by Anthology
The wind was good, coming right down the length of the field to me, getting under the Fokker’s wings and lifting it like a kite before we had gone a hundred feet. I did a slow turn then, getting a good look at the field with all the new, green grass starting to show, and adjusting my goggles.
Have you ever looked from an open cockpit to see the wing struts trembling and the ground swinging far below? There is nothing like it. I pulled back on the stick and gave it more throttle and rose and rose until I was looking down on the backs of all the birds and I could not be certain which of the tiny roofs I saw was the house where I live or the factory where I work. Then I forgot looking down, and looked up and out, always remembering to look over my shoulder especially, and to watch the sun where the S.E. 5a’s of the Royal Flying Corps love to hang like dragonflies, invisible against the glare.
Then I looked away and I saw it, almost on the horizon, an orange dot. I did not, of course, know then what it was; but I waved to the other members of the Jagstaffel I command and turned toward it, the Fokker thrilling to the challenge. It was moving with the wind, which meant almost directly away from me, but that only gave the Fokker a tailwind, and we came at it—rising all the time.
It was not really orange-red as I had first thought. Rather it was a thousand colors and shades, with reds and yellows and white predominating. I climbed toward it steeply with the stick drawn far back, almost at a stall. Because of that I failed, at first, to see the basket hanging from it. Then I leveled out and circled it at a distance. That was when I realized it was a balloon. After a moment I saw, too, that it was of very old-fashioned design with a wicker basket for the passengers and that someone was in it. At the moment the profusion of colors interested me more, and I went slowly spiraling in until I could see them better, the Easter egg blues and the blacks as well as the reds and whites and yellows.
It wasn’t until I looked at the girl that I understood. She was the passenger, a very beautiful girl, and she wore crinolines and had her hair in long chestnut curls that hung down over her bare shoulders. She waved to me, and then I understood. The ladies of Richmond had sewn it for the Confederate army, making it from their silk dresses. I remembered reading about it. The girl in the basket blew me a kiss and I waved to her, trying to convey with my wave that none of the men of my command would ever be allowed to harm her; that we had at first thought that her craft might be a French or Italian observation balloon, but that for the future she need fear no gun in the service of the Kaiser’s Flugzeugmeisterei.
I circled her for some time then, she turning slowly in the basket to follow the motion of my plane, and we talked as well as we could with gestures and smiles. At last when my fuel was running low I signaled her that I must leave. She took, from a container hidden by the rim of the basket, a badly shaped, corked brown bottle. I circled even closer, in a tight bank, until I could see the yellow, crumbling label. It was one of the very early soft drinks, an original bottle. While I watched she drew the cork, drank some, and held it out symbolically to me.
Then I had to go. I made it back to the field, but I landed dead stick with my last drop of fuel exhausted when I was half a kilometer away. Naturally I had the Fokker refueled at once and went up again, but I could not find her balloon.
I have never been able to find it again, although I go up almost every day when the weather makes it possible. There is nothing but an empty sky and a few jets. Sometimes, to tell the truth, I have wondered if things would not have been different if, in finishing the Fokker, I had used the original, flammable dope. She was so authentic. Sometimes toward evening I think I see her in the distance, above the clouds, and I follow as fast as I can across the silent vault with the Fokker trembling around me and the throttle all the way out; but it is only the sun.
AIR RAID
John Varley
I was jerked awake by the silent alarm vibrating my skull. It won’t shut down until you sit up, so I did. All around me in the darkened bunkroom the Snatch Team members were sleeping singly and in pairs. I yawned, scratched my ribs, and patted Gene’s hairy flank. He turned over. So much for a romantic send-off.
Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I reached to the floor for my leg, strapped it on and plugged it in. Then I was running down the rows of bunks toward Ops.
The situation board glowed in the gloom. Sun-Belt Airlines Flight 128, Miami to New York, September 15, 1979. We’d been looking for that one for three years. I should have been happy, but who can afford it when you wake up?
