Terraplane Read online

"We've something they haven't," said Jake; we looked at Oktobriana. The planes swung left and onrushed in their penultimate display before mating. Whether Alekhine had entered a more problematic situation than ours seemed questionable. Oktobriana read us clear.

  "You don't know!" she said, trying to ignore our stare. "Is dangerous and unpredictable. No one should use it."

  "Transferral device," I said. "Your boss used it."

  "Nor should he have," she said; I uncased the thing from its box. "We cannot-"

  "Three minutes more and we'll be cloud and vapor," said Jake, throttling full. "That's desired?"

  "You don't understand-"

  Leaving the cockpit, taking up my coat from where I'd left it, I unpocketed my cam. "By transferral device I infer we go from here to elsewhere, true?"

  "Luther-!" Oktobriana rose, and followed.

  "Still bound for America?" Skuratov laughed, seeing us. "I fear we will not get so far as that. I feel shock of passing planes. Accept fate, Luther. We are dust now, nothing more."

  "Not quite," I said; the cassette inslotted easily. Skuratov's grin faded as he realized my intent, and he drew tightlipped. Oktobriana continued unavailing attempts to wrestle the cam from me.

  "You do not know situation-"

  "I know this situation," I said. "How's it work? Tell me-"

  "No," she said. "I can't. Luther-"

  "Will they transfer too?"

  "No. All contained within surrounding closed environment transfer. No one else. But we cannot-"

  "There's no choice, Oktobriana," I said. Our pursuers roared past again, drawing nearer on repeat run so that the currents thrown might send us spinning. I heard them sail off across the sky, unable to see their turn when they chose to reapproach, enroute to take us out. "I wish there were. Tell me what to do."

  For the longest second she stared at me, her eyes nearly throwing out sparks. "Very well," she said, sans tone, wordchoice deliberate. "If there is no choice then I have none either. Is very simple-"

  "Luther," Jake said, his voice no more full of fright than ever; it was softer, as if such fate were ultimately preferred. "They're readying. "

  "So what do I do-"

  "Press rewind," she said. "Nothing more."

  "Where are we transferring?" I asked; afterthought.

  "It will not be as seems-"

  "Incoming!!" Jake screamed.

  As if thumbed shut by angels my eyes closed when I hit rewind. Our plane shuddered as though windsheared; through my lids' skin I discerned the cabin disappearing within blinding white light, and in my mind I vizzed oblivion's paint covering us over. Fearing I'd moved too late, I nonetheless crushed my sobs away, refusing to leave life with wet eye. After splintering into uncounted burning fragments, the explosion blasting our souls' ears, what we were would plunge down in a quiet hail of slag and bits of skin, pattering onto the roofs of thousands, sending them into untroubled sleep, lending gentle dreams. I looked again, feeling no plunge, no splinter; the light faded, and we flew on.

  SKURAI.OV SAT AS I'D LEFT HIM, BOUND AS IF FOR PLEASURE. "IS transferral into space, Miss Osipova?" he asked, unnoticed blood trickling from his nose. "Plane is perhaps not suitably equipped for such adventure." Our on-ground flight, and our chase on high, nervestrung me so that when his words raked my ears, I reckoned him to be but dishing out unwanted sauce; I swung round to hush. "Temper, Luther," he said, feigning horror, yet drawing back within his ropes. "Jake rubs off on you after time, friend. I ask reasonable question. Look round you."

  Beyond the now-dim cabin illumination, through the portholes, showed naught but blackest black. "Sanya spoke of no such effect," said Oktobriana, said to self rather than others. By her use of the familiar-Sanya was the friendly form of Alexander, as in Alekhine-I reconsidered how close they must have worked together, supposed politics notwithstanding.

  "Luther!" Jake shouted.

  Before cockpitting I yet hoped that from forward vantage day might still brighten our path. Across Jake's shoulder, through the window, I saw only the same in wider screen: night sky starred from horizon to zenith; unbroken clouds below, moonglow shading their crests and pools as they blanketed the world.

  "Who took the sun?" he asked, deadpanned. Oktobriana took copilot position once more, scanned dials and readouts, entered mainframe commands. Without answering Jake, she continued her monologue with herself.

