Zachariah Eight Arms looked at the assemblage. He looked at his notes. He looked at the crowd again. He didn’t like speaking in public, but he felt he had to set out the goals for the organization he had been saddled with thanks to agreeing to find a monster egg in the ocean near his home city of Rioridania.

He had wanted to build the prototype by himself, or with the help of another

machinist and his apprentice. He hadn’t expected that King Festus and the people from Lobster Bay would get involved in things like they had.

He supposed it couldn’t be helped, but he didn’t like the additional pressure when he would have to kill whatever it was in the ocean before it hatched.

He supposed he should get started.

“Thank you for coming to the meeting,” Zach said. “I’m doing this so we can all start on the same page. I don’t know all of you, so I am going to start by telling you who I am, the people that will be checking in with you, and what’s going on and why you were assembled.”

A picture of Sara’s Rocket appeared on the wall next to Zach’s shoulder. He glanced at it. He nodded. It had taken a bit of finetuning for making a picture projector, but it was working fine at the moment.

“I’m Zachariah Eight Arms, and this is Sara’s Rocket,” he said. “We; my daughter, my assistant and I built her for the Air Race earlier in the year. She holds the speed record at the moment.”

Murmurs swept through the room. He doubted any of the machinists had built

anything as complicated as a flying machine powered by a gravity engine using air sucked in from the sky to pull itself along. That was fine. He hadn’t expected them to have that knowledge.

“Sola and Bolan, could you stand up?,” asked Zachariah. He waited for the youths to stand. “This is my daughter, Sola, and my apprentice, Bolan. They know a lot about what we’re going to do, and what they don’t know, they can find out. Sola is also handling the accounting. When we break up, everyone who wants to get paid for their work should talk to her and have their names put on the payroll.”

A map of Rioridania’s coast appeared on the wall where the flying machine had been.

“The machine factory that we are setting up will have two purposes,” said Zachariah. “The first project is a vessel that will sail under the water.”

He indicated the zone of death with a finger.

“This is approximately where we have to search,” said Zachariah. “I have been informed that there is something there that threatens Rioridania, possibly the rest of the continent. The underwater boat is to be built so we can find it and kill it. Best case is that it is something small that will gradually grow into being a problem. Worst case is it will become another dark tower and spread after it destroys the island and the coast.”

He let them talk. He wanted them to know he meant business, and this was the time for anyone who couldn’t help them to leave.

They were talking about building something that no one had even thought about building before.

“The other project we’re going to be building is a flying battleship for Lobster Bay,” said Zachariah. “Gear Octo, and Doctor Benz? Could you stand up please?”

The two did so. Gear Octo wore the flying leathers of a professional pilot in Lobster Bay’s air force. Unit and rank patches were sewn on the sleeve his flight jacket. Doctor Benz wore a suit of dark gray with a tab from the Science Division on the collar of his jacket. He looked barely old enough to be sent out alone. Zachariah had pegged him as someone really good at things, someone junior enough to be assigned to the project with no hope of pull back at home, or someone unlikable that needed to be sent away or shot.

Zachariah hoped it wasn’t the last because he didn’t need the headache.

“Gear Octo is our flying consultant,” said Zachariah. “The designs we are working on are going to need practical experience from a pilot.”

And the pilot had been in the top ten in the air race, and Zachariah trusted him to do whatever he could to help out.

“Doctor Benz is our science consultant and auditor to make sure we’re doing a good job, and that his government can replicate what we build with ordinary hands,” said Zachariah. “Daemons make it easier for us to build things, but if we have to hand the crafting to others, they are going to have to use more mundane methods to duplicate what we do.”

The two men sat down.

“If you see any problem in the design work, talk to me or Carson One Thumb, and we’ll change it,” said Zachariah. “If you can’t find either of us, then Sola, or Bolan, are next in line. Then Doctor Benz. Anything having to do with the practical applications of flight will go to Octo. Are there any questions?”

“Do you have any designs for either of these things?,” asked one of the men.

“I have prints for the boat,” said Zachariah. “My hope is we can use this as a base for the battleship for Lobster Bay. If we can’t, I’ll have to come with a whole new set of prints for it before we can start building her.”

He looked down at the box at his feet. He pulled the model out of it as the blueprints appeared on the wall.

“This is a model I built before coming here and starting to set up,” said Zachariah. “I’m going to pass it around so you can look at it. Write down any suggestions so we can see if we can incorporate them into the design.”

He handed the model to the nearest man. He nodded as the machinist examined his idea. A group surrounded him, talking about what they wanted on the boat.

“Pass it around so others can look at it,” said Zachariah.

