The Lotus Eaters (21 page)

"I wasn't sleeping, sergeant," the pilot said automatically.

The moon
Bellona
was up by this time. In its light, never so bright as Old Earth's one moon, he saw the mass of the
Atacama
range rising to the north before him. The coastline was fainter, but still perceivable in the grainy, greenish glow of the goggles.

As soon as the autopilot sensed Montoya's hand on the stick it relinquished control. He nudged the stick back, and gave a little more gas to the engine to gain optimum altitude to enter the mountain wave of uplifting air.

Montoya glanced around in an attempt to find a lenticular, or lens shaped, cloud that would mark a particularly good updraft. Unsurprisingly, the goggles weren't quite up to seeing that, even though they were the best Haarlem-produced NVGs money could buy.

No matter
, he thought.
There are the mountains and I know the wind blows to the north. There
will
be a mountain wave to carry me up.

* * *

The engine had been killed to save fuel which would be needed later. Under the natural power of the mountain wave, Montoya corkscrewed upward at several kilometers an hour. His ears popped repeatedly as he twisted his head and worked his jaw to equalize pressure.

At about forty-five hundred meters above sea level another series of warning
pings
sounded to advise Montoya to don his oxygen mask. This was a pressure demand system, one that would provide overpressure of oxygen to allow the glider to ascend about ten thousand meters while still keeping the pilot conscious.

He'd drilled it more than a thousand times in his career as an aviator. Even using his left hand, the mask was on his face and affixed to his helmet in seconds. Oxygen flow started immediately and automatically thereafter, some of the gas being forced out of the tight-fitting mask by the overpressure.

* * *

The Global Locating System, or GLS, consisted of twenty-four satellites, some of them geosynchronous, in orbit above the planet. It was one of three such systems in orbit (or, arguably, four if one counted the ships of United Earth Peace Fleet which could do GLS duty at need), but was far and away the most complete and the best (again, excepting the UEPF).

In effect, the system worked by sending out signals from each satellite, which signals amounted to, "This is Satellite X. At the tone the time will be . . ." By comparing the times to the known positions of the satellites, a receiver could calculate position on the surface, height above the surface, and, if moving, direction to a very high degree of accuracy.

When Montoya's Condor reached fourteen thousand meters, his navigation system informed him:
pingpingping
. Pulling his stick over and forward, he ceased his corkscrew upward and began the roughly thousand kilometer long, slow, shallow dive that would take his craft east-northeast to where he expected to pick up another mountain wave to gain more altitude. Along the way, he would continue to receive uplift from air rising to pass over the Atacama range.

* * *

He'd packed his own rations for the trip, carefully setting aside anything with even a hint of beans or, worse still, peppers. He'd kept the small bottles of high test rum because, heated flight suit or not—

"God, it is fucking
cold
up here."

Tapping the Condor back into autopilot mode, Montoya removed his clumsy gloves and tore open a pouch of "mystery meat." It wasn't "mystery meat" because the cockpit was so dark he couldn't see the labeling on the pouch. It was "mystery meat" because no one really knew what its origin was.

The thing was about half frozen, frozen enough, in any event, that his spoon was useless. He squeezed the bottom of the pouch with his right hand to force the semi-solid chunk upwards. Then, pulling the oxygen mask away with his left hand, he bent his head and drove his teeth through the slab.

"Oh, yummy," Montoya sneered into his mask, while chewing. "Note to self: Word with the
duque
, first opportunity. Not good."

Once the meat chunk was but an unpleasant memory, Montoya reached down for another pouch. He could feel the texture of the next one through the foil wrapping.

"Tortilla, fried, chorley and corn, mixed," he recited from memory. "How grand."

Actually, the tortilla, a half-inch thick yellow patty, wasn't bad. It wasn't home cooking, no, but it wasn't bad.

After those two, Montoya's fingers did a little searching through the container under his legs. Soon they came to something he really did want, a small plastic bottle he knew from memory was labeled, "Rum, legionary, 50 ml, 160 proof, product of
Distilleria Legionario
, Arraijan, Balboa."

