Fata Morgana

by Steven R. Boyett

  She started to say something else, to go after his use of the word our, which irked her. But Sten said, “Wennda, does anyone even know we’re here?”

  She felt her face grow warm. “I never said this mission was authorized,” she said.

  “You didn’t say it was unauthorized, either.”

  “By the time anyone got around to an official look, Redoubt troops would be banging on our airlock.”

  Now Arshall chimed in. “So far we haven’t seen any reason to think they’re up to something.”

  “So far,” she agreed. “That’s why we should go in there.”

  Sten blinked. “There’s nothing wrong, so we should take a closer look?”

  “Yes.” Even to her it sounded ridiculous, but she folded her arms and dug in.

  Arshall and Sten exchanged an exasperated look—one that Wennda should have been accustomed to, since she’d seen it most of her life. But such expressions—their very dismissiveness, their eye-rolling, here we go again nature—only made her even more obstinate.

  Sten sighed. He knew Wennda better than the other two did—he had even requested a compatibility assay a few years ago, more out of curiosity than from desire—and now he appealed to her reason. “Look,” he said, “I agree that it was worth scouting around, authorized or not. We don’t have the resources we used to, and anything that looks like a threat from the Redoubt should be taken seriously.”

  Wennda nodded eagerly. “All right, then. So we’ll—”

  “But,” he interrupted, “going back and reporting that nothing’s going on here would be a lot more useful than not going back at all.” He pointed at the Redoubt wall. “And if we go in there, we won’t come back out.”

  “My mother would be really angry,” added Arshall.

  Sten grinned. “And Arshall’s mother would be really angry,” he agreed.

  Wennda looked at the three men. She was prepared to argue her case, but what good would it do? If they didn’t want to go in, she couldn’t make them.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll go in myself.”

  “Oh, for—” Sten hung his head, gave Arshall a pleading look, and shook his hands at Wennda.

  “Perhaps,” Yone said, “we can learn more without trying to get in.” He pointed to a series of low ridges like overlapping shingles. “From there we can get a closer look at their security placement and their defenses. We can get a better idea if there’s more activity now than the last time you sent a team.” He turned back to Wennda. “The commander might go easier on us if we return with useful information.”

  Wennda frowned. Yone had a good point. But his perpetual helpfulness even in the face of suspicion annoyed her. She’d probably respect him more if he told her to go jump in the reverter. She also couldn’t help noticing that the vantage point Yone had indicated would bring him even closer to the Redoubt. Was he helping her, or himself?

  They were waiting for her reply, and she knew that she would only look unreasonable and stubborn if she insisted on trying to get into the Redoubt without at least pursuing Yone’s compromise first.

  Wennda nodded. “It makes sense,” she said. She looked at Yone, and Yone gave his quick tight smile. I almost hope you do try to run, she thought.

  Yone stood up from behind the rockfall. Something in his expression made Wennda think she must have said her thought out loud. His face was absolutely blank, but his eyes held an alarming intensity, as if he were coming to some realization. Now, she thought, he’s going to do it now, he’s going to make his move.

  Wennda stood. Her hand went to the nerve gun slung on her back.

  Yone squinted and cocked his head to one side. He frowned.

  Wennda’s hand paused on the plastic butt of the gun. Yone hadn’t even glanced at her. Was it a ploy? If she fell for it would he kill her? Arshall and Sten would have no time to stop him. She glanced down at them and saw that they were craning their heads and frowning as well.

  Wennda turned. In a moment she heard it. A faint drone, the distant burr of some giant insect on the wing. It came from back toward the northern fissure entrance. Yone paid Wennda no attention as he stepped up beside her. She saw a slowly dawning wonder on his face.

  Now Arshall and Sten came up beside them. The four of them stood with their backs to the Redoubt and faced whatever was headed toward them. In half a minute they saw it knifing through the canyon air a mile away, winged and alight and roaring five hundred feet above the ground.

