Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 (7 page)

Beneath whose heat and light are
wondersdone.

Throughout a leash of nobler worlds
thanyours.

You think you know my secrets, and you say

That they are thus and thus—but, throughthe sky,

My beam strikes from so many years away,

You know not how I live, nor when I die.

The
Bombs and the Wings

SILENT as we departed from the gathering together,
Guaracco soon spoke.

"I know very little, after all, of how you
live," he said "but perhaps I can arrange how and when you die. That song
was meant to reproach me."

"Just as you like" I rejoined, for my fear of
him had quite departed. Too, I was arraying my spirit against further imposition
of his will. "Your masterful ways become burdensome, Guaracco. I defy
you."

And I paused, near the palace gates, my fists clenched.

"No violence," he warned me. "I carry a
sword, as well as that short gun you saw yesterday. And my dwarfs are never far
away. You, on the other hand, have not yet assumed our Florentine fashion of
carrying arms." His beard stirred in the gloom, and I knew that he smiled,
"But I shall not kill you, Leo, unless you force me. All these defiances
stand me in good stead."

"In good stead?"
I repeated,
for after my temporary semi-hypnotized slavishness, nothing had been further from
my wish than to aid Guaracco.

"Aye, that. In scorning magic and upholding science,
you taught me a lesson, and few can boast of teaching me anything of worth. It
is time for me to forget my sorcery pretenses, at least where it concerns my
relationship to Lorenzo. Science shall be my way with him hereafter—but not too
much science. You and I shall work wonders for him, the two of us."

"Am I to help you?" I sneered.

He shook his head, laughing. "It is I who shall help
you. For instance, that matter of exploding shot. I saw, as did not Lorenzo,
that you were perplexed. But it happens that I may help you to fashion such a
thing. Again, is it not true that you wish to return some day to your own
century?"

Useless to deny that, and I said so.

"And have you not forgotten many details of your
time-reflecting machine?"

Equally useless to deny that.

"For instance," went on Guaracco, as we resumed
our walk together, "you have forgotten certain ways to use this strange
new power which you named to me as electricity. It gives light, but how?"

I could not tell him.

"I shall refresh your lost memory. Is there not a
certain bottle or globe, exhausted of air—and a wire of some substance set
glowing within—
"

I clutched his arm, so suddenly fierce that he broke off
and swore in startled pain.

"How do you know that?" I demanded. "Yes, I
had forgotten entirely. But you knew, and about airplanes as
well
!"

"Let me go," he commanded. "Here come
Lorenzo's grooms with our horses."

WE accepted our mounts, and rode away side by side.

"Now," said Guaracco, as we entered a dim
street, lighted only by the lanterns of a watch patrol, "you will remember
that I showed you a pearl, a beautiful jewel? And it put you to

sleep
?"

"You mean that in my trance I remembered—" I
could see how possible that was.

Meanwhile, I braced my spirit lest he try some other
occult trick.

But he only nodded, as if to check the point. "I
learned things about your science which you yourself cannot grasp when awake.
You shall look into the pearl again, Leo, and more knowledge will creep forth.
We shall produce wonders for Lorenzo, winning great favor and possessions, and
also build your time reflector.
Nay our time reflector —for
perhaps I shall make the journey through the ages with you."

He was swaying me very strongly but still I resented his
absorbing mastery of every situation. He seemed to read my mind.

"Let us not be lord and servant any more," he
offered, "but colleagues and friends. Lorenzo is disposed to grant us
money for a shop of our own. Stay on with Verrocchio lest others become suspicious.
But your spare time can be applied to our own profit." His voice became
sly. "Lisa asks after you, lad. She would be pleased to see you again.
And, for all your last words to her, I think you would be pleased, too. Is is
not so?"

Finally I agreed to a truce and a partnership. After all,
it was the only way to escape from the Renaissance. And Guaracco's concessions seemed
handsome, at the time.

On the following day I skimped my work with Verrocchio,
and called on Guaracco at the little house where once he had tried to bestow
Lisa upon me. Lisa was there, shy but apparently glad to see me. How had I been
able to admire Simonetta Vespucci so greatly, only twelve hours before I could
not
understand.
But I did my best to conceal my
feelings. Guaracco must not bring that influence to bear upon me a second time.

As at his house in the country, Guaracco had fitted up the
cellar for laboratory and workshop. At once we began work on the
"explosive shot" which Lorenzo had demanded.

