by John Varley
“Just like in the movies!” he roared. Nova was bouncing up and down in her seat, making a weird sound like nothing he’d ever heard, but you just knew it was jubilation even before you saw the eager light in her eyes. It was a fierce light, matched by the gleam of her teeth, and Conal loved her for it.
“Conal! Conal, do you read?”
“I’m here, Cirocco.”
“We’ll be taking off in about two minutes. What’s your situation?”
“I just splashed one buzz bomb, Captain.” He was unable to keep the pride out of his voice. “Four to go.” He glanced at Nova and she had picked just that moment to glance at him. It couldn’t have lasted a second, but she wore a wicked grin that said you’re okay, and, by God, he thought, we are, aren’t we? It was the closest they had ever been. Then she was watching the sky again.
“We won’t admire the scenery on the way there,” Cirocco said.
“I think we’re going to be okay, Captain.”
“There’s three pulling around behind us,” Nova said.
“I see ’em.” He had them on the radar screen, and visually. He wondered what they were up to, and where the fourth one was.
“I’m going to check with Snitch, see what he knows about this,” Cirocco said. Conal didn’t bother to answer. He pulled up again, did a wide loop, and almost had a shot at the trailing buzz bomb in the formation chasing him, but didn’t take it as he knew he had better conserve his ammunition.
So he led them a merry chase through the skies until they were strung out all over hell, and they broke off and re-grouped as he gained altitude, still worrying about that last one. It wasn’t on his screen. He had a thought.
“One may be headed your way, Captain,” he said. “Maybe he’ll try an ambush when you’re taking off.”
“I’ll watch for it, thanks.”
Once again they were behind him. He planned his moves, and figured he’d be able to pick off one this time, maybe two, before Cirocco arrived. They were in a line back there, weaving as they chased him. He pulled up, starting slow, and saw the last in line pull up quickly. He didn’t like that. Then the Dragonfly lurched to the left and he had to fight the stick. He looked out his window and saw a ragged hole in the wing, just outside the cannon. As he watched, two more holes appeared, and something whined off the tougher canopy material over his head. He looked up at the deep gouge, then yanked back on the stick.
“They’re shooting at us!” Nova shouted.
He didn’t know quite what he did for the next twenty seconds. The ground was all over the place, off to the side one moment, then overhead, then twisting around them. It must have worked. For a moment one of them was in his sights and he fired, but missed. He looked back, and all three were far behind, but lining up again.
Maybe he should just outrun them. He didn’t think they could match his top speed. Discretion being the better part of valor, and all that…
But he was worried about the damaged wing. Dragonflys were incredibly tough, but there were limits.
He shrugged, and pushed the throttle all the way forward.
“In front of you!”
She must have had incredible eyes. He never would have seen it until it was too late—did not see it, in fact, until it was almost filling his vision, just a gaping mouth shooting little gouts of flame at them. But he pushed down on the stick, and they shot under the fourth buzz bomb with about a meter to spare. He heard an explosion and risked a look back. The tactic had not paid off. It had just missed him, and collided head-on with the third one in the row behind him. What was falling toward Mnemosyne didn’t even vaguely resemble airplanes.
“Conal,” Cirocco’s voice came, sounding concerned. “Snitch says they may be armed. I don’t know how reliable that is.”
“Thanks!” he shouted, and dived as he heard the bullets whipping by him. He aimed for the ground and twisted and turned all the way down. Then something smashed through the fuselage and seemed to ricochet around inside. The cabin filled with acrid smoke, and Nova was shouting and stamping her feet.
“It’s alive, it’s alive!” she was screaming, but he didn’t have time for that. He kept turning, and once again they spread out behind him. When he thought he had a moment he looked to his right. Nova’s face was contorted, and she was stamping at something black that wiggled and hopped and smoked. It had a mouth, and it kept biting at her legs. As he watched, she put one of the unused flak-suit leggings over it and tromped on it.
