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control knob on it.
The tops of the epaulets functioned like the beam of a temporal sword, except
that instead of focusing the temporal distortion into a fine thread, the entire
tops of the shoulder boards became active. Air rushed into the things at almost
supersonic speeds, to be sent a short while into the future. The undersides of
the epaulets were still at normal atmospheric pressure, of course, but the tops
felt only a hard vacuum. Since the total active area was about forty square
inches, the escape harness had an effective lift of up to six hundred pounds at
sea level.
This was plenty of power to pull a pilot right up out of his aircraft at four
Gs, eliminating the need for the ejection seat as well as for the parachute.
The real beauty of the gadget was that here was something that you could wear on
a regular basis, that weighed less than a pound, but that would let you fly! It
was easy enough to steer. You just moved your legs one way or the other. The
knob on your chest controlled the amount of active area, and thus the lift.
It was noisy as all hell, but the pilot's crash helmet protected his ears well
enough.
I thought of these things as being strictly for emergency use, since the amount
of air they sucked out of the present was pretty huge. They seemed wasteful to
me, but Preston proved that there was no danger of dropping the world's air
pressure by any measurable amount, even if everyone in the world used one all
the time. The air being sent elsewhen wasn't being wasted, after all. It all
came back in a short while.
* * *
The night after the first successful test, I was having a drink at the Bucket of
Blood with Captain Stepanski, an Air Force pilot. I showed him one of the
prototype escape harnesses my people had made up, to get his opinion of it, and,
well, to show off.
He was impressed, and after a few more beers, we went outside so he could try it
out, ear plugs and some helmets having been scrounged out of the sporting
equipment in the basement.
Naturally, a crowd followed us, so I had to explain all over again, loudly this
time, what it was and how it operated.
Captain Stepanski was a natural pilot, with a plane or without one. In moments,
he had it all figured out, and he was doing aerial acrobatics in minutes. Once
he came down, Leftenant Fitzsimmon of the Navy stepped up, and thinking that he
wanted to try his hand at flying, Stepanski gave him the harness.
Instead of putting it on, the leftenant proceeded to fasten the harness to a
log, a big section of tree trunk that was set upright in the concrete, and
normally used as a target for knife, sword, and javelin throwing.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"Just trying out an idea I had. I won't be but a minute, sir."
Soon, the harness was howling away, trying without success to pull the log over
sideways. Fitzsimmon walked back ten paces, borrowed a snub-nosed .44 Magnum
pistol from one of his men, and proceeded to put all six slugs into the harness!
I was at first shocked, that someone would dare to try to destroy my latest
brainchild, but I quickly saw that it was unharmed. The leftenant went over and
shut off the screaming harness, so we could talk again.
"What? You missed all six times?" I said.
"No sir, I could hardly miss at that distance. All six rounds went into the
active area of your new device. Where they went after that is something that
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you'll have to tell me about. You have more than an escape device or a flying
machine here, sir. You have also invented the world's first perfect armor!"
* * *
After Ian watched the first test of the escape harness, he went back to his desk
to sketch up an "Emergency Power Generator." This had an area at the back that
was essentially the same as the top of an epaulet, creating a hard vacuum.
Before getting there, inflowing air was ducted over an air turbine, which was in
turn connected to a standard electrical generator.
It worked the first time we tried it out. As we watched it run, I gave Ian a
copy of Prescott's writeup on air consumption, and told Ian that he had to take
the word "Emergency" out of the name of the thing. There was no need to burn
coal, oil, or any other fossil fuel at all, ever again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Second Law
"You know, Tom, I think that I was happier back when the Second Law of
Thermodynamics still worked."
For whatever reason, our best conversations always seemed to take place at the
breakfast table. It was my table this time, and my serving wenches.
"Nah. You were just brainwashed like almost everybody else in the technical
world, except for me, of course, and Einstein and Bronowski."
Over the months, my ladies had refined their appearance to coincide with what
they had apparently decided was what attracted me the most. This involved very
long hair, usually straight, but curly if it was naturally so. They wore
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