Terraplane (10 page)

"Not quite," I said; the cassette inslotted easily. Skuratov's
grin faded as he realized my intent, and he drew tightlipped.
Oktobriana continued unavailing attempts to wrestle the cam
from me.

"You do not know situation-"

"I know this situation," I said. "How's it work? Tell me-"

"No," she said. "I can't. Luther-"

"Will they transfer too?"

"No. All contained within surrounding closed environment
transfer. No one else. But we cannot-"

"There's no choice, Oktobriana," I said. Our pursuers roared
past again, drawing nearer on repeat run so that the currents
thrown might send us spinning. I heard them sail off across the sky,
unable to see their turn when they chose to reapproach, enroute to
take us out. "I wish there were. Tell me what to do."

For the longest second she stared at me, her eyes nearly throwing
out sparks. "Very well," she said, sans tone, wordchoice deliberate.
"If there is no choice then I have none either. Is very simple-"

"Luther," Jake said, his voice no more full of fright than ever; it
was softer, as if such fate were ultimately preferred. "They're
readying. "

"So what do I do-"

"Press rewind," she said. "Nothing more."

"Where are we transferring?" I asked; afterthought.

"It will not be as seems-"

"Incoming!!" Jake screamed.

As if thumbed shut by angels my eyes closed when I hit rewind. Our plane shuddered as though windsheared; through my lids' skin
I discerned the cabin disappearing within blinding white light, and
in my mind I vizzed oblivion's paint covering us over. Fearing I'd
moved too late, I nonetheless crushed my sobs away, refusing to
leave life with wet eye. After splintering into uncounted burning
fragments, the explosion blasting our souls' ears, what we were
would plunge down in a quiet hail of slag and bits of skin, pattering
onto the roofs of thousands, sending them into untroubled sleep,
lending gentle dreams. I looked again, feeling no plunge, no
splinter; the light faded, and we flew on.

SKURAI.OV SAT AS I'D LEFT HIM, BOUND AS IF FOR PLEASURE. "IS
transferral into space, Miss Osipova?" he asked, unnoticed blood
trickling from his nose. "Plane is perhaps not suitably equipped for
such adventure." Our on-ground flight, and our chase on high,
nervestrung me so that when his words raked my ears, I reckoned
him to be but dishing out unwanted sauce; I swung round to hush.
"Temper, Luther," he said, feigning horror, yet drawing back
within his ropes. "Jake rubs off on you after time, friend. I ask
reasonable question. Look round you."

Beyond the now-dim cabin illumination, through the portholes,
showed naught but blackest black. "Sanya spoke of no such effect,"
said Oktobriana, said to self rather than others. By her use of
the familiar-Sanya was the friendly form of Alexander, as in
Alekhine-I reconsidered how close they must have worked
together, supposed politics notwithstanding.

"Luther!" Jake shouted.

Before cockpitting I yet hoped that from forward vantage day
might still brighten our path. Across Jake's shoulder, through the
window, I saw only the same in wider screen: night sky starred from
horizon to zenith; unbroken clouds below, moonglow shading
their crests and pools as they blanketed the world.

"Who took the sun?" he asked, deadpanned. Oktobriana took copilot position once more, scanned dials and readouts, entered
mainframe commands. Without answering Jake, she continued
her monologue with herself.

"No change in locale mentioned," she muttered. "Possibly due
to simultaneous velocity increase at moment of transfer-"

"Some transfer," I said, running my own theories. "Two-thirds
round the world in ten seconds."

"Explain!" Jake commanded, his usual aplomb on leave.

"We must be Pacificked," I said. "It wouldn't be night elsewhere. Altitude and direction. What are they?"

"Eight thousand meters," he read. "Westward movement,
unchanged speed."

"Coordinates at hand," said Oktobriana, scanning as it rose
from screen's murk. "Gospodi!"

"What? What shows?" Already she was repunching, testing
anew "Where are we?"

