Dan Simmons - Darwin's Blade

“But you did it,” said Syd. “At Dalat. You looked into human eyes and still squeezed a trigger. And that’s been your survival secret for all these years.”

“What’s that?” said Dar.

“Control,” said Syd. “The constant pursuit of aphobia —avoiding possession at all costs.”

“Maybe,” said Dar, uncomfortable with the psychoanalysis and all his blabbing that led to it. “I haven’t always succeeded.”

“The .410 shell with the firing-pin imprint,” said Syd.

“A misfire,” agreed Dar. “That was eleven months after Barbara and the baby died. It seemed…logical…at the time.”

“And now?”

“Not so logical,” he said. He turned and took her in his arms. They kissed. Then Syd pulled her face back far enough to focus her gaze on his.

“Will you do something for me tomorrow, Dar? Something special…just for me?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Will you take me soaring?”

Dar chewed his lip again. “You’ve been flying. You were up in Steve’s sailplane…You know mine only has one seat and—”

“Will you take me soaring tomorrow, Dar?”

“Yes,” said Dar.

First, there was the silence.

The high-performance, two-person Twin Astir glided through the air as silently and purposefully as a red-tailed hawk soaring and lifting on unseen thermals. The only external sound was the soft rush of air over the metal-and-canvas skin of the craft, and since their airspeed was low, that was hardly any sound at all. When they had passed eight thousand feet of altitude, Dar had had them both put on their oxygen masks—he had leaned forward to check that Syd’s was working properly—and because of the masks, they did not speak. Only the soft hiss of oxygen acted as undertone to the movement of air outside.

Second, there was the sunlight.

It was a brilliant day, blue sky, only a few stacked lenticular clouds over the lee slopes of the high peaks, visibility otherwise unlimited. Sunlight prismed on the clean canopy which gave them a 360-degree view from twelve thousand feet. To the west, beyond the ridges and mountains and deep-running faults, gleamed the Pacific. To the south and east burned the brightness of high desert and the Salton Sea. Easily visible to the north was the smog bank held in by the hills east of Los Angeles, and the great red expanse of the Baja flowed south beyond the smog banks over Tijuana and Ensenada.

Third, there was the closeness.

If it had not been for his five-point harness straps, Dar could have leaned forward over the low rear instrument console and wrapped both of his arms around Syd. Dar could smell the shampoo that he’d lathered into Syd’s hair that morning. He remembered the water and shampoo running down over her shoulders and breasts when he had rinsed her hair, squeezing the water out, the soap bubbles glinting on her breasts and nipples in the morning sunlight…

Dar shook his head and concentrated on flying the aircraft.

When they had arrived at Warner Springs gliderport that morning, Steve had been surprised but happy to loan Dar his Twin Astir—he would not accept a rental fee—and Ken had been surprised to see Darwin Minor there with a woman.

Dar had done a long preflight inspection of the high-performance two-seater, and then he and Syd had gone over the parachute procedures for the third time.

“Steve didn’t make me wear a parachute,” said Syd.

“I know,” said Dar. “But if you fly with me, you wear one of these.”

His older parachute had been freshly repacked and now he had cinched and tightened and adjusted until it fit Syd perfectly. The morning grew later and hotter as Dar went over and over the instructions on kicking free of the plane and pulling the rip cord, controlling the risers, spilling air from the chute to change direction, bending knees on landing, and other anxiety-producing details.

Finally Syd had said, “Have you ever bailed out of a glider?”

“Never,” said Dar.

“Have you ever used a parachute?”

“Just once, about ten years ago,” said Dar. “Just a regular sky dive to make sure I could do it if I had to.”

“And?”

“It scared the everlasting shit out of me,” Dar said truthfully, and then began going through the instructions again.

They had argued briefly about Syd bringing along her Sig semiautomatic and the magazine clips on her belt. Dar pointed out that there was no need for handguns in a sailplane trip and that the holster, weapon, and three leather-wrapped extra magazines would just get in the way of the parachute harness and restraint belts. Syd had pointed out that she was a law officer and it was her legal duty to have the weapon with her at all times. Dar gave up that argument, warning her that the weapons would become a literal pain in the ass half an hour into the flight.

He had brought the oxygen because of Ken and Steve’s enthusiasm over the day’s prospects of wave soaring—a glider’s most dramatic means of gaining real altitude—and it took several more minutes for him to instruct Syd on how to stow the small oxygen canister and use hand signals to communicate when the mask prevented conversation.

“One important item,” Dar had said as Ken’s towplane began pulling them west into the breeze. “If we go to oxygen, don’t throw up in the mask.”

“What do I do if I get sick?”

“There’s a little bag tucked into the right side of your seat there. Take the mask off, throw up in the bag, put the mask back on.”

“Wonderful,” Syd had said as the Twin Astir lifted off. “You’re really making me look forward to this flight.”

Syd had not shown any signs of sickness during the flight. In fact, she’d shown only exhilaration as they were towed west toward the mountains into the so-called foehn gap—a whirling rotor of upward-spiralling air—between the stack of lenticulars and the mountains, and released on the upwind side of it. Dar had soared them around and back, working the rotor like a ski-slope lift, flying across the invisible elevator of lift in repeated sweeps.

He had been careful to point out that even on a beautiful, clear day such as this, there might be a lot of turbulence upon entering the rotor. “Are the wings supposed to do that?” she had asked over her shoulder, looking dubiously as the Twin Astir seemed to be imitating a snow goose trying to get airborne.

“Absolutely,” said Dar. “If they don’t flex like that, they break. Much better to flex.”

Having mapped the wave front through successive approximation, Dar flew through the turbulence of the outer waves again and found the true center of lift. After that, the ride was silky and soundless and breathtaking.

“My God,” Syd had cried. “It’s like we’re in an elevator.”

“We are,” said Dar.

“It doesn’t seem like we’re moving at all in relation to the ground, the mountain,” said Syd.

“We aren’t right now,” agreed Dar. “The wind’s strong enough to give us great lift right now, but our ground speed is zero. I’ll have to make another turn and pass in a minute or we’ll be blown back toward those lenticulars and lose the rotor…but for now, we’re in perfect balance.”

Syd had answered by putting her hand back over her seat and Dar’s low console. He hesitated only a second before reaching out and holding it, squeezing it.

At eight thousand feet he had them dutifully go to oxygen, just to be cautious.

They continued the smooth soar and climb, circling to the right, then hanging on the lift like a hawk balanced on an invisible pillar of a thermal, watching the sky get bluer and the horizon grow.

Dar held a mental three-dimensional map of the controlled and uncontrolled airspaces in this part of California, ranging from Class A to Class G, and he knew that they were well within an “E” space. This meant they were within controlled airspace but nowhere near a control tower, flying on visual flight rules. They could fly up to a ceiling of 18,000 feet above mean sea level, which was where the jet routes and commercial lanes began. He leveled the sailplane by flying out of the rotor at 14,500 MSL and widened their circles while increasing their airspeed to keep altitude.