The door would not open. I finally remembered to slap the spill valve, then it came open and I was almost snatched outside. I hung there for a second or two, while the ground spun crazily overhead, then the door slammed shut and latched—and I shoved myself away from the plane. I didn’t jump—we were falling together, I shoved.
I may have banged my head against a wing. In any case there is a short blank in my memory before I found myself sitting on space about twenty-five yards from the ship. She was spinning slowly and earth and sky were revolving lazily around me. There was a thin cold wind as I fell but I was not yet aware of the cold. We stayed pretty well together for a few moments— or hours; time had stopped—then the ship straightened out into a dive and pulled away from me.
I tried to follow her down by eye and became aware of the icy wind of my fall. My eyes hurt and I remembered something I had read about frozen eyeballs; I covered them with both hands. It helped a lot.
Suddenly I became frightened, panicky at the thought that I had delayed the jump too long and was about to smash into the desert floor. I uncovered my eyes and sneaked a look.
No, the ground was still a long way off, two or three miles perhaps. My guess was not worth much as it was already dark down there. I tried to catch sight of the ship, could not see it, then suddenly spotted it as her fires came on. I risked frozen eyes and watched, exultation in my heart. The autopilot did indeed have built into it the emergency circuit for “fire out” and everything was proceeding according to plan. The little sweetheart leveled off, headed west on course, and began to climb for the altitude she had been told to use. I sent a prayer after her that she would win through and end up in the clean Pacific, rather than be shot down.
I watched her glowing tailpipes out of sight while I continued to fall.
The triumph of my little ship had made me forget to be scared. I had known when I bailed out that it would have to be a delayed jump. My own body, in leaving the ship, would make a secondary blip on the screen of anything tracking the ship; my only hope of convincing the trackers that what they had witnessed was a real emergency—“fire out”—lay in getting away from the ship quickly and then in not being spotted on the way down. That meant that I must fall rapidly right out of the picture and not pull the rip cord until I was close to the ground, in visual darkness and in ground radar shadow.
But I had never made a delayed jump before; in fact I had jumped only twice, the two easy practice jumps under a jumpmaster which are required of every cadet in order to graduate. I wasn’t especially uncomfortable as long as I kept my eyes closed, but I began to get a truly overpowering urge to pull that rip cord. My hand went to the handle and gripped it. I told myself to let go but I couldn’t make myself do it. I was still much too high, dead sure to be spotted if I broke out that great conspicuous bumbershoot and floated down the rest of the way.
I had intended to rip the chute out somewhere between one thousand and five hundred feet above ground, but my nerve played out and I couldn’t wait that long. There was a large town almost under me—Provo, Utah, by what I remembered of the situation from higher up. I convinced myself that I had to pull the rip cord to keep from landing right in the city.
I remembered just in time to remove the oxygen face piece, thereby avoiding a mouthful of broken teeth most likely, for I had never gotten around to strapping the bottle to me; I had been holding it in my left hand all the way down. I suppose I could have taken time even then to secure it, but what I did was to throw it in the general direction of a farm, hoping that it would land on plowed ground rather than on some honest citizen’s skull. Then I pulled the handle.
For the horrible split second I thought that I had a faultily-packed chute. Then it opened and knocked me out—or I fainted with fright. I came to, hanging in the harness with the ground swinging and turning slowly beneath me. I was still too high up and I seemed to be floating toward the lights of Provo. So I took a deep breath—real air tasted good after the canned stuff—gathered a double handful of shrouds and spilled some wind.
I came down fast then and managed to let go just in time to get full support for the landing. I couldn’t see the ground well in the evening darkness but I knew it was close; I gathered up my knees just as it says in the manual, then took it rather unexpectedly, stumbling, falling, and getting tangled in the chute. It is supposed to be equal to a fourteen-foot free jump; all I can say is it seems like more.
Then I was sitting on my tail in a field of sugar beets, and rubbing my left ankle.
