The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“I know,” Greystock said under his breath.

He looked out the port screen. The Minerva was past the Mark Twain now. Its decks were crowded with people looking up at the dirigible. The airplane, a low-wing single-seater monoplane, was on the catapult, which was being swung around to face the wind. The balloon was still being reeled in.

Greystock seated himself before the control panel. Within a few minutes he had brought the ship down to about 91 meters or 300 feet from The River. He turned it then and headed toward the boat..

The vast white vessel was stopped in The River, its four paddle-wheels spinning just enough to hold it steady. A big launch had put out from its port in the stern and was gbing around the boat to pick up the parachutists, now struggling in the water.

Both banks were crowded with sightseers, and at least a hundred watercraft were sailing or being paddled toward the three chutists.

Steam spurted from the catapult, and the monoplane, shot out from the deck. Its silvery fuselage and wings shone greyly as it began to climb toward the airship.

Clemens’ voice yammered from the receiver. “What the damna-tion-to-hell-and-gone are you doing, John?”

“Just coming back to make sure that my men are safe,” Grey-stock said.

“Of all the numbskulls!” Clemens screeched. “If your brains were expanded tenfold, they would still rattle around in a gnat’s ass! This is what comes from trying to make a mink cap from a pig’s anus! I told Firebrass that he shouldn’t let a medieval baron near a dirigible!

” ‘Greystock’s from the dumbest, most arrogant, most untrust­worthy class you could find!’ I told him. ‘A medieval noble­man!’ ,

“Jumping Jesus H. Christ! But no, he argued that you had the potentiality, and it would be a nice experiment to see if you could adjust to the Industrial Age!”

Joe Miller’s yoke rumbled. “Take it eathy, Tham. If you pithth him off, he’ll refuthe to attack Chohn’th boat.”

“Thyove it up your athth!” Clemens said mockingly. “When I need advice from a paleoanthropus, I’ll ask for it.”

“You don’t need to get inmulting chutht becauthe you’re mad, Tham,” Miller said. “Thay! Did it occur to Your Machethty that maybe Greythock ith up to thomething rotten? Maybe he thold out to that aththhole, King Chohn?”

Greystock cursed. That hairy, comical-looking colossus of an apeman was much shrewder than he looked. However, Clerhens, in his towering fury, might ignore him.

By then the airship, her nose down at ten degrees to the horizon­tal, was heading straight for the boat. Her altitude was now 31 meters and dropping.

Von Richthofen’s plane zoomed by within 15 meters. He waved at Greystock, but he looked puzzled. He would have been listening in on the radio conversation, of course.

Greystock punched a button. A rocket sprang from its launch under the port fore engine gondola. The dirigible gained altitude as it was relieved of the weight of the missile. Spurting tailfire, the long, slim tube swerved toward the silver plane, the heat locater in its nose sniffing the craft’s exhausts. Richthofen’s face wasn’t visible, but Greystock could imagine his expression of horror. He had about six seconds to get out of the cockpit and take to his parachute. Even if he escaped, he’d be lucky at this altitude if it opened in time.

No, he was not going to jump. Instead, he had wing-overed the plane and sent it diving at the water. Now it was straightening out just above the surface. There flashed the rocket. And now the missile and the aircraft disappeared in a ball of flame.

By then, the flight crew was frantically running another plane to the catapult. The balloon crew, distracted by the sirens and horns and the sudden frenzied activity, had stopped hauling their charge down. Greystock hoped they would not have the presence of mind to cut it loose. The huge aerostat would be a drag when the boat tried to maneuver swiftly.

Through the transceiver, the wail of sirens and Clemens’ voice, almost as high pitched as the alarms, came faintly.

The boat began to pick up speed and to turn at the same time. Greystock smiled. He had hoped that the Mark Twain would present her broadside. He punched a button, and the airship, re­lieved of the weight of two heavy torpedoes, soared. Greystock raised the elevators to depress the ship’s nose even further, and he pushed the throttles in to full-speed position.