The Philosopher's Flight
Page 36
“A lifelike simulacrum,” said the first, and they both snickered.
Melissa Pitcairn, who had been chatting with her number two, looked delighted by my suit. She waved at me and sauntered over, tucking her hair up under her helmet. She was unreasonably beautiful. “Too voluptuous for a sprinter” the Detroit Defender had called her, right up until she’d set the old world record.
“Good morning, big fella!” Pitcairn called out. “Ain’t you cute as a button in that shiny little costume! Macadoo’s having a fit and we haven’t even launched yet. I love it!”
And, indeed, the tiny flier from Sacramento in a skin-tight orange suit quite a lot like mine was pointing me out to her enforcer—a woman even larger than Detroit’s thug—and smacking one hand into the other. The Sacramento number two patted Macadoo on the shoulder, trying to calm her.
Pitcairn was eating it up. She slid an arm around my waist. “Listen, Ace,” she purred. “I like you already. Maybe it’s because I’ve got a kid brother who flies, maybe I just like seeing a big man poured into a pair of tight pants, but let me give you some friendly advice: Stay well fucking back. You don’t want to get caught in the middle of this.”
Missy the Missile looked back to make sure Macadoo was watching. She planted a big kiss on my cheek and slapped my bottom. The crowd roared.
Macadoo was bouncing on her toes. Her number two had her by the arm, but Macadoo broke away and stamped up to me.
“Making a mockery out of this!” Macadoo snarled, half drowned out by the crowd and the announcer. “Radcliffe deviants! And tell your half-Arab girlfriend the next time she saves some Trenchers to get her name in the paper, the Gray Hats will cut her head off!”
I was so far beyond angry that it was like sitting on a chair ten paces away and watching my own body, frozen in place.
“Fliers to the ready!” came the call.
Essie was right beside me. She whispered something to me.
“To the ready!”
“What?” I said.
“Fuck them,” Essie said. She looked at me, and she didn’t have the mien of a meek, anxious girl, but rather the face of a woman with deadly patience who’d waited her whole life for this.
“To the ready!” came the call a third and final time.
Then the whistle.
35
Up the Corps! Up the Corps and charge!
Mrs. Lucretia Cadwallader, Various, 1861–71
ONE-STEP LAUNCHES ALL AROUND, up and low, the entire company keeping beneath one hundred feet. No surprises as the first miles sped by. Macadoo in first, flying less than full out so that her escort could shadow her. Next, Detroit’s thug with Pitcairn following—no point in them instigating just yet. Essie flew right at their heels. I was well behind despite my best effort. Both of Trestor’s women puttered along in my wake.
As we approached the first checkpoint, Macadoo opened her regulator full and both of Detroit’s fliers did, too. I could see it play out fifteen seconds ahead of me. Macadoo with a sharp flare, Detroit’s number two diving to attack, Sacramento’s number two moving to block. The Detroit thug tried to slip underneath and took a boot to the face for her trouble. Macadoo landed and sprinted for her bag, while the Detroit and Sacramento enforcers made for the ground as well. Pitcairn looped and came down practically on Macadoo’s head. The two of them screamed at each other. Macadoo finished securing her sandbag and launched.
Essie flared and settled a few seconds ahead of me and was nearly away by the time I made my landing.
I grabbed my sandbag, yanked a strap out, and stuck the cargo in place. One-step launch. Level out and accelerate. Hand down. Hand down.
Macadoo in her orange suit was easily a mile ahead of me. But that was inevitable. Set it aside. Just focus on the next leg, the next minute, the next glyph. Draw for more speed. Only think about the glyph: draw, on a six count, a layered triple crescent dropping to an anticlockwise reaching spiral. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat.
Body position. Hand down, elbow in, head tucked, toes pointed.
Ninety seconds.
Try less hard.
• • •
The melee at the twenty-mile mark—in the air and on the ground—has been described to me so many times that I can almost believe I was close enough to see it.
The landing field was a clearing in a pine forest, twenty feet by twenty, the bags lined up along the far edge, a rope to hold back the spectators, some fifteen thousand of them, who were crushing forward.
