by Ian Whates
Intellectually, Mosi knew it was unreasonable to expect everything to have stayed the same in the decades he’d been away, but he couldn’t escape the sense that Callia III had deserted him along with everyone else. If he had come here hoping that the familiar surroundings might somehow bring Naj closer, he was disappointed. Had there been anywhere else to go he might have accepted that and moved on.
Instead he lingered, taking whatever menial jobs he could get, and drinking whatever he earned.
These were dark days, which could only have ended one way if it weren’t for Taylor.
Mosi still had no idea what she saw in him, he was just grateful that she had found something. They met one evening in a drinking dive just off The Walk, the sort of place he never knew existed during his first period on Callia III; perhaps they hadn’t, but they proliferated now. This one was unadorned – no VR booths, no enterstainments, no edrugs, just good old fashioned alcohol and a real barman: human rather than a hologram and a clever algorithm, which was the main reason he favoured the place.
It was a slow night, with few of the tables occupied, and Mosi and Taylor were both propping up the bar – him because he’d just been fired from his latest job after a bust up with the boss, her because she’d just dumped a long-term boyfriend after catching him in the sack with another man.
He was barely aware of her presence, wrapped up in his own cocoon of self-pity – just him and the glass. The last thing he expected was for her to talk to him, but she did. Even more surprisingly, he replied.
She was Khdayin, that much was obvious, and by no means pretty in the conventional sense, but there was strength in her features, intelligence in her eyes, and an energy about her that shone through clearly despite her mood, and to him she was beautiful. She was also way out of his league, though he hungered for her with a desperation that caught him unawares.
Mosi had always been fascinated by how things work, the clever ways mechanisms utilise power, a curiosity that developed into an obsession with gadgets and machinery. Aboard the Ion Raider, if Leesa was ship’s mechanic, he was her assistant.
Taylor, it turned out, was a falcon racer, and a good one. That was her obsession and she was forever tinkering with her bird in an effort to improve performance. It did their relationship no harm at all when Mosi was able to join in. They quickly fell into step, synchronising skills to become a team, as if they always had been.
“I’ve been studying the thermals at Southern Breach,” she would say, “and I reckon if we strengthen the front struts, just a fraction, and taper the pinions more gently, we could squeeze a bit more lift, which will give me a much better approach coming into Devil’s Peak. Look.”
She conjured graphics on the flat screen, showing the air flow over a wing’s cross-section. She then, manipulated the image to show her suggested improvements and the small increase in lift that resulted.
“Okay…” Mosi said, studying the diagram, which was looped on repeat, from current design to projected. “But won’t the longer pinions risk fouling up in the corkscrew?”
She shook her head. “Not if we’re careful, look…”
He loved these days. Thanks to Taylor the spectre of Najat had receded. She never went away entirely, and Mosi still spoke to her sometimes, when he was alone, keeping her up-to-date on what they’d done that day.
Taylor was showing him how to live again, and he knew that Naj would have approved.
Falcon racing had nothing to do with predatory hawks and everything to do with gliders: single person flying frames, constructed from the lightest, strongest materials available, traditionally built and flown by enthusiasts such as Taylor.
Mosi vividly recalled the first time he took a falcon up. This wasn’t Taylor’s racing rig, she would never trust him or anyone else with that, but a tired old frame they had picked up for next to nothing and modified so that he could get a taste of what it was like.
“I started with a rig just like this,” she told him. “We all do.”
Yeah, but I bet you were a lot younger and lighter then than I am now, he thought but didn’t say.
Conscious of how far down it was and that they were at the lip of a precipice, he climbed into the harness with Taylor’s help, lying prone with head raised, his body sleeved in the protective yet aerodynamic flight suit. He adjusted his position until he was comfortable, hands clutching the twin bars that would enable him to steer – left right, up down. Around him, the hollow pipes of the falcon’s chassis seemed ridiculously flimsy. He wondered if there was still time to back out… But he couldn’t do that, for Taylor’s sake, or rather for the sake of his own esteem in her eyes.
So he gripped the steering bars, wriggled the tail fins a couple of times to ensure they responded, scanned the telemetry displayed by his goggles – the most high tech aspect of the whole set up – checked that both the jointed wings were properly furled, and tried to ignore the gusting wind that buffeted his exposed body as if to emphasise how scant the rig’s framework really was. The sense that he was encased within a skeleton rather than anything of substance did little to calm his nerves. And people do this for fun?
He even managed a nod and the approximation of a smile when Taylor called out, “Are you okay?”
Then the countdown started. Surely not yet, he quailed, but the wink of descending digits in his goggles argued otherwise. Then, before he was ready, he found himself flung outward, a trajectory that quickly became a plummet – the ‘stoop’ as Taylor called it. Wind whipped past him and he suffered a moment of pure panic – what if the wings don’t open?
They did, of course, at his command some three seconds after his fall began, and he knew they would have done so two seconds later even had he been too panicked to act – a failsafe that all falcons were equipped with and which he had helped set earlier that morning.
