AN EXCERPT FROM
The Blue-Eyed Muse
A Novel by John Peter

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INTRODUCTION

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The Blue-Eyed Muse is a frame tale. Like The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, and A Thousand and One Nights, an encircling frame encloses a variety of narrations. Here, the central frame is Technical Fix, Inc., a novel about a cross-country hot air balloon race. Three balloonists, pilot Sam Streeter, balloon designer Dave Swenson, and reporter Jake Jacobs are trying to go from Los Angeles to Trenton on a beer-barrel's worth of fuel. However, Dave's old college nemesis, "Smelly Freddy" Smyth, has turned it into a grudge match, and he will stop at nothing to knock the balloonists out of the race. When not actually under attack by Smyth's henchmen, a combination of overcast skies and a damaged radio lead to a situation of extreme boredom for the trio. They relieve this condition by telling each other tales. Each narration is, in itself, a complete novel.

Jake, the principle raconteur, tells three main tales:
-----King Jack and the Girl with the Sunshine Smile, a medieval fableau of adventure, romance, and intrigue;
-----Jake's Best Seller relates the student antics of New Hampshire boarding house, how King Jack came to be written, and includes LeFeu, which is a novel-within-a-novel--LeFeu is the misadventures of Rene LeFeu, master chef, lover, revolutionary, smuggler, and klutz;
-----A Maine Yankee at Big Sur, a contemporary narration of Jake's adventures among the hipsters, hypesters, and hempsters of California.

Sam retells a science fiction novella, The Deer Hunters, which he first heard in the rolling room of a Cuban cigar factory.

Dave is enthralled by the music of folk singer Mary Jane Galatea, and her songs inspire the dreamed Baby April, an "alien abduction" story with a bizarre Playboy twist: when Carl Chandler gets centerfold April, he gets much more than he bargained for.

Interspersed throughout these novels are numerous short stories and vignettes:
-----"Romeo and Juliet" done in bodice-buster romance style;
-----"Incident at Schoolhouse Creek," a Garrison Keillor-type tale;
-----"Peter's Trick," a sardonic Bible story, plus more.

The frame-around-the-frame is Jacobs' search for his elusive and long-lost blue-eyed muse.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE NOVEL

Sam arrived bright and early at the parking lot of the Big Daddy Brewery where the race was to begin. He wanted to size-up the opposition. He was able to learn little about it from his usual sources in racing circles. He knew that Freddy Smyth was rumored to be making an all out effort, that some university students were putting together an entry which incorporated a sail to conserve fuel when wind conditions were favorable, and that one of the Palo Alto computer companies was working on a car that, to yield maximum mileage, was totally computer-controlled. However, about the other entries, there was a dearth of information.

The race was scheduled to begin at noon, and certification and fueling of the vehicles was to start at nine o'clock, but when Sam arrived at eight, the parking lot was already a scene of confused activity. At least a dozen drivers were already in the process of readying their machines. As Benito Dada intended, the press was busy recording the event and conducting interviews with the participants. It was to be a full-blown media event with the beer company at center stage.

The starting point was to be the officials' table, and adjacent to it were several four foot tall replicas of cans of Big Daddy beer, each filled with ice and cans and bottles of beer. The beer was free to the press and all the participants except the drivers. Free alcohol was still the oldest and best PR trick in the book, and, even at this early hour, the press was taking maximum advantage of it. Indeed, Dada himself was strolling through the crowd, encouraging everyone to "have a beer--best beer in the West." He was, of course, following his own advice, but a man of his mass could down many beers without any perceptible effect.

As Sam was filling out the forms and getting his number assignment, Dada came up to him and slapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, I know you, your that race driver professional that Smyth was talkin' about. I watched you win the Sterling 200 last year, but your name escapes me at the moment."

"Sam Streeter," Sam supplied.

"Well, Sam, Have a beer, best beer in the West."

"Thanks, but no thanks. This may be a party for you, but I'm working."

"Beer never hurt anyone. Look at me. I'm healthy as a horse."

More like a healthy elephant, Sam thought to himself as he surveyed the portly, four hundred pound brewer. "Well, seeing how it is several hours until the start of the race, I'll have just one, thanks, Sam said, plucking a bottle from the giant can beside him."

"That's the spirit, lad! A few belts under your belt will get your motor runnin'.'"

Sam took a sip from his beer.

"What's your professional opinion o' these here contraptions? Looks like a sorry lot, if you ask me. Take a gander at that rig over there. Looks like a refugee from a Chinese bicycle shop," Dada said, pointing out one of the race cars with his beer can. He went over to take a closer look and dragged Sam along.

The entry was definitely bicycle-derived. It was a metal tube frame with bicycle wheels, two small engines, and a fiberglass body. There were two molded fiberglass seats where the driver and navigator were to sit in almost a reclining position. In front of the head positions the fiberglass was replaced by a piece of plexiglass that acted as the windshield. The vehicle was long, low, and narrow. At the moment the fiberglass shell was tilted open, exposing the innards of the vehicle. The driver, who was Vietnamese, not Chinese, was being interviewed by a bearded, middle-aged man with a pair of cameras slung around his neck.

"Bet you a dozen to one, dollars to doughnuts, that it never gets over the Rockies," Dada said to Sam.

Sam looked at the vehicle for a moment--the interviewer and interviewee fell silent at this interruption--then struck out his hand. "You're on for a gross."

"Gross?"

"A hundred and forty-four of your dollars to a dozen of my doughnuts that this vehicle gets over the Rockies," said Sam.

"Dada pumped Sam's hand and said, "I've always had a weakness for doughnuts. My choice? I am partial to jelly doughnuts."

"Sure, your choice of doughnuts, my choice of dollars," Sam said, still pumping Dada's hand.

"Agreed."

"Good. I've always had a weakness for silver cartwheels."

Dada scowled at Sam, then laughingly said, 'Sir, you are a scoundrel. Silver dollars are worth six or seven dollars, whereas Pierre Cardone's best doughnuts are merely a dollar each."

"The terms of the wager are yours, dollars to doughnuts," Sam reminded him.

Dada laughed, then took a swig of his beer. "So they are, so they are. Fortunately, that little piss ant engine isn't going to survive the race, so I can look forward to a dozen of the best Parisian doughnuts.

The interviewer was busy scribbling notes during this exchange. "Mr. Dada, of course everyone knows, but who are you, sir?" he asked Sam.

The Vietnamese driver spoke up. "Don't you know? This is Sam Streeter, the very famous race car driver."

"I don't follow sports, as a rule," the reporter replied.

"I am Vien Min," the driver said to Sam with a little bow. "I am honored to have such a renowned race car driver express confidence in my humble engine."

"Oh, I figure that anyone who can turbo charge a lawn mower engine must know what he's doing. Besides, I couldn't resist the temptation to try and take some more of Dada's money," Sam said, shaking hands with Vien Min.

"Piss ant engine ain't goin' to make it," Dada insisted.

"Mr. Dada is quite correct," Vien Min replied with a grin, "but the engine is not a piss ant or a lawn mower. It is a Koler, twelve horse power, with a reworked cam, stainless steel valves, polished ports, bored out cylinder and turbo charges to thirty two horsepower. The whole vehicle weights less than four hundred pounds, and on flat ground it goes fifty five miles per hour all day long. But Mr. Dada is right. After two thousand miles the engine goes pffft!" Vien Min threw his hands dramatically up in the air. In fifteen minutes number two engine is switched over and ready to go another two thousand miles. Plenty of engine to get to New Jersey!"

"You mean you're not running both. That one's a spare?" Dada asked.

"Sure. Cheep insurance."

Dada turned to Sam. "Did you know that?"

"Two engines, but one set of drive gears. You've got to figure that the engines are worked way beyond their intended limits. Could cease up, burn a piston, or throw a bearing at any moment. A spare engine makes sense, even though it is a significant increase in weight. As the man said, cheep insurance. I didn't know about the internal modifications, but it is pretty obvious that he is carrying a spare engine on board."

"Humph!" Dada said, then drained his beer. There was an awkward moment of silence that was broken by the reporter's request that they pose before the car in question for a photograph.

"Sure, what the hell. Great publicity for Vien Min's Lawn and Garden Supply is still good publicity for my beer," Dada said to the reporter. Then he called across the parking lot, "Hey, Mahoney, bring me a beer and get in this here picture." To the reporter he explained, "Jack Mahoney, the best PR man in the west. He set this whole race up all by himself ... with my money, of course."

Dada explained the wager to Mahoney who, it was obvious, was busy calculating publicity angles. "Dollars to doughnuts," he muttered, then brightened. "Put that on the wire services, and I'll bet that every sports page in the country will feature it, maybe even front page. Do it!"

"I wasn't askin' for your approval," Dada snarled," I already done it!" He opened the can and took a deep drink. "'Sides, this here is a festive occasion, an' even if a Chinnaman wins the race, we still get the publicity."

"If we are to be on the front pages, then Twee must be in the photograph also. Twee come quick!" The driver called out. A teenage girl came out of the van parked beside the race car. She still had the road atlas she was studying in her hand. "My daughter, the navigator and designer of the car. She'd drive, but she's not old enough for a license, said the proud father.

