The Price of Flight –
New Developments – the Air Race
V0.01, et c et c
Some explanation: there actually is a latest chapter of Strandpiel 2 in process. I haven't forgotten. But like most of the human race I'm watching the unfolding situation in the Ukraine with an appalled fascination and this has been kind of getting in the way of diversions like writing – in my case, how to write sympathetic and human "Russian" characters without it seeming forced or as a commentary on the ongoing events (something I really do not want to do and any reference in the following work will be marginal and tangential – it does seem reasonable that "Russian" witches might be getting bad dreams coming at them through the barriers between worlds, but that's as far as I want it to go).
I still want to write, to offer some sort of entertainment to readers in trying times, but the most I've been able to manage in recent weeks has been a short in the style of Douglas Adams, in the "Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" continuum.
I know that's not nearly enough, not by a long way. And so many side-stories and side-quests are emerging out of Strandpiel that if I put them all in there, the work would be as thick as a stacked pile of completed works by James Clavell. (And mention of Clavell brings to mind Akuma-san, the one Agatean pilot in the Air Watch, who did a Blackthorne in reverse and washed up in Ankh-Morpork, a "Japanese" witch with pilot abilities. She is a story for anther time…)
This particular side-quest belongs more in The Price of Flight, as part of the ongoing evolution of the Air Watch. It is set in around August of the eventful year that began in blizzard and storm, saw a major Code Twenty-Three event in the Turnwise, and then the Syrritan Emergency and almost-war with Klatch.
This tale will be placed in early August, as the Air Watch adapts to change and a new role, with greater prestige and prominence, an enhanced budget for R&D, and a influx of new recruits. While the next crisis is boiling up in Howondaland, captain Olga Romanoff is reflecting and taking stock of her changed role. She will also be moving out of the apartment and into a new house, jointly paid for by her father and by Lord Vetinari, with consequent Obligations to both.
Captain Olga Romanoff sat behind her desk at the Air Station and contemplated the necessary administration with disfavour. Paperwork had a magnetism and a gravity of its own and inevitably settled on the Commanding Officer's desk. This was something Sam Vimes had warned her about when she ascended to a command rank. The bloody stuff never stopped and got in the way of actual productive work.
Olga suspected a lot of it had cascaded down from Mr Vimes' desk. Captain Angua von Überwald got it too, as did Superintendent Loudweather of the Cable Street Particulars and Lieutenant Pullover of the Mounted Police. You got a command position in a Division and you got Paperwork. The two went together. The Executive Officer and Adjutant of the City Watch, Inspector Pessimal, could be relied upon to keep the flow coming.
She remembered her recent experience as Acting City Watch Commander, covering the seat for Vimes himself whilst he took compulsory leave, and sighed deeply.
"Nichevo." she said to herself.
A lot of it was down to the Air Watch expansion that was going on. The annual Witch Trials had just happened. There had been the Fly-Past and the Annual Review of the Pegasus Service, for instance. Seventeen full pilots, two Cadets, and two more recent foals coming up. After the success of the Demonstration the previous summer, Olga had led an expanded team of fifteen dancers who had shown their skills in uniquely Rodinian forms of folk-dance, including a lot of flankirovna, the sort that involved flamboyant use of swords. Flankirovna is always visually spectacular; danced mainly by Witches, it had become even more so.(2)
And of course, after the prestige conferred by victory over the Klatchians, there had been lots of potential recruits. Witches coming up through training who were drawn to the perceived glamour of the skies. If the two young girls adopted by the latest Pegasus foals were included, the Air Watch now had thirteen new people to train in. and that was on top of the Air Watch Auxiliary.
Olga frowned. The University had just graduated a new year of Wizards, former students now out of academia and out in the cold, tasked with earning a living and supporting themselves. Quite a few were asking about the Air Watch. And having reluctantly conceded the principle that male magic users were entitled at least to a try-out, there'd have to be selection tests for a new draft of… well, if you consider drop-out rates, let's start with twenty-five, maybe thirty. More work. But the ones who stayed the full course are doing well. And on top of that, an expanding Air Watch needed more Teks and ground-crews. The word was out among Dwarfs, Goblins and gnomes.
Olga sighed again. Four Air Stations. An expanding Air Watch. At this rate there were going to be getting on for three hundred people in her command.
She considered the Air Watch Auxiliary, the men in the Service. Many had gone to the Heavy Squadron, as aircrew on the Flying Fortresses. They'd performed well on active service over Syrrit and had found their role in the Air Watch. Lieutenant Nadezhda Popova had integrated them into the Service and she commanded her squadron with firm and kindly competence. Most of the others had been deployed to meet the problem of naval aviation. The Fleet Air Arm being composed of men had resolved that little issue, of the Navy being reluctant to accept fliers because they were superstitious about women at sea as part of a ship's crew. The sailors had also used the old chestnut about "well, you know, the plumbing…" to resist the idea of female pilots going aboard for long voyages, even though the Air Watch had recently demonstrated this to be complete govno. As a result, the Klatchians had retained the advantage in aviation at sea for an un-necessarily long time.
Now the goal was for the Royal Ankh-Morporkian Navy to have an air presence if not on every ship, but with each flotilla, ideally based on a suitably adapted vessel, to provide air cover and long-range spotters. The Navy was also enthusiastic to have Omnicon technomancy, so ships could talk not only to a pilot in the air but to each other, and to the Admiralty in Ankh-Morpork. The massive advance made by Gertrude Schilling and Ponder Stibbons, who had devised a means of making whole new Omniscopes, was key here.
And as a bonus, every vessel gets a Ship's Wizard, Olga reflected. She wondered if this was wholly beneficial.
There was the Pegasus Service, those fliers who were used by Vetinari as messengers around the world to deliver and collect despatches, and for diplomatic communications at various levels. More and more of the command and deployment was now being delegated to Senior Lieutenant Irena Politek, while Olga retained its overall command and dirtection. This also meant the Corps of Navigators, Feegle who were sworn to deliver and guard their pilots. Senior Navigating Sergeant Wee Mad Arthur ruled here. Olga was glad of him. Although in the final analysis, those Feegle worked not so much for the City Watch as for Witches, and they knew it. Serious incidents involving Feegle were now few and could be dealt with in the usual informal way, Witch to Feegle. They knew this too.
And above all, the central reason for being here and under the overall command of Sam Vimes, everybody was City Watch. Olga directed routine Watch deployment in the air.
It was a busy life with lots of pieces on the chessboard.
Olga focused. She took a deep breath and reminded herself whatever the bad dreams meant, that was Elsewhere. Here, it was work.