Spies always bury their parachutes so I suppose I should have buried mine. But I didn’t feel up to it and I didn’t have any tools; I stuffed it into a culvert I found running under the road that edged the field, then started slogging that road toward the lights of Provo. My nose and right ear had been bleeding and the blood was dry on my face; I was covered with dirt, I had split my trousers, my hat was the Lord knows where—Denver, maybe, or over Nevada—, my left ankle seemed slightly sprained, my right hand was badly skinned, and I had had a childish accident. I felt swell.
I could hardly keep from whistling as I walked, I felt so good. Sure, I was still hunted, but the Prophet’s proctors thought I was still high in the sky and headed for Hawaii. At least I hoped they believed that and, in any case, I was still free, alive, and reasonably intact. If one has to be hunted, Utah was a better place for it than most; it had been a center of heresy and schism ever since the suppression of the Mormon church, back in the days of the First Prophet. If I could keep out of the direct sight of the Prophet’s police, it was unlikely that any of the natives would turn me in.
Nevertheless I lay flat in the ditch every time a truck or a ground car came along and I left the road and took to the fields again before it entered the city proper. I swung wide and entered by a dimly lighted side street. It lacked two hours of curfew; I needed to carry out the first part of my plan before the night patrol took to the streets.
I wandered around dark residential streets and avoided any direct encounters with people for most of an hour before finding what I wanted— some sort of a flier I could steal. It turned out to be a Ford family skycar, parked in a vacant lot. The house next to it was dark.
I sneaked up to it, keeping to the shadows, and broke my penknife jimmying the door—but I got it open. The ignition was locked, but I had not expected that sort of luck twice. I had had an extremely practical education at taxpayers’ expense which included detailed knowledge of I.C. engines, and this time there was no hurry; it took me twenty minutes, working in the dark, to short around the lock.
After a quick reconnoitre of the street I got in and started the electric auxiliary and glided quietly into the street, then rounded a corner before turning on the car’s lights. Then I drove away as openly as a farmer returning from prayer meeting in town. Nevertheless I was afraid of running into a police check point at the city limits, so as soon as the houses thinned out I ran the car into the first open field and went on well away from the road—then unexpectedly dropped a front wheel into an irrigation ditch. That determined my take-off point.
The main engine coughed and took hold; the rotor unfolded its airfoils with a loud creak. She was sloppy on the take-off, being canted over into the ditch, but she made it. The ground dropped away.
9
THE CAR I had stolen was a jalopy, old, not properly kept up, a bad valve knock in the engine, and a vibration in the rotor that I didn’t like at all. But she would run and she had better than half a tank of fuel, enough to get me to Phoenix. I couldn’t complain.
Worst was a complete lack of any navigating equipment other than an old-style uncompensated Sperry robot and a bundle of last year’s strip maps of the sort the major oil companies give away. There was radio, but it was out of order.
Well, Columbus got by with less. Phoenix was almost due south and almost five hundred miles away. I estimated my drift by crossing my eyes and praying, set the robot on course and set her to hold real altitude of five hundr
ed feet. Any more might get me into the cybernetwork; any less might get some local constable annoyed with me. I decided that running lights were safer than no running lights, this being no time to pick up a ticket, so I switched them on to “dim.” After that I took a look around.
No sign of pursuit to the north—apparently my latest theft had not been noticed as yet. As for my first—well, the sweet darling was either shot down by now or far out over the Pacific. It occurred to me that I was hanging up quite a record for a mother’s boy—accessory before and after the fact in murder, perjury before the Grand Inquisitor, treason, impersonation, grand larceny twice. There was still arson, and barratry, whatever that was, and rape. I decided I could avoid rape, but barratry I might manage, if I could find out what it meant. I still felt swell even though my nose was bleeding again.
It occurred to me that marrying a holy deaconess might be considered statutory rape under the law and that made me feel better; by then I didn’t want to miss anything.