After that, he slept, dreaming of a girl who was considerably warmer than the frozen cockpit that was his reality.

* * *

The sun had risen, set, risen again, and was now setting, as Montoya heeled over to leave the Atacama behind. His altitude was just over fourteen thousand meters. That, alone, would be enough to reach the UEPF's island of Atlantis, but it would not be enough to reach it, overfly it, and return.

Montoya turned a hand crank to elevate the Condor's small propeller. Once it was in position, and the warning light shone "locked," he pressed the starter.

Nothing.

He pressed the starter again.

Still nothing.

"Fuck. This is going to cost a little time and fuel. Assuming, of course, that it works. Well . . . it usually works."

Taking his hand off the starter button, but leaving the throttle open, Montoya nosed his Condor over into a steeper dive. He felt the pressure on his posterior lessen. As the thing picked up speed, the propeller also began to turn more rapidly. It took several minutes, and several thousand feet, before Montoya felt the jolt of the small engine starting and then the mild, steady vibration of the motor turning on its own.

With the engine still running Montoya turned the glider back, wandering back toward the mountain range to regain some of the altitude he had lost.

* * *

The mind wanders sometimes. In the uneventful portions of his flight, Montoya's mind wandered, too.

Long flight . . . slow flight . . . nothing to see but my instruments and the clouds. Alone . . . as usual.

I can't say I've never had any luck with the women. I just never had any luck that lasted. Wonder if I'll ever meet the right girl.

Gisela was nice . . . but too hot tempered. Jocasta . . . well . . . who wants to share. Yelena Samsonova had beautiful eyes but when she turned, so did they. Besides, she was three inches taller than me; more in heels. We looked silly together. Still . . . those eyes . . .

I wish I could find a nice girl like Caridad, Cruz's wife. Sadly, she has no unmarried sisters. Or maybe a little jewel like Marqueli Mendoza. Ah, but such women are rare . . . rare.

I don't even remember how many women I've had. More than fifty? No, closer to one hundred. And the ones I wanted to keep didn't want me . . . and the ones who wanted me I didn't want to keep.

I think the fault must be in me somehow . . .

* * *

Fernandez, whose project this was, and the people who worked for him, including one section of
Obras Zorilleras
, had thought about the problem quite a lot: At what range is it even possible for the UEPF on Atlantis to pick up electrical signals from the glider's instrumentation, or the tiny amount of radio energy created by the sparkplugs in the motor? Ultimately, they'd had to admit, they had not a clue. Their best guess was worthless.

"But," had argued one of the OZ people, "we know the UE routinely lets aircraft and airships pass to within about two hundred and fifty kilometers. We also know that at two hundred and ten they engage without warning. Maybe that's the effective range of their weapons, true. But, just as likely, maybe that's the effective range of their sensors."

It was the best guess they had, from the best brains available.

* * *

And time to stop thinking about girls. Even if they are the most pleasant subject of contemplation . . . especially when one does not know how much longer the pleasure will even be available.

The sun was sinking again into the horizon, casting long rays out across the azure sea. Montoya could not help himself from glancing at it. And why not? It might be his last sunset.

At what the GLS told him was two hundred and sixty kilometers out from Atlantis, the pilot killed the engine and cranked it down into the fuselage of the glider. This took several minutes. He then killed every electrical instrument aboard, including his navigational system and the GLS receiver. At that point he was left with a pressure-driven, sensitive altimeter that didn't use any power, a magnetic compass with a glowing needle, and his NVGs, without which he was unlikely even to be able to see the island. Even those being turned on was considered a risk.

" 'An acceptable risk,' " Montoya quoted. "I wonder if they'll kill me with laser like the ones on the
Dos Lindas
, or if they'll use missiles, if the earthpigs use anything so primitive. Or maybe they'll just scramble some kind of aircraft we have not a clue to and shoot me down. Or—and isn't this a happy thought?—I can be the very first pilot shot down by a charged particle beam in the history of this world. Or maybe—"

* * *

"Or maybe," Montoya said aloud as he slid over the island at eight thousand feet, "just maybe they can't see me at all."

