Earth and Fire

by Janet Edwards

  “I brought you here to show you what being a pilot is really about. Not flying survey flights over a dig site on a sunny day, but times like this.”

  His voice lost its usual edge of sarcasm. “I didn’t have to come and help with this. I volunteered, and I didn’t do that to save a heap of historic, crumbling stones. I came because there are hundreds of romantic idiots down there, fire fighting on foot. When the fire moves too fast and traps them, impact suits will only protect them for a few minutes before they start being slowly cooked alive, so they need fire planes to help them. I came because that’s what pilots do when people are in trouble.”

  He laughed again and now the sarcasm was back in his voice. “When stupid kids get themselves treed by wolves, pilots come and help them. I’m not a nice person. I don’t care about the people I save. I only help them because my ego loves it when they thank the heroic pilot who came to their rescue, but my reasons aren’t important so long as I do it. I brought you with me to see if you’ll be the sort of pilot who helps people too. If you are, then every time you do something heroic, my ego can smugly share the credit because I’m the one who taught you to fly. If you aren’t, there’s no benefit to my ego so I’m wasting my time on you. Now, scoops!”

  I’d been listening to him in startled disbelief, wondering if he could really be serious about what he was saying, and the sudden change of subject confused me. Scoops? Oh yes, I was here to help with the unknown scoops.

  “The scoop controls are in the centre so a solo pilot can work them with his left hand,” said Gradin. “That isn’t ideal when you’ve got to fly as well, particularly if you’re left-handed like me, so you’ll be working the scoops. They’re quite simple. The red switch unlocks scoops. The control beneath it lowers and raises scoops, and the one below that opens and shuts them. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now we’re approaching the sea. Unlock the scoops, but don’t lower them into the water until I say, because doing it when we’re moving at high speed will rip the plane apart.”

  I nervously hit the red switch, keeping my hand well clear of the others.

  Gradin dipped the nose of the plane and cut thrusters back. I saw the darkness of the sea below us, steadily getting closer.

  “This is rather like coming in to land,” said Gradin. “You need to be low and moving at minimal speed, so you partially transition to hovers to help out thrusters. Get ready to lower the scoops, and … Now!”

  I used the control to lower the scoops, there was a faint jerk, and the aircraft slowed even further.

  “The increased drag tells you the scoops are in the water,” said Gradin, “so you hardly need the flashing light on the controls. Open scoops for a few seconds to take in water, close them, and raise them all the way up again but don’t lock them. We won’t be locking scoops again until we come into land.”

  When I’d raised the scoops, we headed back towards the shore, increasing speed so the white dot of our actual position caught up with the flashing white of our planned position on the main display.

  “How do we know where to dump the water?” I asked.

  “The main display will mark it in blue, and give you an extra subtle hint by counting down in big flashing numbers. I’ll be flying low over the flames at that point, and you open scoops when the numbers get to zero. There’s sometimes a late change of target, but Air Control will usually tell us that verbally as well as change our flight plan. Most of the pilots here will be flying solo, and they could miss a last minute change on the displays.”

  I looked ahead at the leading edge of the fire, a vast glowing V shape bearing down on Athens. I hadn’t appreciated the sheer horrific scale of it until now.

  “Deity aid us,” I murmured.

  Gradin laughed. “I wouldn’t depend on it.”

  I could see a small black dot moving above the flames. That must be one of the other aircraft. Something fell from it, a trailing curtain of water, and a patch of the fire below faltered and died.

  “After the water hits, ground teams will move in with dusters,” said Gradin. “It looks like Ground Command have given up hope of stopping the fire, and are concentrating on the centre, trying to break the fire into two wings that pass Athens on either side.”

  There were dusters in the stores at Fringe dig sites. Our history teacher had demonstrated one once. You carried the bulky things with a shoulder harness, fed them with lumps of rubble, and they sprayed out fine dust to smother a fire. A duster worked impressively well against a bonfire, but a fire on this scale …

  A blue cross appeared on the main display, and Gradin started to lose height. The flames seemed even larger now, we were flying through thick drifts of smoke, and the plane gave a sudden lurch that made me gasp.

  “It can get a bit bumpy,” said Gradin.

  I fought back panic and managed a single word reply. “Yes.”

  Numbers were flashing on the main display. I tried to ignore how close the flames were and concentrated on the countdown. When it reached zero, I opened the scoops, there was another lurch and then we were climbing for height again.

  “You can feel the plane react to losing all the dead weight of the water,” said Gradin.

  I belatedly remembered to look back and down, but whatever impact we’d had on the fire was out of view behind us.

  “Now we head back out to sea, pick up more water, and go round again,” said Gradin.

  We did nine more circuits, picking up water and dumping it on the fire. My nerves seemed linked to the height of the plane, tensing as we went low to pick up water or to drop it, relaxing as we gained height again. On the tenth circuit, we were low over the fire, and I had my hand on the controls ready to open scoops, when the blue cross and countdown suddenly vanished from the main display.

  “This is Air Control. New York abort drop, you have a new target. London abort drop, you have a new target. Berlin abort drop, you have a new target.”

