Chapter 6 — Espionage Date

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~ 1 ~ Herbert Schooner arrived after midnight at California’s Ontario Airport. After a casual, friendly interaction with the guard at the recently enlarged Knox Aviation hangar, he drove in slowly and stopped with the engine running and the headlights on at the entrance to its lunchroom. With easy, casual strides he went around to the trunk, from which he removed two suitcase-sized cases. He carried them around the side of the car next to the lunchroom saying softly, “Slip out of the car now, Esther. Stay low.”

Herbert set down the cases at the lunchroom’s entrance door, which he unlocked. He was opening it when a car pulled up to the guard’s kiosk and a man got out, asking for directions. “Now!” hissed Herbert, picking up the two cases. Esther, crouching low, followed him into the semi-darkness and through the lunchroom to a rear door, where Herbert spoke an opening command in Old Goth, and he and Esther slipped into the dimly-lit Workspace of Lisa and Lingyun Su.

There, Herbert opened the two Calipers cases and handed one set of the Calipers to Esther, saying, “Put on your new Calipers quickly.”

“Herbert, what kind of Calipers are these? The fingers look like ostrich feathers.”

“Used in concert with my Calipers, they're called Reading Calipers. ‘Lock pickers’ is a better name. They can read as much as it’s possible to read about the Design of a Device.”

“Herbert, you don’t really need lessons from Miss Knox, do you?”

“Well, you might say that her lessons are a refresher course for me, and she knows a few new tricks.”

Herbert, after a few days of Rhoda’s Calipers lessons, had asked Esther privately over coffee, if she were interested in “an espionage date to learn some industrial secrets”.

“Sure, if it’s not my secrets you’re interested in, Herbert.” Esther was ready, after several more Calipers lessons, for this night’s “date”.

~ ~ ~

Fabrication of the Commons Crawler, supervised by Benjamin, was taking place in another Workspace in the enlarged hangar.

Even before the Crawler project had been established, Herbert had been trying to unearth the reason for the hangar’s recent expansion. Therefore, on a recent day, he had slipped in among a group of newly-arrived people milling around outside the hangar, listening to their excited Makers’ talk about a new project. Quickly he had begun a friendly chat with Second Masen, revealing to the young Delver that he was taking advanced lessons in the Makers’ art from Miss Knox. Second, knowing no reason to suspect that Herbert was an intruder to the group, had spoken to him freely about his suspicions regarding the Knox family. Herbert had agreed with him that Miss Knox should not be trusted. He had assured Second, however, that she did know the Makers’ art, and that he would keep an eye on her for him. Herbert had merged into the line with Second as they talked and had, like the others, obtained a pass for the parking lot, which was serving him well on this evening.

The group of Makers with whom Herbert had mingled had been talking about the Device—the Commons Crawler—which they were to fabricate. Having learned from the Comrade that Hector had been stranded in the Commons, Herbert had been nearly certain of the use for which the Commons Crawler was intended; for a while he had talked knowledgeably about the subject with Second. When he had spotted Benjamin passing through the group into the hangar, he had turned his face just enough to avoid Benjamin’s notice, making a lunch date with Second for later in the week. After that, he had left.

Herbert had met with Hector’s other partisans soon after that, identifying himself to them as a secret ally who was spying for them on Knox’s operations. They had told him about the Dragonfly Device being fabricated in a Workspace separate from that of the Commons Crawler, by a Chinese brother and sister team who were advanced Guild apprentices of Miss Knox and Dr. Chavez. They had told Herbert also that the Dragonfly’s Archetype was the Greased Lightning, which was reputed to have cloaking capability. The Workspace for the Greased Lightning was off limits to everyone, and it was constantly guarded.

Esther—hearing from Herbert that the purpose of their date was, “to learn what I can about the aircraft cloaking technology developed by Knox Aviation,”—had been eager to join him in the adventure.

Now, in the Dragonfly’s Workspace, Esther whispered, “It doesn’t look like an aircraft, Herbert. It’s not even big enough to be the beginning of one.” On the workbench was a twelve-foot-long spindle, around which were wrapped a variety of twisted fibers, many with raw ends protruding. Esther, holding one of the Calipers arms in her hand, suddenly froze, nearly overcome by fear of discovery.