  “The Typhon,” said Wennda. She stood transfixed. All stood numb and pale and facing the perceived incarnation of their childhood nightmares.

  “No,” said Yone. He shook his head without looking away.

  “What else could it be?”

  “A machine,” he said. “Look. It’s a flying machine.”

  And it was. The winged object nearing them in the halflight of the canyon shadow was rigid, made of plastic or metal, with windows and canopies and a cockpit, and the growing drone they heard was a whining engine. Below its body were two wheels on metal stalks. A third slowly swung down.

  “There’s the Typhon,” Sten said wonderingly. He pointed down the canyon corridor where something flew behind and slightly above the descending aircraft. No one in the recon team had ever seen it, but once seen there was no doubting what it was. The thing was larger than the descending air machine, but thin and dark with flat sail-like wings and a raked sharp head with dead white patches for eyes. The metal aircraft forced its way through the air; but the Typhon seemed part of it. Both objects beautiful and savage and signaling destruction in every line, yet utterly alien from each other.

  Wennda unfolded her binoculars and pressed “record” and watched the Typhon rake back its wings and angle down toward the aircraft like a striking falcon. A brilliant streak shot from underneath the streamlined head and sped over the aircraft like a meteor. The canyon lit orange and the cross of the aircraft’s shadow flowed across the canyon floor. A soft thunder swept the fissure.

  Thin streaks shot back from rods emerging from a clear bubble on top of the aircraft. They raced toward the diving Typhon and tracked right with its plummet. A rapid riveting echoed through the canyon.

  Yone stared as bullets stitched across the Typhon’s lower body. The Typhon cupped its wings and slowed its dive and arced up and rolled right. The sharp wings curled and the creature righted itself and rose and continued until it dove backward and away from the intruder that had unexpectedly damaged it.

  “Is it coming back?” Sten asked.

  “I think it is flying away,” said Yone.

  They watched amazed as the metal aircraft continued toward them. They saw now that it moved using four large propellers, and that three of them were not spinning. The hull was damaged all over, and one side of the tail section waggled as the aircraft descended. The machine’s wheels met the valley floor and the aircraft sped roughly along the shattered stone, heading toward the rockfall sloping from the bottom of the cliff ahead. It slowed and began to turn but suddenly stopped. The engine coughed and died.

  “Well,” said Sten, “I guess we’ve got something to take back now.”

  Wennda nodded slowly. “They have a new weapon,” she said. “They’re trying to destroy the Typhon and get into the well.”

  “Maybe it’s from the well,” said Arshall. “The Typhon was chasing it out of there.”

  “Not from the well,” said Yone. “From the column.” He pointed back toward the distant fissure entrance, back toward the crater’s center where they knew the vast column still shimmered above the enormous well.

  Arshall snorted. “You think monsters live in there?”

  Yone shrugged. “We came here because the column has been acting strangely. And now this.” He nodded at the parked aircraft near the rockfall up ahead.

  “The column has been acting strangely,” Wennda argued, “because they’ve been doing something to it. Maybe that’s the result.”

  “Oh, please,” said Arshall. “They s
ent an expedition down the well, and they found that thing and brought it back.”

  “You saw those weapons,” said Sten. “Wherever it’s from, if that thing finds the Dome, it’s over.”

  Wennda stared at the aircraft silhouetted against the faint green light of the Redoubt wall. Alien and dangerous and upsetting a long and precarious balance. She thought she saw motion and she raised her binoculars again and took a long look. “There are men getting out of it,” she said. “I count six. They’re wearing uniforms. I think they have weapons.”

  “So much for stealing it and flying it back,” said Arshall.

  Wennda lowered the binoculars and stared at him.

  “Or blowing it up,” added Sten.

  “I think those options are no longer available to us in any case,” said Yone. He pointed at the city wall, where a massive door had slid aside and two angular silhouettes were gliding out toward the parked aircraft.

  Wennda raised the binoculars again. “Troop carriers,” she said.

  “Well, this just got even more interesting,” said Sten.