At my recommendation we made it cylindrical instead of
round, a good eighteen inches long and six in
diameter
.
Bronze, being light, strong and workable, was our choce for the outer shell of
this bomb, and I cut deen cross lines in the outer surface so that it might the
more easily explode and fly in pieces. The inside we filled strategically with
lumps of lead, with spaces between for powder.

Guaracco, though helpful, was as puzzled as Giuliano de
Medici about the delay in explosion. To be certain of that delay, I mixed a
slow-burning powder, with charcoal of willow wood only lightly burnt. The
completed mixture as no more than dark brown in color, and a noticeable
interval of time was needed for its ignition. Of this slow-burning powder I
made a fuse or match, which led through a hole in the rear part of the bomb.

"The discharge from the cannon will ignite the
match," I explained, "and the explosion will come in as short a space
as you would take to say an Ave Maria."

"Say an Ave Maria for the souls of those it
strikes." Guaracco laughed with cruel relish.

We also made a more elaborate bomb, its curved sides
pierced with muzzles from which bullets could be thrown by the explosion. When
both were finished—we took only a morning and an afternoon—Guaracco recommended
that we wait before presenting them to Lorenzo.

"I take a parable from the construction itself,"
he admonished me. "Delay the explosion of this wonder. It will be the more
effective with His Magnificence. Remember, also, that when you have given him
the explosive shot, he will demand at once the flying machine."

That was excellent advice, for I was still muddled in my
plan to build man-lifting wings, and Guaracco could not—or would not—help me. I
therefore went into the trading centers of
Florence
,
to shop for materials.

My teacher Andrea Verrocchio, who had heard little of my
problem, suggested as framework the wood of Spanish yew which was employed by
the archers of
England
for their superb longbows, and was undoubtedly the strongest and lightest wood to
be had. I purchased a bundle of such staves which I thinned and shaped by
careful whittling, and procured strong silk cloth for the fabric.

MY best model, as it seemed to me, would be the wing of a
bat. I went so far as to snare and kill several birds—sorrowfully, for I love
animals —and, by manipulating their wings and bodies, I found out certain
principles of flight. These I demonstrated by small-scale models, to be hung on
threads and made to simulate flying by a strong blast of air from a bellows.

A new problem added itself to that of the wings—the
construction and manipulation of the tail as a rudder. I sketched a design like
a fan, which I hoped to control by pressure and motion of the feet.

Guaracco professed a great deal of interest in this work
of mine, which took up all my spare time for several days. His interest seemed
to partake a little of superior amusement, as though he foresaw failure. But
Lisa was kindly and admiring, and even helped in the sewing of the fabric, which
needed a woman's skill. I joined the ribs of the wings and tail myself, with
looped pieces of leather at the junctures, and my thread for sewing and binding
was new raw silk.

It was late in the summer of 1470—the last of August, as I
think—when I had the trial of my machine.

For greater privacy, we returned to Guaracco's country
house, the scene of my first appearance in this age.

Guaracco led the way on his fine white stallion; I rode
the gray that had belonged to my hapless adversary Gido, which had later been
given me by Lorenzo.

Lisa had a pretty little mule, and two grooms carried the
unwieldy bundles that held my wings and rudder.

How and when Guaracco's dwarfs made the journey, I do not
know. We left them behind in
Florence
,
but they were waiting for us when we dismounted at the country house. Servants like
that pleased Guaracco immensely.

After a light
noon
repast of cold meat, bread and some white wine, I went to a shed at the back of
the house.

Scrambling up, I donned my pinions. They measured almost
thirty feet from tip to tip and were fastened to me with light, strong straps,
under the armpits, around my biceps and between elbow and wrist. There were springy
grips for my hands, and by relaxing or applying squeeze-pressure I could spread
or fold the umbrellalike ribs that supported the fabric. The tail was similarly
fixed to my legs, which I could straddle to extend the fan or hold close to
fold it.

I gazed down to the ground. It seemed a long way off.
Beneath me stood Lisa, her face full of apprehensive
interest
;
and at an upper rear window of the house Guaracco thrust his red-bearded
head forth to watch.

"Ready," I said to myself. "Go!"

I sprang. As I did so, I spread and beat the wings,
extended the tail downward to give me direction in soaring.

A sickening, airy moment.
My face
turned up into the sunlight, I seemed to feel the world grow small beneath me.
Another longer moment, with the touch of triumph, another beating thrash
of the wings.
Then I whirled helplessly—and fell.

