Paper or Plastic

by Mackey Chandler

  The dome of the sky got blacker and the stars sharper, but the horizon was difficult to pick out in the dark. At first there was no scale to judge the view. The Pacific beneath them changed texture, until the reflection of the moon off it looked different than it ever had from an airplane. It was so far below the texture of the waves was lost and it reflected a hazy image like brushed metal.

  When they started over-flying some clouds the appearance of them against the fuzzy reflection of the moon looked like weather satellite pictures that were familiar to him. The reality of it all clicked together and his hindbrain suddenly shouted that he was really, really, high and the hair stood up on his neck looking down across the sudden abyss. The pressure of his belt holding him safe was suddenly comforting. Then the acceleration eased off and they coasted along silent except for the hum of a couple equipment fans.

  He could feel himself float against his belts, his shoulders freer to move than his hips with the lap belt there cinched extra tight. His legs felt as if they were dangling, instead of pressed against their backs, but it wasn’t until he turned his head too fast to look at Martee, that he felt really strange and disoriented. She was watching him waiting for any reaction to his first experience with zero G.

  "It’s different," he admitted to her questioning look. He had a heavy plastic bag in his pocket if he needed to be sick, but didn’t go for it yet. His senses told him that the ship had rolled when he turned his head. He knew that wasn’t true, but it wasn’t a particularly distressing sensation, just false. It had to help that he was prepared for it mentally. All the same, he decided not to ask to get out of his seat and fly about this time. Perhaps another time.

  All thought of such play vanished when the horizon before them acquired a glow, sharpened into a slight arc and then the terminator they were chasing rolled under them. It was amazing to think they would pass west faster than the sun and catch up with their own night before it could leave New York. As they got into full sunlight the clouds looked very different and there were occasional islands. Using the binoculars strapped handily to his seat, he could see the wakes of ships and even the dark sliver of a large one against the water.

  When they crossed the islands of Indonesia, what he saw out the window was hard to relate to the map on the GPS. The clouds obscured a lot and he couldn’t see near as far as he had imagined. If this was Indonesia those must be the Philippines to the north, but Vietnam and the Continental land mass were out of sight to the northwest.

  He finally started to understand they weren’t really all that much higher than an airplane, compared to the scale of the earth. After a short section of featureless water, the African territory they crossed next was pretty bleak. It was obvious there was little green and even less water. Nothing man-made was visible once they passed the coast.

  They were following an orbit northwest over the Atlantic, that would take them across New England if it continued. They did that to avoid worrying someone, with a ground track that passed too close to Washington or even their real goal of New York. After warning him, Martee braked hard and descended on a sharp slope for the Atlantic, far enough offshore to not raise any concerns that they were a ballistic missile.

  The return of weight was welcome. They passed the terminator again, but at their height were still in sunlight. That cut off as soon as they descended. Their powered descent looked unlike the trajectory any sort of earth vehicle could make. They reversed motion, doubling back briefly to match speed with the Earth’s rotation, as they bit back into the air and came down almost vertically out past the continental shelf.

  The body of the ship was not designed for any great thermal or aerodynamic stress, so they had to come close to matching the rotation of the atmosphere before cutting into dense air. He carefully searched below with the binoculars, worried they might come down too close to a warship that could track them, but it was clear as far as he could see in the gloom.

  After ducking down below the horizon of most radars, their course turned west on a heading away from their orbital track. When they got much closer, within sight of the city, they would go slow and low enough to be mistaken for a small boat. For now the GPS screen said they were maintaining a bit more than three hundred miles per hour. There was some wind noise but no buffeting.

  Rog loosened the neat tie with which Josh had secured his handiwork and secured a green running light to the rear corner of his side of the viewport. Getting out of his seat he went behind Martee and did the same with a red light on Martee’s side. The LED clusters were nestled in a black suction cup that would keep the light out of the cabin. Because the forward ports wrapped around past the front seats on both sides it would give a full hundred and eighty degree separation.

  After the suction cups were secure, Rog used a roll of gaffer’s tape to cover the wires behind the seats, running to each light. Josh was a neat freak with equipment and Roger wasn’t fighting him at all. It was just smart. He reached down and made sure the line switch was where he expected it to be, but didn’t turn it on yet. When they slowed down he’d turn it on. At this speed it would be silly to try to look like a boat.

  Tuning the ships radio to Earth frequencies had not been feasible, so they had handheld transceivers for both aviation and marine. Rog turned on and tuned the marine unit to the VHF emergency band. It would scan and play other transmissions, but return to standby on channel 16.

  He put it on the instrument panel ledge, securing the wrist strap to an eyelet Josh had epoxied there for loose equipment. Martee had been horrified the first time he had referred to it as the dash. After looking that word up she had objected they certainly never wanted to dash against it. He was trying not to call it that again.

  They skimmed the waves again until it got boring. There was no traffic visible on the sea but several aircraft could be seen far above both, by their lights and contrails in the moonlight. There was a glow on the horizon from the lights of the city, but Rog kept quiet wondering when Martee would notice it.

