Crystal Venom (29 page)

The produce and small goods were excellent, just as Sam had suggested, and they had their images taken with the proprietors, which were promptly printed. They were asked to sign the small poster-sized prints and were happy to do so. Nail left a set of paw prints and Glint, who as far as Marko was aware had never picked up a pen before, let alone used one, spent some time working up a flourishing signature. When he had finalised his mark and signed one of the posters the owner asked him if he could keep the test signatures. Glint looked at him quizzically and said that they were rubbish so he could do whatever he liked with them. Marko smiled, knowing that such a windfall would probably put the shop owner’s children through higher education and suspected that Glint knew that.

Nail was surprisingly tolerant of the children, who all wanted to touch him and pet him. Jan walked in at one stage and quietly beckoned Marko over, pointing out into the corridor. Three little girls had dressed the cat in a doll’s costume, placed him in a pram and were wheeling him around the house, singing. The look they got from him as he was wheeled by said, ‘Say a word and I will scratch your eyes out.’ Glint was too busy sampling cheese and the local hard biscuits to notice what else was going on around him. When it came time to leave, they had a real battle trying to pay for anything.

Someone must have rung ahead of them to the housecraft depot, as it was still open by the time they eventually arrived, very late. The manager herself showed them the house-craft they had hired and, after checking their licences, she signed the craft over to them, then she and Sam helped them load everything on board. It was a fairly simple machine some eighteen metres long by fifteen wide. Spacious with a high ceiling, two high-class lounges, a large galley and, in the centre, a beautifully appointed bedroom with an equally palatial bathroom set off it. It was perfect for a few weeks exploring, especially as it also had a marine runabout housed under the stern.

Sam also proved rather difficult to pay, but eventually accepted, and Glint signed the back of his cab ID for him as Nail again grumbled about his lack of hands.

With Jan at the controls, they lifted the house-craft on antigravity and slotted themselves into the local controller’s network, heading as far east as they could go before the local sun started to set into the sea. Jan controlled the flight, so Marko, unable to help himself, popped open the inspection hatches to see what was powering the craft. He found four industrial-grade gas turbines with a big antigravity unit attached to each one. Any two could lift the house-craft and power it along at a moderate speed, but the craft was not built for speed, it was built for comfort. After they had stopped and anchored, Jan cooked them a simple supper of fresh salads and cold meats, which they had with a lesser known, but excellent, local Chablis. One of the perks of getting to know the locals was that you always got the good food and booze, Jan mused, swirling the last of the bottle around in her glass.

So began a very pleasant ten days of fishing, walking beaches, having barbecues on the fantail-shaped stern deck, listening to music, sleeping in each morning and making love as often as they felt like; they explored the islands, went to the local markets, fishing for and eating those fish that the onboard database said were safe, snorkelled in the shallows looking at the types of coral-like creatures and abundant life, used scuba and dived deep for some of the more interesting edible aquatic insects and just had fun. Nail absorbed every bit of information on every plant, insect, animal, bird and aquatic creature he could find. He sampled each, obviously building a database for Stephine.

Glint spent time eating and making ammunition and then firing it at steadily greater and greater ranges. One afternoon while watching him firing at a piece of driftwood, when the house-craft was at anchor and rolling, Marko could actually see the projectile in flight. Everything else slowed down dramatically around him, but for the first time he perceived that he could speed up or take time at its normal pace. He experimented and discovered that his movements were normal to him, but were probably blindingly fast to anyone else. Tux, when Marko spoke to him about it, commented that he would become slightly faster, but that he was approaching his physical limit. He added that Marko’s thought processes would carry on getting quicker as the new neural pathways were completed. It did feel very strange though.

Once a day, as required by the major, they checked in with
Basalt,
orbiting overhead. The rest of the crew were apparently having as much fun as Marko and Jan were, relaxing and doing the normal tourist things, except Fritz. He was further enhancing his considerable musical fame by rebuilding ancient pieces of sound equipment for some of the major bands on the planet and in payment was treated to numerous impromptu jam sessions, which was Fritz’s kind of heaven, although he said he was returning to
Basalt
early. Halfway through the leave period, Julie and Harry announced that they had signed a ten-year contract between them, which did not surprise anyone.

When they were relatively close to the island that Jake had told them about, and fortunately the start of the weekend, Jan made contact with the ancient aircraft group. As Jake had promised, they were expected. They quietly flew around the islands towards the field. Glint called them up onto the top of the house-craft when three flying machines slowly flew above them, making a great amount of noise. It was a wonderful moment for Marko to actually see the extraordinary machines which he realised, at one stage of their ancestry, would have been at the very cutting edge of technology. Jan sped up the house-craft to match the aeroplanes’ speed and they were escorted the twelve kilometres to the aerodrome at a sedate two hundred and nine kilometres an hour ... which they later learnt was the top speed of the aircraft.

When they were five kilometres out from the aerodrome, their navigation system slaved to the local controller, who brought them onto the field and parked the house-craft beside the large buildings which made up one side of the facility. There were hundreds of aircraft of all types, all neatly stowed in the buildings, patiently waiting for their owners to fly them. Marko could not see one modern military craft among any of them, just the ancient fighters which had landed and were taxiing towards them. As they watched, the pilots gunned the engines and swung them around to face out over the apron towards the taxiways and the runways. They climbed down the side of the house-craft as it powered down, resting on its two main pontoons, and waited for the pilots. As the flyers strolled over, Jan and Marko could see that, like the pilot they’d seen eaten by whorls, they were wearing leather flying suits and goggles of the same vintage as the aircraft. The three introduced themselves and invited Marko, Jan and the ACEs to their clubrooms for a gin and tonic. Marko had no idea what that was, and when he looked at Jan, she just shrugged. Marko thought it an interesting concoction but graciously declined a second while Jan seemed to enjoy them.