"Do I have to?"

"It is proper. Besides, it will please your mother to see you with such a glamorous person as Sam Streeter."

She smiled shyly at Sam, but still demurred.

"Did you see the picture last month of Mr. Streeter and Cheryl Paris, the famous actress?" father asked daughter.

"Do you really go out with Cheryl Paris? She's my favorite."

"I have been known to be found in the company of that lady on occasion," Sam said with a smile.

"Does she really have a tiger as a 'guard dog,' or is that just a Hollywood story?"

Sam laughed. "The truth of the tiger situation is that American zoos have been so successful at breeding tigers that there is now a surplus supply. One particular zoo had two litters last year and no way to deal with the cubs. They were considering putting them to sleep. Cheryl is really just a farm girl at heart ..." Sam turned to the reporter. "All of this is strictly off the record. If you put it in print, I'll break your head."

"Paris? Never heard of her."

Sam turned back to the teenager. "So Cheryl persuaded the zoo to give her the cubs, and she found new homes for them in Canadian zoos, except for the one she kept. Kipling, the tiger, is just an overgrown kitten, but don't go visiting her unannounced, and, yes, she is an effective guard dog. Now, stand beside me and smile for the camera.... " he whispered to her, "and don't worry about the mouth metal, it won't show in a news photo." Sam had correctly guessed that the pretty teenager was self conscious about the braces on her teeth.

She was momentarily taken aback, but then conspiratorially said, "Okay."

"I think that I should tell you, Mr. Mahoney," the reporter said, "that I'm just a freelancer doing a story on Vien Min for the local hometown weekly paper. I'm not the wire services, or even the lowly L.A. Times."

Mahoney stopped to think for a moment. "You were here when Mr. Dada and Mr. Streeter made their wager, weren't you? Can you do a good write up"

The reporter waved his notebook in the air. "It's essentially done. Just a little polishing of the rough edges."

"Harris from the AP is here someplace. I can have one of the office girls type up your story and ... I don't know about the photo, but I think that I can get Harris to buy the story for a few hundred bucks and give you a byline to boot. He owes me lots of favors."

"My truck is parked outside the gate. I can write up the story on my laptop computer, and I can develop the negative, but I can't make a print with the equipment I have with me."

"No problem. There's a one-hour photo place a couple of blocks from here," Mahoney said. "Okay, shoot your pictures, that's what we're here for."

The photographs were taken and then the reporter and Mahoney went off to prepare the news item. The next day "Dollars to Doughnuts" would caption a photo showing Benito Dada and Sam Streeter shaking hands with Vien Min and his daughter on either side of them and Mahoney and the bicycle car in the background. The story, by-lined "By Jake Jacobs, Special to the AP," ran in several hundred newspapers and was the headline story in The Big Sur Irregular, Vien Min's local paper.

"I think that one wager is all I need with you at the moment," Dada said to Sam, "but let's see what other kind of contraptions there gonna be in the race."

"Sure," Sam agreed. He winked at the teenage girl and said. "I'll see if I can get Cheryl to send you an autographed photo with Kipling's paw print on it." He knew that Paris had an unreleased publicity photo with the tiger, but he wasn't sure that he could get the cat to cooperate on putting down his "mark." To Vien Min he gave a thumbs up and said. "May the better vehicle win."

Sam joined Dada in a tour of the vehicles assembled so far. Many were the work of blatantly amateur mechanics: an oversized go-cart powered by a motorcycle engine, a white fiberglass creation that looked all the world to be an up-side-down, wheeled bathtub with no indication of what powered it, several motorcycles with sidecars attached, and a number of stripped down dune buggies-type vehicles. Apparently the exotics had yet to arrive. One less-than-exotic was an antique car. A dignified man was polishing one fender and a woman who looked to be in her sixties was applying wax to the other fender.

"Mind you, I'm done wagerin' for the day, but do you think that fossil will even make it to the state line?" Dada asked Sam.

Sam walked around the car, nodded to the woman who continued to apply wax, then said to the gentleman, "I'll have to confess that I've never seen a Huppmobile before. How old is it?"

"In its present variation, three years come September," he replied to Sam, then turned to Dada, "and as far as the state line is concerned, we just drove in from Missouri."

"In that case, have a beer." Dada jovially took two cans from the six-pack that he was carrying.

"Don't mind if I do. Mary leave off that waxing and join us in a beer."

"It's a replica?" Sam inquired.

"No, sir, an original. Dr. Richard Hupp at your service. It's one of granddad's bodies and my engine and drive train."

"You'd think that an ophthalmologist would have better things to do with his time than playing with such toys," Mary said, accepting a beer, "but not Dick Hupp!"

"Well, Doctor, I'll admit that this race has attracted a sorry lot of ... well, but do you think that this ... er ... vintage-looking rig will beat them? There's a couple of sharp customers that haven't shown up yet--the Smyth Manufacturing car which is what I'm puttin' my money on, and the boys from the engineering college are supposed to have something slick ... and Mr. Streeter's a professional, and we haven't seen his car yet either."

"As my wife said, I should spend more of my time on better things, the symphony, charity works, and such, but this is what I enjoy, and this is how I propose to spend my time. I don't plan on winning ..."

"If you're not tryin' to win, why bother to enter at all?" Dada aggressively interrupted. "That's not the American spirit."

The doctor was calm in the face of this flash of hostility. "I don't plan to win the $250,000 because I know fully well that my fuel consumption will get me only as far as eastern Pennsylvania. But I will get to Pennsylvania on the BTU equivalent to your thirty-one gallons of fuel, and that may very well get me the $20,000 for the vehicle that goes the furthest. I overheard your conversation with that Vietnamese fellow, and I quite agree with you that there is a real likelihood that his highly stressed engines won't survive such a long journey. The same is true for most of the vehicles gathered around us. Tortoise and the hare, reliability is my strong suit. I'll go for the small prize and let the competition knock each other out trying for the big prize."

Dada's hostility faded as fast as it arose. "What's so special about this crate?"

The doctor took a long drink from his beer can, then explained, "This will be the only external combustion vehicle in the race. The body is an original Huppmobile, but the engine is a variation of the design used in the Stanley Steamer, except that it is much more efficient. The boiler and engine are enclosed in a stainless steel vacuum bottle with only the active control area and the drive shaft exposed."

"Stanley Steamer, eh? My grandfather had one of those in the '30's, and he said that it used to go like hell."

The doctor smiled. "The Huppmobile can go like hell too, but for this excursion I changed the transmission ratio to minimize fuel consumption. I'll still be able to go seventy-five, and if I get a good tail wind and coast down all the hills, I might even make it to New Jersey and take your two hundred and fifty grand."

"That's the spirit" Have another beer." Dada pressed more beers on the Doctor and his wife, then walked off.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Phew, ain't he the crazy one," Mary asked, indicating her husband.

"I wouldn't know. I'm just the driver. My navigator had some similar ideas about insulating the heat sources when we first started this project."

"Are you driving an external combustion vehicle," the doctor, hoping to have found a fellow enthusiast, asked with emotion.

Sam laughed. "Not anything like your car, I'll have to admit."

Just then there was a commotion at the front gate. A pick-up truck towing a flatbed trailer entered with the slickest looking entry of the entire race: a low, wide, streamlined racer that looked like it would be more at home at the Indianapolis 500 than a high mileage race. The only difference apparent at a distance was that the wide tires of a speedster were replaced by tall thin tires. Blazed across the bright red racer was "Smyth Manufacturing Company" in bold black italic letters. Even if it never got out of the yard, it had the look of success, and all the reporters quickly clustered around it.

Smelly Freddy took advantage of the situation. He jumped up on the bed of the pick-up and announced, "All right, folks, everyone will get a chance to see all of the features of this vehicle. My assistant and navigator will explain everything." At this point a very voluptuous, well-tanned, but daintily bikinied blonde sashayed to the trailer and hopped up to the car.

"I'm here to answer your questions," she proclaimed.

"What's your phone number," one of the reporters shouted.

When the laughter died down, she said, "Let me rephrase that. I'm here to answer your questions about the car and the race."

While the blonde was answering--or parrying--questions, Smyth went over to sign in his car with the race officials.

"I don't know if that is as hot a car as it looks, but that is some chick," Dr. Hupp commented to Sam.

Mary Hupp gave her husband a playful jab in the ribs with an elbow, but he ignored her and smiled.

Sam, leaning against the doctor's car, sipped his beer and mused, "There is something strangely familiar with that chick, but I just can't place it."

Mary Hupp said, "If you've seen that woman before, but can't place her, then either you have the world's worst memory, or you have need of my husband's professional services."

"Oh, there is nothing wrong with my eyesight, or my memory, or so I would have thought before this. Where have I seen her before? Is she an actress that I might have seen on the screen or is ... oh my god!" Sam dropped his bottle of beer on the ground and stared open-mouthed at the woman. She had just opened the hood of the car was giving a lecture to the reporters on the engine systems.

