* * *
"Mama!"
Young Maurice Hosten stumped across the grass of the lawn on uncertain eighteen-month legs. Pia Hosten waited, crouching and smiling, the long gauzy white skirts spread about her, and a floppy, flower-crowned hat held down with one hand.
"Mama!"
Pia scooped the child up, laughing. John smiled and turned away, back toward the view over the terrace and gardens. Beyond the fence was what had been a sheep pasture, when this house near Ensburg was the headquarters for a ranch. Ensburg had grown since the Civil War, grown into a manufacturing city of half a million souls; most of the ranch had been split up into market gardens and dairy farms as the outskirts approached, and the old manor had become an industrialists weekend retreat. It still was, the main change being that the owner was John Hosten. . and that he used it for more than recreation.
"Come on, everybody," he said.
The party picked up their drinks and walked down toward the fence. It was a mild spring afternoon, just warm enough for shirtsleeves but not enough to make the tailcoats and cravats some of the guests wore uncomfortable. They found places along the white-painted boards, in clumps and groups between the beech trees planted along it. Out in the close-cropped meadow stood a contraption built of wire and canvas and wood, two wings and a canard ahead of them, all resting on a tricycle undercarriage of spoked wheels. A man sat between the wings, his hands and feet on the controls, while two more stood behind on the ground with their hands on the pusher-prop attached to the little radial engine.
"For your sake I hope this works, son," Maurice Farr said sotto voce, as he came up beside John. He took a sip at his wine seltzer and smoothed back his graying mustache with his forefinger.
"You don't think this is actually the first trial, do you, Dad?" John said with a quiet smile.
The ex-commodore-he had an admiral's stars and anchors on his epaulets now-laughed and slapped John on the shoulder. "I'm no longer puzzled at how you became that rich that quickly," he said.
If you only knew, Dad, John thought.
wind currents are now optimum, Center hinted.
"Go!" John called.
"Contact!" Jeffrey said from the pilots seat, lowering the goggles from the brow of his leather helmet to his eyes. The long silk scarf around his neck fluttered in the breeze.
The two workers spun the prop. The engine cracked, sputtered, and settled to a buzzing roar. Prop-wash fluttered the clothes of the spectators, and a few of the ladies lost their hats. Men leaped after them, and everyone shaded their eyes against flung grit. Jeffrey shouted again, inaudible at this distance over the noise of the engine, and the two helpers pulled blocks from in front of the undercarriage wheels. The little craft began to accelerate into the wind, slowly at first, with the two men holding on to each wing and trotting alongside, then spurting ahead as they released it. The wheels flexed and bounced over slight irregularities in the ground.
Despite everything, John found himself holding his breath as they hit one last bump and stayed up. . six inches over the turf. . eight. . five feet and rising. He let the breath out with a sigh. The plane soared, banking slowly and gracefully and climbing in a wide spiral until it was five hundred feet over the crowd. Voices and arms were raised, a murmured ahhhh.
The two men who'd assisted at the takeoff came over to the fence. John blinked away the vision overlaid on his own of the earth opening out below and people and buildings dwindling to doll-size.
"Father, Edgar and William Wong, the inventors," he said. "Fellows, my father-Admiral Farr."
"Sir," Edgar said, as they shook his hand. "Your son's far too kind. Half the ideas were his, at least, as well as all the money."
His brother shook his head. "We'd still be fiddling around with warping the wing for control if John hadn't suggested moveable ailerons," he said. "And gotten a better chord ratio on the wings. He's quite a head for math, sir."
Maurice Farr smiled acknowledgment without taking his eyes from where his son flew above their heads. The steady droning of the engine buzzed down, like a giant bee.
"It works," he said softly. "Well, well."
"Damned toy," a new voice said.
John turned with a diplomatic bow. General McWriter probably wouldn't have come except for John's wealth and political influence. He stared at the machine and tugged at a white walrus mustache that cut across the boiled-lobster complexion. . or that might be the tight collar of his brown uniform tunic.
"Damned toy," he said again. "Another thing for the bloody politicians"-there were ladies present, and you could hear the slight hesitation before the mild expletive as the general remembered it-"to waste money on, when we need every penny for real weapons."
"The Chosen found aerial reconnaissance extremely useful in the Empire," he said mildly, turning the uniform cap in his fingers.
McWriter grunted. "Perhaps. According to young Farr's reports."
"According to all reports, General. Including those of my own service, and the Ministry."
The general's grunt showed what he thought of reports from sailors, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Research Bureau.
"They used dirigibles, you'll note," McWriter said, turning to John. "What's the range and speed? How reliable is it?"
"Eighty miles an hour, sir," John said with soft politeness. "Range is about an hour, so far. Engine time to failure is about three hours, give or take."
The general's face went even more purple. "Then what bloody f. . bloody use is it?" he said, nodding abruptly to the admiral and walking away calling for his aide-de-camp.
"What use is a baby?" John said.
"You're sure it can be improved?" the elder Farr said.
"As sure as if I had a vision from God"-or Center-"about it," John said. "Within a decade, they're going to be flying ten times as far and three times as fast, I'll stake everything I own on it."
"I hope so," Farr said. "Because we are going to need it, very badly. The navy most of all."
"You think so, Admiral?" another man said. Farr started slightly; he hadn't seen the civilian in the brown tailcoat come up.
"Senator Beemody," he said cautiously.
The politician-financier nodded affably. "Admiral. Good to see you again." He held out a hand. "No hard feelings, eh?"
Farr returned the gesture. "Not on my side, sir."
"Well, you're not the one who lost half a million," Beemody said genially. He was a slight dapper man, his mustache trimmed to a black thread over his upper lip. "On the other hand, Jesus Christ with an order from the President couldn't have saved those warehouses, from my skipper's reports. . and you're quite the golden boy these days, after facing down that Chosen bitch at Salini. We can offer her a better one than her colleagues appear to have found at Corona,'" he quoted with relish. The senator's grin was disarming. "What with one thing and another, grudges would be pretty futile. And I have no time for unproductive gestures, Admiral. You think we'll need these?"
"Damned right we will. Knowing your enemy's location is half the battle in naval warfare. Knowing where he is while he doesn't know where you are is the other half. We've relied on fast cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers to scout and screen for us, but the Chosen dirigibles are four times faster than the fastest hulls afloat. Plus they can scout from several thousand feet. We need an equivalent and we need it very badly, or we'll be defeated at sea in the event of war."
"Which some think is inevitable," Beemody said thoughtfully. "I'm not entirely sure-but the news out of the Empire certainly seems to support the hypothesis. Admiral. John."
"People can surprise you," Farr said reflectively as the senator moved through the crowd, shaking hands and dropping smiles.