Herbert hissed, “Quickly, Esther! We have only ten minutes to take a reading and return before the guard gets here on his round.”

With no other way to escape danger, Esther slipped onto her hands the “ostrich feather fingers”, noticing that Herbert’s Calipers were unlike hers. On each three-fingered hand of his Calipers arms, the inner finger was stubby and the two outer fingers were spindly, causing the hands to look like very large draftsman’s compasses. “We will start at this end and work slowly to the other; just touch your feathery Calipers fingers lightly to the Dragonfly spindle, moving them along it at my pace on the left while I work on the right. When we get to the end, we’ll switch sides and work our way back. You may feel a little dizzy, Esther, while I’m making the reading.”

Esther’s fear of being discovered overcame her dizziness and helped her to maintain a pace as slow as Herbert’s. His face was expressionless as they worked along the spindle. Then they very quietly returned the Calipers to their cases and quickly exited through the Front Gate, re-entering the hangar’s lunchroom.

The man who had asked for directions at the guard’s station was still talking to the guard, less than a minute of time having elapsed outside the Workshop. Esther heard the sound of Herbert’s car engine through the lunchroom’s open doorway, and Herbert whispered, “Quick, Esther, into the back seat and underneath the blanket.” After Esther had disappeared beneath the blanket, Herbert flicked on the lunchroom’s light. The guard turned from the man who was inquiring about a Leer factory, and saw Herbert setting the two cases on a lunchroom table. He watched Herbert turn off the light and close the lunchroom door behind him. Esther, from beneath the blanket, pulled shut her door on the lunchroom side of the car, and Herbert simultaneously slammed the car’s trunk door.

Herbert drove to the guard station. “Thanks, buddy,” he said. “They’ll get their instruments for the first shift and I won’t lose a customer.”

The guard smiled. “Any time. I used to sell tools, too. Hey, you don’t know where the Lear factory is, do you? The guy that just left was looking for it. He said a friend of his told him that someone he knows works the night shift there. We even looked in the telephone book. It had something to do with a woman.”

“Was he drunk?”

“Maybe; I smelled booze.”

“He was looking in the wrong state. Lear is in Kansas. A big company like that might be building a factory here, too, though.”

When they were well beyond the airport, Herbert pulled over and stopped the car. Esther divested herself of the blanket and moved to the front seat, touching Herbert’s hand on the steering wheel.

“What did you learn, Herbert?”

“It’s a secret.” In fact, he had learned disappointingly little. He took her hand and kissed it. Back on the road, he steered with one hand while attempting to fondle her breasts.

Esther set his hand firmly back on the wheel. She said, “I keep my secrets, too—for Mortimer Kane’s sake.”

Herbert glanced at her. That she might be an agent of Kane had not occurred to him. He shrugged his shoulders.

Esther studied his profile while he drove them on through the night.

Enjoying Esther’s warm—but unyielding—presence, Herbert thought about the reason for her presence next to him in the car.

Dr. Mortimer Kane had asked Herbert to try to uncover the secret of Knox cloaking technology. Marge Hemming had speculated that the Clan’s vaunted cloaking technology was no more than a deception meant to cow the Soviets, but Kane had said to Herbert, “You and I understand that the potential for cloaking technology is implied by Dr. Kerrigan’s theory; the Clan’s interest in him may be due to their not having actually achieved cloaking yet. The Friend, too, has an interest in this matter.” Herbert, wanting to learn enough to be able to satisfy Dr. Kane and the Friend, began by having a watch kept at the Ontario Hangar, in which the Greased Lightning was occasionally housed. That is how he had learned of the hangar’s expansion and had been notified when a sizable work crew was scheduled to assemble at the hangar.

~ ~ ~

Recently, Third Masen had asked Herbert to acquire Reading Calipers for himself and his brother Second. With the Calipers, they intended to learn secretly what it was that Benjamin was not telling the Masens about the Commons Crawler Design. Second was certain that Benjamin had altered the Design which had been approved at Home Ranch. Third doubted this, but he saw the request for Calipers as an opportunity to test Herbert’s claim that he was their ally and a practicing Maker.

