Orbit 9

by Edited by Damon Knight

  “I’m sorry, sir. Only calls originating within Area Code D813, Fort Myers, can be serviced at this time.”

  “Sunspots?”

  “I don’t know the reason, sir.”

  “And I suppose you don’t know when service will be restored either, do you?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re most welcome, sir.”

  She flashed her teeth at him again. The screen went blank. In her case it was a mercy.

  He bounced the chiming pentadodecahedron in his hand.

  Someone started banging on the Translucetic side of the booth.

  “Hey, you through in there already or what?”

  Bang! Bang! Bang bang bang bang!

  He opened the door. It was the priest with the broken arm.

  “Bless you, my son,” the priest said. He shouldered Murdock roughly out of the way as he went in and slammed the door behind him.

  * * * *

  A fold-down screen closed the Hertz-Avis booth. A sign tacked to it said

  OUT

  Underneath it was a smaller sign:

  WE LOVE YOU, PLEASE WAIT

  WILL BE BACK AT

  There was a clock dial under the sign. The hands of the clock were missing and someone had drawn a leering face on it in heavy red Magic Marker ink.

  Murdock looked around, then walked over to the airline ticket counter. A young man with long hair sat on a high stool behind it. He wore a blue blazer and a bored expression. He was looking off into the distance as Murdock approached.

  “Excuse me,” Murdock said.

  No response.

  “I said, ‘excuse me.’“

  The young man’s eyes focused on him. “Yes? May I help you?”

  “Would you happen to know when the car rental people will be getting back?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “I have to get to Punta Gorda,” Murdock said. “I have to get there today.”

  “So what would you like me to do?”

  “Tell me how.”

  The young man’s eyes unfocused again. He absently stroked the winged insignia on his breast pocket.

  “I’ve never been to Punta Gorda. We don’t fly there, you know.”

  “I don’t care. I’ve got to get there.”

  “It’s north of here,” the young man offered.

  “Is there a bus? A train? An intercity taxi service? Dog sled?”

  ‘Taxi.” The young man sounded hopeful. “There’s an air taxi service. The Gatorland Flying Service. It’s that hangar over yonder. The one with the orange windsock on it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Be sure to tell them Jerry Fisk sent you.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise?”

  “Jesus!” Murdock said.

  “Jerry. Jerry Fisk.”

  * * * *

  “Jerry Fisk sent me,” Murdock said. The corrugated metal walls of the hangar caught his voice, held it in thin dusty reverberations. “I want to charter a plane to Punta Gorda.”

  The woman facing him looked like somebody’s idea of a composite mother-image. In spite of the heat, a pale gray sweater was draped shawllike over her shoulders. Her skirt was calf-length. Her shoes were Red Cross. She peered over the rims of her glasses at him and smiled. She took his arm.

  “Come into the office,” she said.

  He followed her into a cobwebbed cubicle jammed with two desks, three filing cabinets, an indeterminate number of straight-backed chairs. Papers and charts littered the desks. Some were yellowed with age, curling at the edges. One wall was taken up by a huge framed etching of the Titanic going down.

  She pushed him gently into a chair and seated herself on a corner of the nearest desk.

  “You’re in luck,” she said, striking a wooden match on the sole of her shoe. She used it to relight a half-smoked cigarillo. “One of our best pilots is free at this very moment.”

  “I’d like to leave immediately,” Murdock said.

  She clenched the cigarillo in her teeth and brushed papers off the desk as she hunted through them. “It’s here somewhere. Ah, here we go.”

  She shoved a printed form at Murdock. He took it. It was printed upside down. No, he was holding it upside down. Upset, he told himself. Too nervous. He turned the form over.

  “Would you sign it, please?” she asked.

  “What is it?”

  “Just a standard waiver-of-liability form. It releases our firm from responsibility for any injuries incurred as a direct result of our unsolicited services to you.”

  “Injuries?” He looked up. Behind her head, the rearmost section of the Titanic was under water. Smoke billowed from its upper decks.

  “It’s a standard form. Standard form #699. See.” She poked her fingertip at a small line of type at the bottom of the sheet. It read

  STANDARD FORM PRINTING, INC.

  Handing him a cryptostylus, she told him, “You sign right there, beside the X.”

  Murdock stared at the paper. He raised his head and glanced around the office. One panel of a partition was broken. Through it he could see the dimness of the hangar. Chains swung from an overhead hoist. A wing section that looked like balsa wood and canvas was stowed in the rafters.

  He frowned. There was something terribly familiar about it all. It should have been in black and white. It was right out of an old Jimmy Cagney movie from the Late Show Antiques Festival. Or was it Cary Grant? Richard Arlen? He wasn’t sure.

  The woman tapped her fingertip on the form to get his attention. “Would you?”

  He signed. His hand trembled.