There was a bang like a firecracker, and Nova’s leg was shoved up so hard her knee hit her chin. The whistling note he had heard since they were hit altered in pitch, and he saw the legging sucked through a four-inch hole in the floor.
He didn’t have time to worry about it. He was almost on the deck. He pulled up, and streaked over the desert at seven hundred kilometers per hour, fifty meters above the dunes. The left wing was screaming its agony.
And still he didn’t have time to think, because they were right behind him and still shooting.
“Well, hell,” he said. “Now I’m mad.” And it was true, he was furious, and he didn’t give much of a damn. So, without thinking about it, he pulled up, still dodging for all he was worth, kept going up until he judged he had just about enough room, then he throttled back and pushed the stick forward as far as it would go.
For an instant they were weightless, then the gee forces pulled them, harder and harder, up against the straps. They were aimed at the ground, not very far below. Five gees, six, seven. Ten gees, and their faces were red as the ground, with agonizing sluggishness, rotated around them. Outside, the wing complained, and inside, Conal wondered if he had cut it too close. The outside loop was as tight as he could possibly make it. All he could do was hope the buzz bombs followed him, and hope he would soon see a slice of sky creeping over the nose.
He saw the sky appear through the floor, then grow. Dimly, he thought he heard two impacts behind them, and he managed a smile, but his thoughts were moving slowly. If he had worked it right, those buzz bombs had just flown into the ground.
Then he was flying level, upside-down. The sand was so close that if he lifted his hand, he could have touched it.
Gingerly he nursed the Dragonfly higher, until he had room to flip over again. He glanced at Nova, who looked green. He would have felt the same way if he’d had the time for it, but the wing was chattering at him now. He took it up slowly to one kilometer, having to throttle back three times as the left wing began to flap. The little plane felt like a car jolting over a rutted road. He glanced at the wing again, saw it was being held on by one thin strut, and cut the engine. They were crawling through the air in silence.
“Out!” he shouted, and watched her throw her door open. She had forgotten the harness release, so he hit it, shoved her, saw her push up and out, then leaped in the other direction and was falling.
He counted to ten—at seven his teeth started to chatter, when he realized he had never parachuted before—and pulled the cord. The chute billowed out, jerked him hard, and he let out a deep breath. He looked around, saw the twin columns of flame where his pursuers had crashed, and then spotted the bright orange blossom of Nova’s chute.
He was five for five.
***
Gaea turned purple when she heard about it.
“He endangered my baby!” she roared, and began to stamp up and down the already churned grounds of Pandemonium. Everyone had to hustle to get out of her way. Many of them were successful.
“Who does he think he serves, anyway?” she thundered. “No chances, no chances are to be taken with that child! Didn’t I make that clear?”
There were affirmative shouts. Bolexes jostled closer for the shot, climbing over each other like beetles in a jar.
She raised a hand into the air and there was silence but for the whirring of the cameras. She clenched it into a fist the size of a station wagon, and lightning crashed down from the sky to make a purple nimbus around her. Face contorted with rage
, she drew her arm back like a javelin thrower and hurled something that might have been a bolt of hatred in the direction of Mnemosyne.
High on the central cable, the Luftmorder’s fuel tanks exploded. Sidewinders and red-eyes caught fire and found themselves streaking in their death lunges, to explode when their fuel burned out. Four buzz bombs also caught fire. The event was noisy and bright, and looked very much like the traditional Japanese pyrotechnic shell known as Bouquet of Chrysanthemums. When it was over, there were only nine Luftmorder combat groups in Gaea.
***
Robin, Chris, and Cirocco saw the show, and Cirocco edged around it warily, but nothing came down from the cable to chase them. Cirocco laid the wings back almost flush to the fuselage, and headed for the place that was full of black smoke. She kept calling for Conal, and getting no answer.
She slowed down at the twin columns of smoke, and began to circle. They all dreaded to find that one of the pyres marked the graves of Conal and Nova.
