She looked at him and gave him a very big smile. “After this, John, I’ll take one week off. Maybe even two weeks.” She laughed, but then her expression turned serious. “After that, I’ll report for duty as usual. If you have a bad experience in flight, you have to go back. Otherwise, the rest of your life becomes a series of avoidances. Besides, what else would I do at my age? Who’s going to pay me this kind of money?” She looked out at the horizon line. “And what about you? Will you stop flying that little whatever-it-is for your company?”
“Skymaster. No. Of course not.”
“Good.” She hesitated, then leaned over toward him and placed her hand on his arm. “How do you feel about landing this plane?”
Berry looked directly at her. Her countenance and the language of her body were unmistakably clear and had little to do with the question. Yet there was nothing brazen about her. Just an honest offering. Within hours they might be alive on the ground. More likely, they would be dead. Still, her offer did not seem out of place. “You’ll help me. We can land this plane.” He felt slightly awkward, a little flustered at her touch and her sudden intimacy.
Sharon Crandall settled back in her seat and stared out her side window. She thought briefly about her last live-in lover, Nick, from crew scheduling. Emptiness, boredom. Sex and television. In the final analysis, they’d shared nothing, really, and his leaving left no emptiness, no loneliness beyond what she’d felt when he was there. He had left the same way he had arrived, like a gray afternoon sliding into a dark night. But she was still lonely. “Why don’t you send a message from each one of us to someone on the ground?” she said. She instantly wondered whom she would send her message to. Her mother, probably.
Berry considered the idea. “No,” he finally said. “That would be a little… melodramatic. Don’t you think so? A little too terminal. We have some time yet. I’ll send one for everyone later. Who do you want to…?”
She ignored his question. “Your wife must be frantic.”
Berry considered several answers. My insurance is paid up. That should take the edge off any franticness. Or, Jennifer hasn’t been frantic since she lost her Bloomingdale’s charge card. He said, “I’m sure the airline is keeping everyone informed.”
“That’s true.” She changed the subject abruptly.
“You’ve got good control of the airplane,” she said with some authority. “The flight controls are working okay. And we’ve still got nearly half our fuel.” She nodded toward the fuel gauges.
“Yes,” Berry answered, recalling that he had pointed that out to her only ten minutes before. “That’s true. It should be enough fuel.” But he knew that headwinds or bad weather could change that. As far as the flight controls were concerned, all he knew for certain was that he could make a right-hand turn and level out. He had no information about turning left or going up or down.
“I remember,” Crandall added, “how Captain Stuart once told me that as long as the flight controls worked and the engines had a steady supply of fuel, then the situation wasn’t hopeless.”
“That’s true,” said Berry. The mention of Stuart’s name made him look back over his shoulder. At the far end of the lounge, the two pilots still lay motionless on the thick blue rug, near the piano. Berry turned and scanned the Straton’s flight instruments and autopilot. Everything was steady. He stood. “I’m going back to the lounge to see what’s going on.”
“Okay.”
“Scan the instruments. If anything seems wrong, yell.”
“You bet.”
“If the data-link bell-”
“I’ll call you.”
“Okay. And watch the autopilot closely.” He leaned over her seat and put his right hand casually on her shoulder. He pointed with his left hand. “See this light?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the autopilot disconnect light. If it shows amber, call me-fast.”
“Roger.” She turned her head toward him and smiled.
Berry straightened up. “Okay. Be right back.” He turned and walked into the lounge.
The flight attendant in the upper lounge, Terri O’Neil, was walking around now. Berry didn’t like that. The attractive woman on the horseshoe-shaped couch had unfastened her seat belt and was staring out the porthole. The remaining three men and one woman continued to sit on the couch, making spastic, senseless movements with their arms. One of the men had unfastened his seat belt and tried repeatedly to stand, but couldn’t seem to manage it.
Berry could see that, as Barbara Yoshiro said, they were all getting better-physically. Mentally, they were more inquisitive. They were beginning to think, but to think things that were not good. Dark things. Dangerous things.
The Straton, reflected Berry, was a protected environment, like an egg. Puncture the shell of a fertilized egg with a pin and the embryo would not survive. And if it did, it would be changed in some terrible way. He formed a mental picture of the Straton sitting serenely on the airport ramp, two small holes on the sides the only outward indication of anything being amiss. The stairs were wheeled up. The crowd cheered. The doors opened. The first passengers appeared… He shook his head and looked up.
Terri O’Neil wandered toward the cockpit door. Berry stepped up to her. He took her shoulder and turned her around. Terri pushed his hand away roughly and spoke to him as though she were berating him for touching her, but the words were gibberish. Berry was reminded of his daughter at fourteen months old. He waited until the flight attendant ambled off, away from the cockpit door, then began walking to the far side of the lounge toward Stein, who was leaning against the rail of the staircase. Stein seemed unaware of Berry’s presence and continued to stare down the open stairway. “How is it going?” Berry asked.
Stein pointed down the stairs.
Berry leaned over. A group of men and women were staring up at him, mouths drooling and faces covered with the now familiar, repugnant pattern of blood and vomit. A few of the people pointed up to him. Someone called out; a woman laughed. Berry could hear what he thought were children crying. One man pushed his way to the base of the stairs and spoke directly to Berry, trying hard to be understood. The man became frustrated, and shouted. The woman laughed again.
Berry stepped back from the stairwell, turned, and looked at Linda Farley. She slid off the piano bench and took a few steps toward him. Berry said, “Stay there, Linda.”
Stein said to Berry, “I told her to stay away from the stairs. Although this,” he motioned around the big lounge, “this is not much better.”
Berry asked the girl, “What is it, Linda?”
She hesitated. “I’m hungry, Mr. Berry. Can I get something to eat soon?”
Berry smiled at her. “Well… how about a Coke?”
“I looked.” She motioned toward the bar. “There’s nothing left.”
“Well, I don’t think there’s any food up here. Can you wait awhile?”
She looked disappointed. “I guess.”
“How are the two pilots?”
“The same.”
“Take good care of them.”
Linda Farley was getting all of life’s adversities in one big dose. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, fear, death. “Just a little while longer, sweetheart. We’ll be home soon.” He turned. It occurred to him that he was hungry and thirsty, too. And if he and Linda Farley were hungry and thirsty, then so were many of the people below. He wondered if that would stimulate them to acts of aggression.
“Down!” Stein yelled. “Go down!” Berry moved quickly to the stairs. A man was halfway up.
Stein took a coin from his pocket and threw it, striking the man in the face. “Down! Go down!”
The man retreated a step.
Stein turned to Berry. “Do you have anything I can throw?”
Berry reached into his pocket and handed Stein some change. “I don’t like the looks of this, Harold.”