Against the Eldest Flame

by Dave Robinson

  She smiled sweetly at Doc. “You’re just going to have to spell me. Even after that nap I can’t pull another thirty hours at the controls.”

  Doc gestured to Gilly to get out of the co-pilot’s seat. “Head back and see if you can make us something to eat. I don’t feel up to trying Gus’s cooking.”

  “I resent that remark,” Gus grumbled.

  “And you resemble it, too.” Vic grinned.

  “I’m still a better cook than you are,” the gorilla shot back.

  “Hold on, I open a mean bottle of Coke,” Vic said as she loosened her harness.

  Doc sat back in the co-pilot’s seat, concern clear on his face; the race had just got a lot closer. Vic squeezed the yoke; they may have survived the ambush but with this much damage they’d probably lost almost all their head start.

  She hummed tunelessly; at least it didn’t sound like the trip would be boring.

  #

  Doc was a few hours into his shift at the controls when he saw the black clouds scudding on the horizon. The had crossed the bulge of western Africa and now they were back over the water. Most of the trip had been clear, and if their reckoning was right they should be nearing the Guinea coast. There had been no sign of either the Germans or the Eldest Flame and its agents, which suited Doc just fine. Sky Cloud was in no shape to tangle with another couple of destroyers, or even a single well handled pursuit plane. He could fire up number two if he had to, and climb out of ground effect, but that would more than double his fuel consumption.

  The waves started picking up, going from just a foot or two to three and four foot swells mixed with whitecaps. Wind whistled through the holes in the right wing, setting the stays to vibrating. They had thought long and hard about whether to collapse the landing gear, and finally decided to leave it inflated. One engine wouldn’t give the compressors enough power to inflate them in a hurry, and at the altitudes they were flying, they weren’t going to have much warning of an emergency landing.

  He nudged Vic, who was taking a turn in the co-pilot’s chair. “What do you think? Should we keep going or try to go around them?”

  She shook her head. “Best to keep on course, I think. We’re not high enough to get a good look, and I don’t want to run into something worse.”

  Doc smiled. “So your vote is to keep going because at least that way we’re at least getting closer to where we’re going.”

  “Yep.” Vic grinned back, her eyes sparkling. “No point choosing between unknowns, you never know which one is going to be the safest - or the most fun.”

  “And the most fun is never the safest,” Doc said solemnly.

  “It might be for you, but not for me.”

  He shrugged, and turned all his attention back to flying. Raindrops started spattering on the windscreen, and gusts of wind began buffeting them. The controls bucked in his hands, and Doc had to put some muscle into keeping level. Vic might be as good a pilot, but he had more strength to wrestle a plane in this kind of weather. “Wake the others and tell them to strap in,” he told Vic. “This could get rough.”

  She unbuckled her belt and slipped back to the cabin. Alone in the cockpit, Doc watched the skies. The black clouds were closer now, moving fast. A flash of lightning lit the cockpit, and it was a good ten seconds before the thunder reached his ears. Five seconds after that, the storm hit.

  Raindrops a quarter inch across pelted Sky Cloud. Doc turned on the wipers but even at their highest speed the windscreen was covered with water before they had finished a stroke. Lightning hit the seas around them, each flash turning the sky brighter than daylight. The waves rose to an easy ten feet, and Doc took Sky Cloud as high as he could without getting out of ground effect. Number one’s steady drone was reassuring as it carried through the plane’s frame. Fifteen hundred horses were pulling them through the storm, and Doc was willing to put human ingenuity against any display of nature’s fury.

  Nature took up the challenge and lighting arced across Sky Cloud’s metal skin. Lights flashed in the cockpit and his instruments spun wildly. Doc dug his heels into the floor and fought both rudder and stick to keep them level. Waves and wind fought over the metal mote.

  Vic slipped back into the co-pilots chair and buckled her harness. She didn’t say anything but her eyes were bright and her grin was wide. Doc felt the stress ease as she took up the double controls, adding her strength to his to keep Sky Cloud straight and level. She reached out questioningly to bring up number two, but Doc shook his head without taking his eyes off the ocean. “Too much wind. Can’t balance the thrust.”

