Chapter 21: Inside And Outside

After they had climbed up the ladder onto the wing, all the mechanics gathered around the first of the twelve engines.

Unlocking the hood, Geegaw mumbled, "Naturally aspirated. Please, be naturally aspirated. You're large enough."

He took off the hood and revealed a giant V12 mill, large enough for marine purposes, but heavily modified for the use as an aircraft engine. And it was not naturally aspirated.

Gadget remarked, "Looks like an engine can never be too big to have a supercharger."

"Oh great," Geegaw groaned, "another device that's caught its share of sand. I just love gettin' sand out of a blower." He unmounted the air filter box and handed it over to Wildcat.

Baloo added, "And remember that it was still running when the sand got in there. She ran into a sandstorm just like us. But she didn't have that much luck. So let's hope that ol' Howie was clever enough to store some spare parts in there."

He took off the upper half of the blower casing so that the mechanics could see what was inside. But the sand masses rendering the whole plant useless were missing. There was not the slightest bit of sand in there.

Geegaw wondered, "No sand? Not even scratches?"

"I've found it," Wildcat answered.

He had opened the air filter box, and he showed the other mechanics the air filter. It was entirely stuffed with sand.

Gadget took a closer look. "This air filter is fine enough to hold sand grains back. But when the sand got into the box, it had no way to get out again. So the box filled up with more and more sand until the air couldn't pass anymore and the engine choked."

More detailed memories of the Marabou legend came back to Baloo's mind. "Yes, I remember that the pilots have seen clouds coming out of the exhaust pipes before the engines stopped working. But that wasn't oil due to the sand scraping the cylinders. No, it was unburnt gasoline due to the lack of air."

"Which means that we'll just have to get the sand out of the air filters and give the engines an external check," Geegaw said, "especially as they've hardly ever run. This saves us lots of time. Baloo, you as an experienced aviator, don't you just love these situations of incredible luck?"

"From an ace pilot to an ace pilot—I sometimes rely on them!" Baloo laughed.

The examination team meanwhile found themselves on the lower cargo deck. It went from the nose to the stern and barely showed the treasure hunters the length of the aircraft. Width and height were not less impressive. Huge had been right, a Conwing L-16 would easily fit in there, though it would not be able to fly around like in the Iron Vulture. The sunlight shone in through portholes at both sides, and those which let no sunlight through were still buried under the sand. As the batteries were empty after all the years, no electric light was available, so that the aft part was barely visible. A large part of the stowage was filled with scaffolding parts, tools of every size up to disassembled cranes, wooden panels which seemed to be parts of barracks, and the like. All this used to be the Marabou construction site. Stairs led up to the upper cargo deck on both sides of the hull, right ahead of the two lateral doors.

Though they were visibly impressed by the Marabou's dimensions, the four were primarily interested in something else.

"So," Louie pointed it out, "where can Huge have hidden his money? Has anyone spotted a safe in here?"

"No," Chip answered, "but it's too dark in here to see enough. We should continue with a rough examination until we have electricity."

"And where shall we get that from?"

"Well, I suppose the mechanics may want to test-run the engines. And I bet there are generators connected to the engines. Let's go upstairs, we can't find anything more now down here."

The upper cargo deck's height was only limited by the shape of the fuselage, there was no additional ceiling above it, apart from the wing box and the bow area which lay under a third deck containing at least the cockpit and accessible via lateral stairs again. This space resembled a giant cathedral made of steel with its open structure. And as far as the sunlight was able to illuminate it, it was absolutely empty. Again, there was no trace of a safe.

So the four adventurers took the stairs up to the highest level. Most of it was a seated area. Seats in groups of two were arranged in ten rows on both sides of a wide middle aisle. As the Marabou was no passenger aircraft, these seats had been built in for crews accompanying the cargo. Each seat row had a window in the hull which was strongly inclined at that height. There were windows in the rear wall which showed the upper cargo deck, and in the front wall, there was the cockpit door which turned out to be unlocked.

