The fighter nosed up and began to spin.
Adler unbuckled himself and pushed forward and stepped out of his plane as if stepping from a city bus. Windblast knocked him backward and he tumbled. He yanked his parachute cord and then realized what he’d done.
The drag line shot up and the chute deployed. Adler was yanked like a marionette. He hung in air alive with flak and fighters and receding bombers. Freezing and without oxygen. His country five long drifting miles down below his boots.
Inside the silent tunnel the front end of the Messerschmitt began to tumble on two axes in the weightless white, propeller still turning, bright metal edges of severed engine and yellow cowling glinting where they had been cleanly cut. Spilling fluids separated into drifting spheres.
Far ahead the heavy bomber Fata Morgana hurtled mindless and unpowered through the weightless void, speeding without motion across a span that was not space. A twenty-ton projectile fired from the world to pierce a membrane unimaginably vast, immeasurably thin, imperceptible because it did not exist by any marker for determining existence.
And yet. And yet.
Fata Morgana hurtled mindless and unpowered across that barrier—
PART TWO:
THE DETOUR
SEVEN
—and out the other side.
The sky went dark. The floating bloodpearls splashed down. Air rushed through the fuselage. Fata Morgana pitched forward and began to dive.
Farley pulled back on the yoke and the ship responded. The damaged elevator was still monkey-wrenching everything, and he kept the bomber in a shallow dive. He glanced at the panel as Broben toggled the batteries. Every indicator was zeroed out.
“Jerry,” Farley said calmly, “give me auxiliaries and see if you can restart Number One.”
Broben flicked the auxiliary generator and got no light at all, red or green. “Negative,” he said.
“Feather the props.”
Broben tried to lock the blades in place and pivot them edge-forward to reduce drag. None of the propellers would respond. “No soap, Joe,” he said.
“Do we have any lights on the board at all?” Farley asked.
Broben surveyed the main panel, the center console, the overheads. “Negative.”
“Okay, so no power and no hydraulics.” He looked at his copilot. “Unless we get a restart we’ll be deadsticking this brick in about five minutes.”
“You looked out a window lately?” asked Broben.
Farley looked out the window. The sky was jet black shot with hard unwinking stars, yet the sun was visible as a harsh white circle like a spotlight in the sky. It looked like what Farley imagined outer space looked like.
The bomber flew above an enormous jagged canyon that looked like a crack in the foundation of the world. The crevice walls were sharp-edged and obsidian black, descending to a valley floor in shadow far below.
“It looks like we blew up all of Germany,” said Broben. Farley didn’t look away from the window as he asked, “Altimeter working?”
“Hey, it is!” said Broben.
“Fuel?”
“Just over fifty percent.”
Farley nodded absently. “So everything electrical got knocked out. Fuel gauge is mechanical and the altimeter works on air pressure. What’s our altitude?”
“Sixteen five.”
Farley frowned. “That plateau can’t be four thousand feet below us. Where the hell are we?”
He turned his head and raised his voice. “Wen, you back there?” With the engines out, buffeting wind and creaking metal was all the noise there was.
Wen climbed down from the top turret and stood in the pit behind Farley and Broben. The bottom of his face was streaked where he’d wiped blood from his nose. “Here, boss,” he said.
“Tell Everett to crank the turret and get Martin out of there,” Farley ordered. “You get the gear crank and start winding the wheels down when I give the word. Get some help with it. And send Shorty up here.”
“I best check out that rear wheel.”
“Get to it.”
“You got it, cap.” Wen dropped down into the lower cockpit.
“What the living hell just happened to us, Joe?” said Broben.
“No idea. But it’s still happening, and I need you in the game. All right?”
Broben nodded. “I’m in,” he said.
“Good man.” Farley glanced out the window again. Everywhere he looked the ground was black and featureless as a sheet of smoked glass. The canyon directly below was a darker crack, some violent interruption in what otherwise would have been a vast smooth plain.
“You see anything out there?” Farley asked.
Broben shook his head. “Looks like an eight-ball,” he said.
“I’m gonna try for the canyon, then,” said Farley. “Maybe there’s a river on the valley floor where we can ditch. Or maybe it opens out into a broader space. In any case it’ll buy time.”
“Hell of a gamble,” said Broben.
“If we land on that plain we’ll still be at twelve thousand feet. You see anything to live on down there? Any objective to reach?”
“I don’t even see a rock.”
“All right, then.”
The bomber began to buffet as it caught updrafts spilling over the sheer cliff tops. Fata Morgana descended silent as a balsa glider into the enormous crooked canyon. The fissure looked to be about a mile wide. The bottom lay in shadow and Farley saw no gleam of water. He kept the aircraft centered between the sheer cliff walls and muscled her along the sharp contours.
Shorty stuck his head up from the lower cockpit. He was carrying the second of their two walkaround oxygen bottles. He lowered his mask and said, “Radio’s out, captain.”
“So’s everything else,” said Farley. “You’re my relay, got it?”
Shorty swallowed. “Got it,” he said.
“Tell Boney and Plavitz to stay in the nose and look for a place to land. We’re coming in unpowered, so we’re gonna need some room. Jerry, call out altitude.”
Shorty nodded. He relayed Farley’s order, breath smoking in the freezing air, while Jerry announced their altitude as fifteen thousand.
At his desk behind the bombardier station in the nose, Plavitz looked up from his charts and compass and lowered his oxygen mask. “Do we have any idea where the hell we are?” he yelled.
Shorty looked up at the command seats. “Navigator says he can’t get a fix on our position,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter where we are,” said Farley. “We’re landing on it.”
“Fourteen five,” said Broben.
Shorty saw Everett undog the hatch and swing it back. Martin struggled out and Everett helped him into the cabin. “Martin’s out of the ball turret,” Shorty called up.
“Fourteen,” said Broben.
“Tell Martin to get on the oxy feed in the radio room and stay put,” said Farley. “Tell Everett to seal the turret and crank it till the guns are level. Ask Wen if that rear wheel’s gonna lower.”
Shorty relayed the orders calmly but with growing horror at their predicament.
“Thirteen five,” said Broben.
“Bombardier wants to blow the Norden,” relayed Shorty. “Navigator sees lights ahead.”
“Affirmative on the Norden, but wait till we’re at a thousand feet. Some detail on the lights would be nice.”
Shorty felt faint and realized his face was numb with cold. He had to remember to keep using the walkaround. “He says it’s green pinprick lights on the valley floor in the far distance straight ahead,” he replied. “He doesn’t think it’s an airfield.”