Echo

THIRTY-FIVE

The wind had picked up substantially, and I should have tried harder to dissuade Alex from leaving. Should have, but I didn’t. I don’t know whether it was because I didn’t want to spend any more time in that god-forsaken place. Or I didn’t want Alex to think I was being too negative about the project. Or whether I didn’t want to turn into a coward. In any case, the wind caught us as we rose. Fortunately, it didn’t become a problem until we were clear of the buildings, but it did blow us all around the sky. Alex commented that it was worse than he’d thought, and I knew immediately I’d made a mistake. But I had to live with it then because I couldn’t go back down without demolishing the package.

“Windy,” he said.

“Yes, it is.” I was trying to sound as if it was nothing out of the ordinary.

The package quickly became a sail.

“Everything okay?” Alex asked, as we rolled out toward the sea, then rolled back in again.

“Yeah. We’re all right.”

I couldn’t see Alex, who was behind me because of the broken seat, but I knew his grip on the arms of his chair had tightened. He wouldn’t talk much. As conditions worsened, or rather as his perception of them grew clearer, he’d just hang on and try to look as if he weren’t at all worried. That was how his mind worked: Don’t scare the pilot.

We kept rising, and I was hoping we’d get above it before the painting got damaged. Or worse.

“Chase,” said Belle. “The cargo is creating a severe problem.”

“I know.”

Belle is not above letting me know that I’ve done something she doesn’t approve of. She does that by falling silent when a response would seem to be called for. Which is precisely what she did.

“You think we should go back?” said Alex, finally.

“To be honest—” I knew he was watching, analyzing my reactions so he could figure out how much trouble we were in.

“Yes?” he said.

“We have no way to land without damaging the package.”

“Forget the package.”

And I realized I was trying to sound noble. “Alex,” I said, “with or without a painting hanging from our treads, I wouldn’t recommend going near the ground. We’re safer up here.”

“Okay. Onward and upward, babe.”

We continued to roll back and forth. The painting had become loose. We listened to it bang into the treads every few seconds. Conditions meantime got progressively worse as we climbed. We got driven one way, then another. We got tossed on our side. We rode up one set of air columns and down another. We got rolled over, and even turned upside down. “This thing could use bigger wings,” I said.

Belle’s lamp came on. There was a small screen at my left hand. She used it when she wanted to tell me something that she didn’t want the passengers to hear. I don’t think she’d ever used it before when Alex was the only other person in the vehicle. “We are burning fuel,” it read, “at an unacceptable rate. Our effort to maintain headway and stability against the wind is draining us.”

“Orbit?” I asked, keeping my voice down.

“Not a chance.”

Rain burst over us. Then, almost immediately, it was gone.

Belle broke in again, using audio: “If you’re concerned about the artwork, you may be worrying for no reason.”

“I can guess why.”

“I’m sure you can. It has certainly suffered major damage.” She showed us a picture. Part of the wrapping had broken loose and spilled out into the sky. Worse, the rear section of the package was crumpling, was being pushed against the treads’ support frame.

“Unload it,” said Alex.

“We—” It was as far as I got: A gust hit us. Even Belle yelped. The lights went out, and the antigravs shut down. Suddenly, our weight was back. The ascent died, and we began to fall.

Backup power came on. We got lights, but they were dim. The engines came back, sputtered, whined, gasped.

And the automated voice—not Belle’s—spoke: “Main power is no longer functioning. Please shut down all nonessential systems. I am trying to restore zero gee.”

I started turning off everything in sight. Control lamps, navigation lights, sensors, climate control, airlock systems, monitors.

“Chase—?” said Alex.

“We’ve got too much drag.”

“Get rid of it.”

“Doing that now.”

I retracted the treads. If we got lucky, the package would break away. Or at least it might jam into the hold. Anything to get it away from the wind.

I found myself hanging on, counting off the twelve seconds that the retraction system needed to store the treads and close the doors. The control lamps were off, so I wouldn’t get a signal that the maneuver had been successfully completed. Or not. But normally when the doors close, you can hear them. There’s a very distinct chunk when they lock down.

The count went past twelve and on to about fifteen, but we got no chunk.

Still, I had gotten some control back.

“Okay?” Alex asked.

“Getting there.” The wind continued to hammer us, but it had lessened. I was actually able to maintain course. Almost. “I think we’re all right,” I said.

A few minutes later, the power came back, and we were able to take a look at the underside. The doors were more or less closed, but the frame had crumpled. We were dragging it and a sizable piece of the protective covering, but if it was creating maneuvering problems, at least it was no longer playing the part of a sail.

It put Alex into a somber mood. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said. “That was as dumb as anything I’ve ever done.”

“Alex,” I said, “you asked for an opinion, and I told you it would probably be all right. There’s plenty of blame to go around.”

I should confess that, when I started putting this memoir together, I’d intended to leave this sequence out. After all, you want a narrative that makes you look good. That’s the whole point of doing the damned thing.

But a year or two earlier, when I was writing the account of our hunt for the Seeker, I was faced with a similar decision. Alex advised me to tell the whole story. “Once you start making stuff up,” he’d said, “everything becomes suspect. Do it as it happened. Let some other idiot write the fiction.”