Macadoo streaked over, flared under full power, and hit the ground hard. She needed a moment to regain her bearings. Sacramento’s number two moved to protect Macadoo from above, but mistook the charging red and black skysuit for purple. She accidentally blocked Essie, who’d slipped past the Detroit fliers. Essie tried to cut under, but flinched and was forced up and around.
That gave Detroit’s number two an unobstructed path to Macadoo. The Detroit thug whipped into a dive and cut loose her sandbag, which came within a foot of crushing Macadoo. The Detroiter followed that up by slamming into Macadoo with a flying tackle. They fell to the ground together, but the Detroit woman’s leg twisted and snapped. Macadoo tried to climb to her feet, but Detroit’s number two—screaming in pain—clung to her.
Sacramento’s enforcer got to the ground a moment later and ran to assist Macadoo. The Sacramento number two was furious: her partner had nearly been killed. She began kicking the injured Detroiter about the head and hands.
Pitcairn, who’d hung back, flared and settled. She saw her injured teammate taking a terrible beating and abandoned any thought of slipping past the chaos to take the lead.
Pitcairn spun Sacramento’s number two around and slugged her in the face.
• • •
But I didn’t know any of that had happened. All I could see was that Essie had been forced off her landing. As I approached and flipped into my flare dive, Essie was banking hard to come in behind me.
I somersaulted upright and drew to settle.
All four women on the ground were shouting at one another and the crowd at them. Pitcairn was standing over Sacramento’s number two, who had blood streaming down her face from a broken nose. Macadoo was struggling to attach her bag; she looked dazed. The Detroit thug, with her shinbone poking through her skysuit, was lying on the ground, crying.
“Are you okay?” I called to her. She might lose the leg if it wasn’t tended to promptly.
“Butt out, you stinking cunt sucker!” she screamed at me through her tears.
The other three women were shouting at me, too, in terms only slightly less vivid, as was the crowd.
“Weekes!” a man hollered. “Weekes! Get clear! Get launched!”
Mayweather, right up in the front row. For once in his life he was right—plenty of hands to provide a medical evacuation.
I dashed for my sandbag and attached it.
“Radcliffe!” Mayweather screamed. “Up Radcliffe!”
I one-stepped and was gone.
Leading the General’s Cup.
Don’t think it. Don’t even think it. Hand down. Hand down. Try less hard.
Essie caught me first. She had me by fifty miles an hour; it felt like standing still while a passenger train thundered past. She gave me a hip waggle in place of a wave, which would have thrown her off course.
Then a purple suit, well off to my right, chasing Essie hard—Pitcairn at full power, better than five hundred miles an hour.
I bore down. And then there was the third checkpoint, a roped-off section of a farm pasture, crowd packed around it. Flip, flare, settle. Essie was already away. Pitcairn looked at me in disbelief as I trotted up. Then she turned and launched, too.
I attached my bag to cheers from the crowd.
“You scallywag!” shouted Osgood Fletcher. “A Cock was leading the Cup! I’ll drink happy tonight!”
“Is Macadoo back up?” I shouted. “Or is she hurt?”
“Haven’t the foggiest!” Osgood called back.
“Up Radcliffe!” Osgood shouted.
I launched.
Hand down. Hand down.
I felt the turbulence before I saw the orange skysuit, at my ten o’clock and climbing fast, searching for the next landing zone. Macadoo. She spotted it and dove. You could afford to ignore niceties like navigation when you could hit five hundred miles an hour.
She was gone before I touched down at the landing zone to tepid applause.
“Sacramento’s number two is back up!” Krillgoe Hosawither screamed to me. “Thirty seconds behind you!”
Which was bad news—she’d be able to catch me, too.
I landed hard at the fourth field, but the suit did its job and dissipated the shock. I grabbed my sandbag.
“Well flown, Radcliffe!” called Steven Brock from the crowd, which was quite thin here. “You’ve fifteen seconds on Sacramento. Pitcairn’s passed Essie.”
Enough to send me crashing back to reality.
