2565 A.D.!
A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE OF MAN
By Jerome B. Bigge
Book Two
Chapter Twenty Nine
"All your `possessions' that you brought with you into this era are stored in the storage compartment behind us," An'na in- formed me as the three of us got inside Black Lady and I took my seat at the controls, wondering how well the plane flew after all that An'na had done to it. The engine was rebuilt to run on eth- anol, which could be manufactured far easier than could gasoline.
"Including what was in my purse?" I asked cautiously, re- calling my own PPK .380 and Jack's S&W .38, both weapons being of course quite forbidden under the EDICT as was Black Lady herself!
"People flew in the air in these things?" Jon interrupted, tapping the side of the fuselage. The plane rocking a bit under us in the swell, Sa-she-ra and Lady Tirana there to see us off as were a number of my own people and some of the crew of the Janis such as Sentis Santa and the boyish young Stan Holt. I told Jon that people had indeed "flown in these things" and that we were going to do just exactly that as soon as I figured out how to start the engine. An'na having modified the starting procedure.
"Turn to `on', then wait for the red light to go out before you turn the engine over," An'na explained, giving me a smile as I warned the others to stay back from the propeller, which looked "different" from the one that the airplane had originally come with back there in the 20th Century! An'na explaining that it was necessary to vaporize the alcohol before drawing it into the engine. A similar system being used in the 21st Century with the replacement of gasoline by alcohol as a motor fuel. The visual display now on, showing this section of Trelandar in full color. There are various levels of display, ranging from one that dis- plays an area of half a mile to one that shows the entire Earth!
"Here goes," I smiled, turning the key, the engine catching almost instantly, An'na explaining that both the fuel systems and the ignition systems had been upgraded to the limits of technolo- gy for such things. The engine having been gone completely over there on Mars, tuned to a degree almost unbelievable back in the 20th Century. I will admit that Black Lady runs better now than she ever did back in my own time, although the power produced on alcohol is not as good as what was produced on aviation gasoline, my top speed being noticeably lower. The pontoons and their in- ternal wheels no doubt do add something to the wind resistance. My top speed is now about a hundred and eighty five knots, or two hundred and twelve miles per hour for you landlubbers. This was my cruising speed in the 20th Century, so you can see that there has been a loss in speed due to the redesign of the airplane and its conversion into an amphibian able to land on either calm wa- ter or any smooth land surface, there being few runways here in the 26th Century! I do however have the "oldest" Beechcraft Bo- nanza still flying by quite a good few centuries, I believe!
"Wind's picked up," Jon commented, looking through the wind- shield. I could see the rollers beyond the edge of the cove. Nothing for the Squala or the Janis, but already far too much for Black Lady to ever butt through without swamping herself in them!
"It's about a quarter mile to my house and the land's pretty flat from here to there," I said, yelling out the window to my people to untie the plane. Lady Tirana finally doing it, al- though the look on her face left no doubts about what she felt about getting so close to that deadly whirling propeller! As she told me later on, she'd rather have faced an armed warrior any day than get down on those pontoons and untie those ropes while someone else clung to the end of the wing to keep the plane from immediately drifting off with the wind there from the north. The propeller being so designed that I had both "forward and reverse as well as neutral" by merely adjusting the prop lever beside me!
I roared out into the cove, testing the controls, everything seeming to work satisfactorily. An'na had fortunately not tam- pered with the plane's original design, which while I suppose makes it not the easiest airplane to fly, does allow a considera- ble degree of versatility in making takeoff's and landings. The people there on the dock waving at me, while a slave girl stared at the plane from the Janis, her reddish hair glowing in the sun.
"Here we go!" I yelled over the roar of the engine, Jon mut- tering a prayer to Lys to watch over us, his "confidence" in his wife's abilities to "fly like a bird" leaving something to be de- sired! The Beechcraft Bonanza bouncing and leaping over the roughness of the cleared path towards my manor, the propeller a gleaming blurred disk there in the bright afternoon sunlight. People walking down the path fleeing for the "safety" of the woods as they saw this "strange roaring monster" bearing down on them! My airspeed not picking up as fast as I thought it should have, doubtlessly due to An'na's modifications to the engine. We were also heavy with fuel, and carrying a total of three people over rough ground, which didn't help anything either! I needed sixty knots to take off, and I didn't have sixty knots yet as the house and the barns beyond grew rapidly nearer there ahead of us. It was then that I saw the slave girl ahead of us. Standing there totally paralyzed by terror as she saw the airplane bearing down on her! I saw the "O" of her mouth, the darkness of her hair, the red of her shift, the wench being one of my own girls! "OH GOD!" I gasped, knowing that to turn would send us crashing into the trees at some fifty odd knots! We might survive the collision with only minor damage, I suspected, but the girl would be ripped apart by the propeller! It was her life or ours, the thought went sickeningly through my mind!