I stayed at the controls, overriding the pilot and avoiding towns, until we were better than a hundred miles south of Provo. From there south, past the Grand Canyon and almost to the ruins of the old “66” roadcity, people are awfully scarce; I decided that I could risk some sleep. So I set the pilot on eight hundred feet, ground altitude, told it firmly to watch out for trees and bluffs, went back to the after passenger bench and went at once to sleep.
I dreamt that the Grand Inquisitor was trying to break my nerve by eating juicy roast beef in my presence. “Confess!” he said, as he stabbed a bite and chewed. “Make it easy on yourself. Will you have some rare, or the slice off the end?” I was about to confess, too, when I woke up.
It was bright moonlight and we were just approaching the Grand Canyon. I went quickly to the controls and overrode the order about altitude—I was afraid that the simple little robot might have a nervous breakdown and start shedding capacitances in lieu of tears if it tried to hold the ship just eight hundred feet away from that Gargantuan series of ups and downs and pinnacles.
In the meantime I was enjoying the view so much that I forgot that I was starving. If a person hasn’t seen the Canyon, there is no point in describing it—but I strongly recommend seeing it by moonlight from the air.
We sliced across it in about twenty minutes and I turned the ship back to automatic and started to forage, rummaging through the instrument panel compartment and the lockers. I turned up a chocolate almond bar and a few peanuts, which was a feast as I was ready for raw skunk… I had eaten last in Kansas City. I polished them off and went back to sleep.
I don’t recall setting the pilot alarm but must have done so for it woke me up just before dawn. Dawn over the desert was another high-priced tourist item but I had navigating to do and could not spare it more than a glance. I turned the crate at right angles for a few minutes to check drift and speed made good over ground to south, then figured a bit on the edge of a strip map. With luck and assuming that my guesses about wind were about right, Phoenix should show up in about half an hour.
My luck held. I passed over some mighty rough country, then suddenly, spread out to the right, was a wide flat desert valley, green with irrigated crops and with a large city in it—the Valley of the Sun and Phoenix. I made a poor landing in a boxed-in, little dry arroyo leading into the Salt River Canyon; I tore off one wheel and smashed the rotor but I didn’t care—the important thing was that it wasn’t likely to be found there very soon, it and my fingerprints… Reeves’ prints, I mean. Half an hour later, after picking my way around enormous cacti and still bigger red boulders, I came out on the highway that leads down the canyon and into Phoenix.
It was going to be a long walk into Phoenix, especially with one sore ankle, but I decided not to risk hitching a ride. Traffic was light and I managed to get off the road and hide each time for the first hour. Then I was caught on a straight up-and-down piece by a freighter; there was nothing to do but give the driver a casual wave as I flattened myself to the rock wall and pretend to be nonchalant. He brought his heavy vehicle to a quick, smooth stop. “Want a lift, bud?”
I made up my mind in a hurry. “Yes, thanks!”
He swung a dural ladder down over the wide tread and I climbed into the cab. He looked me over. “Brother!” he said admiringly. “Was it a mountain lion, or a bear?”
I had forgotten how I looked. I glanced down at myself. “Both,” I answered solemnly. “Strangled one in each hand.”
“I believe it.”
“Fact is,” I added, “I was riding a unicycle and bounced it off the road. On the high side, luckily, but I wrecked it.”
“A unicycle? On this road? Not all the way from Globe?”
“Well, I had to get off and push at times. It was the down grade that got me, though.”
He shook his head. “Let’s go back to the lion-and-bear theory. I like it better.” He didn’t question me further, which suited me. I was beginning to realize that off-hand fictions led to unsuspected ramifications; I had never been over the road from Globe.
Nor had I ever been inside a big freighter before and I was interested to see how much it resembled, inside, the control room of an Army surface cruiser—the same port and starboard universal oleo speed gears controlling the traction treads, much the same instrument board giving engine speed, port and starboard motor speeds, torque ratios, and so forth. I could have herded it myself.
