true humans lived everywhere else. It was the very opposite of the situation over here. When the aviad radicals had come to power, they wanted to exterminate the humans, even though it was like tiny Montras declaring war on the rest of Mounthaven. They tried to force Zarvora to build a fleet of sunwings in the Mirrorsun factories so that they could bomb human cities. When she refused they shot her. It did them no good, because Zarvora had set up her communication machine with a secret code. Mirrorsun has been uncontactable ever since.”
Sartov laughed mirthlessly. “So, Mounthaven is to replace Mirrorsun as a weapons factory. We should be flattered.”
“Australica has no reaction guns at all, our artisans can only make flintlocks. Our sunwings and ferrywings came from Mirrorsun, and two have been lost in accidents already. All we have is a few dozen primitive steam engines; human religions forbid anything not powered by wind, water, or muscle. Your guildsmen and artisans are centuries ahead in engine design and gunsmithery.”
Sartov thought back to what Regional Inspector Hannan had told him about an incident four years ago in northern Bartolica. Mysterious strangers had supposedly dropped out of the sky wielding high-quality flintlocks.
“If I said Morelac to you, what would you say?” Sartov asked.
“Morelac? It’s a family Australican of gunsmiths going back centuries. How do you know the name?’
“I have my own sources, Sair Glasken. I suspect that the Callwalkers—the aviads—landed in Bartolica first, four years ago.”
“Four years … yes, probably.”
“Some ambitious Bartolican noble was the obviously first to be offered unimaginable wealth and power, and he accepted. The aviad radicals needed a total, unchivalric war as a cover to plunder our gunwings and reaction guns, and Yarron is Bartolica’s traditional enemy—Hang on!”
Abruptly Sartov stood the sailwing on its wingtip and opened the throttle. Glasken screamed incoherently, cursed in an Australican language, then began to pray in Latin.
“Bartolican sailwing!” shouted Sartov. “I’ve been watching him sneak up on us in the chase mirror.”
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. In nomine patri—”
“Glasken! Snap out of it!”
“Gah.”
“There’s a lever with a safety catch by your left hand. Flick the catch off.”
“Done. Now what?”
The enemy flyer had been taken by surprise, but tried to follow Sartov. His turning circle was wider, much wider than that of the Yarronese sailwing. Moments later Sartov was closing in on his tail.
“Fire!”
At Sartov’s command Glasken pulled on the lever and the reaction gun spat a stream of jacketed lead into the pitch blackness before him. His burst went wild, but the terrified flyer in the Bartolican sailwing went into a dive immediately. Sartov followed.
“Lock the bloody gun straight ahead, Glasken.”
“How?”
“The double ring grip below the lever.”
Now Sartov aimed with the whole sailwing and Glasken just pulled the lever at Sartov’s command. After five more bursts he saw small, faint flames in the darkness ahead; then Sartov began to drop back. Glasken stared at the diminishing, flickering lights until they suddenly blossomed into a bright fireball. Sartov banked away to resume a course south.
“Near thing,” gasped Glasken.
“Sitting duck,” replied Sartov. “He too could see in the dark, but he flew like a tram driver. That was a newly trained aviad flyer, wearing goggles like these.”
An hour later they landed on a road on the outskirts of Denver. Glasken clambered out of the cockpit, collapsed in a heap, then pulled himself to his feet again.
“Congratulations, Sair Glasken, you can paint a Bartolican crest on the trophy panel of your gunwing,” Sartov called above the idling engine.
“Don’t have one.”
“After the war, you can have mine.”
“I’ll never set foot in one of these bloody things again.”
“One day Yarron will raise a statue to you, I promise that. Have a drink for me, when you reach Denver.”
Glasken watched as the dim shape of the sailwing ascended from the road, briefly eclipsing the distant lights of Denver. He waved in the direction of the compression engine’s drone then set off for the ancient city, savoring every footfall on solid ground.
23-24 September 3960: Casper Wingfield
Serjon did not bother to tell anyone that October 24th was his twentieth birthday. He awoke two hours before dawn, then ascended alone and opened his orders. The mission was a massive 250-mile arc around Median and over the tramway through the Red Desert and the mountains beyond until he crossed the Cosdoran border and reached the regional capital, Vernal. The Cosdoran Airlord was scheduled to hold the first of his traveling winter courts there during that week, and Chancellor Sartov had a dispatch to be delivered. It being so late in the flying season, there was little danger of encountering Bartolican gunwing flocks, and in any case Serjon could outrun them if he wanted to take his chances with the Sentinels and exceed 125 miles per hour. It would be a quick end, he thought philosophically, in fact he would probably not even notice the blast of fire.
It was calm and relatively warm weather for the time of year, and ideal for flying. He saw sunrise over the desert, caught sight of the tramway, then droned out over the wilderness. The compression engine was all that stood between him and a walk back to Casper that could take months, but it never missed. He landed at Vernal’s wingfield, noting that there were three Bartolican sailwings and a gunwing parked near the pennant pole. As he taxied in along the dispersal track the adjunct came running up with two bearded mountain carbineers and a score of curious guildsmen trailing after him.