A lot of the girls are talking among themselves about bad dreams. she thought. Maybe Eddie was right. When he pointed out this morning that I've flown in one war and one air battle. Wounded once, shot down once, and survived a mid-air crash. Is it surprising that it could be catching up with me? Sometimes a dream is just a dream, even for a magic-user. We just get more vivid and disturbing ones. All the stuff jumbles up, rearranges itself in our heads, and bad memories surface. My nearly getting killed twice.
Unconsciously, her fingers traced the lines of a scar on her left breast and upper chest. It had faded now and was barely visible. But still a memory, of being shot at point-blank range.
Well. Three times. I have this to remember Prince Cadram by.
The dream surfaced. Of being up in the sky in a bizarrely configured and unimaginable aircraft. Moving so fast she didn't know she was moving, at one point enjoying the exultation of being higher than she'd ever flown before, feeling privileged to be in what she knew, and had been taught, was the very best aircraft the world had to offer. And it was Rus… Russian?
Not Rodinian?
She felt the bafflement, swift and cut off, of a different mind sharing the same space. A thought that was not hers.
Rodinian? Of the Motherland, rodina'mat?
Then more discordant elements crept in. Olga wasn't sure if she was female or not. It felt like the most fundamental doubt of all. Am I Olga or Oleg?
Nichevo. Focus on flying…
The bewildering array of dials and instruments in front of her suddenly went crazy with lights and alarms and noise. Olga felt an unaccustomed sense of panic. Something was wrong. What were all these flashing lights and signals and alarm sirens for? She had no idea of their significance and less about how to read them. This worried her. She also felt trapped and correspondingly panicky in a completely enclosed cabin, with no obvious door and what felt like a shaped glass bowl above her head. This concept was utterly alien to her; Olga preferred doing her flying out in the open.
Flight stopped being easy and effortless. She felt the plane lurch and roll and change direction as if seeking to evade something. She felt shaken about, like a puppet on elastic strings. Her sense of fear and unease grew. How do I get out? I can't get out…
And then, briefly and horribly, she knew what it was like, without any sort of doubt at all, to be in the dead centre of a very hot fireball…
Olga had woken up in a sweating heart-pumping instant of night panic, in her own bed in the apartment at Runecaster Way, the home she would soon be leaving…
I'm also moving house, she reminded herself. With a husband and two children. They say that's one of the most stressful things in anyone's life. Is it any wonder I'm getting vivid bad dreams? A big air vehicle that's too much for me to handle, so it crashes or explodes or something. And I'm trapped inside. It's got to be a metaphor. Inside, I'm scared I've taken on too much all at once.
She frowned, recalling that she'd overheard Serafima Dospanova and Yulia Vizhinsky in the crew-room, discussing the fact they too had experienced bad dreams. Olga wondered if she ought to ask.
Then she got on with the day's work, the commanding Captain again, and reflected that the sooner the admin was done, the sooner she could get up in the air herself. Having made this bargain, she glared at the paperwork and set to.
A knock on the door heralded another responsibility for the commanding Captain. Olga sighed and put down an Equipment Procurement Form, returned to her by Inspector Pessimal with the inevitability query slip as to cost and need.
"Enter."
Her first visitor turned out to be Technical Sergeant Gertrude Schilling, her Engineering Officer, nominally in charge of the Tek Division. (3) She was carrying a plain brown document folder under one arm. Olga sensed "unexploded device" and prepared herself for a session of bomb disposal.
Gertrude came to an approximate attention and saluted.
"Err. Morning, ma'am." she said.
Olga smiled and returned the salute.
"Stand easy, Technical Sergeant."
It was the inevitable nod to rank and structure. Olga didn't insist on this, but it was the accepted courtesy. You saluted the Commanding Officer on first greeting her in the morning and called her "ma'am", then once it was out of the way, you could move to informality. Olga accepted this. It reminded them she was the Commanding Officer, for one thing, and set expectations. Necessary, in a community of uniformed Witches.
"What have you got for me, Gertrude?"
"Intelligence briefings from the Palace, ma… Olga." Gertrude replied. "Delivered by Dark Clerk. Lord Vetinari wants your opinion. He also said that as this concerns Tek issues, I should read them first so as to brief you. Err."
"Okay. Grab a seat, Penguin."
The slim manila file Gertrude passed over was labelled INTELLIGENCE FILE: FOREIGN AVIATION (Circulation: Restricted). Olga's interest was stirred. Important paperwork. There was usually some. And keeping a monitoring eye on foreign countries who were experimenting with, or developing, air vehicles for potentially military use was one of the responsibilities of the Air Watch. You didn't want any capable or even credible opposition in the air that you didn't know about and couldn't evaluate. Also, Olga didn't want any of the sort of surprises that Vetinari might ambush you with just as a meeting was about to end. Lord Vetinari tended to use Any Other Business as a strategic weapon.
"Quirm." Olga said, condensing a lot of watching and observing of a Place of Interest down into one word. "These Bongolfier Devices."
Gertrude shrugged.
"What do you need to know about them?"
"Start with everything."
They discussed Quirm and its tentative steps into manned flight for a while.
Another troubling thought struck Olga. Although it wasn't related at all to Quirmian pioneering aviation, except tangentially, she decided to go for broke and broach it anyway.
"Gertrude." Olga said, trying to herd her thoughts through the paddock gate of speech. "I can't help noticing you're getting close to Hanna von Strafenberg. Not many people manage that. I could almost mistake you for friends, in fact. I've also noticed she calls you Traudl. Not Gertrude, not Penguin. Not even Trudi. Traudl. I do speak some Überwaldean, and I know that's close. Like people calling me Olgusya. Not even Irena gets that."
Gertrude looked tense and worried for an instant.
"Errr.." she said, uncertainly.
"What's with Hanna?" Olga asked, kindly. "I've noticed she's not been herself lately."
"Err." Gertrude said.
Olga smiled, kindly.
"It's that… well, Hanna might confide in you. If you got to be her Traudl, she might have opened up on what's worrying her. Because something is."
"Err… sorry, Olga..."
Olga understood. She was almost getting spill words. It bothered her that she couldn't quite see their shape. That was the thing with other Witches. They guarded against spill. Even if they didn't realise it.
"I get it. Whatever she might have told you is in absolute confidence, as between friends. I understand. I'll try to make time to talk to her myself."
"I did say she might want to talk it over with Mother Hen." Gertrude said. "That is, Lieutenant Popova. Err. Because Mother Hen - and you – fought alongside her in Lancre and the Chalk. Because you're old friends. She can trust you. And because Mother Hen – and you, I suppose – have got a lot of experience I don't have. About stuff. And is that all, ma'am? Got a dud airframe to service."
Olga understood.
