FullReads

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. “You sure you been checked out on these things, captain?”

“Yes,” Joe said. “I bought this particular soaring glider more than a year ago, and I’ve put almost a thousand hours in it. Now, where’s the pilot of that light plane?”

A single-engined sports plane was attached to the glider by a fifty-foot nylon rope. Even as Joe spoke, a youngster poked his head from the plane’s window and grinned back at them. “Ready?” he yelled.

“Come on, Max,” Joe said. “Let’s pull the canopy off this thing. We don’t want it in the way while you’re semaphoring.”

A figure was approaching them from the Administration Building. A uniformed man, and somehow familiar.

“A moment, Captain Mauser!”

Joe placed him now. The Sov-world representative he’d met at Balt Haer’s table in the Upper bar a couple of days ago. What was his name? Colonel Arpad. Lajos Arpad.

The Hungarian approached and looked at the sailplane in interest. “As a representative of my government, a military attache checking upon possible violations of the Universal Disarmament Pact, may I request what you are about to do, captain?”

Joe Mauser looked at him emptily. “How did you know I was here and what I was doing?”

The Sov colonel smiled gently. “It was by suggestion of Marshal Cogswell. He is a great man for detail. It disturbed him that an … what did he call it? … an old pro like yourself should join with Vacuum Tube Transport, rather than Continental Hovercraft. He didn’t think it made sense and suggested that possibly you had in mind some scheme that would utilize weapons of a post 1900 period in your efforts to bring success to Baron Haer’s forces. So I have investigated, Captain Mauser.”

“And the marshal knows about this sail plane?” Joe Mauser’s face was blank.

“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 used in 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. But those were powered craft. This is a glider, invented and in use before the year 1900 and hence open to utilization.”

The Hungarian clipped, “But the Wright Brothers didn’t fly even gliders until–“

Joe looked him full in the face. “But you of the Sov-world do not admit that 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 his name was, didn’t invent flight of heavier than air craft, the glider was flown variously before 1900, including Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s, and was designed as far back as Leonardo da Vinci.”

The Sov-world colonel stared at him for a long moment, then gave an inane giggle. He stepped back and flicked Joe Mauser a salute. “Very well, captain. As a matter of routine, I shall report this use of an aircraft for reconnaissance purposes, and undoubtedly a commission will meet to investigate the propriety of the departure. Meanwhile, good luck!”

* * * * *

Joe returned the salute and swung a leg over the cockpit’s side. Max was already in the front seat, his semaphore flags, maps and binoculars on his lap. He had been staring in dismay at the Sov officer, now was relieved that Joe had evidently pulled it off.

Joe waved to the plane ahead. Two mechanics had come up to steady the wings for the initial ten or fifteen feet of the motorless craft’s passage over the ground behind the towing craft.