No other ships lurked anywhere close, so he could either seize that unknown hunk of metal and canvas or stay there by himself in the dead outpost.
Hoisting one bag over his shoulder and counter-balancing with his cane, he did his best to cross the landing quietly; but his metal foot dropped each step with a hard, loud clank—even though the leather sole at the bottom of the thing was brand new.
He leaned the bag of mail up against the ship and caught his breath, lost more to fear than exertion. Then he moved the mail bag aside to reveal the first two stenciled letters of the ship’s name, and reading the whole he whispered, “Sweet Marie.”
Two more mail bags, each moved with all the stealth he could muster. Each one more cumbersome than the last, and each one straining his bum leg harder. But he moved them. He opened the back bin of the Sweet Marie and stuffed them into her cargo hold. Every grunt was loud in the desert emptiness and every heaving shove would’ve sent ol’ Stanley into conniptions, had he been there.
Too much noise. Got to keep your head down.
Walter breathed as he leaned on the bin to make it shut. It closed with a click. “This ain’t the war. Not out here.”
Just like me, you carry it with you.
Something.
What?
A gusting. A hoarse, lonely sound that barked and disappeared.
He leaned against the bin and listened hard, waiting for that noise to come again.
The Sweet Marie had been primed and she was ready to fill, but no one had switched on the generators. She sank so low she almost tipped over, now that the mail sacks had loaded down her back end.
Walter McMullin did not know how hydrogen worked exactly, but he’d seen the filling process performed enough times to copy it.
The generators took the form of two tanks, each one mounted atop a standard-issue army wagon. These tanks were made of reinforced wood and lined with copper, and atop each tank was a hinged metal plate that could be opened and closed in order to dump metal shavings into the sulfuric acid inside. At the end, opposite the filler plate, an escape pipe was attached to a long rubber hose, to which the Sweet Marie was ultimately affixed.
There were several sets of filters for the hydrogen to pass before it reached the ship’s tank, and the process was frankly none too quick. Even little ships like these mail runners could take a couple of hours to become airworthy.
Walter did not like the idea of spending a couple of hours alone in Reluctance. He was even less charmed by the idea of spending all night alone in Reluctance, so he found himself a crate of big glass bottles filled with acid, and with great struggle he poured them down through the copper funnels atop the tanks. Shortly thereafter he located the metal filings; he scooped them up with the big tin cup and dumped them in.
He turned the valves to open the filters and threw the switch to start the generators stirring and bubbling, vibrating the carts to make the acid and the metal stir and separate into hydrogen more quickly.
It made a god-awful amount of noise.
The rubber hose, stamped “Goodyear’s Rubber, Belting, and Packing Company of Philadelphia,” did a little twitch. Sweet Marie’s tank gave a soft, plaintive squeal as the first hydrogen spilled through, giving her the smallest bit of lift.
But she’d need more. Lots more.
There.
Another one.
A sighing grunt, gasped and then gone as quickly as it’d burst through the night.
Walter whirled as fast as his leg would let him, using it as a pivot. He moved like a compass pinned to a map. He held his cane out, pointing at nothing.
But the sound. Again. And again. Another wheeze and gust.
At this point, Walter was gut-swimmingly certain that it was coming from more than one place. Partway between a snore and a cough, with a consumptive rattle. Coming from everywhere, and nowhere. Coming from the dark.
Up against the Sweet Marie he backed.
He jumped, startled by a new sound, a familiar one. Footsteps, slow and laborious. Someone was walking toward him, out of the black alleys that surrounded the landing. Nearing the ladder to the refueling platform. And whoever this visitor was, he was joined by someone else—approaching the edge near the parked Majestic.
And a third somebody. Walter was pretty sure of a third, moving up from the shadows.
Not one single thing about this moment, this shuddering instant alone—but not alone—felt right or good to Walter McMullin. He still couldn’t see anyone, though he could hear plenty. Whoever they were, lurking in the background…they weren’t being quiet. They weren’t sneaking, and that was something, wasn’t it?