People of the Sky

by Clare Bell

  When she clambered up on the wing to check her right fuel tank with the calibrated pole, Imiya scrambled up beside her. He made a face at the avgas fumes and asked if Gooney’s stomach was in her wings. Kesbe studied the dipstick level critically. Nearly seven hundred gallons. With luck and a tailwind, she would make it to Mabena’s installation. With Imiya trailing her, she made a walkaround of the plane, checking control surfaces, oil dipsticks, and landing gear. She pulled and stowed all control interlocks, making a mental note to lock the tailwheel before take-off.

  “Tell your friends that it’s going to get noisy and windy pretty soon,” she shouted over her shoulder as she ducked through the cargo bay door and headed for the flight deck. The plane’s familiar smells of leather, sunbaked vinyl and hydraulic fluid greeted her as she went up the inclined floor to the cabin. All was just as she left it, even to the shards of glass still littering the floor from the side window she had smashed during landing. Mabena would probably want to take something off the price for that, she thought ruefully.

  Before she could take her place in the left seat, she heard feet pounding on the C-47’s floor-boards. It was Imiya, entering the aircraft on his own for the first time. He looked around in amazement at the tunnel of the plane’s interior, then made his way between the boxes and crates of spares strapped to the siderails.

  It hit Kesbe that she did not know how to say goodbye to him or to the others now peeking in at the cargo door. Until now, she wasn’t certain whether she would be able to depart.

  “You must go now,” said the boy, fixing his eyes on her and folding his arms.

  “You haven’t yet taught me the words you say when leaving,” Kesbe answered gently.

  “We say, ‘until the wind bears you back to the mesa.’ “

  Kesbe felt a tightness in her throat. “No, those aren’t the right words,” she said. “I may not return. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Imiya shook his head. “It is not yet time to learn the final words of parting.”

  “So, until the wind bears me back to the mesa,” she said with a sad grin, addressing the other spectators at the cargo door as well as Imiya. “I am very grateful to all of you and all the other people in Tuwayhoima. Please tell them so.” She felt stiff and awkward and was glad when the boy shooed all his friends off to a safe distance. He, however, was reluctant to go.

  “You flew on our aronan,” he pointed out. “I want to fly on your Gooni Bug.”

  Kesbe’s jaw dropped. She had no idea he would want to accompany her on take-off. “Imiya, this is going to be terribly risky. Gooney can’t just jump into the air like an aronan. This terrace may not be long enough. I could go right off the edge and straight down. No, I can’t take you.”

  Imiya’s brows bent, but he did not become angry. He pondered the situation, chewing on the tip of one finger. He brightened. “I get Wind Laughing.” Before Kesbe could stop him, he was out the cargo door and beckoning his flier to the aircraft.

  She realized what he was up to when he coaxed the aronan up the two rungs of the steps that led into the cargo bay. “See, Kesbe-Rohoni. Wind Laughing stays here by the opening. If your flier falls, we run, jump on Wind Laughing and fly out.”

  “It won’t be that simple,” Kesbe began, then stopped to scratch her head. She had a parachute, but would there be enough height for it to open? An emergency bailout on Imiya’s flier might just be possible, if she could sense when things were going sour enough in advance. It would be perhaps minutes before the C-47 hit bottom—long enough for a mad scramble. Haewi couldn’t really carry the two of them, but it might be able to slow their descent.

  She fired her last salvo. “Imiya, we could kill ourselves and Wind Laughing.”

  At this his brow darkened, then his eyes closed briefly as if in pain. “Wind Laughing will no longer be mine when I finish the ceremony of adulthood. To Wind Laughing, that will be death. To me it will be no better than death. If the spirits will that we die now, I accept it.”

  Kesbe felt her jaw sag a little further. “You can’t mean that!”

  “I say only what I feel, Kesbe-Rohoni. You also know what it is to love an aronan. It is something strong, not easily broken. It will draw you back to Tuwayhoima.”

  “If you get yourself killed, they’ll shoot me on sight in Tuwayhoima! Imiya, I can’t let you do this.”

  He looked at her slyly, shifting his stance. “How well do you wrestle, Kesbe-Rohoni?”

