“Ow, Snake, what kinda shit is that?” protested Fawsett.
“Oh, did it hurrrt?” said Michaels mockingly. “I kinda hoped it would.”
Grimes turned his head slightly to glance at them out of the corner of his eye. He lifted his left hand slightly, pointing a finger at the window. “Mission,” he said.
Both men sat back, instantly silent. “Roger that,” said Fawsett.
Ghostly trees swooped beneath them as they moved towards the foothills.
“What is our mission, sir?” asked Jabiel. “Or is it a secret?” He laughed.
“I got your secret, right here,” replied Grimes. His lips twitched in a smile. “Take the high ground, Tom. You have the coordinates.” He turned to Fawsett. “Just a look-see and a test. You know the drill.”
“How far?” asked the pilot, pointing to the terrain display on the dash.
“Up, up and away, Tommy boy,” said Grimes.
Summer was coming to the southern hemisphere. In the strange infrared world that rolled under them, they could see new vegetation budding on the trees. The landscape appeared frosted with a strange kind of ice.
The two helicopters kept radio silence. Gadfly 2 simply tagged along behind Grimes’s craft. Within minutes of leaving the coast they were over a broad plateau, then following a terrain that quickly assumed a further uphill turn. Before long the pilot found it necessary to open the foils of the rotor blades to gain lift as they rose into thinner air. But then the hills fell away beneath them, and they could see a vast sea of lights to the right — the lights of Santiago, the nation’s capital.
Under Grimes’s direction they steered ever higher, towards the Andes.
“Fuel?” he asked.
“Nominal, sir,” said the pilot.
“Tell you what, guys,” said Grimes. “I want to see how high we can take this thing.”
Tom Jabiel looked at him and raised his visor. “That’ll take most of our fuel and…”
“And what?”
“We still have to make it back to the ship, sir,” said Jabiel cautiously.
“Didn’t we talk about this? Didn’t somebody call that conversation we had back at the ship a… a plan? Am I mistaken about that?”
“We’re spending too much fuel,” said Jabiel.
“Turn back when you have to, Tom,” said Grimes in disgust.
“Roger that, sir.” Then Jabiel looked at his commander’s disappointed face and felt a pang of guilt.
“It’s the air, I think. It’s thinner than we planned for. I make it, oh, thirty more clicks and we’re going to have to…”
“Punk out?” said Michaels.
“Hey it’s all downhill going on the way back home.
Doesn’t that count?” contributed Fawsett.
They were still far from the Andean heights when the two helicopters had to turn back towards the Enterprise. On the return trip they targeted and fired virtual missiles at ranches and farm houses on the outskirts of Santiago and Valparaiso.
Tending his modest flock and warned by a ram’s incessant bleating, a lonely Indian shepherd boy watched the two black objects pass quietly overhead. He not so much saw them as heard them; all that was visible was a sudden blotting out of the stars in the clear night sky. The objects hovered above him, briefly blasting him with cold air. They circled and, unknown to him, trained their miniguns on him, for targeting purposes only, then moved off to the west.
The boy was briefly frightened, but, just as suddenly as the things had come, they were gone. All they left behind was a surge of adrenaline and a strange story his father would never believe.
Only ten days had passed since Henry had been gunned down on the ice shelf. Now he was almost getting used to his new quarters, except that he awoke every day in a sweat. Nearly every morning began with him staring sleepily at Shep and considering that the dog’s wet panting tongue probably felt much the same as his own.
The whole ship was much too warm. He would find himself missing Antarctica: the ice, his work. Then he’d remember why everything had changed, and why he’d become confused and uncertain. And then at last he’d remember Sarah and somehow, in the swirl of fear that gripped him, he’d know there was still hope. It had become strangely routine, this manner of waking. He wished he could wake alongside Sarah each morning, but they were attempting to keep their relationship discreet.
After dressing he’d visit the rec room for coffee and rolls. Since Sarah was rarely in his company openly before the crew, breakfast was always a rather lonesome occasion. When things got to be more than he could stand, there was always Aft Deck C. It was there at least twice a day. Shep demanded it.
Henry had always respected his dogs. To him their natural state was to be up to their ears in snow and on the move. In that context they fairly brimmed with purpose. It was their element. Away from the cold and snow, a malamute can change; if the temperature climbs too high, it can die. Henry had to watch Shep for signs of heat sickness and make sure the dog always had plenty of water. More water meant more time on Deck C. By now he was convinced that bringing Shep had been a big mistake. It was a bad call for the dog. If Henry was useless, Shep was even more so. Holed up on an aircraft carrier was no life for a sled dog.
He tried to fill his time by starting a journal. After all, he’d been a witness to the beginnings of what had already become an historical event. But he was able to get no further than jotting the facts down on paper. Like a police report. He had never been a skilled writer. In fact, he wasn’t that comfortable with words at all, he came to think. So it wasn’t long before he gave up on the journal entirely.
Sitting on his deckchair on Aft Deck C, staring at the dawn sunlight from behind the Andes that lit the sky with pale orange streamers, he was pleased to reflect that the establishment of his loving relationship with Sarah had been wordless. It had happened upon them both without any falsity or rhetoric. Words had been superfluous from the beginning.
Watching the sun rising over Valparaiso, he considered that God might well be holding out a candle of hope — hope that there was indeed a future for him.
And perhaps God was love, after all.
Suddenly he noticed a black speck, then two, silhouetted against the sun. At first they appeared to be birds, but then he realized they were aircraft, helicopters, coming out of the dawn. Soon he could make out that these choppers were nothing like any he’d seen before. He watched them approach, wondering if they were friend or foe; nothing he could do if they were foe. But judging by the response of the deck crew, they were obviously expected.
When the choppers got close enough, he reckoned they must represent a new breed of helicopter. Their contours, sharply angled and dead black, reminded him of F-117 Stealth fighters. And, like all the other aircraft aboard the Enterprise, they bristled with weaponry. One at a time, they set down lightly on the deck, to be promptly hustled by the personnel there onto massive elevator sections; within moments they were being lowered into the bowels of the ship. Their crews stayed hidden behind the dark glass canopies.
Henry and Shep watched the whole process with great interest. It was only after the choppers had disappeared inside the ship that Henry realized how quiet the landing had been. No pop-pop-pop of engines, no loud rush of rotors.
Henry guessed Kai Grimes had been inside one of them. Certainly they fit the bill to be Grimes’s weapon of choice.
Some time later he was sitting in his room waiting for the noon mess call. He had read for a while, but had found himself unable to get involved in the book. Noon had come and gone, but there had been no call. Finally he decided to visit Sarah and see what was going on with her.