  “Let’s see what happens,” said Arshall.

  Wennda lowered the binoculars. “I want to get closer,” she said.

  Sten and Arshall traded a glance. “Of course you do,” said Sten.

  nine

  In the alien quiet Farley and Broben stared at the wall of greenish glass that spanned the canyon ahead of them, its upper third gleaming, the rest in shadow. Through the glass they saw what seemed to be a city.

  Broben looked at Farley. “What the hell?” he said. “What the hell, Joe?”

  Farley only shook his head and unbuckled. “Come on,” he said.

  He started to climb down into the pit, then stopped. Shorty and Wen were already there, and they moved aside to let Plavitz and Boney crawl out from the nose into the cramped space. Every man had shed his flight suit and put on uniform and general-issue boots. Farley made sure everybody had a sidearm. His own was in its shoulder holster.

  Plavitz pointed to the front of the bomber. “Did you see—”

  “Stow it,” Farley interrupted. “Everybody out.”

  Wen opened the forward hatch and swung out of the bomber. Farley waited while the others followed Wen, then he climbed down from the cockpit. At the hatchway he glanced back up at Broben. “Coming, Jer?”

  Broben nodded. “It ain’t a landing till you walk away from it,” he said. He unbuckled and stood. Farley noticed that Jerry’s hand shook when he lit a Lucky, but Farley only nodded at him and swung down from the hatch. His boots touched grit and he patted the aluminum hull. Thanks, girl.

  The men were already lighting up, looking around, stunned and questioning. Eight men standing outside a battered bomber parked at the bottom of a steep and narrowing canyon before a massive structure like nothing ever built on earth.

  Wen immediately went to the tail section, did a full walkaround, and came back shaking his head. “Can’t believe this thing stayed up,” he said.

  Broben dropped out of the hatch. Farley saw that he had jammed the flare pistol into his waistband.

  “All right, first things first,” said Farley. “Plavitz, any idea where we are?”

  Plavitz shook his head. “I didn’t have any kind of readings at all, even before we went through that—whatever it was. Nothing in the sky to get bearings on, either.” He pointed at the enormous city wall. “That’s north. After that, your guess is as good as mine.”

  “All right. Shorty?”

  The radio operator shook his head. “I picked up some kind of signal after Wen got the auxiliary generator going, but I never got anything out of it. It wasn’t voices, German or otherwise.”

  Broben nodded at the faintly luminous city wall that spanned the entire canyon. “If that’s Germany, the Allies have been awfully misinformed.”

  Farley gave him a sour look. Broben shrugged.

  “What the hell did we just have a dogfight with?” Farley asked.

  Wen folded his arms and looked at his boots. “Wasn’t no airplane, I can tell you that.”

  “Then what was it?”

  Everett and Garrett glanced at each other. Both men looked at Farley and shrugged. “We took turns firing on it when we weren’t helping crank the wheels down,” said Everett. “Wen’s right. That thing wasn’t an airplane.”

  “It was alive,” said Garrett.

  “It was bigger than our bomber,” Farley pointed out.

  “It was bigger than our bomber,” Garrett agreed. “And it was alive.”

  Everett nodded. He looked embarrassed. “It looked like one of those big dinosaur birds,” he said.

  “Like a damn dragon,” said Garrett.

  Wen looked stubborn. “I know a machine when I see one,” he insisted.

  “All right,” said Farley, “let’s put a lid on it for now. We need to think about our situation.”

  Broben waved his cigarette at the city wall that filled the canyon’s termination like a fairy-tale castle caught in an evil spell. “We just put on one hell of a show for whoever lives in that aquarium. I give it five minutes before they send out a Welcome Wagon.”

  “Then let’s be ready for them when they get here,” said Farley.

  “I blew the Norden,” said Boney.

  “Good man. Wen, any chance of getting more than Number One going in the next ten minutes?”

  Wen shook his head unhappily. “I misdoubt it’ll happen in a day or two.”