A flare crawled up into the sky and burst, and three minutes later Cirocco was setting down lightly. She had no sooner cut the motors than Chris and Robin were out, hurrying toward the two figures.
Conal had somehow managed to twist his ankle. Cirocco would not have thought it possible in the soft sand—then she remembered she had never gotten around to the parachute training she kept meaning to give him.
He had an arm draped over Nova’s shoulders and she had an arm around his waist, and they managed to move in the one-quarter gee about as quickly as one person could walk. Nova had four inches on him, and he was wearing a silly grin, and Cirocco wondered just how badly that ankle was really hurt.
“Do we have any time, Cirocco?” he asked.
“It depends. What’s up?” She thought about Adam, and knew they’d have to hang well back if they might be attacked by buzz bombs again. Then she thought about buzz bombs, and her eyes went nervously to the skies. They made a hell of a target out here.
“There might be something in the fuselage we ought to take a look at. It’s right over there.”
“I’ll get it,” Nova said, and dropped him. He squawked, overbalanced, and sat down in the sand. They watched Nova running toward the wreckage of the Dragonfly.
“They were shooting at us,” Conal said. “Snitch was right.”
He told them about the attack, how he had shot down one and made two crash and lucked out on the other two. Cirocco told him about the explosion, which Conal and Nova had seen from a great distance.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what caused it,” Cirocco said. “But it was in the spot where the buzz bomb base used to be. And it wasn’t just jet fuel, either. There was a lot of explosives, and maybe some solid rocket fuel.”
Nova returned, breathing hard, and held out the remains of the thing that had tried to bite her.
It looked a little like an exploding cigar, after the explosion. It was about four inches of flexible, hollow tube. One end was scorched and the other was ragged, splayed out. Nova pointed to the ragged end.
“There was a head there,” she said. “It must have been hard, because it clanged when it hit the floor. It was jerking around like…”
“Like a fish in the bottom of a boat,” Conal said.
“It didn’t have any eyes. But it had a mouth, and it kept snapping at me. I stomped on it and its head exploded.”
Cirocco took it from Nova. She handled it gingerly, and sniffed the burnt end.
“It’s sort of a rocket bullet,” she said finally. “I guess it was supposed to explode when it hit. It must have had one hell of a hard head to get through the Dragonfly hull. But, see, if it twists it can aim itself a little after it’s ignited.” She grimaced, then looked at Nova. “You say it blew up under your foot?”
“Part of a flak suit was over it.”
“Still, it wasn’t enough of a charge to blow your foot off.” She sighed, and tossed it away. “But it blew a hole in the floor. Friends, a buzz bomb could carry one hell of a lot of those little abominations. I don’t like it one damn bit.”
She couldn’t think of anything to do but load them all back into the Mantis. She listened to Conal’s description of the radar-jamming that had happened, and of the shape of the buzz bombs he had shot down. Most of the changes sounded to Cirocco like they were meant to confuse radar—that complex of characteristics known as “stealth.”
Then they took off and headed east again. Soon they located the angel, and followed at a discrete two kilometers. Cirocco kept one eye on the radar and the other on the sky.
Nineteen
During the long flight through Oceanus, Gaea sat still as stone in her monster chair, looking to the icy west, brooding. All the denizens of Pandemonium walked on eggs. They had never seen Gaea this way. Tons of fun, Gaea was, even if she did have a tendency to step on things. She was loads of laughs, the way she received all those preachers with big ceremonies, built the poor goons up till their heads were ready to bust, thinking Gaea had laid all this on for them, told them she had invited them to Pandemonium—them, personally, and nobody else, because nobody else quite had the slant on things, nobody else really understood the true faith quite as well as the schmuck-of-the-moment—and asked them would they pretty please let her in on the no-kidding Absolute Truth, and otherwise dispense their brilliant insights on theology? Then, when they were getting really wound up, she’d look at them like a pro gambler watching aces spill out of some poor dumb hick’s sleeve, thunder blasphemy! and bite their fool heads off.