  She glared at him, standing there with his head tilted back and his arms aggressively folded. His message was plain. She’d have to throw him bodily out of the aircraft and she wasn’t sure she could. She made one attempt and ended up on her back with the boy standing over her, grinning.

  “You flew on a Pai aronan,” he repeated.

  Kesbe was in a corner and knew it. Besides, his idea might give her a chance of surviving what might otherwise be a fatal crash. “All right,” she growled. “You take the right seat up front and do exactly what I say. Having a co-pilot for this maneuver will give me a better chance of pulling it off.” She switched to English for the last sentence. Imiya gave her a puzzled look.

  “Co-pilot,” she said, poking him in the chest. “You.”

  “Ko-Pi-Lit,” he said and grinned.

  Kesbe took him to the cabin, belted him into the right seat, showed him what lights to watch and what levers to pull at her command. His main responsibility was the landing gear, with its hydraulic lever and locking latch. She showed him how to look out the side window to check that the wheel was down and taught him to recite the litany of “Gear up, I’ve got it, gear down, you’ve got it.” She drilled him in its operation for what seemed like hours, then tested him by talking him (in Pai) through a simulated take-off.

  She was surprised at how quickly he adapted to something so alien to his experience. He kept his attention where it was needed and didn’t get distracted by the confusion of other controls and displays that filled the cockpit. It was his rapid accumulation of competence that led her to the final decision to make the attempt with him aboard. At the end of the training session, she pronounced him to be “non-commissioned ballast,” a qualified C-47 co-pilot.

  Instead of using the cargo bay door for bailout, Kesbe decided they would have a better chance with the forward hatch. With Imiya’s help. She unbolted the door from its hinges and stowed it in the back to provide an unimpeded exit should Gooney decide to dive over the edge. After some coaxing and stroking, Wind Laughing was brought forward and stationed at the bulkhead behind the cockpit.

  After the quick preflight check, Kesbe brought both the engines to life. They shuddered, grumbled, snorted smoke and sounded as though they were about to disintegrate. Imiya looked around in alarm, then jumped as the hydraulic accumulator began banging behind his seat. “It’s all right!” she bellowed at him above the racket. “She always does that.”

  He nodded, settled down, but his face was noticeably paler. Kesbe reached beneath her seat to lock the tailwheel, wondering if he was having second thoughts. She checked controls, fuel mixture settings and cowl flaps. Wind direction was good…right down the length of the terrace. The slight downslope would help take-off speed. Nothing could alter the fact that the damn ledge was probably too short.

  She sighed, pushed the throttles forward and taxied to the far end of the ledge. The instrument panel jiggled rhythmically on its mounts to a serenade of creaks and rattles from the rest of the plane. She saw Imiya making furtive glances in the direction of his flier, then his jaw set and she knew he would ride it through. She swung Gooney around in a waddling turn, checked both magnetos and prop pitch during engine run-up and set the plane’s nose into the wind blowing straight down the terrace.

  She traded looks with the boy. “Last chance,” she said, gesturing toward the aisle leading to the exit. Imiya shook his head. She added flaps for additional lift. The throttle knobs slipped against the perspiration on her hands. Biting her lip, she stood on the brakes and
advanced throttle to full takeoff power.

  Gooney began to howl and buck, flinging gravel over the cliff edge behind her tailwheel. Kesbe sent a quick prayer to the gods of the sky and pulled her toes off the brakes. The plane began to roll. She kept it tracking straight with careful nudges to left and right rudder as the increasing acceleration pressed her back in her seat and the cliff wall beside the terrace became a blurred band in her peripheral vision. She pushed the wheel forward and felt the tail lift.

  Her airspeed indicator trembled just below minimum flying speed. Grimly she held the plane on the ground, praying that the needle would rise before she ran out of runway. And then she saw nothing but open sky ahead. The desperate roar of the engines boomed in her ears as the nose lifted…then dropped in a precipitous dive.