  It was too late to climb above the storm, the weather had come up too fast. What Doc had thought was just a tropical squall had turned into the next best thing to a full-fledged hurricane. The instruments had settled down, but he didn’t dare trust them. Instead he peered through the windscreen, catching whatever glimpses of the sea below the rain allowed, feeling the wind through the stick as man and machine fought for their lives. His world contracted to sea, sky and plane, and without thinking he began to whistle too high for human hearing. Some part of his mind knew Gus and Gilly were back in the cabin, just as he knew Vic sat beside him, adding her not inconsiderable strength and skill to his efforts. Some part of his mind knew these things, but not his consciousness. His consciousness was locked in battle with Mother Nature, man’s mind against Nature’s raw power.

  Night rose, and the darkness turned pitch. Now all he could do was trust his feelings and navigate by the all too common bolts of lightning. His unique upbringing had given him night vision that was better than anyone else alive, but it wasn’t enough in this storm. Nature was putting him in his place, telling him that no matter what powers he ascribed to human ingenuity the greatest victory he could win would be mere survival.

  They broke into the eye of the storm and the winds faded to nothing. Without Vic’s aid Doc would have overcorrected and sent them into the water when the winds let up. Savoring the moment’s peace, he looked up to see the southern stars shining down on them like beneficent parents.

  Lightning flashed off to the left, illuminating a wall of jungle. Without thinking, Doc reached over to fire up number two, but Vic beat him to it. They went feet dry as both of them pulled back on the yokes, fighting for altitude as Sky Cloud hurtled toward the jungle canopy. Three thousand horses clawed at the sky, propellers biting at the air.

  For a moment, just for a moment, Doc thought they were going to make it. The nose was up, he could see the top of the jungle canopy. Beside him, Vic was praying to Kipling’s Engineer as she tried to nurse every horsepower out of the engines, playing with the prop feathering to give maximum thrust. They still had plenty of airspeed, over a hundred knots, and the engines were roaring with health.

  Then the left pontoon hit a tree. A branch punctured the skin and lodged in the frame. Sky Cloud’s nose dropped and they smashed into the canopy. Brush went everywhere as the propellers bit into branches and leaves sending debris flying. Branches broke against the plane’s skin as they crashed through trees. Doc threw up his hands to protect his face. The sound of falling trees and breaking branches drowned out everything else. Doc didn’t even hear the propellers break as they ran into something too tough to cut. Number two screamed as the revs climbed, and Vic hit the kill switch just in time.

  A branch speared through the windscreen, just missing Doc’s head by inches. Vic was screaming like a happy child on a roller coaster.

  Finally, they came to a stop. Doc hit the fire extinguishers, just in case, and then unstrapped. Vic was already on her feet, heading back to the cabin.

  Sky Cloud would never fly again, and the permanently detached part of Doc’s mind was already designing a successor.

  “Doc!” Vic’s yell caught his attention and he dashed back to the cabin.

  She and Gus were bent over Gilly, who had a three foot splinter embedded in his throat. Somehow he was still conscious, though his eyes were barely focusing. Gus was holding him down so he di
dn’t move and do more damage to himself.

  “Vic, get my medical kit.” Doc leaned over Gilly and gave him a quick examination. The sliver looked to have pierced his voice box, as well as his carotid artery. It was the only thing that was keeping him from bleeding to death.

  Vic brought the kit and Doc set to work. First he gave Gilly an anesthetic of his own compounding, and once the wounded man’s eyes had closed he set to work.

  All of his tools were designed for work in close quarters and emergency situations. First he had to find a way to keep Gilly alive when he removed the splinter. His only option was to close off the carotid above and below the wound then remove the obstruction. Then he was going to have to seal the wound before brain damage set in. Closing his eyes, he ran through a quick series of mental exercises aimed at tightening his focus and speeding his reflexes.

