by E. J. Blaine
Then Doc was pounding on his shoulder. “Damn it, Jack!” she yelled over the engine. “Don’t you ever do that to me again! I swear I’ll—”
“Trust me, Doc!” he interrupted. “I won’t let you down.”
“I know that! You think I don’t know that? But, damn it, Jack!”
Jack grinned to himself.
“All right,” she said after a moment. “I’m okay now.”
“Good,” he answered. “Because you’re not going to like this either.”
Then he hit the rudder hard, and Doc screamed again as he slewed the Biff into another hairpin turn barely an arm’s reach from the stone side of the canyon.
They made that one, and the next two, though the second was a tricky maneuver over a rockslide that squeezed the Bristol up against the top of the canyon with its treacherous winds. Jack saw that he was right to fear those winds. Again he saw the wreckage of a Silver Star plane. It looked like it had been caught in the winds, smashed against the rim of the canyon, and then rained down in pieces.
Jack’s heart was pounding, and he could feel himself tingling with nervous energy. This was the hardest flying he’d ever done. He was making blind turns, trusting his instincts and hoping for the best. If he didn’t know the Silver Star had succeeded at this, he would have doubted it was possible. He still feared that the canyon would simply dead end somewhere, and there’d be no place for them to go.
One more sharp turn and Jack thought he’d found it. Ahead of him, the canyon ended in a jumble of stone blocks the size of skyscrapers that had separated from the walls and fallen. He couldn’t see daylight through them, but there had to be a way. Again he slowed the plane to buy time. He knew the Silver Star pilots had figured this out. How? Where had they flown through?
There was only one choice, he realized. A gap between the huge stone masses at the very bottom. Inside was darkness, but it had to pass through. The Silver Star had done it. He took the plane lower, toward what amounted to a cave mouth. It’ll work, he told himself. There’s a path through.
Behind him Doc put a hand on his shoulder. “Jack…”
“I know. Trust me. We’ll make it through.”
She said nothing, but she left her hand on his shoulder.
Jack dove and flew into the hole. They were instantly plunged into blackness, but Jack saw light ahead. A small patch in the distance, not quite square. He aimed the nose straight for the center of it and hung on, holding his breath.
Suddenly the left lower wingtip scraped stone. The plane shuddered violently, and the wingtip threw back a trail of sparks. Doc jumped and screamed in surprise. Jack edged to the right as much as he dared. There was rock all around them, but he couldn’t see it. He just aimed the plane for the growing square of light.
And then they were through it. The Bristol sprang out the other side of the huge stone wall, and Jack climbed a bit. He glanced to his left and saw that a bit of the lower wingtip had been ground away. Broken spars and torn fabric whipped in the wind, but the damage was minor. The Biff would still fly.
“Jack! Look!” Doc shouted over the noise. But this time there wasn’t fear in her voice but wonder. Jack looked ahead. The canyon opened out ahead of them and beyond it he saw…green.
The Bristol shot out of the canyon, and Jack was stunned by what he saw. They had flown into a lush valley that stretched out in front of them as far as Jack could see. The bare rock gave way to nearly flat grassland. There were thick stands of trees in the distance. The air felt warmer here. He didn’t feel the need for the breathing mask; he could breathe normally. A waterfall tumbled down the valley slopes to his right. How could any of this be here? It was incredible, impossible!
Behind him Doc shouted, “Animals! I see a herd of something! Look!”
But Jack wasn’t looking at the herd. He was looking down, at a small base. There were at least two dozen large tents arranged in neat rows. He saw a couple larger and sturdier buildings and watch towers, obviously made from the local wood. There was a radio mast and an airstrip carved into the grassland, complete with two small biplanes. All of it bore the colors and insignia Jack knew all too well. The Silver Star. Already, Jack could see figures sprinting toward the waiting planes. This was going to get hairy.