  “Gear up!” she yelled at Imiya, who was already lunging for the hydraulic lever. She held the control wheel forward with one hand, unlatched his belt with the other. “Go!” she shouted, but the boy stayed where he was. The view of clouds and blue sky was lost from the windshield. Kesbe stared straight ahead over the plane’s nose to the formations at the canyon’s bottom. The wind shrieked past her shattered window as the C-47 plummeted.

  Fighting every instinct to haul back on the yoke, she pressed forward with all her weight, letting her fear freeze her there while the rocks rushed toward her. The wind screamed in her ears in a frenzied death song. Begging the plane to respond, she then hauled back on the yoke with all her strength. For an instant it seemed that Gooney was trapped in her fatal dive: then, with a howl of engines, she broke out of it in an upward zoom that pressed Kesbe into her seat with several g’s of acceleration.

  She halted the plane’s steep climb before a stall threatened and managed to level the wings. She turned the aircraft around in a complete one-eighty and headed back over the esplanade. A heady thrill of triumph rushed through her even as a bout of shaking made her feet dance on the rudder pedals. She had done it!

  Imiya was still frozen, mouth and eyes wide, fingers clawing into his seat. Gradually he thawed, turned his head to stare at Kesbe as if unable to believe they were still alive, then let out a sigh and slumped. Kesbe let him recover as she set flaps, trimmed the tabs and plotted her course on the lapboard. Out the window, she could still see the group of Pai child-warriors and their mounts clustered on the ledge. She waved at them, wondering what they must have thought when Gooney went over.

  “Wind Laughing!” Imiya blurted, jumping out of his seat. He returned with the news that the aronan was still with them, although frightened by the abrupt dive. He calmed the creature, letting it stand in the aisleway behind the cockpit seats. After some nervous side-stepping and fluttering of wings, the creature seemed to become accustomed to the noise and sensation of the flight deck.

  “Am I good Ko-Pi-Lit?” he asked in Pai as he climbed back into his seat.

  “The best in this world, so far,” Kesbe answered, clapping him on the shoulder. He noticed the control wheel on his side and asked what it was for.

  “You can fly Gooney from your side,” she answered. “Want to try?”

  Eagerly the boy scooted his seat forward and took the yoke between his hands. Kesbe showed him first how to hold the plane straight and level, then directed his feet to the twin set of rudder pedals on his side. Again, she was astonished at how quickly he picked up the right feel for the controls and how he learned to anticipate how the heavy aircraft would behave.

  This kid is a natural pilot, she thought to herself. Well, no wonder. He’s been flying almost since he was born.

  For the sake of conserving fuel, she had to cut the lesson short, but in that time she showed him how to fly a steady heading, make shallow turns, climb and descend. Once again she took over and pointed the plane’s nose toward Mabena’s installation while Imiya sat back in his seat and enjoyed the ride. He turned his head toward Kesbe and startled her by asking, “Are you considered an adult in your village?”

  Kesbe fingered her chin. By some standards, such as those involving the responsibilities of marriage or family, she wasn’t. As far as being able to support herself and her mastery of a profession, there was no question. “Yes,” she finally answered.

  “Then why does your tribe allow you to fly?” Imiya wanted to know. Wind Laughing dipped its narrow-muzzled head to him, he stroked the creature between the eyes.

  Kesbe considered this carefully. “In my ‘tribe,’ as you call it, anyone can. Adults, children, anyone with the skill or the means necessary.”

  “Anyone?” The boy was incredulous.

  “Of course. There’s no reason to restrict people from doing it. There are laws that make sure they fly safely and know what they are doing, but otherwise the skies are open to anyone who wants them.”

  Imiya leaned back. “Anyone,” he breathed softly. Kesbe gave him a puzzled glance, wondering if she had inadvertently encouraged him in a way she shouldn’t. From what she had understood of the Pai tradition, it seemed arbitrary and unjust. What sort of society would give their children the gift of flight and then wrench it from them at adulthood? No wonder all the grown Pai people seemed so solemn and perhaps a little sad.

  “Imiya, we’ll soon be passing near Tuwayhoima,” she said. “I can’t land, but if you want to save yourself and Wind Laughing a long journey, I’ll slow Gooney down and let you two hop out.”

