by Jay Lake
By now all of the men in front of the house, including Mr. Bellamy and Mr. Neville, were jumping around. It looked like they were yelling at each other, judging by some of their motions, including the shaken fists. Pegasus wasn’t providing any sound, but it was clear enough what was likely being said. Mr. Bellamy threw his shotgun onto the ground as the remaining occupants of the three Cadillacs came tumbling out of their cars. The sniper on the roof dropped his rifle. The weapon slid down the roof and pitched off the front, barely missing Mr. Neville as it fell to the ground.
“Ten seconds. I suggest your grab the control handles, Vernon Dunham.”
Out in the yard, they were stripping off their clothes now. Belts and suspenders were being thrown away, and all the men had thrown down their guns. Some of the Italians grabbed knives and other weapons from under their coats and down their pants and tossed them on the ground as well. One of the Cadillacs was vibrating noticeably.
“You’ve got a way to heat all the metal out there,” I said.
“Yes. Unfortunately, I am afraid that I might set fire to the house as well. I am destroying the barn in five seconds.”
I counted down. Four Mississippi, three Mississippi, two Mississippi, one Mississippi.
The inside of the barn had been visible on one of the smaller screens. The building blew away with a roar that I could feel in my bones while the television image shuddered, blacking out for a second or two. It flickered back to life to show shattered wood flying off in all directions as Pegasus rocked back and forth. The f-panzer rocked on its tracks, nearly toppling, as the straw blowing around it caught fire. I wondered about the cats and chickens.
Everyone I could see on the main screen was on the ground, taking cover from the blast. They probably thought I’d blown up the airplane. The view on the screens shook, whether from Pegasus’ movements or the violence outside I had no way of knowing. One of the Cadillacs exploded — the gas tank must have gone up. Shattered barn wood began to rain down all over the house and the yard.
Then the ground dropped away with dizzying suddenness, two or three hundred feet in one eye-grabbing blur judging by my perspective on the viewing screen. It looked like we had fallen straight up, in violation of Newton’s laws as well as the law of gravity. I felt no motion at all inside Pegasus’ cabin, which implied direct control over the inertia of mass. Another astounding technology that would change the world, I thought with a sigh. I also realized my worries about being chased from the ground were ludicrous — it shouldn’t be any surprise to me if Pegasus could magnificently outperform any airplane ever built.
One of the screens flickered, then refocused to show the barn and yard beneath us. All three Cadillacs were on fire, as was Mr. Bellamy’s Willys pickup truck. The barn was a flaming mess. Dad’s Mack stake bed had been obliterated, reduced to lumps of glowing metal and hot ash, while the f-panzer was burning up with the barn. None of these guys were going anywhere unless they walked.
It looked like a fistfight was taking place in the front yard. Knock down, drag out. I’d place even money on a bunch of cranky old shine runners against three carloads of Kansas City mob torpedoes deprived of their hardware.
As we pulled away and the view shrank even further, I could see that a corner of the front porch was on fire. The Bellamy house was an old frame building, likely to burn up like so much straw if the flames got fully established. I wondered if Mr. Bellamy would stop the fighting in time to save his house. Then I had a sick moment wondering if Mrs. Bellamy would be able to get out.
Those old bastards sure as heck weren’t going to stop and help her.
“We have to go back,” I said. I couldn’t believe myself, but I couldn’t leave her to die in that fire.
“What...?” Floyd was beside himself, somewhere between terror and anger.
“Look. Your mother’s in the root cellar again. And the house is burning. Pegasus, can you get down in the back yard?”
“Is this advisable?”
“She’s going to die.”
Though I felt no swaying, no tug of inertia, I knew we were moving. One of the smaller view screens showed the land tilting in perspective as we banked back toward the house.
“Mama,” Floyd said. “Oh, God, Vernon.”
“We’ll get her out,” I promised.
Except I couldn’t trust him free, inside Pegasus or out. And those damned old men...they were killers.
And then we were down in the back yard, between the outhouse and the kitchen. “Go now, Vernon Dunham,” Pegasus said in my ear.
