Ariel

by Steven R. Boyett

  We stopped before an impossible thing. It looked as if it was built for a world with no gravity, as if it would collapse under its own weight. The pale moonlight, which illuminated the inside just enough to keep us from bumping into things, sparkled on the incredibly thin dragonfly wings.

  “The Gossamer Condor,” I said. “I remember reading about this. It was the first manpowered aircraft.”

  Tom nodded. “It was seventy-five years after the Wright brothers flew before they did it,” he said. “The designer got the Kremer prize for it.”

  I studied the fragile thing. Its ninety-foot-wide main wing glistened as if wet. It had taken high technology to produce this craft that had realized one of humankind’s oldest dreams. The wings were thin Mylar plastic; the rest of it was incredibly light metal, woods, and plastic. The whole thing weighed about seventy pounds; I could have pulled it along with one arm. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had about a dozen of these things?” I asked. “We could come in on the Empire State Building from above.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Tom. “The ability to produce this thing simply doesn’t exist anymore. And even if it did, it took a very small, very strong person to operate it. He was a jockey who weighed about one-thirty, I believe. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone in Washington that small and that strong. That, plus I don’t know if it’d go high enough to reach the top of the Empire State Building.” He stroked his beard with thumb and forefinger. “The wings would snap in strong winds. Even if you could get it up on a still day, the convection currents rising up the sides of the building would be more than enough to break—” He stopped, thoughtful. A smile crept across his face. “Well,” he said distinctly. “I will be dipped in shit.” His eyes glittered like the wings of the dragonfly aircraft. “I didn’t even think of it. It didn’t even occur to me.” He turned to me like a man in a dream, one who liked it there and didn’t want to come back. “Convection currents,” he said, as if that explained everything. I waited for more, but nothing else came.

  He needs a pipe, I thought absurdly. He should be a huge, easy-going psychiatrist, or an English professor, smoking a pipe and staring out the window without seeing the world outside.

  Displayed in front of the Gossamer Condor were da Vinci’s designs for manpowered flight, arrayed in light, carefully crafted wooden replicas: the dream and the dream realized.

  “Come on,” said Tom. “If they were holding an exhibit on manpowered flight, then there has to be a hang glider around here somewhere.”

  I looked past him at a dark silhouette by a corner wall. I pointed at it. “Will that do?”

  He turned, with a religious fanatic’s look on his face. Behind a glass stand with a picture of Francis M. Rogallo and accompanying text was an assembled hang glider with an eighteen-foot wingspan. A mannequin hung in the center. The hang glider was suspended in front of a painted backdrop, but it had grown too dark for me to make out what the painting was.

  “Go find Malachi and Mac,” he ordered suddenly, as though he were shifting gears. “Bring them back here.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I,” he said, smiling, “am going to try to get that thing down. Now get.”

  *

  At the main building of the Smithsonian I asked around until I found Malachi and Mac and explained to them that Torn wanted them at the Air and Space Museum. On the way to the museum Mac could stand it no longer and demanded to know what was going on.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” I told him. “What’s a convection current?”

  He shrugged. “You got me. Malachi?”

  Malachi pursed his lips thoughtfully but didn’t answer.

  We found Tom at the manpowered flight exhibit. He had managed to put on the mannequin’s harness and strap himself into the hang glider, and he stood before us like a stylized Hawkman from Flash Gordon. He was giggling. It was unnerving. He just kept chuckling at some private joke as he unbuckled himself from the giant kite and gestured pridefully to it like a magician setting up his best trick.

  Mac and I looked on wonderingly. Malachi watched interestedly, nodding to himself as though everything were happening according to his expectations.

  Still wearing the harness, Tom stood in front of us, the dark wedge of the hang glider behind him. “Convection currents,” he said.

  “You’ll need to go in the late afternoon,” said Malachi calmly. “The heat will be best then.”

  Tom nodded. Mac and I exchanged looks. “What?” we asked.

  “Tell them, tell them.” Tom gestured impatiently.

