Jay Lake - Rocket Science

And then we were down in the back yard, between the outhouse and the kitchen. “Go now, Vernon Dunham,” Pegasus said in my ear.

I grabbed Floyd’s knife from where he still had it in his belt. “Hang on, old buddy,” I told him. “Pegasus here will watch over you.”

Outside it was dark enough, the sky cloudy. There was quite a racket from the front of the house. I hobbled fast as I could toward the kitchen, my body refusing to cooperate fully, protesting all the recent abuse, the falls and injuries I had sustained.

The door slammed open just before I got there. It was an old man I didn’t recognize — the sniper on the roof?

“You’re mine, boy,” he said, his eyes gleaming like angry stars. “You and that damned airplane.”

“Heck no!” I swung the carving knife at him, missed completely, but it threw the old killer off his stride and he stumbled down the steps. I kicked him with my good leg, promptly falling as my bad leg collapsed under my weight.

He was up and on me in an instant, one fist cocked wide, but from inside the house Mr. Neville was shouting, “MacLaren!”

And like that, he stopped. It was weird. The way a machine might have stopped, without any of heat of anger. “Later, boy,” he said, tapping my cheek before getting to his feet and turning away.

I was no threat at all to him. As he showed me his back, I made to throw the knife, then stopped.

I couldn’t do it. Not even now. Pegasus had gotten into me.

“She’s in the root cellar,” I called after MacLaren, as he slammed the kitchen door.

Then I pulled myself to my feet and tried to follow, but the door was locked. There was shouting around both sides of the house, and I could smell the smoke and hear the crackle of flames.

It was time to go, Mrs. Bellamy or no Mrs. Bellamy.

“Lord take it,” I hissed, limping back to Pegasus as quickly as I could. My eyes stung hot, but I climbed in the little hole which snicked shut behind me.

Back in the straps, quickly as I could, before their guns cooled off and the bad guys got down to some serious work.

“Where should we head, Vernon Dunham?” asked Pegasus, behind my ear where I felt like it belonged.

“Augusta.” That’s where the oil refinery was, where Pegasus could meet its refueling needs. That’s where I figured Dad’s body was, which was what I needed to find. Beside me, Floyd made a shuddering, gasping noise that sounded a lot like a panic reaction.

“I’m sorry, Floyd, I couldn’t get her.”

“Daddy won’t let her burn,” he said quietly, his voice shuddering.

For a moment we just sat there, as the images on the screen receded. Guilt gnawed at me. First I’d failed my dad, now Mrs. Bellamy.

“Perhaps you would like to fly,” Pegasus finally said. “Use the handles, see what you think.”

Something to do. Something I cared about. Something to take my mind off my mistakes. I took the handles that were built in to the oversized seat I occupied. I hoped that if mine were active, Floyd’s weren’t.

The system was simple. There were no rudder pedals, there was no throttle. The handles had grips and thumb buttons, and swiveled across all three axes. I just moved my hands where I wanted to go, and Pegasus obeyed.

Grasping the handles was odd, though. They were unnatural under my hands. I explored the bumps and the shallow dents for knuckles, and examined the layout of the buttons. These handles had been designed for someone with a thumb like mine but five short fingers instead of four long ones. Someone who wasn’t human.

That little detail more than anything else brought home to me emotionally, personally, that Pegasus was alien.

Flying Pegasus was like my dreams, only better. When I was a kid, sometimes I would dream that both of my legs were strong and whole, and I could outrun the wind. It was like that with Pegasus, only I knew that I never had to wake up from this and stumble out of bed, lame and miserable, aching in my calf with every step of the day. I was free, for a while. I didn’t care what happened to me next.

Floyd finally roused from his misery. “Where… where are you going, Vernon?”

“Augusta,” I said shortly. I’d failed him in failing his mother, at least I could do something constructive for my computational rocket. “We have business in town.”

In point of fact, Pegasus was flying so fast that we had already reached Augusta. I banked Pegasus around the lighted towers of the old White Eagle refinery complex, now Mobil.

“Pegasus,” I said, “There’s more petrochemicals down there than you’ll ever know what to do with. I promise you we’ll get what you need.”

“I have located sources of the appropriate grades to satisfy my requirements,” said Pegasus in its private voice. “How will we compensate the proprietors of this refinery?”

“What?” I was astounded.

“I will not willfully misappropriate private property.”

“You just blew up a barn, two trucks and three Cadillacs, and now you’re worried about a hundred gallons of oil?”

“Perhaps we should locate your father’s remains first, then discuss this when you are being less emotional.”

Wonderful. That was what I needed to hear. Maybe I could somehow make up for Mrs. Bellamy. Those old men had to get her out of the root cellar.

I pulled Pegasus into an upward spiral over the refinery complex. “Tell me when you’ve got enough altitude to search for Dad.”

“Climb for fifteen seconds, then level off and cruise in a widening spiral,” replied Pegasus. Obviously, it could have gone on its version of autopilot at any time, but I appreciated the courtesy, and thrill, of flying such a machine. I wished I knew more about the basic principles behind Pegasus’ construction and power sources.

At the same time, I was glad Pegasus didn’t have instrumentation that I could read. I rather suspected that our rate of climb would unnerve me. I counted Mississippis until I reached fifteen, then pulled Pegasus out of the climb into a smooth, widening spiral.

The main screen showed a green-tinged aerial view of downtown Augusta. And pretty much the rest of Augusta too, for that matter. It wasn’t a big place. There seemed to be no traffic at all.

“Floyd,” I called, “what time is it?”

Floyd didn’t answer. I glanced over at him. He had his eyes tightly shut, and his hands trembled as he clutched the arms of his chair in a death grip.

“Floyd!” I yelled. “You’ve got a watch. What time is it?”

Floyd opened his eyes and slowly looked down at his left wrist, twisting it against his restraining strap. “It’s ten after eight.”

“Thanks.” Ten after eight on a Sunday night. Where was the street traffic in Augusta? State Street should be quiet, and the refinery didn’t run night shifts on the weekend now that the war was over, but the highway should still be busy. I studied the aerial view. I couldn’t see any traffic. Had the MPs Ollie talked about shut down the whole town?

“Vernon Dunham,” said Pegasus.

“Yeah?”

“I believe that I have located your father.”

The view of Augusta on the main screen shifted to the simplified schematics I had seen back at the farm. It jumped through several levels of magnification until I was looking at a residential street. Houses lined both sides of the streets, and there were large numbers of bright spots clustered inside of them. One spot in the back of one of the houses flashed purple.

“The highlighted signature is a human-normal concentration of calcium with an unusual signature of moderately pure steel.”

Something about the street that looked familiar. “Where is that?” I asked.

“Three streets north and three streets east of the central intersection below us.”