"... This three cylinder design displaces nine hundred cubic centimeters and has a horsepower rating of 137 at an RPM of ..."

"Are you all right, lad?" the doctor inquired. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"Of course he's all right," Mrs. Hupp snapped "He's just recognized the woman, that's all."

"That's Janet Globe," Sam said in a tone of awe. "I don't believe it, but that's Janet Globe."

"Who is Janet Globe?" Mrs. Hupp inquired.

"Six years ago, Janet Globe was a fat, dumpy girl whose tutoring was the only way I got through college Physics. She must have weighed nearly two hundred pounds, had mousy hair, and wore just awful clothes."

"Perhaps you are mistaken," Mrs. Hupp gently suggested, glancing at the Amazonian goddess giving the car talk.

"No, I'd recognize that lecture tone anywhere. Lord knows, I've heard it enough times during senior year," Sam said, then picked up his beer bottle and tossed it in a nearby trash can. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go take a closer look at a genuine miracle of metamorphosis.

Sam slowly edged his way through the crowd of reporters, race officials, and contestants. Janet had just finished answering a question posed by the man from Road and Track about the differential gearing. "Can you go over how Planck's Law applies, I still can't seem to get it?" Sam inquired.

"Planck's Law doesn't have anything to do with ... Sam?"

"How did you manage to stuff Janet Globe into that scrawny body?"

"Sam!" Janet jumped from the trailer and gave Sam a huge hug. The event was photographed by several reporters who recognized the notorious womanized, Sam Streeter. Sam would have considerable explaining to do to his new bride when the photos hit the newspapers, but at the moment such considerations were far from his mind.

"God! It really is you. How did you manage to turn such a bookworm into such a fantastic butterfly?" Sam asked when he was finally released from Janet's hug.

She stepped back. "You like the new me, hugh?" she asked as she struck a seductive pose. More photographs were taken.

"Alas, and me a married man. What happened to you?"

"Oh, a few years ago I got tired of being that slob, Janet Globe, and decided to become someone else. It was a lot harder than Planck's Law, but I was determined and you know just how stubborn I can be. What about you? What are you doing here?"

"Don't you know? I'm the competition."

"You?"

"Dave Swenson and I are a team. Didn't Freddy tell you? Speaking of whom, what are you doing in tow with him?"

"Oh, Smelly Freddy is the slimiest person on the planet, but he's thrown so much money at me to build his car, I couldn't refuse. He never said that you and Dave were in the race. Did he know?"

"From the beginning."

"That's why he was so hot for winning this race. He's never forgiven Dave, has he?"

"A grudge match to the very end, at least from Smelly Freddy's point of view."

"Excuse me, Miss Globe," the man from Road and Track interrupted, "but did you say that you built this car?"

"You don't think that Freddy Smyth built it, did you" she sneered.

"Smyth Manufacturing is a huge corporation ..."

Janet cut him off. "They make coal mining machinery. Big, clumsy earth eaters. Something delicate and fine like this..." she waved her hand at the car. "Smyth Manufacturing indeed, the idea is ridiculous." She turned to Sam. "Dave Swenson is a fine engineer, and I'm sorry that I'm going to be butting heads with you guys--wait until I get a hold of Smelly Freddy, imagine not telling me--but this is a damn fine piece of machinery, even if I do say so myself."

"If you are the designer of this vehicle, why is he the driver and you the mere navigator?" the magazine man interrupted.

"Isn't it obvious?" she curtly asked. "He's sunk a lot on money into this project. That's over a million dollars of car on that trailer. If he wants to drive it, who's to say he can't?"

"And what do you get out of this?"

Janet laughed. Still grinning, she said, "I get the car. The car, plus all of the technical developments that went into it. All Freddy wants is to win the race. I get the biggest piece of pie, and within six months I'll have every executive in Detroit licking my feet! This car is fast, it's safe, and it gets great mileage."

"Sounds like Dave and I have our work cut out for us," Sam commented.

"Speaking of whom, where is he? I want to look at your car!"

Sam laughed. "You're going to be in for a surprise, but Dave and our entry aren't here yet. He should get here any minute, though."

Just then Smelly Freddy returned. He had a six pack in one hand and an opened beer in the other. "Consorting with the enemy, eh?" he said to Janet.

"How come you didn't tell me that Sam and Dave Swenson were in the race?" she demanded.

"Everybody knew that you had the hots for Streeter. Would you have put in an all-out effort if you knew that you were shooting down your old inamorata? I wasn't going to trust your integrity, so I told you nothing. That bucket of bolts ain't yours until we cross the finish line, and until that time I'm calling the shots. The first shot is that you're not going to say anything to Streeter or Swenson. The second shot is to shake your tail and get that car off the trailer. We're going to get our fuel, then we're going to give Streeter and his bastard friend the comeuppance." Freddy barked.

Janet said to Sam, "Sorry, Ol' Smelly isn't usually this sweet dispositioned ... must be the beer he's guzzling."

Sam smiled. "See you in Jersey. First one to Trenton buys the steaks."

"You're on," she agreed, then walked away to attend to her chores.

"Where is that S.O.B. Swenson, anyway?" Freddy demanded.

After a moment's hesitation, Sam decided that it would be poor sportsman's-like conduct to smash his opponent in the face, so he just walked away without replying.

At that same time, a large truck was pulling into the parking lot. It sounded a quick beep-beep-beep-B-E-E-P on the horn, Dave Swenson's usual Beethoven-borrowed door knock. The nondescript truck attracted no attention and found a parking spot on the far edge of the gathering.

Immediately following Dave's entrance came the much-talked-about entry from the engineering college. The odd-looking vehicle was towed by a corvette filled with pom-pom girls and followed by a caravan of students. At first the security personnel wanted to keep the students on the outside of the chain link fence where the other onlookers were sequestered, but the raucous students insisted that they were all part of the race team. It looked like a riot would ensue, but the affable Mr. Mahoney magically appeared to insure tranquility. It turned out that, when Mahoney examined the original race application, the students were all well within their rights because they had applied as a syndicate of some forty-odd members, financed by pooling their resources, and each had been dutifully listed in the forms. Whether or not this included the pom-pom girls, Mahoney prudently did not inquire.

Mahoney was talking to the students' driver when Sam, Dave, and Rita Rhinestone (wearing dark glasses and a large-brimmed straw hat into which her hair had been tucked) came up to examine the student vehicle.

By eleven, all the race cars were in the parking lot and the chase car drivers, having been admonished to not arrive before eleven or after eleven fifteen, began to show up. Dave, Sam, and Rita, however, were busy with their balloon. The trailer's canvas roof was pulled back, and they began to fill the outer balloon with helium from the bank of cylinders they carried. Slowly the balloon structure began to rise above the walls of the truck. Dave had thrown the back doors of the trailer open, but the exact nature of the Streeter-Swenson entry was not yet evident. At the moment it looked more like a giant, well-yeasted loaf of bread rising in a pan.

"What the hell is that?" Benito Dada bellowed.

"What kind of trick is this?" Mahoney demanded.

"No trick. That's our race vehicle, a helium-hot air balloon carrying the BTU equivalent to thirty-one gallons of gasoline in the form of propane," Sam explained.

"If the balloon is filled with helium, what do you need the propane for," a reporter asked.

"The gas is needed for fuel. The helium merely counters the mass of the balloon, gondola, and the contents, so that it has no effective weight. The propane, in keeping with the spirit of the race, provides the actual lifting power," Sam explained.

"This is an outrageous trick!" Dada shouted, pushing his way through the crowd of gawkers. "It's like entering a camel in the Kentucky Derby!"

"There were no restrictions in the rules as to limits on the design of a vehicle," Sam calmly said. "We carry the proper amount of fuel and meet all relevant safety and registration requirements. We're FAA certified. I'm a licensed balloon pilot. We've even checked with the Canadian authorities on the offbeat chance that we might drift into their airspace, and we have their okay too. My partner will be happy to provide you with copies of all the relevant affidavits."

"What about Mexico?" someone shouted.

Sam laughed. "If the wind drives us to Mexico, then we're more likely to end up in Brazil than New Jersey, so in that case you can disqualify us ... if we cross the Mexican border."

Dada and Mahoney quickly huddled together for a heated discussion of this strange turn of events for their race.

"If you're just free floating, how do you know that you'll end up in New Jersey?" the reporter inquired.

"We don't know exactly where we'll end up," Sam admitted. One computer projection places us just fifty miles north of New York City, while another puts us in Delaware. This, however, is a two-stage racer. The second stage is a small motorcycle with six gallons of fuel capacity--the six gallons are deducted from our BTU allotment for the propane, of course--and we'll use the motorbike to go from where the balloon lands to the New Jersey finish line."

"Everybody else has to drive along the highway," said the driver of one of the dune buggie type vehicles, "but these guys go in the air. Seems to me that that should be against the rules somehow."

"The engineering college students plan to sail across the country. We're doing the same thing, except of course, a little higher. On the ground you get to chose the direction you go, whereas we are throwing out fate to the winds," Dave said as he joined Sam. "We meet all the rules of this contest as well as any of you."