"Thanks, Gertrude. Can you put the word out for a command conference here, at ten? I want you here so we can discuss this. As many of the others as you can get, preferably everyone. It wouldn't hurt if Yelena sits in, I know she's in later."
Olga slapped the Intelligence File (Restricted).
"I need ideas and opinions. About this stuff. I don't think it's anything we need to lose sleep over, not just yet, but I know Vetinari's expecting an opinion from me. We can decide our response."
"I'll get the word out, ma'am. Irena, Mother Hen, Sergeant Garianova, Hannes… err, Hanna – and I know Sergeant Matlock's coming in from Lancre later on. She might not be here before ten-thirty, though.."
"Clacks Lancre. Ask if Stacey can make it in earlier."
"Yes, ma'am. And at least one senior Tek, like Mr van Fokker or Mr Oyeff?"
"Good idea. And as a courtesy, ask if Mr Vimes or Captain Carrot want to sit in. I know Mr Vimes likes to know in good time if Vetinari's likely to start lobbing lemons at us. He doesn't like surprises." (4)
"On it, ma'am." Gertrude said, and dismissed herself.
Olga reflected that in recruiting Gertrude as her Engineering Officer, she had also, pretty much by accident, recruited somebody who went halfway to filling the role of Adjutant, the vital executive officer necessary in a mildly military organisation which was now beginning to get too big and too widely spread for one woman to handle. Olga contemplated the paperwork and sighed a resigned sigh. Her Engineering Officer couldn't be expected to pick up on all this govno in addition to her main responsibility. Still, nichevo, Yelena was in later for one of her working days as Education Officer. She had been a discovery too. And she had picked up the job description and the ethos of the place very smartly indeed. A professional teacher could power through paperwork, effortlessly. She often did, if she had a spare half-hour. She also works part-time for the Assassins, Olga reminded herself. That made Mr Vimes wince. But she won him over. It also made Lord Downey wince, when he learnt her other part-time job is for the City Watch. I suspect that's what won Mr Vimes. (5)
She looked up at the clock. It wasn't even nine yet. In fact, closer to eight than to nine. She sighed and promised herself that if she could just finish another five pieces of paperwork – well, make that three – then she'd tour the Air Station. As a reward. Just so everyone, pilots, Teks, Feegle, Air Auxiliaries, knew the Commanding Officer was in the house. And then, maybe, get her personal broom and do a comms flight across town to the Zoo Station. And check in with Nadezhda, look over the Heavies, and fly back here with her, for the command conference on all this nonsense going on elsewhere in the world.
Olga didn't think an air war was going to happen with the Duchy of Quirm any time soon. But you had to assess their air capability, just in case. It rather appeared they were getting one.
After a while she pushed her chair back, stood up, and reached for her everyday pilotka cap.(6) Commanding Officer present, she is wearing her cap, on first meeting her in the working day, you salute smartly and call her ma'am.
After that, informality, Olga thought, noting her Sergeants all enforced this with varying degrees of sergeant-ness. Her thoughts returned to Hanna von Strafenburg again, and she frowned, then went to tour her command.
It's natural the two Überwaldean-speakers should be drawn together, she thought. Makes sense. You get to speak your first language and there are some common social and ethnic things.
She exchanged greetings and a salute with Pilot Officer Yulia Viszhinsky.
Just as we Rodinians do. Then again, I'm from the Zlobenian borders. Yulia is from Nobinovgorod. Where people are strange and tinged with eccentricity. More precisely, the Pskov Oblast. Where eccentricity is normal. Gertrude is from Borogravia and Hanna is Prussican…(7)
Olga asked how a recent combat flying course had gone. Yulia looked back at her with earnest open-ness and replied
"Cold. Uncomfortable."
"You expect that." Olga replied. "But feel thankful there is permanent accommodation at Chirm now. You are no longer required to sleep in tents."
Yulia considered this.
"Still not five-star, though. Although you wouldn't expect that."
Olga grinned.
"Don't expect room service. Other than a wake-up call at five-thirty in the morning."
Yulia grinned back.
"Da, a gentle kindly whisper in the ear from Sergeant von Strafenburg, inviting us to wake up, take our time getting washed and dressed, and to attend for morning parade at our own leisure."
Olga considered this.
"On active service, a wake-up call involved a Feegle kicking me gently on the ear, to ensure I had his full attention. He apologised afterwards, as they do, and the stinging subsided after an hour or so."
Olga and Yulia regarded each other. It wasn't just Commanding Officer to pilot; it was also Senior Witch to her selected pupil. The two relationships overlapped here.
Yulia yawned and looked tired.
"Bad sleep last night?" Olga asked, kindly.
Her pupil frowned.
"Bad dreams, too." she said, seriously.
Olga patted her shoulder, now a mentor. She switched to Rodinian, signalling this wasn't Air Watch stuff, just two people talking as almost-equals in their first language.
"We're Witches. They're never just bad dreams." she said.
Yulia looked back at her.
"You too?" she asked.
Olga took a leap of intuition.
"In the air. Unfamiliar air vehicle. It gets out of control and something goes wrong. Then, boom. Flamer."
Yulia's eyes widened for a second. Then she nodded with familiarity.
"Me, too." she said. She looked around her to check if anyone was listening. Then she said, in a lower voice:
"Also, Vorona. And from the look on her face, I would also guess Red Star."
Olga digested this.
"Something's going on. We should talk. Ask if Vorona wants to talk about it and we'll make time."
"Da. Olga Anastacia, if this is just among us, and four of us are having bad sleep and bad dreams with a common motif, maybe we should ask other Rodinians too? Mother Hen, perhaps. Fat Duck and Snow Maiden. And there is also Dipstick, who is youngest."
Olga caught the spill-words of least experienced and therefore more vulnerable to whatever this is.
"I will inquire. At least, with Mother Hen and Red Star. Marina and Vasilisa are not on duty until later in the week. I can find a moment to ask them. If you see her first, tactfully ask Dip… Alexandra? Spassibo."
Olga considered the issue. Then she returned to the other thing that was bothering her and wondered how to ask a junior pilot if she'd noticed anything strange about Hanna von Strafenburg, her senior Sergeant. She sighed. It was the sort of thing a Captain should not ask a junior rank, at least not outright, But something was up with Hanna. It bothered Olga that she didn't know.
She compromised and asked a few seemingly inconsequential questions about the training sessions at the Chirm Air Station, hoping to get a few clues from inferences and spill-words. Hanna taught advanced air skills and combat proficiencies.
"The usual." Yulia replied, brightly. "Long sessions in the air with classroom sessions on the ground. We were glad of a mail-call when a Pegasus arrived from Ankh-Morpork with communications and forwards letters."
