Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity

As he reaches the top of the ridge, the icy wind strikes him and at the same instant he sees Mt. St. Helens clearly. The volcano looms over the valley and ridgeline like a great, shattered stump of ice. A narrow plume of smoke or cloud hangs above it. For the first time, Baedecker realizes that he is walking on ash. Under the thin layer of snow the soil is more gray than brown. The confusion of footprints on the hillside reminds him of the trampled area around the lunar module when he and Dave returned from their last EVA at the end of the second day.

The crash site, the volcano, and the ash make Baedecker think of the inevitable triumph of catastrophe and entropy over order. Long strands of yellow-and-orange plastic tape hang from rocks and bushes to mark locations that investigators had found interesting. To Baedecker's surprise, the wreckage of the aircraft has not yet been moved. He notices the two long, scorched areas, about thirty meters apart, where the T-38 had initially struck the hill and then bounced even while disintegrating. Most of the wreckage is concentrated where a low band of rocks rises from the hillside like new molars. Snow and ash had been flung far out in rays that remind Baedecker of the secondary impact craters near their lunar landing site in the Marius Hills.

Only vague and twisted remnants of the aircraft remain. The tail section is almost intact; five feet of clean metal from which Baedecker reads the Air National Guard serial number. He recognizes a long, blackened mass as one of the twin General Electric turbojet engines. Pieces of melted plastic and shards of twisted metal are everywhere. Tangles of white, insulated wire are strewn randomly around the shattered fuselage like the discarded entrails of some slaughtered beast. Baedecker sees a section of fire-blackened Plexiglas canopy still attached to a fragment of fuselage. Except for the colored tape and footsteps concentrated there, there is no sign that a man's body had been fused into these broken pieces of baked alloy.

Baedecker takes two steps toward the canopy, steps on something, looks down, and recoils in horror. 'Jesus.' He raises a fist in reflex even as he realizes that the bit of bone and roasted flesh and singed hair under the concealing bush must be part of a carcass of a small animal unlucky enough to have been caught in the impact or ensuing fire. He crouches to look more closely. The animal had been the size of a large rabbit, but the unsinged remnants of fur were strangely dark. He reaches for a stick to prod the tiny corpse.

'Hey, no one's allowed in this area!' A Washington state trooper is wheezing his way up the hill.

'It's all right,' Baedecker says and shows his pass from McChord Air Force Base. 'I'm here to meet the investigators.' The trooper nods and stops a few feet from Baedecker. He hooks his thumbs in his belt as he struggles to catch his breath. 'Hell of a mess, isn't it?' Baedecker raises his face to the clouds just as it begins to snow again. Mt. St. Helens is gone, hidden by clouds. The air smells of burnt rubber even though Baedecker knows that except for the tires, there had been very little rubber aboard the aircraft.

'You with the investigation team?' asks the trooper. 'No,' says Baedecker. 'I knew the pilot.'

'Oh.' The state trooper shuffles his feet and looks back down the hill toward the road.

'I'm surprised they haven't transferred the wreckage,' Baedecker says. 'Usually they try to get it into a hangar as soon as possible.'

'Problem with transport,' says the trooper. 'That's where Colonel Fields and the government guys are this afternoon, trying to get the truck situation straightened out down at Camp Withycombe in Portland. And there's the jurisdiction problem, too. Even the Forest Service is involved.' Baedecker nods. He crouches to look at the dead animal again but is distracted by a bit of orange fabric fluttering from a nearby branch. Part of a backpack , he thinks. Or a flight suit .

'I was one of the first ones here after the crash,' says the state trooper. 'Jamie and me got the call just as we were heading out of Yale going west. Only guy here before us was that geologist who's got his cabin over toward Goat Mountain.'

Baedecker straightens up. 'Was there much fire?'

'Not by the time we got here. The rain must've put it out. There wasn't a hell of a lot to burn up here. Except the plane, of course.'

'It was raining hard before the crash?'

'Shit, yes. We couldn't see fifty feet coming up the road. Real strong winds, too. Like I always pictured a hurricane was like. You ever seen a hurricane?'

'No,' says Baedecker and then remembers the hurricane in the Pacific that he and Dave and Tom Gavin had looked down on from two hundred miles up just before the translunar injection burn. 'So it was already dark and raining hard?' he asks.

'Yeah.' The trooper's tone suggests that he is losing interest. 'Tell me something. The Air Force guy — Colonel Fields — he seems to think that your friend flew over the park here because he knew the plane was going down.' Baedecker looks at the state trooper.

The man clears his throat and spits. The snow has stopped and the soil still visible looks even grayer to Baedecker in the waning afternoon light. 'So if he knew the thing was having problems,' says the trooper, 'how come he just didn't punch out of it once he got the plane over the boonies here? Why'd he ride it down into the mountain?' Baedecker turns his head. On the highway below, several military vehicles, two flatbed trucks, and a small crane have pulled to a stop near Baedecker's rented Toyota. An enclosed jeep with someone in Air Force blue at the wheel begins its climb up the hill. Baedecker walks away from the trooper and moves downhill to meet them.

'I don't know,' he says to himself, the words spoken so softly that they are lost in the rising wind and sound of the approaching vehicle.

'How long to Lonerock?' asked Baedecker. They were headed north on Twelfth Street in Salem. It was already three P.M.

'About a five-hour drive,' said Dave. 'You have to take I-5 north to Portland and then follow the Gorge up past the Dalles. Then it's another hour and a half past Wasco and Condon.'

'Then we'll get there after dark,' said Baedecker.

'Nope.'

Baedecker refolded the road map he had been wrestling with and raised an eyebrow.

'I know a shortcut,' said Dave. 'Through the Cascades?'

'You might say that.'

They pulled off Turner Road onto a lane leading into a small airport. Several executive jets were parked near two large hangars. Across a wide strip of taxi apron sat a Chinook, a Cessna A-37 Dragonfly with Air National Guard markings, and an aging C-130. Dave parked the Cherokee near the military hangar, pulled their luggage out of the back, and tossed Baedecker a quilted goosedown jacket. 'Suit up, Richard. It'll be cold where we're going.' A sergeant and two men in mechanic overalls emerged from the hangar as Dave approached. 'Howdy, Colonel Muldorff. All set and prechecked,' said the sergeant.

'Thanks, Chico. Meet Colonel Dick Baedecker.'

Baedecker shook hands, and then they were moving across the tarmac to where the mechanics were sliding back the side door of a helicopter parked behind the larger Chinook. 'I'll be damned,' said Baedecker. 'A Huey.'

'A Bell HU-1 Iroquois to you, tenderfoot,' said Dave. 'Thanks, Chico, we'll take it from here. Nate's got my flight plan filed.'

'Have a good trip, Colonel,' said the sergeant. 'Nice meetin' ya, Colonel Baedecker.' As Baedecker followed Dave around the ship, he felt a slight sinking sensation in the region of his solar plexus. He had ridden in Hueys scores of times — even clocked thirty-five hours or more flying them during the early days of his NASA training — and he had hated every minute of it. Baedecker knew that Dave loved the treacherous machines; much of Muldorff's experimental flying had been in helicopters. In 1965, Dave had been on loan to Hughes Aircraft to sort out problems in their prototype TH-55A trainer. The new helicopter had a tendency to drop nose first into the earth without warning. The research led to comparison field studies on the flight characteristics of the older Bell HU-1, already in service in Vietnam. Dave was sent to Vietnam for six weeks of observation flying with the army pilots who were reported to be doing unusual things with their machines there. Four and a half months later he was recalled after it was discovered that he had been flying combat missions with a medevac squadron on a daily basis.