Terraplane

by Jack Womack

  "Jake!" I shouted. "Help!"

  He hauled himself away; feeling warmth comfort my forehead, I saw him make for the Shrogin, which I'd pitched at cabin's far end, cockpit-near. To slow him I fell forward, falling close, snaring a trouser leg, tossing him aisleways. His twotones heeled me underchin while I gripped. He kicked repeatedly, never catching me full. "Jake!" Skuratov's fingers, stretching for handhold, brushed the gunstock closer, into seizure distance. Shouldering it quick, kicking loose, he rolled, raised and aimed my way. I dived into the trench between two rows of seats. Whether in moment's heat he forgot rapid depressurization's effects, or whether he cared no longer, I never knew; the latter, I suspect, for he showed no amateur's touch to my mind. Before he could fire more than a single burst he was felled by take's foot as it landed at skull's base.

  "Fool!" Jake shouted; Skuratov fell forward as the plane hissed, its breath blown; his barrage had punctured the plane wall. I brushed back the oxygen hoses tumbling forth as I rose, seeing no need for them at our low altitude. Depressurization's effect, however, only sent us down with less control toward the grand slam sooner.

  "What happens?" Oktobriana screamed as our angle declined; the engine song ascended five octaves. Jake threw Skuratov's Shrogin into the antechamber; dragged our friend from the floor and shouted instruction to our aviatrix.

  "Engage stabiles," he shouted. "Glide us. Cut the engine and drop the tank if there's time. Settle us between buildings if able."

  Jake then walloped Skuratov twiceover as if to barefist his skull ashatter. As my head itched with fluid's trickle I looked onward with stranger's eyes, calmed by the sight of newflooding blood, watching as if seeing a film preview. The plane settled into horizontal drop; Jake pulled Skuratov's limpness rearward. In still engine's fearful silence I heard the sound of his cuffs scraping the floor. Jake opened the side exit. With pressure's equalization there came no further outrush when the world beyond appeared. Jake, keeping inside, lifted Skuratov onehand, clutching a frame support so as not to overbalance. "Out!" he wailed, pitching. "Flyaway!"

  "Don't-" my voice cried. Even had I pleaded, there could have been no change; Skuratov entered an unclaimed airspace. Jake pounded the walls as if regretful. We struck, bouncing airways once more. So many structures stood quadrant-wide through here that I bore no doubt that one would surely slow us down too quickly. Flitting seemed like tumbling from a height onto a haystack; the impact was not nearly so great as that for which I'd readied, but it was great enough to sail Jake frontways as I headed to the floor. Coming ultimately earthward, spinning as if on a carnival ride, the plane skidded along something much more than soft. As thought slipped free I heard the recognizable sound of splash, the liquid hug, the kiss of water.

  Consciousness crawled back minutes later; I vizzed Jake stumbling downaisle, Oktobriana slung across his shoulder, his left arm adangle. Emergency lights cut cabin haze; ozone's scent sweetened the smoke like lobby fragrance. The plane tipped downward thirtyodd degrees. No fire evidenced; the smoke was obviously electrical, and no danger showed from asphyxiating fume arising from the safety padding.

  "Luther," he said, eyeing my rise; I shook my head, jarring sense into correct place. "You movable?"

  "Sure," I said, my legs buckling when I stumbled aisleways. My vertebrae seemed supplanted by roughened bricks held fast by layers of stone.

  "Gather and grab. It's not prime to blow but I've no will to chance." With delicate motions, he seated Oktobriana, taking her from his shoulder with onehanded care. His left arm kept its hang. She murmured soft Georgian phrases. Retrieving suitcases nearest, he stroked her head, smoothed her hair.

  "How bad?" I asked, feeling my balance return.

  "Concussion's guessed. " He swaddled her within blankets seized aboveseat. "A miracle she's preserved. I shot her full with Extamyl. That'll sedate." His face shone as if flame-glazed. "Shock's forestall essentialled. Hospitaling's sole certification. "

  "Her other case's frontways?"

  He nodded; eyed me updown. "You'll need stitching, judging the flow "

  Moving upaisle I touched hand to head, and felt as if I'd drawn knife through brain; detected, still, that my wounds weren't overlarge, and had ceased to bleed. "What's with your arm?" I asked, finding her stray case.