They shot over the Silver Star camp and Jack opened up the throttle. They sped away down the valley. Perhaps a mile from the camp at the valley mouth, the grassland gave way to thick forest and the Bristol flew over a dense canopy. He glanced over his shoulder to see Doc snapping photos with her Leica.
“What kind of trees are those?” she shouted.
Jack had no idea. He glanced back and the Silver Star planes were small dots in the air far behind them. But they were in pursuit, and they were armed while the Bristol no longer was. Jack looked around for a place to run. The valley was huge, but on all sides it was fenced in by sheer slopes that rose until the plant life once more gave way to bare stone and ice. And presumably the fierce winds. The canyon appeared to be the only way in or out.
“Jack, we’ve got company!”
Doc had finally stopped gawking at the flora and fauna long enough to spot the Silver Star planes.
“I know,” he shouted back. “I’m going to try and outmaneuver them.”
He veered right and headed toward the edge of the valley. Ahead of them he saw a plume of steam escaping from a vent in the rock, like a boiling teakettle. That must be what made this place possible, he realized. Volcanic steam vents kept it warm, and apparently released more moisture and oxygen from underground. Perhaps the warmth created some kind of permanent temperature inversion layer over the valley that kept the thicker air here from dissipating. Jack didn’t know; it wasn’t his field, and he had bigger things to worry about right now.
One of the Silver Star planes fired a burst at them. The enemy was still too far back; his rounds fell harmlessly behind the Bristol. They were just making sure Jack knew they were there and were prepared to shoot the Bristol down. Jack wasn’t sure what to do about that. All he had was his .45s. It wasn’t beyond possibility for a pilot to outmaneuver another plane and get close enough to fire on its pilot with a handgun. He’d heard of pilots being killed that way in the war. But that had mainly been early in the war, before everyone had synchronized machine guns. Besides, there were two of them. He didn’t like the odds, but that was the hand he’d been dealt.
He dove toward the forest canopy to pick up speed, and the two biplanes followed. Jack went into a wide turn and studied them. They were small, smaller than the war surplus Fokkers the Luftpanzer used to carry. It looked like the Silver Star had designed their own planes now, allowing the Luftpanzer to carry a larger complement. He’d never seen these planes in combat before, and didn’t know how the Bristol would stack up against them.
She had been a fine fighter during the war, strong and agile, even though she was a two-seater. But a lot of her success against single seat fighters had been due to the rear mounted Lewis gun the observer could use to protect the rear—a weapon that Padger’s surplus Bristol no longer had.
Behind him, Doc was still taking pictures of the ground features. He didn’t like the idea of bringing her into a dogfight, especially one so one-sided.
If there were only one of them, he could try leading it into a Lufberry circle, always turning to force the other plane to follow to line up a shot. The result was two planes chasing each other around in a tight circle, gradually losing altitude until one pilot or the other had no choice but to break away. But if he tried that, the second plane could simply stand off and bring him down. The more Jack looked for options, the fewer he saw, and time was running out.
As if to emphasize that thought, the nearer pilot opened up on him again. This time the rounds passed just to the right of the Bristol as Jack slid away from the line of fire.
“Hang on!” he shouted to Doc, then pulled up and rolled away to the left. The second plane moved in at an angle and fired as well. This time bullets tore through t
he upper wing.
He wasn’t going to fly his way out of this, Jack realized. He started looking for a place to put the plane down in an at least partially controlled landing. There were occasional openings in the canopy, but there was no telling what was down there. He flew over one as he dodged incoming fire and saw a rocky stream channel that offered him nothing.
He took the Bristol higher, to get a better view of the ground. The breaks in the forest canopy were small and scattered, but he saw something perhaps a couple miles down the valley that looked like a larger break.
He dove again as both fighters fired at him. A couple rounds punched through the tail, but that was minor. Jack accelerated and leveled out just a few feet above the treetops, racing over the forest. He thought he’d seen open water in the distance, a pond or a small lake. At least there was a break in the forest. He was hoping he’d find a stretch of beach, or some open grassland where he could put the plane down. But he didn’t know. He wasn’t even certain the bright glint he’d glimpsed was really water.
