The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “We got as many of ’em up as we could. We couldn’t get ’em all,” he confessed. “And the floor’s pretty messy—food and booze and stuff. You’ll have to watch your step if you try to cross it, Major.”

  She smiled grimly. “And broken pieces of china and glass. Is it not unfortunate that this is too fine a zeppelin to serve passengers their meals on tin plates and their drinks in plastic tumblers? You will be held responsible for any cuts they sustain. What did you do with what you could sweep up?”

  “Stacked it all in the corridor outside the galley.”

  “Ach, excellent! So that to return to the bridge, I must watch my steps with especial care. Or are we to take the upper passage back and forth through the hull each time?”

  “We left room to get through, Major. Carstairs can give you a hand. It just seemed like the best place to dump ’em.”

  “You will not deliver your reports to me in a surly voice, Braniff.”

  “No, sir, Major. Uh ... Should I pass the word to anyone about ... Herr Tolliver?”

  “Soon, Herr Braniff. First we must learn if any of your comrades saw anything that you failed to see.”

  Flier’s group was making its noise on the starboard side now. Fortunate that the windows were unbreakable steelglass. Smiling grimly, Ilna ordered Valkyrie into the room. They should have a reasonably straight path to Nkima at the port windows.

  She could have used personal phone, but better that no underling overheard what she said to any other. Nkima, Catstep, probably Carstairs last, then back to the bridge for a few words with Third Officer Altocumulus, and from the bridge they would transmit a bulletin to the crew above, to watch for Tolliver. And not to forget the transparent safety netting (about which the passengers were not supposed to know) in case a whammied man had lost his footing on the narrow walkways.

  He could have slipped out, as the newlyweds and the dancer had done, between the time Ilna first left the lounge for the bridge and the time she returned from the hull with her four recruited guards. Until now, these four had glimpsed the passengers only from a distance. Even Tolliver had become familiar only to the cabin crew—the stewards, waiter and chef. So for a few minutes the tangle of unfamiliar bodies in motion must have been as confusing to the guards’ eyes as the undisciplined clamor of sounds and voices to their ears. On first posting them, the Obersturmbannfuehrerin had demanded only a count of noses, and Carstairs and Nkima had said fifteen, Catstep fourteen, and Braniff sixteen. Ilna thought that Carstairs had simply agreed with Nkima’s number.

  Thus, at least two of these guards had demonstrated inaccuracy in counting, and that was sufficient incompetence to punish by making them all feel responsible for failing to notice Herr Tolliver’s departure until they reasoned out in their own slow brains when it could have happened without proving their watchfulness to be at fault.

  From the doorway to the midpoint of the port windows was only a few paces. Ilna could have stepped it off within seconds if not for the muck underfoot, the tableware that crunched or skittered beneath her tread, the food that squished, and—worst of all—the greasy puddles that waited to cause skidding. She kicked something out of her way, probably a goblet, and thought a curse. Der Teufel! but someone would work long tonight to repolish her boots for her!

  At one moment, the noise of Flier’s group was still safely to starboard. Next moment, it swung over with a drumming of feet and many voices joining in a long howl. Women squealed—Frau Olympian and the stewardess they would be—caught in the middle of the lounge.

  Ilna jumped farther to port, braced her legs against the furniture, and snapped “Nkima!” before the wave struck, bearing her onto the couch, dashing her from there to the floor. Valkyrie gave four barks, one terrible wail, and then even her canine voice was drowned in the general tumult—shouting and singing, weeping, cursing, laughing, grunting, many kinds of blows, and confused applause. The movement was like noises made solid, human limbs and bodies groping, slapping, kicking, tangled together in one stinking, frenzied mass. The Obersturmbannfuehrerin struck out with her walking-stick. There would be bruises, ja. Even concussions. She did not care. She could no longer hear Valkyrie, not so much as a whine, and for that these revelers would smart, irresponsible or not. She uttered nothing except names—Valkyrie’s, Nkima’s, the other guards’—and sometimes an oath.

  At last a hand grabbed her left arm purposefully, Nkima identified himself, and half by her own efforts hauled her free.