Sacramento’s number two—in spite of her broken nose—passed me shortly before the fifty-mile mark. At the checkpoint, she spun out her belly bag and followed it to the ground. I flared and settled, pushing hard to the ground to shave off another second.
The Sacramento enforcer was away almost as soon as I touched, her ascent momentarily slowed as she reeled in her bag. She had me beat, though with such poor ground technique, she might not catch Essie.
Fifth place. More than respectable for a man.
I attached the next sandbag, confirmed my compass heading, and launched.
I landed alone at the sixth checkpoint and everyone was screaming.
“Macadoo’s lost!” Dmitri shouted. “Way off course. Her number two’s trying to help her.”
If both of them—if they were lost badly enough—don’t think it.
“And get your damn hips forward on your flip!” Dmitri screamed.
I flew as hard as I could for the seventy-mile checkpoint, landed—with a beautiful hip thrust, for what it was worth—and launched again.
Unger was waiting at the eighty-mile field.
“Essie’s pulling even,” he called calmly, in the midst of the insanity around him. “Pitcairn’s belly bag is losing her too much time.”
I was breathing as hard from that news as from the weight of my 140 pounds of cargo. I added an eighth bag to the load.
“Macadoo’s back on course,” Unger added. “Her number two’s well behind, can’t catch you. You’ve twenty seconds on Macadoo.”
I didn’t need Unger to do the arithmetic. Even if reeling her belly bag out and in slowed her, even if her navigation was shoddy, Macadoo had me.
I thundered down at the ninety-mile mark, striking hard enough to leave inch-deep footprints in the mud alongside the river. It smarted, but I staggered forward for my last bag.
“Low,” Dean Murchison rumbled from the other side of the rope line. “Cut low.”
“How far back is she?” I shouted. I didn’t need a compass; I knew where the aerodrome was, ten miles downstream on the opposite bank.
I attached my bag. “How far back, damn you!”
“Radcliffe!” Murchison howled instead. “Up Radcliffe!”
I launched and screamed along the river at one hundred feet.
It was the longest minute of my life. Don’t look. Don’t look. If I turned my head, it would slow me. I couldn’t afford even a second. Head tucked, elbow in, feet pointed, hand down. Hand down.
Macadoo whistled past me with four miles to go, ten feet above my shoulder, trying to upset me with her wake. I held my line.
Close. So close.
She had me by nearly three seconds per mile. Even my flare and settle wouldn’t save me.
She cheated up a few feet, then a few more, trying to make sure she had a clear line of sight to the landing field. A tactical error—just the way you’d expect a short-courser to fly the long course—but it wouldn’t make a difference. She was too damn fast.
Too fast! She wasn’t going to be able to stop in time!
Macadoo must have recognized it, too. She whip-kicked and braked. By the time she’d stopped her forward momentum, she’d drifted two hundred feet past the landing zone. She added power to come back.
I was blistering in full bore, right at her.
Maybe she didn’t see me. Maybe she thought I would pull off. Instead, I cut low: I flipped head-down into my flare, braking and putting on downward force to slide under her. My feet hit hers with me still upside down. Macadoo tumbled up and over. I fought my sigils to keep control, still diving toward the ground.
Then she was right above me. Macadoo loosed her belly bag.
It struck me on the feet. The suit warded off the blow, but it was enough to rotate me belly up. I couldn’t see the ground.
Dead man. Fifty feet up, falling fast, back-first. No shock absorbers in the back.
Everything went slow. The air like water around me. Not enough thrust to stop in time. What would Dmitri say to—what would Gertrude say—what would Brock—Mother—?
But what would Robert Weekes say?
Ugly.
I directed all my power into a forward half somersault. No braking. I would hit at sixty miles an hour. More than enough to kill me.
I rotated. I’d barely gotten myself into a tuck when I struck feet-first. The impact sent me sprawling. I rolled tits over teakettle and slid to a stop on my belly. A hundred pounds of cargo on my back, eighty on my front. I couldn’t breathe.
“Robert!” someone screamed over me. Tearing at the straps on my back, heaving away the sandbags.
“Robert!” Essie screamed again.
“In third place,” the public address system boomed, “from Radcliffe College, in a time of nineteen minutes two seconds, Robert Arthur Weekes.”
