Seaman (maybe Ensign now, if his transfer came through) Fred Reynolds stood nearby poring over a black-bound book with red writing on it. It was a copy of Brimm and Boggess’s Aircraft Engine Maintenance they’d found in the tool kit of the PBY’s doubtless long-dead flight mechanic. It was exactly like a similar copy Ben had done his best to memorize in pilot training. He liked to think he had memorized enough to build something like the simple engine before him on the stand, but when they inevitably went on to build bigger and better things, the wealth of formulas, diagrams, and general tidbits of information including things as mundane as hand file designs would prove invaluable. Even when one considered the relatively large, eclectic library of Walker ’s dead surgeon, “Doc” Stevens, and the many technical manuals they’d off-loaded from the two destroyers before their final sortie, it was, in many ways, the single most precious book they possessed. Some of Adar’s Sky Priest acolytes had already made a handwritten copy, and others were being copied from it.
The book was already invaluable to poor Reynolds, who stared at the pages like they were written in ancient Greek. Ben stifled a chuckle. Apparently, Reynolds had finally decided what to strike for; he wanted to fly. He’d said he wanted excitement, but he was a little guy, and that would have made Ordnance hell-or so he believed. Ben suspected that in reality, the kid was scared to death of Dennis Silva-completely understandable-and since Silva was the most… visible representative of that division and had as yet untested limitations on his authority… the fledgling Air Corps, or Naval Air Arm, or whatever it would be called, probably seemed like a comparatively safer billet. Ben chuckled aloud at that, unheard over the machine noises emanating from the rest of the shop.
He glanced at the only other human in sight: Commander Perry Brister. Formerly Mahan ’s engineering officer and now general engineering minister of the entire Alliance, the dark-haired young man was making a final inspection of the fuel line leading to the simple, crude carburetor. Ben knew Perry had other things to do that day, but he’d always liked fooling with small engines, he’d said, and he wanted to be there when they cranked it up.
“Looks good here,” Perry rasped. His once soft voice had never recovered from all the yelling he did during the great battle. Ben looked at the two Lemurians poised near the propeller. One, a sable-furred ’Cat with a polished 7.7-millimeter cartridge case stuck through a hole in his ear, grinned.
“You boys ready?” Ben asked.
“You bet,” answered the ’Cat Ben called Tikker. Mallory shook his head and grinned. It was Captain Tikker now. Stepping to a small console, he flipped a switch.
“Contact!” he shouted.
“Contact!” chorused the ’Cats, and, heaving the propeller blade up as high as they could reach, they brought it down with all their might. For a moment, the motor coughed, sputtered, and gasped while the ’Cats jumped back. With a jerk, the wooden propeller came to a stop.
“Switch off!” announced Mallory, and the two ’Cats approached the propeller again. They hadn’t thoroughly tested the remote throttle adjustment, and Brister stepped forward and squirted a little fuel in the carburetor. Nodding, he joined Ben.
“Contact!”
This time, the propeller spun with an erratic, explosive, phut, phut, phut! sound, backfired, burped, then became a popping, vibrating blur. Brister hurried forward, careful of the spinning blades, and tinkered with the throttle linkage. Slowly, the vibration diminished and the smooth roar overwhelmed their cheers.
“This way!” Letts shouted over the din, and they hurried toward the noise. Another shed, smaller than the first and enclosed on all sides, was nearby. Letts moved a curtain aside and the racket flooded out. In he went, and Jenks was swept along with the rest. Oil lamps dimly lit the interior of the shed, but there were small, brightly glowing objects placed near large, complicated-looking machines. Lemurians and a few men toiled at those machines with singular concentration in spite of the noise emanating from another brightly lit area toward the back of the shed. As he passed them, Jenks saw the machines were turning and spinning, throwing coiled pieces of metal aside. They were also noisy-or would have been-without the cacophonous roar. Most were fairly straightforward. He’d seen their like in Imperial factories: lathes, mills, etc. Great leather belts whirled around pulleys attached to the high ceiling and transferred their rotation to the machines. A very few of the machines had no belts whatsoever, but seemed to run off insulated copper cables terminated at the same source as the brilliant white lights. The mystery fascinated him as much as the roar that grew even louder as they approached.
A haze of smoky fumes was gathering in the light, swirling in a strange, artificial wind. In it stood three men and a couple of Lemurians staring intently at a relatively small machine vibrating on a stand. A big paddle of some kind whirled to a blur at one end of it.
“Mr. Mallory!” Matt shouted at one of the men who stood, hands on hips. He turned.
“Captain Reddy!” There was a huge smile on the man’s bearded face. “Good afternoon, sir.” He motioned at the machine and eyed a set of gauges on his console. “Temps are a little variable on the cylinders, but that’s to be expected with an air-cooled in-line. The production models’ll be liquid-cooled and heavier, but the horsepower ought to be similar. The main thing is that it looks like we’ve solved the crankcase and oil pump issues-at least for straight and level.” For the first time Mallory noticed Jenks and his smile faded a little.
“It’s okay,” Matt shouted. “It’s time.”
Mallory shrugged as if to say, You’re the skipper, and motioned to one of the ’Cats stationed near another panel. “Bring her up, Tikker!”
The sable-furred ’Cat with a shiny brass tube in his ear nodded and advanced a small lever. Immediately, the noise increased and the paddlelike object whirred even faster, redoubling the gale of wind and noxious fumes. Jenks began to feel a little ill. Sandra coughed violently and patted Captain Reddy on the arm. Matt looked at her and nodded, noting Jenks’s expression as well. He patted Mallory, and when he got his attention, he made a “cut it” gesture.
Tikker noticed and backed the throttle down until the engine finally wheezed and died. The sudden, relative silence was overwhelming.
“Mr. Mallory, you’re going to choke all your workers,” Matt said with a grin. Ben looked around. If anything but excitement made him feel light-headed, it didn’t show.
“Well, yes, sir,” he said, beaming, “but it works! The damn thing works! Uh, begging your pardon.” He glanced at Jenks and his euphoria slipped a notch. “Yeah, it stinks, I guess, but we’ve been trying to keep things under wraps.”
“I know. That’s over now.” Matt clapped Ben on his good shoulder and nodded congratulations to the others. “Besides, it looks like we’ll be ready for flight testing soon and there’s no way to keep that a secret. I think it’s time Commodore Jenks, at least, sees what we’re up to.”
Jenks finally surrendered to a coughing fit of his own, but when he composed himself, he pointed at the engine. “What is that thing?” he asked. “Some sort of weapon?”
“Not by itself,” hedged one of the other workers who’d joined the group. He was a former Mahan machinist’s mate named “Miami” Tindal.