Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

boldly than I would have and sat
down cheerily on the very lip of the cliff, her legs dangling
over and her skirt elegantly spread on the heather to either side
of her. I sat beside her and tried not to look down at a drop to
the sea, direct and vertical except where it was interestingly
varied by jutting rocks. We had found ourselves a viewpoint
slightly in front of the platform, between its foremost extension
and the open gates of the dock.
    The shouting and cheering had stopped now, replaced by the
susurrus of conversation, the continuing surge of the rising sea
and the deep whine of the platform’s turbines as they
laboured to move the gigantic structure. Very slowly, the
mast-like rocking of the ship’s shaft was intersected by a
net forward motion. Slow though it was, this set up a noticeable
bow-wave at the front, clashing and splashing against the
incoming waves. Complex interference patterns formed as the waves
rebounded off the sides of the dock and the platform itself, and
the sun, already past the zenith and dipping towards the west,
made spectra in the spray.
    Even at five kilometres per hour, the platform didn’t
take long to pass us, to the sound of further cheering, and
waving to and from the operational crew down on the decks.
Another significant moment, duly registered by another round of
applause, came when the platform passed through the gates and
into the open sea – or at any rate Loch Kishorn.
    After this there was really nothing to see except the slow
departure of the rig, and people began to drift away. The
platform had a long voyage ahead of it, out of the loch and into
the Inner Sound, from whence it would pass the headlands of Rona
and Skye before heading out into the Atlantic. Barring any
serious mishap – and the weather forecasts were optimistic
– it would proceed for seven more days before it was far
enough out in the ocean to hold a position for the launch of the
ship itself. The onboard crew would transfer to an escort vessel
and stand off on the horizon, triggering the launch by radio
control when the scientists and engineers had determined that the
conditions were right. Given the robustness of the Sea
Eagle and the power of its drive, little short of a severe
storm could stand in its way. Only the platform was, in theory,
vulnerable to the wind and the waves – so the chanciest
part of the whole venture, the part which could literally sink
it, was the one that had just begun.
    Unless Menial’s fears about the orbital debris were
borne out. Nothing more had been heard about this from Fergal or
any other tinker, according to Druin, and he could be trusted on
such a matter, according to Menial. Although her own contract on
the project had come to an end, those of other tinkers working on
mission-critical systems (as the cant had it) had not; and she
was still well up on the latest tinker gossip – as,
increasingly, was I.
    In the weeks between our reconciliation and the floating of
the platform we had had an interesting time, in which our joy in
each other was countered -though not in any way diminished
– by the reactions of other people to it. At the yard, I
daily endured the merciless mockery which my mates seemed tothink
entirely compatible with continued friendly relations in other
respects. In the softer circumstances of my previous experience
– in childhood, schooling and University – some of
their insults and abuse would have occasioned life-long,
smouldering enmity, if not immediate physical violence. Here they
passed as light-hearted badinage, and it was their ignoring
rather than avenging that was taken as a token of manly
honour.
    The stand-offish attitudes of the tinkers at the camp were
harder to take, but Menial insistently reassured me that they
were a similar test, of the strength of my commitment to their
ways, and to her. As the days and weeks passed their reactions to
me had gradually warmed to the point of a frigid, prickly
politeness.
    Merrial and I were, by tinker custom, bundling – trying
out the experience of living together before making a public
commitment I was enjoying the experiment and I was as committed
as I could ever imagine being, and so was Merrial, but neither of
us was in any hurry to move our relationship on to a more formal
basis. A tinker marriage is a serious matter, involving among
other horrendous expenses – seamstresses, cooks, musicians
– that of