I grabbed Floyd’s knife from where he still had it in his belt. “Hang on, old buddy,” I told him. “Pegasus here will watch over you.”
Outside it was dark enough, the sky cloudy. There was quite a racket from the front of the house. I hobbled fast as I could toward the kitchen, my body refusing to cooperate fully, protesting all the recent abuse, the falls and injuries I had sustained.
The door slammed open just before I got there. It was an old man I didn’t recognize — the sniper on the roof?
“You’re mine, boy,” he said, his eyes gleaming like angry stars. “You and that damned airplane.”
“Heck no!” I swung the carving knife at him, missed completely, but it threw the old killer off his stride and he stumbled down the steps. I kicked him with my good leg, promptly falling as my bad leg collapsed under my weight.
He was up and on me in an instant, one fist cocked wide, but from inside the house Mr. Neville was shouting, “MacLaren!”
And like that, he stopped. It was weird. The way a machine might have stopped, without any of heat of anger. “Later, boy,” he said, tapping my cheek before getting to his feet and turning away.
I was no threat at all to him. As he showed me his back, I made to throw the knife, then stopped.
I couldn’t do it. Not even now. Pegasus had gotten into me.
“She’s in the root cellar,” I called after MacLaren, as he slammed the kitchen door.
Then I pulled myself to my feet and tried to follow, but the door was locked. There was shouting around both sides of the house, and I could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames.
It was time to go, Mrs. Bellamy or no Mrs. Bellamy.
“Lord take it,” I hissed, limping back to Pegasus as quickly as I could. My eyes stung hot, but I climbed in the little hole which snicked shut behind me.
Back in the straps, quickly as I could, before their guns cooled off and the bad guys got down to some serious work.
“Where should we head, Vernon Dunham?” asked Pegasus, behind my ear where I felt like it belonged.
“Augusta.” That’s where the oil refinery was, where Pegasus could meet its refueling needs. That’s where I figured Dad’s body was, which was what I needed to find. Beside me, Floyd made a shuddering, gasping noise that sounded a lot like a panic reaction.
“I’m sorry, Floyd, I couldn’t get her.”
“Daddy won’t let her burn,” he said quietly, his voice shuddering.
For a moment we just sat there, as the images on the screen receded. Guilt gnawed at me. First I’d failed my dad, now Mrs. Bellamy.
“Perhaps you would like to fly,” Pegasus finally said. “Use the handles, see what you think.”
Something to do. Something I cared about. Something to take my mind off my mistakes. I took the handles that were built in to the oversized seat I occupied. I hoped that if mine were active, Floyd’s weren’t.
The system was simple. There were no rudder pedals, there was no throttle. The handles had grips and thumb buttons, and swiveled across all three axes. I just moved my hands where I wanted to go, and Pegasus obeyed.
Grasping the handles was odd, though. They were unnatural under my hands. I explored the bumps and the shallow dents for knuckles, and examined the layout of the buttons. These handles had been designed for someone with a thumb like mine but five short fingers instead of four long ones. Someone who wasn’t human.
That little d
etail more than anything else brought home to me emotionally, personally, that Pegasus was alien.
Flying Pegasus was like my dreams, only better. When I was a kid, sometimes I would dream that both of my legs were strong and whole, and I could outrun the wind. It was like that with Pegasus, only I knew that I never had to wake up from this and stumble out of bed, lame and miserable, aching in my calf with every step of the day. I was free, for a while. I didn’t care what happened to me next.
Floyd finally roused from his misery. “Where...where are you going, Vernon?”
“Augusta,” I said shortly. I’d failed him in failing his mother, at least I could do something constructive for my computational rocket. “We have business in town.”
In point of fact, Pegasus was flying so fast that we had already reached Augusta. I banked Pegasus around the lighted towers of the old White Eagle refinery complex, now Mobil.
“Pegasus,” I said, “There’s more petrochemicals down there than you’ll ever know what to do with. I promise you we’ll get what you need.”