  "No change in locale mentioned," she muttered. "Possibly due to simultaneous velocity increase at moment of transfer-"

  "Some transfer," I said, running my own theories. "Two-thirds round the world in ten seconds."

  "Explain!" Jake commanded, his usual aplomb on leave.

  "We must be Pacificked," I said. "It wouldn't be night elsewhere. Altitude and direction. What are they?"

  "Eight thousand meters," he read. "Westward movement, unchanged speed."

  "Coordinates at hand," said Oktobriana, scanning as it rose from screen's murk. "Gospodi!"

  "What? What shows?" Already she was repunching, testing anew "Where are we?"

  "Readings place us at longitude seventy-six thirty, latitude fortyone fifteen," she said. I couldn't place exactly, but realized the general locale.

  "Impossible."

  "But remains fact nonetheless," she said. "All other readings showing unflawed accuracy. Without question these are present coordinates."

  "Then where are we?" asked Jake.

  "Eastern Pennsylvania," I said. No expression came at once to his mask.

  "How?" he asked, keeping eyes front, fearing perhaps that to look into hers would assure confirmation. "At liftoff it was near twelve by Moscow's clock. Look. No sun fore or aft. In jumping miles did we jump time?"

  "Do you know?" I asked her.

  "Impossible, as proven," she said, beginning a new monologue underbreath. "Earth angle shifts, evidently-"

  "Evidently," I said. "Descend without landing, Jake. We need visuals. Eye the radar close."

  "If Pennsylvania's below," said Jake, "shouldn't we turn and bear east?"

  "Contact ground stations while I hook in with Alice," I said. "Make the turn."

  "Alice?" Oktobriana asked, slumping into her seat. "Superior or wife?"

  "My computer. Pass the modem." With morgue attendant's look she handed it over, its attached wires wrapping snakelike round all they slid across. My stance tilted from vertical as Jake banked our plane, recircling.

  "You won't reach her," she said.

  "Alice's signal reaches God," I said, unslipping myself from the wires, at last linking up.

  "Uncontacted yet, Luther," said Jake as I entered codes into the board, watching the monitor for signs of her blue. "Cloud cover's like a lead sheet. After we breakthrough I'll bounce the signal ceilingways-"

  "Alice," I said, praying for response. "Alice, QL789851ATM. Emergency prime. Respond. Contact essential, Alice. Come in." The screen's color remained ice green; no response came from she who heard all. "Spot me, Alice. Alice-"

  "When Sashenka passed over," she said, "we retained contact till moment transfer concluded. Nothing thereafter. Cybernetic messages seem not to pass between worlds."

  "Worlds?"

  "Forgive misstatement," she murmured. "There is no way to communicate with your computers or with mine from where we are.

  Her latest elaborations puzzled, but before I could consider we dropped below the final layers of strata; across the form of the void winked a thousand fireflies, lights of home and hearth. Leaning down between the seats to viz more clearly, ducking to keep my head from striking the sharp-curved roof, I tried and failed to spot larger gleams.

  "Luther," said Jake, "location coordinates suggest Delaware Water Gap below us." A river down there evidenced, its surface agleam with night light.

  "Where's 1-80? If that's the Gap it should shoot right through there. "

  "The wires're fuzzed, Luther. Give ear," he said, flipping earphone vol into open mode; decibel-rich static breakup brainracked me. "Overmuch sunspot
activity, mayhap? A like sound-"

  "This month's clear for that," I said. "Try FM. New York or Philly might show. Someplace might show" As he switched bands the racket settled into electrical crackle and whoosh; no other evidenced as he ran the channels. "Try AM, then. There must be something to hear. Altitude's safe?"

  "Three thousand. Nothing's radared." Static mugged us again while he swept and reswept the AM band. Midway along the spectrum, amidst flutter and hiss, sounds of controlled design flickered like aural lightning.

  "Oktobriana, where're the toners? Defuzz it." She digitalized, hitting switch after switch; Jake centered in and locked on for those few seconds prime transmission reached. Even at full-clear remaining static obliterated all but vague musical passages, the sound of stray notes wandering from their chords. Dissonant signals blasted repeatedly, rocking the hold we held on the signal. Then, without warning, human voice rang forth.

  "-that concludes the musical portion of our program," said the voice, "and now a word from our sponsor." For a moment it seemed lost again, and then:

  "Beeeeeee-"

  Foghorn?