Yulia frowned.
"There was mail for Sergeant von Strafenburg, as I recall. Normally she would just put it in her pocket, get on with training and read it when off-duty, as we all do. Instead she sort of looked at the envelope and excused herself, as if the details on the outside were significant. She handed over the class to Sergeant Garianova and went to her quarters to read it…"
Olga suddenly paid more attention. That in itself was not Hanna.
"… Sergeant Garianova explained she is not a witch or a pilot, but she could still teach us how to use a compass, how to read it, and how to relate what we saw around us to what is on the map…"
News from her Home? Bad news from her Heimat, the Prussican Rodina? Or just news? So important she had to break off from a training class to read it?
"… and Sergeant Garianova then suggested she went up with each of us on a two-seater, as time allows, so we could learn to apply navigational skills using a map and compass while in the air…"
I must speak to Hanna and tactfully ask…
"… Sergeant Garianova may not be a pilot, but everyone knows by now she is aircrew-trained. And better her in the back seat, instructing, than the Gol… that is, Sergeant von Strafenburg….."
Olga looked up sharply as she heard the irreverent nickname.
"As was pointed out, Feegle are not always available to do the Navigation and in any case we should learn these skills thoroughly, so as to be self-sufficent in the air."
A Golem would never break off from work to do other things, like read a letter from Home…
"… it is possible Sergeant von Strafenburg may have been distracted by her news, and no, Olga Anastacia, we have no specific idea what that was…"
They looked over. Lance-Corporal Serafima "Vorona" Dospanova was waiting on the flight-deck, with two brooms, signalling to her wing-mate that their takeoff was imminent.
Yulia looked at Olga with an expression of absolute innocence that was spilling just a hint of amusement. Commanding officers and flight commanders dealing with Skripka had learnt to distrust that expression. Yulia had a reputation for being a good-natured practical joker and, as her one Howondalandian pilot put it in her own language, for being baie snaark.(8)
"May I be excused, ma'am?"
"Yes, of course. Thank you, Pilot-Officer, you should get airborne."
They exchanged salutes and Yulia went to her broom, straightening her flying helmet. Olga watched them. She noted Yulia humming a snatch of music, a classical theme Olga had heard before but couldn't quite place, noting Yulia appeared to be making a point of humming it un-necessarily loudly.
She knows, or suspects, more than she is letting on, Olga thought, as she watched Skripka and Vorona, The Fiddler and the Stormcrow, taking to the air on their patrol.
And so far, at least two people other than myself have noticed Hanna is behaving in ways which are out of character for her. Olga felt concern for somebody who was, in her way, a friend and an old comrade and a veteran of two air wars. She also wanted to get properly on top of this before operational efficiency was degraded. Hanna von Strafenburg was the military glue that held together an organisation that could, at best, only be described as mildly military, and which was composed mainly of Witches, people not temperamentally disposed to be part of a hierarchy, wear uniform, or follow rules without arguing.
Hanna regulated, ordered, oversaw and commanded, reminding people that when it was needed, this was military aviation, and even City Watch aviation needed firm command and direction. If she was being distracted, this was bad news.
Olga shook her head and returned to the office. She couldn't reasonably fly to the Zoo Station just yet. Nadezhda Popova, Mother Hen, needed clear space to establish her own squadron command, and couldn't reasonably be expected to do so if Captain Romanoff was there all the time. Visits should be minimal and have clear reason.
Mother Hen might know more. She has a knack for this. I'll ask.
She met her deputy commanding officer, Senior Lieutenant Irena Politek. They'd been friends for a long time and had gone through a lot of adventures together, coming to rest in Ankh-Morpork as City Watch members and the very first two Witch Police Constables, bringing their own broomsticks to form the Air Watch. Everything that had happened since had coalesced around them, the nucleus of a growing Air Watch.
Olga took in the tired and not-quite-enough-sleep look. Irena regarded Olga gravely.
"You too?" they said, practically together.
They caught up.
"Something's happening." Irena said.
Irena's dreaming subconsciousness had coalesced on a broad bleak empty field. She knew she'd gone to bed as usual in her apartment on Euphrasy Street. She was now standing in a field, at dusk, in the middle of a wide flat empty steppe that instantly said "Rodinia" to her. Even the wisps of the coarse slightly nauseating tobacco being smoked by the ground-crews was a smell of home. Men in Krapovits village smoked the same foul stuff. Therefore, this was a dream prompted perhaps by vivid memories.
Yes, but Home for me is in forested country, not steppe. And in how many dreams do you smell things, like that foul tobacco, all those machine-oil reeks, and what smells also like a hint of an insufficiently washed human body in clothes needing the attention of a laundry? Maybe more than dream?
Day was failing, and she looked with satisfaction on the aircraft being fuelled and bombed up.
Aircraft? the Irena-voice inside this head said, puzzled. These were no air vehicles she had seen before. They were outlandish things. Short stubby bodies like slightly flattened and tapering cylinders, with visible long ribs under some sort of tensioned fabric.
They carried what looked like fixed wings, two sets, the lower set fixed to the tapering flattered cylinder, the upper set proud of the fuselage, connected by an arrangement of struts and tightly fixed wires. The rear on the fuselage had a single separate set of stubby wings, and a large flattened rounded plate rose above them, like an absurdly constructed tail… tail plane. She watched one of the ground-crew lean his weight on the rear of the tail, and how it swung to left and right along a vertical axis. The ground-crewman raised a thumb to her. Without her conscious volition, her body raised a hand and thumbs-upped back.
Irena realised this rudder steered the contraption in the air. She looked at the flimsy set of wheels holding it up and asked about what made it fly. She frowned. The front of the cylinder…fuselage… tapered slightly. Right at the front there was an absurd-looking device, looking like one of the new-fangled propellors on a steam-ship, but with its screws built longer and thinner and angled at intervals around a conical retainer.
She sensed the body she was occupying was very satisfied with this and was extremely proud of her machine. She paused and put out some very intimate explorations.
Definitely her. So here I'm female and a pilot. But this is not Irena Politek's body. It is different.
Irena felt pleased about this. She was even more pleased, taking in more details, to see the side of the fuselage carried a very big and very prominent red star. She also knew, without looking, the red star would also be painted on the opposite side of the fuselage and on the upper side of both wings. This detail pleased her.
Her body again moved of its own volition and greeted another aviator. She was also dressed in loose comfortable overalls in a sort of olive-khaki colour, knee-length flying boots, and an almost familiar sort of flying helmet, but with heavier rounded padding over the ears and a trailing wire. The only vivid flash of colour was a blood-red scarf. Komsomolets…
"Vera Lukianovna." Irena's voice said.
