“Quiet in here,” said Eric.
“Virtually soundproof,” said Dillon, and his hand moved again on the touch plate.
The edges of the opened ceiling passed them, and fell behind, and Sparrow continued to rise for another minute before Dillon’s left hand made a quick motion and Eric was pushed back into his seat.
“Leveling, going to quarter thrust,” said Dillon, and Eric realized he was talking to flight com without Eric hearing the response.
Now would not be a good time to lodge a complaint, he decided.
Dillon pulled Sparrow’s nose up, and went to quarter thrust. It was like the takeoff of a commercial aircraft, and Eric relaxed, even when their climbing attitude began to approach vertical.
“Half thrust,” said Dillon.
Not too unpleasant, but unpleasant. Eric breathed deeply, a tightened diaphragm pushing against the invisible weight on his chest. The first, bright stars appeared ahead of them, and Sparrow shuddered.
“Mach 1, going to eighty-percent,” said Dillon.
“Ooof,” said Eric, and struggled to breathe, reached out a hand towards the panel in front of him.
The stars outside got brighter, and a new, green star lit up on the panel. Dillon turned his head towards Eric, his face invisible inside the helmet. “Going to startup sequence—now.”
Eric threw the first switch on the panel. “One,” he said.
A new light appeared, but nothing else happened.
“Two,” said Eric, and threw another switch. The green light went on at the top of the panel by his right knee, as it had on the ground test. It was suddenly quiet in the cockpit. The weight on Eric’s chest fluttered, and then lessened, though Eric knew their acceleration hadn’t changed. The strangeness of it didn’t escape him, but now his hand was poised above the next switch, and somehow he knew what would happen next.”
Eric threw the switch. “Startup complete, and go to full thrust.”
Dillon’s left hand pushed a lever forward until it locked in place.
There was no shudder, no feeling of acceleration. It was as if they were floating, the stars ahead frozen in place, but on the lower left of the holodisplay movement blurred two rows of numbers. Dillon gestured at the screen, changing scales until the indicators could be followed and read.
“Whoa,” Dillon whispered, then said loudly, “Passing Mach 6 at twenty kilometers, and accelerating. We’re feeling no g forces here, and no vibration. Smoothest ride I’ve ever had. Mach 7, going to 8. Our fuel gauge isn’t showing any change from when we began the startup sequence.”
“Three more lights just went green on the second panel startup took us to. I didn’t touch a thing,” said Eric.
For the first time in the flight, Eric heard a reply from the ground.
“Say again,” said Rob Hendricks.
“Three lights on the second startup panel went green together without me touching the switches. It happened at Mach 8, I think. There’s one switch left, and a pressure plate with a radiating sun glyph on it. Don’t ask me how I know, but I’m supposed to throw that switch now, and that’s as far as we’re going today.”
“Mach 10, and climbing,” said Dillon. “We’re at thirty-five kilometers, sir. Have to admit I never thought Sparrow could do it.”
“So throw that switch, Price,” said Hendricks, “and then we’ll talk about the pressure plate.”
“There’s nothing to talk about on this flight. We have to figure out how to get home first.” Eric threw the switch without hesitation, and saw Dillon’s body tense in anticipation of something dramatic.
It was hardly that. There was no change in acceleration as Sparrow continued a vertical climb, now passing Mach 12 at an altitude of forty-four kilometers. A new icon appeared on the holodisplay, just above Eric’s left knee. It showed the globe of planet earth. A light blinked from the western part of North America. Icons below the globe were labeled ‘zoom’ and ‘set’ and ‘enable’. Eric gestured with a finger, and zoomed in on the blinking light, now appearing in a topo map of canyons and buttes.
“The base,” said Dillon softly.
“And home,” said Eric. Another gesture, a cursor moved to the blinking light, and Eric gestured to ‘set’ with his finger. The holodisplay flashed bright green, and was quiet again.
“That’s it. We’re done,” said Eric.
“Now what? We’re still climbing.”
“Throttle back completely. Sparrow will do the rest.”
“More advice from the angels?”
“More advice from the guys who gave us this thing. If you ask how I’m getting it, I’ll just give you a blank look. Throttle back, and turn us around.”
“That I can do, but deceleration might require more fuel than what we have left. This speed is way beyond what we expected.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re okay.”
“Right. Flight com, Doctor Prices advises we terminate test and come down. We have a new icon on our holoviewer that is giving us the base location, and Price is saying we’ll be brought in automatically. I can use the verniers to turn us around, but we’re now at Mach 13 and fifty-four kilometers. I’m a bit concerned about adequate fuel for a deceleration burn, but Price says it’s not a problem. Please advise.”
Hendricks’ response was immediate. “Price is correct. Proceed with reorientation at zero throttle.”
“No arguments? My God,” said Eric, and forgot his mike was on.
“No need for argument, Doctor Price. I’m getting some advice at my end, too. There’s a Mister Brown standing right next to me. He says you’re doing fine.”
“Well I could use some extra input right now. My instinct is telling me to enable the base-homing icon when we’re reoriented, then sit back and relax, and that isn’t making any sense to me.”
There was a pause, then, “Mister Brown didn’t say anything. He just smiled.”
“Shit,” murmured Eric.
Dillon throttled back, but there was no sensation of it. It had been like floating in a comfortable womb since completion of the startup sequence. Dillon’s hands played over four pressure plates on the control panel. Stars moved. A crescent moon swept past their view, and then the bright blue panorama of planet Earth with puffy, white clouds off in the far distance at a rapidly approaching terminator. Directly below them it was still dark, but with clusters of lights showing from Phoenix and a fainter band that was probably Los Angeles.
“Okay, now what?” said Dillon.
Eric swallowed hard. “We let Sparrow do her job.” He reached out to the base-locator icon with a finger, and touched ‘enable’.
There was a thump, and Sparrow shuddered.
“We’re doing a burn,” said Dillon, amazed. A minute later he pointed at the gauges on the holoviewer. “What the hell? We’re down to Mach 3, and no fuel has been used.”
“And no g forces,” said Eric. Sparrow must have us in some kind of protective field, and we’re not burning conventional fuel, we’re tapping that energy field in her gut. I bet we’ve been using that since startup.”
Sparrow shuddered again. “Mach One,” said Dillon, “and falling fast. We’ll top out around sixty kilometers.”
And seconds later they were falling.
“Phoenix is right where it was a few minutes ago,” said Eric. “We’re not just falling, we’re flying.”
“I’m not touching anything,” said Dillon.
“Neither am I. Maybe we could play cards.”