Allen Steele - ...Where Angels Fear to Thread

Three hours earlier, Oberon had descended to a new orbit 289 kilometers above New Jersey, and Metz had suddenly become quite busy. Maintaining the proper balance between the timeship’s negmass drive and Earth’s gravity, while simultaneously compensating for the planet’s rotation, was difficult enough; he also had to remain in contact with Hoffman. With no comsats available to assist them, and Tom unable to throw up a transceiver dish, they had to relay on old-fashioned ELF bands that wouldn’t likely be intercepted by ham radio operators of this period.

“Oberon, this is Lakehurst Base. ’’Hoffman’s voice came over Metz’s headset. “Do you copy? Over. ”

Metz prodded his throat mike. “We copy, Lakehurst. What’s the mission status?”

“Status good. Hindenberg ’s at the tower. Water ballast down, bow lines have just been dropped. Holding steady at about ninety-one meters. Event minus three minutes, sixteen seconds, and counting.”

Hoffman was trying to remain professionally detached, but Metz could hear the excitement in his voice. Nor could he blame him; the mission specialist was about to witness one of the classic technodisasters of this century, one which would put an end to commercial airship travel for the next nine decades. It was probably all Tom could do to remain seated within the automobile he had rented a couple of days earlier; however, it wouldn’t do for him to be seen lugging a comlink case around the aerodrome.

“Copy that, Lakehurst.” A flatscreen below the porthole displayed a false-color radar image of the Hindenberg floating above Lakehurst Naval Air Station. The dirigible was a light-blue bullet-shaped blip surrounded by hundreds of tiny white gnats. Above the image was the mission timer: 5.07.37/ 19.22.05/E-02.45(1). “Holding station, ready for pickup on your mark.”

“Very good, Oberon. I’m about … ” The rest was lost in a wave of static. Metz’s hands moved across his console, correcting the timeship’s position; the static cleared and Hoffman’s voice came back: “… is huge. You wouldn’t believe how big it is. Almost the size of an asteroid freighter. It’s…”

“Keep your mind on the job.”

“The motor’s running. I’m ready to go.” Another pause. “Can you believe people actually used these things to get around? They smell awful.”

“I know. Stay focused.” Metz glanced at the mission chronometer again. Two minutes, eleven seconds and counting, plus or minus a few seconds due to the inexactness of contemporary records. Those few seconds were going to be the tricky part of this operation.

“All right, Franc,” he murmured. “Don’t screw up now.”

Thursday, May 6,1937: 7:23 P.M.

An odd stillness had fallen over the airfield. The light drizzle had let up for a moment as dull grey clouds parted here and there, allowing sunlight to lance down upon the aerodrome and reflect greenish twilight off the Hindenberg s silver skin. The Navy men had the zeppelin’s mooring lines in their hands; they dug in their heels, playing tug-of-war with the leviathan looming three hundred feet above their heads. On the outskirts of the crowd, a radio newsman from Chicago delivered a breathless report of the airship’s arrival into a portable dictaphone machine.

Glancing around the promenade, Franc realized that he was surrounded by dead people. Fritz Erdmann, the Luftwaffe colonel who had been trying to ferret out a saboteur among his fellow passengers, but failed to notice Eric Spehl; he would soon be crushed by a flaming girder. Hermann Doehner and his lovely teenage daughter Irene, taking a family vacation to America: they were doomed as well. Moritz Feibusch, the sweet man whom the stewards had segregated from other German passengers simply because he was a Jew; he would soon perish. Edward Douglas, a General Motors businessman the Gestapo believed was an American spy, whom Erdmann had dogged during the entire flight; he, too, was living his last minutes.

And so were John and Emma Pannes. At least, this was how history would record their fate.

Although the clothes he and Lea had put on this morning appeared to be made of contemporary wool and cotton, they were woven from flame-resistant fabrics unknown in this century. The handkerchiefs in their pockets, once unfolded and placed over their mouths, contained two-minute supplies of molecular oxygen. They had left nothing in their baggage which had been made in the twenty-fourth century; the divots they had scattered throughout the airship would dissolve when the ambient air temperature reached 96 Celsius. When no one found their bodies in the wreckage, it would be presumed that their corpses had been incinerated by the inferno. This wasn’t too far from the mark; some of the bodies recovered after the disaster had only been identifiable by wedding bands or engraved watches.

“Time,” Lea whispered.

Franc prodded his glasses again. “Sixty-five seconds, plus or minus a few.” Then he took off the spectacles and slipped them into a vest pocket. She nodded and returned her hand to the railing.

There was a sudden rush of cool air. A few feet down the promenade, someone had cranked open a window. A woman waved to a man with a bulky motion-picture camera on the ground far below. Ghosts. He was surrounded by ghosts.

In the breast pocket of his jacket, Franc carried the one souvenir of this trip he had permitted himself: a folded sheet of paper, engraved with the Hindenberg ’s name and picture, upon which was printed the airship’s passenger list. This wasn’t for the CRC; when he got home, he would frame it on the wall of his Tycho City apartment. Lea had nagged him about taking it, until he pointed out that it would be destroyed anyway; he later pretended not to notice when she tucked a teaspoon into the garter belt of her stockings. Little things like that wouldn’t be missed. He just wished he could save the two caged dogs back in the baggage compartment. Dogs were so scarce where they came from, and he hated to think what would happen to them when…

Franc took a deep breath. Calm down, calm down. You’re going to get through this. Just don’t lose your head now…

They had deliberately placed themselves on the starboard promenade of Deck B, not far from the gangway stairs. Many of the survivors had lived simply because they were here and not on the port promenade of the same deck, where others would be pinned down by dining room furniture. The original John Pannes died because he left the promenade just before the crash to see about Emma, who had remained in their cabin for unknown reasons. Airsickness? A premonition, perhaps? History hadn’t recorded the exact reasons why the Pannes had died, but he and Lea wouldn’t make the same fatal error.

The airship’s stern would hit the ground first. Although the aluminum grand piano at the far end of the promenade worried them, they had already agreed to rush the gangway as soon as they felt that first, fateful jerk that everyone would initially assume to be a mooring rope snapping. Down the stairs past the Deck A landing, then down another flight of stairs to the passenger hatch… by the time they got that far, the airship would be almost on the ground. They shouldn’t have to jump more than four meters.

Thirty-seven seconds. From the instant when the first flame appeared on the upper aft fuselage to the moment the Hindenberg was a flaming skeleton, only thirty-seven seconds would elapse. Time enough to cheat history…

Or time enough to lose the bet.

Franc felt Lea slide against him. “If we don’t…”

“We will.”

Her head nodded against his shoulder. “But if we don’t..