  “Clear them away!” she ordered, shaking off his arm as soon as she could stand by herself to one side. “Carstairs! Braniff! Catstep! Where are the rest of you? You will clear them away—all of them—at once! If you have to tie them down! Valkyrie, where is my Valkyrie?”

  It seemed ten minutes, though by the braille digits of her watch it was no more than three. Someone sucked in a sharp breath, and Catstep said, “No! I don’t think we should try to move—”

  “My dog!” Ilna spoke in a loud but steady voice. “You have them all cleared away from her?”

  “Yes, Major, but—”

  “Then stand back yourselves! One of you—No, dummkopf, one of you only! Catstep, you! You will guide me. The rest of you will keep all these people under control.”

  Catstep, the one woman of the four, took Ilna’s left wrist in the soft, apologetic hold of someone new at such work. Ilna knelt and inched forward on her knees through the puddles and greasy places, bending to Catstep’s direction until her hand found Valkyrie’s flank.

  The good dog whimpered and stirred feebly. Her fur was wet, and it was not with food or drink.

  “Where is the wound?” Ilna demanded. “Guide my hand to the wound.”

  “I can’t see anything, Major, there’s too much blood.”

  “Idiot! Then let go my wrist.”

  Catstep obeyed, and Ilna searched for the wound herself. Her touch was so tender that when she found it, Valkyrie yelped once only. A clean slit, but probably deep.

  Gathering the dog up gently, Ilna got to her feet. “Nkima, you will clear my way. I take her to my own stateroom. Carstairs, you will guard our rear. Catstep, you will go to the galley and boil water for me. It does not come hot enough from the tap. And while it heats, you will find me sheets and clean rags, as many as you can. Clean. You will be very sure that they are clean.”

  “Major,” said Braniff, “I can’t watch all these people, not all by my—”

  “Then let them run where they will!” For the first time, Ilna’s voice broke a little. “Guard the door to the bridge and let them run wherever else they will.”

  Chapter 14

  “In the new airships, of course, this chore could be handled by droids, each with its line to the ship’s central computer, ready to signal for human assistance in the one case out of 97.6 that it would be essential. With droids, even an airship the size of the projected Palace of the Skies could get by with two or three human mechanics on the payroll.

  “But NTC had more reasons than job creation for retaining the proto-airship system of a human babysitter in every engine gondola all round the old-fashioned 24-hour clockface. With every mechanic taking watch 3 hours on and 9 hours off, a five-engine airship like Hindenburg II or Cygnus staffs a total of 20 paid mechanics per voyage, enough to earn NTC an official Union stamp of approval. More than this, of course—safety consciousness suggests the wisdom of having that human mechanic instantly at hand in that one case in 97.6, avoiding the extra time that would be needed to get to the engine gondola, very possibly under shaky conditions, in answer to the robosignal—not to mention the slim but ever bothersome chance of total breakdown knocking out the droids and computerlines. In addition, such jobs, once considered drudgery, are recognized nowadays as excellent training and prescreening for the Space Venture, and corporations such as NTC naturally enjoy a nice little compensation from corporations such as Solar System Inc. and 3M Meteor
Mining for every new spacer recruited. And don’t be surprised if NTC branches out into shuttlecraft tours one of these years and uses some of its space-readied personnel to operate its own spacecraft!”

  —Al Everymind, Workline Ideas for Solitaries, Loners, Privates, & Other Singularly Well-Adjusted Persons. (Computer publication, update of May, 2083)

  * * * *

  Twenty-one hundred hours, and storm or no storm, Ellzett Fotheringay Goodwrench moved along the catwalk to the first engine gondola starboard, “Gertie’s” gondola. If anything, Ellzett felt disappointed that this was a small storm and nearly behind them already.

  It was dark up here in the great ship’s innards by night. A bright moon could leak some glow through his skin, but tonight’s moon must still be covered by clouds. The huge cells of gas, fuel, and ballast water were shadows more to sense and feel than to see. Except for the white, green, and red safety lights that bordered the edges of the catwalk, and the phosphorescent violet of the guardrail netting, this must be almost the way that blind SS major experienced a stroll through Cygnus. Knowing the ship thoroughly, Ellzett moved through his hull untroubled.

