Part 85 (2/2)

All that happened was that a vent in the thing's belly opened.

It seemed to lay thousands upon thousands of buoyant yellow eggs, cascading them over the crowd like a hen-salmon strewing her redd. The aircraft glided to and fro, discharging its bounty; and a different sort of cry arose from the throng when it became clear that the sp.a.w.n of the sky-fish was nothing more than balloons. Each one, when popped, yielded candy or cold fruit or a pet.i.t four or a liqueur-filled sugar sh.e.l.l. (Arid a few of the Tanu whispered, ”Mercy-Rosmar!” remembering her gentle manifestation of power at the last Grand Combat.) The cynosure of all eyes then lifted its pointed snout to the zenith and hung stock-still in midair, not more than 150 metres above the mobbed fairgrounds. It appeared to be gargantuan, like a f.l.a.n.g.ed broad arrow, black beneath the violet flickering.

From the open belly-hatch now came a flood of balloons like l.u.s.trous grapes. They seemed to be self-animated, and darted and swooped and soared in the sky like frenzied protozoa.

The aircraft proceeded to shoot them down. A blue-white ray lanced from its nose, while green, red, and yellow beams spat at a dozen different angles from the leading edges of the fins.

There were sharp detonations. The people screamed. Puffs of multicoloured smoke dissolved to wraiths of perfume and a shower of confetti glitter.

The upright dark thing began to change. Its stubby fins expanded into wings and it tilted so that all the observers could see a glowing golden emblem on its underside, the hand of King Aiken-Lugonn. Then the emblem also changed. The impudent digit gave way to a hand fully open and apaumy, with the fingers together in the dignified gesture that most humans recognized as the greeting between operant citizens of the Milieu.

The aircraft began to rise swiftly then, and there was applause from the King's subjects and scattered mental cries of ”Slonshal!” But then they all fell silent, for the s.h.i.+p emblazoned with the golden hand took its place at the point of a V-formation of others identical to itself that came gliding up from the south at an alt.i.tude of several thousand metres. There were twenty-seven flyers altogether, small against the sky like a flight of wild geese.

They stayed in view of the Roniah mult.i.tude for five minutes before going full inertialess and vanis.h.i.+ng in a thunderous sonic boom.

Dougal, sitting in the copilot's seat, vented a bemused sigh. ”I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes ... Just how the devil did you manage that caper, my liege?”

Aiken laughed. ”Creativity, lad. Sleight of mind. An illusion here, a genuine manifestation there, a scary black cerametal machine that's all too real, and a spot of royal marksmans.h.i.+p to dazzle 'em with science at the finale.”

”Extremely gaudy,” said Mr. Betsy, making a prissy face. He lounged in the navigator's station of the flight deck, attired for the occasion in a mauve flying suit all slashed with gold zippers, a bouffant red wig, and a discreet little diadem with cabochon amethysts. ”A great bluff, that's what it was.”

”I prefer to think of it as a show of strength,” said the King.

He grinned over his shoulder at the Flight Instructor Royal.

Betsy said, ”The eighteen pilot recruits were pus.h.i.+ng their luck just to carry off a straight and level flyby, and you know it. We'll be doing well to whip them into a minimally competent check-out state by Tourney time-much less teach them aerial combat technique.”

”I have every confidence in you,” the King said. ”Look how well you taught Me!” He picked up the RF com and said to his squadron, ”Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Our air show was a great success. Let's hope it heartened our friends and dis...o...b..bulated the Foe. You may now return to Goriah base and take the rest of the day off.”

Mr. Betsy adjusted the exotic sky-sweep scanner to watch the departure. He sighed. ”What an abysmally sloppy peel-away.

It's those wretched wings. Only a very decadent technology would put wings on a rhocraft.”

”Yet thus equipped,” Dougal said, ”they are the more fearsome to the miscreant eye ... and the wings are also a d.a.m.n good place to mount the secondary zapper arrays.”

Mr. Betsy gave a scathing snort. ”Guns, dear zany, are only useful when you have competent gunners. May I remind you that Stan and Taffy Evans are the only persons with the appropriate training, while the other six b.a.s.t.a.r.d pilots and I are as hopelessly noncombatant as the recruits. I doubt if any of us could hit Mont-Dore at point-blank range-and Miss w.a.n.g goes into hysterics at the mere thought of a fire fight.”

”If the Firvulag host gets between her and the time-gate,”

Aiken noted dryly, ”she may find her backbone stiffening.” He twiddled the controls and the sky outside the flyer turned from cobalt to star-spangled black. ”There's hope for you duffers, though. Yosh Watanabe is putting together some robot target locks for the weaponry. As long as the spooks don't mount a Flying Hunt, the targeters should take most of the worry out of air-to-ground zapmans.h.i.+p.”

”Only one thing will do that,” Betsy said. ”Aircraft forces.h.i.+elds that don't have to be neutralized at every salvo!”

”I'm sorry,” the King said uncomfortably. ”All we have left are small sigmas. The weaponry we have available just isn't compatible. You'll have to turn the s.h.i.+eld off before firing. I'm trying to work out a method of metapsychic shelter-a.s.sign several creative stalwarts to each s.h.i.+p. But I'm afraid that if war does come, I'll need every strong mind I can scrounge for my own metaconcert. In an all-out attack, the Flying Corps may have to do the best it can with conventional weapons and screens.”

”Blow, wind! Come, wrack!” Dougal declaimed. ”At least we'll die with harness on our back!”

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