Despite the General's sudden withdrawal as the guiding force behind the ship, Limpkin found his notes, the contents of the Libraries, and the new spirit of his colleagues most helpful. After the eventual success of the Yuma war, and the sending of a secret expedition to the Yards, Limpkin found that the next logical step would be to begin leaking word of the Myth of the Ship, as it has since been called, to the people. In this cause, Lady Limpkin held a ball at which certain "highly secret" bits of information were imparted to certain carefully selected gossips.
Within the week the story had penetrated the upper echelons of Caroline society. Within another week enough had filtered down to the lower classes to set the markets and bars abuzz with speculation. The ship became a bomber (curse her!); a missile to rid the supposedly fertile west of the Dark Powers; not a starship at all, but a boat to sail to the lost continent of Balbec; a pointless project that showed that George XXVIII had finally gone completely off his nut.
Limpkin followed his instructions and allowed the people to whip themselves into a frenzy of wild guessing. Matters were helped along, as per one of Toriman's directives, when Limpkin sent wagons through the streets, their towering loads tantalizingly draped with thin canvas. Then, as a final touch, Limpkin had a motor truck exhumed from Caltroon's vaults, set up with the help of some Black Library volumes, and run through the city in the dead of night. Of course the implied secrecy of the operation was belied by the fact that the vehicle's muffler had been removed and it took a most tortuous route from the Office of Reconstruction to the walls. On the flatbed trailer that the truck pulled sat an immense transformer, dating from the First World; its insides were rusted out, but a fresh coat of paint made the colossal mechanism appear quite impressive. This weird machine, coupled with the fact that there had not been a single self-propelled vehicle operating in those lands for two hundred years, sent the populace into a spasm of wonderment. Limpkin also sent the truck, this time with a chasseur escort, rumbling down many of the Caroline's main highways at appropriately odd hours.
Messengers were sent dashing about the nation bearing dispatch cases filled with blank paper. From centuries of torpor, even in war time, the Caroline responded to this synthetic atmosphere of crisis; only a very small elite knew of the hoax, but for the other 98% of the nation, the ship, the Second Coming, the new day, the world called Home were all at hand.
In the early spring, heralds came into every town of the Caroline and into the new Protectorate of Yuma. They carried notices of an assembly to be held in the capital three weeks hence, for George XXVIII had a message of paramount importance to convey to his people.