Gradually the boat made its way around the room. The machinists and their daemons talked over what would be the best way to build it with what they had.

“I want you to think about things, and write down everything you can think of to make building the design easier,” said Zachariah. “Do that after we take a look around the work area.”

He waited for the model to return to him. He put it back in its box before he walked toward the front door of the crew building. He led the way to another much bigger building where the construction would start.

They had installed a cradle and a runway so the boat could be run into the water when it was finally done. Supplies had been gathered and stockpiled by Festus’s staff. Some of it was going to be inferior, so they would have to test as they went. An area for the design work took up one corner in the back of the building.

“We have another building on the other side for testing as we go,” said Zachariah. “I have a lightning gun design but I don’t know how it will work in the water, so we’ll have to think about what kind of weapons we can build into her if that doesn’t work.”

“Has anyone here ever done something like this other than Master Eight Arms and his crew?,” asked Doctor Benz.

“Not exactly like this,” said one of the men. “It’s a crazy design, Zach. We might not be able to make it work. An airproof shell will be easy. Most of the inner wiring will be easy to hard based on where it has to be. The problem is making sure the crew don’t suffocate while they’re under and send the whole thing to the bottom of the harbor.”

“Carson has worked on air filters that he thinks will circulate the air and keep

everyone alive,” said Zachariah. “I have also placed a design for a breathing tube when we are near the surface. Once it is deployed, we can pipe air to the inside of the boat. The speed will be reduced so the snorkel won’t break off.”

“We’re going to have to check that,” said the machinist.

“We are going to have to check everything,” said Zachariah. “No one has ever done anything like this. If it works, we might be able to sail these boats anywhere without a problem.”

“No one will be able to see them?,” asked another machinist.

“I don’t know,” said Zachariah. “I’m sure they will be loud in the water, so the fish might be able to hear them. I don’t know how it will sound to people on the surface.”

“Did you really set the speed record in that contraption you put on the wall?,” asked another machinist.

“The Rocket is the best thing I have ever come up with, and it performed admirably during the race,” said Zachariah. “It did better than I ever dreamed it would.”

“My plane is down on the field,” said Gear Octo. “Carson repaired it after some heavy problems during the race. You can look at that to see what makes a flying machine fly.”

“Before you do that,” said Zachariah. “Has everybody who wants to be hired talked to Sola yet? Do that before you go out to look at Octo’s jet. Also we’re starting on First Day, and we’re not taking breaks until the thing is done. If something happens, and you need time off, talk to Sola about it.”

“Why the rush?,” asked one of the machinist.

“I’m on a deadline for the boat,” said Zachariah. “And I think we’re going to need a lot of work to get it ready to sail.”

“Don’t worry about the hull,” said the machinist. “My guys and I have put together a thousand hulls for every kind of boat you can name. This hull is a little strange, but we can do the job, and on time.”

“That’s exactly what I want to hear,” said Zachariah.

“Did you really fly that thing of yours in the air race?,” said a woman with a scarf and a hound.

“I did,” said Zachariah. “I hoped to use the design for the battleship I promised

Lobster Bay, but I don’t see how it could be made viable without a bigger engine than the one I put in the Rocket.”

“It would take some doing, but I don’t see why it couldn’t,” said the woman. “We might have to see what kind of armament they want on it if they want to take that thing into some kind of sky battle.”

“Check with Octo and Benz,” said Zachariah. “The two of them should know

everything about the air force up there. They’ll be able to tell you what kind of

weapons they might want to have installed if we can get the thing to fly.”

“All right,” said the woman. “Come on, Sofi. Let’s see what these foreigners know about anything.”

She walked off to join Benz and Octo and another machinist with a whiny voice and waving hands.

Zachariah thought the meeting had went well. He hoped that his design would stand the test of the intellects he had gathered. He wanted something simple and easy to build so they could be mass produced as fast as a machinist and daemon could put things together.

He knew that Gold Bug, his daemon, could build something with enough metal. The result would be fragile and not stand up to any problem they might

encounter. That was why they had rebuilt the Rocket based on the prototype the ant had put together.

And they were going to do the same for the vehicles he was putting together for Rioridania and Lobster Bay.

He thought he could use any plans for the air ship and boat and combine them into something that could take him to one of the moons. He would need an air supply and Carson’s air filters at the very least if the trip was more than a couple of days.

That would be something that no one else had ever been able to do. Even a green light had never been to a moon as far as anyone knew.

Of course, he doubted they would have told anybody if they had gone to a moon. Green lights tended to keep things to themselves. It would be nice to know what to expect.

He smiled. He had to get his sea boat finished before he could think about a space boat.