  "Shoulder's dislocated," he said; looking at his pale-lit features, tightdrawn as if embalmed, I saw how more bloodless than usual his face showed. "Let's exit first. Assist me, popping it back once outside. What's sought, Luther?"

  "My cam," I said. "It's gone."

  "Gone?"

  "While he was upright," I said, "he must have plucked it. Kept it on him. After he slammed me the first time I heard him scrabbling." I tossed aside debris and nonrecoverables, hoping for its reappearance.

  "Then it went with him," Jake said, eyeing the door. "We weren't too high when I birded him. He swipe the tracker you held?"

  "No." Feeling it in my jacket pocket, I pulled it, switched it on. Two dots blinked thereon: hers and his. Underscreen the green winked bright.

  "Survived?"

  "Looks so. Whether cam and cassette did is another matter-"

  "Will not matter," Oktobriana said, shifting beneath blanket's wrap, her face frost's color.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Sanya adjusted cassette I had," she said. "In event of capture and abuse by unapproved."

  "Adjusted how?"

  "Ours takes us over. Will not bring us back." Jake and I stared at each other momentslong.

  "Can you readjust?" I asked; if we had it still, I should have added.

  "Don't know," she said. "Sanya was only one to work out final principle." She blinked her eyes quickly, as if signaling. "Caused great rift between us, his paranoia-"

  "Why didn't you tell-"

  "No other option at time of use," she said, barely audible. "Correct? Your option. Mine. We live with unavoidable decisions-"

  The Extamyl took; she nodded, and slept. For the moment there was much to do and naught that could yet be known. Jake pressed her hand as if to warm a fallen sparrow, so that it wouldn't be cold when it died. "Sleep," he said, winding her blanket closer about her. "Sleep now" After a moment's silence, Jake laughed.

  "What?" I asked, wishing to be home; knowing we wouldn't be soon.

  "Your friend's trick retricked," he chuckled, his laugh slowing every few seconds, whenever shoulder pain overwhelmed. "Hoped to strand us and return to glory, undoubted."

  "We are stranded," I reminded. Jake, excluding logic's sobriety, ignored. Under circumstance his was surely the wiser reaction. "We've got to hospital ourselves. He'll stay where he fell, surely. We'll return for him. You've the Shrogin?" Freehanding, he flipped it from undercoat. "I'll do the cases. Hoist her. Let's exit."

  Cradling her onehanded beneath her hips, he downaisled towards the door; I trailed, heaving cases. Feeling greater warmth, I left my coat behind, estimating to later retrieve. Shallow water lapped entranceways; sauna's air beaded us with sudden sweat. Jake peered outside, and deadstopped, his thinned smile gone.

  "Fucking O'Malley-" he said, barely heard. I looked. To the horizon showed nothing but an ocean of grassy waves, in which our plane floated like a great stabbed whale. Night breeze rustled the cattails, sending forth modal notes; insects buzzed and chirped and peeped as in entomologist's dream. Laying foot in ankle-deep water, we circled our sight. Southwestways deep orange evidenced Newark's poison sky; eastways, beyond the ridge safeguarding Jersey's ports from inland attack, rose the Empire State Building. South direct, kilometers distant, I discerned a trestle rising above the limitless marsh. A train rolled over its length, wailing its warning; the call split the darkness with long-whistling whine, echoing through the wet, still night. Northward, a few hundred meters away, was an ill-lit road; the whoosh of speeding cars rose from its body as breath. Overhead's full moon cast shadow across the swamp. Tracing distance by the Empire State-something in its look was wrong, though I couldn't say what-I estimated that our st
anding point should be occupied, so far as I knew by what now seemed but dream's logic, by PriTel's twenty-floor parking unistructure.

  "Where've we come?" Jake finally asked.

  "Home," I said, wishing to hold further speculation until fully facted. "There's New York. This must be Jersey. We've come down in the Flats Preserve"-that is, the old Jersey Flats acreage remaining, set aside by the government as a public park, where buried wastes made the tumorous foliage especially lush.

  "I've been," said Jake. "It's not wide enough to spit across."

  "Road's there. Let's make for it. Get ourselves citied quick."

  Jake lay Oktobriana on the plane's wing, leaned against the fuselage and sighed. "I need a fix," he said. "Take my arm. Foot my side solid to lever proper. I motion, you pull."

  "You won't stand."

  "I drew two hundred mils of Diodin from first aid early on. The pain's settled. Prep and set, Luther, you're experienced."