The cockpit was as huge as it appeared from outside. It really was rather a command bridge than a cockpit, matching the size of the seaplane perfectly. Not only two, but up to four pilots could fly the Marabou at once from four swivel chairs. But as Monty found out, it could be piloted by a crew of one if necessary as the dozen thrust levers could be coupled.

"And even here's no money," Chip complained. "Any clue where it can be?"

The mechanics were more successful. After Zipper had approved the twelveth and last engine ready to run, its hood was shut.

"The engines are okay, what comes next?" Baloo asked.

"A test run, I would say," Geegaw answered, "and then the rudders."

"Most of which are still buried under the sand," Baloo added. "I'm not keen on shovelin' them out. Not in that desert heat. A pity that the sandstorm wasn't stronger."

"Sandstorm..." Gadget was coming up with an idea. "Yes... that should work."

Geegaw was curious about his daughter's possible plan and at the same time unaware of the particular meaning of the word "should". "What should work, Gadget?"

"We make our own sandstorm. We don't simply let the Marabou's engines run at idle, we let them run at full thrust, and they blow the sand away and pull the plane out of the dune."

"Yes, that should work."

"I don't think we can even start the engines," Wildcat interjected, "without any juice in the batteries."

"Wildcat is right," Baloo confirmed his friend's words. "This plane was stuck in a sand dune for years, and I'm sure that the batteries have lost their entire charge."

"No problem, Baloo," Geegaw said. "We'll start her with my batteries."

Baloo had to laugh about that. "Do you really think that the starter batteries of such a small aircraft have enough power for these giant mills?"

"Oh, they're not for starting my engines. They're feeding my engines."

"You mean..."

"Yes, the Screamin' Eagle is powered by two electric motors, so it needs powerful batteries. Besides, we need them for starting up one engine only which will then generate the energy for starting the next one, and so on."

"But it will still get tough, Daddy," Gadget remarked. "We'll need to get all the unburnt gas out of the cylinders before the engines run properly. Maybe this'll drain all power out of the batteries."

"That doesn't matter, little Gadget. I'll let the Screamin' Eagle ride back on the Marabou and recharge it during the flight. Now, what are we waiting for? There's a big bird to wake up! Baloo, Gadget, get your planes a bit away from here. Wildcat, try to find an external connector. Zipper, you can help me connect the Screamin' Eagle to the Marabou."

With this plan, the mechanics team left the wing. Baloo and Gadget started up the Sea Duck and the Rangergull respectively and moved them out of reach. Geegaw brought the Screamin' Eagle near the point under the wing where Wildcat had discovered the connector hatch, then he got an adapter cable out of the luggage compartment behind the canopy and connected the two aircraft with Zipper's help.

While Baloo went straight back to the Marabou and moved the ladder from the wing to the fuselage next to the door, Gadget headed for her two look-alikes. LaWahini was lying on her back in the desert sand unconsciously, and Dawn was kneeling next to her and throwing a shadow on her face. Gadget sat down on LaWahini's other side.

"Ah, Ms. Hackwrench. How's everything going?"

"Fine so far, Ms. van Zant. The engines are ready to run as far as we've seen."

Dawn looked down at LaWahini's face, then up at Gadget's face. She had started to cope with them looking like herself.

"How can a young mouse like her be so evil?"

"She can be even more evil, believe me. I've already met her once, that was some years ago. She was living on an island and trying to be crowned queen, and we were on the same island on our vacation. To cut a long story short, she had me do her dangerous tests which were necessary for the coronation, and she first tricked and then even tried to kill my friends. I don't know either what made her so evil. Maybe I'll find out one day."

Gadget stepped over to LaWahini's feet and grasped her heels. "We should get her into the Marabou now. We're going to do a test run at full throttle, and it'll be dangerous to stay out here."

Dawn put her bag on LaWahini's lap and picked her up by her shoulders, and the three blond mice hurried to the Marabou where Baloo helped get the Hawaiian mouse up through the door. Geegaw and Zipper stayed outside to disconnect and remove the Screamin' Eagle as soon as the first engine was running.

"Gadget," Geegaw asked his daughter who was climbing up the ladder, "will you make your father proud and start the first engine?"

"Surely, Daddy." She smiled and went upstairs.