  “Convection currents,” said Malachi. “Updrafts of warm air replacing cold air, rising from sun-heated areas of land. Or, in the case of New York City, concrete.

  “Oh.” A light bulb clicked on in my head. Mac still looked confused. “Warm air rises,” I told him. “It provides lift.”

  “Oh,” he said, echoing me, as his own little bulb winked on.

  Tom spoke in a rush. “Warm air constantly replaces cool. There’s a continuous rush of air up the sides of tall buildings. It’s especially strong in the late afternoon, when the concrete is hottest. Actually, early evening would be best. The air would be cooling while the concrete still radiated absorbed heat. But we don’t want to fight at night, not given a choice.”

  His enthusiasm was catching. “We can send an air team,” Mac said. “There was a place—a sporting goods shop—they had hang gliders, at least half a dozen of them.”

  “Elite Sports,” supplied Tom. He thought a minute. “An updraft up the side of the World Trade Center,” said Tom rapidly. “We could jump off and circle to get initial lift. The Empire State Building would provide more, so that, even if we lost enough height to put us below the eighty-sixth floor, we could circle and lift.”

  “Hold on,” said Malachi imperturbably, the eye of the hurricane. “Don’t count your chickens yet.”

  “But—” we all began in unison.

  He went on, crowding out our voices. “We leave day after tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll have that long to round up a team and learn to fly these things. We have to figure out if the lift will be enough. We have to find someone here who’s done it enough to know what he’s talking about. An assault team has to be trained; we need a plan of action.”

  “There was a place not five miles from me when I lived in California,” interrupted Tom, “that used to offer hang glider flights down a slope for fifteen bucks. Minimal instruction provided. As I said, I tried it a few times. There’s not all that much to it, Malachi.”

  “Perhaps not, for simple flights,” he admitted. “But you’re talking jumping from one skyscraper, flying three and a half miles, and landing on another.” There was a pause. “But—” he gave a grudging half-smile “—it’s all we’ve got. We’ll want to get an early start tomorrow, so I suggest we get the gliders tonight and then go to bed. Pete, I’ll bring one back for you.”

  “I’m coming with you!”

  “No. You’re going to put a notice up on the bulletin board telling anybody with any experience at this to report to Tom.” It was everybody’s duty to keep abreast of announcements on the bulletin board in the huge Smithsonian lobby.

  “Oh.” Why was he always so infernally reasonable? “Okay.”

  Tom nodded. Grinning like a bandit, he began to applaud himself. Mac joined in and I was a close third. Malachi remained stony. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day,” he said.

  We each shot him the same sour look: party pooper. Yet we knew we needed his hard-headed pragmatism. I couldn’t help but hope—for myself, for Ariel—yet I couldn’t afford to hope. Not too much. Leave it to Malachi to keep our feet on the ground long enough for us to see what we were doing.

  Just the same—and I only saw it because of where I stood—a smile crossed his face as he turned and stalked out of the dark museum.

  *

  The first thing to hit me when I walked into my room was the smell. It wasn’t the chamber pot; I’d
emptied it that afternoon and covered it when I put it back. It was me. Or rather, traces of me. McGee, I reflected wryly, had been diplomatic and most restrained when she’d suggested I take a bath. The room smelled as though somebody had shit in a football player’s locker. Where’s the body? my nose demanded.

  Okay—the sheets go first. Might as well throw them away; I doubted washing them would do any good.

  Fred lay on the stained white sheets. I picked it up. A note dangled from the handle. I removed it and unfolded it. Ruled notebook paper and a disgustingly neat handwriting:

  Pete, I feel I must write you this note, as I do not want animosity between us. I couldn’t understand why you fled the room as you did, though it was obvious you were quite upset. I didn’t understand, that is, until Mac came by later and told me about you and your unicorn. Believe me, Pete, I didn’t know. There are some women who would attempt to seduce you with malicious intent, knowing full well what it would cost you and your Familiar. I am not one of those. Mac was angry with me. He called me a whore, though he’s too much a gentleman to say so in those words. I make no apologies, just as none are expected from you. What I am sorry for is your consternation. If only I’d known! And—truly!—I would like to meet your Familiar someday. She must be marvelous.