Liza Boston muttered past me on the way to Prep. I muttered back, and followed. The lights came on around the mirrors, and I groped my way to one of them. Behind us, three more people staggered in. I sat down, plugged in, and at last I could lean back and close my eyes.
They didn’t stay closed for long. Rush! I sat up straight as the sludge I use for blood was replaced with supercharged go-juice. I looked around me and got a series of idiot grins. There was Liza, and Pinky and Dave. Against the far wall Cristabel was already turning slowly in front of the airbrush, getting a Caucasian paint job. It looked like a good team.
I opened the drawer and started preliminary work on my face. It’s a bigger job every time. Transfusion or no, I looked like death. The right ear was completely gone now. I could no longer close my lips; the gums were permanently bared. A week earlier, a finger had fallen off in my sleep. And what’s it to you, bugger?
While I worked, one of the screens around the mirror glowed. A smiling young woman, blonde, high brow, round face. Close enough. The crawl line read Mary Katrina Sondergard, born Trenton, New Jersey, age in 1979: 25. Baby, this is your lucky day.
The computer melted the skin away from her face to show me the bone structure, rotated it, gave me crosssections. I studied the similarities with my own skull, noted the differences. Not bad, and better than some I’d been given.
I assembled a set of dentures that included the slight gap in the upper incisors. Putty filled out my cheeks. Contact lenses fell from the dispenser and I popped them in. Nose plugs widened my nostrils. No need for ears; they’d be covered by the wig. I pulled a blank plastiflesh mask over my face and had to pause while it melted in. It took only a minute to mold it to perfection. I smiled at myself. How nice to have lips.
The delivery slut clunked and dropped a blonde wig and a pink outfit into my lap. The wig was hot from the styler. I put it on, then the pantyhose.
“Mandy? Did you get the profile on Sondergard?” I didn’t look up; I recognized the voice.
“Roger.”
“We’ve located her near the airport. We can slip you in before take-off, so you’ll be the joker.”
I groaned, and looked up at the face on the screen. Elfreda Baltimore-Louisville, Director of Operational Teams: lifeless face and tiny slits for eyes. What can you do when all the muscles are dead?
“Okay.” You take what you get.
She switched off, and I spent the next two minutes trying to get dressed while keeping my eyes on the screens. I memorized names and faces of crew members plus the few facts known about them. Then I hurried out and caught up with the others. Elapsed time from the first alarm: twelve minutes and seven seconds. We’d better get moving.
“Goddam Sun-Belt,” Cristabel groused, hitching at her bra.
“At least they got rid of the high heels,” Dave pointed out. A year earlier we would have been teetering down the aisles on three-inch platforms. We all wore short pink shifts with blue and white stripes, diagonally across the front, and carried matching shoulder bags. I fussed trying to get the ridiculous pillbox cap pinned on.
We jogged into the dark Operations Control Room and lined up at the gate. Things were out of our hands now. Until the gate was ready, we could only wait.
I was first, a few feet away from the portal. I turned away from it; it gives me vertigo. I focused instead on the gnomes sitting at their consoles, bathed in yellow lights from their screens. None of them looked back at me. They don’t like us much. I don�
��t like them, either. Withered, emaciated, all of them. Our fat legs and butts and breasts are a reproach to them, a reminder that Snatchers eat five times their ration to stay presentable for the masquerade. Meantime we continue to rot. One day I’ll be sitting at a console. One day I’ll be built in to a console, with all my guts on the outside and nothing left of my body but stink. The hell with them.
I buried my gun under a clutter of tissues and lipsticks in my purse. Elfreda was looking at me.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Motel room. She was alone from 10 P.M. to noon on flight day.”
Departure time was 1:15. She cut it close and would be in a hurry. Good.
“Can you catch her in the bathroom? Best of all, in the tub?”
“We’re working on it.” She sketched a smile with a fingertip drawn over lifeless lips. She knew how I liked to operate, but she was telling me I’d take what I got. It never hurts to ask. People are at their most defenseless stretched out and up to their necks in water.
