John Berry looked to the front of the airliner. At first glance it seemed normal enough, except that oxygen masks dangled from the overhead compartments above each seat. Briefcases and pieces of clothing were jammed in the corners. But what caught his attention was the thing that was glaringly absent: life. The passengers sat motionless in their seats, like a display of mannequins strapped into the mock-up of an airplane.
Berry walked to where his seat had been. In the row ahead was a man Berry had exchanged friendly words with. Pete Brandt, from Denver, he recalled. Berry reached for the man’s wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. He put his hand up to Brandt’s mouth. He felt no breathing.
Berry looked around and then realized that Brandt, and all those seated within five rows of him, had no oxygen masks. For some reason the masks had failed to drop from the compartment above each seat in that section. Berry looked down at the seat he had been in. No mask. I’d be dead, he thought.
He turned around and looked across the cabin. Most of the passengers on that side had their oxygen masks strapped on. Berry went directly toward the row where a balding, elderly man was seated. They had nodded politely to each other when they had boarded the flight.
Even before Berry laid his hand against the man’s chest, he knew. The white clamminess of his flesh and his frozen facial expression told Berry he was dead. Fear and agony were etched into his face. Yet he wore an oxygen mask, and Berry could feel the trickle of life-sustaining air still being pumped through its plastic tube. Then why had he died?
Berry looked to the next man. It was Isaac Shelbourne, traveling with his wife. Berry knew the famous pianist by sight and had recognized him while they waited to board. He had hoped to strike up a conversation with him during the flight.
Berry laid his hand on Shelbourne’s shoulder. The man stirred. Alive, Berry thought, and his heart filled with hope. He could hear Shelbourne mumble incoherently beneath his oxygen mask, and Berry slipped the mask off the man’s face.
He grabbed Shelbourne’s shoulders with both his hands and shook him. “Wake up,” he said in a loud voice. He shook him again, more violently. Shelbourne’s eyes were open, but his gaze was blank. The pianist’s eyes teared and blinked involuntarily. Saliva ran out from one corner of his mouth. Sounds emanated from the depths of his throat, but they were no more than unintelligible noises.
“Shelbourne!” Berry screamed, his own voice taking on an ominous sound as it cracked. In a sickening moment, Berry understood how totally and irrevocably impaired Isaac Shelbourne was.
Berry looked around the cabin. Others had awakened, and they too exhibited the same signs that Shelbourne had: dysfunctional speech, spastic muscular action, and no apparent capacity for rational thought. Brain damage! The hideousness of that notion hit Berry full force. He released his grip on the man he had attempted to revive.
John Berry took a few steps away from where he stood. He was now both afraid and revoited. The people in the cabin were apparently all brain damaged. He understood that a sustained lack of oxygen could do that. Having an oxygen mask on was evidently not enough protection. Vaguely, he recalled an article about pressure versus the percentage of oxygen. Above a certain altitude, even pure oxygen wasn’t enough. No pressure, no flow, was the line he remembered. He wondered if it applied to the Straton’s cruise altitude. Sixty-two thousand feet. Yes, that was it. Of course. They had been traveling in subspace.
He knew for certain that everyone he had seen without an oxygen mask was dead, and those who had worn them had lived-only to become brain damaged. Yet he was alive, and capable of rational thought-and he had not worn an oxygen mask. Why had he not been affected? The idea that the brain damage might be progressive jarred him. His mind might still begin to fade, as the result of oxygen deprivation began to have its effect.
Nine times seven is sixty-three, he said to himself. Newton’s first law concerns bodies at rest. He was rational. That was no illusion. He had the impression that brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation was not progressive. He was sure of that. At least he felt that he was sure of it.
Some of the passengers had gotten up from their seats. Berry saw that those who moved around were disabled to varying degrees. Some had difficulty walking, while others seemed to move normally. But up close, he could see that even those who retained normal muscular control had been affected; he could see it in their eyes.
Berry stepped aside to allow a college-age boy to move down the aisle. The boy stumbled a few times. Several feet past Berry he suddenly stood rigidly up-right, then fell to the floor. His body writhed in convulsions. An epileptic seizure. Berry remembered that he should do something to prevent the boy from swallowing his tongue. But he could not bring himself to step toward him. He turned away feeling disgusted and helpless.
A young girl, hardly more than eleven or twelve, moved slowly down the aisle. She had come from somewhere in the rear of the airplane. Her face showed that she was afraid, and that she understood the horror. She turned to Berry.
“Mister. Can you hear me? Do you understand me?” Her voice was tenuous and her face was covered with tears.
“Yes” was all that he could think to reply.
They looked at each other for a brief, intense moment. In a flash of recognition, she suddenly understood that Berry was like her and not like the others. He was no threat. She ran up to him, buried her face in his chest, and began to cry.
“We’ll be okay,” Berry said. His words were as much for himself as for her. For the first time since he had awakened he allowed himself a small measure of emotion. “Thank God,” he said to himself, choking back tears of gratitude for this small miracle. The child continued to cry, but more softly. He held her small, tense body against his.
While his attention was focused on the young girl, he failed to notice that several of the passengers had gotten up and were moving toward them. John Berry and the girl huddled together in the center of the forward cabin as the silent passengers encircled them.
Commander James Sloan was transfixed by the radio message that had come from his pilot. He stared at the towering panel of electronic gear as if he expected to find a way out of the situation in its switches and meters. Yet there was nothing on the console but the neutral data of frequencies and signal strengths. What Sloan wanted to know was available from only one source.
“Matos, are you sure?” Sloan asked. His perspiring hands gripped the microphone. His normally stern voice had a strange, new tone woven through it, and his words sounded out of place.
There was no immediate response from the F-18, and while he stood in the silent electronics room, Commander James Sloan realized that he was suddenly afraid. It was an emotion he was not accustomed to, and one he seldom allowed himself to experience. But too much had happened too quickly. “Matos,” he said again, “take your time. Look again. Be absolutely certain.”
Retired Rear Admiral Randolf Hennings, who had remained silent since Matos had sent his first startling message, stepped closer to the radio. He could hear the loud rhythm of his own heartbeat, and he was sure that Sloan could hear it too.
But James Sloan was not listening. His entire universe had shrunk. There was nothing he cared about now except the words that were about to come through the radio speaker. There was no other inroad to his thoughts.
“There’s no doubt, Commander,” Matos’s transmission began.
Sloan’s face went pale. He listened to the remainder of the pilot’s message through a filter of personal static, as his mind raced.
“It’s right in front of me. I’m only fifty feet in trail. Trans-United, a Straton 797. There’s a three-foot hole on its port side, and another hole in the starboard fuselage. The starboard hole is bigger-three or four times as big. I don’t see any movement in the cockpit or the cabin.”