I suppose I was stunned. There was a galvanizing shock and
darkness, then, from far away, laughter—the delighted laughter of Guaracco.
Blending with it
came
a second voice, softer, gentler.
Lisa was pattering a prayer for my safety.

STRUGGLING with my closeclamped eyelids, I managed to gaze
up. Lisa's face was close above mine, all white except for the dark, worried
eyes. She had taken my head in her lap.

"You are not dead, Leo?" she asked.

"Not I," I assured and I sat up. It was
difficult, for I was bruised in all my limbs, and the laboriously fashioned wings
and rudder were broken to bits.

Guaracco descended from his post at the window, and came
out into the yard.

"Not Icarus himself plunged so tragically from
heaven," he jibed.

I
rose to my feet, unstrapping the tangled wreckage.

"For a moment I flew," I defended myself.
"The next time—"

"Must there be a next time?" interposed Lisa,
who still trembled. "Pray heaven you do not seek to fly again."

"She pleads most prettily," Guaracco observed,
stroking his beard. "Are you not content to remain on the ground with her,
Leo? Will you not leave flight to the birds, its proper masters?"

But I shook my head stubbornly. "Not I. A bird is no
more than an instrument working according to mathematical law. It is within the
capacity of man to duplicate that instrument and its working. I shall try again,
and I shall succeed."

"Send that I am present to watch," said
Guaracco, chuckling.

But he was more helpful when, in the house, I stripped off
my doublet and showed bruised ribs and shoulders.

His many skills included that of mixing salves and
ointments, and the sticky stuff he applied to my hurts helped them swiftly and
greatly.

In any case, we had the bombs to offer Lorenzo.

Hopes
of Escape

BOMBS were a curiosity, but ours pleased Lorenzo greatly,
when Guaracco and I returned to
Florence
with them. He gave us an
audience,
and later
entertainment on the terrace of his villa in the pleasant green suburb of
Fiesole
.

"These things would do us credit in any battle,"
he was gracious enough to say. "Yet it is my hope to profit by some more
peaceable marvel of yours. What, for example, of that flying machine?"

"I make progress."

I attempted to put him off, and Guaracco also labored to
change the subject. We discussed the summer heat, and the threatened drying up
of wells.

"May it please Your Magnificence," I made bold
to say, "
an
irrigation plan might be drawn up.
The waters of the
Arno
could supply the town in dryest season,
and water the fields as well."

"That would benefit the people of my beautiful
Florence
,"
said the despot, with one of his softening smiles at play on that arrestingly
ugly face.

"Again," I pursued, "does it not seem well
to widen the streets of the town?
A
street
should be as wide as the houses are high."

"Make haste slowly," he bade me. "Finish
the flying machine before you turn
Florence
into a paradise."

But an early autumn, with real
Tuscany
frost, enabled me to ask for time and a brighter day. As winter came on, I
lived in
Florence
, working under Verrocchio
at paintings, statues, metal work, and my own devices. In the evenings I had
plenty of diversion, for the artist Sandro Botticelli showed himself willing to
become my friend and sponsor in artistic society.

I was often entertained at great mansions. One or twice I
was present at informal dinners and discussions at Lorenzo's palace, and once
at the house of Simonetta Vespucci herself.

There I met her kinsman, Amerigo Vespucci, who had won
fame as a geographer and map-maker. Visiting him was a tall, roan-haired young
man from
Genoa
, a sailor and
adventurer.

"Cristoforo Colombo," Vespucci introduced him to
Botticelli and
myself
, as we stood warming ourselves
before an open fire of aromatic wood.

"
Colombo
?"
I repeated. The name did things to my maddeningly distorted recollections.
"
Colombo
? Hark you sir, you
intend to follow the sea for all your days?"

The roan-haired visitor nodded and smiled. "Aye,
that. I have visited the infidel princes to the east, and
Spain
,
and even
England
.
I hope to go further some day."

"Go further?" I exclaimed, excitedly. "I
should think you will go
further !"
In my
earnestness I laid a hand on his shoulder. "Ser Cristoforo," I said,
"much of the world remains unclaimed, undreamed of. There are whole
continents besides these we know—whole oceans and shoals of islands. It is
fated for you to sail westward, to find a new world!"

"How, a new world?" he asked me, a little
puzzled.

