The Dark Design by Philip José Farmer Read Free Book Online Page B

in 1893, sixty years before she had been born. He’d then started to build a better airship—in Berlin, 1895?—but work had stopped on it when Schwartz had died—January, 1897?
    She was not sure now. Thirty-one years on The River had dimmed much of memories on Earth.
    She wondered if Schwartz knew what had happened after he had died. Probably not unless he’d met some gasbag freak, a layman Zepfan. Schwartz’s widow had carried on his work, and yet no book Jill had read had bothered to note her first name or her maiden name. She was
only Frau
Schwartz. She had gotten the second ship built, despite being
only
a woman. And some male jackass had flown the aluminum ship (which looked more like a thermos bottle than anything else), had panicked, and had wrecked it.
    All that was left of Schwartz’s dream and his wife’s devotion to it was a crumpled mass of silvery-looking metal. So much for dreams in a high wind when a big phallus, lilliputian brains, and mouse courage were at the controls. Now, if the jackass had been a woman, her name would have been recorded. See what happens when a woman leaves the kitchen? If God had intended…
    Jill Gulbirra trembled, a hot ache in her chest. Get hold of yourself, she murmured. Cool does it or you blow it.
    She started from her reverie. While she had been dreaming of Frau Schwartz’s dream, she had allowed the canoe to be carried downRiver. The fire had become smaller, and the voices fainter, and yet she had not noticed. Better bloody watch out, she told herself. She had to be ever alert, or she would never convince the powers-that-be that she was qualified to be one of the airship crew. To be captain?
    “There’s plenty of time!” Firebrass thundered. “This isn’t any government-contract, low-fund, high-pressure project! It’ll be thirty-seven years or more before Sam gets to the end of The River. It’ll only take two—maybe three—years to complete the beast. Meanwhile, we’ll use the blimp for training. And then we’re off, heigh ho for the wild blue yonder, the misty sea of the north pole, where no Santa Claus, but somebody who’s given us gifts that make Saint Nick look like the world’s worst tightwad, lives! Off to the Misty Tower, the Really Big Grail!”
    The fourth man spoke up now. He had a pleasant baritone, but it was evident that English was not his natal speech. What was it? It sounded like a French accent in some ways but… Yes, of course. That could be Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, if she could believe what she had heard at about hundredth hand. It just did not seem possible that she would soon be talking to him. Perhaps she wouldn’t be, since there were so many phonies on The River.
    There was silence for a moment, the silence that only the Rivervalley knew—when people kept their mouths shut. No birds, no animals (especially no barking dogs), no mechanical monsters roaring, bellowing, buzzing, screeching, no tooting horns, no whooping or screaming sirens, no shrieking brakes, no loud radios, no blaring loudspeakers. Only water lapping against shore and then a splash as a fish leaped out and fell back. And the crackle of wood in the fire.
    “Ah!” Firebrass said. “Smooth! Better’n anything I ever had on Earth! And free, free! But when, when will the airmen show up? I need more men with experience, real gasbaggers!”
    Schwartz made a smacking sound—Jill could see the bottle tilted above his lips now—and he said, “So! You are not so unworried!”
    The canoe touched shore, and she got out of it without tipping it. The water was up to her waist, but the magnetically sealed cloths kept the cold liquid out. She waded closer and lifted the long, heavy canoe, moving forward until she was on shore. She let the craft down and dragged it until its entire length was out of the stream. The bank was only about 30 centimeters above the water level. She stood for a moment, planning her entrance, then decided not to go armed.
    “Oh, I’ll get