"Irena Andreyevna." Vera replied.
They ritually hugged.
"Ready to kill a few kolbasniks?"
So here I'm still Irena. But different mother. Therefore, this person is not me…
Irena's dreaming mind, swimming through the intellectual fog of the dream, had a sudden sense of horror. It occurred to her that she was doing one of the very few things which were taboo to Witches. She was Borrowing a human mind. Witches tended to be disapproving of this.
Irena reminded herself this was a dream. It had to be. A different unfamiliar body. A location she could not possibly physically be in. Besides – she made the attempt, conscientiously, hating the need for it – I cannot leave this and make myself wake up in my bed at Euphrasy Street. There. I have tried. I am now tied into wherever this dream goes. Khorosho.
The pilots going on the Mission were brought together. The flight briefing, which Irena was intrigued to see was delivered by a woman called Marina Raskova, lasted three minutes. The political oration, from the weaselly looking man in a smart uniform with a red band on a blue cap, took perhaps twenty-five. Irena noted the woman called Marina Raskova, but who looked only a little like the Marina Raskova who flew with the Air Watch, had what might have been a "put up with this govno" expression on her face. It was hard to tell. It was always hard to tell what her people really thought about anything.
Her initial excitement and satisfaction that in this time and place there really was a Union of Soviets, and that they were fighting for the very life of their people and for the preservation of the Revolution against the fascist and Nazi threat, soon gave way to boredom and impatience at the drone. This man was not a good public speaker. And he is not going to be putting his life at risk against the Germans any time soon, the thought in her head said. He exhorts us to go out and fight while he stays well behind the lines.
Also, a lot of stuff about a Great Leader and Father Of His People called Joseph Stalin, who led the Revolution and the Great Patriotic War from faraway Moscow, tirelessly working for the fall of Hitler and the advancement of Communism.
Irena's host joined in with the ritual chant of "Za Stalino!"
Irena gathered that anybody who did not worship this Stalin would end up in trouble. Inwardly she frowned. This is Revolution and Communism and we proceed to create and enthrone a new Tsar? What is it with my people?
She also realised it would be suicide to say things like this in public. The weasel in the blue cap banded in red would see to this.
Finally, they were allowed to climb into their machines. Irena realised another important thing: she didn't want to leave this dream even if it meant she was breaking taboo and riding in the mind of an actual living, breathing, human person. She really, really, wanted to fly in this aircraft as a passenger, to see how it worked and what made it go.
She also realised if this was a real person somewhere else, her hostess was also a pilot. Flying called for single-minded focus and concentration. She could not, must not, intrude on her hostess's mind, not even once. Distracting her attention could be fatal. Irena resolved to be as passive as she could be while remaining attentive to everything. Metaphorically, she sat back to enjoy the ride. But so many questions. Who was this monster called Stalin? The other truly loathed monster called Hitler, the one they were allowed and encouraged to hate? And why Soviet Union and not Union of Soviets?
And then as the engine coughed and roared into life, she saw what the airscrew in front was actually for. And realised. Not magic or technomancy here. Engineering. Machinery. They'd somehow made an engine so relatively small and powerful it could take a whole aircraft, and two women, into the sky. And anyone could do it with training, not just Witches. I must, must, remember all this.
Time passed. The flight of three of the Poliakarpov machines flew on into gathering dark, so dark the other planes could only be detected by the glowing red of the exhaust pipes of their engines. She heard Vera, in the aircrew cabin behind, test-firing her machine-gonne. Periodically, Irena the pilot checked her instrumentation and the map in its case and made a slight course correction. Irena the passenger tried to remember all this for when she awoke.
And then the plane went into a swooping circle.
"Attention!" Irena said. Vera acknowledged. There was a sudden greater sense of purpose. And then she switched off the engine. Irena the passenger watched. Wondered why the pilot had switched off everything, noting the airscrew come to a faltering and then a very definite stop. She felt the aircraft gliding, and descending. Shapes were becoming visible on the ground, five or six hundred feet below. Not in detail, but clearly man-made. Artificially squared off. Nothing much in nature had regular corners.
The aircraft lurched, suddenly lighter. Pilot-Irena, who had been counting down, and Vera, whooped in satisfaction as red and yellow light blossomed underneath. The aircraft shook as a blast-wave rolled up. Passenger-Irena heard the machine-gonne again and reasoned Vera was firing downwards at something; she glimpsed human figures, backlit by fire and presenting themselves as targets.
"Got their fuel dump, by the look of it!" Pilot-Irena said, her voice sounding clearly.
"Da." Vera agreed. "Even if we didn't get any Panzers, they're nothing without fuel. Just static range targets for the T-34's."
"Let's get home." Pilot-Irena said, and switched the engines on again. The aircraft coughed and then roared into new life.
Passenger-Irena sensed satisfaction in a job well done, and a sense of vindication and revenge for a ravaged country, as the aircraft gained a little height and flew away. She now made a little more sense of the malevolent and absurd little man's speech: the Front was moving Turnwise… no, Westwards? – and the biggest battle of all time was on, the Red Army of Workers and Peasants driving triumphantly West, to annihilate the Nazis and drive their broken remains completely out of the Motherland, out of holy and sacred Mother Russia, and on this section of the Front, to reclaim the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic for the Union. And then on into Poland and to get to Berlin before the people we currently call Allies, from the capitalist West, can get out of France where they are floundering and stuck on the beach, as if they are on holiday in Odessa… they are a sideshow, we are the real War.(9)
Irena caught a flash of unconcealed anger from her pilot, and got that this other Irena was a Ukrainian and brooding on a resentment. A sense of a people who hated and loathed these Germans for what they had done, but who also resented that the price for getting the Germans out was to be re-occupied by Russians, not liberated by them… a word came to her, an unsafe word to even think in your own mind, Holodomor. (10)
She had no time to explore this properly. The little biplane aircraft appeared to have been separated from its wing-mates and was flying alone. She realised that Pilot-Irena was now scanning the skies around her, as a good pilot should in a war-zone, in fact, everywhere.
The aircraft that took them almost by surprise was larger, longer, sleeker, faster, and only had one set of wings. It looked about three times larger than the Poliakarpov biplane. Passenger-Irena noted it had two engines, one on each wing, not on the nose.
Pilot-Irena took evasive action as the intruder's armament opened up. Passenger-Irena frowned. It looked like two weapons, concealed inside the sleek body of the aircraft, spitting red fire. And why did it have what looked like two scaled-up dinner forks sticking out, one each side of the nose?
She heard her hostess's mind resignedly say "Ray. Da." And felt a sense of gloom; she got the impression that switching off and going silent would not help against the ray, da. This could see in the dark.
