Universe 6 - [Anthology] Read online

“I couldn’t care less.”

  “Last year you seemed to care.”

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she said softly. “You were the one who chose the beer garden.”

  “But you chose to go home.”

  “David, David,” she cried, laughing shrilly. Suddenly, stretching forward on tiptoes, she patted his pale cheek. “Wasn’t he tender as a lamb? Wasn’t he gentle as a child?”

  “Leave me alone. You’ll never understand.”

  They had barely reached the edge of the public arena. Melody abruptly darted away into the crowded sky, slipping between a writhing quartet of air-lovers. David would not follow. As he walked he passed through private clouds, becoming a flitting intruder in a courtyard; a dungeon; star cluster; a swirling air fight between winged demons; an accountant’s office. In the aisle he met a grinning panda bear with a tennis racket, but waved away the animal’s whispered proposition. Someone offered him a drink; he slid it into his wrist. A plasma frog was rushed ahead of him. They only lived three months, so he supposed the practice was justified. A coronal discharge covered a shriek, a gurgle, some muffled struggling. When he reached the table he found Melody sitting alone.

  “What a stupid frapping waste that was,” he said.

  “What was?” she asked innocently.

  “Your flying ahead to see her first.”

  “Oh, David.” She flung both hands into the misty air. “You know I loathe walking.”

  Silently, through a pale thin straw, he drank his liquor. Maybe she was right. Maybe this whole birthday celebration had degenerated into a hopeless waste. For weeks before and after, he was good for nothing else.

  “Just remember what I said,” he warned her.

  “Oh, frap you.”

  “Just don’t forget.”

  “Oh, frap.”

  * * * *

  Soon enough, they came. Garth, ageless, appeared first, dressed in his usual glittering array of raw jewelry. Shortly afterward Carol materialized at his side, oddly stark naked, no bodypaint, no cosmetics, only a tiny shapeless pair of flesh-tinted breasts. But she carried herself divinely. He couldn’t resist gazing in open admiration. Carol smiled back and mouthed a greeting. He drew forth a chair and gestured at her to sit beside him. Garth tried to bound across the table but went limp in mid-air and fell in a heap beside Melody’s chair.

  “Garth is ill,” Carol said, gazing straight across the table at Melody. “Something is wrong with him inside—it’s all rotten.”

  “Can’t they do anything for him?” David asked.

  Carol shook her head, continuing to stare at Melody. “And you?” she said. “How have you been?”

  “So-so,” said Melody.

  “But what have you been doing? What did you do last year?”

  Melody shook her head. “I’m not supposed to tell you that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he”—she pointed at David—”said I shouldn’t.”

  Carol scowled and started to speak but David managed first:

  “We went to Tibet.”

  “You shut up,” Carol said. “I asked Melody.”

  “But—”

  “No—I want Melody to tell me. Everybody knows how you feel. It’s her I want to hear.”

  “He has to say I can,” Melody said.

  “Tell her,” Carol commanded him.

  “Talk,” David said weakly.

  “We went to Tibet,” Melody said.

  David groaned and dropped his chin to his chest. How could she fail to destroy him utterly?

  “Lhasa?”

  “No. Up. Way, way up. Into the mountains. The ones with the funny name. A shriveled bald monk lives up there. Brother Cupid. He’s just like Christ and the others. You know.”

  “Yes,” Carol said. “But what can he do?”

  “Lots.” Melody ticked off the wonders on the fingers of one hand. “He can show you heaven. And hell. He can show you the places that lie in between. And he can show you the meaning of life—its real significance.” She shook her head. “He says that and—well—I guess he’s right.”

  “So what is it?” Carol asked eagerly.

  This is all wrong, David thought. Melody had forsaken the drama. All that remained was cold, crude fact. This time he had been destined for success and she had destroyed it for him.

  But Melody was laughing. “You can’t put something like that into words. If you could, then everybody would know.”

  “I see. But how—tell me—how did it affect you?”

  Melody shook her head, leaning back. Shutting her eyes, tossing her head, she spoke without hesitation: “Nothing.” Her eyes flew open. “It was just—just dull.”

  “No!” Carol cried.

  “Yes,” Melody said triumphantly. “That’s exactly how it was. An utter, utter bore.”

  * * * *

  It was nearly twelve. David, who had waited until now, refused to remain silent a moment longer. Turning to Carol, he coldly demanded: “And what did you do last year?”

  “Me?” Carol asked vaguely. Melody drew away from Carol’s embrace and reached down to rouse Garth. David sat alone on the opposite side of the table.

  “Yes, you,” he said. “Who else?”

  “I—I wouldn’t know.”

  “You do have to tell us,” Melody said. “We really have to know.”

  “But I. . .” Carol began.

  “Yes?” said David.

  “Well, nothing. I didn’t do . . . anything.”

  “You liar!” he said.

  “No. I—” She stood up, spreading her arms. “I really did nothing. We stayed home. I couldn’t—”

  “And how did you enjoy it?” Melody prodded. “Tell us that.”

