The Weapon - Apocalypse - part 1
By Diana the Valkyrie
Pretty Flamingo flies over the Pacific


When The Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside;
But the shebear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Duncan:

The phone rang. I answered it. "Hello, love." "Hi, honey."

There was a short pause.

"So, where are you now?" "Lat 161-37, long 24-34," she said. I looked at a
globe. She was over the Pacific Ocean, a long way southwest of Japan. "And
how's it going?" "Boring," she said, "dull dull dull. You try carrying a
shipload of crude across the Pacific, see how you like it." I sighed. "I know,
Wendy, but you know why we're doing this. And I miss you too, you know."
Talking on the phone was actually increasing the torment. I could hear her,
but I couldn't hold her. "How's the weather there?" "Fine, hot and clear,
Duncan, I'm making 300 knots, I'll be in Yokohama in a couple of days, unless
I have to slow down for something. What's it like back home?" "Cold. Lonely."
"Oh, Duncan. I wish I could give you some of the heat I've got here." "Me too,
Wendy, me too."

She spent the next ten minutes giving me an explicit description of exactly
what she'd do to me next time she saw me, and for the millionth time I tried
to remember why we were putting ourselves through this torture. Sure, we all
know you can make a pile of dollars if you can airlift a supertankerload of
crude from Texas, cross-country over the US, then across the Pacific to Japan,
all in ten days. Because the alternative route that would take several weeks
would cost a hell of a lot more, so much more that it was prohibitively expensive
(supertankers can't go through the Panama Canal, they have to go round the
Cape). Before Pretty Flamingo got into the ship-carrying business, Texas crude
simply didn't get to Japan, they had to buy all their oil from the Middle
East, at premium prices.

Because we can undercut any other bulk transport system, with a vastly lower
price, and a much faster shipping time, airborne shipping (we invented the
phrase, no-one ever lifted up ships and flew them before Pretty Flamingo did;
come to that, no-one else does it even now, how would they without someone
like Wendy?) has become the growth industry of the decade. She meets with the
ship just after it's loaded, scoops it up with a force-sheet to ensure that
the loading is spread evenly over the hull, and flies it to the port of
destination at 200 or 300 knots (some ships are more fragile, so couldn't be
run so fast), and lets it down into the sea. The shipping fuel costs are zilch,
and the ship is unmanned while in flight; it only needs a skeleton crew at
each port. As a result, a multi-million dollar journey cost is cut to a fifth,
and since our costs are nothing, just Wendy's time, we're making a couple of
million dollars per month, before tax. And, since Wendy's the only one who
could do this, we have no competition.

The only fly in the ointment, is that I feel like I'm married to a sailor; I
hardly ever see her any more, she's always out flying some cargo. So, as I
told her what I'd do back to her, and what else I wanted her to do to me, I
ached for her to be with me. This kind of love-phonecall is all I had. All she
had, too. Phone sex is no substitute for the real thing.

"Will you be back in time for, uh, you know?" "Wouldn't miss it for anything,
Duncan, you can rely on me being with you then!" "I miss you." "Have you had
supper yet?" "Oh, you're right, I ought to open a can of cat food or
something." "No, Duncan, don't do that, I'll get you something, you just get
the table ready." "So when will you be back, tomorrow? Two days?" "Not
tomorrow, but if everything goes smoothly, the day after." "Two days." "Yes,
two days."

"Miss you, Duncan." "Miss you too, honey." "Bye." "Bye." I got out of the
chair, made myself another cup of coffee, and stared at the statue of Wendy on
our mantlepiece, longing, wishing ... Then I shook myself, and went back to
making a list of people to call tomorrow, to start lining up Wendy's next job.
Since there was only one Weapon in the world, it was a matter of finding who
would pay the most for our ship-transport service. The crude transport
business was good, but refrigerated goods benefited more from the fast
transport that we could provide, our 300 knots being some twenty times as fast
as a fast freighter. So I tried to keep in touch with the world shipping
market; I dipped into the Baltic Exchange on a regular basis, and all the
other chartering exchanges.