"This earth is round," I informed him weightily.
"It is shaped like a ball, with oceans and lands at every quarter of it.
In circumference it is nearly twenty-five thousand miles."

HE burst into laughter at that, so hearty that Botticelli
and some others looked up to see the reason.

"I see it now, Ser Leo!" cried Cristoforo Colombo.
"You have been reading that strange book by the Englishman."

"What strange book?" I demanded, puzzled in my
turn.

"John Mandeville was the Englishman's name, and he
wrote his tale of wondrous travels a good hundred years ago. I bethink me, he
even said that the circumference of the earth is something near your
measurement, above twenty thousand English miles.* But to my mind, it is
smaller than that, with India's most eastern spice islands not too many days'
sailing out from the Azores."

"You tell us nothing new, young sir," Amerigo
Vespucci said to me. "Surely only the simple country folk think that Earth
is other than round and without end. The journey of the Sun and stars, the
dropping down of a vessel's hull at the line of sky and sea, these prove the
roundness of the Earth."

• "The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, Knight," existed
in manuscript form u early as 1371. The theory of Earth's roundness, common
among intelligent fileographers in the Fifteenth Century, is set out at length
by Mandeville, who describes a reputed voyage nearly around the world in his
own time.

"And so I might have demonstrated by a voyage, had
some prince given me ships," rejoined
Colombo
wistfully. I could not help but assure him that this gift would come to him in
the year 1492, from the ruler of
Spain
.

"By your leave, my friend, I shall wait until that
happy day dawns," he said, with a bow.

And that incident cured me of making prophecies.

Yet I was successful in fashioning many devices, which
served to appease Lorenzo, though I was so long in perfecting my flying
machine. The most popular, to peasants and porters as well as to my companions
in higher social scale, was the wheelbarrow.

As to my studies in art, I was able to contribute many
suggestions which Verrocchio accepted gratefully, among them the rather obvious
one that a painter or sculptor of the living figure should study anatomy. Such study
was most difficult in
Florence
, for
religious law frowned upon the godless cutting up of bodies that should have
Christian burial.

However, Lorenzo once again showed
himself
ready to assist me, and I was enabled to visit the morgue, to study and even
dissect bodies of paupers.

Some of my sketches Verrocchio posted on the walls of his
bottega as ideal studies, and we also assembled on a pedestal the complete
skeleton of a horse, to be observed in making equestrian paintings and studies.

At the end of winter, Lorenzo entertained Galleazo Maria
Sforza, the duke of
Milan
in lavish
manner. Andrea Verrocchio was pageant master during those glittering days, and
I helped him to plan processions of horsemen and costumed figures, routs, balls,
receptions and miracle plays, and even a warlike afternoon of jousting in one
of the public squares.

Here banks of seats were erected all around a cleared
space, so that the square resembled a stadium or hippodrome, and various
Florentine cavaliers tilted against the followers of the Milanese ruler.
Lorenzo offered, in what he must have thought a kindly mood, to provide me with
armor, a lance, and a war horse, that I might take part in the activity. When I
declined, he thought that I was being only modest.

"You are an artist and scientist," he argued,
"and therefore, among free Florentines at least, a gentleman and the peer
of any. Do not be afraid of these lords with their lances."

BUT I managed to beg off, though the sport was not as
dangerous as m I had surmised. For one thing, the opposing cavaliers did not
dash full upon each other. They rode on opposite sides of a paling, endeavoring
to strike or push across it with lance point against shield or helmet.

For another thing, professional soldiers were barred, as
apt to forget themselves. Giuliano de Medici, handsome and dashing, wore a knot
of ribbon tied upon his mail-clad arm by the beautiful Simonetta, and overthrew
two opponents. Otherwise, the jousting struck me as rather tame.

Lorenzo took special pride in showing his art treasures to
Sforza who, as Poliziano later told me, cried out that mere gold and silver
could not approximate such riches of the soul. And when the Milanese departed
they were too greatly impressed to hide their admiration—which was what Lorenzo
had hoped.

It had been Guaracco's earnest ambition to make a friend
of Galleazo Sforza, but after a carefully contrived interview on the final day
of the visit, he sought me out at Verrocchio's bottega, shaking his head.

"Sforza is too absolute a tyrant among his
Milanese," he complained.

"Is money not something?" I suggested teasingly,
for in those days we were on terms of something resembling good fellowship.