The rest of the day was spent with the cheerful group who called themselves the Aviators. Once Marko got close enough, he was pleasantly surprised by how brilliantly simple the aircraft really were. Each one had its own flight handling characteristics complete with how easy they were to take off and land, or not, what their rates of climb were, how woefully underpowered they were with the engines measured in horsepower. He had always thought that was a deliciously archaic measurement, and of how they had no avionics, no computer, no ejection seats, let alone antigravity, and that they ran the engines on actual petrol, which was created especially for them by another local group who made and raced another equally archaic group of huge-wheeled racing cars that had originated at the same time as their flying machines, around the time of the ancient human conflict known as the First World War. For all of that, they were both hugely impressed with them. Marko shook his head in wonder, thinking about their ancestors actually using such aircraft, in battles as well.

‘These are wonderful machines, truly wonderful, and so simple, but beautifully made,’ Marko mused out loud, admiring the varnished plywood cockpit, hand-formed polished aluminium cowling and canvas-covered fuselage and wings on a Sopwith Camel. ‘Would be interesting to fly with the centre of gravity so far forwards.’

A slightly built man who’d introduced himself as David Casement commented, ‘Not wrong there, Sergeant Major. Only those of us who have had extensive experience flying these beauties are allowed to take that one up. Hellish manoeuvrable in many ways, but a pig for take-offs and landings. Interesting machine in that it will turn to the right faster than to the left due to the engine torque and prop size. Fact is, to go left some of us prefer just to carry on going right!’

Jan and Marko went up for a flight, separately, with one of the pilots sitting behind them at the controls in a machine called an FE2d. When Jan asked what the letters FE stood for they were told ‘Farman Experimental’. The pilot was a solidly-built individual sporting a huge moustache, a great bellowing laugh and the interesting name of Rangi Hohepa. His skin tone was darker than Marko’s and when asked of his ancestry, Rangi seemed to grow a few extra centimetres in height as he proudly claimed the heritage of the Maori people of New Zealand on Old Earth. Marko had known some Maori people in his home village as he was growing up. Wonderful, loyal people who adopted all the village kids as if they were their own. They fed them whenever they were in their homes, taught them, looked after them and were sufficiently caring to give a kid a kick up the bum if it was required.

Marko told Rangi of them and his attitude towards Marko and Jan changed completely. Until then, Rangi had just been doing a favour for his friend, Jake. Now Marko and Jan were suddenly family or, as he called it, part of his hapu, and he became considerably more engaging and entertaining.

The FE2d was termed a pusher type, with twin wings. When Marko climbed into it, he discovered to his delight that the entire fabrication of the aircraft was a mixture of wood, fabric, wire, aluminium and, in the case of the pilot’s seat, some kind of woven plant material called wicker. There was no gunner’s seat, just a vertical tub arrangement for the gunner to stand in. It smelt completely different from anything he had ever experienced before and he loved every minute he spent looking at the amazing array of struts and tensioned wire with hundreds of turnbuckles keeping everything in line.

That evening the rest of the club members arrived out at the field to meet them and they were made to feel even more welcome. They talked aircraft, engines and weapons and Jan was in her element as well when the club armourers arrived and let her see, and then handle, the machine guns. The club members had even gained themselves a licence to make and export the antique weapons, together with ammunition, and the resulting sales paid for them to build one or two new aircraft each year. Their intention was to have one example of every fighter aircraft from the First World War.

Marko was fascinated when shown the paper blueprints of each of the aircraft, which were displayed down one long wall of the hangar, and, looking at the sign-offs on each plan, he could see that twenty-one flying examples had been built. On the next wall was another set of blueprints detailing the aircraft that they were either building or wanted to build. In another building behind the hangar, he thought his face would start to ache because his smile was that big when shown the antique tools and equipment used in making the planes. He decided that the club members were quite mad, but in a most wonderful way ... by building such aircraft using original methods. Talking with the various members he became aware that there were almost two completely distinct groups within the club: builders and fliers. Only a very few individuals were both and they were quite an eclectic lot.

Rangi was a local doctor and other members worked in a range of professions. People from the very top of the local community’s social hierarchy to the very lowest were represented, but once in the club, they were all equals. Doug Evans, the armourer, was a senior policeman, and once they got past the gruff exterior, found him to be a very likable fellow as well. They had to pay for their supper, as it were, by giving impromptu speeches on their various battles with the urchins.

Even Nail made himself useful by destroying a few nests of a nasty local rodent which, to Jan’s horror, he seemed to greatly enjoy. Glint made himself equally popular by shooting down a local type of four-winged predator leatherwing, which flew high above the aerodrome and was known for attacking the slow-moving aircraft. Everyone, drinks in hand, rushed outside when another one was seen, so they could watch Glint go to work.

‘Glint, just make sure that I can recover some of it for sampling, please,’ Marko called.

Glint laughed in reply. ‘Yeah, whatever, Marko. You are on holiday, but I will get the head for you!’

Some of the members gasped when Glint strode out in front of the club, watched the leatherwing for a few moments, then spread out his legs and rotated his head to the rear. His head distorted in order to get his eyes as far apart as possible, and the rest of his long, lithe body and tail went completely rigid as he started firing. Hundreds of metres above them, the first shot separated the creature’s head from its body before the next three shots in quick succession blew the body into smaller pieces.

Before any parts had hit the ground, Glint was racing away to fetch the head to everyone’s applause, which he acknowledged, gracefully bowing to them as he placed the 400-millimetre-long, streamlined and nightmarish head into Marko’s hands. Seconds later Nail took it from him, saying that it should be checked for pathogens and that he also needed to analyse it while it was still fresh. Marko just smiled.