The Gate of Time
Page 14
“Maybe we ought to worry about getting into the air first,” Kwasind said. Two Hawks glanced at him. The panel light showed him the giant’s usual stolid expression. However, his face gleamed with sweat. Two Hawks smiled. He doubted that the perspiration was caused by exertions or nervousness from the fight with the patrolmen. Kwasind had been more than uneasy when told how they would escape. Brave and cool in combat on the ground, he was terrified at the idea of flying. He had not said so, but his questions and a rigidity whenever the subject came up betrayed him.
There was, however, more to his nervous state than just the concept of leaving the ground. The ancient European religions had been heavy with stories of flying demons. The new religion of Hemilkism discredited these as mere superstitions. Old horrors die hard; at least half of the population firmly believed in the demons. And Kwasind was a member of one of the old religions which had not died. It thrived in underground form in his oppressed country. Even now, thinking of the winged monsters, Kwasind must be hearing the beat of their wings.
Leaving Berlin proper, they drove on a broad highway through the suburbs. A ten minutes’ traffic-free drive through these and five minutes of speeding through farmland brought them to the airfield. This was completely encircled by a thirty-foot high barbed wire fence. Dogs much like German shepherds patrolled the fence at nights. There was no way of entrance except through the main gate. They would have to brazen through.
Two Hawks stopped the car in response to a guard’s order. The other guard remained by the sentinel box, his rifle ready, while the first walked up to the car.
“Pulkininkas (Colonel) Two Hawks and party,” Two Hawks said. He spoke as if he had great authority. The soldier was hesitant. Finally, he said, “Where is your bodyguard, Colonel?”
He looked at the car and his eyes widened. “This is a police car!”
Two Hawks raised his revolver and shot the guard in the solar plexus. The guard fell backwards, and Two Hawks shot him again. Kwasind had raised his rifle at the same time. He fired just above Two Hawks’ head, deafening him. The guard by the box had lifted his rifle to fire at them, but he was too slow. Kwasind’s first bullet turned him 180 degrees around. Kwasind dropped the rifle and pulled his revolver from its holster. By then, Ilmika had hit the guard with a bullet from her revolver.
Kwasind jumped out of the car and removed from the dead sergeant’s belt a ring full of keys. He tried four keys before he found the proper one to unlock the big padlock on the wire gate. Ilmika collected the sentries’ rifles and cartridge belts and put them in the back seat.
Kwasind opened the gates. Two Hawks eased the car through to give the giant a chance to get back into the car. Shouts rose from the barracks near the rear of the hangar. A man with a revolver ran out of the officers’ quarters. Two Hawks pressed down on the accelerator. The officer ran after them, shouting. His revolver cracked. Half-dressed soldiers with rifles ran out of the barracks.
The car hurtled around the corner of the hangar, then skidded as Two Hawks tapped on the brakes. He straightened it out, made a sharp right turn, and wheeled it through the doorless front of the hangar. He stopped the car with a squeal of brakes and tires by the airplane titled Raske II. Kwasind jumped out and ran back to the corner of the building, where he began firing at those who had been chasing them.
The workers assembling the two planes in the rear had stopped work when the car roared in. Two Hawks shot once over their heads. They did not wait for a second bullet but fled to the exit in the rear. Ilmika took a position behind an empty barrel to shoot at the first soldier to enter the rear door.
Two Hawks swore when he looked at the Raske II. The auxiliaries and their attachments had been removed. He shrugged and said, “C’est la guerre,” put on his helmet and climbed into the monoplane. He turned on the valves and switches. At least, the tanks were full, and the machine guns had a full supply of ammunition.
He pressed on the starter. There was a whining noise. The wooden propeller turned over slowly at first, then more swiftly as the motor coughed as if speed were stuck in its throat.
Kwasind and Ilmika left their posts to run for the plane. She climbed into the rear cockpit. Kwasind stopped at a signal from Two Hawks and stepped up on to the wing so he could hear Two Hawks. He grinned, climbed back down, and removed the chocks from the wheels.