  Diodin or no, he slipped a bullet between his brittle teeth before we operated, quickly, as if I wouldn't see. He signaled; I tugged. The grind heard loud assured our success. His lips kept still throughout the transaction.

  "You're AO?" I asked; he nodded. With good limb he touched the bad one.

  "It's happened before. After she's hospitaled I'll have it onceovered. Let's move." Checking Oktobriana for look, for respiration, for temp, he lifted her one-armed; I struggled with overloaded cases, slogging through the reeds, feet sliding in the mud. After thirty meters Jake's whites were black from collar to cuffs. Mosquitoes grew fat on our flesh as we splashed through the chesthigh growth.

  "Estimate that Alekhine"-as ever, Jake mispronounced-"is in Russia. We seek?"

  "Might have to. He's implanted. Should be easy to track once we're ranged near. "

  "If we recover the one we had," he said, "think she can reset?"

  "Sounds as if her boss had the know in that instance," I sighed. Something in my back felt rubbery. "Possibly, though. I think the one out here's our quickest bet. Wish we could search tonight-"

  "She might term," Jake said. "I've no X-ray eyes to clear her innards. " I wondered if there were snakes about; wished I wore boots into which pants might be stuffed. "We weren't over twenty meters high when I pitched him. Dropping onto this'd be like tumbling on a sponge if he landed right." Jake shook his head free from mosquitoes' pinch, if for but a second. "If I hadn't allowed emotion to operate I wouldn't have thrown-"

  "Unavoidable, Jake," I said. "What's done's done."

  "Always avoidable," he said. That he had permitted feeling to enter his most sacrosanct action ripped him through, I saw, though such-feel ingonly made his action more spectacular.

  "If he's still viable he'll emerge in time. If not we'll return and retrieve. For now-"

  "We need repair."

  "Exactly. All we can do tonight is earplay." Lifting his head, Jake examined the sky's starry bowl. "This heat's killing," I said; where the swamp didn't soak, sweat did. "What's seeable?"

  "Summer stars," he said. "Orion's missed. So's Hydra and Gemini. There's Scorpius, Libra and Hercules. Post-ides of June, I'd hazard-"

  "It's March-"

  "Not here."

  We neared a nesting ground; a birdflock scattered airways before us, two meters near, shooting from the fen, throwing my heart into overdrive. Coming soon after to the highway's dry embankment, we ascended. A rest essentialled topside under any circumstance; what we saw made us as statues.

  "This isn't," said Jake, kneeling, propping Oktobriana with care against -a post. "Can't be, Luther-"

  We faced a macadam road holding four narrow, empty lanes. The guardrail against which Oktobriana slept was nothing more than short wooden posts driven earthward, connected through their run by three steel cables. A waist-high divider separated roadways with concrete barrier. Along the roadedge, aligned rows of high wooden poles of two types stood. Long metal pipes attached at right angles to the shorter poles hung overroad; hooked on to the pipe ends were low-watt globes. At each taller pole's peak two crossbeams were affixed; between the poles, attached to the beams by small glass caps, stretched dozens of wires. From their strands rose the hum of a million bugs in eveningsong. A pole-posted sign said ROUTE 3 Weehawken 7 Mi. New York 9 Mi. The Route 3 we knew carried twenty-two lanes of neverending traffic. Another sign bore an unworded symbol: an orange peacemaker and single stone, outlined in black, with directing arrow beneath. Beyond the far roadside the swamp continued on into darkness. On the road embankment facing east stood a high billboard, its wooden planks scraped paint-free, its advertisement new-posted. In the scene's foreground was a headshot of an oddly familiar, historically unplaceable face; backgrounded was the White House, radiating as if it burned. EVERY MAN A KING, the sign's legend read.

  "Causality prohibits," I said, attempting to convince rather than enlighten. "It's impossible."