In an instant his fear turned to joy, as the falcon’s tapered wings deployed – paper thin in parts but stronger than steel throughout, catching the wind and transforming his fall into a curving glide. Suddenly he was soaring.
This was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
All the hours spent in VR simulations of flying, which he used to consider so convincing, were shown to be nothing more than shams, pale imitations of glorious reality. The genuine article was thrilling and wonderful beyond his imagining.
The falcons’ bodywork had been reduced to a minimum to eliminate weight, the ultimate in pared-back glider design. With no engines, they relied on wind and their pilot’s skill to keep them aloft. He had by way of tools his wings, tail fins, and the repellors which ensured the craft and its occupant bounced away from crags and other obstructions rather than ploughing into them. Falcon racing only took place among the mountain peaks, where ridge lift – air currents striking obstructions and being forced upwards, lifting the falcons and their pilots – was plentiful but the winds were strong and treacherous and the opportunities for mishap abounded. In the arena of extreme sports this was the ultimate, the most dangerous challenge around, and Mosi had always considered those who attempted it insane.
Yet here he was, strapped within a rig, staring at the mottled terrain that slipped past, marvelling at the beauty of the world as sunlight glittered off the rocks below, angling his wings to slip between a pair of jutting peaks, delighting in a sense of freedom he had never experienced before… and laughing for the pure joy of it.
“You should try the repellors at least once,” Taylor had advised. “If only to get a feel of them.”
He did as suggested, skimming closer to a jutting formation than was wise – an indication of how much his confidence had grown – feeling the repellors kick in as he approached, to lift the rig up and away. In doing so, he came to understand how a pilot could manipulate the effect to gain a little more height and prolong the flight by precious seconds – he had understood the concept in principle, but now he had lived it.
All too soon it was over.
Despite the sense that he was King of the Air, in truth this was just a nursery flight over a course that was considered free of any significant hazards. Moments after he had stooped from the cliff edge, Mosi found himself approaching a glacial lake, its surface rippled into crinkled waves by the wind. He was so low by this point that he felt tempted to reach out with a hand as he skirted the lake’s shore and run his fingertips through the water.
Disengaging the repellors, he angled the wings to shed momentum as practiced and, as the ground rushed towards him – still too quickly, surely – opened the back of the harness to free his legs. At the last moment the wings retracted, furled and folded, while the tail section of the rig swung up to rest against his back. Then came the jolt of contact as his feet met solid ground. He was running, trying to stay upright and bring himself to a dignified halt, but, as suspected, he’d failed to shed enough momentum. Five rushed steps, with the rig on his back seeming determined to go faster than his legs could carry him, and suddenly he was sprawling forward, to skid to a stop on his stomach.
He took a second to get his breath back before wriggling backwards out of the harness, pushing the rig to one side. His flying suit had protected him from anything worse than a few bruises.
As soon as he was on his feet, Mosi scanned the heavens, spotting Taylor almost at once. She was high up, having retained far more altitude than he’d managed by this point. As he watched, she folded her wings and stooped, plummeting towards the lake, only to bottom out in a long curve as she opened the wings again and came racing across the water towards him.
She landed on her feet directly in front of him, with a precision he could only envy.
“Well,” she said, “how was it?”
“Incredible… Everything you said it would be and more. Can we go again?”
She laughed and hugged him and kissed him. He had never been happier.
Mosi tried to focus. He hurt in more ways than he knew a body could hurt. Then, with horror, he remembered the torture, the calm professional way the man who introduced himself as Vissecz had gone about his work, the agony he wrought, which intensified by stages and never seemed to end…
Mosi blinked. He wasn’t in the meat room any more, and he was lying down. Where had they brought him? What new torments lay in store? If he could just get a hold of something sharp, find a way to end this, to rob them of their sport…
A ship, this looks like the inside of a ship.
“I’m putting you under again,” said a voice he almost recognised, “to facilitate the accelerated healing.”
“No, wait…” he tried to say, but already the room was receding and his thoughts fled back to the comfort of the past.
Mosi had no ambitions to race himself – he was too heavy and had come to the sport too late. He still went up occasionally for pure pleasure, but did his racing vicariously through Taylor, whose reputation grew with each passing season. She steadily worked her way up through the rankings to be placed in several significant races and people started to notice her. Mosi would never forget the day she finally won a major, the Wind Hawk Cup. She came into the competition as second favourite and flew brilliantly, winning by a margin, with pre-race favourite Sonje trailing in a lowly fourth.
The fact that Sonje had made some disparaging comments about Taylor’s Khdayin heritage in the build-up to the event made victory all the sweeter.
They were still celebrating – Taylor having successfully negotiated the circus of photo calls and media requests – when an unwelcome visitor turned up at their door.
They both knew Cory Blind, everyone on the circuit knew him: the manager and public face of Team Lanner, who boasted four flyers in the top ten, including the beaten favourite Sonje. There was money to be made in falcon racing these days, an increasing amount. Taylor’s success in the past couple of seasons ensured that neither she nor Mosi had gone short, and winning the Wind Hawk Cup meant that they could have taken the rest of the year off and partied the whole while had they wished to. They didn’t. There was one more race to plan for, one more race to win.