Among the crowd there was a general discussion of the pros and cons of the Streeter-Swenson balloon. Finally, Mahoney himself took charge. "The rules also state that the race moderator, that's me, is the final arbiter of this whole contest. This race is sponsored by Big Daddy Beer, and there is no more patriotic American than Benito Dada. Capitalism ... fair capitalism, is as American as apple pie, motherhood, and beer!" The crowd chuckled. "This race is an unrestricted contest to see who can get from here to the Trenton, New Jersey parking lot of our new subsidiary, The Dada Oil Company, on less than thirty-one gallons of gasoline or the BTU equivalent. Therefore this fellow's propane powered balloon coupled with a motorcycle is declared to be legitimate entry and assigned the number ..." Mahoney consulted his clip board, "twenty-three." There was equal amounts of mumbled dissent and muted applause among the crowd. "However," Mahoney continued, "in the interests of fairness, I hereby rule that, as is true for all of you driving on the ground, the balloon must be in sight of the chase car at all times so that no cheating can take place. I'm not saying that they would cheat, mind you, but everyone has got to have the same rules, race cars, sail cars, and balloons alike."

Dave and Sam looked at each other. They had been so busy concentrating on the balloon, that they had overlooked the limitations of the race official that was supposed to monitor their progress.

"Who's got chase car number twenty-three?" Mahoney called out.

A moment later a lanky lad in faded jeans and a "Kiss band" T shirt finished guzzling his can of beer and said, "Twenty-three, hey that's me."

Mahoney stared at the youth. "Kid, you're drunk. You're disqualified!"

"Hell! There ain't no way you can follow a balloon with a car anyway. It'll just wander across a river, or go over a mountain where there ain't no road, then what are you supposed to do?"

"You're one-hundred percent right, kid," said Smelly Freddy who happened to be standing to the right of Benito Dada. "There'll be no way to tell if the balloon is cheating, or not. They could upload an extra hundred gallons of fuel, and you'd never know."

There was a murmur of agreement in the crowd.

"If you've disqualified the kid as a chase car driver because he's drunk, are you looking for a replacement?" the Big Sur reporter asked Mahoney.

"Do you think that you can follow this balloon with your pick up truck?" Mahoney asked.

"Five hundred dollars to keep the balloon in sight at all times, that's what you're paying?"

"Half now, half in New Jersey, plus you get an stipend for your own fuel and food to New Jersey and back. We require that all chase car drivers submit to a stress analysis lie detector to make sure that they're telling the truth in their report."

"Sounds fair."

"Sign here!" Mahoney gestured with his clip board.

"How much ballast have you got on that thing?" the reporter asked the balloonists.

"A thousand pounds of sand and two hundred and fifty gallons of water," Dave replied.

"How about making it eight-fifty of sand and one-fifty of reporter with cameras?" he asked.

"You gonna ride in that thing?" Mahoney asked.

"Can you think of a better way to keep the balloon in sight at all times?'"

"Come on aboard," Sam said with a grin, "You've got a one-way ticket to the East Coast."

"I'll get my backpack and all the extra film I can find and be back in ten minutes," the reporter said.

"If you're gonna be as crazy as those guys," Dada said, "Then you better take along a goodly supply of my beer." The volatile brewer was back in his jovial phase.

"If you don't mind me leaving my truck parked out behind your office building, I'll take you up on that."

"Go right ahead, I just might inherit me a pick up camper."

A few minutes later the reporter reported to the trailer with his backpack. Dave hoisted it into the gondola. "I'm Dave Swenson and my partner is Sam Streeter," he said offering his hand.

"Glad to meet you. I'm Ja..." Just then the noon whistle sounded from the brewing plant. It was the 'starting gun' that officially began the race. At two minute intervals the race cars and their accompanying chase vehicles were to be released at the plant gate.

"Jay, get aboard," Dave said as he dropped off the requisite number of sand bags to adjust the craft to its new passenger configuration.

Amused by the prospect of incognito reporting, Jake did not correct the name error.

When Number 23 was given the green flag, Sam merely turned up the already-lit burners for the heater, then went back to his business of a lengthy, but tender farewell to his wife. Nothing else happened. Dave was already deep into a gold mining trade journal, and Jay watched the departure of the rest of the racers through the opened back doors of the truck. He hadn't realized that they had officially begun their journey, but after the last racer left the gate, he turned to Dave and asked, "Are you sure this thing is going to float?"

Dave looked up from his magazine and smiled. "If I were married to that lady, I'd probably not be too anxious to make a departure either," he said of the two lovers who--Sam in the gondola and Rita on the outside--were locked in an endless embrace. "However," he continued, raising his voice, "it is Sam who must choose between the sweetness of Rita's kisses and the luster of Bonito Dada's money."

"Eh? What? You talkin' 'bout me?"

Dave glanced at his wristwatch and at the temperature gauge for the inner balloon and said, "As soon as you unhand that woman, we'll get this show on the road."

"Oh," Sam said.

In the course of their amours, Rita had removed her dark glasses and knocked her hat off. Jay said to Dave, "Your friend's wife looks rather familiar, but I can't place her."

Rita laughed. "You don't know me? How wonderful! My one ambition is to achieve anonymity."

"I somehow feel that I've seen you someplace," Jay said.

Said Sam, "My wife, Rita Streeter, a.k.a. Rita Rhinestone."

"Who is holding up this race," commented Dave.

"Me?"

"Your weight on the railing is holding us down."

"One last kiss," she said, and did, then stepped back.

Very gently, very slowly, the balloon and gondola began to rise, clearing the walls of the truck in a few seconds.

"Hey, youse guys is dead last already," Benito Dada called up to them.

Rita stood in the bed of the truck, waving, then slammed the back doors shut and jumped into the right side of the truck's cab. By the time that the driver cleared the parking lot gate, the balloonists were several hundred yards in the air.

"Rita Rinestone. The day is full of surprises," the reporter muttered.

"I've got another surprise for you. You're now trapped up here with two escaped lunatics," Sam teasingly suggested.

"Oh, I don't mind. I've been dealing with loonies all my life. Having only two at a time to deal with will be a piece of cake."

"Don't mind Sam. The two loonies are him. A bit schizoid, he is. However, we do have a slight problem in that we weren't planning on a third passenger."

"Don't mind me. I'm just ballast, remember?"

"Well, in this case the blast has to sleep, eat, and everything, and we've just provisioned this thing for the two of us, not that we don't mind sharing, but ..."

"Hey," Jay interrupted, "When I said that you don't have to worry, I meant it. I have my backpack," he jerked his thumb in the direction of the rust-colored pack resting in a corner. "In addition to photographic supplies and notebooks, I've got everything I need for a week or more there, with the exception of water. I've only got a pair of quart canteens. Is your water ballast potable?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, it is," Dave said.

"Then if you don't mind giving me a few quarts a day, I'll trouble you no further."

"He keeps Alice's Wonderland House in that pack, complete with butler and upstairs maid," Sam suggested.

"The butler turned crabby, so I let him go, and it's the maid's week off, but other wise I've got the comforts of home. Perhaps not as elaborate as this," he waved his hand at the accommodations that Dave had built for the two balloonists, "but more than enough to keep me."

"I've spent several hundred dollars for provisioning us for less than a week," Dave said. "You mean to tell us that you've got the same in that pack?"

"The equivalent? We're talking apples and oranges here," Jay said. "Nothing I have requires refrigeration, for example. Freeze dried and similarly prepared meals are light and compact. It is my custom to eat two meals a day. Breakfast is usually griddle cakes and honey, supplemented with dried fruits or whatever fresh ones that I can find on the trail--the pack was designed for hiking, not air travel. The evening meal are various and usually begin with the soup course, whatever salad I can find along the trail, a main course, desert, and of course the coffee course. As far as Alice's Wonderhouse is concerned, a mosquito net covered net hammock with a waterproof fly and a down sleeping bag will suffice."

"You're not going to find much of a trail-side garden here," Sam commented, waving his arm towards the expanse of sky over Los Angeles.

"That is true, but I usually don't take my hikes in the middle of urban jungles," Jay agreed. "We are, however, required to stop for eight hours each day, so who can say what goodies might be encountered. Besides, I have sufficient supplies to do without salads, if necessary."

There was a burst of radio static, then:

"Flying out of Los Ann Geles,
Singing in the off color keys,
Don't check my rags, if you please,
Mr. Condom man ...

Dave grabbed a microphone from an obscure cubby hole amid the storage bins. "You're right on the money!"

"Of course I am."

Dave laughed. "If you're so smart, why are we heading North-east instead of East?"

"Hey, you're only at six hundred and ten feet. You could be drifting to anywhere at that altitude. Wait until you get to five thousand feet, and then we'll see what happens."

"Okay, we'll check in when we're higher."

"I'll be waiting for your call. Meteor Mike, over and out."

"Meteor Mike? Meteor Mike the weatherman?" Jay asked with surprise.

"Yeah. You know him?"