  The boy wrinkled his nose and looked away. Kesbe let him stay in his seat as the C-47 droned along. The Pai mesa appeared off the right wingtip, then began to fall behind. Still Imiya made no move to go.

  “Kesbe-Rohoni,” he began suddenly. “If I came with you to your tribe, would they let me keep my aronan?”

  This time she was so startled that she let the plane drift a few degrees off compass heading before she made the correction. “Would you really want that?” she spluttered at last. “Would you leave your village and your people for the sake of Wind Laughing? What about Chamol? Nabamida? The council?”

  He swallowed hard. “I just can’t think about life without Haewi. I know other child-warriors give up their fliers. Nyenti-wakay did, and my friend showed no sorrow, but I am different. I don’t know why. Perhaps it is because I met you.”

  “Me? Why?” Kesbe protested, trying to push aside the thought that she might have influenced him. She didn’t want the responsibility.

  “You have shown me that even an adult can still ride and care for an aronan. The partnership doesn’t have to end.”

  “But I’m from outside. Not of your people, as Nabamida said.”

  Imiya looked down at the seat between his knees. “You have let me see through your eyes, Kesbe-Rohoni. You have let me see that some of the ways of my people may be wrong.”

  Kesbe was silent for a long time after that, letting the steady rumble of the engines and the whistle of air past her cockpit window displace any uncomfortable thoughts. Finally she said, “Even if I agreed, Imiya, how would you care for Haewi outside the Barranca? Aronans don’t exist anywhere else. If you and I leave and take Haewi, it might become sick and die. Would you want to take that chance?”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped. “No,” he admitted.

  “Then you must go back to Tuwayhoima,” Kesbe said firmly. “If you really think your people’s customs are unfair, talk to Nabamida. Talk to the Council of Elders or the Sun Chief, if you have to.”

  “Will you help me? You must also return to Tuwayhoima because of Baqui Iba.”

  Kesbe had intended to say no, but she found her lips shaping different words. “If I can, Imiya, I will come. Now go with Wind Laughing.”

  As the boy unbuckled and left his seat, Kesbe added, “Take care of…my…aronan for me.”

  “Until the wind bears you back to the mesa,” Imiya answered. “It is well. I go now, on Haewi Namij.”

  Kesbe kept her eyes on her forward windscreen as she put Gooney Berg into slow flight configuration. The aircraft wallowed and mushed, flying nose high. She hitched herself up to peer out t
he side window and was treated by the sight of Haewi and Imiya in a spectacular closed-wing skydive. After several seconds of free-fall, Haewi flared its wings, shooting both of them into a wild sequence of aerobatics. She throttled the plane up to minimum cruising speed so it would fly itself and she could watch Imiya’s performance.

  He did rolls, inside and outside loops. Immelmann turns and maneuvers that Kesbe couldn’t describe. He and his flier reveled in the freedom of the sky, dancing their farewell in an unforgettable high-speed ballet that left her breathless. As a finale, he and Haewi raced Gooney Berg, clocking up to 60 knots by Kesbe’s airspeed indicator before falling behind. Then he was lost from view behind a cloud wisp and she was once more alone in the sky.

  After a moment’s thought, she took out her sectional map and marked on it the location of the mesa that sheltered Tuwayhoima. Then she put the map away and concentrated on the tasks of piloting. Only after she had put an hour’s worth of flight behind her did she realize she had another decision to make.

  As far as the planetary authorities on Oneway were concerned, the Pai Yinaye did not exist. It was the usual custom of those who discovered new species or races on unexplored worlds to file a report. Contact teams could then be sent in and the new discovery could then be integrated into the rest of the interstellar community.

  But the Pai did not want to be found. Everything in their history and what she knew of their culture spoke of a desire to isolate themselves and suppress the memories of the technological civilization their ancestors had rejected. She would be doing the tribe no favor by exposing them once again to the rest of the world. The history of her own ancient Hopi people stood as a warning.

  She smiled to herself as her choice stood clear. She would give Imiya’s people a gift they might never know. The story of the Pai Yinaye would remain unwritten except within her heart.

  She flew on toward Mabena’s installation, leaving the vast-ness of the Barranca Madre to guard its own secrets.