IX
At the Kingston airport, Joe Mauser rejoined Max Mainz, his face drawnnow.
"Everything go all right?" the little man said anxiously.
"I don't know," Joe said. "I still couldn't tell them the story. OldCogswell is as quick as a coyote. We pull this little caper today, andhe'll be ready to meet it tomorrow."
He looked at the two-place sailplane which sat on the tarmac."Everything all set?"
"Far as I know," Max said. He looked at the motorless aircraft. "Yousure you been checked out on these things, captain?"
"Yes," Joe said. "I bought this particular soaring glider more than ayear ago, and I've put almost a thousand hours in it. Now, where's thepilot of that light plane?"
A single-engined sports plane was attached to the glider by a fifty-footnylon rope. Even as Joe spoke, a youngster poked his head from theplane's window and grinned back at them. "Ready?" he yelled.
"Come on, Max," Joe said. "Let's pull the canopy off this thing. Wedon't want it in the way while you're semaphoring."
A figure was approaching them from the Administration Building. Auniformed man, and somehow familiar.
"A moment, Captain Mauser!"
Joe placed him now. The Sov-world representative he'd met at Balt Haer'stable in the Upper bar a couple of days ago. What was his name? ColonelArpad. Lajos Arpad.
The Hungarian approached and looked at the sailplane in interest. "As arepresentative of my government, a military attache checking uponpossible violations of the Universal Disarmament Pact, may I requestwhat you are about to do, captain?"
Joe Mauser looked at him emptily. "How did you know I was here and whatI was doing?"
The Sov colonel smiled gently. "It was by suggestion of MarshalCogswell. He is a great man for detail. It disturbed him that an ...what did he call it? ... an _old pro_ like yourself should join withVacuum Tube Transport, rather than Continental Hovercraft. He didn'tthink it made sense and suggested that possibly you had in mind somescheme that would utilize weapons of a post 1900 period in your effortsto bring success to Baron Haer's forces. So I have investigated, CaptainMauser."
"And the marshal knows about this sail plane?" Joe Mauser's face wasblank.
"I didn't say that. So far as I know, he doesn't."
"Then, Colonel Arpad, with your permission, I'll be taking off."
The Hungarian said, "With what end in mind, captain?"
"Using this glider as a reconnaissance aircraft."
"Captain, I warn you! Aircraft were not in use in warfare until--"
But Joe Mauser cut him off, equally briskly. "Aircraft were first usedin combat by Pancho Villa's forces a few years previous to World War I.They were also used in the Balkan Wars of about the same period. Butthose were powered craft. This is a glider, invented and in use beforethe year 1900 and hence open to utilization."
The Hungarian clipped, "But the Wright Brothers didn't fly even glidersuntil--"
Joe looked him full in the face. "But you of the Sov-world do not admitthat the Wrights were the first to fly, do you?"
The Hungarian closed his mouth, abruptly.
Joe said evenly, "But even if Ivan Ivanovitch, or whatever you claim hisname was, didn't invent flight of heavier than air craft, the glider wasflown variously before 1900, including Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s, andwas designed as far back as Leonardo da Vinci."
The Sov-world colonel stared at him for a long moment, then gave aninane giggle. He stepped back and flicked Joe Mauser a salute. "Verywell, captain. As a matter of routine, I shall report this use of anaircraft for reconnaissance purposes, and undoubtedly a commission willmeet to investigate the propriety of the departure. Meanwhile, goodluck!"
* * * * *
Joe returned the salute and swung a leg over the cockpit's side. Max wasalready in the front seat, his semaphore flags, maps and binoculars onhis lap. He had been staring in dismay at the Sov officer, now wasrelieved that Joe had evidently pulled it off.
Joe waved to the plane ahead. Two mechanics had come up to steady thewings for the initial ten or fifteen feet of the motorless craft'spassage over the ground behind the towing craft.
Joe said to Max, "did you explain to the pilot that under nocircumstances was he to pass over the line of the military reservation,that we'd cut before we reached that point?"
"Yes, sir," Max said nervously. He'd flown before, on the commerciallines, but he'd never been in a glider.
They began lurching across the field, slowly, then gathering speed. Andas the sailplane took speed, it took grace. After it had been pulled ahundred feet or so, Joe eased back the stick and it slipped gently intothe air, four or five feet off the ground. The towing airplane wasstill taxiing, but with its tow airborne it picked up speed quickly.Another two hundred feet and it, too, was in the air and beginning toclimb. The glider behind held it to a speed of sixty miles or so.
At ten thousand feet, the plane leveled off and the pilot's headswiveled to look back at them. Joe Mauser waved to him and dropped therelease lever which ejected the nylon rope from the glider's nose. Theplane dove away, trailing the rope behind it. Joe knew that the planepilot would later drop it over the airport where it could easily beretrieved.
In the direction of Mount Overlook he could see cumulus clouds and thedark turbulence which meant strong updraft. He headed in that direction.
Except for the whistling of wind, there is complete silence in a soaringglider. Max Mainz began to call back to his superior, was taken back bythe volume, and dropped his voice. He said, "Look, captain. What keepsit up?"
Joe grinned. He liked the buoyance of glider flying, the nearestapproach of man to the bird, and thus far everything was going well. Hetold Max, "An airplane plows through the air currents, a glider rides ontop of them."
"Yeah, but suppose the current is going down?"
"Then we avoid it. This sailplane only has a gliding angle ratio of oneto twenty-five, but it's a workhorse with a payload of some four hundredpounds. A really high performance glider can have a ratio of as much asone to forty."
Joe had found a strong updraft where a wind ran up the side of amountain. He banked, went into a circling turn. The gauge indicated theywere climbing at the rate of eight meters per second, nearly fifteenhundred feet a minute.
Max hadn't got the rundown on the theory of the glider. That was obviousin his expression.
Joe Mauser, even while searching the ground below keenly, went into itfurther. "A wind up against a mountain will give an updraft, stormclouds will, even a newly plowed field in a bright sun. So you go fromone of these to the next."
"Yeah, great, but when you're between," Max protested.
"Then, when you have a one to twenty-five ratio, you go twenty-five feetforward for each one you drop. If you started a mile high, you could gotwenty-five miles before you touched ground." He cut himself offquickly. "Look, what's that, down there? Get your glasses on it."
Max caught his excitement. His binoculars were tight to his eyes."Sojers. Cavalry. They sure ain't ours. They must be Hovercraft lads.And look, field artillery."
Joe Mauser was piloting with his left hand, his right smoothing out achart on his lap. He growled, "What are they doing there? That's atleast a full brigade of cavalry. Here, let me have those glasses."
With his knees gripping the stick, he went into a slow circle, as hestared down at the column of men. "Jack Alshuler," he whistled insurprise. "The marshal's crack heavy cavalry. And several batteries ofartillery." He swung the glasses in a wider scope and the whistle turnedinto a hiss of comprehension. "They're doing a complete circle of thereservation. They're going to hit the Baron from the direction ofPhoenicia."