My strategy was to continue to use the uprising wind to overcome the loss of lift of the rogallo. I would steer back into the upwelling air and gain altitude even as it drove me backwards. Then I would get out and glide across the chord of the eye and repeat it. With each try I should progress a few kilometers or more, just like tacking a sailboat; two forward on the glide and one back on the climb. Ideally I could lose just the right amount of altitude to be at the right level when I had to start my return route.
Two hours later time began to decompress rapidly. Had it only been two hours of endlessly repeating the climb and glide? Seemed like ten or more. Arms are really getting heavy, having to haul the lines all the time. Can’t rest though; have to make it through. My leg was suddenly cold as the suit tried to adjust for the sudden heat and moisture that relief of my bladder had caused. This virtual icicle in my crotch kept me from drowsing for a short while, but soon I was back into a semi-dream state, neither fully awake not completely dozing.
“Why are you fighting me so much?” Janice whispered in my ear with a silky, sensuous voice and caressed my cheek with a cool brush of her hand.
“Because I love you,” I replied calmly, wondering why I couldn’t see her.
“I can’t love you back if you keep fighting, you know,” she went on with a husky, inviting tone to her voice.
“No, yes. I won’t let you do that. I can’t just stop and let you win.”
“Come on,” her sexy voice continued to whisper urgently. “Why don’t you just let yourself relax and let me take you in my arms? Come on now. Please,” she implored. I could feel her tears running down my cheek where they merged with my own. For a second I felt myself surrendering, welcoming the warm release that sleep in her arms would bring.
A chill ran down my neck and I shook my head. Those weren’t tears on my cheek, they were icy cold rain drops that were running into the suit. The damn face mask had come loose again. I flipped it close, pressing the broken clasp as hard as I could to seal it. Damn, I had drifted too close to the wall again as I had nodded. I twisted my body and dove toward safety once again coming fully alert. I reached back, gave my air bottle a boost, and bit down hard on the mouthpiece. Hallucinations were indicators of carbon dioxide build up. Have to be careful about that. I bottomed out of the fall and turned back to enter the updraft once again.
The four o’clock position wasn’t close and I was at my physical limit for managing the lines of the rogallo. It didn’t matter whether I was in the right place or not. I had to get out of the eye and back to the surface while I still had the strength. I decided to make the final dive to where my one and only chute could be deployed. I glanced around once more, hoping to see either the chutes of Mariah or Jerry coming close and was disappointed. Were they both lost in the storm? Had Mariah failed to clear the comma after our brief encounter and been dashed to her death? I sincerely hoped not, feeling more than a little at fault. But there was little I could do about it at this point, suspended above the back end of the hurricane with nothing holding me up but a few plastic pylons and a rapidly deteriorating strip of fabric. I drove thoughts of Mariah from my mind as I concentrated on climbing as high as I could and working my way into the eyewall once again.
At this altitude and position in the eye the transition out wouldn’t be nearly as difficult as my entry. I topped out with the rogallo at twenty one thousand, well above my planned level, and pulled the release for the last small chute, letting the rogallo go with the winds. The added strains of the winds in the wall would have destroyed it instantly and, instead of being the proper vehicle for going through the wall it would have been a suicide glider. It was a relief to have my feet drop back to their normal position and feel my body supported without having to strain my arms, legs, and back.
The eyewall on the trailing edge of a hurricane is considerably less ferocious than the leading edge: Wind force is a quarter of the leading edge and the wind speed gradients are far less steep. Neither are there the heavy force upwelling wind streams that I had encountered a thousand years ago, was it only two hours previous? As I started the descent the ground speed climbed back toward two hundred with heavy buffeting as I hit the transition layer. I hit the up-welling and watched as the altitude numbers grew larger. With the smaller chute I had to get much higher than I had planned so I could make the horizontal distance to get beyond the major rainwall.
Up and up I went, waiting until the altimeter showed that I was over fifteen thousand meters. Even the tiny heat exchangers in my suit couldn’t hold back the bitter cold at this altitude much longer. When I could stand it no more I tipped the chute, blowing the pillow of wind beneath it and steered away from the eyewall. Suddenly I was dropping at an accelerating rate as well, as the small chute left the stack and started screaming toward the surface. In less than half an hour I would drop from altitude and hit the rainwall where I could expect a little more lift before the long glide as far from the center as I could get.
It was a clear dive from the outer rainwall’s stack, not much different than a hundred practice dives I’d made in stormy weather. I kept the lines taut as best I could. Both arms now felt like lead weights and my hands were so cramped from holding the lines so tightly for so long that I could barely feel them at the ends of my arms. I weaved my wrists into the webbing of the straps, a dangerous practice, but necessary considering my physical state, and used whole arm leverage to control the lines. My shoulders, already bruised with the constant beating of the straps, ached with the added workload.
By the time I hit one thousand again my ground speed was down to a mere seventy klicks. For the past five minutes, I had been falling through heavy, rain-driven cloud, the back outwelling of the eyewall. I twisted in my harness to glance ahead and caught a momentary glimpse of the rising sea. I freed my wrists and dangled my hands at my sides, willing the blood and feeling back into them and wincing with the pain when it did. Hoping that brief respite was enough for what I next had to do, I gripped the lines and braced for the surface turbulence, knowing I would have to fight my way through it or be dragged back into the storm’s center.
After a few moments of sheer fright as an unexpected downdraft of cold air sent me plummeting toward the surface at nearly a hundred meters per second, I broke out of the clouds just above the foaming water. Ground speed was now down to fifty again, a relative walk compared to all I had gone through. Now it was dip and glide, dip and glide, ever proceeding outward toward the open sea, the ship, and Jerry and, hopefully, Mariah. The gentle motion was relaxing, like a cradle, where the baby sleeps. Sleep, that would be nice; just to close my eyes for a moment and…
With a start I opened my eyes and saw the water immediately below my feet, churning into a froth from the surface winds. In a few seconds I was going to hit and be in the drink. What was it I was supposed to do? Oh yes, I released the straps for the excess gear, feeling it fall away from me. Suddenly my feet were being dragged through the waves as I skipped over the surface of the ocean. With a final sigh I released the chute and fell into the sea. The water closed over my head. I had returned to the home of my watery ancestors. I closed my eyes, too exhausted to fight my way to the surface.
The seals on the floatation gear inflated automatically when I failed to pull the tabs and brought me to the surface. I cracked the mask and inhaled a heady breath of damp, salty air: It was wonderful! The dashing of cold Atlantic water through the open mask roused me from my stupor and filled my mouth with bitter brine. I slammed the mask shut, trapping considerable water inside that sloshed back and forth as I bobbed in the waves.