  A new blue cross appeared on the display, and Gradin banked the plane to the left, flying further over the flames. “If they’re diverting three of us, it means a ground team is trapped by the fire and we’re making them an escape route.”

  I watched the countdown reach zero, opened scoops, and twisted in my seat to look down through the side window. Was that a transport sled down there among the smoke and the flames? I couldn’t be sure. I wanted to change channel from Air Control to Ground Command, find out if the team trapped by the fire were safe now, but if I started messing around with my comms I might miss instructions meant for us.

  “This is Air Control. Madrid abort drop, you have a new target.”

  Gradin whistled softly. “Four of us now. They must really be in a mess down there.”

  I tried, and failed, to look directly behind me. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “We keep going. We pick up more water.”

  “This is Air Control. Madrid abort drop, you have a new target.”

  I frowned. Air Control had already said that once.

  “They’ve made it out then,” said Gradin. “Madrid is going back to normal fire fighting.”

  I gave a sigh of relief.

  “You can see why they got in trouble,” added Gradin. “Just look at what’s happening down there.”

  I looked down. I could see it was easy to get in trouble with a fire this size, but … “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Look at the way the flames are moving,” said Gradin. “The wind has changed direction.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Good, because the centre and one wing of the fire is now heading away from Athens. Bad, because the other wing of the fire is heading straight for it. Ground Command will be going frantic right now, getting everyone on transport sleds and moving them to new fire fighting positions.”

  As we picked up the next load of water and headed back inland, I could see Gradin was right. The whole battle against the fire was shifting position, the circuit on the
main display had changed shape, and the blue cross of our target appeared in a totally different place than before.

  The countdown had just started when I saw a fountain of flame ahead of us. We’d been losing height ready to dump water on our target, but Gradin hit the thrusters hard and we soared upwards again. I was wondering what the chaos had happened, when Gradin spoke on the Air Control channel.

  “This is New York. We skipped our drop because of an explosion on the ground. Probably an old home power storage unit.”

  Now I understood what had caused that fountain of flame. All the homes abandoned during Exodus century had had a power storage unit. Most had failed and lost their power long ago, but some were highly unstable and would explode in the heat of a fire.

  “This is Air Control. New York, you have a new target.”

  We dumped our water on the new target. We’d flown five uneventful circuits after that, when a chiming sound came from the storage pocket on my left. That was my lookup crying for attention. I hesitated, grabbed it, and checked the display. It was Issette calling me.

  “Can I answer this?” I asked.

  “Of course,” said Gradin, in full sarcasm mode. “Chat all you like. It’s not as if we’re doing anything important here.”

  I sighed. “My friend, Issette, is calling me from my Next Step. I’d like to check what’s happening about me missing curfew.”

  “Oh, all right then. Check how the prison guards are reacting to one of their inmates going missing.”

  I giggled and answered my lookup. An image of Issette’s head appeared, with Keon looking over her shoulder.

  “Jarra, Jarra, Jarra,” she gasped. “Is that you in the suit? Are you really fighting a forest fire at Athens?”

  “It’s me,” I said, “and yes. New York Fringe called the Principal with my message then. How did she take it?”

  “They called her during dinner,” said Issette. “She did that thing of hers that’s like yelling, only in a quiet voice, and told them it was far too dangerous for someone still underage and you had to come back immediately.”

  “But I can’t,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Issette. “The Principal got another call a bit later, went off somewhere private to answer it, then came back looking chaos furious and said you wouldn’t be back for curfew. We couldn’t work out what had happened.”

  There was a laugh from beside me. “What happened,” said Gradin, “was New York Fringe Dig Site called the Dig Site Federation, the Dig Site Federation called Hospital Earth’s Planetary Administration Division, and they called your Principal and told her to keep her nose out of things.”

  “They did?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Why would they do that?”

  “Because Planetary Administration’s emergency response teams sometimes call on Dig Site Federation pilots for help,” said Gradin. “The last time we fought a forest fire as massive as this one, it was to stop it destroying Australia Off-world and its staggeringly expensive interstellar portals. That means Hospital Earth have a vested interest in encouraging a new pilot to learn about fire fighting, and are happy to ignore minor technicalities like her being a few months underage.”

  He paused. “By the way, Issette, I’m Gradin, the unfortunate person teaching Jarra to fly. I hate to interrupt this conversation with trivia, but our target just appeared.”

  I glanced at the main display, where the white dot of our position was rapidly approaching the blue cross of our target. “Oh chaos! Hold on, Issette, I’ll talk to you again in a minute.”

  I wedged my lookup at the side of the control panel, and concentrated on the countdown. I heard a loud squeak of panic from Issette as we swooped low across the fire, and realized she must be able to see the view out of the window, but I couldn’t do anything about it now. The countdown hit zero and I opened the scoops, the plane lurched upwards as always when we dumped water, and there was another squeak from Issette. I grabbed the lookup again.

  “I’m back.”

  “You scared me to death!” Issette shrieked at me. “I thought you were crashing!”

  “Sorry. Everything’s fine. We were just diving to dump water on the fire.”

