Looking at her—she was no larger than I was and probably weighed less—and then at the soarer over there I was not reassured, but this wasn’t my party, not yet.
A crewman came running up to her. “Word is it’ll start pouring again in less than twenty minutes,” he told her. “Better get everybody aboard and away.”
She nodded.
“I thought you said it was fine in the rain,” I said.
“She is,” the pilot replied, “but taking off in those winds can turn us upside down at the very least. Better get on board.” She ran for the pilot’s cabin.
I looked at Zala, who looked nervously back at me. “Think you can take it?” I asked her.
“I’ll—try. If she can fly one, I can sure ride one.”
We walked quickly over to the creature, following the crewman. The ladder to the passenger compartment was still in place, and he steadied it as first Zala and then I climbed up and went through an open door.
The interior was actually quite nice—heavily padded, manufactured seats much like those on the shuttle, complete with seat belts; the whole thing was lined and carpeted with what looked like fur of some kind. Aft a small compartment was clearly marked as a rest room. Although it lacked lights, some sort of self-luminous chemical tubing ran all around giving off a sufficient glow to see by and we felt pretty comfortable.
We were not the only ones in the cabin. Although I hadn’t noticed earlier, an elderly woman and a tough-looking young man had climbed aboard. They were dressed in very fancy raingear, obviously of off world design. Following them were three ground crew people, two men and a woman, including the man who had taken us “aboard,” as it were. He pulled up the ladder, made a last check, then closed the door and spun a wheel locking it securely in place. The other crewman stood facing us, while the woman checked in back.
“Please fasten both lap and shoulder belts,” the man told us. “While the flight’s basically a smooth one, you never know what you’re going to run into. Keep them fastened at all times. If you have to walk back to the lavatory, hold onto the rail and strap yourself in even in there. The cabin is not pressurized, so be prepared for a pressure differential in the ears. We have gum and mints if that troubles you. Occasionally we have to fly very high to get by some bad weather, and in that case I’ll tell you to remove the oxygen masks under your seats and put them on. They are fed by manual pressurized tanks. Keep ’em on until I say it’s okay.”
A sudden violent lurch really shook us up; it was followed by the most chilling screech I’ve ever heard in my whole life. Both Zala and I jumped nervously; the crew and the two passengers took no real notice.
“Take-off positions!” the crewman yelled, and the three all strapped themselves into their seats very quickly. “Hold on, everybody! Here we go!”
At that moment I felt a sudden, violent lurch, and we were abruptly pushed against the back of our seats and simultaneously jarred up and down so hard it almost hurt. I suddenly realized that the damned thing was running. I glanced over at Zala, but she was all tightened up, eyes closed. Then I looked out the tiny round window to my left. It was possible to see the ground just ahead of that incredible wing, going up and down with that terrible bouncing, and then, all at once, the damned thing jumped off a cliff I hadn’t known was there—and sank like a stone, throwing us forward in our seats.
As a certified pilot, both air and space, I’d experienced far worse than this, which may be why I was holding up so well. But then I’d been in control of a machine whose properties were known. To be perfectly honest, in that moment of forward fall all I could think was “Well, Ms is it—you’re dead.”
But almost as abrupt as the plunge was the sudden and violent turn and rise. At that moment I could see, with a kind of horrible fascination, just how close we’d come to the ground below.
Now we were lifting, with an eerie, rocking motion that first threw us forward, then back, as the enormous, powerful wings took us up, then paused to rest on a current of air. In another minute or two we were in the ever-present clouds, getting really bounced about. I glanced around and saw that Zala, eyes still closed, appeared very, very sick; the two other passengers were sitting quietly with no real reaction, while the crew was very relaxed. One was eating a fruit of some kind.
That terrible bouncing seemed to go on forever. Finally, we broke free, above the clouds, and into bright sunshine. Within another minute or two the creature caught a comfortable current, adjusted its course, and settled down. The experience was really strange now—after such a violent upheaval, the ride was now as smooth as glass, and nearly silent.
I looked over at Zala. “You can open your eyes now, and catch hold of your stomach,” I told her. “It’ll probably be like this the rest of the way.” I just hoped and prayed this was an express.
One eye opened, then the other; she looked at me rather mournfully. “I’m sick,” she managed.
All I could do was be sympathetic. “Just relax, calm down, and don’t worry. That was a pretty rough take-off, but it’s going to be like this until we get where we’re going.”
She didn’t seem to be any more relieved. “I keep wondering what the landing is going to be like, if that was the take-off.”
Good point. How the hell would something this size brake to a stop? Still, I had to have confidence since the pilot and crew did this all the time and none of the crew seemed worried.
At one point one of the crewmen took out a small carton and offered us fruit. Zala turned green at its mere mention. I almost took one, then decided for her sake that I could spare her the sight of me eating for the duration which, the crewman told us, would be a little more than five hours if we didn’t run into weather problems. The thing managed an average airspeed in excess of 250 kph, a pretty respectable rate over the long haul for something this big.
The smoothness was interrupted every fifteen minutes or so by one or two sudden jolts, as those great wings compensated or switched currents, but that was about the only problem it presented.
The sky of Charon was nothing if not spectacular. Below were the dark, swirling clouds that seemed to never leave; above our clear place wasn’t the sky I’d been expecting, but an odd band of reds and yellows all swirling about, almost as active as the storm clouds below. Some kind of gaseous layer that acted as a protective filter, I guessed, allowing a human-tolerable temperature below. The sun, a great, bright glob in the sky, was hot and visible through the upper layer. I guessed that the upper layer rather than the clouds below prevented much surveillance from orbit and blocked transmissions to and from the planet. I wondered what the stuff was.
Aside from my ears popping every so often, and the occasional screech from the soarer as we passed another soarer somewhere near us—I never did get more than a vague glimpse of black so I didn’t get to see one in full flight—the voyage was uneventful. I took note of the other two passengers though—still fairly well-dressed even after removing their rain gear. They were obviously together, but the woman, who seemed to be going over some paperwork, rarely acknowledged or talked to the younger man. I smelted boss and bodyguard, but had no way of knowing just who they really were.
Even Zala managed to relax after a while, although she never did move during the entire trip and never really seemed to recover her color.
Finally my ears started popping a bit more regularly, and I saw that we were turning and descending very slowly. The crewmembers checked all their boxes and small hatches to make sure all was secure, then returned to their seats and strapped in.