Vera in the rear cabin managed to fire off a few shots. Passenger-Irena sensed a few had struck home on the German, but stray hits; only just enough to chip the paintwork.
The next few minutes were a nightmare of evasion and attempts to shake off the attacker and escape. Passenger-Irena felt a real sense of fear. She also felt desperately sad for her hosts, knowing their chances of escape were minimal. Not against a far superior and better-armed aircraft.
She heard Vera, in the rear, say "Das'vidanya" as she raised the machine-gonne to her shoulder again…
… and then Irena Politek, very briefly, experienced the inside of a fireball.(11)
"I woke up in bed. In the dark. Why do you always wake up from a dream like that in the middle of the night and never in daylight?"
"Me also. Nichevo." Olga said. She thought for an instant. "So these were true aircraft, powered by machine and not by magic. Could you write down what you can remember, Irena? Try to sketch what you saw? After all, people who think about these things reckon it's theoretically possible. We just don't have a steam-engine that's small and light enough."
"Something's going on in a different world, Olga. Somehow we're being attracted to it. And this Roundworld place exists. With humans, but no magic. People have been there."
They decided to approach Ponder Stibbons and ask his advice. Usually a Witch would grit her teeth and put up with the problem before asking a Wizard for his help, but Ponder Stibbons was different. Both liked him and Irena was Godsmother to his oldest daughter. It was a friendship that went right back to Howondaland and the Tobacco Farm business.(12) They trusted Ponder.
Irena excused herself to go up and check on patrols around the City, expressing a hope that cold clear air would clear her head. Olga accepted this and went back to the damn paperwork.
Before long there was another knock at the door. Olga briefly wondered how you could tell a lot about the person knocking from the quality of the knock; this one said the person doing the knocking was confident, had every right to be there and knew it, and expected to be admitted but was doing Olga the courtesy of time enough to make a hypothetical refusal.
"Come in." Olga said, glad of the break from paperwork.
"Good morning, ma'am." said Education Sergeant Yelena Garianova. Olga accepted the salute and indicated the guest chair.
"What have you got for me, Yelena Lidianovna? Here, cast your eye over this, will you? Just so you're briefed?"
Olga studied her Education Officer. Yelena was tall, slim, athletic and elegant, her hair impeccably bunned and tied back. She had been given the choice of wearing her own clothes or being issued a uniform: after a while, and some informal training in being aircrew on a two-seater, the courtesy rank of Sergeant had been awarded and she had requested a uniform issue. Sam Vimes, aware that he'd acquired another born Sergeant by happy accident, had approved this and had happy to sign off the promotion recommendation.
Olga bit back a sour realisation that Yelena appeared to have a good night's sleep, if nobody else had.
"How was Chirm?" she asked, recollecting Yelena had been there for two days with a training course.
"Comfortable."
Her Education Officer was studying the intelligence dossier delivered from the Palace. Olga had wondered for a few seconds if Yelena Garianova counted as somebody with security clearance, and had then dismissed the doubt, impatiently.
She's my Education Officer. She's got a sharp mind and an intellectual disposition. She's also picked a lot up in five months, Very very quickly. And if I can't decide who's got clearance or not, I should not be Commanding Captain.
"I have to say Technical Sergeant Schilling planned well, builds well and knew exactly what was needed." Yelena remarked. "She took a valley between two hillsides where there was nothing apart from tents and built a base in four months. With actual indoor rooms to sleep in, and not Army tents. Remarkable."
"I only employ the best in their trades." Olga said, feeling a little smug. "Like you, for instance."
Yelena smiled slightly. She finished reading the briefing sheets, returned them to the file, and handed it back.
"If you wish my opinion, none of these places are going to be picking a fight with you in the foreseeable future." she said. "After Syrrit, and the defeat of Klatch, everybody knows you are the best Air Force in the world. Of course others want to match you. How long will that take? Months? Years? Decades?"
Olga found herself wishing she had Yelena's poise and self-assurance. She shook her head slightly.
"I agree. But we should not become complacent. Later this morning I wish to discuss this with all officers of command rank."
Olga paused for an instant.
"Including you. I know those three stripes were intended as a courtesy to your professional expertise, as custom dictates, but I find it pleasing how you've grown into the role."
Yelena smiled slightly.
"What you Witches call boffo and headology?" she replied, evenly. "Or perhaps in this case, armology. You wear the three stripes, people take notice. It is not terrifically hard. They are conditioned to respond in a certain predefined way to three stripes."
She smiled again.
"I am also a schoolteacher. I manage classrooms. If I had remained with my people, I suspect I would have become an uriadnika by now."
"At least." Olga agreed. She tried to imagine Yelena Garianova leading a troop of Cossacks and realised she didn't need to do too much visualisation. She wore the shashka sabre, after all.
"But you were in Chirm. I'm guessing you shared accommodation with Sergeant von Strafenburg?"
Yelena responded with an inscrutable look and a silence that went on for slightly too long. Olga again found herself wishing that people would stop messing around and simply tell her. What they knew, or failing that, what they suspected.
"Accomodation is still limited." Yelena responded. "Which is inevitable, as military bases are not hotels and are not intended to be. Female air personnel in one shared barracks quarter, Teks and ground crew in another, the male security detachment protecting the base are in a third, located sufficiently far enough away from female quarters. Trolls and goblins make their own arrangements. Nobody gets a room to herself."
Olga noted Yelena was not being evasive, just using well-considered words to give herself a little more thinking time.
"I shared with Sergeant von Strafenburg, certainly. It was not unpleasant. We are both mannered and cleanly people and her company was in some respects pleasant and congenial. I respect and in some ways like her."
"But?" Olga pressed. Yelena considered this. Her imperturbable expression didn't falter.
"You are concerned for her." Yelena said. "I understand you have known her for a very long time and you would consider yourselves to be old friends. I understand that. And you must have noticed certain things. The air officers are quietly grinning among themselves whenever the subject is raised. However, they consider that as commanding officer, you should already know what is ailing their Sergeant, and that it isn't their place to tell you."
"But I do not." Olga said, honestly. "You might not have been with us for very long, Yelena Lidianovna, but you fit in here as if you've been here for years. You pick things up quickly. Impressions. Unspoken words. Maybe that comes of being a schoolteacher. When pupils are being evasive or unco-operative. When instead of telling you outright, they drop sly hints."
Yelena nodded and looked grave.
"Like the mischievous Pilot Officer Vizhinsky, who looks innocent and simply hums a principal motif from that opera."
Yelena hummed the maddeningly familiar theme again, but didn't elaborate.
"She is a classically trained musician, after all, who was plucked from her career by circumstance. Becoming a Witch played a discordant note in her life."