“Warden, Warden, you cannot stop here!” called the adjunct.
Serjon unstrapped and climbed out of the cockpit, leaving the compression engine idling.
“I have a dispatch for the Airlord of Bartolica,” Serjon explained. “It is from Chancellor Sartov in North Yarron.”
“Warden, we can give no assistance to Yarronese armed wings. There is a new treaty with the Bartolicans, signed just last night. If you stop your compression engine, we cannot restart it for you. Neither can we provide you with fuel, or even breakfast unless you surrender your gunwing to internme
nt in this neutral domain.”
After loud words from Serjon and much arm waving from the Cosdorans, the dispatch was accepted and put on a rail galley cart to be taken the two miles to Vernal and the local governor’s palace. Starflower’s engine continued to idle, and Serjon stayed near the gunwing, a reaction pistol strapped just below his knee. Bartolicans gathered and pointed in the distance, but thought the better of attacking him and causing an incident on neutral soil. Serjon moved to the flightstrip side of the gunwing, unbuttoned, and pissed. As he buttoned up again he noticed that he had an audience.
“Well, am I allowed to piss on your soil?” he asked a chubby, fresh-faced guildsman who was watching.
“The spot where Serjon Warden Killer pissed will be marked with a stone and honored,” the youth replied with deference.
Serjon wondered if he was serious as he came around the gunwing again. Six more Cosdorans, all young free guildsmen, were gathered near the tail. He shooed them clear.
“Why was Vernal honored with a diplomatic visit by the famed Warden Killer?” the youth asked.
“Nobody else in my flock speaks Cosdoran,” replied Serjon, who was unused to being addressed as anything but his rank title and real name.
The group decided that he had made a joke, and they laughed and clapped. No fuel, no breakfast, no warm coffee, but still they want a tramstop circus, thought Serjon. They introduced themselves, and the names Farrsond, Monterbil, and Ryban lodged in his memory as those three were of near-identical height and stature. Farrasond was more muscular than the others, and wore a free guildmaster’s patch. Monterbil, who had been speaking to him, had a tin whistle in his belt and Serjon guessed that he was the wingfield bard, official or otherwise. Ryban was more cleanly groomed than the others, and had a small, wedge-shaped comb dangling from one ear by a gold ring.
A Bartolican love comb, Serjon realized after a moment’s thought. In centuries past, a Bartolican bride’s husband would have removed such a comb from her pubic hair as a symbol of raising the bars of a portcullis on what lay beyond. Now they were given out more casually and sometimes even with lovers’ names and family crests thereon. Wearing a girl’s comb so blatantly would have been considered tasteless in Bartolica, but this was Cosdoran mountain country. Each of the guildsmen wore a brass button on the outside of his trouser fly. This meant that they were available, and new lovers were meant to rip the buttons off. Lucky the Yarronese have no such customs, thought Serjon, who was squeamish about such displays and rituals.
The distant Bartolicans now had field glasses out, and were apparently making sketches of Starflower. Serjon glanced at his watch, reached into the cockpit, and drew out a biscuit.
“Are they your victories?” asked Ryban, pointing to twelve symbols of Bartolican gunwings and sailwings on Starflower’s side.
“Yes.”
“Bet the girls go for a warden.”
“They do, but I’m not a warden. Just a flyer.”
This answer was clearly a disappointment to the adoring circle of guildsmen, who were in search of a hero to worship.
“Do they, like, horn up because you’re a killer?”
“Not the sort of girl that I like to be seen with.”
Serjon was saved by the return of the galley cart along the wingfield tramway, and the adjunct hurried over as Serjon checked his watch. Another ten minutes of idling would have cut deeply into his fuel margin.
“‘The reply dispatch is sealed, but I can tell you that the Airlord was inclined to favor Yarron,” the adjunct fussily explained, waving a finger and smiling with the good news. “The Bartolican envoy has been very, shall we say, presumptuous since the signing of the treaty last night and rather than deny service to Yarronese armed wings alone, the Airlord has decided to deny service to armed Bartolican wings as well. The envoy put on such a scene, you have no idea.”
Serjon accepted the dispatch and climbed back into his gunwing.
“So if I unscrewed my reaction guns and laid them on the ground, Starflower would be unarmed and so eligible for service?” he asked as he put on his goggles.
“Ah, why yes! You could have a meal, use the steam engine trolley to restart, and even buy compression spirit,” cried the adjunct with delight.
Serjon glanced at the youth from the fuelers’ guild with the comb dangling from his ear, shuddered with distaste at the idea of him pumping compression spirit into Starflower, then waved the adjunct clear and revved his engine.
