“Look,” Darla said. “We got to figure that they did all the calculations, and we have a pretty serious margin of error for sustained flight. In this place, muscles will produce power at greater than what they call ‘minimum sink rate.’”
“I like the sound of that,” Scotty said. “That lava might even give us a thermal!”
“Hell yes!” Angelique grinned, then sobered. “Wait a minute. That’s not real lava.” A pause. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
“Damn. I forgot,” Scotty said. “Nix on the thermal.”
“What about a safe landing?” Wayne asked.
Darla closed her eyes and concentrated. “We need a controlled energy loss. If there’s a short runway you might use some kind of netting for absorption-”
“Like an aircraft carrier?” Scotty asked.
“Exactly like that. If you were going for some kind of sustained flight you’d want some redundancy built into the system, but this was supposed to be short and sweet.” She ran her hands over the wiring, inspected the pulleys. At any distance it all looked jerry-rigged, but up close this was clearly the work of talented, sober artisans.
“It looks rickety for the camera, but trust me: This is first-class equipment. We can do this.”
Scotty tried to visualize it. A flying machine with beetle wings… the pilot would lie on a surface of leather over “wood,” with his feet stretched behind him on pedals…
Yes, it could work. It damned well better. And there were two of the wooden cradles. Xavier expected the first flyer to crash.
“How are we going to do this?” Scotty asked.
Angelique squatted, drawing in the dust with her fingertip. “We have to assume that Xavier knew that Ali and Sharmela had flown before, and that that was how the IFGS approved this.” On hands and knees, she looked down over the edge of the chasm into the flaming horror. “That smoke smells scary real.”
“Too bad the effects are off here. I’d like to know what that bloody munchkin had in mind.”
“Long way down,” Scotty said.
“Probably not as deep as it looks,” Angelique said. “A few of the holos are still working.”
“What exactly do you think we’re really dealing with?”
“Safety nets, masked with effects. No safety lines, I think… Foam stalactites on the ceilings… there may have been some kind of maglev device to take the sting off a fall.”
Wayne nodded. “Remember that we’re on the Moon. Falling just doesn’t have as much energy, so safety isn’t as stringent, I’d bet. I have no idea what Xavier must have said to Cowles, but I think he got his way. As usual.”
“All right, Scotty,” Angelique said. “What do you think?”
“That we have to go for it,” he said. “Mickey, you and I will keep an eye on the door?”
“What about me?” Darla asked. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
“Stay here. An engineer’s mind will come in useful.”
“Do what I can.”
Mickey clasped her shoulder. “Keep an eye on Maud, will you? She seems a little shaky.” Then to Scotty: “Let’s go.”
Ali and Sharmela were crawling over the flying machines, inspecting them inch by inch.
“So…,” Wayne said. “What do we have here?”
“Look,” Darla said. “We’ve had limited human flight at Heinlein, and some of the larger domes.” She glanced at Scotty. “I think your lady Ms. Griffin was big into it. Mostly, though, it’s just a little playtime in half-furnished domes. You know, before the liquid wall bubbles go in. The locals would gin up some hang-glider wings, and go at it. There’ve been a few flappers, but again, we just haven’t had open areas large enough to really take advantage.”
“Talked about it, though,” Scotty remembered.
“Absolutely,” Darla said. “I’m guessin’ they were planning to follow up this game with some kind of tourist flight package.”
“Should I feel comforted?” Ali asked.
Wayne donned an expression that he probably hoped would be comforting, but was actually a little creepy. “They wouldn’t want a disaster first time out.”
Sharmela ran her fingertips over the flying rig, judging. “So the foot pedals operate the wings,” she said. “The arms guide them. The material looks pretty flimsy.”
“Yeah,” Darla said. “But try to tear it. Look a little closer. That’s Falling Angels, the zero-gee facility. Nanothreaded graphene. Pure carbon. Spider silk is maybe twice as strong as steel. This stuff is about a hundred times stronger than that.”
Angelique was examining the cave. Anything, anything in the environment might be usable. The walls were festooned with vines.
Ali stood up, walked along their side of the divide, judging. “Look at this. We have a long flat runway, and a glide path right across. Practice room. ”
Wayne brightened. “Well, God bless the IFGS. Let’s get this in position.”
“I don’t know about this,” Maud said. “Even if they work, I can’t do this.”
“Can’t what?” Wayne asked.
“I can’t fly one of these.”
He shrugged. “There are only two. They couldn’t possibly expect us all to fly across.”
“You’re right,” Angelique said.
“ Here we are,” Ali said, pulling “vines” down from the walls. “We have line.” Rope, damned fine rope, and plenty of it.
They fussed over the rope while Sharmela stretched like a tabby cat.
Angelique nodded approval. Flexibility was going to be important. “Three of us have had some experience with winged flight. Two were purely virtual. Factor in fear of heights, perhaps, and it’s really only reasonable for one of us to fly across this chasm.”
“Then… why are there two sets?” Sharmela asked, looking up from an impressive downward dog. Fit/Fat for sure. She was bulky, but as flexible as a seal.
“Back up,” Angelique said. “I’m not sure. But the others were supposed to create some kind of rope bridge.”
“That could be done,” Wayne said. “So… attach the rope to the end of a set of wings. Maybe the flyer’s ankles. Someone flies across, anchors it to the far side, and then we’re in business.”
Maud shrank back. “I can’t do that. I can’t.”
“Let’s just wait,” Wayne replied, “until we have things set up before we decide what we can or can’t do, okay?”
The next five minutes were practice time. With two gamers providing each flyer initial momentum, Ali and Sharmela took their wings up and down the slope, as the rest watched the flapping and gliding. Sharmela had wonderful coordination, her foot pedaling and arms working perfectly in unison. But what they had to admit was that Ali, cheater or not, was simply better at this. His prior experience might well save their lives.
“All right,” Angelique said. “Ali? We’re going to give you the chance. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Ali replied.
“First time I’ve ever been happy to have a cheat on board. Anything else to tell us?”
“I have no idea what else my father’s advisers had in mind,” Ali said stiffly.
“Not the answer I was hoping for,” Scotty said. “Too bad.”
“Horses.”
“You ride a horse?”
“I have won awards,” Ali sniffed. “There should be horses in the game. We’ll find them.”
“Oh, we may have gone around them already.” Scotty shrugged. “Let’s do this.”
“You’ll need to fasten a line on the far end,” Angelique said. “Show me your best knot.”
Ali took a vine and looped it around and tightened it. A decent hitch knot. Angelique examined it, and handed it back. “Try this,” she said, demonstrating. “Right over left, left over right, makes a reef knot both tidy and tight.”
He obeyed.
“Again,” she said.
Again he did as requested, and this time they passed the result around for comment. “Looks good,” Wayne admitted.
“We need to glide this until he gets his momentum,” Angelique said. “You and me, Sharmela.”
The Sri Lankhan stepped up instantly. She gave Angelique an appreciative once-over. “Your legs are longer than mine. We will have to match paces.”
As they practiced, Mickey jogged over, looking a bit weary. “I’ve piled about a half ton of junk against that door,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what to do. Barricaded and barred… they’ll need to blow it open.”