"Well, not personally, but everyone in Northern New England knows The Voice of Mount Washington Weather."

"Yeah, Mike's crazy, but he is a wizard with weather, and that's why we sort of hired him as our navigation assistant."

"Navigation?"

Dave laughed. "Well, that's a feedback side benefit. Actually, we're testing some computer modeling of wind patterns that Mike's contracted with the National Weather Service to develop under a grant from the National Science Foundation. This way they get a base line to check their predictions. There's an instrument package and radio telemetry sender in that bin. An antenna wire runs up one of the ratlines to a micro dish at the top of the balloon."

"And in turn for being their guinea pig," Sam said, "we get told where we are and get advice as the best strategy to use to get to Trenton."

"But you're just subject to the whims of the wind, aren't you?"

"Yes, but ... and that is an important 'but'... we do have the ability to go up or down, and we can try to hook in with different wind conditions at various altitudes so as to nudge us in the direction we want to go."

"And Meteor Mike is the spider in the center of the web," Sam said. "He's on the top of Mount Washington with a bunch of fancy computers and lines hooked to weather reporting stations all over the country."

Jay laughed. "I thought that I was covering a race, not a scientific experiment."

"Well, building this balloon turned out to be a lot more expensive than we had originally thought, but then my sister dreamed up this meteorological experiment after fortuitously reading a report on Mike's weather modeling programming in Science News. She got ahold of Mike and whipped up the whole thing. Some of the instruments are on loan from NASA, a couple of things come from the Navy, of all people, but no one knows what they do because they're sealed black boxes with wires hooked to the radio. Meteor Mike assembled the instrumentation package on some sort of emergency scientific priority basis and even got us paid in advance on our contract."

"That doesn't sound like the government," Jay commented.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, "but apparently there is some sort of secret, inter-departmental, slush fund for scientific stuff that can't wait."

"Something that no one is telling Senator Proxmire," Dave added with a laugh.

"So you guys are actually getting paid to run this race?"

"Sort of," Dave admitted. "However, all of the money went into the balloon, so in effect we are conducting the experiments for free."

"Rrright!"

"Really," Sam insisted. "A: the money went into the balloon, B: the experiment couldn't be done without the balloon, therefore C: all of the government money went towards the experiment, and none to us."

Jay laughed. "Spoken like a true Jesuit lawyer!"

"Hey! I'm Presbyterian," Sam protested.

"Every religion has its share of 'Jesuit lawyers,'" Jay said.

Just then the radio crackled to life. "Stand by for an Internet message," an obviously artificial voice said.

"You've got the balloon wired to the Internet?" Sam asked Dave with surprise.

"Not that I know of."

"Return-Path: unknown
Received: (qmail 46987 invoked from network); 3 Apr 1986 12:36:43 -0000
Received: by POP.unknown.com with SMTP; 3 Apr 1986 12:36:43 -0000
Message-ID: [MAPI.id.0016.003245986754303030303037303037MAPI.to.RFC8]
Priority: Normal
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII;X-MAPlextension=".TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Message to follow.
Good luck, guys. Break a leg! ... The Lone Ranger. End of message. Intergalactic Forwarding is a service of Intergalactic Communications, Incorporated. We can send your e-mail anywhere, anytime. For our user-friendly commercial rates, leave a message at BusinessRate@Inter.Galactic.com. For academic rates, leave a message at SchoolRate@Inter.Galactic.com. To invest in Intergalactic Communications, Incorporated, contact your stock broker. We're traded over-the-counter. Thank you and have a prosperous century."

Dave looked at Sam. Sam looked at Dave. No one said anything.

"To a novice like me," Jay finally said, "that sounded rather bizarre."

"That is bizarre ... real bizarre," Dave said. "This is supposed to be a military channel that was turned over for civilian scientific projects. It's supposed to be secure. Our telemetry is being handled by military facilities."

"And this Intergalactic stuff?"

"It's a legitimate high-tech outfit," Sam said. "In fact, a friend recommended its stock."

"So it is on a government channel?" Jay inquired. "Is that not unusual for a high-tech firm."

"This is a Department of Defense scientific radio system," Dave insisted.

"So the Lone Ranger hijacked Intergalactic," suggested Sam. "That shouldn't surprise anyone. Breaking into a DOD radio? A piece of cake!"

"That's the other bizarre thing. Who is this Lone Ranger?" Jay inquired.

"Have you ever heard of the Cinque de mayo computer virus?" Dave asked.

"No. What's that?"

"It was an insidious virus that was supposed to eat all files on a computer's drive C on May 5th. A message appeared on a lot of Bulletin Board Systems instructing IBM-PC compatible computer users to wire a hundred dollars to a numbered band account at a Caribbean island bank, plus the user's mail address. In return, you were supposed to receive a copy protected, use-once disk that would neutralize the virus. None of the commercial anti-virus programs were able to handle it, so things started to get very panicky in the computer world. Then, at the end of April there appeared on Bulletin Board Systems all over the place a short bit of programming that completely neutralized the Cinque de Mayo virus. That little program was courtesy of 'the Lone Ranger.' Shortly thereafter news reports said that the police were unable to learn anything about the source of the Cinque de Mayo virus or the bank account that funds were supposed to be sent to because all funds in it had been electronically transferred out, and they were unable to follow the transaction. It was not clear if bank officials were cooperating or not. In any case, subsequently, on the Internet and a lot of Bulletin Board Systems there was a report from 'The Lone Ranger' stating that the Cinque de Mayo funds had gone from the original account to ... and he listed the account numbers, transfer times and dates, and banks were the funds were sent. Somehow the Lone Ranger had been able to follow the money trail that had eluded the police. Somehow the money was popping from place to place around the globe, with the Lone ranger in hot pursuit. Updates on the progress of the chase were posted on the Internet and the BBS system. Finally the Lone Ranger reported that the funds, nearly a hundred thousand dollars, had been paid out in cash to a Pablo Estero by a German bank. No information was known about this Pablo Estero, and The Lone Ranger regretted that he could only follow an electronic trail. Unfortunately, the crooks got away this time, the Lone Ranger said."

"I vaguely remember hearing something about that, now that you mention it. I caught the tail end of an NPR report," Jay admitted. "But what does this Lone Ranger have to do with you and this race?"

"I haven't the foggiest notion," Dave said.

"I'm completely at sea. I use a computer only occasionally. It's not me he's talking to, I don't think," Sam said.

"We use computers for routine business and design purposes at Technical Fix. We don't do anything exotic enough to attract the attention of The Lone Ranger," Dave claimed.

"It's a complete mystery," Sam agreed.

By the time that they had reached an altitude of five thousand feet, the city had given way to residential hills, and the hills were progressively less populated. Shortly thereafter, the radio croaked to life.

"Good evening, fliers! You're approaching one mile of altitude. Do you confirm? Over."

"We have an altitude of five thousand, one hundred and fifty feet," Dave said. "However, it is still early afternoon over here."

"My error, sorry. I forgot all about the time deference. Do you have 34:52:39N by 117:03:57W?"

"Longitude and latitude readings are correct."

"Telemetry is good, very good. I place you over Barstow."

"Which means that we're going in the wrong direction," Sam interjected.

"Incorrect. Projections taking into consideration a large high pressure system to your south will take you in a Northeasterly direction due to the swirling pattern. You should be free from the effects of that pattern early tomorrow, at which time you will veer easterly on a heading of eighty to one hundred and ten degrees for the next two days. We are right on target."

"I confirm," Dave said, consulting his map. On it several flight scenarios had been marked in different colored inks. All indicated an initial Northeasterly direction, and they didn't diverge until Utah. Sam, of course, was aware of this, he just didn't like to race by an indirect route.

"By the way, did you hear that transmission by the 'Lone Ranger'?

"Yes."

"What did you make of it?"

"Our weather modeling hit a snag awhile back. I'd been working with a couple of guys out in Silicon Valley, plus a computer whiz lady at MIT, and the boys down in DC, and our simulation would run fine for awhile, then it would just go absolutely screwball, and the results would be totally off the wall. We had been passing our code between ourselves for months and making no real progress. We just couldn't get that weather model to run for more than a day and a half. We were at a dead end. Everything we tried just made things worse, and our program code was beginning to look like spaghetti in a tornado. Then we all simultaneously got an e-mail note from the 'Lone Ranger' offering to fix the problem for $5,000.00. My first reaction was that it was a scam, but this was after Cinque de Mayo, so no one was going to dismiss the 'Lone Ranger' out of hand. On the other hand, we weren't working with much of a budget, and didn't have the money. Furthermore, this 'Lone Ranger' didn't say how to pay him, or even leave a return address. We batted ideas about this between ourselves, then we each got an express mail package with a set of computer disks. It was our weather model code, but with most of the stuff we had tried in the last month stripped out. A couple of new procedures were added. When we tried the new simulation, it ran a two day sequence before going crazy--not good, but a lot better than we had to start with.

