“Sails? Are we going to have to start that again?”
“No, but Shoogar —”
“Shoogar. I might have known. Shoogar wants sails, does he?”
“See for yourself. When they’re mounted, the wind from the airmakers will blow right into them. We won’t have to wait for a breeze — if it works. In fact,” said Orbur, “it ought to work for boats too. If —” But he had to stop there, for Purple was leaning against the hull, chortling, while his nude face grew redder and redder.
“You think it won’t work,” Orbur said sadly.
“Yes, yes, I think that. But try it anyway. What harm can it do? There is only one way Shoogar will ever be convinced that we don’t need sails. We’ll have to let him try it.” He turned to go, but turned back. “Just be sure we can remove the sails after we prove they don’t work.”
Down the slope Trone had finished two generators, and there were more than twenty men pumping away on each of them. All of their power was going steadily into Purple’s little battery.
Purple was growing more and more impatient every day. He hovered around the workers like a bumble-sting, prodding and poking. Grimm, the tailor, had finished sixteen airbags for him. Each, when inflated, would be nearly six manlengths in height.
Purple estimated that ten airbags might lift the boat, but thirteen would be necessary to carry the additional supplies he wanted to take — and sixteen balloons would give him a margin for error in case they leaked faster than he had figured. He was worried about the seams.
Grimm also made three additional airbags to be taken along in case of emergency. If one of the airbags developed a leak too big to be patched, or was otherwise damaged, Purple would have a spare with which to replace it.
In short, we were taking no chances — when Purple left, we wanted to be sure he was gone.
Right now he was directing the anchoring of the filling frames. He had suddenly realized how light they were, and did not want to risk a balloon suddenly lifting up and taking a filling frame with it.
With Grimm’s help they had worked out a system of harness and anchor ropes for the balloons, and as each one | was filled, six men wearing weighted belts would ferry it up to the Crag where Wilville and Orbur waited. The rigging ropes for the airboat were laid out across the launching cradle in a set pattern, and the harness ropes had to be attached in a specific order. Then — and only then — would the anchoring ropes be released. Purple did not want to risk losing even one of his giant balloons. They had taken too much time and effort to build.
Originally he had planned to use many smaller balloons, each the height of a man — but then he had done some figuring — he could hold the same amount of gas in fewer but larger balloons — and it would not need as much cloth. He would still be able to fly, and it would not take so long to make his windbags.
Purple and Shoogar had created a whole new trade — airmen. These were the various crews who were tending the generators, the filling frames, the water trenches, the anchoring of the airboat — everything that was needed to fly.
More and more villagers came to watch or help. We had little else to do now that the seas had reached their peak — even the lower slope of the Upper Village was under water now. Most people were living close to the working site anyway. That was fortuitous for Purple — he always had need of men to pump on his bicycles, and the demand for his spell tokens was so great that there was never any shortage of volunteers.
Purple grew more and more impatient with each day. The only thing holding him up was the production of electrissy.
Apparently, it took fantastic amounts to make enough hydrogen.
The fourth generator had not even been begun when Purple began filling his airbags. He was experimenting, he said. He wanted to see how long it took to fill each one, and he needed to know how fast they lost their gas. Besides, it would be easier to pump a limp airbag taut than to start from scratch. And in any case, it would take several days to fill all the balloons.
That he was eager to see how well his flying machine worked was no secret. There were almost thirty men on each generator now and he had more than enough power in his battery to fill all the airbags. He would use it if he had to, he said, but he hoped to save it for his journey where it would really be necessary.
We watched as he arranged the wires in the trough. The women began filling that channel with water. Fortunately, they did not have to carry it very far, only half a mile uphill, and the slope was gentle.
There was some hassling then with the filling crews, the boys who had been hired to watch the filling of the bag, but finally Purple straightened out their instructions and they began laying one of the finished airbags across the frame.
Shoogar and Gortik and I exchanged a glance. “You know,” said Gortik. “I actually think he’s going to do it —”
“I’ve never doubted it,” I said.
Shoogar only snorted.
“All that work, all that work — Gortik murmured. Frameworks and looms and bicycles — all that work, just to build a flying machine.”
“He said it was a complicated spell,” I put in.
Shoogar snorted again.
“It’s necessary though,” I added. “Otherwise, he can t go home.”
“He must want to go home very badly, Gortik said.
“Not as badly as we want him to,” Shoogar snapped. “And the sooner the better. I think I’ll go help him.” And he tottered off down the hill. “There are supplies to gather and sails to pack.”
It was a strange scene — four giant frames, three covered with cloth, and the fourth holding a gently puffing mass of rising airbag. A trench of water ran below, and bubbled furiously at its free end. At its other end a nozzle and hose attachment reached up to the giant bag.
Farther up the slope, more than a hundred and twenty men were pumping wildly on their bicycles. Great spinning generators whirred loudly. One could hear their high-pitched whine all over the hill — but we had become used to that sound. It had become a part of our lives.
Nine airbags had already been filled and ferried up the hill. Wilville and Orbur were climbing excitedly about on the airboat frame, making last minute adjustments in the rigging.
All over the slope we could see the imposing frame of the craft — and at last we saw what Purple had visualized all this time. Not all the airbags had yet been attached; yet the nine straining upward from their ropes gave us an idea — a cluster of moons swelling gloriously in the red and blue light.
It had taken nearly five days to fill this many bags.
Already the first bags filled were starting to droop, and others were showing ripples in the wind — signs that they were not as taut as they should be.
But Purple had counted on a certain amount of leakage during the time it took to fill the bags. He intended to use his battery to replenish the hydrogen in each of them just before departure.
By now the affair had turned into quite a festival. There was much singing and shouting and drinking of Quaff. The men working on the generators had organized themselves into teams and had begun competing — each team trying to see how long they could go at full speed — each team trying to prove it was stronger than the other.
Purple was delighted. He offered two extra spell tokens for every man on the winning team. As soon as one competition was ended, another promptly began, fresh teams replacing the tired ones on the bicycles. The process of replacement was always fun to watch — one man at a time would hop off his bicycle, leaving the pedals still spinning wildly. Another would then hop on and match the rate of pumping. The next man in line would then hop off his bike and so on.