  "As soon as we start seeing some traffic on the water let me take over," Roger reminded her. "It’s very confusing sorting the traffic and the navigation lights on the shore. In fact I’ve never been in water as crowded as New York. I’m just glad it isn’t a warm evening a few months earlier. All the recreational boats should be out of our way now at least."

  "What’s that to the left?" Martee asked. There was a cluster of lights and the dark silhouette of a huge freighter moving slow enough it seems stationary as an island, stern on to them. Martee eased to the right without him suggesting it, to give it more room. Almost immediately there were three more ships visible in distance, one of them broadside to them.

  "You were right to take the starboard side when we overtook someone from the rear," Roger encouraged her, "but it’s getting busy enough why don’t you pass control to me now?" he suggested.

  "I’m not sure I want to get into all those nautical terms," Martee protested. "Can’t we just say right and left?"

  "We could, but I thought you wanted to know the language. If we ever rent a nice boat to take out for fun, you’ll already know most of the terms. It’ll help me too, to get my mind in the right frame to pretend I’m a boat, if I use the right terms."

  "Oh, OK. If you help me with it I’ll try. In that case please relieve me. You have the comm Sir," she said very formally.

  "Aha! – trying to play the innocent with me," Roger accused her. "What book did you get that out of?" he asked taking the controls. "I don’t think I had any novels about ships."

  "No, this was that one where they had a ship even more marvelous than mine, ‘The Number of the Beast’. That’s how they spoke in it when they switched control. Did I say it right?"

  "You said it just fine," he admitted, easing his speed back by about half. There were more lights on the horizon and possibly a half dozen ships in sight, although none were straight ahead.

  "Securitay – Securitay," the radio on the ledge sounded suddenly. "Irish P
rince off my port, this is the container ship Adam Tooley. Did you see an aircraft go between us?" Someone suddenly asked. "It had no running lights and we briefly saw it on our radar. Did anyone on your bridge notice it?"

  "No Sir, nobody here caught it, Irish Prince. We have a hatch open to that side and didn’t hear an aircraft either. Might it have been a submarine with just the sail up?" he suggested.

  "Negative Prince. It was too fast for a boat and no wake. Now that you mention it, we didn’t hear an engine or see any exhaust. But it interrupted the glare line of your lights on the water. Just be aware something was out there between us. If we were in some other part of the world I’d be worrying about a cruise missile, but that seems unlikely here. Keep a watch sir. "

  "We certainly will," the voice from the Irish Prince agreed. "Thanks for the heads up." Nobody else jumped in with any questions.

  "I think we better do the boat imitation," Rog suggested. "This isn’t working too well, trying to sneak along dark. I’m easing back to about twenty knots. That would be about twenty-three miles per hour, he explained doing the conversion in his head. Anything faster I’d be afraid we looked like some sort of cigarette boat or hydro, trying to smuggle something."

  When the GPS said he was as slow as he desired, he reached down and rolled the wheel on the line switch. The suction cups were so good at shielding the lights he had a hard time telling if they were on. He unbelted and if he put his face right against the glass, he could see a little refection off the outside surface. He’d have to get Josh to cut a tiny hole in the rubber, so they could tell if they lost a running light.

  "Why is there a glow all along the horizon in front of us?" Martee finally asked. It was pretty obvious now.

  "That’s from all the lights in the city."

  "But why would they have lights pointed up in the air? I’d think they would all be pointed down at the streets where you need the light."

  "Most of them are," Roger agreed. "But some are big floods pointed at the sides of the buildings to let you see them at night and even the street lights reflect off everything back at the sky and all the headlights on vehicles and advertising signage is unshielded to the sky. You’ll see. We’re talking about a lot of lights," he assured Martee.

  He avoided chatting more, concentrating on his flying. It had been a long time since he had handled a boat and that had been a sailboat that was much slower than how they were moving now and had mostly been in the day. Navigating at night was harder, even before adding the third dimensional distraction of maintaining a low altitude.

  Looking at the GPS he thought he saw a pattern to the traffic and they looked to be out of the main lane. He wished he could fire up the radar, but he wasn’t sure how well it worked this close to the water and it wasn’t exactly on any proper, Earth-authorized, frequency for radar. Josh hadn’t found time to determine who they might be interfering with if they ran it, so he was avoiding it.

  "Those aren’t ships are they?" Martee asked pointing. Some of the first lights on radio masts and the very tallest buildings were starting to appear along the horizon.

  "No and there will be a lot more."

  It took almost another hour and a few small course changes to avoid traffic, before the lights were visible down to the waterline. Martee was strangely silent. When they were about twenty miles out the coast was lit up like a necklace of lights across the horizon, with a sprinkling of different colors among the white.

  The sky filled with strobes of aircraft and at ground level lights moving this way and that. He was aimed on the GPS screen straight for Stanton Island and far enough in from the open sea that the lights went around both sides of them now, filling over half the horizon.

  The bigger glow in the sky was still to their starboard and he’d come about at Sandy Hook Bay and head up the Lower Bay. There was occasional chatter on the VHF and the channel number LED would change, but then go back to channel 16 which stayed quiet. Most of the radio traffic seemed to be people on large vessels who knew each other and were advising each other how they were moving, or just finding an excuse to say hello to someone they had not seen in months.