Herbert had told Third, “There are Reading Calipers stored in the Workshop where Miss Knox is giving us Maker lessons. I’ve never used them,” he had lied, “so I don’t know how sensitive they are, but they might serve your purpose.” As he was speaking, Herbert had become aware that an opportunity existed for him to investigate Knox’s cloaking technology in the process of leaving the Calipers for Third’s secret early-morning pickup from the lunchroom. He had used the opportunity to enter the Workshop and, with Esther’s help, make those readings.

~ ~ ~

From readings with the Reading Calipers, Second and Third would soon discover that Benjamin had not modified the Crawler's Design. Third admired the quality of the Reading Calipers, which was better than that of any others ever used by him.

~ ~ ~

Herbert determined that the Dragonfly probably would have cloaking capability, and he discovered that no Reading Calipers had the power to penetrate to the Design of the Dragonfly’s Archetype, the Greased Lighting. It was clear to him now that the Lightning was the work of a very clever Keen Maker. Was it truly the work of Miss Knox alone?

He wondered if the Friend’s interest in cloaking technology came from a desire to gather military secrets in order to send his minions on some new global military adventure—like the one which had failed in Europe. That military failure was due to the Clan’s decapitation of the Circle’s Soviet headship in Moscow, on the day that the Friend’s premature vesting in Berlin had failed. Its consequence was the Friend’s failure to execute his plan to wield a joint German-Soviet military machine.

Esther had passed on to Herbert the things that Miss Knox had let slip to her, giving him enough clues to determine that it was Miss Knox’s grandfather, Walter Knox, who personally had masterminded the assault in Moscow. Now, in the Cold War, the opportunity had passed which had been available in those bygone days.

Herbert thought it possible that the Greased Lightning was an ancient Clan Weapon in which the Friend was interested. He had learned through its Descendant, the Dragonfly, that the Lightning would defend itself with lethal force against any attempt to learn its secrets. Even if he were able to get past the Greased Lightning’s guards, he would enter the Workspace in which it was housed at extreme risk to himself. Was the Friend testing him? Herbert would have to be in league with the Clan in order to uncover the Lightning’s secrets. He decided to make a full report to Kane.

He drove silently, thinking about the things that he had learned by reading the Dragonfly Device. Would he be able to use this newly acquired knowledge about the Dragonfly, to give cloaking ability to the two Bush Hopper bombers which he had equipped with jet engines at the Schneider Flight Works early in World War Two? Probably, but it would likely require years of work. Anyway, Marge now had possession of the two Bush Hopper bombers in one of her warehouses in Long Beach. And he had plans bigger than that of helping “Mistress Bauda” to make more money in the arms trade by selling high performance bombers for atomic bombs.

Thinking these thoughts, Herbert frequently allowed his eyes to be drawn to Esther’s seductive body next to him in the car. All thoughts left his mind when he saw that Esther was staring at him.

“Herbert, listen to me: My job for Mortimer Kane is to ensure that Dr. Kerrigan is content with the scientific work that he’s doing. Het is subject to jealousy, so you must understand that a relationship between you and me would jeopardize his delicate relationship with the Circle. Maybe we can share our secrets at a later time.”

Herbert nodded in reluctant assent.

~ 2 ~ It was past time for Ricardo and Hans to leave the Cliff Rancho that morning, on their regular commute to New City University. Ricardo looked around for Hans, and found him at last in the library, reading a journal of the Histories. He stood for a moment in the doorway, feeling pleased by Hans’s rapid progress in learning Old Goth. It was wonderful that Hans was already able to read on his own, this journal that Yohanna must have provided to him.

Hans looked up at him. “Ricardo, I’ve been thinking about the difference between you and me in our experience of Makers’ culture. You’ve grown up in it, whereas my experience in the Workshop is so overwhelmingly different from what I had expected, and it’s so far beyond anything that I had thought possible, that I don’t yet have a clear picture of things.”

“What do you think so far, Hans?”

“Well, since I was young, I’ve been developing my own worldview. It had to expand, of course, when I met Yohanna on the day that she charmed that sidewinder in the desert. On that day, we were united by something profoundly personal. I felt almost like we had grown up together. We were suddenly deep friends even before I became fully aware of being attracted by her feminine beauty. Our Eyebeam was my first practical experience of Goth physics, Ricardo, although I didn't know it then.”