“Help,” I wheezed.
“Roll him on his side,” someone else said. “He can’t stand up like that.”
Pitcairn rolled me and helped Essie pull the tabs on my chest. The sandbags fell away.
“You alive?” Pitcairn asked me.
“Yeah.” I winced.
“You just made my week,” Pitcairn said.
Essie pulled me to my feet.
I stood there blinking. All of me, body and conscious mind, was trying to turn toward the next compass heading, assume launch posture, hand down.
Then came the irrational fear that I’d scrambled my brains and heard it wrong. Somebody else’s name. Not possible that I’d—no, impossible.
“In fourth place,” the PA announced, “from the Sacramento Institute of Philosophy, in a time of nineteen minutes eight seconds, Aileen Marie Macadoo.”
I ripped my goggles off and flung them in the air. I pulled my hood free and let loose a yawp that had been building for nineteen years. Finally. Finally.
Essie was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear her over the mix of boos and cheers. I could see it in her face, too, the ferocious joy. She would have taken the whole company of fliers out to have a second run at them.
“Did you win?” I asked her.
She hugged me in reply and my ribs screamed.
“You made my week,” Pitcairn said again.
“Obstruction!” I heard Macadoo screaming to a race official. “He cut me off at the knees! Could have killed me.”
“Hey Aileen!” Pitcairn shouted. “Botched landing clears the approach for an incoming flier. It was clean. You got beat by a boy!”
And then Brock vaulted the rope, running to catch Essie and me in a sweaty embrace. “Magnificent!” She was bawling. “Both of you! Magnificent.”
36
Canderelli Weekes, Robert A. (Radcliffe; 1918–21). Protégé of Janet Brock. First male to medal in any discipline. Only flier to have four medals revoked:
1918:
Long course, bronze* (stripped due to reckless flying)
1919:
Endurance flight, gold* (tie with Dmitri Ivanovich; stripped due to parasail use, collaboration, obstruction, taunting, reckless flying)
1920:
Endurance flight, gold* (tie with Michael Nakamura; stripped due to axial thrust coupler use, collaboration)
1921:
Endurance flight, gold* (stripped due to pressurized powder tank use, flying in a no-fly zone)
His career has also included numerous record-setting flights with Brock-Sudeste Aerospace and command of several former Cup fliers during his service with the Free North American Air Cavalry.
Who’s Who in the General’s Cup, 1939
THE CHIEF RACE OFFICIAL hung Essie’s gold medal about her neck and kissed her on both cheeks. She did the same for Pitcairn and her silver. When she came to me, she handed me my bronze with a limp handshake.
She then escorted us into the aerodrome and confiscated our medals until all the complaints could be sorted out: obstruction, reckless flying, failure to yield, striking a flier. (Even Essie had cut off Pitcairn on their final landing. It would take six months for the race officials to decide that the only women not disqualified were Maria Trestor’s pair—they received the gold and silver, with the bronze not awarded.)
I changed out of my skysuit in my curtained-off area. When I emerged, I found an elderly corpswoman in full dress uniform congratulating Essie.
“What a remarkable piece of flying!” she said, clasping Essie’s hand. “Aggressive, neat, decisive. R&E desperately needs hoverers like you.”
It was the Corps scout. And just like that, the old Essie was back, blushing and fumbling out a reply. “I . . . I have such respect for Rescue and Evacuation, but . . . I worry I would make a very bad soldier, is all.”
“I think you’d make a very good one,” the grizzled old lady said. “Women with calm, quiet temperaments go the furthest. Fort Putnam is testing on Tuesday morning. I would be very pleased to invite you on their behalf.”
She reached into her purse and presented Essie with a card.
Then the woman turned to me. I saw the patch on the right shoulder of her jacket—an eagle clutching an olive branch in its talons—that marked her as an R&E flier. The silver oak leaves on her collar made her a lieutenant colonel. I understood almost before I saw the rest: the burn scar on her forehead with the left eyebrow gone, the scoliosis that caused her right arm to hang three inches lower than her left, the tremor in her hands when they weren’t in motion.