Ring of Fire II(213)

Ed contemplated the problem, for a few seconds. As a practical proposition, of course, launching any sort of immediate campaign against Austria was a non-starter. But "immediate" meant next year. The year after that . . .



He shook his head slightly. That was pointless speculation, right now. They still didn't even know what was really happening.



"I guess that's it then, for the moment." He straightened up in his chair. "Unless Denise Beasley—there's a real pip, for you—shows up with some more information."



Press Richards grinned. "Don't think that's too likely. I got no idea what she's up to now. The last I saw of her she was racing off on her bike, giving me and Knefler the finger. Most of her spleen wasn't really aimed at me, since Denise knows I haven't got the resources to do what she wanted. But she probably has me lumped in with 'the fathead' for the time being."



Carol's mouth made a little O. "Did she really call Captain Knefler a 'fathead'? I mean, to his face?"



"Oh, yeah." Solemnly, Press shook his head. "Wasn't all she called him, I'm deeply sorry to report. Girl's got a real potty mouth, when she cuts it loose. She also called him a fuckwad and an asshole and a motherfucking moron."



"She's not even sixteen!"



"She's Buster's kid," Ed grunted. "That's got to add a decade or so, at least in the lack-of-respect-for-your-betters department. Thank God I'm no longer the high school principal. She's not my headache, these days."



Richards and Unruh both looked at him.



"Well, she isn't," Ed insisted. Hoping it was true.





Chapter 7. The Wild Blue Yonder





Kelly Aviation Facility

Near Grantville, State of Thuringia-Franconia



Denise stared at the object that was the center of the proposal Lannie had just advanced.



"No fucking way," she pronounced.



Yost shook his head lugubriously. "You really oughta watch your—"



"Don't fucking start on me, Lannie. Just don't." She pointed an accusing finger at the aircraft. "There is no fucking—or flibbertyjerking, if that makes you happier—way in hell I'm getting into that thing."



Lannie frowned. "What does 'flibbertyjerking' mean? And what's the matter, anyway? It flies. It flies just fine. I've taken it up plenty of times." After a two-second pause he added, "Well, maybe three times."



Denise scowled at him. "You said yourself. It's a prototype, remember?"



"Well, sure, but . . ."



He let that trail off into nothing. The truth was, except for being a boozer, Lannie wasn't a bad guy. And he did have the virtue of being a very loyal sort of person, even if Denise thought he had to be half-nuts to give his loyalty to Bob and Kay Kelly.



Kay was a harridan, and Bob was . . . Well. Impractical. Not hard to get along with, but the kind of guy who simply couldn't control his enthusiasms and seemed to have the attention span of a six-year-old.



She looked around the big hangar. There were no fewer than four planes in evidence, all of them in various stages of construction—or deconstruction, in the case of two—and every one of them bore the label "prototype." It seemed like every time Bob Kelly got close to finishing a plane he decided there was something not quite right about it and he needed to redesign it. Again. The slogan of his company might as well be The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good Enough—and We Can Prove it to You.



The only reason he hadn't gone bankrupt three times over, since the Ring of Fire, was because of his wife. For reasons Denise couldn't begin to fathom, Kay Kelly seemed to have a veritable genius for drumming up investors and squeezing money out of the government.



"I'm not getting into it," she repeated.



Alas, some trace of uncertainty must have been in her voice. The third party present detected it and pounced immediately. That was Keenan Murphy, the mechanic who was the only other person in the facility that day. The Kellys had gone up to Magdeburg to lobby the government for more funds, and apparently the office manager had decided to take the day off.



"C'mon, Denise," said Keenan. "We gotta help Noelle. I mean, she's my sister."



Denise almost snapped back, "half-sister," but she restrained herself. First, because Keenan was giving her such a sad-eyed, woebegone look; second, because he was a sad-sack, woebegone kind of guy; but, mostly, because whether or not Keenan Murphy was a loser he was another one who had an exaggerated, irrational sense of loyalty.



As did Denise herself, and she knew it. In her own personal scale of things, the way she judged people, that counted for a lot.