by Xu, Lei
Ivan ascended very slowly, ready to react if something popped out of the mist. In silence we watched and waited. Finally the mist began to thin out. We broke through to the other side, the thing still right on our tail. My stomach was in my throat as the lights became clearer and clearer. Then the mist trembled and, a moment later, a gigantic plane came soaring out. The plane was obviously Japanese and incredibly immense. It was a bomber, just like ours.
"Prepare for battle!" I roared from the gun turret.
Everyone was thrown into a panic. Nothing is too strange for this world, I thought, gritting my teeth. As the others switched out the tracers for live ammunition, Ivan began flashing light signals to the other plane, hoping to communicate. A moment later the other plane's lights began to flicker. It was responding. I asked the copilot what it was saying.
After thinking for a moment, he frowned. "That's not a response. They just repeated our question back to us word for word."
"What was the question?"
"We asked them their nationality and unit number," said the copilot as our plane's signal lights once more began to flash. After a few moments, the other flashed its response. I looked back at the copilot. His face was puzzled. "Again it was the same as ours. How could they not understand what we're saying?"
"What year was this system invented?"
"That I don't know."
"Could it be new enough that the Japs never learned it?"
"That's impossible," said Ivan, his half-cooked Chinese sounding over our earphones. He'd used these very signals all the way back in Germany during the war.
Just as I was considering what all this could mean, Wang Sichuan called out, "What are you worrying about all this for? Let's shoot them down and figure the rest out later."
"You know there's a truce between China and Japan," said Ivan. "We need to respect it. We should not be first to open fire."
"Yeah, well, where was their respect at Nanjing?" asked Wang Sichuan. "There's no point in trying to reason with the Japs."
"We won't learn a thing by attacking them," I said. "And who's to know if we'd even win?" I kept my eyes on the other plane. Something about it didn't feel quite right.
The signals continued. First our plane would flash a message, then, moments later, theirs would flash an identical response. By now I was growing increasingly uneasy. Why did everything about their plane so closely resemble ours? I called down to the cabin for some binoculars. Wang Sichuan handed them up. I looked out at the plane. My eyes went wide. I rubbed them once, then looked again.
There was no mistaking it: the glass case surrounding the other plane's turret was also shattered.
As I scanned the rest of the plane, a terrifying realization swept over me. This was another Shinzan, identical in every way to our own.
"Could this be us?" I asked. "Are we looking at ourselves?"
CHAPTER
42
Seeing Double
Climbing back down into the cabin, I told everyone what I'd seen.
Wang Sichuan immediately disagreed. "Be a little more realistic," he said.
"What do you want me to say?" I replied. "I'm just telling you what I saw."
Old Tian cut in, telling me not to panic. "There's actually nothing strange about this," he said. "It's probably just a result of light refraction. When light passes through air of different densities at a certain angle, it sometimes creates a kind of mirror image, like a mirage in the desert."
Old Tian's authoritative assurances had nearly gotten us killed just now. It seemed wise to be careful before trusting everything he said. "Can mirages be this clear?" asked Wang Sichuan.
"If a cave this big can exist beneath the earth," said Old Tian, "then what's so strange about a mirage being a little clearer than normal? We need to believe what our eyes are telling us."
"No, that's not possible," said Wang Sichuan. "If it's really a mirage, then how come there's a delay in its response? As soon as we flash our lights it should respond simultaneously, like a mirror."
To test this theory, Ivan flashed another signal and we timed the response. It took 20 seconds for it to appear, though it was still identical to our own.
"Comrade Tian, please explain this to us!" cried Wang Sichuan.
Old Tian's face had turned pale. "This means...um," he mumbled.
"Actually," said Pei Qing, "there's a very simple way to find out whether that's really us. We just need to fire a few tracers. It is highly unlikely they will be carrying this type of ammunition, and, if they are, it is even more unlikely that the colors will be identical." He glanced over at Wang Sichuan, who switched in the tracers, aimed into the emptiness, and fired several dozen rounds.
One after another they flew into the darkness, tailing trails of light. Holding my breath, I watched the strange plane below us. Twenty seconds later, it also fired a cluster of identical tracers.
"Same color, same rate of fire," said Old Tian. "You see? You see? I was right after all. This must be some undiscovered natural phenomenon, most likely related to the mercury mist. After all, everyone knows mercury is used to make mirrors..."
I breathed a sigh of relief. At least now we knew it wasn't the Japanese.
"There's something really goddamn wrong with this place," said Wang Sichuan, his face red with anger. Looking at him, though, I could tell he was really just frustrated with Old Tian.
As I gazed back at the plane one last time, I still had a vague sensation something about it was amiss. Soon I would discover that my fears had not been misplaced. Unfortunately, by the time we figured this out it was already too late. For the moment, however, the phantom plane appeared to be nothing more than a false alarm. Gradually, everyone managed to calm down.