  “If you’ll just wait one little moment, I’ll call the pilot.” She smiled sweetly. “He’s my son, you know.”

  “I want to see the plane,” Murdock said.

  “You will, sir,” she assured him. “You will. Hey, Dallas, you lazy shiftless no-count, get your ass in here, we gotta customer!”

  * * * *

  The pilot looked like Cary Grant in full flying togs. A battered horsehide jacket, field boots and riding breeches. No leather helmet and goggles, though. No white silk scarf either. For a moment Murdock questioned the man’s competence. How could he fly without a white silk scarf?

  “Name’s Dallas,” Cary Grant said. His smile was almost as deep as the cleft in his chin. He offered his hand. Murdock shook it. The grip was firm, dry and confident. Murdock felt better.

  “Ready to go?” Dallas asked. He gestured toward a plane in the hangar’s shadow.

  At least it wasn’t one of those Ford Tri-motors from the movies, Murdock thought. In fact, it wasn’t any kind of plane he recognized. He said, “What model plane is that anyway?”

  “Ain’t a model.” Dallas paused to chuckle at his own joke. “It’s a real ‘un.”

  When Murdock failed to join him in his hilarity, he added, “It’s a Piper Yamacraw. Them plane-makers run out’n Indian nations to name ‘em after ‘bout five, six years ago. Now they callin’ the new models after little tribes an’ things. Yamacraws was parta the Creek Nation. None of ‘em left nomore.”

  “Killed off by settlers?” Murdock asked.

  “Naw. Same thing happened to them as happened to the Hawaiians. They kept intermarryin’ till there wasn’t any fullbloods left. Wiped themselves out the painless way.” Dallas scowled at Murdock ominously. “Same as is gonna happen to us all one of these days. Watch your step gettin’ in.”

  The cabin of the small, twin-engined plane was remarkably like the interior of an automobile. The controls looked much the same. That seemed wrong to Murdock. He felt there should have been a lot more dials and meters and things. Panels of them in front of the pilot and above his head. To every side of him. Or maybe nothing but a joystick. He wasn’t sure how it should be set up, but this wasn’t the way.

  He settled himself deep into the copilot’s seat and reached automatically around for the ends of the seat belt. He found them and fastened it, pulling it a
s tight as he could. The buckle snapped into lock.

  “You ready?” Dallas asked, climbing in on the other side.

  “Yes,” Murdock gasped thinly.

  “Wait!” It was the woman from the office. She came running out to the plane waving something. “Idiot,” she hollered fondly. “You’re always forgetting.” She flung the thing around Dallas’s neck. It was a white silk scarf.

  Suddenly Murdock felt a lot better. He gave a relieved sigh. The seat belt snapped.

  He felt a lot worse.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Dallas said.

  “And for Christ’s sake,” she told him. “You watch out for them goddamn peripheral crosswinds.”

  “Don’t you worry none, Mom.” He gave her a small peck of a kiss in the middle of her tired careworn forehead. She backed away. Dallas turned to Murdock. “You just set back an’ take it easy. We’ll be there in two shakes of a gator’s tail.”

  “My seat belt broke,” Murdock said.

  The pilot nodded. “That’ll be five dollars extra.”

  * * * *

  Murdock mumbled half-remembered prayers all the way to Punta Gorda. He kept himself braced against the control panel and the floorboards, not relaxing until Dallas said, “We’re down.”

  They were rolling toward a candy-striped red and white hangar. Rolling too fast, Murdock thought. They’d never be able to stop in time!

  But they did.

  Dallas jumped out, walked around and opened Murdock’s door. The afternoon sun reflected off the tasseled white silk scarf, giving the pilot’s handsome face a radiant ethereal glow.

  “Okay, Mr. Murdock?” he asked.

  “Okay,” Murdock echoed, stumbling to the ground.

  The ground. He realized it was okay. He was here. Safe, sound, and in one piece. He felt a rush of fondness for the smiling, competent pilot who’d managed this miracle.

  “Punta Gorda,” the pilot said. “Ain’t changed a bit since I was here last.”

  “I’ve got to take care of some business,” Murdock said. “Can you wait for me?”

  “Depends. How long you gonna be?”

  “Only an hour or two, I hope.”

  “I reckon I can hang around that long. Till five maybe. Gotta head back then. Mom hates it when I’m late for supper.”

  “If I can’t get back by then, how can I get in touch with you?”

  “You just call the airport at Fort Myers, Mr. Murdock. We’ll be havin’ supper right there in our own little hangar. You’d be downright amazed what Mom can cook up on that hot plate. If you need me, I’ll fly back down here after we eat.”

  “Wait,” Murdock said. “I’ll be here.”

  * * * *

  A sign with the wreathed-dragon symbol of TPC hung from a post in front of the candy-striped hangar. Inside, Murdock found that the office was a lot like the one he’d just left back in Fort Myers. Except that this one wasn’t cobwebby. In fact, it looked like it had just been uncrated and set to cool. The public phone booth beside the door was empty.