  "Ohhhhhhh! Lifebuoy-" Then, drowned in static's riptide. The fragment heard unsettled my mind, in undefinable but not unfamiliar ways. At a highlevel strategy meet in Argentina, ten years past, I met a VLF technician; she spent long days tallying unending ribbons of location numbers sent from her nation's deeprunning subs. Before, she'd worked at Jodrell Banks; for some years at New Mexico's big dishes in the desert's reserved acreage. She anecdoted me nightlong with tales of unexpected sounds gathered by those listening to the air's constant call: stories of whistles received with Aldebaran's signals; fast-read numbers bursting over dead wavelengths, the ones not even used by intelligenceries; Indian war whoops transmitted from the far side of the moon during the old Apollo flights. For brief seconds on still winter nights, she said, if the clouds were right, the dishes sometimes caught audio waves of decades-old radio programs, returning if but for once to their origin before bouncing again back to the space between stars. The sensation I felt as she told me those tales was the sensation I now knew again.

  "Where was fuel when we took off?" Oktobriana suddenly asked, shattering my reverie.

  "Full," said Jake, gliding the knob across the band to retry pickup. "Why?"-

  "Blinking red light shows auxiliary tank now in service."

  "Auxiliary?" he repeated. "We couldn't-"

  "Twenty-five minutes remaining flight time," she said. "Cut speed."

  "Is Newark reachable?" I asked.

  "Just," said Jake. "If it's there. We've no evidence it will be."

  "Switch back to shortwave, Jake. Take any response. Keep trying. Oktobriana, talk is essential. Let's cabin ourselves."

  "Yes. You will be all right, Jake?" she asked, rubbing her hand across his shoulder; he nodded as he drew away.

  "Thank you," he said.

  I looked downplane, towards Skuratov. He remained placed, grips taut. Here in the antechamber separating cabin and cockpit distance and overriding sound prevented all eavesdropping.

  "What's down there?" I asked her. "Where've we gone? Alekhine must've detailed something."

  She looked away; began talking in lowvoiced monotone, as if recalling a crime's progression. "Before completion of device Sashenka took over last steps entirely to assure team's security and my safety. Having spent previous nine months overseeing proper installation of essential Tesla coil for project, I was ready for rest. "

  Tesla coil, again-

  "Coil served to energize device in way Sanya never told. We discovered presence of this other ... place early on. Original plan was to bring others across. We discovered soon enough that others could transfer from here only if someone went to bring them back."

  A secret showed amidst her enigma; Sashenka, which she had used twice now, was a very familiar form.

  "He said he would be guinea pig in test and so he was. He steps into compartment built for purpose and he went across at four in the morning. I was only one present. As planned he came back, but not until midnight the next day, much later than planned. I was so worried. When he came back he seemed to have seen face of God, if there were God. Sat wakeful all night, not talking, though I insisted to hear. At last he said he had to go back. He said there were things that had to be done."

  "What things?" I asked. "Where'd he emerge?"

  "He answered neither question," she said. "For five days lie shut himself in study with two cassettes we made. When he emerged on sixth day he gave me cassette we have now, one he had adjusted. Took other and returned to compartment with me late that night. We had eliminated our spies long before but still took such precautions for safety's sake, as said. He told me he would be back within three weeks. Said if by then he had not returned I should take cassette left with me and go underground for long as possible." She sighed. `As you know, he didn't come back. Krasnaya sent people round to look for him. We said he had been exposed to dangerous virus and was in isolation. Was foolish story but they pretended to believe. "

  "But did he say where he went?" I asked, nearly pleading. "Where've we gone?"

  "Not often he spoke in riddles, but when I asked he told riddle. Said none should go. If anyone did they would find frightening beast easily tamed, he said. After beast was tamed, he added, it would shed its skin without expectation and show new form of dragon-"

  "Luther!" Jake shouted, interrupting. "Sustained contact."

  Upon recockpitting I eyed the unwinking fuel readout. "We've landing time?"

  "Nearly just." Having answered, he switched on his mike. "Landing permission request directive prime op Dryco priority. List proximates for vertical craft descent pad guidance setup. Directives required regarding incoming pattern. Over."