Yelena hummed the theme again. Then she smiled slightly.
"Olga Anastacia, all I know is that during our stay in Chirm, private letters were brought to the Grafin von Strafenburg. She excused herself to go and read them. I covered the class she was due to take. There were no incidents, and as the lesson was classroom based, I had no difficulties. She seemed slightly distracted for the rest of the day. I am assured, however, that in the air, she was her usual self again. The pilots grumbled at her unyielding attitude. As is normal. We did speak a little later."
Yelena hummed that maddening, unplacable, theme again.
"This places me in a dilemma, as to tell you would be breaking a confidence. I did urge her to raise the matter with you, privately, as an old friend as well as her commanding officer, or to seek a pastoral conversation with an experienced and sympathetic friend such as Nadezhda Veranovna. And forgive me, that is all I can say."
Olga said she understood this and sincerely thanked her. She changed the subject.
"I don't suppose you've been having any bad dreams lately?" she asked.
Yelena seemed slightly surprised.
"Personally, no. Neither, I suspect, has Sergeant Tereschova. But then, neither of us are Witches." she said, mysteriously. "I understand there has been an outbreak of nightmares among Witches who are also Rodinians. People are discussing them."
Olga filed this for attention later. She also belatedly realised Yelena had placed stress on Hanna's social rank. Hanna von Strafenburg was so married to her role in the Air Watch that it was easy to forget the significance of the von in her name. She was also a Grafin, a Countess, in the Prussican nobility.
Some sort of bad news from Home, Olga thought. It must be. Please tell me she hasn't inherited the role of Queen-Kaiserin of Prussica, or something like that.
Olga reminded herself that Hanna's family were only minor nobility and only had a distant link to the rank of Kaiser, and that there were far stronger contenders with better claim to the title. Lots of them. She put the image of Kaiserin By The Grace Of The Gods Hannelore 1 of the House of Strafenburg out of her mind, firmly. The last time there'd been a united Überwaldean Reich, one of the very first things it had done had been to look Widdershins for lebensraum and promptly invade Rodinia. That was several centuries ago, Olga thought. Old history. Let it stay there.
People, more than one, were coming to the door. Olga realised it was almost time for the officer-level discussion – damn, time had flown, something currently denied to Captain Romanoff, who was confined to the ground. A more diffident-subordinate knock this time.
Olga asked one last question.
"Yelena," she said, trying not to sound uncertain, "What actually is that theme that Yulia keeps whistling, whenever the subject of Hanna von Strafenburg not being herself comes up in conversation?"
Yelena Garianova raised a well-shaped eyebrow.
"I believe it's from Wotua Doinov's tone-poem Mellius and Gretalina. The main theme." she said, then went to answer the door. The room then filled with responsible Lieutenants and Sergeants. Technical Sergeant Gertrude Schilling had taken care to issue each with his or her own fold-down chair.
This looks set to go to a new chapter. Damn.
What are the bad dreams about?
Exactly who is seeking to challenge Ankh-Morpork's mastery of the skies and how?
What is upsetting the poise of Hanna von Strafenburg?
What solution does Olga eventually come up with?
All will be revealed in the next chapter of The Price of Flight, in which Hanna confronts the cost of her own air ticket.
And now – back to Strandpiel 2!
(1)The resolution of the Haartebeeste Event is being plotted and written, honestly.
(2) now go to Strandpiel Book One.
(3) In practice, the Teks were a mildly military multi-species loose democracy composed of technically-minded Dwarfs, Goblins, Gnomes and at that time, one human. Several of them were distinguished with Sergeant stripes but wore them lightly, valuing skill, expertise and innovative flair over rank. Gertrude had found herself very highly regarded indeed and in her own way was a leader, a sort of democratically hailed Spokeswoman for the engineers, Teks and ground-crews who supported the Air Watch. From their point of view, having one of their number who could intercede with the command meant there was more time for the interesting stuff involving flight engineering, thaumaturgy and general tinkering.
(4) Not the fruit sort. I picked up that in Russian slang, a "lemon" is a word for "hand grenade", possibly because of the shape.
(5) Yelena Garianova appears in Strandpiel 2 as a relatively new immigrant into Ankh-Morpork. As she pointed out to Sam Vimes, she is expressly not an Assassin; she merely works for the Guild, as a salaried employee at the School, delivering language teaching and occasional cover in other conventionally academic areas, with no contractual requirement to cover classes on the Black. A second part-time job to fill the rest of her week had been suggested by Olga Anastacia. "As I am not an Assassin, despite my employment, there is no Guild requirement on me to spy on the Air Watch and report back. I have in fact already refused Lord Downey's suggestion that I should. Similarly, I would not report to you on anything I see in the Assassins' Guild. Sir Samuel, are you familiar with the concept of Agatean Walls?" Vimes had conceded that Yelena Garianova could be relied upon for discretion and an ability to keep confidences – probably – and had conceded the need for an Education Sergeant in an organisation where people frequently mis-spelt their own names on incident reports.
(6) Air Watch military uniform was, like anything else in the Service, still evolving. The pilotka cap, thought to be stylish and practical when not flying, was a minimalist l but popular item of military headwear which was also, as people observed, an import from Rodinia. Worn on the head at a slight jaunty angle, people thought it looked sort of…errr… wow!….. on the women pilots. People agreed it had a certain something. The Pink Pussycat Club now had routines where the dancer wore a pilotka cap, knee-length flying boots, and not very much else. (6a)
(6a) Olga had also noted that the Klatchians were now issuing a version of the pilotka cap to ground desk staff and to air stewardesses on Klatchian Carpetways. She had advised her officers that if phrases like "Coffee, please, miss! " or "Have you got the duty-free trolley?" were used to them, she would overlook a degree of what might otherwise be taken for Watch brutality.
(7) St Petersburg/Leningrad as viewed from, say Moscow. Or the "separated by a common language" vibe of the old Prussia, against more laid-back and easy-going Austria. Russian folk-rockers Otava Yo are from the St Petersburg region and their musical videos take pride in the perceived bucolic hillbilly nature of the rural hinterlands of St P, and are usually shot in the Pskov locality, which people from St Petersburg tend to view as a sort of Russian take on Norfolk. (American readers: think perhaps of Alabama, Tennessee ands the Ozarks). Sumetskaya was the first OY video I saw: the band dress in a sort of Russian hillbilly mode for this, and my first take was "are they a sort of homespun family outfit, brothers, cousins, with an older uncle or two?" – the Russian Hillbilly vibe was so strong. (As it happens they're not: I remember the moment of "wow…" when it belatedly dawned on me that the drably-dressed and homely-looking violin player, Yulia Usova, only looked that way because of the plain homely clothing she was wearing and that dour expressionless Russian look… she suddenly lights up as she plays, and it belatedly dawns as to her being rather attractive. Somebody who looked like that had to become a Rodinian witch. And her general look and perceived attitude to life entered the Discworld as Yulia the violin-playing Witch)
(8) Afrikaans. Think "snarky", in the sense of sly sideways humour. Olga is, of course, married to a Rimwards Howondalandian and sincerely trying to get to grips with another maddeningly alien foreign language.
