Julian summoned a young Lieutenant, who tucked the message into the lining of a leather satchel and escorted Langers away.
I looked at Julian aghast, now that we were alone.
“Well?” he asked, with an insouciant note in his voice. “You have something to say, Adam?”
“I hardly know where to begin, but—Julian! Is there really a Chinese weapon?”
“Can you think of some other reason I might send that note to Major Walton?”
“But that’s just the absurdity of it! Using Langers as a messenger, and then telling him that the Dutch would reward him for betraying us! You accuse me of naïveté from time to time, but this tops it all—you might as well have invited him to defect!”
“Do you really think he might succumb to the temptation?”
“I think he could hardly do anything else!”
“Then we share the same opinion.”
“You mean you expect him to betray us to the enemy?”
“I mean that if my plan is to succeed, it will be better if he does.”
I was naturally confused, and I suppose my expression showed it, for Julian took pity on me, and put an arm about my shoulders. “I’m sorry if I seem to trifle with you, Adam. If I haven’t been entirely frank, it’s only for the purpose of preserving absolute secrecy. Report to me in the morning and I’ll make it all clear.”
That dubious promise was the most I could extract from him, and I left his headquarters in a whirling state of mind.
Now I must stop writing, if I want to sleep at all before reveille.
The air is cold but clear tonight, the wind as sharp as scissors. I find myself thinking of Calyxa, but she is awfully far away.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2174
Julian has explained his plan. Tonight we perform an essential test. I can confide the truth in no one—not even in these Notes, which I keep for myself.
It’s a thin chance, but we have no other.
(Here the Diary concludes, and I resume the narrative in the customary style.)
* Despite the well-known cruelty and Atheism of Mitteleuropa, that principality nevertheless inspires in its subjects a kind of “patriotism” which resembles in almost every particular the real thing.
* Nor could there have been.
* A skill every Eupatridian of Julian’s class has mastered: it consists of regarding the world and all its inhabitants as if they emitted a faint offensive odor.
5
Julian took me into his confidence at last, and during the afternoon of the 21st of November he conducted me on a tour of the warehouse where the “weapon” was being prepared.
It soon became obvious that what I had overlooked about Julian was his persistent and unconquerable love of theater. That aspect of his personality had not been much manifest during his tenure as Major General Comstock … but neither, apparently, had it been wholly suppressed. The interior of the warehouse (illuminated by freshly-scrubbed skylights and a generous number of lanterns) resembled nothing so much as the backstage shambles at some colossal production of Lucia di Lammermoor,* with Julian as the property-master.
Men in uniform had been made into seamstresses, working bolts of black silk at feverish speed, often while cutters slashed at the same cloth. Carpenters had busied themselves sawing wooden poles or lathing into supple strips as tall as a man. Cordage from a wholesale spool the size of a millwheel was carefully measured out, and segments of it rewound onto smaller hubs. This was only a sample of the vigorous business taking place.
The huge room stank of various chemical substances, including caustic soda and what Julian claimed was liquid phosphorous (in several pitted metal barrels). My eyes began to water as soon as the door was closed behind me, and I wondered whether some of what I had mistaken for fatigue in Julian’s countenance was simply the result of long hours spent in this unpleasant atmosphere. I was impressed by the industriousness and scale of the work, which filled the enclosed space with a fearsome noise, but I confessed I could not make sense of it.
“Come on, Adam, can’t you guess?”
“Is it a game, then? I assume you’re assembling some weapon—or at least the seeming of one.”
“A little of each,” said Julian, smiling mischievously.
A soldier came past carrying a wrapped assemblage of lathes and black silk, which Julian briefly inspected. I told Julian the bundle resembled one of the fishing-kites he had got up at Edenvale, though much enlarged.
“Very good!” said Julian. “Well observed.”
“But what is it really?”
“Just what you imagine it is.”
“A kite?” The soldier in question stood the object upright among many others similar to it. Folded, they resembled so many sinister umbrellas, fashioned for the use of a fastidious giant. “But there must be a hundred of them!”
“At least.”
“What use are kites, though, Julian?”
“Any explanation I could give you would be beggared by the truth. Tonight we test the product. When you see the result, perhaps you’ll understand.”
His coyness was aggravating, but I supposed it was another manifestation of the showman in him, not wanting to describe a stage effect for fear of diminishing its impact. He said he wanted me as “an unbiased observer.” I told that I had no bias but impatience; and I went to the field hospital in a mixed humor, and made myself useful there until after dark.
When night had fully fallen, and after our meager evening rations had been doled out, Julian and I once more made our way toward the docks. The warehouse, though still heavily guarded, was less busy at this hour. The men Julian had chosen as his workforce had been sworn to secrecy, and they slept apart from the other soldiers so as not to risk unwise conversation. Most of the recruits, Julian said, knew only the particular task assigned them, and had been kept ignorant of the whole outline of the business. But there were a hundred or so men who had been made to understand our ultimate objective, and this elite group was in the warehouse tonight—or rather on top of the warehouse, for we climbed an iron stairway to the roof of the building, which was securely tiled and only gently sloped. The “Kite Brigade,” as Julian called them, awaited him there.
The night was moonless, the stars obscured by high fast-running clouds. Apart from a few campfires, and lanterns in odd windows, the town of Striver was entirely dark. The huge kites I had seen before had been brought up here. They were still furled, but their bridles had been attached to reels of hempen twine which were nailed to wooden bases and equipped with hand cranks. Each kite also had a bucket tied to its bridle with a short string, and as we arrived a man was just finishing the work of pouring a measured amount of sand into each of these buckets.
“What’s that for?” I asked Julian—quietly, since the eerie atmosphere of the rooftop seemed to discourage anything beyond a hushed whisper.
“I’ve calculated how much weight each parafoil can carry,” Julian said. “To night we discover whether my calculations were correct.”
I didn’t ask how one estimated the lifting power of a “parafoil,” or with what kind of arithmetic—no doubt it was something else Julian had learned from one of his antique books. If it depended on the wind, we were in luck; the breeze was brisk; but it was very cold, and I kept my hands in the pockets of my overcoat, and wished I had my old packle hat on top of my head, instead of the thin Army cap I was wearing.
Everything seemed ready for the “test flight,” as Julian called it, except for the darkness. “How can you see whether they fly, when the moon is down and even the Northern Lights aren’t operating?”