"Now, these disks were marked 'Warning: any attempt to copy this disk will cause it to self-erase. This program will self-destruct after one run. This is a use-once program.' We each had a copy, so that meant that we could run it five times. Philips at MIT was able to duplicate the disk, but not able to defeat the run-once mechanism--we talked about this in voice calls, not e-mail, so the 'Lone Ranger' wouldn't intercept our planning. Again, we got an e-mail offer to fix the program for $5,000. This time there was a suggestion to get funding from the national Oceanographic and Atmospheric people, who, it was suggested, could save a lot of money on lost weather balloon hardware if they could better predict where their balloons might travel. Since, Thanks to Philips' ability to defeat the copy protection, we ended up with an unlimited supply of run-once editions of the new weather simulation, and we use some of them to persuade the powers that be to increase our funding for 'outside programming consulting.' To make a long story short, we eventually got the funding, wired the five grand to an off shore bank, and eventually got another set of program disks. This time they weren't run limited. The theory is that we are using computer weather simulation to predict where a free-floating, wind-driven point will be at any given time. Your balloon is, in effect, the ping-pong ball in our wind tunnel experiment. However, the version of the program that we're using in your case is a special modification, using a self-adjusting point--the balloon. By changing your altitude and thus catching different wind conditions, we are trying to direct you to a specific end point, namely Trenton, New Jersey. If this works, then we'll be able to balloon launch scientific payloads on the west coast and then recover them on the east coast, or even further. It is conceivable that we could do circumnavigation of the globe and have the balloon come down exactly where it was launched. We could gather a lot of weather data a lot cheeper this way, rather than using planes or other means. Anyway, that's the argument that we used with the money people--we could save money in the long run. You're the first real-world test of the 'Lone Ranger's' wind/weather simulation program. If we pull this off, or even come close, the 'Lone Ranger' will be raised to Deity status, at least among meteorologists."

"Who the Hell is this guy?" Sam asked.

"No one knows," Meteor Mike replied. "No one even has a clue. How do you leave an Internet message without having it tagged with a return address? How did he hack into our weather programs? How did he follow the Cinque de Mayo money when even the international banking cops couldn't figure it out? This super hacker must be sitting in the center of some fantastic cyber web. I heard a rumor that he demanded--demanded and got-- a half million dollars to fix the switching software of one of the 'Baby Bells.' Remember when all of those millions of phones crashed awhile back? We haven't had a repeat of that disaster since the 'Lone Ranger' apparently fixed their code."

Dave laughed. "I thought that we were just doing a few simple weather experiments."

"Oh, you're doing that too. The instrument pack is sending out all the usual weather data, pressure, temperature, humidity, and such, plus a lot more. It's all being coordinated to location and altitude. Plus, there are those navy weather recorders that we sub-contracted to you. That data isn't even coming to us. It's going directly through the military communications system to someplace in Virginia. And don't forget the instrument package that you guys are going to release when you get to Nebraska. That's $800 in the kitty from a Cornkusker engineering department."

"We certainly appreciate all the funding you scientific types sent out way, and we're more than happy to oblige you and your projects, however, we're still slightly in the hole on building this thing, so we've got to actually win this race to put black ink on the ledger," Dave said.

Meteor Mike laughed. "Maybe you can get the 'Lone ranger' to give you an additional subsidy if this works. After all, it isn't every day you can get to become a scientific god."

"Maybe we can put the bite on him when we get to New Jersey," Sam said, "at the moment we're headed for Saskatchewan!"

"No problem," Meteor Mike assured them, "You're right on course and right on schedule. Just keep it between fifty two hundred and fifty-five hundred feet for the next four hours. I've got to prepair the Mt. Washington evening weather report. Meteor Mike over and out."

"This," Jay admitted, "is getting more and more interesting all the time."

"We'll see how interesting it is," Sam commented, "when we get to Saskatchewan."

Sam mumbled, "Saskatchewan, here I come," to each of these.

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Sam buttoned up the top snaps of his down vest and checked his watch. "Let's give it another half hour's run before we start looking for a place to set it down for the night."

"We're still green at this. I think that we should err on the side of caution. We've only got another hour of flight time before our required eight hours of rest," Dave said.

"Caution doesn't win races, besides, I like it up here."

"But it wouldn't do to get disqualified on the first day out," Dave said, nodding his head in the direction of Jay who was, at that moment, scanning the horizon with the binoculars.

"Okay, you're the navigator."

Dave pulled out his maps and began studying them. "We've been making good time for the last hour or so. That huge BM that we saw awhile ago on the side of the hill was Battle Mountain, Nevada. The next town should be Carlin or Elko, depending on our northward drift. Let's stop away from the towns." Dave then asked Jay for the binoculars.

"Sure. There's a biplane, probably a crop duster, coming up behind up. I've been watching it for a minute," Jay replied.

Dave put the glasses on the plane for a moment, commented "that must be almost as nice a way to travel as this," then turned around to scout possible landing sites ahead of them.

"Frankly, this is the way to travel," Sam said. "No noise but the wind, just drifting along like a lazy ... say, here comes that crop duster." As he spoke, the biplane came in from the west and began to circle above them.

"This hardy seem to be a place for dusting crops," Jay commented, indicating the desert below them with a sweep of his hand.

The plane made three wide circles, then dove past the gondola, coming within a hundred yards.

"Jesus Christ! That crazy bastard is too close," Sam shouted above the roar of the passing plane.

"Don't we have a right-of-way?" Jay asked. "I mean, he shouldn't come that close, should he?"

"You're damn right," Sam agreed, shaking his fist at the plane as it fell away.

"There must be FAA regulations about distances between aircraft," Jay said.

Dave had been watching the plane through the binoculars. It was now climbing up towards them. "Sam, there aren't any numbers on that plane. The wing and fuselage numbers have been covered over."

"What?" Sam took the binoculars. "You're right. It looks like they've been painted over."

The blue plane rushed up toward them, then as it neared, they could hear the engine being throttled down. As it approached their height, it rolled over in an arch so that the pilot kept the balloon above him as he turned. The balloonist could clearly see what he was doing. He had a pistol in his hand and was firing at them. They couldn't hear anything over the plane engine's noise, but there was the muzzle flash and the pilot's hand jerked back with each shot. He fired three times on that pass.

"What the hell's going on here?" Sam shouted. "That bastard is shooting at us."

"We're sitting ducks," Jay commented.

"Damn," was Dave's only comment.

The plane made a graceful arch and returned for another pass. With nothing else to do, the balloonists crouched behind the railing and waited for the plane. This time his arch carried him within fifty feet of the basket, but he had only time enough for two shots.

"He's not shooting at us, he's shooting at the balloon," Dave said.

Sam had the binoculars. "Christ, that bastard looks familiar." He stared through the binoculars "I think it's Jefferson Kansas. Wasn't he in Air Force ROTC?"

"Smelly Freddy's side kick?" Dave took the binoculars and waited for the plane's next pass. Again the plane passed within a hundred feet of the gondola, and Dave had a good look at the pilot. "If it isn't Jeff Kansas, it's a damn close clone." he said to Sam, but Sam wasn't paying attention. He was hastily rummaging through the emergency and first aid kit. He came up with a flair gun.

"That's not much against the plane," Dave said. "We're practically standing still, whereas he's got all kinds of maneuverability."

"I'd throw a brick, if I had to, but we don't have any," Sam said, "so we use what we've got, which in this case are mostly surplus smoke flairs. You got any better ideas?"

Dave didn't. They watched the plane bank into a turn, then start back up towards them.

Sam steadied the pistol against the railing and waited for the plane to make another pass. "The only advantage we have is that this car is a steady shooting platform. Now if I can guess the right lead ..."

"This is insane. Why is that guy shooting at us?" Jay asked.

"All's fair in love and racing" Sam commented as the plane came up. He squeezed off his shot, and the flair canister arched out in the air, but nothing happened. The plane whizzed past and the pilot took several more shots at the balloon.

Sam glumly reloaded the flair pistol.

"Say, where did that flare go?" Jay asked. There should have been a falling smoke flair, but there was nothing.

Dave swung around and turned his binoculars on the plane. "Sam, I think you hit the bastard," he said.

"I did?" Sam couldn't believe it, but there was a stream of smoke coming from near the end of the lower wing.

"He flew right into that flare," Jay said.

"I think he's right," Dave agreed, still watching through the binoculars. "That's an old fabric and wood plane, and the flare went into the wing."

"Will it stop him?" Jay wondered.

"That flare might look nasty, but I don't think that it'll do much harm. That smoke is from the flare, not plane damage," Sam said.

"But he's turning away," Dave said.

"Yeah, look, he's going to try and put the plane down on that road," Sam said. "He probably doesn't know what hit him.