Then suddenly there was a racing figure, a young Dularnian oarsman from the Janis flinging the girl to the ground as I yanked the wheel back, the pontoons clearing them by only a few feet as we passed overhead. The "stall warning" buzzer screaming "disaster" as Black Lady struggled into the air, my free hand yanking at the flaps to give us just that little bit of extra lift that I needed to stay up as we raced over the fields in front of the house! The barn just ahead as I very gently banked and swung to one side of it, Black Lady's performance obviously not what it once had been back before An'na's modifications!
"Do you do this every time?" Jon asked as we cleared tree tops by only a dozen feet or so, the airplane's performance not up to what Beechcraft had designed into it! Bonanza's are de- signed for high performance, high speed, and they lack the short takeoff and landing capabilities of something like Cessna 182's and the like. The sweat wet beneath my armpits as I smiled and told him that usually my take-off's weren't all that "exciting"!
"I think in the future I'll stick to craft with anti-gravity capabilities," An'na announced, expressing her own opinions of the matter. I wondered if Jon would ever fly with me again or if he'd sail back on the Squala rather than trust his life to a wife who obviously had nearly gotten them all killed! My airplane now behaving itself better as we leveled off a few hundred yards over the treetops and I could ease back a bit on the throttle and push the flaps back in. An'na glancing down, pushing in a knob, the engine suddenly roaring away as if it had grown a couple more cy- linders. An'na giving me a remorseful look, and saying she had forgotten about pushing the choke back in after I had started the engine. No wonder we hadn't had any power! The choke had been left pulled out! We had been damm lucky to get off the ground!
"I would suggest that you use some sort of list before you take off in this damn thing to determine if you've done every- thing that you should have done," Jon suggested with a dry laugh from behind me, sounding just like a flight instructor back in the 20th Century. My new husband smiling to himself, enjoying his royal wife's discomfort and embarrassment at the situation!
"Why do you think that Darlanis is dead?" Jon asked me as I flew low over the shoreline, looking for the pirate vessels that I suspected were anchored in some hidden cove concealed from the sea. One such cove having concealed the Ronda from Sarnian Lady.
"She'd never allow herself to be taken alive by such men," I answered him, not liking to think about it. I had too many good memories of her. Far too many of Sharon. The adventures we had shared here in the 26th Century. Why had I agreed to letting Darlanis have her? The woman had been utterly reckless with her! Why had Darlanis been trying to reach me anyway? Had she known about the "Free Trelandar" movement and hoped to stop it herself?
"Something ahead," An'na spoke, staring through the wind- shield. We were over a part of Trelandar that is usually avoided by most people except for outlaws and that sort. The ruins of northern Los Angeles were visible here and there through the trees. There were a lot of shallow spots in the waters below. One would have to know these waters extremely well to avoid dis- aster or possess a ship as flat bottomed as the Janis. Squala's deep keel would make her a bad choice for any "activity" in such an area as this! It was a good "hiding place" for the pirates.
"Schooners, their masts taken down for concealment," Jon said to me. There were two at anchor, a third lying over on its side, under repair. A fourth vessel I recognized as the Ronda! We had found the pirates! I eased back the throttle, put two clicks on the flaps. Watched the scene before me grew closer, larger as we came down perhaps a hundred feet above the water!
"Bad place," Jon muttered. "We'd have to `feel our way in' and they'd have every chance to escape us while we did." I could see the shoal water there below. The pirates had indeed picked an ideal spot to hide. Only a flat bottom galley could get into here and even then it would have to "feel its way" as Jon said!
"They are readying weapons," An'na announced. I ignored her. We were in an airplane. They were but primitive barbarians below! What harm could a couple arrows or crossbow bolts do? Such brutes as those below couldn't hit anything flying past at seventy knots anyway! So I felt just then. My old 20th Century arrogance once again at work! It is a bad failing of mine. Gets me into "trouble" now and then when I forget. We were lucky this time. I flew over the schooners, banked, and came back for another look. They didn't understand what an airplane was, but they saw the symbol on the side. Knew who I was. They opened fire upon us with ballistae and crossbows. One of them knew enough to lead us! His marksmanship left nothing to be desired!
Beechcraft Bonanzas are made of "aircraft grade aluminum". They are not "armored" or are they proof against ballistae bolts! That was suddenly taught me very effectively as the head of a ballistae bolt suddenly thrust through my right wing, passing completely through the wing, and puncturing the fuel tank on that side! The alcohol streaming out into the air as I veered away, suddenly aware of my own "vulnerability" to such "primitive" weapons as these! It was a lesson that I have never forgotten! They could have actually shot us down had such a missile hit the engine! It was one very chastened Queen Lorraine who veered away towards Trella, so very much aware of how close a call it had been for her! For those dear to her she had just so thoughtless- ly risked. Jon didn't need to say anything to me. I was embar- rassed enough without having any "salt" rubbed into my "wound"!!!