Instead I played dumb and encouraged him to talk. “I’ve never been in one of these big babies before. Tell me how it works, will you?”
That set him off and I listened with half an ear while thinking about how I should tackle Phoenix. He demonstrated how he applied both power and steering to the treads simply by tilting the two speed bars, one in each fist, and then discussed the economy of letting the diesel run at constant speed while he fed power as needed to the two sides. I let him talk— my first need was a bath and a shave and a change of clothes, that was sure; else I’d be picked up on sight for suspected vagrancy.
Presently I realized he had asked a question. “I think I see,” I answered. “The Waterburies drive the treads.”
“Yes and no,” he went on. “It’s a diesel-electric hook up. The Waterburies just act like a gear system, although there aren’t any gears in them; they’re hydraulic. Follow me?”
I said I thought so (I could have sketched them)—and filed away in my mind the idea that, if the Cabal should ever need cruiser pilots in a hurry, freighter jacks could be trained for the job in short order.
We were going downhill slightly even after we left the canyon; the miles flowed past. My host pulled off the road and ground to a stop by a roadside restaurant and oil station. “All out,” he grunted. “Breakfast for us and go-juice for the go-buggy.”
“Sounds good.” We each consumed a tall stack with eggs and bacon and big, sweet Arizona grapefruit. He wouldn’t let me pay for his and tried to pay for mine. As we went back to the freighter he stopped at the ladder and looked me over.
“The police gate is about three-quarters of a mile on in,” he said softly.
“I suppose that’s as good a spot to check in as any.” He looked at me and glanced away.
“Mmm…” I said. “I think I could stand to walk the rest of the way, to settle my breakfast. Thanks a lot for the lift.”
“Don’t mention it. Uh, there’s a side road about two hundred yards back. It swings south and then west again, into town. Better for walking. Less traffic.”
“Uh, thanks.”
I walked back to the side road, wondering if my criminal career was that plain to everyone. One thing sure, I had to improve my appearance before tackling the city. The side road led through ranches and I passed several ranch houses without having the nerve to stop. But I came presently to a little house occupied by a Spanish-Indian family with the usual assortment of children and dogs. I took a chance; many of these people were clandestine Catholics, I knew, and probably hated the proctors as much as I did.
The Sefiora was home. She was fat and kindly and mostly Indian by her appearance. We couldn’t talk much as my Spanish is strictly classroom quality, but I could ask for agua, and agua I got, both to drink and to wash myself. She sewed up the rip in my trousers while I stood foolishly in my shorts with the children making comments; she brushed me off and she even let me use her husband’s razor. She protested over letting me pay her but I was firm about it. I left there looking passable.
The road swung back into town as the freighter jack had said—and without benefit of police. Eventually I found a neighborhood shopping center and in it a little tailor shop. There I waited while the rest of my transformation back to respectability was completed. With my clothes freshly pressed, the spots removed, a brand-new shirt and hat I was then able to walk down the street and exchange a blessing with any proctor I might meet while looking him calmly in the eye. A phone book gave me the address of the South Side Tabernacle; a map on the wall of the tailor shop got me oriented without asking questions. It was within walking distance.
I hurried down the street and reached the church just as eleven o’clock services were starting. Sighing with relief I slipped into a back pew and actually enjoyed i the services, just as I had as a boy, before I had learned what was back of them. I felt peaceful and secure; in spite of everything I had made it safely. I let the familiar music soak into my soul while I looked forward to revealing myself to the priest afterwards and then let him do the worrying for a while.
To tell the truth I went to sleep during the sermon. But I woke up in time and I doubt if anyone noticed. Afterwards I hung around, waited for a chance to speak to the priest, and told him how much I had enjoyed his sermon. He shook hands and I gave him the recognition grip of the brethren.
The Past Through Tomorrow Page 60