  Like all the crew, she was aware of the situation in the passengers’ areas tonight. A regular State of Riot. It was getting pretty krantzy when they not only used airships for smuggling the stiff stuff, but even threw whammy parties in flight. And involving the captain and two senior watch officers was really scraping things raw. Not a bad stroke of luck for Altocumulus, though. Sometimes the Young Woman had acted ready to sell her soul for the chance to take the ship through a storm.

  No. Pausing on the catwalk, Ellzett shook her head. Not Altocumulus. She wouldn’t go that far, and even if she would, she wasn’t likely to risk the penalties. Grounding for life would be the least of them if they caught her, and she must have heard the rumor that there was some kind of agent aboard this trip. NTC had been catching too much flack lately about the drug lifting.

  So it was just a plain, brash orgy. Or maybe one of those surprise customer-recruiting shines you heard about sometimes. With the Fancy Class, who could tell? Ellzett walked on.

  Just as she swung onto the short branchwalk to the engine gondola, she thought she heard a funny little noise between two of the gas cells, like a swish or a whoosh. She stopped at once, unclipped the gas detector from her belt, tabbed it on and held it toward the suspect cells. Its light continued green and its soft buzz held steady, indicating no danger. These gizmos were hair-sensitive. Even a leak at the top of one of the highest cells would register, and the sound she thought she’d heard had been nowhere near the top. Anyway, she hadn’t heard it again.

  Not that a leak in one of the cells would be any immediate safety hazard, the gas being helium and the ship having sixteen other gas cells to keep him airborne. Everyone stayed alert for leaks primarily because the money to replace needlessly leaked helium came out of the crew’s paychecks, and the doggone stuff was expensive.

  When satisfied there was no leak, she tabbed off her detector and shone her flashlight between and around the cells. Nothing that shouldn’t be there. Deciding she must have heard a gremlin trampolining off the ship’s outer skin, she hurried on to the Daedalus chute, reaching it at 56 seconds after the hour.

  “Hey!” Stan Nonox called up as Ellzett slid the hatch open. “Next time you’re late, phone and tell me.”

  “Your watch must be miscalibrating again, Nonox.”

  “My digitals never miscalibrate.” He pulled the climbercatch and the movable Daedalus panels flapped into place like cards all up and down one side, turning the chute into a stepladder. Ellzett always found it a pleasant show to watch.

  “I’ve got it all hyped out,” Stan announced as he climbed. “It’s the honeymooners.”

  “What?”

  “The eye—the agent. To be exact, a pair of agents. After all, who’s going to suspect a couple of honeymooning lovebirds?”

  “You’ve been eating the stuff yourself. More likely it’s the SS major and her seeing-eye dog.”

  “Nope.” He hauled himself out of the chute onto the branchwalk. “My tridols on the lovebirds.”

  “How many tridols?”

  “Make it a duo.”

  “You’re on.”

  “Right. You’re serious about mein Frau the major?” Stan clarified.

  Ellzett ran it through her brain. “Double entry. Either the major or what’s-his-name? That stowaway.”

  “Okay, and I’ll take M. Windsong for my hedge.”

  “You’re already playing a double entry,” she protested.

  He shook his head. “The honeymooners count as one.”

  “Not if one of them’s the agent and the other’s just an innocent blind. ... Oh, all right, the major and her dog would be a pair counting as a single, so you can hedge with an extra, too. Which one is M. Windsong?”

  “The bearded floater in black with big silver medals. Calls himself one of those alternative-religion reverends.”

  “Right, him. Gets to hop aboard at clergy rates, too, doesn’t he? Okay, two tridols for first choice, a single for second. Want to bet a dol at the show window?”

  “Nope, leave it at place and win, bets off if it turns out to be anybody else.” He tabbed the Daedalus steps flat for her.