For reasons more instinctive than intellectual, the pilot had had a very rough mental time of it as he'd crossed the island's shore. Surely,
that
would be the point at which they would absolutely engage. But no, nothing happened. He'd crossed the shore, then turned to the right and followed the coast for nearly an hour before he spotted what had to be, by its lights, the major city or base on the island. He'd glided over that too and still, "Nothing. By God it works. It
works
!"

He'd had one bad moment, when he came too near to what was apparently the island's major, or perhaps only, air cum space base. There was heavy traffic that passed within a few kilometer or so, UEPF shuttles heading down to ground or off into space. Montoya couldn't help snickering over the UEPF's ignorance.

"And on that happy note, I'm out of here. Fernandez needs to know that the earthpigs can't see Condors. That's a helluva lot more important that joyriding the clouds is."

There was a chain of low mountains that ran through the center of the island, north-northeast to center to south. Though nothing so impressive as the Atacama range, Montoya was fairly sure he could find a mountain wave to raise his craft for the return journey.

We live in an age of institutionalized fraud. Virtually
every
age in human history has been an age of institutionalized fraud. Whether it be the fraud of the divine right of kings, the fraud of superior genetics, the fraud of the malleability and perfectibility of man, the fraud that freedom comes without a hefty price, the fraud of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the fraud of the possibility of taxing the rich without them passing the tax on to the middle class and poor . . . the list of frauds is endless. To expand upon the Old Earther, Rousseau, man may be born free and live everywhere in chains, but more importantly he is born innocent and is everywhere made a fool of. His chains are constructed of his foolishness.
To a great extent man wants to be fooled; indeed, he insists upon it. In his entertainment he will demand that the most trivial things bring the most profound and certain changes for the good. He will reject the politicians who even
attempt
to speak truth to him, and embrace most warmly those who lie best. He will insist upon the existence of the free lunch. He will rarely understand that those who shout, "Power to the people," really mean, "Power to those who shout, 'Power to the people.' " Those who "speak truth to power" are much more likely to be uttering lies to those whose only power is to cast a vote.
And still, amidst all this fraud, there are things that are real, things that are true. A mother's love for her child, or a husband's for his child and his wife; these are almost always real. That honor, integrity, and courage are the only things one truly owns is true. The penalty a people ultimately pays for submitting to fraud is real. That political power grows from the barrel of a gun is true. The concrete of a bunker and the steel of a cannon; those are real.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral
,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

The little convoy consisted of a wheeled armored car in the front, with another taking up the rear, a truck carrying a score of fierce visaged, turbaned riflemen, and a single armored Phaeton sedan carrying Carrera, a gravid Lourdes, and their eldest, Hamilcar. As the sedan came to a halt in front of the brown and green painted, arched metal building that served as the headquarters for the 22nd
Tercio
, ex-Volgan Colonel, now Legate, Ivan Samsonov stood on the wooden steps fronting the Quonset hut and rendered a hand salute. The legate's wife, Irena Samsonova, stood by one side, his adjutant by the other. Irena was a stout women, kindly faced, and dressed in a simple white, knee length frock, suitable for the climate. Of Legate Samsonov's daughter, Yelena, there was no sign.

The turbaned Pashtians were out of the truck and surrounding the convoy before Mitchell even had turned off the sedan's engine. Carrera emerged, too, and held the door for Hamilcar and Lourdes. She looked radiant despite, or perhaps because of, the prominent bulge in her midsection.

Carrera stuck his head in the sedan's still open door and said, "Mitch, we'll be a while. Why don't you take a break and try some Volgan food?"

Mitchell was easily bright enough to break that code:
Nose around and check on everything from morale to hygiene.

"Roger that, boss," the Warrant answered.