I looked at my watch. Five hours had already passed since takeoff. Wanting to talk to Ivan about the rest of our itinerary, I climbed into the cockpit.
He turned around as I entered. "Perfect. I was just about to go look for you," he said. Something about his expression was a little off. Checking that no one was behind me, he turned off the cabin mic and motioned for me to sit in the copilot's chair. Curious, I climbed into the seat.
Ivan pointed at several gauges on the instrument panel in front of us. "First of all," he said, "we used far too much fuel flying out of the mist just now."
"What do you mean we used too much?"
"I mean we'll probably only be able to cruise for another three or four hours before we drop."
"Are you saying we don't have enough fuel to get back?"
"Not necessarily. I'm going to turn off two of the engines and fly back at a crawl. If our luck is good, we should be able to glide in for the landing. I'm confident in my abilities. We should be fine. But I don't think we've flown as far as the Japanese. We're not going to be able to see what they saw and complete the mission."
Even if we did complete it, I thought to myself, it wouldn't matter unless we brought something back. "Just now you said, 'first of all.' What's second? What else is going on?"
"Look to the left," he said.
Through the windshield I could see a rock wall illuminated by the floodlights. "Are you intentionally flying along the wall?" I asked.
"No. I was surprised to see this myself. The terrain here is not at all like we predicted. While flying through the mist just now we made several turns. I think it's probable that, without realizing it, we somehow flew into a whole different cave. And the problem is the space here is so narrow that I doubt we can turn around."
I asked him if he could be a little clearer. The guy's Chinese was still pretty lacking.
After thinking for a moment, he said, "You still remember the last part of that secret Japanese footage?" I nodded. "When the cameraman was filming that..." He paused for a moment, searching for the right word to describe the enormous humanoid shape.
"Thing," I said. "You can call it a thing."
"Okay. When the cameraman was filming that thing…" Licking his lips, Ivan used one of his hands to
pantomime a plane and angled that plane steeply. "The reason the cameraman was able to film the thing from so many angles was because the plane was circling it very tightly. I think you'll agree that the angle my little plane here is turning at is roughly the same as that of the plane in the recording. Herein lays the problem: our plane is too big to execute a maneuver like that in this cave. If we tried it here, we'd smash right into the rock wall."
"Then how were the Japanese able to do it?"
"That's what I was wondering. Possibly the cameraman was filming from a much smaller aircraft."
"Impossible," I said, shaking my head. We had all seen the wreckage of the Shinzan, had even found a camera mount attached to its exterior.
"In that case, there's a second possibility. Namely, this section of cave is not where they filmed. We've gone the wrong way."
CHAPTER
43
The Immelman Turn
To be honest, I still only partially understood what he was saying. How could we have gone the wrong way? Had we flown into some branching cave? I knew, however, that none of these questions mattered. We had a very big problem that needed to be solved. "So what are you thinking?" I asked. "You're an ace pilot. No way would you be saying this to me if you didn't have a plan."
"Actually," he said, his voice perfectly composed, "it is a pilot's responsibility to alert his comrades if death is certain. That said, there is one more thing we can try. I will warn you, however, that our chance of success is exceedingly small."
"Say it!" I cried, slapping him on the back.
"Well, even though there's not a lot of room on either side of us, there's enough space above and below for me to flip us in the opposite direction."
"Can a bomber do that?"
"Have you forgotten what got me kicked out of the Soviet military? It's an extremely tough move, but this plane is actually a good bit smaller than the one I used."
"How the hell are you gonna flip this thing?" I asked. "What do you need us to do? Pray?"
Ivan evidently did not understand my joke. He went right on explaining, using his hands to demonstrate. "After we flip upside-down and the belly of the plane is on top, I will momentarily lose control, causing us to drop. Assuming that I have angled the plane correctly, then at this point I should be able to use some inertia to roll us right side up while cranking the engine to pull us out of the dive. The reason we're doing a backwards somersault as opposed to a forward flip is because the latter would give us no time to right ourselves before we crashed. But in order to get enough space above us to pull this off, we have to drop back down into the mist. I need all of you to keep a close eye on our surroundings."
I nodded. "When will we begin?"
He looked at the fuel gauge. "At most, I'd say you have ten minutes to talk it over and get ready."
I silently cursed this slow-acting Soviet. Why the hell hadn't he said anything sooner? Then, without another word, I rose to my feet, clapped him on the back and rushed into the rear cabin.
Interrupting the ongoing argument, I roared, "Everyone! Get back to your seats, put on your fucking seatbelts, and grab hold of anything you can. We're dropping back into the mist. Every man is responsible for a window. Let's go!"
Everyone began yelling at once.