  “You scared me to death too,” said Keon. “An extremely terrifying possible future life just flashed before me. It was a very edifying moment. I can see you’re totally addicted to doing dangerous things, and there’s no hope of you ever giving them up to lead a normal existence.”

  I sighed. “I may be forced to give them up. If the Principal is really angry about me coming here, she’ll stop me spending the summer break at New York Fringe.”

  “No she won’t,” said Gradin. “You just have to tell your Principal you’re going to New York Fringe to get your pilot’s licence, and she won’t dare to lift a finger to stop you in case she gets another lecture from some high up official. I think your Principal will be cheering and waving flags next Year Day when she gets rid of you permanently. Now if you’ve quite finished chatting …?”

  “Yes. Issette, Keon, I have to go now. I’ll see you soon.” I ended the call and put my lookup back in the storage pocket.

  “Your boyfriend seems to strongly disapprove of you flying over forest fires,” said Gradin.

  “My boyfriend? Oh, you mean Keon. He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Perhaps he was considering becoming your boyfriend.” Gradin laughed. “If he was, then I think he’s changed his mind now. Well, that’s his problem. Let’s concentrate on what we’re doing.”

  I forgot about Issette, Keon, and the Principal, as Gradin and I fought the fire through the night, flying more circuits, far more circuits, what seemed like endless numbers of circuits. The fire had divided into two now, and one part was heading off along the coast. I wondered if there was a settlement in that direction, pictured them getting a fire alert and evacuating, and felt vaguely guilty that we weren’t doing anything to help. We couldn’t fight both halves of the fire though, and you didn’t risk lives to save a settlement that could be rebuilt in days. The only reason everyone was here fighting this fire was because we were historians, Athens was irreplaceable, and we loved it.

  Well, everyone here loved Athens except Gradin. He claimed he didn’t care about the ruins, or even about the people fighting the fire. He said he was only here because his ego enjoyed playing the heroic pilot coming to the rescue. I wasn’t sure if I believed that or not. By now, we’d helped get half a dozen ground teams out of trouble by dumping water on them, and every time I’d heard Gradin give a brief, tuneless whistle. Did those whistles indicate worry or just excitement?

  Whatever his motives, whether it was pure vanity or he secretly cared and wouldn’t admit it, Gradin had been doing this sort of thing for forty years. I could see he was good at it, brilliant even, and must have saved a lot of lives, so …

  “Why are you retiring?” I asked. “Surely portal delivery pilots don’t fight forest fires, or at least not as often as pilots on dig sites.”

  He sighed. “How are you feeling right now, Jarra?”

  “A bit scared still.”

  “I meant physically.”

  I shrugged. “I’m starting to ache a bit from wearing a heavy impact suit for hours.”

  “I’m aching a lot,” said Gradin. “My ego still enjoys doing this, but I’ve reached the age where my body objects to spending too many hours in an impact suit. Rejuvenation treatments help, but it’s still time for me to start taking things a little easier. You’ve got forty years before you hit this problem, so don’t worry about it.”

  I wasn’t going to worry about it. Forty years was an impossibly long time, more than twice my whole life. We did two more circuits in total silence, before I heard a new female voice speak on my comms.

  “This is Air Control. We’re going to do a rolling handover to the next shift, replacing one plane each circuit, and give you all an eight-hour break. London, you’re first. Complete this circuit and head into land. New Tokyo will then launch and
take your spot.”

  “We’re the tenth plane in circuit,” said Gradin, “so we’ve got to do ten more circuits, and then we’ll only get eight hours’ rest. That’s the worst thing about such a big fire. They need so many of us in the air at once that they can only run two shifts, not the three they need to give us a decent break.”

  I thought eight hours of freedom from my heavy, restrictive impact suit sounded like blizz, pure utter ecstatic blizz. I’d be able to do wonderful things like shower, drink, eat, and sleep. Since Gradin was grumbling about it, I toned down the enthusiasm of my reply.

  “Eight hours isn’t bad.”

  “Tell me that after you’ve been alternating eight hours of flying with eight hours of rest for a week.”

  “A week! You really think we’ll be here that long?”

  “I’ve known it take that long with a big fire,” said Gradin, “and this one isn’t just big but has a strong wind behind it. It came in too fast for Ground Command to burn a firebreak barrier, but even if they had the fire would have jumped it. They’ve got a lot of people tied up putting out small secondary fires started by burning debris carried on the wind.”

  He sighed. “We need rain on our side to win this one. I hope the wind is a sign the hot spell is going to break up into storms.”

  “Before Exodus century, they used to have weather forecasting that …”

  I remembered my promise not to talk about history and shut up, but too late. Gradin was already groaning.

  “Is this ancient weather forecasting the remotest use to us now? Is it going to tell us when we’ll get rain, or help us put the fire out?”

  I kept carefully quiet until Air Control finally announced that Sydney would be replacing us. We left the circuit, went into land, and I climbed down from the plane feeling stiff and shaky with exhaustion. I unsealed my hood, eager to escape the musty filtered air of the suit system, but the wind stank of smoke and was full of floating fragments of ash.

  “Get as much sleep as you can,” said Gradin. “In eight hours’ time, we’re doing this all over again.”