Kenneth Bulmer by Beyond the Silver Sky

Author:Beyond the Silver Sky
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-08-27T12:08:12+00:00

ON THE DAY that he was to see for the first time the gas ship and to make the acquaintance of the vehicle in which he was to spend possibly the rest of his fife, his own regiment, the Emperor's watchsharks, moved out to the front. He went to see them off. Out of an ashamed decency, he discarded his bright uniform and donned simple civilian clothing, blending with the cheering multitudes as they finned excitedly along the various levels, watching the fighting men marching out.

Emotions tore at Keston but he was able to see quite clearly where his destiny lay. He watched the long array of undulating tigersharks, each with its two-man load strapped into their harness. Their gas guns were sheathed, bolt bandoliers filled, their swords scabbarded, their shields slung low and handily. Their tridents were aslant at the regulation fifty degrees slope. The banners heading up each squadron were the regulation number of shark-lengths in rear of the squadron leader and his trumpeter, whose great conch shell curved over his shoulder, streamlined into the current..

Among all that colorful, glittering and heart-catching panoply, one man more or less made no difference.

Faro was there with his reckless face and his scar, Squadron-leader Faro now, marching out at the head of the squadron that might have been Keston's.

He watched them go, hearing the shrill lilt of the trumpets, seeing the current-fluttered banners, critically observant of their alignment and bearing. Through it all he desperately wished that he could rush out from the onlookers, break ranks and fall in to march as a simple sharksman strapped to the coarse banded flank of a tiger.

He turned away, flippering awkwardly, colliding with the stone supports to balconies and archways. Then he shook himself roughly. By the Great Light! What was he, anyway, a miserable little tiddler, squirming on the end of barbed emotions, or a mature man, a scientist before he was a sharks-man? He finned on more strongly now, sure of his fate in life.

Bolstering his new-found resolution, he did not visit the taverns along Global Way as he had planned to recapture something of the golden past. Instead, he flew straight back to University and to the new laboratories where the gas ship had been building in secret for the past six seasons.

Professor Lansing met him finning awkwardly with his arms full of plastic sheets. Keston relieved him of the load.

"Ah, Keston, my lad.All gone?"

"Yes, professor. They're gone. And now?"

"Dinar is almost incoherent with impatience. I left him at the valves. The others will be joining us later. These plastics—I must have them with me, many of my calculations need reworking now that the damned Zammu have pressed in so close. After all, we are the first men in the history of the world to build, man and fly a gas ship."

"Has she flown then?"

"Hum, no. But she will, lad, she will."

"I am familiar with the theory by now," Keston said, falling in beside Lansing. "But just how you have applied it exercises my imagination.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.