Lunarhampton
If he was trying to distract her with ludicrous statements, he had succeeded only in making her more determined to carry out her task. She was eager to verify his claim that Birmingham had an alternative to the aeolipile. These were standard equipment for space travel. Other methods of reaching extreme altitudes existed, but they were more expensive and less efficient. At the beginning of the century, when state-funded space programs were overtaken by private enterprise, a large number of designs had taken to the skies: the astroplane, the roton, the scramjet. But the aeolipile rendered them obsolete, a single-stage craft which carried its fuel in an inflatable envelope, using it in this form to elevate itself into the stratosphere before conventional rockets cut in to complete the escape of the planet’s gravity.
Like so many achievements in aviation history, the aeolipile was an invention of two brothers, Hans and Eric Pfaall. A giant hydrogen bubble mounted on pivots, it made use of the Magnus Effect: the tendency of an object moving sideways to rise when rotated along its horizontal plane, depending on the direction of the lateral movement. Engines protruding at right-angles from the envelope took power directly from the enclosed gas, mixing it with oxygen in a combustion chamber. To protect the crew from a possible explosion, the capsule was fitted with parachutes and slung under the sphere on cables, at a safe distance from the fuel. As the aeolipile rose and the globe deflated, the capsule was gradually winched closer. When the orb attained its service ceiling, the remaining hydrogen was pumped into the capsule, which disengaged and blasted off into orbit. The Pfaall brothers had been killed in a prototype, but the apparatus was highly reliable.
The device was such an integral part of astronautics it was assumed every council involved in the lunar colony competition would use them to carry equipment and materials into space for the construction of orbital stations. Portsmouth and Leeds had recently started work on their bases. Newcastle and Oxford had completed this stage and were already preparing for the next step of establishing a foothold on the surface of the moon. Melissa could envisage no other way of doing it, but Birmingham Council expected her to believe that gunpowder, clumsiest of propellants, was an alternative. She wondered if this was becoming a typical Brummie fiasco, comparable to the abortive Olympiad bids.
Her train of thought was interrupted by a stampede in the corridor. She stepped to her door and secured it, a moment before it was violently shaken and a voice demanded admittance.
“I will hold a fiver for you!” it boomed.
Melissa was prepared for the native attempts at intimidation. In a voice no less aggressive, she called:
“And I’ll break an arm for you…”
The panhandler moved away and Melissa reclined on the bed. For the rest of the evening, the hotel reverberated with distant oaths and sobs. She listened to indefinable sounds located in hidden cavities behind the walls, a decay both human and inanimate. Sleep evaded her and she sat by the mottled window. Soon after midnight, a series of muffled explosions tickled the city. An oscillating rumble flirted with the edges of sound, like the snoring of an unemployed giant.
(iv)
The following morning, and each day thereafter, the limousine picked her up at the hotel and drove to carefully selected city sites. Alleneal was always nervous, a student sitting an exam, confident of his ability, but uncertain whether his methods would be palatable to the invigilator. As they roamed the urban decrepitude, Melissa wondered when he was going to play his trump. They passed through the gutted suburbs of Bournville and Edgbaston, which the councillor appeared to regard as personal triumphs, examples of an unspecified progress. At every crater, he fingered one of his facial pocks, as if they were analogous to the larger ruination. She found his cryptic messages infuriating.
In Aston, he gestured at the expanse of powdered brick and sawdust, the legacy of a particularly violent cataclysm. “This suburb can be seen with the naked eye, Ms Sting. No need for telescopes to appreciate the beauty of these radial fissures.”
To Melissa, it looked like the result of badly-laid carpet bombing. Was Alleneal hinting that Birmingham had engaged in unlicensed warfare? But she still believed his assertion that inter-municipal aggression on an organised scale was impossible in the Midlands. And no other council had reported a military engagement.
“An accident of some kind?” she asked.
Disappointment showed in his expression. “A carefully orchestrated operation, requiring dozens of workers and tonnes of explosives. Haven’t I made myself clear yet, Ms Sting?”
“Apparently not. But I’m all ears.”