He shook his foxy red head. "Money is little, to me.
I want power. I want wills to be bowed to mine, cities to rise or fall at my
lifted hand, great men to go on missions here and there with my words and
wishes upon their lips. I want the oceans to shake with the passage of my ships,
the continents to vibrate under the marching feet of my armies. I want to rule!"

"Money rules," I reminded. "Look at
Lorenzo. The founder of his house was a druggist, a simple maker of pills. Yet,
by the accumulation and the wise use of gold—"

"Gold!" snorted Guaracco. "It buys food,
clothes, wine, music—but of what value is it, save to attract thieves? It was
powerful with the Medici only through generations of careful planning, and I
cannot wait so long. Cold steel is the better metal, if held by a brave man and
ruled by a wise one."

I began to appreciate something of the ambition that
stirred this charlatan-genius.

"I followed sorcery from boyhood," Guaracco went
on, "because, at first, I believed in it. As you yourself once put it, a
true sorcerer could travel winds, chain lightnings, know and rule the Universe.
Even when I found that supposed enchantments were but a fraud, I remained a
student and practitioner of the false art—and I have won some rewards.

"You saw my coven of deluded witch-worshippers; they
serve me in many ways, because of fear or awe or
fascination,
that
they would never dare if I offered them only gold. Too, a great
many nobles and merchants respect and fear me because I seem to foretell
events, can cast horoscopes, and apparently summon devils. And one or two are
well within my power. I gave a certain man poison, for instance, to serve a
certain other man. That certain other man owes me both gratitude for the
vengeance, and fear lest I betray him."

"But now you follow true science," I said.
"You told me so."

"Science—and sorcery of a
kind."

I shook my head. "There is no such thing as
sorcery."

"Is there not? Come with me."

ONCE again I accompanied him to his house nearby. The
front room was changed, in that there was a massive square table with
a thick
velvet covering extending to the floor on all sides.
In its center stood a great bowl of silver-coated glass.

Guaracco drew the heavy curtains, so that it was quite
dark in the room, and lighted a candle. Then, at the clap of his hands, the two
dwarfs entered with a great ewer of water between them. From this Guaracco filled
the bowl to the brim.

"Look into it, Leo," he bade me, as the dwarfs
departed.

I did so. "What then?" I challenged him.
"Here is a simple basin of water."

"You are sure of that?" he persisted. "Thrust
in your hands and convince yourself."

Again I obeyed him. It was water, sure enough, and beneath
it the surface of the bowl was smooth and normal.

"I see no wonder," I said to Guaracco.

"What did you expect to find in that bowl?
The face of Lisa?"
And he laughed. "Favor me,
kinsman, by blowing out the candle."

I blew it out. The room fell all dark at once.
No, not all, for a faint filtered glow came up from the bowl of
water.

"A chemical trick," I pronounced immediately.
"You have put phosphorous in there."

"Did you not see the water poured from
pitchers?" he asked. "But I make no argument. Look into the bowl
again."

As he spoke, he put in his own hand and stirred the liquid
into ripples. I saw nothing but a disturbed surface, like a tiny ocean in a
gale, with light beneath. Then the ripples grew less, slowed,
finally
departed. I gazed deep into the radiant water. From
its bottom a face looked up at me.

Lisa!

I think I spoke her name aloud, and put forth a hand to
touch her forehead. But my finger only dipped into water, and Guaracco laughed
his familiar mocking peal.

"You were deceived, for all your assurance," he
taunted me. Quickly he moved to uncurtain the windows, letting in light.
"See, it was simple. I arranged it an hour ago to mystify one of the
Milanese. A hole in the table, a glass bottom in the bowl—and, under the
velvet, a couch whereon Lisa lay with a light beside her—

He lifted a corner of the cloth, and Lisa slowly emerged.

"It was as if you looked upon her through a
Window," Guaracco summed up. He saw that I gazed reproachfully at the
girl, and laughed once again.

"Now nay, Leo, she did not deceive you of herself. I
put her to sleep, as you know I can do—with this."

He held it up in his fingers—the glowing pearl that more
than once before had drawn forth my wits. Staring at it unguardedly, I felt
myself ensnared before I could set up my defense.

He caught my elbow with his other hand, easing me into a
chair as mists closed about me.

When I awoke, Guaracco sat at the velvet-covered table,
scribbling hastily upon a tablet of white paper.

"You will rejoice," he said, seeing my eyes
open. "I took opportunity to open again that closed memory of yours."

"What this time?"

"Details of the machine you forgot.
The time reflector."