“What do we do, Jack?” Doc shouted.
“Put the camera away,” Jack called back. “We’re going down hard. Nothing loose.”
He jinked right as a burst of fire slashed into the nose. A moment later the Rolls engine started to smoke and rattle. The airspeed indicator began to drop. The throttles were fully open and he was on the deck. There was no way to pick up more speed. The only maneuvers available to him would just bleed off speed faster. He glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the Silver Star planes pull in above to keep him pinned down while the second slid into place on their tail. They were out of time.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of an open slash in the forest. Without even taking time to think, he slewed left, closed the throttle, and threw the elevators to full down. He saw the two Silver Star planes shoot past. Their pilots turned sharply to get him back in their sights, but Jack knew they were no longer a factor. Now it was just a question of surviving the crash.
“Brace!” he shouted, and then the right wingtip caught a tree top. The plane jerked hard, and he heard Doc scream. Then the Bristol was ripping through a tangle of leafy vines. The engine snarled and stopped, Jack was thrown hard against his harness, and everything was green.
Chapter 14
Jack came to with Doc shaking him and shouting directly into his face.
“Jack, wake up!”
He was still in the cockpit of the smashed Bristol. Oh, Padger was not going to be happy about this. He hurt, but he hurt everywhere more or less equally so he assumed he didn’t have any critical injuries. And Doc seemed to be okay, but he should make sure of that.
“Are you okay?” he asked. That was just the right question, he realized. It focused right in on exactly what he wanted to know, and didn’t take them off on any irrelevant tangents. So it seemed like his mind was working. All things considered, he decided, it could have been a lot worse.
“Damn it, Jack, move! NOW!”
He shook it off and unsnapped his harness. Overhead he heard the Silver Star planes coming closer. Doc was hauling him out over the edge of the cockpit, and he managed to help push himself clear. He tumbled out of the smashed plane, hit the dirt, and quickly got to his feet. He recognized the sound of an airplane going into a dive. He grabbed Doc’s arm and pulled her with him.
“Come on! We need to move!” he snapped.
“Oh, do you think?” said Doc, and they sprinted for the cover of the jungle.
They made it the few feet to the trees and dove under the thick foliage as machine gun bullets strafed the wreck behind them. The Silver Star plane pulled up, and its partner came in for a pass of its own. More bullets ripped up the deep green leaves and fronds and stitched across the ruins of Padger’s Bristol.
“Keep your head down,” Jack said.
Doc sighed. “You are just full of good ideas today. Yes, by the way.”
“Yes, what?”
“In answer to your question, I’m okay. In better shape than you, I think.”
“I’m okay,” said Jack. “Just shook me up. Not used to being the one that gets shot down.”
“Well, I think we made it out of this one okay,” she said. “But let’s not make a habit of it.”
One of the planes made a final pass over the site, and a smoke grenade tumbled down to the ground alongside the wreck, sending up a thick plume of bright red smoke. Then they heard the engines recede into the distance.
“Well, here we are,” said Doc. “And I don’t think we’re flying out in that.”
Jack gave her a confident smile. “Oh no, not nearly enough runway to get her up to takeoff speed.”
“Oh, poor Padger,” said Doc. “We didn’t even ask. We kind of stole his airplane, didn’t we?”
“Kind of,” said Jack. “All right, let’s see how much of our gear made it. They marked the crash so their ground troops can find it. We need to be far away by the time they get here.”
They hurried back to the wreckage and managed to dig their kit bags out of the rear compartment. Doc’s bag hadn’t taken any damage from enemy fire, though it remained to be seen how much damage the crash itself had done to the scientific gear she’d packed. Jack’s bag had taken a couple bullets, but a quick check showed that they’d mainly shredded the top layer of cold weather gear. It looked like that would be unnecessary here anyway.