  As soon as he opened his eyes he started moving. First he clamped the artery, then removed the splinter with one swift movement. Then he cut the damaged part of the carotid away and bridged the gap with a small section of synthetic artery he had developed for battlefield use. Clamping the ends of the artery over the synthetic, he quickly sealed the joint and withdrew. Barring complications, Gilly would live. Doc laced the wound with sulfa, then covered it with a field dressing.

  The whole operation took less than a minute.

  Doc sat back, breathing deeply. That one minute’s work had taken more out of him than an hour’s flying in the storm. But at least Gilly was going to drive again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Survival

  Dawn broke, giving Vic and the rest their first real look at the remains of Sky Cloud. The tri-motor was a wreck; both wings had been sheared off just outboard of the engines. If the tanks hadn’t been almost dry, they probably would have all died in a flaming inferno. As it was, Vic could still smell the aviation gasoline along their wake. Standing by the rudder, she looked back down the trail of destruction to the beach. Bits of Sky Cloud glittered among the broken trees. One propeller blade was stuck thirty feet up in the side of a tree that had miraculously survived. If anyone was following them, they had left a huge signpost to tell where they had landed.

  She turned and walked back to the hatch. It still amazed her the plane hadn’t flipped, but it hadn’t and now the hatch was only three feet off the ground. Gus had lowered their packs, heavily loaded with everything he and Doc thought they might need and could carry. Despite all of both Vic and Gus’s protests, that did not include the flamethrower. They all had at least two guns, and Doc and Gus both carried machetes. Vic had something that bore an uncanny resemblance to an ancient Greek short sword, and Gilly had a bush knife. She knew Gus laughed at her for it, but it felt so good in her hand.

  Doc and Gilly climbed down from the hatch about the time she reached the plane; Doc going first and then turning to help Gilly to the ground. He looked in surprisingly good shape despite the blood he had lost, although his face looked ashen against the bandage on his throat. Doc had given him a notebook and pencil, so that he had some way to communicate. For once Vic wished she and Gilly had found the time to learn sign language, like Doc and Gus.

  Gus was the last to leave the plane, dropping from the hatch to the ground with an audible thud. Once on the ground he doffed his pith helmet and actually preened. Somehow he had managed to get his hands on a perfectly pressed set of khaki shorts and a matching shirt, to which he had added an ascot. Unfortunately, his bare feet spoiled the effect. Vic covered her mouth to avoid laughing. He looked the very picture of the great white hunter from one of the movie serials; if you happened to forget that he was a gorilla. Gus also had a Holland and Holland big game rifle crooked over his elbow like a riding crop. All he needed was a pith helmet to complete the image.

  “Which way are we going?” Vic waved at the jungle around them. “It all looks the same to me.”

  “Except where we landed,” Gus muttered.

  “I don’t know how far we were blown off course,” Doc said, “but I was able to take some sightings last night and we’re somewhere in French Equatorial Africa.” He pointed a little east of south. “Leopoldsville should be in that general direction.”

  “Time’s a-wasting,” Vic said, flourishing her arm toward Doc. “After you.”

  Doc took point and started leading them deeper into the jungle. Vic shouldered her pack and started to follow. It was old growth, so most of the life was up in the canopy, leaving them a relatively clear path through the gloom. It was the kind of terrain where it was all too easy to get lost but both Vic and Doc had excellent senses of direction. They also had compasses. It was a specially shielded model of Doc’s own design that automatically corrected for the difference between magnetic north and true north. Vic’s boots sank into the soft soil as she walked and she kept his eyes and ears open for any jungle dwellers.

  “Anything dangerous down here, Gus?” She asked softly.

  “Why are you asking me? I’m a mountain gorilla, not a lowlander.”

  “I’d ask you even if you were an Antarctic gorilla. You’re the one who keeps bragging about your sixteen doctorates.”

  “And none of them honorary,” Gus pointed out.

  “That’s just because no one would give a gorilla an honorary degree.”

  “No, that’s because I can earn a degree in less time than some robber baron would take to have someone write his acceptance speech.”

  “Quiet, you two!” Doc glared back over his shoulder. “If there is anything out there it’s either running to get as far away from the two of you as possible, or taking advantage of the distraction to sneak up on us!”

