“We just didn’t think of asking him,” she said. “But I’m sure he would have enjoyed the first flight of…”
“This isn’t the first flight,” Garrod put in with more
severity than he had intended. “It’s the first public demonstration.”
“Don’t be too hard on the little lady, Al,” Maguire laughed, pushing his fist against Garrod’s shoulder. “Besides, as far as your windshields are concerned this is the first flight.”
“Oh? I thought the Thermgard went in last week.”
“It was supposed to, Al, but we’ve been pushing ahead so fast with the low-speed trials we couldn’t take time out from the programme to change the shields.”
“I didn’t know that,” Garrod said. Inexplicably, he recalled the red Stiletto and the startled, accusing face of its driver. “So this is the first flight with my windshields?”
“That’s what I just said. They went in last night, and if there aren’t any hitches the Aurora goes supersonic on Friday. Why don’t you two order yourselves a drink and find a seat out front? I have to keep moving.” Maguire smiled briefly and edged away.
Garrod stopped a hostess and ordered an orange juice for Esther and a vodka tonic for himself. They took the drinks out to where seats had been placed in rows facing the airfield. The sudden increase in light intensity ran a needle of pain into Garrod’s left eye, which was ultra-sensitive to glare as the result of a partial irisectomy carried out when he was a child. He put on polarized glasses to make viewing easier. Groups of men and women were sitting watching the activity around the enormous brooding shape of the Aurora. Trailers containing the ground services were clustered beneath the aircraft and technicians in white overalls moved on the steps which led into its belly.
Garrod sipped his drink, found it cold and clean-tasting, with a little extra bite which suggested a high proportion of spirits. It was rather early in the day for serious drinking, especially as he always found that a morning drink had the same effect as three in the evening, but he decided the occasion warranted a little bending of the rules. During the half-hour which elapsed before the Aurora was ready to take off he quickly but unobtrusively downed three vodka tonics, thereby gaining entrance to a glittery, relaxed, optimistic world where beautiful people sipped sunfire from hollowed diamonds. Representatives of top management with other contracting companies came and went in jovial succession and Wayne Renfrew, the chief test pilot for UAC, made a brief appearance, smiling with practised ruefulness as he refused a drink.
Renfrew was a small man, homely, with a reddish nose and thinning crew-cut hair, but he had an abstracted air of self-possession which reminded people he had been chosen to teach a two-billion dollar piece of experimental hardware how to fly like an aeroplane. Garrod felt curiously uplifted when the pilot singled him out to make a comment on just how much the Thermgard transparencies meant to the Aurora project. He watched gratefully as Renfrew, walking with the straight back of a short man, made his way out to a white jeep and was driven the few hundred yards to the aircraft.
“Remember me?” Esther said jealously. “I can’t fly an airplane, but I’m a good cook.”
Garrod turned to look at his wife, wondering if her words had conveyed her exact meaning. Her brown eyes locked with his, positive as the bolt of a rifle, and he understood that on the morning of their second wedding anniversary, at an important business-cum-social function, merely because his attention had strayed from her for a few minutes she was hinting that he had homosexual tendencies. He entered the fact in a mental dossier, then gave her his very best smile.
“Sweetheart,” he said warmly, “let me get you another drink.”
She smiled back immediately, mollified. “I think I’ll have a Martini this time.”
He brought it from the bar personally and was setting it on their table when the Aurora’s engines gave a deep whine which within a few seconds was lost in a ground-disturbing rumble as ignition was fully established The sound continued at the same level for several interminable minutes, was stepped up as the aircraft began to roll, becoming almost unbearable when the Aurora turned towards the main runway and its jet pipes momentarily pointed at the marquee. Garrod felt his chest cavity begin to resonate. He experienced something close to animal panic—then the aircraft had moved on and there came comparative quietness.
Esther took her hands away from her ears. “Isn’t it exciting?”
Garrod nodded, keeping his eyes on the Aurora. The lustrous titanium shape crept away into the distance—ungainly on its elongated undercarriage, like a wounded moth—and flashed sunlight as it turned its prow into the wind. With surprisingly little delay it rolled along the runway, gathered speed and reared into the air. Dust storms raced along the ground behind the Aurora as it cleaned itself for true flight, drawing in its appendages and flaps, and banked away to the south.
“It’s beautiful, Al.” Esther caught his arm. “I’m glad you brought me.”
Garrod’s throat closed with pride. Behind him a loudspeaker made a coughing sound and a male voice began to intone a nontechnical description of the Aurora. It spoke impassively while the aircraft itself faded out of sight in the pulsing blueness, and concluded by saying that, while the Aurora was not yet cleared to carry passengers, UAC would try to give its guests an impression of what the aircraft was like to fly by hooking up the public address system to the communications link.
“Hello, ladies and gentlemen.” Renfrew’s voice came in on cue. “The Aurora is approximately ten miles south of your position, and we are flying at a height of four thousand feet. I am putting the aircraft into a left-hand turn and will be over the airfield again in slightly less than three minutes. The Aurora handles like a dream and…” Renfrew’s professionally sleepy voice faded out for a moment, then returned with a note of puzzlement.
“She seems just a little slow in responding to control demands this morning, but that’s probably due to the combination of low speed and hot, thin air. As I was saying…”
Vernon Maguire’s aggrieved voice suddenly filled the marquee. “That’s a test pilot for you. We put him on the air to do a sales pitch for the Aurora and all he does is try to find fault with the Goddam flying controls.” He burst out laughing and most of the men near him joined in. Garrod stared into the southern sky until he saw the Aurora shining like a star, a planet, a small moon which resolved itself into a silver dart. It passed slightly to the east of the airfield at about a thousand feet, flying at low speed, with its nose held high.
“I am about to make another left-hand turn, then will do a low-speed pass along the main runway to demonstrate the Aurora’s excellent handling qualities in this section of the flight envelope.” Renfrew’s voice now sounded perfectly normal and unstressed, and Garrod’s sense of unease faded. He looked down at Esther and saw she had taken out a compact and was powdering her nose.
She noticed his glance and made a face at him. “A girl’s got to…”
Renfrew’s voice came from the loudspeaker, all sleepiness gone. “There’s that sluggishness again. I don’t like it, Joe. I’m coming in on…” There was a loud click as the hook-up to the public address system was broken. Garrod shut his eyes and saw the red Stiletto sports car speeding closer and closer.
“Don’t run away with the idea that this is any kind of emergency,” Maguire said reassuringly. “Wayne Renfrew is the best test pilot in the country, and he got there by being cautious and safe. If you want to see a perfect landing—just watch this.”