Then she’d spit the head into the Resurrect-O-Master and a dozen revs later some mewling abortion would come out the other end and she’d tell it You’re Rasputin, or You’re Luther, and solemnly intone the Gospel that one was supposed to believe in, and send it out into the world.
They lasted a while, the Priests did, not like the zombies, which had a half-life of about a kilorev. Still, even Priests reached a point where they were too mortified to do more than lie there and twitch, which was only funny for a short time, so Gaea had run through a lot of Luthers and a lot of Rasputins.
Everybody loved it.
But during the last part of the arrival of the King, Gaea was one goddamn scary fifty-foot special effect.
It was Oceanus that caused it, of course. Oceanus was the Enemy. Almost in the same league with Cirocco Jones herself. There’s just no way she was going to feel good while the King was being flown over Oceanus’s hyperborean precincts.
If the truth were told, not many of the Pandemonii felt good about being that close to Oceanus in the first place. Oceanus was a thing that ought to be comfortably far around the Great One’s Curve, not looming frigidly like a gigantic breaking wave of icebergs. A lot of the most faithful sycophants were walking around with their shoulders hunched. You could have made a fortune on the gooseflesh concession.
But then the King was winging out of the twilight zone and over the Key of G—the most southwestern of Hyperion’s eight regions, and only three hundred kilometers from the Key of D Minor, where Pandemonium had encamped. And maybe she did something with the sun panels out there in vacuum, constantly angling those rays down over fat and sassy Hyperion, or maybe it was just the enormous relief Gaea felt—and when a fifteen-meter goddess/starlet heaved a sigh of relief, brother, you felt it down to your toe-nails…but the day, the endless and unchanging day, was suddenly brighter.
Suddenly it was orders here and orders there, and everybody falling all over themselves to see who could kiss ass the quickest.
“Wine!” Gaea trumpeted. “Let the land flow with wine!” And twenty baffled vintners were trotted out and upended and stuffed like Strasberg geese until the chablis spouted into a thousand flasks.
“Food!” she boomed. “Open the mighty cornucopia and let my abundance flow forth!” So butter was melted by the ton, and hard kernel corn shoveled by the bucketful into the rotating maws of thirty poppers big as cement mixers—which had, in fact, originally been cement mixers—and fires stoked
beneath them until hot yellow puffs were exploding in every direction, littering the ground, being devoured there by legions of producers who momentarily forgot their taste for fresh film in their popcorn feeding frenzy. Ten thousand franks were soon sizzling on a hundred grills, and milk chocolate flowed from the crusty teats of the teamsters.
“Film!” Gaea roared. “Let it be a festival to the King, the most stupendous celluloid celebration of all time! Run it on three screens at once, suspend the pass list, and raise the price at the box office!”
Then she began to shout titles. King of Kings. The Greatest Story Ever Told. Jesus Christ, Superstar. Jeez. Jeez II. Jeez III and IV. The Nazarene. The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Life of Brian. Ben-Hur. Ben-Hur II. Bethlehem! The Story of Calvary. There was some muttering among the Priests with Moslem or Jewish or Mormon heritage, but it was quiet muttering, and quickly forgotten in the general rejoicing.
For who could complain? The King was coming. There was wine, food, and film, and Gaea was happy. What more could Pandemonium ask?
But then there was more.
About ten minutes before the King was due to arrive, just as the party was getting into full swing, Gaea winched herself to her feet, took four disbelieving steps, then pointed into the air and grinned in cinerama.
“She’s coming!” Gaea shrieked in a voice that shattered the eyes of ten bolexes and an arri, and sent real creepshow horripilations down the spines of everybody within ten kilometers who had a spine worth creeping on.
“She’s coming, she’s coming, she’s coming!” Gaea was jumping up and down now, which was good for seven or eight on anybody’s Richter scale. The commissary collapsed and a klieg tree toppled. “It’s Cirocco Jones. After twenty years, I’ve lured her to do combat.”
