288 | John W. Warner IV stairway. Crates were loaded into a large cargo bay. At die bow, the many framed windows made the cockpit area almost 360 degrees transparent, a half-sphere of plexiglass. Four equidistant opaque hemispheres were built into the fuselage just aft the cockpit at the six, nine, twelve, and three oclock positions, looking almost like aircraft gun turrets, their genuine function a mystery to him. On the outer skin was a set of Luftwaffe squadron markings, a Balkenkreuz cross, and a painted smiling Grizzly Bear with angel wings. LZ-38. Himmelshar, well Ill be double-dog damned, he finally said. Now I get the bear joke at lunch. Himmels-what? asked Alice, gripping the trucks railing. Sky-Bear, and he looks the part, said Bea. Whats with all the anchor chains? Bernie pondered. Not sure. Could be theyre securing him for an engine test or something. I cant believe how damn big it is. See there? Each of the fluted panels is made up of smaller flush hexagonal panels, probably for strength. Hes a handsome sonofabitch. Looks fast standing still, or rather floating. Schafer arrived as if a film director. Come down, my friends. Allow me to show you inside the Reichs greatest achievement in aeronautical engineering to date, soon to be our luxurious liner for parts due southeast. Southeast? Bernie helped the girls off the back of the truck. Who built it, may I ask? Blohm and Voss, the navy flying boat manufacturer, said Klemperer proudly, his four armed guards behind him, their escort. The innards by Volkswagen, Arado, and Luftschiffhau Zeppelin. Electricals by Siemens and AEG. He laughed. 500 metric tons of cargo. Bernie whistled. Hoo-wee. They really did it.. .Hess should have paid more attention to his various projects under development. Or did he lie to met Alice and Bea stood there, mouths open as they gazed upwards, their youth ignited. It reminded Bea of the Graf Zeppelin airship that she had flown to Rio de Janeiro on when she was just eleven, her father half-drunk from fear of crashing and drowning. But this ship was aerodynamically leaner, more taut, more battle-ready than a passenger liner, hovering there with not one ounce of the flammable hydrogen gas inside that had torched the Hindenburg in 1938. Here, the ship floated with torsion-field antigravity technology on a scale not known since Prediluvian times. It was graceful, elegant, svelte, like a polished silver