第60节

he gotten back here so fast?

Before she could ask Simons, her attention was drawn to a swept-wing

glider taking off from the big field beyond the workshops. Another, of

the same type, was being pushed towards them aboard a wheeled

trolley.

The craft now airborne rose steeply on a line attached under the

nose.

The other end ran down to a lump of machinery on the far right-hand

corner of the field.

A faint tuff. tuff-tuff reached Jodi's ears.

'Steam-driven winch,' said Simons.

Jodi watched the ascent with interest. She was conversant with the

principles of thermals and soaring flight of which Skyhawks were

designed to take advantage, but purpose-built gliders didn't exist in

the Federation. You learned to fly with the aid of a propeller and

battery-power from Day One.

When the glider was about a thousand feet up, the pilot released the

cable. The falling end was marked by a fluttering blue pennant. The

glider banked gently to the right, nosed down to gather speed, then

went up into a stall turn. It stood on its tail for a brief moment,

then cartwheeled over its port wingtip into another dive and swept back

over their heads towards the perimeter of the field.

'Neat,' said Jodi. 'But why gliders?"

'The dinks don't have electricity,' replied Simons.

'They didn't have airplanes before you guys started building them. How

come nobody's told them what they're missing?"

'No need to. The dinks have known about it from way back. They call

it the Dark Light and, as far as they're concerned, it's bad news.

According to Brickman, Iron Masters are forbidden by law to mess around

with any kind of electrical equipment. On top of which, the subject is

absolutely taboo." He shrugged. 'I know. It sounds crazy, but there

it is."

Jodi looked up at the glider. 'May be a good thing in the long run.

These things aren't going to be much of a threat to anybody."

'Don't be too sure. Brickman's working on the power problem. He's

developing a lightweight steam engine."

'Steam engine . . . ?" The idea made Jodi laugh.

'Don't knock it. We're running bench tests right now.

Just having problems developing enough power."

'What are you using for fuel?"

'Oil. But we're trying to find something that burns faster and

generates more heat."

Jodi sniffed dismissively. 'It'll never get off the ground."

'It hasn't so far,' admitted Simons. 'But we're working on it."

The six Trackers wheeling the grounded glider back to the right-hand

workshop passed by close to where they were standing. While Simons

asked them how the test flight had gone, Jodi cast a professional eye

over their handiwork.

The silk-covered wings were not swept back as far as the Skyhawk's and

were of rigid construction instead of being inflated to the correct

shape by helium gas. The slim fuselage pod, lacking the rear-mounted

engine and pusher-prop of the original, was attached directly to the

underside of the wing, with the cockpit just ahead of the leading

edge.

The Skyhawk was a pure-delta wing design, with no tailplane or rudder;

Brickman's craft had a boom running back from the centre section with a

cruciform tail assembly mounted on the end. That was not the only

departure from the original; on the Skyhawk, banking to left and right

was affected by means of control wires that warped the outer trailing

edge of the wings. On Brickman's glider, there were inset panels that

pivoted up and down: ailerons - as used on the two-seat Skyr