Two Hawks gave the motor more gas and turned the rudder a hard right. The plane described a half-circle to face the Raske I. Kwasind got under the tail of the Raske II and lifted. When the fuselage was parallel to the floor, Two Hawks began firing the twin machine guns. The other plane shivered under the impact as big holes appeared in its fabric in a line that sped towards the gas tanks as Kwasind continued to move the fuselage. v
The Raske I exploded. Dense smoke spread through the hangar and set Two Hawks and Ilmika to coughing. He felt the heat from the blaze. Fortunately, the Raske I had been at the other wall of the hangar, some hundred yards away. Even so, Two Hawks had not been sure that the flaming gas would not spread out to his own plane. He had to take the chance, because he did not want anybody pursuing him. Overloaded with three people, he would be too slow and awkward to dogfight the Raske I. And he did not have time to destroy the plane any other way.
The plane continued to pivot as the giant moved its tail. Two Hawks fired again while the nose described a horizontal arc. The smoke was so thick that he could not see whether or not the soldiers had left the protection of the other side of the hangar wall. If they had tried to rush through the smoke, they would have been caught in the fire from the machine guns. Similarly, any troops entering the rear door should have been discouraged by the hail of lead.
Kwasind continued to carry the tail around until the plane was facing the entrance.
Two Hawks held the brakes until Kwasind had squeezed in beside Ilmika. The giant’s face was rigid. Two Hawks looked back, grinned at him, released the brakes, and pulled the throttle out. The plane jumped like a frightened rabbit; his head was driven back into the headrest. The Raske II roared out into the firelit night. Soldiers ran out from behind the hangar walls and shot at the plane. A bullet tore a hole in the fabric of the cockpit on his right.
The tail lifted, but the wheels clung to the ground. There was more weight than the craft was designed to normally carry. For what seemed like a deadly long time, the plane refused to rise. The end of the paved strip shot up; beyond was a hundred yards of earth and then a thirty-foot high fence.
Two Hawks waited until the plane had bumped over fifty yards of grass. By then, the wheels were a few inches off the ground. He pulled back on the stick, and they left the earth and passed over the fence with six inches to spare. Past the fence was a copse of trees, the tips of which brushed against the wheels. Two Hawks breathed out relief and continued the climb. Now he would head northward until dawn gave him enough visibility to get his bearings. He wished there had been enough time to attach the auxiliary tanks. This would have made the emergency landing at the halfway point unnecessary.
Then it occurred to him that the extra weight of the auxiliary tanks would have sent them into the fence. He could have tried taking off to the north, where the field was longer, but he would have been in a crosswind. Moreover, taxi-ing down to the south end would have given the Perkunishans a chance to go after him in cars. No, things had worked out much better this way. The whole crazy way.
Improvisation is my forte, Two Hawks said to himself. He sang a Seneca warchant his mother had taught him and then some lines from The Vagabond King. Kwasind was rigid, head bent down. Daylight came. Two Hawks talked to him through the earphones. Kwasind said he felt sick. Looking at anything but the cockpit floor made him want to vomit. His knees were turned to water, and he was curling inside like a pillar of smoke.
Ilmika, however, was thrilled. She exclaimed with joy as they passed over houses and barns a thousand feet below, and she pointed like a delighted child at the tiny people and cows. Two Hawks, as the sun climbed, lost his e
xultation. The fuel indicator was dropping faster than he had hoped. He was also worried about the earliness of their arrival at the refueling point—if they got there. Should the Blodland agents in Berlin not find out about the escape soon enough, they would not notify the agents at the farm near Gervuoge. And then there was the possibility that the agents at Gervuoge had been discovered, and that Perkunishans would be waiting for the plane when it landed.
Two Hawks groaned, but a little while later laughed at himself. Oh, God! The mighty Iroquois warrior one minute and the next a big worrywart. So something goes wrong. I’ve been doing all right so far by playing it by ear.
Their second landing, the last to be made in Perkunishan territory, was to be on the Baltic Sea coast. This stretch of shoreline was the northernmost reach of a peninsula that was on Earth 1, if Two Hawks remembered his geography correctly, the island of Rugen. Since the glacial conditions of this world had locked up so much water in ice, the Baltic Sea was smaller than on Earth 1. Thus, the island had become a peninsula, and the southern Baltic coastline extended further north.