  “It ain’t workin’,” a twanging nasal whine informed him.

  A redheaded kid with no eyebrows and a huge adam’s apple. He leaned against the frame of the office door.

  “I’m not surprised,” Murdock said with a sigh. “I need a taxi.”

  The kid shook his head. “They don’t come out this way.”

  “How are people supposed to get to town from here?”

  The kid shrugged. “We hardly ever see anybody. Me, I ride a bi-sickle. Gonna get a motor-sickle next year, though.” He twisted his hand in the air in front of him. “Vroom, vroom, vroom.”

  “How far are we from the Loshun Mall?” Murdock asked.

  “ ‘Bout two miles or so. More or less. Vroom. Maybe.”

  “And I can’t get a taxi?”

  “Looks like.”

  “I can’t walk it.”

  The kid stared at Murdock’s legs. His eyes narrowed. “Wanna rent my bike?”

  Murdock considered it. The idea wasn’t very appealing. But it would be better than walking. It had been a long time since he had ridden one, though. Well, they said once you’d learned to swim or ride a bike you never completely lost the ability.

  “How much?” he asked.

  The unbrowed eyes narrowed further. The lips pursed. “How long?”

  “Till five.”

  “Ten bucks,” the kid said.

  “I’ll walk.”

  “Five bucks. I ain’t gonna go no lower. Take it or leave it.”

  It would have been worth five. There was a lot more than that at stake. But a principle was at stake, too.

  Murdock said, “Two fifty, and you’re robbing me blind at that.”

  The kid held out his hand. “In advance, mister. I gotta have a deposit, too. Gotta be sure you’ll come back.”

  Murdock stared at the hand. It was filthy. “You should try washing that once in a while,” he said.

  “Hell, spit and crud’s the only things holding it together.”

  Murdock doled out the two fifty.

  “And twenty-five dollars deposit.”

  “Come on.”

  “Take it or leave it,” the kid said, stuffing the two fifty into his pocket.

  Murdock peeled out two tens and a five. “I want a receipt for that.”

  The kid shrugged again. “Watch third gear. Slips on hills.”

  “A receipt,” Murdock insisted, not sure whether he should feel silly about it or not. But sure that he wanted the receipt. Business was business. He waited while the kid scrawled something illegible on a dirty scrap of paper with a burnt match.

  The bicycle had a low narrow seat and high handlebars. A three-speed shift and a handbrake. He leaned it away from the wall of the hangar, got gingerly aboard, and pedaled off, wobbling badly.

  The afternoon was getting warmer.

  * * * *

  Loshun Mall sprawled in the midst of a vast parking lot. It was a squat white concrete block structure with one single glass and plastic office tower rising upward from it like an obscenity finger. The tower was the pride of Punta Gorda. Originally it had been twenty-eight stories high. Then it had blown over. They built it up again, this time five stories less. It blew over again. Three rebuildings later, it was twelve stories high and hopeful. It rose directly from the center of the Mall building.

  There were rows of racks for bicycles outside the Mall entrance. They were all full. Murdock leaned his bike against a wall and joined the teeming throng of shoppers that flowed through the open doorways.

  It was like walking through a waterfall. A curtain of cold air boxing in a solid block of artificial atmosphere. The Mall was a frigid tropical paradise. Its high acoustic ceiling was speckled with colored lights. Plush plastic birds of every hue sang recorded songs as they hung suspended from almost invisible wires or perched in the Styraflex palms that lined the walks. Planters carved from mahogany-stained coquina were filled to overflowing with large-leafed machine-made foliage. Cast concrete benches nestled among them, lit by incandescent cressets, lined with exhausted shoppers.

  The stores fronting into the Mall beckoned with open doors and brilliant window displays. Swords, sterling silver, lava lamps, patent medicines, shoes, puppies and boa constrictors, suits and dresses and garden implements, toys, guns, religious statuary.

  An insurance company display showed a beautifully ornate casket with a sign above it saying:

  YOU’RE GOING TO DIE SOMEDAY!

  DON’T MAKE IT HARD ON YOUR LOVED ONES!

  PASS AWAY HAPPILY—CHAT

  A WHILE WITH OUR FRIENDLY

  HELPFUL STAFF.

  Murdock finally found the directory. Loshun Tower wasn’t listed. Evidently it couldn’t be reached from this particular passageway. He backtracked to the outside and tried a different entrance. It, too, failed to get him to the Tower.

  Outside again, he surveyed the parking lot and wondered just how one got from here to the office building. A boy of about ten bou
nced by on a pogo stick. A poodle in sunglasses led a woman in sunglasses past on the end of a leash. The dog stopped and watered a plastic palm. A policeman ambled slowly along, swinging his stunstick. Murdock walked toward him.