  Plavitz pointed at the city wall. “You were off by four and a half minutes, lieutenant,” he said.

  They all looked to see a pair of vehicles approaching on the valley floor before the city wall—dark angular shapes moving before the faintly glowing structure. Long and van-like and black-windowed, unlit and utterly silent as they jounced along the rocky canyon floor on half-shielded balloon tires. Troop transports, Farley thought. Maybe twelve men each. They were going slow, maybe five miles an hour. Even at that speed they’d be here in a few minutes.

  Farley frowned at the bomber’s front wheels, effectively chocked by the depressions in which they had come to rest. He’d never get her out of there on one engine. With the tail destroyed, he wanted to at least turn her front toward whatever was coming their way. The crew could try to walk her around, but even if they managed it there’d be little time left to take stations. No, they were stuck in place with their shot-up ass to the unknown, and here was where they’d have to make a stand. If it came to that.

  Farley turned his back on the approaching transports. “All right, listen up,” he decided. “I want to give these people the benefit of the doubt, but if they pull up behind us instead of beside us, I don’t think talking’s going to be the first thing on their list. The tail gun’s out of commission, and the nose and maybe the waist guns won’t have a line on them.” He clapped his hands. “So. Garrett, Everett, grab the .30 and an ammo can from the nose and take up a firing position on the rockfall. Stay low and don’t shoot unless you have to.”

  “We can yank one of the .50s,” Everett offered.

  “You may end up hauling it farther than up that slope. Grab the .30 and get going.”

  They got going.

  “Martin,” said Farley, “see if you can get through that mess back there.” He waved at the rear of the bomber. “If the guns still work, you’re Queen for a Day if it gets ugly. If they don’t, find cover and make sure you’ve got a shot.”

  “Understood, captain.”

  “You’ll have to move Francis. And pull his tags.”

  Martin nodded grimly. “Only way to know if the guns still work is to fire them,” he pointed out.

  “If you can do it before those transports get here, go ahead. Once they pull up, it’ll look like a warning shot.”

  “What’s wrong with a warning shot?” asked Broben. “Those jalopies ain’t the Red Cross bringing doughnuts.”

  “Let’s don’t give them room to say we started it,” said Farley.

  “I better h
op to it,” said Martin, and headed to the bomber.

  “Plavitz, top turret,” Farley ordered. “You’re our main bet here.”

  Plavitz glanced at Wen, plainly wondering why Farley hadn’t ordered the flight engineer to the top turret, his normal combat station. But he nodded and said, “Got it, cap,” and hurried after Martin.

  Farley watched him go, then turned to the rest of the men. “Shorty, grab water and rations from the ditch kits.”

  Shorty looked puzzled, but he nodded. “Will do, captain,” he said. “I’ll put ’em in a duffel.”

  Farley frowned at his flight engineer. “Wen, I hate to say it, but—”

  “You want me to rig her so we can light her up.”

  “It might come to that. We’re at the halfway mark on fuel, so leave us enough to get back.”

  Wen scratched his neck and looked over his shoulder, his giveaway that he disagreed with his pilot. “She’s a pretty good bird, cap. We can’t set a bomber on fire every time we fly one.”

  “I agree,” said Farley. “Now take the flare gun and set her up to burn.”

  Wen scowled as Broben handed him the Very pistol. He tucked it into his waistband and dragged on his cigarette as he turned toward the bomber, muttering to himself.

  “Toss your butts!” Broben called out. “This crate’s about to be a Hindenburg Junior.”

  Wen sidearmed the butt away and gave a two-fingered salute without looking.

  “Boney,” Farley said, “will that stuck bomb go off if we do have to burn her?”

  “Doubt it,” said Boney. “A small blast from the fuse booster is what sets off the TNT.”

  “Can you rig it so it does?”

  “Jesus,” muttered Broben.

  Boney shrugged. “I can pull the fuse booster and rig that to go off if the ship burns. It’d do some damage.”

  “Go ahead and do it.”