After landing on this coast, the refugees were supposed to be picked up by a Blodlandish dirigible from the island of Aabryg. On Earth 1, this island was Bornholm and was Danish territory. Here, Aabryg belonged to Tyrsland, Earth 2’s equivalent of Sweden. The dirigible was to transport Two Hawks and party and the plane, if it could be managed, to Aabryg, then to Tyrsland, then to Norway and thence to Blodland.
By the time he had reached the southern shore of the large lake of Ramumas, the gas indicator had just reached empty. This meant he had one gallon left. Not much to fly around on while he looked for the farm. For one thing, he was too far to the east, or thought he was. Going west, he had to beat against a strong headwind, which was eating up his precious gallon just that much faster.
Come on, you limeys, he prayed. He passed over a crossroads in the form of a Celtic cross and knew he was three miles from the assignation point. There should be another dirt road two miles westward, then a little peninsula in the form of a question mark. A half mile past it should be a farm isolated from two others by a quarter-mile stretch of woods. The roof of the barn would be painted with two interlocking triskelions, the three-limbed symbols that were on the national flag of the six kingdoms that originally comprised the empire of Blodland. If it was all right for him to land, he would see two rocket flares. If not, he would see nothing, except maybe a troop of Perkunishans waiting for him. In either case, he would have to land, he was so low on gas.
The farm came into sight as they passed over a high hill. Ilmika jabbed her forefinger below and smiled. Just ahead was a large white barn with two red interlocking triskelions on one side of its sloping roof. He circled over the farm, searching the ground and also waiting to hear the sputter of motor. Three times he went around, coming lower each time. If the signals did not come, he would try to get past the woods to the farm on its other side. At least, they would have a headstart on their pursuers, although a successful escape seemed unlikely. But the Perkunishans would get a run for their bloodmoney.
Three men came out of the barn. Two held up tubes which glittered in the sun. Each tube spat a dark object up to a height of thirty feet, at which the flares burst into a red and a green.
The landing could have been easy, since a long and broad meadow with a flat surface offered itself. However, a split-log fence bisected the meadow. Two Hawks had to sideslip to lose altitude fast enough and then gauge his glide path so he barely cleared the fence. The plane stopped with its nose not a foot from the edge of the woods. After taxi-ing back to the fence, he cut the motor and climbed out. Six men and a woman, all dressed in the coarse brown homespun of peasants, were waiting for him.
The introductions were short. Aelfred Hennend, the leader, said, “We got word by wireless just in time.” He gave an order, and the other men left to get the gas and oil. Two Hawks said, “The fence has to be broken down if we’re to have enough runway.” Hennend replied that that would be done. He invited them into the house for some food and coffee. On the way he said, “Our neighbors may come nosing around. Your flying machine is bound to make them excited. There may even be troops on the way. We’ll have to disappear just as soon as your machine is fueled. Too bad, too. Hate to give up this place, it’s a good station for our underground. But if you can deliver that contraption to Blodland, the sacrifice will be worth it.”
Two Hawks did not apologize. While he ate, he asked Hennend about the next landing. He went over a map with him. A radio operator came in to say that the weather on the Baltic coast was all right. There was an overcast but no promise of rain, and the wind was moderate. Also, the lyftship, the dirigible, was on its way from Tyrsland.
Two Hawks returned to the plane to supervise the refueling. The fence had been taken apart in the middle of a distance of fifty feet. The oxen and the cart that had brought barrels of gas were by the plane. The tanks were filled in twenty minutes, even though the fuel had to be poured in by hand.
He considered removing the machine guns from the plane. The loss of weight would aid their takeoff and also cut down on fuel consumption. But he had enough leeway in fuel; it would be better to keep the weapons. The Blodlandish would not only have an aircraft as a model but would also have the guns as prototypes.