”How were you able to incorporate the Eyebeam and Yohanna’s ability to charm animals into your worldview, Hans?"

“I had to expand my worldview, Ricardo, and I felt that the expansion had enriched my worldview, but I had no sense that my basic idea of the universe was being challenged. I’ve long held that the universe is becoming conscious through the evolution of organisms, and that in human beings it has at last attained cultural awareness. I’ve felt that I am, as a student of science in that culture, one of the privileged social organisms who are near the cutting edge of this becoming—one who is beginning to understand how it works. I’ve believed that I possess the right ideas for interpreting the meaning of conscious organic nature: Nature looking back on itself for the first time and beginning to see itself. So, I took Yohanna's explanation of Eyebeams and animal charming, and the few odd things that I knew about her Clan, as simply naiveté about the true explanation of things. But when Yohanna and I were visiting my mother in Germany, I was struck by the thought that my view of the universe was actually wrong. We three were drinking beer together in the local tavern when Mother said to me, ‘Hans, I can see that you and Yohanna were made for each other before time began.’ Yohanna looked at her with a glowing smile.

“Is the local tavern the one you’ve told me about before—the ‘Boar’s Butt’?”

“That’s the one, Ricardo. I said, ’Mother, you know there was nothing before time began. I agree with you, though, that the relationship between Yohanna and me seems to have been brewing in nature for a long time!'

“She shouted then, over a surge of noise in the tavern, ‘I mean beyond nature's time, Hans!’ I thought at first that she was saying that only because of Yohanna's beliefs, but I became aware of sensing something more, and it disturbed me because Mother has always been so free of superstition.”

“I asked her, 'What, then, do you suppose can be beyond nature?' She looked away from me, at Yohanna, and she said, 'I don't know, Hans, but it's not impossible, is it?' Then she looked at me and said, 'I was only wondering, Hans.’

“I hadn't known then about Ottilie Krüger’s association with my father. My mother knew about it, of course, and with a woman's suspicion regarding a possible rival for her husband's affection, she had questioned him closely about Fraulein Krüger.

“His answers caused in her, over the following years, a growing fear of some kind of ‘supernatural dimension’ to Ottilie Krüger. After a time, my father described to Mother the serenity of Ottilie's face immediately after her violent death in the Fishbowl.

“That image haunted Mother, and after the War had ended and Father had died, her investigation into the whole business led her to the Berlin police files. The case had not been officially closed, and the investigator who had been assigned to it was happy to talk with her after she had explained to him Father's association with Ottilie Krüger. The investigator allowed Mother to view the photographs, because she was the first person to whom he had spoken who had some inside knowledge of the event. The photographs confirmed my father’s story.

“The investigator also showed Mother the ledger of people who had viewed the file. She copied the list of names.

“I know now that these things were on Mother’s mind while she was looking at Yohanna and answering my question, because I’ve received a long letter from her recently, confiding them to me. She said that from our conversation in the tavern, she learned that Henry Okubo was the name of Yohanna’s father and that Yohanna, like Ottilie Krüger, was regarded as a princess of the Clan because she belonged to a head family. Then a strange feeling had come over her: She felt that she was touching a dimension of Ottilie’s life that lay beyond the world that she had always known.”

With a friendly smile, Ricardo grasped Hans’s shoulder and looked frankly onto his eyes. “Hans, I know you well enough to suspect that there’s something in particular that you want to talk about, but something’s holding you back, so you’re rambling.”

“You’re right, Ricardo,” admitted Hans a little sheepishly. “It started a few days ago when Het and Esther dropped in on me out of the blue, in the Student Union. They brought their coffee and a man I didn’t recognize, and the three of them sat down at my table. They introduced the man as Herbert Schooner, a colleague of Het’s in the Keep. Shaking the man’s hand, I felt a premonition of evil—like when I first saw photographs of the Nazi death camps.

“Then, while we were making small talk, I became certain that this Herbert Schooner was the Herbert Schooner in the narrative of Ottilie Krüger’s War Thing. Ricardo, Herbert Schooner’s name is on my mother’s list of people who have inquired about the police file on Ottilie’s death.”

“You’re right about Herbert Schooner, Hans. I’m in contact with him occasionally in the Keep.”