“Go!” Elfreda shouted. I stepped through, and things started to go wrong.
I was faced the wrong way, stepping out of the bathroom door and facing the bedroom. I turned and spotted Mary Katrina Sondergard through the haze of the gate. There was no way I could reach her without stepping back through. I couldn’t even shoot without hitting someone on the other side.
Sondergard was at the mirror, the worst possible place. Few people recognize themselves quickly, but she’d been looking right at herself. She saw me and her eyes widened. I stepped to the side, out of her sight.
“What the hell is . . . hey? Who the hell . . .” I noted the voice, which can be the trickiest thing to get right.
I figured she’d be more curious than afraid. My guess was right. She came out of the bathroom, passing through the gate as if it wasn’t there, which it wasn’t, since it only has one side. She had a towel wrapped around her.
“Jesus Christ! What are you doing in my—” Words fail you at a time like that. She knew she ought to say something, but what? Excuse me, haven’t I seen you in the mirror?
I put on my best stew smile and held out my hand.
“Pardon the intrusion. I can explain everything. You see, I’m—” I hit her on the side of the head and she staggered and went down hard. Her towel fell to the floor. “—working my way through college.” She started to get up, so I caught her under the chin with my artificial knee. She stayed down.
“Standard fuggin’ oil!” I hissed, rubbing my injured knuckles. But there was no time. I knelt beside her, checked her pulse. She’d be okay, but I think I loosened some front teeth. I paused a moment. Lord, to look like that with no makeup, no prosthetics! She nearly broke my heart.
I grabbed her under the knees and wrestled her to the gate. She was a sack of limp noodles. Somebody reached through, grabbed her feet, and pulled. So long, love! How would you like to go on a long voyage?
I sat on her rented bed to get my breath. There were car keys and cigarettes in her purse, genuine tobacco, worth its weight in blood. I lit six of them, figuring I had five minutes of my very own. The room filled with sweet smoke. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.
The Hertz sedan was in the motel parking lot. I got in and headed for the airport. I breathed deeply of the air, rich in hydrocarbons. I could see for hundreds of yards into the distance. The perspective nearly made me dizzy, but I live for those moments. There’s no way to explain what it’s like in the pre-meck world. The sun was a fierce yellow ball through the haze.
The other stews were boarding. Some of them knew Sondergard so I didn’t say much, pleading a hangover. That went over well, with a lot of knowing laughs and sly remarks. Evidently it wasn’t out of character. We boarded the 707 and got ready for the goats to arrive.
It looked good. The four commandos on the other side were identical twins for the women I was working with. There was nothing to do but be a stewardess until departure time. I hoped there would be no more glitches. Inverting a gate for a joker run into a motel room was one thing, but in a 707 at twenty thousand feet . . .
The plane was nearly full when the woman that Pinky would impersonate sealed the forward door. We taxied to the end of the runway, then we were airborne. I started taking orders for drinks in first.
The goats were the usual lot, for 1979. Fat and sassy, all of them, and as unaware of living in a paradise as a fish is of the sea. What would you think, ladies and gents, of a trip to the future? No? I can’t say I’m surprised. What if I told you this plane is going to—
My arm beeped as we reached cruising altitude. I consulted the indicator under my Lady Bulova and glanced at one of the restroom doors. I felt a vibration pass through the plane. Damn it, not so soon.
The gate was in there. I came out quickly, and motioned for Diana Gleason—Dave’s pigeon—to come to the front.
‘Take a look at this,” I said with a disgusted look. She started to enter the restroom, stopped when she saw the green glow. I planted a boot on her fanny and shoved. Perfect. Dave would have a chance to hear her voice before popping in. Though she’d be doing little but screaming when she got a look around . . .
Dave came through the gate, adjusting his silly little hat. Diana must have struggled.
“Be disgusted,” I whispered.
“What a mess,” he said as he came out of the restroom. It was a fair imitation of Diana’s tone, though he’d missed the accent. It wouldn’t matter much longer.