There would always be those keen to cash in when they smelled a lucrative opportunity, and in recent years several corporations had begun to invest in sponsorship deals, building teams of talented flyers with a view to dominating the sport and claiming the accolades and rewards. Team Lanner were among the most prominent of these and currently the most successful.
They probably should have anticipated Blind’s visit. He had come sniffing around Taylor before, trying to recruit her.
“Congratulations!” he said, all smiles and holding out a bottle of expensive off-world champagne.
“Thank you, Cory. What do you want?”
Mosi always had admired Taylor’s directness.
“You. On the team. I’ve made no secret of that.”
“And I’ve made my answer clear. I already have a team.” She glanced towards Mosi.
“I know, I know, and you’ve done incredibly well.” The smile never wavered. “But come on, Taylor. Things are changing, rapidly. The days of the noble amateur tinkering on their rig in a cramped workshop are over. Falcon racing is a professional sport now. Seven of the top ten racers are signed up to pro teams and within the next two years that will be ten out of ten. Don’t get left behind. You’re too talented for that.”
“You’ve already had your answer, Blind,” Mosi interjected.
“Hear me out.” Blind raised his hands as if in surrender. “I’m willing to double my previous offer. That’ll make you our top paid pilot, our number one. A three-year contract. You’ll get the best crew of mechanics, the best rig, the best support network in the business.”
“I thought Sonje was your number one.”
“She was. Now she’ll have to get used to being number two. And Mosi, I’m not undervaluing your contribution. You two come as a package, we know that, and why break up a winning team? Senior mechanic on Taylor’s crew, with a senior pay grade to match. Think about it. Look at what the two of you’ve achieved on your own. Imagine how much more you can do with the resources of Team Lanner behind you. Together, we can rule racing for the next ten years, and we’ll make you the biggest star the sport has ever known.”
That last was a miscalculation. Doubtless it would have pushed the buttons of many an ambitious flyer, but not Taylor. Fame had never been her motivation. Never the less, the offer was tempting, more than tempting. To Mosi it had sounded like a dream come true: the opportunity to do what they did but on a grander scale, with contracted salaries that would be paid no matter how the race went. But this was Taylor’s call. He was the latecomer here and under no illusion as to who the senior partner was in their collaboration. Taylor was already shaking her head.
“Thank you for the offer, Cory, and I really mean that. It’s nice to feel wanted, but for me racing is all about the feel of wind in your face and the freedom, and that’s the one thing we’d never have at Lanner. Working to your timetable, to your beat, being at your beck and call… That’s not for us.”
Mosi felt his heart drop just a little, but then it swelled with pride. He’d known what her answer would be, even before she had spoken, and now that the decision was made he would back her all the way.
“You’ve got us all wrong, Taylor. Sure there would be expectations, but you’d be calling the shots. You’re the star. We’d work things around you. But…” and here he spread his hands, in a gesture of acceptance. “I can see there’s no point in pursuing this right now. Mosi, talk to her, will you?”
Had Blind sensed that he was tempted?
“Think about what we’re offering, Taylor. We’re not trying to stifle your dreams but to help you realise them. It’s not too late to change your mind – you know where I am. I’ll leave you to get back to your celebrating. You deserve it – that was a fine race today. But make the most of it, because you won’t be winning another, unless it’s in our colours.”
Mosi felt his blood
turn cold and took a step towards their visitor. “Is that a threat?”
“No, no threat. A prediction. It’s the King of the Mountains next, the climax of the whole season, and I promise you that Lanner are going to win it, come what may.”
With that Blind nodded to each of them, smiled broadly, and left.
After he’d gone they tried to get back to celebrating, but somehow their hearts weren’t in it any more.
To his credit, Blind left them in peace after that, doubtless sensing that pestering would never work. He had made his point. The rest was up to them.
Come the day of the race, Taylor was more pumped up than Mosi had ever seen her. Not through overconfidence, he knew her well enough to know this was all excitement with just a little bit of nerves thrown in for good measure.
“This is the big one,” she said as they ran through the falcon’s final checks.
He stopped and looked at her. “I know. And you’ll be wonderful.”
She kissed him and spun away, unable to keep still.
Only the top twenty-five ranked flyers qualified to enter the King of the Mountains. In one sense, the season of ten majors prior to this represented a competitive league; in another, those were just the qualifiers. Sonje was still the favourite for the race and would win the overall league whatever this day’s outcome but, following her triumph in the Wind Hawk, Taylor was pushing her close in the betting.
The start site was a levelled plateau, which was now a hive of activity, full to bursting with flyers, their support crews, race officials, reporters, and a privileged few fans who had paid a fortune to be here in person. The setting was not exactly conducive to peace and tranquillity, but as the start time drew nearer Taylor calmed down, becoming focussed, channelling her energies as Mosi had seen her do so many times before.