They watched as the plane made a low pass over a part of the highway. He wasn't able to land because of the scattered traffic, but his pass drove the traffic to the road shoulders and the pilot turned to take advantage of the space he cleared. His turn was tight, setting the wing almost vertical, and in an instant the plane was dropping down towards the empty road--empty except for one semi-trailer. The trucker had been barreling down the road with the hammer down. Even at their altitude, the balloonists could hear the blat-blat-blat of the "jake brakes," then the squeal of the tires as the trucker tried to overcome his momentum. The trucker crowded the shoulder, but stubbornly kept on the asphalt at the road's edge. The plane, for its part, kept to its side of the highway, but the road wasn't wide enough for both of them. As they past each other, a wing tip grazed the truck. This had no effect on the fully loaded semi. The plane, however, was tossed sideways, and it continued down the road with the tip of the smoking wing scraping the asphalt and the fuselage twisted forty-five degrees to its line of motion. When the plane finally came to rest, the lower left wing had been torn away and the upper tip was resting on the ground.

Sam laughed. "I'll bet that trucker will have a fun time explaining to the I.C.C. the entry in his log book about hitting an airplane."

"Well, whoever that guy was, he did his job because we're loosing gas," Dave glumly said.

"I wonder how many times he hit us."

"No way to tell, Sam, but when we're out of helium, we're out of the race. There's no way to cross the country on just hot air ... and, of course, there's probably just as many holes in the inner balloon as the outer one," Dave said.

Sam looked at the balloon above them for a half a minute, then said, "I've got an idea." He opened the emergency kit and took out another smoke flare. This one he set off manually, then stuffed it into the helium intake tube.

"What's the story," Dave inquired.

"This will fill the helium balloon with smoke, so we'll be able to see where the holes are by seeing where the smoke leaks out."

"Good idea, but what good will it do?" Dave asked.

Sam just smiled at his friend and picked up a roll of gaffer's tape. He slipped his hand through the roll, giving himself a bizarre bracelet.

"Look, there's a hole two-thirds the way up the balloon," Jay said, pointing to the stream of smoke that was issuing from the indicated spot.

Sam jumped onto the gondola rail. "Time for Ace Repair Company to go to work."

"What, are you crazy!" Dave restrained his friend.

"I race sailboats, too. Same thing. Rigging is rigging."

"But we're thousands of feet up in the air."

Sam looked down at the wide expanse of desert spread out below and reconsidered, stepping back down into the gondola.

"As much as I hate to give Smelly Freddy the satisfaction of knocking us out of the race, it is, after all, only a race, and Rita's too sweet to make her a young widow," Dave lectured.

Sam ignored him. He crouched down and removed his shoes and socks. "Right, there no use taking chances," he said. Barefoot, he sprang back to the shrouds and ratlines that held the gondola to the balloon.

"Damn it! Get back here!" Dave shouted, but Sam was already climbing along the outside of the balloon towards the hole that Jay had spotted.

"Your friend is crazy, isn't he?" Jay said.

Dave shrugged his shoulders. "Afficion," he muttered as he started to take off his shoes and socks. There was a second, smaller roll of tape in the emergency kit. Dave followed Sam's example and slipped it on his wrist.

"You going out there too?" Jay asked, incredulously.

"If there's a hole on one side, there's got to be another one somewhere on the opposite side," Dave said as he started to climb up the other side of the balloon.

"I've never done any technical climbing," Dave commented, "but I've scaled a few cliffs freehand in the Rockies. I guess that's not too different from climbing a balloon."

"You're both crazy! How am I going to get this tub down if you both fall off?" Jay demanded.

Dave laughed, then said, "No problem. If we don't patch her, she'll just gently settle to the ground as the gas escapes. You're perfectly safe." He laughed again. "This is a rush! Try spotting the holes for us, Jay.

Eventually Jay spotted two more small smoke plumes, and for the next fifteen minutes Sam and Dave crawled over the surface of the balloon, putting on gaffer's tape patches. Then they had the more difficult job of finding the holes that couldn't be seen from the gondola.

"Hey," Jay called out, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you don't set this thing down in thirty minutes, you're going to miss the mandatory rest period and get your ship disqualified."

"Shit! What are we going to do?" Sam called to Dave.

"You're the pilot. Take her down."

"What about you?"

"I've got another hole that I can see. I'll fix it. You just make sure that we get down in time for our 'rest.'"

"Right!" Sam said as he started to climb down the mesh work. A few minutes later Sam started purging the hot air, and the balloon started its descent.

Dave stayed on the balloon all through the descent, looking for more bullet holes. He was still hanging onto the ropes when they touched down.

"Five minutes to spare!" Sam called out as Dave jumped back into the gondola.

"I think I've got all the outside holes," Dave said, but there's still the problem of the ones in the inner balloon. We'll keep loosing helium if we don't fix them quickly."

"The rules require you to rest for eight hours," Jake announced, "starting in two minutes."

Dave and Sam looked at each other. "Shit!" Sam muttered.

"Sorry, but the rules are very specific about this," Jay said apologetically, "besides, I've got to give my report under stress analysis for truthfulness. Big Daddy Dada doesn't trust anyone ... besides, I'm a lousy lair."

"I guess we're stymied by the clock," Sam said.

Jay looked up at the balloon gently swaying above them, then finally he said, "I suppose that if you dropped a rope through the purge valve at the top of the balloon, you could climb up inside the inner balloon through the lower vent and sway yourself around the grab the edge and patch the holes," he mused.

"Yes, that would be a way to do it. Actually, there are internal ropes already in place, but you just said that we've got to rest for the next eight hours," Dave said.

"Quite right," Jay said, laughingly in a mock British accent. He grinned. "But there is nothing in the rules that say that I've got to rest. I am merely an observer and reporter of your actions. Other than that, I'm a free agent."

"You?" Sam said, then after a moment's reflection, added, "if we pay you, that would make you part of the crew, and that would probably disqualify us."

"Probably would," Jay agreed, " ... if you paid me."

"You'd do it without any pay? After all, you're only making a lousy five hundred dollars from Dada for this trip," Dave commented.

"Oh, I expect to make a lot more than that. I've shot plenty of photos, got lots of film left, and should be able to get a fine magazine article out of this ... provided that we don't get shot out of the sky, or get permanently grounded in the desert, that is. Besides, even before this excursion came up, heading to the East Coast was at the top of mt agenda."

"I take it that you're volunteering to fix the inner balloon?" Dave inquired.

"I'm volunteering to attempt to repair the balloon," Jay corrected.

"Well, don't let us stand in your way!" Dave exclaimed.

Jay looked up at the ropes and asked, "Are you sure this is going to work?" The plan was for Jay to hoist himself up the rope using the sliding knot as a form of mountaineering ascender, then when he reached the height needed to reach a hole, he was to turn himself into a pendulum until he could grab the inner surface of the balloon, hang on, and make the repair with the gaffer's tape.

"I've never fixed the inside of a balloon before," Dave admitted, "but I'm always willing to attempt something new ... with volunteer labor.

Jay turned to Sam and commented, "Fat lot of help he is, isn't he?

The one thing that Jay had not considered was the heat. Immediately upon entering the balloon, he was enveloped in 120 degree air, and the higher he climbed, the hotter it got. By the time that he got to the level of the highest hole, he was drenched with sweat and his arms felt as if they were going to drop off, and his throat felt as if he had swallowed a bucket of sand. He rested in the stirrups, then had Dave tie a water jug onto the rope. He hoisted it us and took a long drink, then splashed the remainder over himself. This refreshed him.

He was able to spot two holes within an easy swing from his perch, and they were patched easily. The upper holes, which were actually about halfway up the height of the balloon, were more difficult to fix because he had to swing in a long arc to reach them, and any exertion in the torrid atmosphere taxed his strength. Fortunately, there were no holes above the mid-point. It took nearly an hour to make the repairs. After the last hole was patched, Jay wearily let himself down the rope. Once he reached the gondola, his last reserves of strength let out, and he collapsed on the floor. The balloonists quickly sprang to his aid, Dave with a cup of lemonade, and Sam with a bucket of water and a sponge to relieve Jay's heat prostration.

"That was the best drink on the planet," Jay muttered in thanks.

They helped Jay to one of the net hammocks. "Just relax and I'm going to sponge you all over to cool down," Sam instructed. Jay muttered something unintelligible. Sam turned to Dave. "I think that he's suffering from heat exhaustion and maybe fourth degree burns. Sponging should cool him down. We should elevate his feet and get him to drink some more. Then we'll just let him rest."

"Even though we were purging the air to descent, it must have been hotter 'an blazes in there," Dave commented.

"Yeah, but writers are crazy when it comes to getting a story ... they're almost as crazy as race drivers," Sam suggested.

Jay fell asleep and the balloonists settled down to an uneventful night in the desert.

Jay awoke before dawn and was none the worse for his brief experience in the balloon hell, except that he was very hungry. He rummaged through his pack and came up with a bag of home-made squares that were a cross between an oatmeal cookie and a granola bar. Sam and Dave were sound asleep in their bunks, and he noted that there was a half hour to go before Dave's alarm clock was to ring. Jay stood at the rail and looked out over the desert.

Sam had parked the balloon in a small open area of a swale. Clumps of brush were scattered about them, interrupted only by an occasional pinion pine. Rolling hills of this same dreariness stretched to all horizons, yet there was a stillness that implied serenity.