The two male fliers shook the agents’ hands; Ilmika extended her hand to be kissed. They bade the agents godspeed and got into the cockpits. Two Hawks grinned when he saw Kwasind’s reluctance. Kwasind had made no attempt to hide his great joy at returning to earth safely. Two Hawks felt sure that Kwasind would stay behind and try to get to Tyrsland via the underground if Two Hawks were to suggest the idea. Perhaps this was a good idea. Without Kwasind, the range and speed of the plane would be much improved.
No, let him suffer now. The sooner he got out of the country, the better. He was so obviously an Indian, he would have a difficult time traveling by day. If he were to be caught, he would be on Two Hawks’ conscience. Besides, he was fond of Kwasind.
The takeoff was easy, although Kwasind might not think so, since the wheels cleared the treetops by ten feet. To Two Hawks, ten feet was as good as a hundred. He climbed to 500 and leveled off. Their destination was an isolated but reasonably smooth beach on the Baltic Sea. Two Hawks located the highway Hennend had marked in red on the map and followed it northward. When he saw the seaport of Saldus at its end, he turned east. Saldus was a city of about 40,000 civilians with 10,000 sailors. There were warships in the harbor and an airship field at the outskirts, but he saw no dirigibles.
Ten miles to the east of Saldus, the land sloped upwards to become a series of rocky cliffs. After two miles of these, he saw the beach. A group of men was standing at one end, and a quarter-mile out was a two-masted fishing boat. Two Hawks made the landing, which was bumpier than he liked, with a hundred feet to spare before the cliffs began again. Even so, he had to sideslip to drop altitude swiftly just as he had done on the previous landing. As soon as he got out of the plane, he checked the landing gear. The wire spokes of the wheels were bent but not enough to worry about. Besides, if the plan went well, neither they nor the cliffs would be a problem.
He talked with agents, who enlightened him on the progress of the war. From the Perkunishan viewpoint, it was progress. From the Blodlandish viewpoint, it was disaster. Perkunisha had completely overrun Dakota, Gotsland, Neftroia, and the eastern half of Hotinohsonih. They had occupied the northern part of Rasna (Earth 1’s France and Belgium) but had bogged down in the conquest of the southern half. From Gotsland, the Perkunishan armies had overrun Akhaivia (Italy of Earth 1) as far as Wesperos (Florence). It was expected, from the way things were going, that Akhaivia, Doria (Jugoslavia), and Hatti (Greece) would be occupied within a month or two. The Perkunishan fleet dominated the Mediterranean, since the Shofet of New Crete (the Iberian peninsula) had permitted the fleet to steam through the straits of Herakles (Gibraltar).
A large fleet of Perkunishan airships had defe
ated a Blodlandish fleet over the Narwe Lagu (English Channel). Another fleet had bombed the city of Bammu (London). So far, the surface navies of the two nations had not had a full-scale battle. However, the Perkunishan navy was somewhat larger than the Blodlandish. There would be a showdown soon, an invasion army was being assembled on the Rasnan coast. The present air superiority of Perkunisha could tip the balance in a naval clash. A dirigible had akeady sunk a Blodlandish dreadnought.
Stunning news had come in just that morning. The Shofet of New Crete had decided to jump into the war on the winning side. New Crete had long had a claim on southeastern Ireland and Cornwall, taken from them by the Blodlandish several hundred years ago. Espionage reported that the Shofet and Kassandras had met and agreed that New Crete would get their ancient possessions back. But first, the isles had to be invaded.
The withdrawal of the Blodlandish fleet from the Dravidian (Indian) bases to aid in the defense of the homeland had been an invitation to the Saariset. The semi-caucasoid Finnic-speakers of Saariset (Earth 1’s Japanese islands) had launched their navies towards Dravidia. This would make Perkunisha angry, of course, because they intended to add the rich subcontinent to their empire. At the moment, Perkunisha could do nothing about it.
“What about the Ikhwan?” Two Hawks said, referring to the Arabic nation of southern Africa.
“They’re not declaring war, just making war. Their armies are marching into both Perkunishan and our African colonies. Moreover, part of their fleet and a host of troop ships are hastening to western Dravidia to reclaim it. We took it away from them, you know.”
“Both Earths are in a mess,” Two Hawks said. “As usual. Have you heard of any reaction from our escape in Berlin?”