Part 55 (2/2)

Young Remillard and his thirteen a.s.sociates stood in a loose group at the King's left. Axel beamed delightedly at them. A human chauvinist to the core, the Iron Master was secretly proud that these important young people were barenecks like himself. They had listened with flattering attention to his little lectures on the tour, and several were particularly impressed by his surrept.i.tious explanation of why blood-metal was the ultimate weapon against both exotic races.

Now Axel addressed the gathering with growing excitement.

”The Bessemer converter is as simple as it is dramatic. You will note that there is no means of externally heating the chamber-and yet, within a few minutes, the temperature will rise, converting certain impurities into glowing gases and others into slag! We do this by forcing a mighty blast of air through nozzles in the converter's bottom. It comes not from a simple bellows but from a solar-powered compressor! The injected oxygen causes carbon still trapped in the iron to ignite. The converter contents boil like a volcano! Undesirable elements belch forth in a display of fireworks that is as awesome as it is efficient!” He hauled out a bandanna handkerchief and swabbed his dripping face. ”Any last questions before we let 'er rip?”

”Is there no hazard in the coddling of this devil's egg?”

Dougal asked sternly. ”After all-you did say this was its maiden blast-off.”

”No danger, none at all,” Axel insisted. ”Lordy, we're fifty metres away from the thing, and it's pointed the other way!”

”Let's get on with it,” Hagen said. ”We're not afraid. It should be very interesting.” He turned a cool blue eye on Aiken.

”What do you say, Your Majesty?”

”Carry on,” said the King.

Axel leaned over the railing and gave the bandanna a vigorous shake. One of the silver figures waved and hurried to a big wheel valve in the pipes entering at the right trunnion. As he hauled the thing open a hissing scream manifested itself and a monstrous tongue of flame howled from the converter mouth.

Sparks erupted in a dazzling shower, bouncing off the protective steel-ceramic s.h.i.+eld on the rear wall. A wave of heat swept over the onlookers. The entire building quivered to the foundations.

Multicoloured smoke roiled into the roof beams to escape through ventilation slots.

”Just wait!” yelled Axel. ”It gets better!”

The valve operator was admitting more compressed air. The roaring heightened in pitch until the converter seemed to scream in triumph. The smoke glowed a peculiar brownish scarlet and elongated lances of incandescent gas thrust from it, flickering purple and pink and orange. Drops of molten slag arced through the air like meteorites. The silver-clad workers down on the floor were jumping up and down ecstatically, while on the catwalk, the group gathered about the King was engrossed in the spectacle.

Slowly, the flame spurts became bright yellow. The smoke cleared as the purification of the iron continued and silicon burned. Un.o.btrusively, Hagen and his people edged away to the left, with Vilkas trailing after. The Lithuanian in his festive as.h.i.+garu outfit was openmouthed; his eyes darted back and forth between the King and the fire-spitting egg across the building.

The North Americans stood shoulder to shoulder in a compact knot ten metres away. Their eyes, amazingly, had closed.

The flames of the converter turned from orange to purest white, spraying a diamond glitter and writhing like braided starstuff. Carbon burned now; the incandescent gases were at their hottest, blasting the s.h.i.+eld so that the firebrick cladding became a s.h.i.+ning bullseye.

The converter began to rotate on its trunnions.

Axel screamed, ”No!”

The stupendous jet moved off the s.h.i.+eld as the flask pivoted and ignited the wall timbers in a split second. Down below, workers scattered. One heroic figure could be seen wrestling impotently with the air valve. Like a colossal blowtorch, the flames roaring from the egg swept a scorching three-metre patch across the entire roof and down the wall immediately behind the King and his stunned retinue.

Then the open mouth blasted directly at them and they were engulfed in white heat.

Vilkas gave a moan of terror. The catwalk was in flames and the entire building filled with thick smoke. He began to run, and reached the wooden stairway only to stumble and nearly pitch headlong when a gust of smoke choked and nearly blinded him. He sobbed out loud, clung to the railing, howled, ”Help, somebody, for G.o.d's sake!”

He heard the roar of the converter cut off. Then the snap of burning timber rustled away to nothingness. There came a great wind that drove the smoke upward, out of the roof vents, and for a brief moment the embers of the quenched wood glowed brightly again before subsiding into dead charcoal.

Vilkas pulled himself upright, tears streaming from his stinging eyes. The great egg-shaped converter was motionless, tipped at an approximate forty-five-degree angle with its mouth aimed at the place where Aiken and his group were standing.

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