“When you conquer your enemies,” said Jenny. “That’s how.”
“Really? And then what? There are always more enemies. My family lines come from England and Scotland. They conquered each other lots of times, and conquered other people. That didn’t end war. When white men landed at Plymouth Rock and started killing the red men, that didn’t end war. Soon as they cleared out the Indians, they started killing each other. And then we fought the British, and the French and the Mexicans. Look at all the ghost rock weapons out there now. Have they stopped the Rail Wars? Has either the North or South won the damn war? Uh-uh, honey, no weapon is going to end war. Can’t happen.”
Looks Away sighed. “I tend to agree with you, Grey. Doctor Saint, for all of his brains and wisdom, is of a different mind, however. It’s his belief that if someone developed what he called an ‘ultimate’ weapon, then peace could be achieved. A lasting peace, I mean.”
“How?” asked Jenny. “Grey’s right, people are plain contentious. They’ll find some way to pick a fight, no matter what.”
“Contentious, yes, but are they suicidal? What if there was a weapon so powerful that to use it would insure the utter destruction of one’s enemy? Wouldn’t knowledge of such a weapon make any rational person choose to opt out of a conflict?”
Grey and Jenny considered, then they shook their heads.
“People aren’t that smart,” she said.
“People are plumb crazy,” agreed Grey.
“Hey,” said Looks Away, “don’t get me wrong. I didn’t say that I was sold on Doctor Saint’s idea of a weapon to end all wars. I’m saying that he believes it. He is rather emphatic about it. Dare I say obsessive?”
Jenny tapped the rifle with a fingernail. “What is this and what does it do?”
“This, dear girl, is a prototype of the Kingdom Mark One air-cooled, electric reload, ten-shot infantry repeating rifle. It fires iron-core, silver-tipped forty-caliber copper-jacketed chemical bullets powered by compressed gas collected by the discharge of the process of smelting ghost rock.”
The silence following that explanation was crushing.
Grey was the one to break it. “You want to take another swing at that, son? Maybe this time in English?”
Looks Away gave them a crooked smile. “The Kingdom M1 is something entirely new. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world, of that I am quite certain. You understand, I hope, the concept of an electric motor?”
“I read about it, sure,” said Jenny. “Even before the big ghost rock invention craze. Something about coils and such holding lightning?”
“Not exactly,” said Looks Away, “but close enough for our purposes. Doctor Saint worked with a bright young naval officer named Frank Sprague from Milford, Connecticut. Mr. Sprague is part of the American Navy’s efforts to build machine-driven warships powered by ghost rock engines.”
“Everybody’s navy is working on that,” said Grey. “Airships, too. I think Deray might have one, too. I saw something during the storm.”
“As did I,” said the Sioux, “but I didn’t get a good look at it. That only reinforces the point that everyone seems to have a natural bent for armed conflict, even in an age of prosperity and discovery.” He gestured vaguely toward the town. “And by ‘prosperity’ I refer to virtually anyplace that isn’t Paradise Falls.”
Jenny made a face.
“My point,” continued Looks Away, “is that Doctor Saint was able to take some of Sprague’s designs and build a very compact version of a functional electric motor. He put that inside the Kingdom M1 and discovered a process of keeping the motor working at a perpetual rate of fire by something he calls ‘gas injection.’”
“But you’re talking about ghost rock? How’s that a gas?” asked Grey. “I thought that when they smelted it all they got was a stinky cloud that tends to scream as it comes out of the smokestacks. They got all those smelting plants in Salt Lake City and the sky’s black with that smutch. People call it the ‘City of Gloom’ for a damn good reason.”
“There are side effects, I’ll grant you. But what most people dismiss as merely gaseous discharge — waste products, if you will — Doctor Saint has discovered possess certain useful attributes. One of Doctor Saint’s… um… what’s the word I’m fishing for here? Rival? Colleague? Something like that but I can’t find the exact word. Anyway, one of the other scientists working on developing advanced military mechanics is based in Salt Lake. Dr. Darius Hellstromme. You’ve heard of him?”
Jenny shook her head.
Grey narrowed his eyes. “I have. Been some wild-ass tales coming out of Utah. I met a guy once who swore on his own mother’s grave that he saw a machine man walking down the center of Salt Lake, big as two men and clanking like fifty headaches. Of course, that fellow was a known drunk and his mother’s still alive, so who knows what he really saw.”
Looks Away shrugged. “Machine men? Really? I doubt that. Though… I might be unfair. I suppose if machines can fly, then maybe they can be made to walk. But what concerns me, or rather what concerns Doctor Saint, is the Kingdom rifle. He explained it to me, but I’ll try to put it in simpler terms for you.”
“That would be nice,” said Jenny. She gave Grey a knowing wink. “For the benefit of us lesser mortals.”
“Hilarious,” said Looks Away sourly, but he was smiling. “The whole thing involves capturing the smoky discharge from the smelting process and then compressing it into small cylinders. The more gas that can be compressed into, say, a five-inch cylinder, the better. More gas pressure creates more energy when released. You follow?”
“Like a bloodhound,” said Grey.
“There is so much raw energy, even in the ghost rock smoke, that one cylinder, properly regulated, can be used for many bursts of energy. What Doctor Saint has done is connect a replaceable cylinder to the electric motor. Each time a burst of gas is discharged, it winds the copper coils of the motor at such a high rate that a strong electrical charge is created. This charge is used for two purposes. First it is injected into the brass shell casing of each bullet through a special kind of firing pin, thus triggering a blast that has far more power than black powder. The projectile flies faster, farther, and straighter. The second thing it does is activate all of the destructive properties of tiny grains of ghost rock that have been placed inside the core of the bullet. That turns what appears to be an ordinary bullet into a round that has the approximate explosive power of an explosive artillery shell. Imagine, if you will, a twenty-four-pound field gun firing canister packed with thousands of tiny iron pellets. Grey, I’m sure you’ve seen the effect firsthand.”
“Too many times,” admitted Grey. “One round can rip a whole platoon apart. But that’s a big shell.” He picked up one of the loose rounds and examined it. The bullet was only a little larger than a rifle round. “Even if this broke up it couldn’t do that kind of damage.”
“Yes,” said Looks Away sadly, “it could. That bullet is not what it seems. Inside are grains of ghost rock. Not enough to be of much value for sale, but when charged during a compressed gas firing, each one of them explodes like a tiny grenade. There are fifty grains in each bullet. The effect is every bit as devastating as fifty small bombs going off in a tightly packed area.”
They stared at him in horror.
“So you see what would happen if an army went into the field carrying Kingdom M1s?”
“It would be a slaughter,” said Jenny, aghast. “That’s terrifying.”
“It is indeed. One effect is that any ghost rock used is utterly destroyed, as is any ghost rock it encounters. One of Doctor Saint’s intentions was to create a weapon that would obliterate any ghost rock — powered weapon of the enemy.”