  McGee

  P.S. I brought your sword back. Don’t worry—I know better than to touch the blade.

  *

  I sat on the stained and smelly sheets and read it at least five times by the flickering light of my lone candle before folding it and wedging it beneath the pewter candle holder. Then I stripped the sheets from my cot, tossed them into a corner to be dealt with in the morning, and turned the mattress over. I slept on the bare bed, hugging Fred as though it were a teddy bear.

  *

  Mac burst into my room just after dawn and almost lost his head. “Goddam!” he yelled, leaning back severely. “You and Malachi are just alike with those things.”

  “Habit,” I mumbled sleepily, though mentally I felt alert. “You should cultivate one sometime.”

  He made a rude noise. “Try sneaking up on me sometime and see what happens.”

  I sheathed Fred. “‘Do unto others … .’”

  “Come on, get up. We go the Icarus route today.”

  “Chirp.”

  The morning chill was invigorating. Tom and Malachi were already waiting at the foot of the stairs. On the sidewalk were six brightly colored nylon bags, thin and about twenty feet long. Six hang gliders, which meant we’d have seven people—assuming the one Tom had retrieved from the Air and Space Museum was operable.

  “Ah, Pete,” said Tom. “Would you care to act as our step and fetchit this morning?”

  “Sure. What am I fetching?”

  “The rest of our team.”

  “I take it our bulletin yielded some results?”

  He nodded. “First there’s Walt.”

  “Is he well enough?”

  He shrugged. “He’s been up and around since the day after he came back; it was just exhaustion that got to him. I want him; he’s an excellent swordsman. He’s never hang glided, but he used to fly an ultralight, which is good enough for me.” He paused. “Next is Drew Zenoz. He’s the one who solo scouted New York and brought Shaughnessy back. He’s young—a little older than you, Pete, but reliable. I think he’s in it mostly to make an impression. Still, he’s serious, and I’m not in a position to turn down volunteers. Plus he’s been to New York recently, which helps. Familiarity might prove an asset.”

  I nodded, warmed by the implication that my own age meant nothing to them. “Who’s third?”

  “Hank Rysetter. He looked me up late last night after you posted the notice on the bulletin board. He’s got a Hang Two rating, so he gets to play teacher. He’s a good fighter, and one of the best bowmen I’ve ever seen. I’ve watched him put out candles from over fifty yards.”

  He told me where to find each of the three. I left as they were compiling small tool kits for each team member. The hang gliders, folded and waiting in their long, colorful nylon bags, lay side by side at the foot of the steps.

  *

  I knocked softly at Drew Zenoz’s door. He answered sleepily, unarmed and in his underwear. They sent this guy to scout New York? I was surprised he’d made it back; he didn’t seem nearly paranoid enough.

  He woke up considerably after I explained what was going on. I told him to meet Tom, Malachi, and Mac on the front steps and left him as he struggled into a pair of pants.

  *

  Hank Rysetter answered the door nude, alert, and with a Bowie knife held nonchalantly in his free hand near his thigh. He was my size but more muscular, and had curly black hair and bushy eyebrows. There was something of the ideal Byzantine in his features.

  He relaxed when I introduced myself; apparently he knew who I was. I rapidly explained why I’d rudely awakened him and he nodded and invited me in while he dressed, opening the door wide and turning his back on me. He picked clothes from a heap on the floor at the foot of his cot. The original office furniture hadn’t been removed, but had instead been pushed against one wall. His target bow stood by the head of the cot. It would have cost a pretty penny before the Change.

  I told him where to find the others and left to find Walt.

  *

  His door was open. I rapped on it anyhow; one learns not to walk into people’s rooms unannounced. He was already up and dressed, and he seemed pretty fit.

  “Well, hello,” he said when I entered. “How’re you getting along?”