  “I—we—” Carol hesitated. Her body stiffened. She stood straight up, balancing upon the tips of her toes, nearly leaving the floor, trembling as though striken by some awesome force from without. “It was wonderful!” she cried. “It was marvelous! Oh, David, I never knew before! I couldn’t have guessed. It was so great—so grand!”

  “No!” David shouted. He sprang to his feet.

  “Oh, yes,” Carol insisted, staring straight through him. “But you”—she laughed shrilly—”you’ll never know.”

  Reaching out, she grabbed Melody warmly by the hand.

  <>

  * * * *

  Here’s another collaborative team, two young men from Texas who have both begun selling science fiction stories in the past few years. Together steven utley and Howard waldrop have produced a fascinating novelette of an alternative time-stream in which George Armstrong Custer lost his final battle to the Plains Indians Air Force—six fighter planes expertly piloted by such warriors as Crazy Horse and Black Man’s Hand.

  For details on the battle and how it came about, see the following documents. (And if you should wonder how heavier-than-air craft could have been in military use as early as the Civil War, look carefully through the list of references at the end.)

  * * * *

  Custer’s Last Jump

  BY STEVEN UTLEY & HOWARD WALDROP

  Smithsonian Annals of Flight, VOL. 39: The Air War in the West

  CHAPTER 27: The Krupp Monoplane

  INTRODUCTION

  Its wings still hold the tears from many bullets. The ailerons are still scorched black, and the exploded Henry machine rifle is bent awkwardly in its blast port.

  The right landing skid is missing, and the frame has been restraightened. It stands in the left wing of the Air Museum today, next to the French Devre jet and the X-FU-5 Flying Flapjack, the world’s fastest fighter aircraft.

  On its rudder is the swastika, an ugly reminder of days of glory fifty years ago. A simple plaque describes the aircraft. It reads:

  CRAZY HORSE’S KRUPP MONOPLANE (Captured at the raid on Fort Carson, January 5, 1882)

  GENERAL

  1. To study the history of this plane is to delve into one of the most glorious eras of aviation history. To begin: the aircraft
was manufactured by the Krupp plant at Haavesborg, Netherlands. The airframe was completed August 3, 1862, as part of the third shipment of Krupp aircraft to the Confederate States of America under terms of the Agreement of Atlanta of 1861. It was originally equipped with power plant #311 Zed of 87¼ horsepower, manufactured by the Jumo plant at Nordmung, Duchy of Austria, on May 3 of the year 1862. Wingspan of the craft is twenty-three feet, its length is seventeen feet three inches. The aircraft arrived in the port of Charlotte on September 21, 1862, aboard the transport Mendenhall, which had suffered heavy bombardment from GAR picket ships. The aircraft was possibly sent by rail to Confederate Army Air Corps Center at Fort Andrew Mott, Alabama. Unfortunately, records of rail movements during this time were lost in the burning of the Confederate archives at Ittebeha in March 1867, two weeks after the Truce of Haldeman was signed.

  2. The aircraft was damaged during a training flight in December 1862. Student pilot was Flight Subaltern (Cadet) Neldoo J. Smith, CSAAC; flight instructor during the ill-fated flight was Air Captain Winslow Homer Winslow, on interservice instructor-duty loan from the Confederate States Navy.

  Accident forms and maintenance officer’s reports indicate that the original motor was replaced with one of the new 93½ horsepower Jumo engines which had just arrived from Holland by way of Mexico.

  3. The aircraft served routinely through the remainder of Flight Subaltern Smith’s training. We have records141, which indicate that the aircraft was one of the first to be equipped with the Henry repeating machine rifle of the chain-driven type. Until December 1862, all CSAAC aircraft were equipped with the Sharps repeating rifles of the motor-driven, low-voltage type on wing or turret mounts.

  As was the custom, the aircraft was flown by Flight Subaltern Smith to his first duty station at Thimblerig Aerodrome in Augusta, Georgia. Flight Subaltern Smith was assigned to Flight Platoon 2, 1st Aeroscout Squadron.

  4. The aircraft, with Flight Subaltern Smith at the wheel, participated in three of the aerial expeditions against the Union Army in the Second Battle of the Manassas. Smith distinguished himself in the first and third mission. (He was assigned aerial picket duty south of the actual battle during his second mission.) On the first, he is credited with one kill and one probable (both bi-wing Airsharks). During the third mission, he destroyed one aircraft and forced another down behind Confederate lines. He then escorted the craft of his immediate commander, Air Captain Dalton Trump, to a safe landing on a field controlled by the Confederates. According to Trump’s sworn testimony, Smith successfully fought off two Union craft and ranged ahead of Trump’s crippled plane to strafe a group of Union soldiers who were in their flight path, discouraging them from firing on Trump’s smoking aircraft.

  For heroism on these two missions, Smith was awarded the Silver Star and Bar with Air Cluster. Presentation was made on March 3, 1863, by the late General J. E. B. Stuart, Chief of Staff of the CSAAC.

  5. Flight Subaltern Smith was promoted to flight captain on April 12, 1863, after distinguishing himself with two kills and two probables during the first day of the Battle of the Three Roads, North Carolina. One of his kills was an airship of the Moby class, with crew of fourteen. Smith shared with only one other aviator the feat of bringing down one of these dirigibles during the War of the Secession.