(9) Operation Bagration in July-September 1944, the Russian offensive timed to loosely coincide with the British/American landings in France and their breakthrough in Italy after nearly a year of being bogged down there.
(10) History is divided on the terrible famines in the Ukraine in the 1930's that cost millions of lives after a disastrous ideological attempt to introduce Soviet collective farming. Just as there was no conscious active intention to depopulate Ireland by famine in the 1800's, a distant government composed of people of a different ethnicity, who saw the people inhabiting a different province as a troublesome pest, might have taken the view that if the administered people die off in droves, that isn't a bad thing at all. It solves a problem. If the Soviet government in Moscow had no actual intent to kill off the Ukrainians by famine and the sole reason for the Holodomor was atrocious administration and a hideously misconceived attempt to make them into a model Soviet people, it still classes as a massive crime by any interpretation. Today's Russia tries to minimise this and explain it away as a natural disaster. In the Ukraine, Holodomor is viewed differently and is remembered with anger and bitterness. Certainly, a Ukrainian Resistance carried on a hopeless guerilla war against Soviet rule well into the 1950's, long after German occupation had become bad memories. Today's Russia still dismisses this as "unrepentant recalcitrant Nazis", a label still being misapplied today.
(11) I have taken liberties with real-world history here. In October 1944, at the end of the Bagration offensive, pilot Tatiana Makorova (Russian) and her co-pilot Vera Belik (Ukrainian) of the famous Night Witches squadron, were shot down over a mission in Poland by a German night fighter, which may or may not have been an ME-210 fitted with interception radar. The bare bones of the tale are here, with a little artistic licence.
(12) Go to my tale Bungle in the Jungle where the Air Watch – all of it, at the time – was deployed to an active battlefield. It happened about eighteen years before "the present".
Notes dump
Weird imaginings from a parallel world linked to ours by strange eldritch connections of wot it would do no good for Man (or other gendered sentient being of choice) to explore.
I found a you-tube video explaining how you arrive at a vivid and fast vermilion red pigment. This was both fascinating and hair-raisingly risky, involving at various stages elemental liquid mercury, concentrated nitric acid, and a Bunsen burner (other heat sources are available)
I attached a Discworld ultra-short to the video to see who got it:
The Assassins' Guild Art Department. Principal tutor Ms Gillian Lansbury MRACAM has her own version of the Vimes Run for errant pupils, or even those who just get up her nose. It involves making your own paint pigments.
"And when you've finished making a fast vermilion pigment, Mr Ross, we can go on to explore what makes a strong fast blue. Cadmium salts will be involved. And did I ever mention there is such a thing as Prussian Blue?"
And of course - DO NOTTE TRY THISSE ATT HOME.
In other news: a broad mind and an eventful life (although not THAT eventful) gave me enough general knowledge to be able to write Seamstress characters convincingly. No doubt as a cub reporter, Terry Pratchett had his knowledge of the ways of the world explained to him by grizzled older journalists and met people from all walks of life – a lot of this ended up in the Discworld.
Suspecting I don't know nearly enough, I've been reading into the "sex industry" lately (well, that's my story and I'll stick to it even in court). The vague idea is to incorporate more, hem hem, seamstresses into the ongoing tales and maybe even write in a central character who is a Seamstress. Therefore, getting the details right.
Some of the stuff out there makes me laugh out loud (in a robust Rabelaisian sort of way), some has made me go "ugggh…" and feel revolted (for instance, the LA porn starlet who seems to be around nineteen/twenty and who radiates an especially preppy American sort of relentlessly cheerful eager-to-please. Then you see the scars of self-harm on her inner thighs and arms and you think – has nobody ever taken this girl aside for a kind talk?) But the general impression is just the utter grey banality of it.
Every so often, fair's fair, there are some genuinely attractive women who don't seem to have been too messed up by what they do. I was quite taken by a Canadian woman on a webcam calling herself Gasoline Lady, who gives her paying customers what they want to see, but also appears to want to educate men about women and to point out all the inconvenient real-life things that do not fit in their fantasy-woman mould, whether they want to see it or not. I like her. The rest of the webcam world is… well, making money may not be the only incentive, but it's the biggest one. It shows. There's no actual warmth or human interaction there, just continual solicitation for cash. Depressing how so many people think there's more to it than a cash transaction and a punter can have a meaningful online relationship with the lady. It could happen; but 98% of the time I suspect her interest lasts as long as the punter's cash does.
As you may have guessed, I was thinking about how, whenever a new advance in communications tech comes up, how one of the first end-users is invariably the sex industry. The first photograph ever was of a street in a village in rural France; I'm prepared to believe the second photograph was a naked lady posing with the mandatory urns and gauze. Pornography and technology drive each other on. Every new advance in telecoms has been gratefully accepted by the sex trade. Who in some respects appear to be as innovative, or more so, than straight tech! (Thinking full CGI animation, for instance – some of the porn stuff out there is at least as good as Pixar and may in some respects be better, technically speaking. And as for dirty animé…).
Did Star Trek:TNG ever cover, even in passing, other uses that their holodecks could be put to? I imagine 24th century online porn would grab this with both sticky hands almost as soon as the first commercial holodeck is perfected. (Of course, Microsoft might do the programming, Apple might build the tech and British Telecom might provide the broadband bandwidth with BT Openreach doing the maintenance. So look forward to latency, broken pictures, freezing, pixel explosions, and a little sign hovering in the air saying YOU ARE CURRENTLY OFFLINE.
Movies on the Discworld, before the experiment ended, got to the point where the picture houses were at least considering the question of those sorts of Clicks. There's a dialogue in Moving Pictures somewhere.
And… if two unworldly people like Gertrude Schilling and Ponder Stibbons have cracked the problem of how to make a steady supply of brand-new Omniscopes, thus allowing for person-to-person chat over distance, with pictures…. Could a porn use be far behind… I see Mrs Rosie Palm listening to Ponder or Gertrude excitedly describing what the technomancy is capable of, and quietly making her own plans. (This happens perhaps at a Palace reception: Mustrum Ridcully and Olga Romanoff, more worldly people, intervene to drag their respective subordinates away for a little chat.)