  Roger was tense expecting someone to challenge him. There was less traffic here than they had encountered in the open water. It must be the late hour. He was tensed up on the controls and forced himself to let go one arm and then the other, twisting in his seat and stretching. He was all sweaty and it wasn’t warm at all in the cabin.

  Seeing him twist Martee asked, "Do you want me to fly it awhile?"

  "Just for a moment, please and I’ll take it back. Do you see that green light I’m going almost straight toward?"

  "The one down close to the water?"

  "Yes, keep headed for it steady unless you have to avoid something and I’ll be right back."

  Rog rummaged around in the duffle they had between the seats and got a bottle of water and a couple paper towels. He wet a towel and wiped his face and around his ears. He had to use the toilet already so he didn’t want to drink much, but just swished a mouthful and swallowed. They hadn’t gone that far but he took the ship back and with a glance at the GPS swung north and lined up for the Triborough Bridge. He wanted to sneak through well to the edge of the channel, away from where the big boats would go in the middle of the span.

  "Oh it’s so pretty," Martee exclaimed again.

  When they were right up close they could see the reflections of the car headlights, going back and forth on the bridge structure. Traffic was light so late though. Manhattan was framed behind the suspension span like a tiara.

  "Oh, my," was all Martee could say. He had to admit, he wished his camera wasn’t packed away. It was spectacular.

  "This is what I expected when we went to Seattle, only more so," She explained. "It’s beautiful."

  Roger just grunted an agreement and cut his speed back a little more. He was suffering his own sensory overload, trying to see if any of the dark forms out there hidden behind anonymous lights turned toward him. He wasn’t sure what he would do if hailed by a Coast Guard cutter.

  The lights high in the sky he wasn’t worried about, but he could see lower, slower strobes, some so low the buildings behind them were higher. He was very aware the Coasties had quite a few search and rescue choppers and a suspicious patrol boat might request one look him over without giving themselves away at all.

  When they were past the bridge into the New York Bay, with the shape of Governor’s Island poking out in front of Manhattan and the mouth of the Hudson River proper in sight, he started to suspect nobody was going to stop them and relaxed a little. That was good, but he was actually a little irritated to think that border security was so lax, for all the noises they made about terror.

  If they could sneak in so easily, somebody else could do it with a real small craft, dropped off by a submarine or a freighter. The radio chatter picked up to where he had to reset it to only play the ones with a strong signal. Otherwise the faint ones started talking over each other and they were hard to understand.

  He pushed the little tab and pulled the Marine CD from the slot on the edge of the GPS screen and inserted the Road Atlas disk. He glanced at Martee and she was in that state of wonder he hadn’t seen lately. He was glad she wasn’t flying. Her eyes were big and her mouth half-open. He was certain she wasn’t aware she looked like a six-year old seeing her first pony.

  There was one patch along the wharves that seemed darker than the rest and he lined up to pull in there. He passed between two ships, one of which was almost dark except for a few ports and the other that had a few dim lights about the deck and access. The shore likewise had only a few lights around some doors and gates. He reached down and turned his fake running lights off and turned on the aviation transceiver and clipped it beside the Marine radio. There was immediately a great deal more traffic on that radio and he listened for a moment assuring himself that everything sounded routine.

  The Road Atlas showed a small park labeled DeWitt Clinton
Park, just across the shore from them. He lifted the ship not hesitating and hopped high enough, he hoped none of the traffic on the shore drive below would notice him. There were only three cars in sight and none of them braked or gave any indication they saw him.

  He did stop to hover over the park a moment studying his map, with a point indicating the hotel already marked. There was a street – 53rd Street the map said, that dead ended in the park and he lifted above the street lights, but not much above the buildings and headed east down the street. He was much lower than the helicopter traffic and there was lots of that. At one point he saw three in the sky at once.

  After a few blocks he stopped. To continue he would have had to fly across a huge outdoor video screen with advertising. Even as sparse as traffic was, he couldn’t see flying a dark shape across a huge color screen. It went all the way down to the third floor and up a framework a good two stories higher than the top of the building. He solved that by jogging over a street between buildings and going down a block to avoid the huge board.

  When he got to the proper cross street he turned and he flew along slowly watching keenly for wires or masts of any sort and occasionally glancing at the icon that showed him where he was on the screen. He reached up and turned the radio off too.

  When the two icons were almost merged on the screen and the coordinate numbers matched all but the last two digits, he pulled back to a hover and looked down at the roof in front of him. Two pale cones of white light sprang up and started making sweeping motions indicating to come closer. Roger got a huge grin. It was so like Josh to have proper light wands, instead of just waving a flashlight at him.

  As he got closer Josh put both wands together and swept them from in front of him around a half turn. His intent was clear. Rog eased around the perimeter of the building, alert for any flagpoles or antennae and eased up to him from the back of the building. Josh brought the white cones from up high and apart, then brought them down together at his waist. They’d both seen this routine done a million times on military flights.