“I have located sources of the appropriate grades to satisfy my requirements,” said Pegasus in its private voice. “How will we compensate the proprietors of this refinery?”
“What?” I was astounded.
“I will not willfully misappropriate private property.”
“You just blew up a barn, two trucks and three Cadillacs, and now you’re worried about a hundred gallons of oil?”
“Perhaps we should locate your father’s remains first, then discuss this when you are being less emotional.”
Wonderful. That was what I needed to hear. Maybe I could somehow make up for Mrs. Bellamy. Those old men had to get her out of the root cellar.
I pulled Pegasus into an upward spiral over the refinery complex. “Tell me when you’ve got enough altitude to search for Dad.”
“Climb for fifteen seconds, then level off and cruise in a widening spiral,” replied Pegasus. Obviously, it could have gone on its version of autopilot at any time, but I appreciated the courtesy, and thrill, of flying such a machine. I wished I knew more about the basic principles behind Pegasus’ construction and power sources.
At the same time, I was glad Pegasus didn’t have instrumentation that I could read. I rather suspected that our rate of climb would unnerve me. I counted Mississippis until I reached fifteen, then pulled Pegasus out of the climb into a smooth, widening spiral.
The main screen showed a green-tinged aerial view of downtown Augusta. And pretty much the rest of Augusta too, for that matter. It wasn’t a big place. There seemed to be no traffic at all.
“Floyd,” I called, “what time is it?”
Floyd didn’t answer. I glanced over at him. He had his eyes tightly shut, and his hands trembled as he clutched the arms of his chair in a death grip.
“Floyd!” I yelled. “You’ve got a watch. What time is it?”
Floyd opened his eyes and slowly looked down at his left wrist, twisting it against his restraining strap. “It’s ten after eight.”
“Thanks.” Ten after eight on a Sunday night. Where was the street traffic in Augusta? State Street should be quiet, and the refinery didn’t run night shifts on the weekend now that the war was over, but the highway should still be busy. I studied the aerial view. I couldn’t see any traffic. Had the MPs Ollie talked about shut down the whole town?
“Vernon Dunham,” said Pegasus.
“Yeah?”
“I believe that I have located your father.”
The view of Augusta on the main screen shifted to the simplified schematics I had seen back at the farm. It jumped through several levels of magnification until I was looking at a residential street. Houses lined both sides of the streets, and there were large numbers of bright spots clustered inside of them. One spot in the back of one of the houses flashed purple.
“The highlighted signature is a human-normal concentration of calcium with an unusual signature of moderately pure steel.”
Something about the street that looked familiar. “Where is that?” I asked.
“Three streets north and three streets east of the central intersection below us.”
“Broadway Street?” It was Doc Milliken’s house. That was why the street looked familiar. I was looking at Broadway Street, the street where I had lived until this morning. Dad was in the back of Doc Milliken’s house. And his spot was bright as anyone else’s.
He was alive! For now.
Had Milliken sold out his war buddy? The things these old men had hidden from us all. “Does that bright glow mean that Dad is still alive?” I whispered.
“I do not detect signatures of decay,” said Pegasus. “His signature is almost fully isomorphic to the normal individuals in the immediate area. I can estimate lowered interior temperature, which I believe is a sign of distressed or subnormal functionality.”
“Can we pick him up?”
“I have no medical facilities for humans,” said Pegasus.
“But we could fly him into Wichita and leave him at the hospital, right?” St. Francis, I figured. They knew all about the hole in Dad’s head. Some of the doctors even knew about the hole in Dad’s heart. Plus Wichita was in Sedgwick County, which meant that it would be harder for Sheriff Hauptmann to get at Dad.
“Where is Wichita?”
Pegasus seemed to know so much about Butler County that I was surprised it didn’t know where Wichita was. “A big city fifteen miles west of here,” I said.
“I am aware of it. Do you wish to land near the structure where your father is being held?”
“Yes!” I yelled. “As close as you can. Surprise will be important.”