  “Fine, thanks. I heard about what happened.”

  He frowned. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. Is this a social call? I’m not trying to give you the bum’s rush, but I wanted to get an early start today. There’s a lot to do before we set out tomorrow morning. I’m helping a bunch of people finish building shields.”

  “I think you can skip shield-making today.”

  *

  We sat on the front steps of the Smithsonian while Hank lectured to us. He showed us how to assemble the kites, how to carry them, and how to put on the harnesses and buckle ourselves in. After going over the basics for flying the kites he said, “All right, I could talk till next week about how to fly one of these things, even though there isn’t that much to it, but nothing’s going to teach you how to fly better than flying. So everybody pick out a kite, and let’s fly.”

  I stood up. The sun was directly overhead. People bustled everywhere, hurrying to get things done before tomorrow. They looked worried and impatient.

  Tom gestured at the long bags. “Pick a kite, any kite.”

  According to Hank the ideal-length hang glider for my weight—about 155—was eighteen feet, measuring along the central keel. These all had twenty-foot keels, easily capable of supporting the weight of the heaviest of us, who was Tom, who weighed in at one ninety-five. I would do well with the twenty-foot keel; the low wind loading on the larger sail area would mean better soaring performance—I could stay up longer. I picked out the nearest kite and separated it from the rest.

  “All right,” said Hank, “the next step, obviously, is to find a good hill and learn it the real way now.”

  “I think, too,” said Malachi, “that we ought to find a building we can jump from. Apparently that’s an entirely different thing, and I want to at least have an idea of how to do it before New York. I don’t want to jump blind from the World Trade Center.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” agreed Tom. “Any suggestions as to which building? There’s nothing here to compare with the World Trade Center.”

  “There’s an office building a few miles from here,” said Mac. “The roof’s flat and one side faces a bit of a slope, though the slope itself wouldn’t be any good to us. But at least there aren’t any power lines around.”

  “We don’t have to worry about power lines anymore,” said Drew.

  “Oh, yeah? You try untangling yourself with a twenty-foot kite on your back.”

  “How about a sl
ope?” asked Tom.

  “On Louisiana Avenue,” Hank suggested, “there’s a hill that ought to be good enough for a short flight.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” We picked up our hang glider bags and set out.

  *

  The hill was perfect. A dozen cars were stopped on it, though, so we put them in neutral, released their emergency brakes, and pushed them one at a time. They picked up speed and rolled downhill until they smashed into the cars stopped at a blind red light. We began at the bottom and worked our way up, sending cars crashing behind us. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that it took a while because we stopped to watch each car glide smoothly down the hill until it smashed into the others below. Eventually there was a twenty-car pile-up at the foot of the hill, but it wouldn’t present a problem—if we made it that far on our trial flights, we ought to be able to fly over it.

  We dug out our minimal tool kits and began assembling the gliders. I put the frame together, fitting the wing spars and keel into the nose plate and tightening it securely. Rigging wire, which helped relieve the pressure on the wing edges during flight, went to each angle of the A-shaped frame, held there by turnbuckles. They were held taut and away from the sail itself by being attached to the triangular “trapeze” control bar at the bottom and the king post at the top. I made sure the flying wires were secure and not about to slacken from being hooked around turnbuckles. The rigging was thousand-pound test stainless steel, and helped the paraglide sail maintain its shape. The sail was made of Dacron, the same material used by many sailboats. It had the advantage of being light, strong, and nonporous. It stretched across the A-frame of lightweight aluminum tubing. Jesus bolt through the channel bracket, trapeze bar fitted and rigging wire anchored, and swing-seat strap and link fitted and adjusted to what I hoped was centered for my weight and bulk, and I had a fully assembled Rogallo-winged hang glider

  Putting it together took about fifteen minutes. I gave a walk-around inspection to make sure everything was tightened and fitted correctly. Malachi was right; I didn’t want to fuck up and miss the only chance I was going to have to get Ariel back. Having assembled our gliders, we examined each other’s. Better safe than sorry.