Jay thought that he would take a little walk with his camera. Perhaps a shot of the balloon at sunrise would make a good picture, he thought. With his camera strap over his shoulder and across this chest, he leaped from the gondola. He stood beside the gondola briefly, deciding from which angle to take his picture. He felt something brush his shoulder. He turned around and the balloon was gone! Ten feet above him the balloon was drifting upward and eastward. It had been a trailing piece of rope that had touched him and he grabbed it as it slithered across the desert floor. As he pulled himself up the rope, the gondola descended to meet him. He was never more than a yard off the ground. Jay hoisted himself over the rail and the gondola settled to the ground without awakening the sleeping passengers.

He chuckled to himself as he realized that, by getting out of the gondola, he disturbed its balance by lightening its load by a hundred and twenty five pounds. Had he not caught the rope, Sam and Dave might have awaken to find themselves mile-high over Nevada and minus a passenger. He knew he should have realized that his weight was helping to hold the craft to the ground, but it hadn't occurred to him at the time. This embarrassing little oversight, he decided, need not be mentioned to the others, except that he would be sure that the balloon was securely anchored in the future. Besides, he never did start to function properly until after he had his morning cup of coffee. This latter matter was something that should be dealt with forthwith, and he put his camera away, set up the stove, and got out Dave's peculator. By the time the Dave's alarm sounded, the coffee was ready.

Just then a criket-like beeper sounded, and Dave reached behind his head, trying to turn off an alarm clock that wasn't there. It didn't take him but a few seconds to realize that he wasn't in his home bead with the alarm clock on the headboard. He was somewhere ion the desert wilds, and the alarm was in his wristwatch. By then, the alarm had turned itself off.

Sam peaked out from the flap of his sleepingbag. "Room service? A large coffee, please."

"Do you wish that to be with or without?" Jay inquired in a very phony British accent.

"With or without what?"

Jay already had the stove lit and a pan of water on the burner. He eyed the ballonists' coffee collection. "With or without cafeene."

"That's an absurd question. What's the purpose of coffee without cafeene? I didn't bring any decaffe."

"Nor I," Jay said.

Both looked at Dave.

"For evening use only," Dave said, defensively, "not for breakfast."

"We're all agreed. The water will be hot in a moment, but I see that you have a perculator. Do you want to wait for the perculator, or do you want instant?"

Sam slid back down into his sleepingbag. "I can wait."

Dave glanced at his watch. "We've got forty-five minutes to lift-off. Plenty of time for real coffee."

While Jay attended to the coffee, Dave got out of his bag and dressed himself. He glanced at the sluggardly perculator and then turned on the radio. "Meteor Mike, this is Dave. Do you have a prognostication for us?"

There was no reply.

Dave repeated his query.

No reply,

Dave checked his frequency--the digital read-out was exactly where it should be--then he twiddled the dial. There wasn't even any static. He then ran through the various frequency bands. Nothing.

"Damn! The radio is out."

Sam came over and gave the radio case a sharp slap on the side. It didn't help. Dave and Sam fiddled with the radio for a few minutes, but to no effect.

"Coffee, gentlemen," Jay announced.

"This is not good," Sam said as he accepted a cup of coffee. "The radio, I mean, not the coffee," he added. "Thanks."

Dave fired up the heaters for the balloon before taking his cup of coffee. He mumbled a distracted, "thanks."

"We've definitely got power, and the signal meters indicate reception," Sam observed, going back to the radio, "so I'd say that it is either the speaker or the amp circuit."

Dave again glanced at his watch. "We should be ready to lift off after a bit more heating. Why don't you attend to the launch," he said to Sam, "and I'll pull the back off the radio and see what's what. Looks like I need a phillips screwdriver."

Not only was the radio itself put toghther with phillips screws, but it was also attached to the storage bin with those fastners.

Jay rummaged through one of the side pockets of his pack, then handed Dave a Leatherman tool.

"Thanks. You don't happen to have a soldering iron and a logic probe in there, do you?" Dave asked, pointing to the pack with the case of the Leatherman tool.

"Sorry. A good pack should be set up for living indefinitely in the wilderness. Circuit testing does not fit that criteria."

Dave immediately went to work on the screws, and in a few minutes he had the radio out of its recepticle.

"Look at this!" he shouted. One of the back corners had been smashed. It was only then that they noticed that there was a small corresponding hole in the side of the wooden storage bin.

Sam traced the hoile back to another hole in the floor. "Looks like a stray bullet from our friend in the crop duster."

"Damn bad luck," Dave grumbled.

"It could have been worse," Sam suggested. "It could have been one of us that was hit. Maybe we can patch it."

"Gentlemen, your rest period is officially over," Jay said, pointing to his watch.

Sam glanced at the temperature gague for the balloon's interior. "We should lift any minute now."

Dave took off the back of the radio case and peered inside. It was a complex instrument, filled with circuit boards and wires. The board in that back corner was smashed along its edge. Several resistors and capacitors dangled uselessly. Dave shook his head. "No way to do anything about this. It's the amplifier board."

A glum pall hung over the gondola as it lifted off the ground. The three said nothing as the ballon began to climb. Finally, Sam said, "We're going to have to do it the hard way."

Dave put the radio back together and slid it back into its slot in the storage bin. He set the dials to the frequency for Meteor Mike, but of course, there was nothing.

"What does it mean when this meter is jumping?" Jay asked.

"Signal strength," Dave said, gloomily.

"That's what I thought. You're receiving, but can't hear. Can you send?"

Dave and Sam glanced at each other, then Dave grabbed the microphone. "Meteor Mike, Meteor Mike, This is Dave Swenson. We are experiencing ... er ... technical difficulties and we can not hear you. Repeat, we can not hear. However, we can detect if you are replying. Therefore, if you can read us, do not broadcast for fifteen seconds, starting now. Over."

They watched in silence as the signal strength needle stayed at the zero end.

"Meteor Mike, we copy that you did not boradcast. You reply now with anything for fifteen seconds, stgarting now. Over."

They watched the meter wiggle, indicarting a medium-strength signal. It dropped to zero after fifteen seconds.

"Meteor Mike, we acknowledge your broasdcast. We can do yes-no communications with no broadcast from you for, say, five seconds meaning no, and five seconds of broadcast meaning yes. Do you concurr? Over."

The meter wiggled for five seconds, then fell to zero.

"Great! We're at six hundred feet and climbing. Does your telemetry concurr? Over."

Meter wiggle.

"Should we go to an altitude of five thousand feet? Over."

Meter wiggle.

"Should we go to ten thousand feet? Over"

Meter at zero.

"Acknowledge, we should not go to ten thousand feet. Should we go to six thousand feet? Over."

This higher/lower process continued until they narrowed to choice to an altitude of seven thousand feet.

"Acknowledge, we should go to seven thousand feet. How long ... let me rephrase that ... Do we stay at seven thousand feet until noon? Over."

Meter wiggle.

"Okay, we'll check in with you every two hours, and we wil fly at seven thousand feet until noon. Thanks, and over and out."

Dave looked releaved. He drank down half of his heretofore untouched coffee in a single gulp. "Guys, we're back in the race!"

At the next check-in time Meteor Mike wanted the balloonists to go higher, much higher. He wanted them at 15,000 feet. Within an hour it became obvious why Mike advised the change. A huge, ground-hugging bank of clouds lay below them. It stretched from horizon to horizon along the Nevada-Utah border. However, once they actually got above the clouds, their time as geographical tourists ended. There was nothing to see but white below and blue above.

The monotony of the view, the death of the radio, and the dearth of reading materials made for an excruciatingly boring ride. Card games couldn't relieve the dullness--Jay was invincible at Cribbage, and Sam won any other type of game. (Dave had not played cards since college, whereas Sam was a regular at the gaming tables, and he had sharpened his skills in recent years.) There was not even an appearance from the forces of Smelly Freddy to counter the ennui.

"Are you sure that you don't have an amplifier in your backpack?" Dave asked Jay. "A radio, a TV, anything to relieve the boredom?"

"Nothing suitable for drivers and navigators, I'm afraid," Jay replied. "For a mere observer, however ..." Jay unscrewed the stopper at the end of the packframe tube and retrieved a small aluminum cylinder, an ancient 220 film can. From this surreptitious container he extracted a wad of cigarette paper and a dense bud of marijuana. He then proceeded to roll a thin cigarette. Sam and Dave looked at each other, but said nothing. Jay lit the tip of the joint and took a long single toke.

"Writers use a variety of aids to storytelling. Hemingway and those of his generation were notorious whiskey drinkers. Jack Kerouac said use benzedrine, mucho hot coffee, and cigarettes. Proust, I think, did most of his writing while soaking in a tub of hot water. We don't have these traditional writers aids available, so I'll resort to sinsimilla ... and coffee."

Jay brewed a pot of strong coffee and passed cups of it to his companions. He sat in one of the corners of the gondola and sipped his portion of what novelist C.J. Newton called the elixir of the alert gods. By this time the other drug had begun to exert its influence.

"In the absence of a radio, you will just have to make due with me as a storyteller," Jay said.

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Oct. 2001