"Readings place us at longitude seventy-six thirty, latitude fortyone fifteen," she said. I couldn't place exactly, but realized the
general locale.

"Impossible."

"But remains fact nonetheless," she said. "All other readings
showing unflawed accuracy. Without question these are present
coordinates."

"Then where are we?" asked Jake.

"Eastern Pennsylvania," I said. No expression came at once to
his mask.

"How?" he asked, keeping eyes front, fearing perhaps that to
look into hers would assure confirmation. "At liftoff it was near
twelve by Moscow's clock. Look. No sun fore or aft. In jumping
miles did we jump time?"

"Do you know?" I asked her.

"Impossible, as proven," she said, beginning a new monologue
underbreath. "Earth angle shifts, evidently-"

"Evidently," I said. "Descend without landing, Jake. We need
visuals. Eye the radar close."

"If Pennsylvania's below," said Jake, "shouldn't we turn and bear
east?"

"Contact ground stations while I hook in with Alice," I said.
"Make the turn."

"Alice?" Oktobriana asked, slumping into her seat. "Superior or
wife?"

"My computer. Pass the modem." With morgue attendant's look
she handed it over, its attached wires wrapping snakelike round all
they slid across. My stance tilted from vertical as Jake banked our
plane, recircling.

"You won't reach her," she said.

"Alice's signal reaches God," I said, unslipping myself from the
wires, at last linking up.

"Uncontacted yet, Luther," said Jake as I entered codes into the
board, watching the monitor for signs of her blue. "Cloud cover's
like a lead sheet. After we breakthrough I'll bounce the signal
ceilingways-"

"Alice," I said, praying for response. "Alice, QL789851ATM.
Emergency prime. Respond. Contact essential, Alice. Come in."
The screen's color remained ice green; no response came from she
who heard all. "Spot me, Alice. Alice-"

"When Sashenka passed over," she said, "we retained contact till
moment transfer concluded. Nothing thereafter. Cybernetic messages seem not to pass between worlds."

"Worlds?"

"Forgive misstatement," she murmured. "There is no way to
communicate with your computers or with mine from where we
are.

Her latest elaborations puzzled, but before I could consider we
dropped below the final layers of strata; across the form of the void
winked a thousand fireflies, lights of home and hearth. Leaning
down between the seats to viz more clearly, ducking to keep my
head from striking the sharp-curved roof, I tried and failed to spot
larger gleams.

"Luther," said Jake, "location coordinates suggest Delaware
Water Gap below us." A river down there evidenced, its surface
agleam with night light.

"Where's 1-80? If that's the Gap it should shoot right through
there. "

"The wires're fuzzed, Luther. Give ear," he said, flipping earphone vol into open mode; decibel-rich static breakup
brainracked me. "Overmuch sunspot activity, mayhap? A like
sound-"

"This month's clear for that," I said. "Try FM. New York or
Philly might show. Someplace might show" As he switched bands
the racket settled into electrical crackle and whoosh; no other
evidenced as he ran the channels. "Try AM, then. There must be
something to hear. Altitude's safe?"

"Three thousand. Nothing's radared." Static mugged us again
while he swept and reswept the AM band. Midway along the
spectrum, amidst flutter and hiss, sounds of controlled design
flickered like aural lightning.

"Oktobriana, where're the toners? Defuzz it." She digitalized,
hitting switch after switch; Jake centered in and locked on for those
few seconds prime transmission reached. Even at full-clear
remaining static obliterated all but vague musical passages, the
sound of stray notes wandering from their chords. Dissonant signals blasted repeatedly, rocking the hold we held on the signal.
Then, without warning, human voice rang forth.

"-that concludes the musical portion of our program," said the
voice, "and now a word from our sponsor." For a moment it
seemed lost again, and then:

"Beeeeeee-"

Foghorn?

