An hour and twenty-two minutes after flyoff, Okabe reported in. The launch was sighted, and he'd tried to talk to the deserters by radio. He'd gotten no reply. The three planes would swing down over the boat in single file and fire machine guns at it. Not for long, however, since the lead bullets were too valuable, too needed for the fight against the Not For Hire. If a few bursts didn't make the deserters surrender or turn down-River or abandon the launch, then bombs would be dropped near the vessel.
Okabe also reported that the launch was several miles past the point where The Valley suddenly widened out. This was the area to which the launch had gone two months ago during the rewinding. Its crew had talked to many of the titanthrops, in Esperanto, of course, in an effort to recruit about forty as marines. King John had envisioned closing in with the Not For Hire and sending the forty ogres over in the van of the boarders. Two score like Joe Miller would wipe the decks of Clemens' boat clean in short order. Nor would the mighty.Miller be able to withstand the onslaught of so many of his fellows.
Much to John's disgust and disappointment, his men had discovered that every titanthrop interviewed was a member of the Church of the Second Chance. They refused to fight and in fact tried to convert the crew.
It was probable that there were titanthrops who had not succumbed to the preachings of the missionaries. But there" wasn't time to look for them.
Now the airplanes lowered toward the launch while the people on shore, part of them average-sized Homo sapiens, part veritable Brobdingnags, lined the banks to watch these machines.
Suddenly, Okabe said, "The launch is heading for the right bank!"
He dived but not to fire. He couldn't have hit the launch without also hitting many locals, and he was under orders not to anger them in any way if he could help it. John didn't want to go through a hostile area after the Rex had sunk the Not For Hire.
"The deserters are jumping out of the launch and wading to the bank!" Okabe said. "The launch is drifting with the current!"
John cursed and then ordered the torpedo-bomber to land on The River. Its gunner must board the launch and bring it back to the Rex. And he must do it quickly before some local decided to swim out and appropriate the launch for himself.
"The deserters are mingled with the crowds," Okabe said. "I imagine they'll head for the hills after we've left."
"God's teeth!" John said. "We'll never be able to find them!"
Burton, in the pilothouse at this time, made no comment. He knew that the agents would later steal a sailboat and continue up-River. The Rex would overtake it, if the Rex wasn't sunk or too damaged to continue.
A few minutes after the launch was reberthed in the Rex and the two fighters had landed, a light on the pilothouse radio glowed orange. The operator's eyes widened, and he was so astonished he couldn't speak for a moment. For thirty years he and his fellow operators had waited for this to happen, though they'd not really expected it would.
At last the operator got the words out.
"Sire, Sire! The Clemens frequency!"
The frequency which the Not For Hire used was, of course, known. It could have been changed by Clemens, though even then the radio of the Rex would have scanned the spectrum until it had located it. But apparently Clemens had never seen any reason to shift to another wavelength. The few times that the Rex had received transmission from the Not For Hire, the message had been scrambled.
Not now. The message was not for the Parseval or the airplanes or launches of the Not For Hire. It was in nonscrambled Esperanto and meant for the Rex.
The speaker was not Sam Clemens himself. He was John Byron, Clemens' chief executive officer. And he wished to talk to, not King John, but his chief officer.
John, who'd gone down to his quarters for sleep or dalliance with his current cabinmate, or both, was summoned. Strubewell did not dare to talk to Byron until his commander authorized it. John was at first determined to talk directly to Clemens. But Clemens, through Byron, refused to do that nor would he say why.
John replied, through his first mate, that there would be no communication at all then. But, after a minute, while the radio hissed and crackled, Byron said that he had a message to deliver, a "proposition." His commander dared not speak to John face to face, as it were. Clemens was afraid that he'd lose his temper and cuss out King John as no one else in the universe had ever been cussed out before. And that included Jehovah's denunciation of Satan before He hurled him headlong from Heaven.
Clemens had a sporting offer to make John. However, it was necessary, as John should now understand, that it be transmitted via intermediaries. After waiting half an hour to make Clemens swear and fume and fret, John replied via Strubewell.
Burton was again in the pilothouse and heard everything from the beginning. He was staggered when Clemens' "proposition" was put forth.
John heard it all out, then replied that he'd have to talk about this to Werner Voss and Kenji Okabe, his top fighter pilots. He couldn't order them to accept these conditions. And, by the way, who were Clemens' two pilots?
Byron said that they were William Barker, a Canadian, and Georges Guynemer, a Frenchman. Both were famous aces of World War I.
There was more identification of the pilots. Their histories were expanded upon. John called Voss and Okabe to the pilothouse, and he told them what had happened.
They were astounded. But after they'd recovered, they talked to each other.
And then Okabe said, "Sire, we have been flying for twenty years for you. It's mostly been dull work though occasionally dangerous. We've been waiting for this moment; we've known that it would happen. We won't be facing fellow nationals or former allies, though I understand that my country was an ally of England and France in World War I.
"We will do this. We look forward to it."
Burton thought, what are we? King Arthur's knights? Idiots? Or both?
Nevertheless, part of him approved deeply and was very excited.
27
THE NOT FOR HIRE HAD BEEN ANCHORED NEAR THE RIGHT BANK a few miles up from the entrance to the lake. Goring was taken to Aglejo by the launch Post No Bills. Clemens sent his apologies to La Viro for not coming to meet him at once. Unfortunately, he said, a previous engagement had held him up. But late tomorrow or possibly the day after, he would come to the temple.
Goring had begged Clemens to make overtures of peace to King John. Clemens, as Hermann had expected, had refused to do so.
"The final act of this drama has been too long delayed. The damn intermission was forty years long. Now nothing is going to stop its being staged."
"This isn't a theater," Hermann said, "Real blood will be shed. Real pain will be felt. The deaths won't be faked. And for what?"
"For what matters," Clemens said. "I don't want to talk about it any more."
He puffed angrily on his big green cigar. Goring silently blessed him with the three-fingered gesture of the Church and left the pilothouse.
All day long the boat had been readied. The thick duraluminum plates with the small portholes were secured over the windows. Thick duraluminum doors were secured to the exterior entrances of the corridors and passageways. The ammunition was checked. The steam machine guns were fired for a few rounds. The elevation and vertical and horizontal movement machines of the 88-millimeter cannons were tested. Rockets were placed in the launching tubes, and the machinery for bringing more from the bowels of the A deck was checked. The one cannon using compressed air was tested. The airplanes were taken up for a wringout after being fully armed. The launches were also armed. The radar, sonar, and infrared detectors were given a checkout. The boarding bridges were extended and withdrawn.