  "Holmes Field here," hollered a nasal voice whose clarity surprised. Such a field's name was unfamiliared; I wondered if it was one of Long Island's rogue strips. "Please identify yourself and your airplane. Over."

  "Uncoded flight, origin Moscow. Priority Dryco. Over."

  "Moscow, Idaho? Over."

  A thin pink glow silhouetted the earth's long line; the city of New York. No lights evidenced Newark International's site.

  "Negative. Moscow, Russia. Fuel availability crisis at hand approaching mayday state. Advise approach, entering incoming pattern prior to descent. Over. "

  "Russia?" asked the voice. "What are you flying in? Over."

  "Teterboro Field here," another voice said, breaking in. "Identify yourself and your aeroplane. Over."

  Jake drew deep breath. 'Advise suitable approach immediately. Pilot name nonessentialled sans plan filed pro forma. Instrument GBL97 sweepwing, VTOL model A741-"

  "What?" asked our first contact. "Speak English, man."

  "Flight destination Moscow, Russia?" the second inquired. "This Wrong Way Corrigan? You're way off course, buddy-"

  "We're unfueled," Jake said, overloud. "Drytanked. Emergency top leading to mayday situation. Advise suitable approach. Over!"

  A sharper, gruffer third cut in. "Floyd Bennett Field here. Hey, who the hell is this?"

  Jake palmed his forehead, shutting eyes. "Priority Dryco!" he screamed, as if to rain down law "Online, Newark, understood? Respond, Newark, respond-"

  "How'd you get onto this line?" asked our newest correspondent. "This is an army channel, you son of a bitch, get off the air. Over and out." He clicked off. Jake fisted the board, sending up a harmless bouquet of sparks as the radio shattered. I reached across, held his shoulders.

  "I'm losing control, Luther," he said; he felt strychnined, his muscles tightened so. "I despise to lose control-"

  "Eye the radar and the locator. When we sight the stadia, descend into the parking lot. If Newark's seen-"

  "No signs show," he said, his color red as the fuel readout. "I'll hold this altitude until centered and then lower slow"

  "We'll make?"

  "Maybe," said Jake. "Your friend's secure? Interrupt his solitude. Idle mind
s stir boiling pots."

  "I'll have to untie him in case of problem landing in any event. "

  "Keep him cuffed."

  "How long's left?" Separate towers distinguished themselves amidst the cityline. How short, I should have said.

  "Three minutes. Two," he said. "Uncertain."

  Oktobriana settled seatways besides him, anxious to calm and comfort, to lighten his face's dark. As I aisled myself towards Skuratov he looked at me, rich with smiles. His look was so bloated with craft and mischief gone wasted that I couldn't keep back a desire to knifetwist.

  "Prep for landing, Mal," I said, kneeling near him, unknotting ropes securing ankle and knee. "Could be rough and tough. I could retie you into crash position-"

  "Your superiors shall receive improper-treatment complaints," he said. "Standard violations of human rights. Where are we now? Switzerland? Czechoslovakia, perhaps, if I am lucky. Such good time we make in the dark."

  "We're entering New York approach," I said, watching his eyebrows lift above his glistening eyes. As I ungirdled his stomach he gasped, gaining free breath.

  "Such romance," he said. "Is such quick travel possible?"

  "Must have hit a good tailwind," I said.

  "Then machine worked very well. You must feel proud of great mission's success."

  "Very," I said, unbinding his chest; only two knots holding his neck remained placed. "Your failure certainly adds to our success. "

  He shrugged free shoulders. "So we land and you ship me to one of many American Lubiankas. I am but dilettante in these matters and have nothing of interest to tell. I have no worry. America is not nation that often tortures to death."

  "Not to death," I agreed, slipping undone his final knot. "Dream Team's but boys at play if you're a prime example, Mal-"

  "Prime?" he said. "The best." Pulling his left hand from behind his back, he flashed a wrist ragged with bloody skin, and a hand whose thumb bent awkwardly inward; he'd broken his thumb, somehow, to free his paw and loosed it before it swole. He swung with his right, cuffs dangling from the still-secured wrist, knocking me full faceways, over the seats opposite. Red washed my sight; I heard him scramble, and blinked blood away in time to see him land atop me as I struggled upward, throwing his cuffs downward, towards my eyes. By jerking my head away I took no more than a glancer.