"Ohhhhhhh! Lifebuoy-" Then, drowned in static's riptide.
The fragment heard unsettled my mind, in undefinable but not
unfamiliar ways. At a highlevel strategy meet in Argentina, ten
years past, I met a VLF technician; she spent long days tallying
unending ribbons of location numbers sent from her nation's deeprunning subs. Before, she'd worked at Jodrell Banks; for some years
at New Mexico's big dishes in the desert's reserved acreage. She
anecdoted me nightlong with tales of unexpected sounds gathered
by those listening to the air's constant call: stories of whistles
received with Aldebaran's signals; fast-read numbers bursting over
dead wavelengths, the ones not even used by intelligenceries;
Indian war whoops transmitted from the far side of the moon during the old Apollo flights. For brief seconds on still winter
nights, she said, if the clouds were right, the dishes sometimes
caught audio waves of decades-old radio programs, returning if but
for once to their origin before bouncing again back to the space
between stars. The sensation I felt as she told me those tales was the
sensation I now knew again.

"Where was fuel when we took off?" Oktobriana suddenly
asked, shattering my reverie.

"Full," said Jake, gliding the knob across the band to retry
pickup. "Why?"-

"Blinking red light shows auxiliary tank now in service."

"Auxiliary?" he repeated. "We couldn't-"

"Twenty-five minutes remaining flight time," she said. "Cut
speed."

"Is Newark reachable?" I asked.

"Just," said Jake. "If it's there. We've no evidence it will be."

"Switch back to shortwave, Jake. Take any response. Keep trying. Oktobriana, talk is essential. Let's cabin ourselves."

"Yes. You will be all right, Jake?" she asked, rubbing her hand
across his shoulder; he nodded as he drew away.

"Thank you," he said.

I looked downplane, towards Skuratov. He remained placed,
grips taut. Here in the antechamber separating cabin and cockpit
distance and overriding sound prevented all eavesdropping.

"What's down there?" I asked her. "Where've we gone? Alekhine
must've detailed something."

She looked away; began talking in lowvoiced monotone, as if
recalling a crime's progression. "Before completion of device
Sashenka took over last steps entirely to assure team's security
and my safety. Having spent previous nine months overseeing
proper installation of essential Tesla coil for project, I was ready for
rest. "

Tesla coil, again-

"Coil served to energize device in way Sanya never told. We
discovered presence of this other ... place early on. Original plan
was to bring others across. We discovered soon enough that others
could transfer from here only if someone went to bring them back."

A secret showed amidst her enigma; Sashenka, which she had
used twice now, was a very familiar form.

"He said he would be guinea pig in test and so he was. He steps
into compartment built for purpose and he went across at four in
the morning. I was only one present. As planned he came back, but
not until midnight the next day, much later than planned. I was so
worried. When he came back he seemed to have seen face of God,
if there were God. Sat wakeful all night, not talking, though I
insisted to hear. At last he said he had to go back. He said there
were things that had to be done."

"What things?" I asked. "Where'd he emerge?"

"He answered neither question," she said. "For five days lie shut
himself in study with two cassettes we made. When he emerged on
sixth day he gave me cassette we have now, one he had adjusted.
Took other and returned to compartment with me late that night.
We had eliminated our spies long before but still took such precautions for safety's sake, as said. He told me he would be back within
three weeks. Said if by then he had not returned I should take
cassette left with me and go underground for long as possible." She
sighed. `As you know, he didn't come back. Krasnaya sent people
round to look for him. We said he had been exposed to dangerous
virus and was in isolation. Was foolish story but they pretended to
believe. "

"But did he say where he went?" I asked, nearly pleading.
"Where've we gone?"

"Not often he spoke in riddles, but when I asked he told riddle.
Said none should go. If anyone did they would find frightening
beast easily tamed, he said. After beast was tamed, he added, it
would shed its skin without expectation and show new form of
dragon-"

"Luther!" Jake shouted, interrupting. "Sustained contact."

Upon recockpitting I eyed the unwinking fuel readout. "We've
landing time?"