Everyone I could see on the main screen was on the ground, taking cover from the blast. They probably thought I’d blown up the airplane. The view on the screens shook, whether from Pegasus’ movements or the violence outside I had no way of knowing. One of the Cadillacs exploded — the gas tank must have gone up. Shattered barn wood began to rain down all over the house and the yard.
Then the ground dropped away with dizzying suddenness, two or three hundred feet in one eye-grabbing blur judging by my perspective on the viewing screen. It looked like we had fallen straight up, in violation of Newton’s laws as well as the law of gravity. I felt no motion at all inside Pegasus’ cabin, which implied direct control over the inertia of mass. Another astounding technology that would change the world, I thought with a sigh. I also realized my worries about being chased from the ground were ludicrous — it shouldn’t be any surprise to me if Pegasus could magnificently outperform any airplane ever built.
One of the screens flickered, then refocused to show the barn and yard beneath us. All three Cadillacs were on fire, as was Mr. Bellamy’s Willys pickup truck. The barn was a flaming mess. Dad’s Mack stake bed had been obliterated, reduced to lumps of glowing metal and hot ash, while the f-panzer was burning up with the barn. None of these guys were going anywhere unless they walked.
It looked like a fistfight was taking place in the front yard. Knock down, drag out. I’d place even money on a bunch of cranky old shine runners against three carloads of Kansas City mob torpedoes deprived of their hardware.
As we pulled away and the view shrank even further, I could see that a corner of the front porch was on fire. The Bellamy house was an old frame building, likely to burn up like so much straw if the flames got fully established. I wondered if Mr. Bellamy would stop the fighting in time to save his house. Then I had a sick moment wondering if Mrs. Bellamy would be able to get out.
Those old bastards sure as heck weren’t going to stop and help her.
“We have to go back,” I said. I couldn’t believe myself, but I couldn’t leave her to die in that fire.
“What…?” Floyd was beside himself, somewhere between terror and anger.
“Look. Your mother’s in the root cellar again. And the house is burning. Pegasus, can you get down in the back yard?”
“Is this advisable?”
“She’s going to die.”
Though I felt no swaying, no tug of inertia, I knew we were moving. One of the smaller view screens showed the land tilting in perspective as we banked back toward the house.
“Mama,” Floyd said. “Oh, God, Vernon.”
“We’ll get her out,” I promised.
Except I couldn’t trust him free, inside Pegasus or out. And those damned old men… they were killers.
And then we were down in the back yard, between the outhouse and the kitchen. “Go now, Vernon Dunham,” Pegasus said in my ear.
I grabbed Floyd’s knife from where he still had it in his belt. “Hang on, old buddy,” I told him. “Pegasus here will watch over you.”
Outside it was dark enough, the sky cloudy. There was quite a racket from the front of the house. I hobbled fast as I could toward the kitchen, my body refusing to cooperate fully, protesting all the recent abuse, the falls and injuries I had sustained.
The door slammed open just before I got there. It was an old man I didn’t recognize — the sniper on the roof?
“You’re mine, boy,” he said, his eyes gleaming like angry stars. “You and that damned airplane.”
“Heck no!” I swung the carving knife at him, missed completely, but it threw the old killer off his stride and he stumbled down the steps. I kicked him with my good leg, promptly falling as my bad leg collapsed under my weight.
He was up and on me in an instant, one fist cocked wide, but from inside the house Mr. Neville was shouting, “MacLaren!”
And like that, he stopped. It was weird. The way a machine might have stopped, without any of heat of anger. “Later, boy,” he said, tapping my cheek before getting to his feet and turning away.
I was no threat at all to him. As he showed me his back, I made to throw the knife, then stopped.
I couldn’t do it. Not even now. Pegasus had gotten into me.
“She’s in the root cellar,” I called after MacLaren, as he slammed the kitchen door.
Then I pulled myself to my feet and tried to follow, but the door was locked. There was shouting around both sides of the house, and I could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames.
It was time to go, Mrs. Bellamy or no Mrs. Bellamy.
“Lord take it,” I hissed, limping back to Pegasus as quickly as I could. My eyes stung hot, but I climbed in the little hole which snicked shut behind me.
Back in the straps, quickly as I could, before their guns cooled off and the bad guys got down to some serious work.
“Where should we head, Vernon Dunham?” asked Pegasus, behind my ear where I felt like it belonged.
“Augusta.” That’s where the oil refinery was, where Pegasus could meet its refueling needs. That’s where I figured Dad’s body was, which was what I needed to find. Beside me, Floyd made a shuddering, gasping noise that sounded a lot like a panic reaction.
“I’m sorry, Floyd, I couldn’t get her.”
“Daddy won’t let her burn,” he said quietly, his voice shuddering.
For a moment we just sat there, as the images on the screen receded. Guilt gnawed at me. First I’d failed my dad, now Mrs. Bellamy.
“Perhaps you would like to fly,” Pegasus finally said. “Use the handles, see what you think.”
Something to do. Something I cared about. Something to take my mind off my mistakes. I took the handles that were built in to the oversized seat I occupied. I hoped that if mine were active, Floyd’s weren’t.
The system was simple. There were no rudder pedals, there was no throttle. The handles had grips and thumb buttons, and swiveled across all three axes. I just moved my hands where I wanted to go, and Pegasus obeyed.
Grasping the handles was odd, though. They were unnatural under my hands. I explored the bumps and the shallow dents for knuckles, and examined the layout of the buttons. These handles had been designed for someone with a thumb like mine but five short fingers instead of four long ones. Someone who wasn’t human.
That little detail more than anything else brought home to me emotionally, personally, that Pegasus was alien.
Flying Pegasus was like my dreams, only better. When I was a kid, sometimes I would dream that both of my legs were strong and whole, and I could outrun the wind. It was like that with Pegasus, only I knew that I never had to wake up from this and stumble out of bed, lame and miserable, aching in my calf with every step of the day. I was free, for a while. I didn’t care what happened to me next.
Floyd finally roused from his misery. “Where… where are you going, Vernon?”
“Augusta,” I said shortly. I’d failed him in failing his mother, at least I could do something constructive for my computational rocket. “We have business in town.”
In point of fact, Pegasus was flying so fast that we had already reached Augusta. I banked Pegasus around the lighted towers of the old White Eagle refinery complex, now Mobil.
“Pegasus,” I said, “There’s more petrochemicals down there than you’ll ever know what to do with. I promise you we’ll get what you need.”
“I have located sources of the appropriate grades to satisfy my requirements,” said Pegasus in its private voice. “How will we compensate the proprietors of this refinery?”
“What?” I was astounded.
“I will not willfully misappropriate private property.”