  This was the first action the 1st Aeroscout Squadron had seen since Second Manassas, and Captain Smith seems to have been chafing under inaction. Perhaps this led him to volunteer for duty with Major John S. Moseby, then forming what would later become Moseby’s Raiders. This was actually sound military strategy: the CSAAC was to send a unit to southwestern Kansas to carry out harassment raids against the poorly defended forts of the far West. These raids would force the Union to send men and materiel sorely needed at the southern front far to the west, where they would be ineffectual in the outcome of the war. That this action was taken is pointed to by some142 as a sign that the Confederate States envisioned defeat and were resorting to desperate measures four years before the Treaty of Haldeman.

  At any rate, Captain Smith and his aircraft joined a triple flight of six aircraft each, which, after stopping at El Dorado, Arkansas, to refuel, flew away on a westerly course. This is the last time they ever operated in Confederate states. The date was June 5, 1863.

  6. The Union forts stretched from a medium-well-defended line in Illinois, to poorly garrisoned stations as far west as Wyoming Territory and south to the Kansas-Indian Territory border. Southwestern Kansas was both sparsely settled and garrisoned. It was from this area that Moseby’s Raiders, with the official designation 1st Western Interdiction Wing, CSAAC, operated.

  A supply wagon train had been sent ahead a month before from Fort Worth, carrying petrol, ammunition, and material for shelters. A crude landing field, hangars, and barracks awaited the eighteen craft.

  After two months of reconnaissance (done by mounted scouts due to the need to maintain the element of surprise, and, more importantly, by the limited amount of fuel available) the 1st WIW took to the air. The citizens of Riley, Kansas, long remembered the day: their first inkling that Confederates were closer than Texas came when motors were heard overhead and the Union garrison was literally blown off the face of the map.

  7. Following the first raid, word went to the War Department headquarters in New York, with pleas for aid and reinforcements for all Kansas garrisons. Thus the CSAAC achieved its goal in the very first raid. The effects snowballed; as soon as the populace learned of the raid, it demanded protection from nearby garrisons. Farmers’ organizations threatened to stop shipments of needed produce to eastern depots. The garrison commanders, unable to promise adequate protection, appealed to higher military authorities.

  Meanwhile, the 1st WIW made a second raid on Abilene, heavily damaging the railways and stockyards with twenty-five-pound fragmentation bombs. They then circled the city, strafed the Army Quartermaster depot, and disappeared into the west.

  8. This second raid, and the ensuing clamor from both the public and the commanders of western forces, convinced the War Department to divert new recruits and supplies, with seasoned members of the 18th Aeropursuit Squadron, to the Kansas-Missouri border, near Lawrence.

  9. Inclement weather in the fall kept both the 18th AS and the 1st WIW grounded for seventy-two of the ninety days of the season. Aircraft from each of these units met several times; the 1st is credited with one kill, while pilots of the 18th downed two Confederate aircraft on the afternoon of December 12, 1863.

  Both aircraft units were heavily resupplied during this time. The Battle of the Canadian River was fought on December 18, when mounted reconnaissance units of the Union and Confederacy met in Indian territory. Losses were small on both sides, but the skirmish was the first of what would become known as the Far Western Campaign.

  10. Civilians spotted the massed formation of the 1st WIW as early as 10 A.M. Thursday, December 16, 1863. They headed northeast, making a leg due north when eighteen miles south of Lawrence. Two planes sped ahead to destroy the telegraph station at Felton, nine miles south of Lawrence. Nevertheless, a message of some sort reached Lawrence; a Union messenger on horseback was on his way to the aerodrome when the first flight of Confederate aircraft passed overhead.

  In the ensuing raid, seven of the nineteen Union aircraft were destroyed on the ground and two were destroyed in the air, while the remaining aircraft were severely damaged and the barracks and hangars demolished.

  The 1st WIW suffered one loss: during the raid a Union clerk attached for duty with the 18th AS manned an Agar machine rifle position and destroyed one Confederate aircraft. He was killed by machine rifle fire from the second wave of planes. Private Alden Evans Gunn was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for his gallantry during the attack.

  For the next two months, the 1st WIW ruled the skies as far north as Illinois, as far east as Trenton, Missouri.

  THE FAR WESTERN CAMPAIGN

  1. At this juncture, the two most prominent fig
ures of the next nineteen years of frontier history enter the picture: the Oglala Sioux Crazy Horse and Lieutenant Colonel (Brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer. The clerical error giving Custer the rank of Brigadier General is well known. It is not common knowledge that Custer was considered by the General Staff as a candidate for Far Western Commander as early as the spring of 1864, a duty he would not take up until May 1869, when the Far Western Command was the only theater of war operations within the Americas.

  The General Staff, it is believed, considered Major General Custer for the job for two reasons: they thought Custer possessed those qualities of spirit suited to the warfare necessary in the Western Command, and that the far West was the ideal place for the twenty-three-year-old Boy General.