Dean Koontz - Dark of the Woods

"We could use that lovely machine."

"We can get to it," she said.

"You have the location?"

"It's 86 miles from here, at the northern tip of this range, the third major mountain from the end. The other two fortresses are both over twelve hundred miles from here. We're fortunate it isn't one of those."

"Eighty-six miles. Well, we know we can use the computer if the standard model we have here can't help us. That extrapolative node might very well be the turning point. But I want to learn everything here, first, before we move."

"It's getting dark," she said, holding out her hand.

It had become their custom to fly, together, when the last light of day was in the sky and the world was in that lovely stage that corresponded to half-undressed in a woman. He did not break that custom tonight, but joined her in the bubble of the lift that carried them smoothly toward the top of the mountain where a disguised observation nook had been built — which they used for a launching and landing platform.

That first night, when he had arisen from the couch of the mechanical surgeon, suffering from the emotional shock of finding himself in an alien body and knowing his own temporal shell was rotting in a grave, he had been unable to fly. He had spread the wings, done as she had told him to, but he could not lift himself, not even a foot. That had depressed him, on top of all else that had happened, and he had thought he would have to look forward to a future in which his body was perfectly capable of flight but his mind was too earthbound and hungup to allow it.

The next evening, she had persuaded him to go out again, after a great deal of urging and argument that Demosian children, after all, didn't fly from the moment of birth. Why, then, she wanted to know, did he expect to be any different? Sure, his was a grown Demosian body, but he was still a child in the sense that he had a great deal more to learn about the function of his new flesh. Reluctantly, feeling like a petulant child, he went with her.

It had been a clear night, with a pink-yellow sunset that spread questing fingers from the horizon to the middle of the sky.

He had grudgingly gone through the routine of "learning" how to fly again, positioning himself as she did, listening to what muscles should be used, trying to use them — meeting with failure again. It was the most frustrating experience of his life, especially since she could do it so easily and he could only stand there, grunting comically and flapping his membranous appendages like sheets on the clothesline during the hurricane. He had vowed to give it up forever after this session, but was determined to stick it out now that he was here. She had said half an hour, and he had five minutes to go — and then he had suddenly moved the wings correctly, in time, smoothly, catching a gust of wind under them, ballooning them, lifting off the observation deck. He had closed them swiftly, lest he should raise away from the landing area, thousands of feet above the ground, and find he could not repeat the performance.

But he had done it again and again until, at last, he took the last step, risked everything, and flapped off the side of the mountain, falling like a rock for a moment until his wings got air beneath them and he was soaring, gliding, a creature of the wind and sky as surely as Leah was.

Now, two weeks later, he still looked forward to flight as a child looked forward to the zoo. There was always something new to try, some stunt he had worked out in his head and had not, until now, had the guts to see if he could pull off. He wondered if he would ever grow weary of the sky and of his wings, decided that was about as likely as his ever getting tired of Leah — which was not very likely at all. Perhaps if he had been born with wings, he would have eventually come to take them for granted as an earthbound human comes to take his legs for granted after — for a brief few weeks — finding great joy in taking his first few steps as a babe. But being winged in middle-age, after a lifetime of walking the ground, negated any diminuation in the wonder effect.

But none of this was the meat of the nut, the real reason why he found himself so happy and contented in this new form, why he had been able to recover, so swiftly, from the shock of losing his body. At first, he had been worried that he was not being honest about the horror he must certainly feel over losing the old Stauffer Davis husk; he was certain that he was suppressing the disgust and terror, and that his subconscious mind would accept them and let them fester. Someday, he would pay for not being honest with himself now, he thought. But, day by day, he came to understand that he was being honest when he said he was happier with his new body than his old one and that he wished he had died sooner and been resurrected as a Demosian years ago. And he came to see that, down deep, being freed of the old physical shell had freed him, more than ever, from his mother and father. He was no longer their child. They would not — if they were alive and came to Demos — even recognize him. He could walk among them and be unknown. The form, the mannerisms, the tic in his left cheek they had given him — all these things had been sloughed away, and only the essence had been left: the mind which he had faithfully scrubbed of their hatred years ago and which Leah had helped him to free in these past months on Demos. He would no longer have to look in the mirror and see the long, thin, patrician nose that reminded him, always, of his mother — or the square, heavy jaw that was distinctly his father's. Yes, this was the seed of the blooming joy: that he no longer had even the slightest ties to those people he loathed so much, to that twisted and hate-filled couple who had conceived him.

The bubble of the elevator came to rest, and Leah thumbed for the doors to open. The fake rock partitions slid back, and they walked out onto the observation niche near the top of Tooth Mountain. The forests and peaks of Demos spread out before them, majestic in the multicolored light of the dust-filtered sun.

Spreading his arms (and his wings behind them), Davis dashed to the edge of the niche, leaped into space, and barely managed to get air under the thin membranes in time to avoid a collision with a long antigrav bus which was using its plates against the side of the mountain to negotiate high enough to give the passenger's inside a thrill. On the side of the vehicle was lettered PIKE'S WOLF HUNT TOUR. The men and women inside, dressed in hunter's camouflage and holding drinks, looked at him wide-eyed, as if he had materialized out of nowhere. He saw them look above, where Leah still stood on the niche, and he knew that their respite from the pursuit of the authorities had ended in one, short second when he had been too stupid to look before leaping.

Davis stood by the request keyboard of the fortress computer and punched out every subject heading he could conceive of that might concern the existence of the other three fortresses. Spools of tape slid into the delivery slot in alarming number, and he dropped them swiftly into a sack he had brought for the purpose. When he could not think of anything which might contain critical data about the other hideouts, he started punching out headings dealing with the Artifical Wombs, hoping to have time to deny all of that to the Alliance as well.

"Here," Leah said, entering the room and dumping a pile of spools into the sack. "Those are the ones I got you this evening. They were still on the study desk."

"Thanks," he said. "Food?"

"All packed."

"Water?"

He punched out another topic; more spools slid into the tray.

"Got it," she confirmed.

"Two heat blankets?"

"Yes, and electric torches. And, though Fortress Two might very well have weapons, we'll need some while we're getting from here to there. I packed four guns."