Chapter 75 - Spun Up

“Sally! Sally!” I yelled. The chief engineer had left the boys to their toys and gone back to work on her own projects about the time Armstrong and Promo decided to put their heads together with an eccentric shaft between them. She looked up from her workstation and shuffled the mix of bark scratching and paper, not-so-conspicuously shifting a cartoon-covered page to the bottom. At least she had the decency to look guilty.

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that one about.”

Reluctantly, she pulled it out and handed it over, looking down and away as she did.

I took the canoneer comic and turned it right-way up, perusing the panels.

“This is about me and Chuck,” I said.

Sally nodded.

“Scouting the bog.”

She nodded again.

“We’re sitting awful close together on this clifford.”

Nod.

I handed the page back. “There sure are a lot of these featuring me and Chuck.”

Emphatic nod.

If I was still able, I’m sure my face would be turning red. The canoneers were just the worst. I cleared my throat. “I need some of those spare rockettes that came out too wonky to fit in the guns.”

Sally went to her stores and fished around until she pulled out a small case containing mis-matched rockette shells that had been deemed worthless for ammunition. They were just hollow shells, so I had to fill and pack them myself. While I did that, I explained to Sally what I needed, and she got to work with a brass fixture the Ifrit had brought with them and a couple of our ceramic bearings.

When Sally was done, we had a free-spinning arm with two handles on the back. We had to carry it between us back over to the test area. Promo had gone back to baste some javeline chops with bomb fruit juice, so I sent Armstrong to bring him back.

The potbellied noblin lumbered up with his mask raised and saw what we were holding. He waddled over to take it from us, lifting easily what had taken both Sally and I to carry. I envied the noblin for being able to level, a fact which the System handily reminded me with the 5 superimposed above his head.

“What’s this gubbin do?” he asked, tilting it this way and that, and giving the spinning arm a smack. “Making more of those spinners for the hot-heads?”

“Nope, it’s a rocket-powered engine starter,” I said. I pulled a pair of the rockettes from my pouch and stuffed one of them into the sleeve on the spinning arm. “That socket on the face should marry up to engine shaft and the rockettes should give us a few seconds of high speed rotation, if you can hold on.”

Prometheus grinned. “Oh, I’ll hold on, hoss. What’s to stop the engine from turning me once it comes alive?”

“It’s a free-spinning flywheel,” I said, giving the arm a tap. “The grips are just so you can push it against the engine. When it comes on, make sure you pull back and get clear.”

Prometheus nodded, hefting the starter and fitting it to the shaft on the engine. “Ready,”

Armstrong scratched his chin. “How are you going to start the rockette?”

“I…” I stopped. “Good question.”

“Gotcha covered, boss,” said Promo. He whistled another goblin over. “Go get the unfinished blast’em on my workbench. Go on!” he gave the goblin a little backside boost with the top of his foot. The goblin ran off, rubbing its backside, and returned with what looked like a mostly disassembled rifle receiver without a breech, barrel, or stock. Just the grip, trigger, and striker.

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Armstrong took it and held it up. “No stock? No lever?”

“Ah, was working on a smaller one, what for close-in fighting,” said Promo. “Some of the lads complained about the long guns being unwieldy when the porkbellies got within arm’s reach. But bring it over, yeah?”

Lord help, Promo had already figured out pistols. Armstrong brought it over, manually pulling back the tab on the striker to cock it, then lined up the striker with the rockette in the starter.

“Perfect!” said Promo.

Shaddup! If you’re not going to unlock the engine ‘til it starts, you don’t get to claim you’re helping.

Dammit, System!

Armstrong pulled the trigger and a shower of sparks and smoke exploded, followed by the freewheeling arm taking off like, well, like a rocket. I opened the throttle and turned off the choke as the rotor spun, rockette tracing a circle of flame in the air.

Pop pop pop POP POP POP pop pop POP POP pop pop pop.

The flame on the rockette flared out.

Promo spat on the ground. “Not enough fuel?”

I hemmed and hawed for a moment, and ran my finger on the inside of the exhaust. It came away black and wet.

“Too much fuel,” I said. “Not enough air.”

Drawn air through the intake manifold wasn’t going to be enough, and the fuel was too thick. I needed to aerosolize it, and to do that I needed a carburetor.

* * *

I won’t bore you with the details of how we rigged up the main shaft to power an impeller which would draw fuel and air into the engine intake. It involved a few gears, bearings, a chain we’d taken from the javeline, and a lot of swearing on my part. I’d even rigged up a clever little release valve so the intake system wouldn’t over-pressurize.

When it was done, it looked even more impressive, with the impeller strapped to the case and tubing made of cured gut feeding air and fuel in. But dammit, I’d built an engine, and I was going to run it. Well, technically Sally and Promo had done most of the building. All of it, really. But I told them what to build!

A shadow passed overhead and I looked up at Taquoho, hovering nearby. “Another attempt, King Apollo?”

“Hopefully not an attempt,” I said. “Don’t jinx it.”

The color of Taquoho’s flame flickered slightly. “The superstition of believing a thing will come to pass by speaking of it is an imagined curiosity.”

“Next you’ll tell me the power of positive thinking is a myth.”

I fed another rocket into the sleeve and took my place by the throttle, turning the choke on and having Armstrong spin the rotor until the remaining fuel inside burned off. Then I opened up the choke and the throttle, and gave the signal.

Sally had the starter pistol now, and she angled it up in order to reach the rockette in the starter and held her other hand in front of her face as pulled the trigger. The miniature rocket flared to life and the freewheel started cranking the engine.

Pop pop pop pop pop

I opened up the throttle a little more, letting more fuel into the mix.

Pop pop POP POP POP

I hauled back on the lever. Over the sputtering engine I could hear the impeller whistling as it worked overtime drawing fresh air into the narrow intake throat. Blue smoke began to billow out of the exhaust. I eased up just a little. The starter kept spinning, but I knew the rocket would fizzle in seconds.

POP POP POP BRRT BRRRT BRRRRRRR

“It’s working!” said Taquoho, excitement creeping into his voice.

“Now, Promo!” I shouted. I cranked the throttle all the way open as the noblin yanked away the starter and dove for cover. The engine rattled and vibrated, and at least one of the brass mounting bolts popped out, sheared from the vibration.

I eased down on the throttle, and the noise subsided to a dull rumble. The thing bucked underneath me like a mechanical bull, but I held on and kept adjusting, trying not to lose it. It was going to destroy itself at this rate.

Taquoho’s vessel landed so hard it nearly bent one of the brass struts it used as landing gear. The Ifrit streamed out of the brass bottle and into my engine, and I felt the throttle move under my hand.

“Hey!” I said, but ceded control to the Ifrit. If anyone on the bluff knew fire…

The throttle adjusted itself under the touch of the Ifrit until the elemental being found the idle, and then the engine started to purr. Taquoho fled the engine for his bottle, but didn’t immediately spin up and take flight. “That,” he said, “was a very dizzying experience.”

“You did it!” I said, laughing. “It’s working!”

In the grand scheme of things, this thing wouldn’t be winning any F-1 races. It was putting out a couple horsepower at max and was probably just one loose counterweight shy of flying apart and flinging the rotor into the stratosphere. But it was running. An internal combustion engine was running, on Rava, in my village!

I started to think something was wrong as a whine began to mount, until I realized that it was the collective cheer of almost 200 goblins.

But there was one voice conspicuously absent from the celebration.

System?