On the way back he flew high over the Red Desert again to avoid the gunwing interceptors of Median. Having particularly good eyes, he noticed an odd shape moving on the tramway. The air was otherwise clear, so he shed height and fell in behind. Eventually it resolved into a dark-painted tram and a sailwing traveling very close together. They had matched speeds, and the sailwing was a little ahead. Neither was aware of Serjon, or else they were ignoring him. Through field glasses he could see no more than that the sailwing was unmarked, but of a Bartolican canard design. Someone was leaning out of the tram and waving a stick, but the figure was antlike at this distance.
Serjon considered diving at power and attacking, but he had been instructed to avoid combat and his fuel was dangerously low for the hundred miles remaining between him and Casper. He was about to turn and climb when the sailwing suddenly broke off. Serjon thought he had been seen, but the distant sailwing was banking in a leisurely manner. A document drop, and to a moving tram, he realized. This might be a clue to the vaunted Bartolican communications system that had moved their carbineers with such precision and left Yarron reeling. Serjon checked the sky yet again, returned to his northeast arc, and began making detailed notes on what he had seen taking place.
The boom of cart cannons echoed among the peaks and valleys near Casper from the none too distant fighting as Serjon landed. The tramway had been smashed as far as Morton Pass near Forian, so Bartolican carbineers had marched along the road from Kennyville until Yarronese carbineers had halted them in an intense, bloody battle at Seminoe Pass. For the first time in the war, the Bartolican carbineers found themselves stalled.
In the early afternoon Serjon lay dozing near his gunwing. The guildsmen of his ground crew were ever-present, checking the highly tuned compression engine and looking for wear or damage in the airframe. With twelve air victories he was a warrior for them to be proud of, even if he was a mere flyer.
He was roused when a senior guildmaster arrived from Sheridan in a regal and began walking among the gunwings with a team of guildsmen. At each aircraft he stopped and took a small black ovaloid from his bag. The guildsmen drilled holes in the engine cowling and attached it with metal clamps. Serjon watched closely, noting that the thing looked like obsidian bored out to take quartz crystal inserts.
“A new device from the Sheridan research guilds,” the guildmaster told Serjon quietly. “It is powered by the heat of the compression engine, and it cloaks your gunwing from the Sentinels.”
Serjon swallowed, instantly translating this into tactics to use in clear air combat.
“Have you seen it work?” he asked.
“Chancellor Sartov himself put a hybrid into a dive with a Sentinel directly overhead. He touched two hundred and five miles per hour before pulling out, but the Sentinel did nothing.”
“The Chancellor?” echoed Serjon, impressed. “That was very brave of him.”
Alion volunteered to be first, and all flyers of the Air Carbineers watched as he took his gunwing up and practiced fighting maneuvers at the higher speeds. The almanac stated that a Sentinel was overhead, but his gunwing was not destroyed. Soon everyone was in the air, elated and eager for a clear air war duel, but the adjunct would not let them go out in search of a fight. He had already been reprimanded for the incident over his family, and was now bound by an oath of good behavior. Sartov had meantime decided that Casper was more defensible than Forian and had supplied another six hybrid gunwings.
It was late in the flying season. Soon there would be storm
s, wind, and ice, but for now the weather remained stubbornly fine. The Air Carbineers spent a very restive evening meal speculating on whether the Bartolicans would be good enough to attack again before the weather closed in and snow covered the wingfield. Afterward Serjon sat in a gunwing hall watching Ramsdel teach Bronlar how to sew, then took a lantern and went out to his own gunwing. He counted the number of inset crystals in the ovaloid cloaking device, but there were only twelve.
“Still looking for thirteens, Big Brother?” Bronlar’s voice asked out of the darkness.
Serjon climbed down and joined her, lantern in hand. He snuffed the flame and they began walking across the wingfield in the general direction of the tents.
“I wanted a closer look at the Sentinel device,” Serjon improvised. “I was wondering how it might work.”
“Do you know now?”
“No.”
The wind was light but chilly as they walked in the darkness. Ragged cloud was obscuring Mirrorsun.
“It’s late in the season, there may be no more war duels until spring,” Bronlar pointed out.
“That’s all I need, Little Sister. Thirteen hanging over me until spring.”
“I’ll be glad of it. No more chilly tents and drafty cockpits for five months. Brrr, what a wind!”
Serjon opened his greatcoat and put an arm around her shoulders. Bronlar stiffened at his touch.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she said after a few steps, then pushed his arm away.
Serjon slipped off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.
“I suppose that shoots down any chance of us warming a bunk together through the long, cold winter,” Serjon remarked, trying to sound no more concerned than if he had only missed dinner.
“Big Brother, it’s because of my position among all these men. I know a lot of them dote on me. The guildsmen who service my gunwing, Ramsdel, Alion, Kumiar, they’ve all had amorous duelwords with me on that matter.”
“Oh my, the flockleader was last into the air,” Serjon joked, but the shock was plain in his voice.
The Miocene Arrow Page 25