"Have you lost your mind?" cried Wang Sichuan.
"There's no time to explain. If you don't listen to me, we're gonna be walking back."
After hustling them into their seats, I climbed into the gun turret and told the copilot to head back down the ladder. "You need to return to the cockpit," I said. "I'll handle things here."
Ivan switched on the mic. "No matter what," he said, "if you see something, you need to call it out. When the plane is upside-down I won't be able to see a thing."
"Upside-down?" said Wang Sichuan. "What does he mean upside-down?"
Before the words even left his mouth, the plane began dropping swiftly toward the abyss. I was almost tossed from the turret. Holding myself steady, I gritted my teeth against the fierce wind. It felt like my head was about to be blown clean off my body.
"Engineer Wu!" shouted Wang Sichuan from below. "If you don't tell us what the hell is going on, I'm going to report you to our superiors!"
Idiot, I thought, report me all you want. So long as we survive, you can tell them I'm a counterrevolutionary for all I care.
The plane dropped savagely through the mist. We could see nothing. Ivan's voice sounded through our earphones, calling out the altitude. Up in the machine gun tower, the world was open to me. It was an experience I'll never forget. I began to see dark shapes in the mist below us. "Is this deep enough?" I asked.
"We still need to drop a little farther. Don't worry; we're not as deep as last time." Ivan's voice was extremely calm.
I could see the shapes become clearer and clearer until it felt like we were about to crash right into them. Then, at the last possible second, the nose of the plane suddenly rose and we began to climb. Through our earphones we could hear Ivan reciting something in Russian, his voice quiet.
"What's that supposed mean?" I asked.
"It's what I said to Xile when I asked her to marry me, and it's what I was saying to myself when I pulled off this maneuver for her. Perhaps it'll bring us luck this time, too." He paused for a moment. "I hope Xile can hear me."
As he said this, the plane finished its ascent and began to roll backwards. Our speed dropped and the space around me spun. We burst out of the mist at a 90 degree angle. I gripped the safety bar beside me. We began to topple over backwards. I couldn't help myself—as my head dropped back, I began to yell. Ivan maintained tight control over the plane, dropping it slightly to one side, giving us the angle that should roll us back over.
This kind of flip was called an Immelman Turn. It's a stunt generally performed only by fighter planes. Ivan's voice remained extremely calm. Was this due to the Soviet flight instructor's extreme skill and daring, or had he perhaps already given up hope? Either way, compared to the Wang Sichuan shouting curses and Old Tian forcefully vomiting, Ivan sounded like a mere spectator, not the man controlling this lunatic maneuver.
As the plane teetered towards falling completely out of control, I, too, somehow became very calm. I knew then that whether or not Ivan regained control of this plummeting colossus no longer had anything to do with us. In a situation like that you understand what people mean when they say things like Fate, God, belief—whatever you want to call that stuff. Only then do you truly see their marks on the world.
As the plane gradually began to roll over, we dropped once more into the mist. We were almost right side up when Pei Qing's voice suddenly rang out over the earphones. "Stone mountain!"
Then a moment later I saw it: a jagged rise hidden in the mist not far below us. We were still dropping straight down, the plane totally out of Ivan's control. I watched as the shape drew closer and closer. I closed my eyes, fully aware of why Ivan had mouthed those words. Though the men and women of my generation would often sigh at our fate, few could say what the word actually meant. In those seconds, however, I understood it precisely.
Opening my eyes, I saw the mountain sweeping by only inches away from me. A moment later Ivan was back in control and we were zooming ahead.
As my mind went blank, I heard Wang Sichuan yell, "Look out! There's something to the left!"
A row of craggy peaks shot out just beside us. Our wing grazed one of them, aggressively shaking the plane and sending sparks in all directions. Lucky it wasn't a direct hit, I said to myself, but then, not far in front of us, a brutal expanse of rock jutted through the mist. We'd never be able to avoid it. I knew what to do.
"Blow these things to kingdom come!" I yelled. I loaded the machine gun and began to fire.
The gun's power was immense. Rocks danced away with each shot. Bullet trails flew from every window of the plane. In an instant the first barrier crumbled. Before I could catch my breath, I saw another jagged row rise up behind it.
&
nbsp; "We're fucked!" Wang Sichuan roared over the earphones.
"Don't stop!" I yelled with all my might.
At that moment our fear didn't matter. Even whether we survived didn't matter. The stone mountains before us were our most ferocious enemy and all we could do was keep firing, our bullets like deadly waterfalls rushing through the darkness. As the rocks flew apart we sped through them, not knowing how many were left. We smacked into one of the remaining peaks, the force knocking me to the floor. I heard something scrape against the belly of the plane, but we kept going. Moments later we were through, the plane only slightly off-kilter from the crash.
