Runway Zero-Eight

can’t happen — it can’t,” he protested in a gravel voice to the whole room, staring at the radio panel. “If we’ve lost them now, they’ll fry — every last manjack of them.”

NINE 0435—0505

LIKE A MAN in a nightmare, possessed with the fury of desperation, his teeth clenched and face streaked with sweat, Spencer fought to regain control of the aircraft, one hand on the throttle lever and the other gripped tightly on the wheel. Within him, oddly at variance with the strong sense of unreality, he felt scorching anger and self-disgust. Somewhere along the line, and quickly, he had not only lost altitude but practically all his air speed too. His brain refused to go back over the events of the last two minutes. Something had happened to distract him, that was all he could remember. Or was that an excuse too? He couldn’t have lost so much height in just a few seconds; they must have been steadily descending before that. Yet it was surely not long since he had checked the dimb- and-descent indicator — or wasn’t that its function? Could it be the gas—?

He felt a violent, almost uncontrollable desire to scream. Scream like a child. To scramble out and away from the controls, the ironically flickering needles and the mocking battery of gauges, and abandon everything. Run back into the warm, friendly-lit body of the aircraft crying out, I couldn’t do it. I told you I couldn’t do it and you wouldn’t listen to me. No man should be asked to do it—

“We’re gaining height,” came Janet’s voice, incredibly level now it seemed. He remembered her with a shock and in that moment the screaming in his mind became the screams of a woman in the passenger compartment behind him — wild, maniacal screams.

He heard a man shouting, “He’s not the pilot, I tell you! They’re stretched out there, both of them. We’re done for!”

“Shut up and sit down!” rasped Baird clearly.

“You can’t order me about—”

“I said get back! Sit down!”

“All right, Doctor,” came the adenoidal tones of ’Otpot, the man from Lancashire, “just leave him to me. Now, you—”

Spencer shut his eyes for an instant in an effort to clear the dancing of the illuminated dials. He was, he realized bitterly, hopelessly out of condition. A man could spend his life rushing from this place to that, forever on the go and telling himself he could never keep it up if he wasn’t absolutely fit. Yet the first time a real crisis came along, the first time that real demands were made of his body, he fell flat on his face. That was the most savage thing of all: to know that your body could go no further, like an old car about to run backwards down a hill.

“I’m sorry,” said Janet.

Still maintaining his pressure on the column, he shot a glance of complete surprise at her.

“What?” he said stupidly.

The girl half twisted in her seat towards him. In the greenish light from the instrument panel, her pale face looked almost translucent.

“I’m sorry for giving way like that,” she said simply. “It’s bad enough for you. I — I couldn’t help it.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her roughly. He didn’t know what to say. He could hear the woman passenger, sobbing loudly now. He felt very ashamed.

“Trying to get the bus up as fast as I can,” he said. “Daren’t do more than a gentle climb or we’ll lose way again.”

Baird’s voice called from the doorway, above the rising thunder of the engines, “What is going on, anyway, in there? Are you all right?”

Spencer answered, “Sorry, Doc. I just couldn’t hold her. I think it’s okay now.”

“Try to keep level, at least,” Baird complained. “There are people very, very ill back here.”

“It was my fault,” said Janet. She saw Baird sway with exhaustion and hold on to the door jamb to steady himself.

“No, no,” protested Spencer. “If it hadn’t been for her we’d have crashed. I just can’t handle this thing — that’s all there is to it.”

“Rubbish,” said Baird curtly. They heard a man shout, “Get on the radio!” and the doctor’s voice raised loudly to address the passengers, “Now listen to me, all of you. Panic is the most infectious disease of the lot, and the most lethal too.” Then the door slammed shut, cutting him off.

“That’s a good idea,” said Janet calmly. “I ought to be reporting to Captain Treleaven.”

“Yes,” agreed Spencer. “Tell him what’s happened and that I’m regaining height.”

Janet pressed her microphone button to transmit and called Vancouver. For the first time there was no immediate acknowledgment in reply. She called again. There was nothing.

Spencer felt the familiar stab of fear. He forced himself to control it. “What’s wrong?” he asked her. “Are you sure you’re on the air?”

“Yes — I think so.”

“Blow into your mike. If it’s alive you’ll hear yourself.”

She did so. “Yes, I heard all right. Hullo, Vancouver. Hullo, Vancouver. This is 714. Can you hear me? Over.”

Silence.

“Hullo, Vancouver. This is 714. Please answer. Over.”

Still silence.

“Let me,” said Spencer. He took his right hand from the throttle and depressed his microphone button. “Hullo, Vancouver. Hullo, Vancouver. This is Spencer, 714. Emergency, emergency. Come in, please.”

The silence seemed as solid and as tangible as a wall. It was as if they were the only people in the world.

“I’m getting a reading on the transmitting dial,” said Spencer. “I’m sure we’re sending okay.” He tried again, with no result. “Calling all stations. Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Flight 714, in serious trouble. Come in anybody. Over.” The ether seemed completely dead. “That settles it. We must be off frequency.”

“How could that have happened?”

“Don’t ask me. Anything can happen, the way we were just now. You’ll have to go round the dial, Janet.”

“Isn’t that risky — to change our frequency?”

“It’s my guess it’s already changed. All I know is that without the radio I might as well put her nose down right now and get it over. I don’t know where we are, and even if I did I certainly couldn’t land in one piece.”

Janet slid out of her seat, trailing the cord from her headset behind her, and reached up to the radio panel. She clicked the channel selector round slowly. There was a succession of crackles and splutters.

“I’ve been right the way round,” she said.

“Keep at it,” Spencer told her. “You’ve got to get something. If we have to, we’ll call on each channel in turn.” There was a sudden, faraway voice. “Wait, what’s that!” Janet clicked back hurriedly. “Give it more volume!”

“…to 128.3,” said the voice with startling nearness. “Vancouver Control to Flight 714. Change to frequency 128.3. Reply please. Over.”

“Keep it there,” said Spencer to the girl. “Is that the setting? Thank our lucky stars for that. Better acknowledge it, quick.”

Janet climbed back into her seat and called rapidly, “Hullo, Vancouver, 714 answering. Receiving you loud and clear. Over.”

With no perceptible pause Vancouver came back, the voice of the dispatcher charged with eagerness and relief.

“714. This is Vancouver. We lost you. What happened? Over.”

“Vancouver, are we glad to hear you!” said Janet, holding her forehead. “We had some trouble. The airplane stalled and the radio went off. But it’s all right now — except for the passengers, they’re not taking it any too well.