Just like with Mrs. Bellamy, except Doc Milliken probably didn’t have two groups of killers duking it out by firelight.
“Let me take control. You do not have the necessary skills to land me in such a restricted approach environment.”
I was disappointed, but Pegasus was right. There was no way I could land it right smack in Doc Milliken’s yard. And I really wanted to see the look on the old bastard’s face when I showed up to claim Dad for good and all.
Chapter Fourteen
As we spiraled back down, the ground below flowing smoothly past the view screens, Floyd finally spoke again. “Are we landing?” he asked timidly.
“Yes.” Despite my hard feelings towards him, I was starting to feel a little sorry for Floyd. Not much — he was still a nasty bastard as far as I was concerned. Literally. But he was shell shocked. Fighting his dad, the trouble his mama was in. Me. No wonder my buddy was in a swivet.
“May I please get out when we land?”
“I suggest that you let him go,” said Pegasus behind my ear.
On the main screen, Doc Milliken’s house rotated toward us in a ghostly shade of green, growing larger with each spin the image took. I stared with longing at the glowing dot that was Dad for a moment before it penetrated to me that Pegasus had asked me to release Floyd.
“No!” I roared. They could both take that for an answer.
“Vernon...” Floyd began.
“Shut up, you filthy little creep,” I growled. “You dumped your mama in an outhouse, I don’t owe you nothing.”
Floyd began to sob, something I hadn’t heard him do since before we started grade school together. “I didn’t want to do it,” he shouted over his heaving breath. “Daddy and Mr. Neville made me.”
Pegasus began to speak. “Vernon Dunham, I do not think—”
“You shut up too, Pegasus. You don’t understand what’s going on here. This human stuff, parents and children, blood relatives. You’re just a God-damned machine.”
I didn’t really want to hurt Floyd any more, but he still disgusted me. He still deserved some kind of punishment, some kind of suffering. Underneath all that blond, white-toothed charm, he had become something nasty. Maybe the war had done it, maybe living in a house of secrets all his life. But either way, I would be damned if I was just going to let him
get out of Pegasus and walk away into the night. Floyd was the one bad guy that I had been able to actually get my hands on, and I wasn’t letting go.
“Vernon Dunham,” said Pegasus. “You cannot judge him any more than you can judge me. He lives his own life with his own consequences. Until you have the power to give life or restore freedom, do not be so quick to take either away.”
This, from a computational rocket who would not shoot back at people trying to kill it, however ineffective their attacks.
“As it may be,” I said, hating the cold, hard tone in my voice but unable to control it. “He’s not getting out of here.”
“Vernon...” Floyd said. “You went for my mama. Let me help you.”
“No.” Why had he offered?
We touched down on Doc Milliken’s lawn. I unbuckled my belt and hobbled over to Pegasus’ hatch. I hadn’t realized it lying down, but my hip was killing me. I must have hurt it real bad in the fall I took back in the barn. Just to make things worse, it was my left hip, my good leg, so I limped with both feet. It hurt to walk. “Crud,” I hissed quietly. “Let me out.”
Pegasus opened the hatch. “Be safe, Vernon Dunham,” it said.
“Whatever you do, don’t let that little creep go,” I warned, slowly stepping through the hatch.
“Be careful,” Floyd mouthed, so low I almost couldn’t hear him.
Pounding on Doc Milliken’s door, I realized I had no plan for dealing with the situation. Heck, he was getting old. I had thirty years on him. Even banged up as I was, I could just knock him down.
I heard sirens down on the Wichita Highway. Probably I had a couple of minutes’ grace before the Sheriff’s Department, the Police Department and the United States Army showed up in the front yard. Landing an airplane on a residential lawn was pretty much guaranteed to attract attention, especially in a town as tightly wound as Augusta must have become today.
Certainly no one would be surprised to find me at the heart of things yet again.
The lights came on in the Millikens’ front room. Ruthie Milliken pulled back the lace curtain on the glass of the front door. Her mouth made an ‘O’ of surprise as she saw me, then she threw open the door.