"This morning, Ricardo, I went straight to your Library’s Portal and obtained this journal of the Histories that I’ve been reading. It’s the account that Yohanna read to us in Antonia's house while you and Rhoda were becoming Heads of the War Thing. …Ricardo! I forgot! It’s past time to go!"

“That’s not a problem for me, Hans, because I don’t have any early-morning appointments today. I’m just really pleased to find you making such great headway. When I saw what you were reading, I assumed that Yohanna had gotten the journal for you."

Hans smiled. ”I learned the borrowing Chant that you demonstrated. It worked perfectly for me!"

“Hans! That means the gods who serve the Library Portal have accepted you as a member of the War Thing!”

“What? Ricardo, I thought it’s only you and Rhoda who decide who is a member.”

"The Head god of the War Thing also has that authority."

"What god is he?"

"The Heart Shield. He’s the god that you heard about in the Histories, who talked to Reyna.

“Isn’t he also the god of the Clan?”

“Actually, he’s not. It’s because the War Thing is the prime activity of the Clan that the Heart Shield is often referred to as the god of the Clan. The fact is that usually, the god of any group that traces its origin to some particular person is the Place-god of that person’s birth. So, the god of the Clan is the Place-god of the Clan of Thiuderieks, and the Heart Shield is his Viceroy.”

Hans laughed. “Will I need to learn the protocol of the gods?” Then he grew serious. “Ricardo, I’m sure I’ve discovered something that‘s important to you. The Histories say that Ellie Herder was inspired by a god to conceive of the plan of her Fire Baby. Yohanna told me that no one knew which god it was who inspired her.”

“Have you learned something about this god?”

“Herbert Schooner communicates with him. I’ve just read a conversation between them.”

“Hans, what was your reason for wanting to read the Histories?”

“I wanted to check up on Herbert Schooner. On the day that Het and Esther introduced me to Herbert, I later ran into Leo and Antonia. We hadn’t talked for a while, so they asked me to eat with them at Antonia’s restaurant, and while we were eating, I mentioned meeting Herbert Schooner with Het and Esther in the Student Union. Then Leo told me about an investigation that he and Antonia had made into the ‘Battle of Greystone Castle’. Leo told me that he, himself, had spied Herbert Schooner clandestinely removing equipment from an old underground factory that had been hidden until then. When I woke up early this morning, I found myself wanting to read again what Yohanna had read to us about Schooner. I thought maybe I could get the journal from the Library Portal on my own, because my new experience in the Workshop has given me confidence in saying Chants (although I still feel a little foolish saying them). The library chant you showed me worked; I received the journal!”

“And you’ve been reading it without any help, Hans?”

“I’ve been helped by recalling Yohanna reading it aloud; the words became alive, and I began reading it easily! And I knew I was learning more Old Goth while I was learning more about the things that happened in those days. I became completely engrossed in the account of Herbert Schooner in the Black Cat, reporting on his jet turbine project to Winfred Wahl. That account was interestingly different from and much more detailed than what Yohanna had read to us. I read that, while Herbert was talking about the details of jet engines with Winfred Wahl, he was also communicating with a god about Ellie Herder. Ellie was sitting at a table near them. Schooner mind-spoke to the god: Comrade, are you personally present to me?

”The god said, ‘Yes’.

Schooner said, Be ready. Fraulein Herder will touch me in a second. She is the one whom you know from the conception of the Soma.

“‘I am ready,’ said the god.

And Schooner said, “Now!

“Here, Ricardo; you read it. Am I right?” Hans handed the open journal to Ricardo. “I have no recollection of Yohanna reading this to us.”

Ricardo read silently for several minutes. When he looked up, his expression was grave. “Hans, this matter is a deep secret of the War Thing. Speak of it only to Yohanna, Rhoda or Martin. Herbert Schooner’s original Goth name is Gesalec, and this passage, which was green when Yohanna was reading the journal, tells me that the god whom Herbert calls, ‘Comrade’ is the one whom Makers call ‘Cleaver’. Gesalec and Cleaver must have a Pact. A Goth Pact is a witnessed agreement between a god and a human, and Pacts are essentially Net-like Devices that remain secret unless they’re freely revealed by one of the parties.”