  Vic sighed; Doc just didn’t get it. For all that he had spent nearly two decades Earth there were times when it was obvious that he just didn’t get humanity. A little humor was the perfect thing to start off a trip like this, and Doc’s first reaction was to step on it. He was fine with negotiations and business deals, but small talk was often beyond him. Even Gus seemed better equipped to deal with humans most of the time, and he wasn’t one!

  From there, they moved on in silence.

  Vic dropped back to check on Gilly, who had insisted on a small pack despite his injuries. Now that they were moving, he had some color back in his dark face. Unlike Vic, he had cut a walking stick and seemed to be doing well enough even in the heat.

  Vic wiped sweat from her brow and whispered, “How are you taking the heat so well?”

  He grinned and pulled out his notebook; and then scratched a few words: Hotter in NC.

  Vic laughed. He was right, the South did get pretty hot in summer. Meanwhile the journey wouldn’t get any shorter unless they put one foot in front of the other. She ran her thumbs under the straps of her backpack and kept moving. It was a long walk, and more steps for her than anyone but Gus.

  #

  Three days later, they reached the edge of the jungle. As the trees grew thinner, the undergrowth grew thicker and Doc had to resort more and more to hacking a path with his machete. It was hot and sweat dripped down his collar, but he kept moving. At his best guess they had over a hundred miles to go, and Leopoldsville wasn’t getting any closer. A shadow passed over them, and Doc looked up to see a huge silvery shape blotting out the sun.

  Shading his eyes, he took a closer look: It was the ZL-38. He could still see scorch marks on her flanks from the explosion of her sister ship. Her guns were trained for and aft as she barreled through the sky at about eighty knots. She must have been close to a mile up, because even Doc’s sensitive ears could only make out the faintest drone from her engines. Meanwhile, the others took cover, hiding beneath the brush.

  Something bumped his back and he turned to see Gilly holding a compact pair of mini-binoculars. Gilly passed them to Doc and then faded back into the underbrush.

  With the binoculars, he zoomed in on the airship. The secondary blisters were open, giving him a look at the crew at their fighting stations. The gun crews were all zombies, with gorilla brown shirts
behind them. Scanning forward to the control cabin he could see Schmidt’s unmistakeable figure and leather coat. One thing was certain, ZL-38 no longer appeared to be operating under the control of the LuftKriegsMarine. No one seemed to be paying attention to what was below, so Doc watched as the destroyer passed out of sight.

  Once he was sure that no one could see them, he waved the others out of hiding. Pulling out his compass, Doc took another reading on their direction, and noticed something odd. ZL-38 wasn’t heading for Leopoldsville. As best he could tell, it was heading for somewhere further north, deeper into the Belgian Congo. Maybe that was a good thing, hopefully they could stop at Leopoldsville for supplies without interruption.

  Back on the move, Doc kept an eye out for anything that could be approaching. This was wild country and he had heard legends of the “mountain man-eater” that was said to be twenty feet long and run on two legs. At least they were moving from dense undergrowth into something that more resembled an open plain. Off in the distance, he could see antelopes clustered around a water hole with vultures circling above them. Africa was always a marvel for Doc, there was just so much life. His childhood on the Moon hadn’t prepared him for anything like this. Sure, he’d watched from above, but it wasn’t he same thing. His telescopes and monitors could only show him images and reconstructed sounds. It was no substitute for being there with the oppressive heat, the smells and the insects.

  Something crashed off to his right and he saw a flock of birds take wing. Doc spun to see a creature out of nightmares bearing down on them.

  Standing eight feet tall it must have been about twenty feet long from nose to tail and it was approaching at a dead run. White feathers lined its back, and saliva dripped from six inch teeth. Its black beady eyes were fixed on Doc and it gave a roar that showed more teeth than he had time to count. The mouth was easily big enough to take half his body in one bite. At first he thought it had no forelimbs, but then it uncoiled them, showing long feathered arms with a wicked claw at the wrist. Earth was large, and he hadn’t been able to see everything even if he had wanted. He had seen dinosaurs before, even watched live footage, but that was from millions of years in the past, not the present.