  "But true," said Jake. Eyeing the Empire State afresh, common sense's block having now worn away, I spotted at once the difference missed. Its pinnacle's TV tower lacked; the building stood as hypo sans needle. Running view along ridge's brow I saw the absence of considerable: the Trade Towers, Battery Spire, Battery Park, One Coliseum, Cititower, Lincoln Park-all gone. "We've disconnected, Luther. "

  Downroad west, two thin white shafts lit the path ahead. As the car drew close I roadsided, aiming to hitch; anxiety's hands pulled me away so that I might size the locals at near range before direct contact ensued. The car passed, its driver giving us a second's onceover. We'd camped directly beneath one of those dim lights; when his vehicle had its moment under spotlight, it first hit me odd to see something so old look new and used simultaneously. The car resembled a colossal potato bug, with bulbous abdomen, narrow thorax, wide round eyes; its hue showed briefly as a dull dirty yellow. A timekeeper in our day, of hostage ransom's worth; here, it looked as if it sat overlong parked in the rain. Its taillights flew away, toward New York.

  "Flag the next, Luther," said Jake, crouching beside Oktobriana, his trousers rolled knee-high as he plucked leeches from his legs. "She needs doctoring quick."

  "We all do," I said. "We've got to play this proper."

  "Proper for whom?"

  "For us. And them. If we're where we seem, circumspection in word and act is essential."

  "To what purpose?" He tore one last black strand from his skin. "We'll show like snow on ice to their eyes, surely."

  "Unproven," I said. "Our look and sound may cycle odd in these surroundings, possibly in ways unforeseen. We don't want to be mentaled without trial. We could show as institution's dream and not even know "

  "Recommendations, then?"

  "Keep profile low Don't react as trained. Don't show surprise at their behavior, or their tools, or their uses. Move without rudeness or sudden shock. These are demands, not suggestions, Jake."

  "Act as if traipsing Third World scenes?"

  "You've got. We're in innocent days, Jake. Remember that we can infect worse than they."

  "New lights showing, Luther. Flagaway. "

  Standing on the gravel shoulder, I overheaded arms, semaphoring oncomers. A truck rumbled past, dark miasma's cloud spewing behind; its full load of glass bottles rattled, shaking against one another and against the flatbed's wooden walls. Two more cars trailed: one's shell flowed in unbroken curve from bumper to bumper, its sinuous chrome seemingly designed by wind's wish; the other showed age, and resembled a boat estranged from the sea as it bumped along on spoked wheels. Its ripped cloth roof sheltered its passengers like a fallen sail.

  "One should have stopped," I said as they vanished.

  "To be poked and yoked by nightcrawlers?" Jake asked. "Deepdish dread, undoubted. Other's expected by the king of fear?"

  "Stop projecting, Jake," I said. "No call to drip our time's paranoia here."

  "Wise words, I'm sure. Here's another." Placing myself again, I waved; the driver flashed lights as if signaling hello. Cheered to see my point proven, I turned to nod at Jake
, only to see him drawing himself and Oktobriana behind the guardrail. The car accelerated and swerved, its tires throwing gravel from where I'd stood before tossing myself downhill, rolling into clammy safety at embankment's base. They laughed, skidding away; I heard unexpected cries.

  "Nigger!" came their call. "Got'im." Bile burned my throat as I hauled my aches to the road again, shuddering with fresh pain racking old winces. Jake and Oktobriana had returned to their seats; he appeared unsurprised. The road was still and quiet again, a river frozen by night.

  "You see?" I asked. "You hear?"

  "As forewarned," said Jake. "Losers roam night roads, Luther."

  "You heard his call?"

  "Another approaching," he said, eyeing the horizon's white glow The oncomer needed no gesture to halt it; slowing as it passed, the car pulled onto the shoulder two hundred down and reversed.

  "Prep yourself, Jake," I said.

  "Prepped and doubleprepped," he said, sliding his good hand undercoat, standing at guard before Oktobriana's small bundle. The car paused beneath the light and the engine cut. The car's husk rose slablike from the enormous bumpers, curving only at fenders, roof and trunk. The license plate, fastened within a bracket set above the left taillight, read New York World's Fair 1939. The driver's door swung free from the front, rather than middle, allowing clear view of the driver as he emerged. A faint click awared me that Jake's safety was off.

  "You fellows need some help?" he asked, voicing a deep baritone. Beneath his thin jacket, below his dark hat's rim, he showed as tall, wide and black. A mustache's caterpillar slept above his upper lip.

  "Essentialled," I said. "Medicare's a must. Assist, please."

  "Hospital us multitime," Jake demanded. Oktobriana moaned as drug's comfort faded. The newcomer onceovered us, standing without move or shake, looking as if he posed for a portrait.

  "Got a woman with you?" he asked. "You boys trying to beat the Mann Act or what? Going to get in mighty hot water that way."