  Swinging her legs into the chute, she paused, sitting on the edge, and laughed. “Our choices will probably turn out to be the smugglers, not the agents.”

  “Never a chance. The smugglers are the M.’s Olympian.”

  “Oh-yeah. With Stewie helping them out, huh?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Stan nodded. “Why not? They’ve got to have at least one hencher in the crew. Can you think of anyone better than Steward Stewart?”

  “Half a dozen. Maybe you, Stanlihew.”

  “Great! Side bet on the smugglerminds?”

  “Not on your phillips, fella.” Shoving off from the edge, she was down the chute in three nanoseconds. “Win and place on the agents is plenty for one watch!” she called back up to him.

  He flashed his penlight on his face from below and showed her a dracula grin before closing the hatch on her.

  She gave the engine its quick changing of the guard checkover because that was regulation, not because it was necessary. You didn’t make very many crossings as an NTC airship mechanic unless you were competent, but competency came in grades and Stan Nonox—the joker—was Grade A. Finding everything in trim as expected, Ellzett told the engine, “Good girl, Gertie,” slapped the casing against gremlins, tabbed the lights off and lay down flat with her left hand at rest on the casing and her gaze turned outward at roiling clouds and whitecrest waves by emerging moonlight.

  Automatically every few minutes she glanced back to Gertie, checking for any of the colored warning flashes that would signal trouble. There were warning beeps, buzzes, and chimes as well, but Ellzett’s main checklines were the hum of a well-running engine and its smooth pulse beneath her fingers.

  The gondola was small, with just about enough floor space for engine, mechanic, and toolbox, but Ellzett didn’t feel cramped. She had room to lie at length, with a couple of centimeters to spare, and at the first suspicion of trouble she could sit up, tab the lights back on with one hand and open the toolbox with the other, all at the same time. Meanwhile, she had plenty of solitude for meditation.

  Nine hours off and three hours on. Tedium had started to set in noticeably during her second flight over the ocean, and she had spent much of her third and fourth Atlantic crossings re-evaluating her career opportunities. The world was still wide open for skilled mechanics. Self-employment on solid ground, a comfortably cluttered little shop and a workschedule bending back and forth between her own whims and her customers’ emergencies ... But somewhere along her fifth trip—not when she was effecting the emergency repair but when she was just lying and gazing out, one hand beneath her chin and the o
ther resting lightly on the engine casing—she found herself more interested in actual cloud castles than figurative ones, and knew that she had passed the Air-riders’ Threshold, not all at once the way old jetstreamers liked to describe it, but slowly, gradually, the old thrill returning crystal by shining crystal, ripening with increased experience and self-confidence, until this crossing, her ninth, seemed fresher than her first.

  Her in a planetbound shop, dealing with cranky customers at odd, unplanned times of the day and sometimes night? She’d last maybe three months! No, give her the open sky for life, the encircling panorama, the soothing semi-drone of the engine beside her, and hours to meditate alone.

  Another three or four years, and she might put in her application for spacecraft. She would have the record to show she could cope with the infamous loneliness factor. Meanwhile—

  Something clicked. Ellzett checked for warning lights, but it wasn’t that kind of noise. There it came again! from up above. It sounded ... like someone who didn’t know the program trying to get in, looking for the right tab to open the chute.

  Once in a great while some officer or designated crew member guided passengers this far on a daytime tour without notifying the engine watch in advance. But it had never happened at night. The rare passengers who wanted to see a dirigible’s insides front to back by night—an officer and at least one senior crew member, sometimes two officers, guided them, and always gave the engine mechanics plenty of advance notice to arrange a little show with some of the engine lights, maybe a harmless spark shower for thrills. Anyway, nobody would have okayed a tour tonight. Not with all the passengers whammied—Lady God! Old Woman Denne and her two senior watch officers whammied with them, and Altocumulus in sole command till further notice, busy on the bridge—there wasn’t anybody to authorize or guide a midnight tour, even if there’d been anybody in condition to request it.

  Okay, whoever was up there making those clicks, whicks, and sliding sounds, it had to be just that same gremlin she’d heard on her way to Gertie’s gondola.