“What is it?” It was one of the stews from tourist. We stepped aside so she could get a look, and Dave shoved her through. Pinky popped out very quickly.
“We’re minus on minutes,” Pinky said. “We lost five on the other side.”
“Five?” Dave-Diana squeaked. I felt the same way. We had a hundred and three passengers to process.
“Yeah. They lost control after you pushed my pigeon through. It took that long to re-align.”
You get used to that. Time runs at different rates on each side of the gate, though it’s always sequential, past to future. Once we’d started the snatch with me entering Sondergard’s room, there was no way to go back any earlier on either side. Here, in 1979, we had a rigid ninety-four minutes to get everything done. On the other side, the gate could never be maintained longer than three hours.
“When you left, how long was it since the alarm went in?”
‘Twenty-eight minutes.”
It didn’t sound good. It would take at least two hours just customizing the wimps. Assuming there was no more slippage on 79-time, we might just make it. But there’s always slippage. I shuddered, thinking about riding it in.
“No time for any more games, then,” I said. “Pink, you go back to tourist and call both of the other girls up here. Tell ’em to come one at a time, and tell ’em we’ve got a problem. You know the bit.”
“Biting back the tears. Got you.” She hurried aft. In no time the first one showed up. Her friendly Sun-Belt Airlines smile was stamped on her face, but her stomach would be churning. Oh God, this is it!
I took her by the elbow and pulled her behind the curtains in front. She was breathing hard.
“Welcome to the twilight zone,” I said, and put the gun to her head. She slumped, and I caught her. Pinky and Dave helped me shove her through the gate.
“Fug! The rotting thing’s flickering.”
Pinky was right. A very ominous sign. But the green glow stabilized as we watched, with who-knows-how-much slippage on the other side. Cristabel ducked through.
“We’re plus thirty-three,” she said. There was no sense talking about what we were all thinking: things were going badly.
“Back to tourist,” I said. “Be brave, smile at everyone, but make it just a little bit too good, got it?”
“Check,” Cristabel said.
We processed the other quickly, with no incident. Then there was no time to talk about anything. In eighty-nine minutes Flight 128 was going to be spread all over a mountain w
hether we were finished or not.
Dave went into the cockpit to keep the flight crew out of our hair. Me and Pinky were supposed to take care of first class, then back up Cristabel and Liza in tourist. We used the standard “coffee, tea, or milk” gambit, relying on our speed and their inertia.
I leaned over the first two seats on the left.
“Are you enjoying your flight?” Pop, pop. Two squeezes on the trigger, close to the heads and out of sight of the rest of the goats.
“Hi, folks. I’m Mandy. Fly me.” Pop, pop.
Halfway to the galley, a few people were watching us curiously. But people don’t make a fuss until they have a lot more to go on. One goat in the back row stood up, and I let him have it. By now there were only eight left awake. I abandoned the smile and squeezed off four quick shots. Pinky took care of the rest. We hurried through the curtains, just in time.
There was an uproar building in the back of tourist, with about sixty percent of the goats already processed. Cristabel glanced at me, and I nodded.
“Okay, folks,” she bawled. “I want you to be quiet. Calm down and listen up. You, fathead, pipe down before I cram my foot up your ass sideways.”
The shock of hearing her talk like that was enough to buy us a little time, anyway. We had formed a skirmish line across the width of the plane, guns out, steadied on seat backs, aimed at the milling, befuddled group of thirty goats.
The guns are enough to awe all but the most foolhardy. In essence, a standard-issue stunner is just a plastic rod with two grids about six inches apart. There’s not enough metal in it to set off a hijack alarm. And to people from the Stone Age to about 2190 it doesn’t look any more like a weapon than a ballpoint pen. So Equipment Section jazzes them up in a plastic shell to real Buck Rogers blasters, with a dozen knobs and lights that flash and a barrel like the snout of a hog. Hardly anyone ever walks into one.
“We are in great danger, and time is short. You must all do exactly as I tell you, and you will be safe.”