They shouldered the bags and set off. The valley appeared to run mainly along an east/west axis, with the canyon mouth and the Silver Star camp at the west end. So they headed east. Jack estimated that the valley was five to six miles wide at its widest point and ran for a good twenty miles. That meant about a hundred square miles of territory to hide in. It would be difficult for the Silver Star to track them down. Of course they might discover that the Silver Star was the least of their worries.
“Don’t eat anything,” Doc said as she took a photo of a strange plant with clusters of juicy looking purple berries concealed beneath its striped leaves. “Remember, there’s at least one plant here that will drop you in your tracks.”
“And one that will make us immortal and enlightened, if you believe the Long Walker,” Jack said.
“Well, I don’t like those odds,” said Doc. “We’ve got a couple days’ worth of food and water, right? Hopefully by then I’ll have some idea of what’s safe to eat and what isn’t.”
They made slow progress through thick undergrowth for perhaps a quarter mile. Then the thick jungle gave way to less dense trees without so much ground cover or the thick, parasitic vines that hung from the branches like Spanish Moss. They soon found a small river that flowed east, deeper into the valley, and they made better time moving along the bank. Jack had to hurry Doc along more than once as she kept stopping to photograph some new plant species or collect something in one of her seemingly endless supply of small, glass vials.
“This is astonishing! We’re going to rewrite the botany texts!” Doc exclaimed after collecting specimens of yet another new plant. “I’ve discovered more new species in the last hour than were reported in the last ten years! And not just new species. I think some of these represent whole new families! I don’t know how, but we’ve got to get a real scientific expedition in here.”
Jack congratulated her, but he couldn’t stop thinking that none of that was going to happen if they didn’t find a way to survive here, evade the Silver Star, and somehow make it back to civilization. He didn’t have a very good plan for doing any of those at the moment.
“It’s not just plants,” he said quietly as they headed off downstream again. They were following a dirt game trail that ran parallel to the river bank and connected various small watering holes. Jack wasn’t much of a hunter, but he could definitely make out tracks near the water’s edge. Some were small, but some suggested a large enough animal to possibly be dangerous. He kept the holsters of his .45s unsnapped and scanned the wilderness around them, looking for movement.
They found their
first animals as they rounded a bend in the river. The channel widened into a broad, shallow pool—an ideal place to drink. A group of animals started and took off through the pool when Jack and Doc appeared.
Doc gasped and whipped her camera up, managing to get a shot just as they cleared the water and crashed through the underbrush on the far side. Jack counted perhaps a dozen of them. They were about the size of a pony, but looked more like antelope, or perhaps goats. Jack couldn’t decide. They had long, deep gray hair and a blunt face that suggested a capybara more than anything else. The males had two long, spiraling horns like corkscrews that extended back over their shoulders.
Then they were gone. Jack listened to them crashing away through the foliage, then even that sound was gone. It was as if they’d never been there.
“Caprids!” said Doc. “Family Bovidae, Tribe Caprini. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
“They looked like a cross between a goat and a sheep,” Jack offered.
“Yeah,” Doc said cheerily. “Like I said, Caprids.”
“Okay. As long as we’re on the same page here.”
“Sorry,” said Doc with a grin. “I’m all splifficated on science.”
“Perfectly okay,” Jack said. “Shall we? I’m sure there’s plenty more science up ahead.”
They set off again, Jack in front and Doc happy to follow wherever he led. He should let her enjoy it, Jack thought as they moved farther down the trail. If she was all giddy with the thrill of new discoveries, she wouldn’t be worrying about how precarious their situation was. Right now, he was worried enough for both of them.
Jack didn’t know what time it was; his watch had apparently smashed against the Biff’s control panel during the crash and was out of action. But the flight up from Almora had taken a good part of the day, and they’d been hiking for at least an hour now. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the sun already nearing the edge of the cliffs behind him. The days would be short here between the valley’s high cliffs, he realized, and twilight would come on suddenly. He started looking for a place to shelter for the night.