She closed her eyes. “I’m very thirsty.”
Berry patted her cheek. “Soon. Don’t think about it.” He stood and walked back to his chair.
Sharon fixed her eyes on the radar set. “Are these all the radar controls?”
Berry looked at her. There had developed a tacit understanding among the three of them that they were not to talk about the others. Berry looked down at the console. “Yes. Antenna tilt. Gain. Brilliance. Mode selector… Here’s one called erase rate. I’ve never even heard of that.”
Crandall looked up again at the black wall outside the windshield. It was closer now, and she could see its inner violence, the black-gray smoke churning. “Can we go around it without the radar?”
Berry shook his head. “These lines sometimes stretch for hundreds of miles. I don’t think we have the fuel to try an end run.”
“Hawaii?” She didn’t want to throw that up to him, but it seemed too important to be left unsaid.
“No. In addition to the other reasons I gave you, we don’t have the fuel for that any longer. We have only enough to fly straight to California.”
Crandall looked at the fuel gauges. They read less than one-third full.
Berry played with the radar controls. If he could understand the picture on the screen, he might be able to pick out a weak spot in the wall of clouds in front of him.
Crandall remembered other storms she’d gone through in other aircraft. The Straton 797 flew above the weather, and that, at least, was one advantage to traveling in subspace. “We can’t climb above it?”
Berry looked up at the sheer wall of clouds. “Not with this aircraft. It won’t hold its air pressure.” He looked at the oxygen mask hanging beside his seat. An oxygen mask should be enough, as long as they didn’t climb much above 30,000 feet. Was that high enough to clear these storms? He couldn’t tell for sure, but he didn’t think so. Besides, the oxygen tanks would probably be empty, and he didn’t know if there was a reserve tank.
Crandall was following his thoughts. “There may be an unused oxygen tank that we could switch to.”
“There might be. But do you think we should put those people through another period of oxygen deprivation? Don’t we have to draw the line somewhere?”
“Not if it’s our lives.”
“They are not dead, and we don’t know that they won’t get better, and even if they won’t… Besides, in order to gain enough altitude to get over this weather, I’d have to circle-spiral upward. I’d rather not try my flying skills at this point. Anyway, the maneuver would burn off a tremendous amount of fuel.”
“What you’re saying is that we’re committed to bucking into the storm.”
“I’m not sure. The other options look better in the short run, but I’m thinking of the California coast.”
“Me too.” She hesitated, then said, “Will the holes in the cabin… could the plane…?”
“I don’t think it will come apart.” But he didn’t know if the structure was weakened, how many longerons were severed. Completely airworthy craft had broken up in storms. He said, “It’s the wings that take the most punishment. They don’t appear to be damaged.”
Crandall nodded. There was something reassuring about John Berry’s voice, his manner. Most pilots had that ability to make even bad news sound routine. Yet she felt there was something else troubling him. “If you think the Straton can handle it, then I can handle it.”
Berry decided that he had to tell it to her truthfully. It was her life too, and she had a right to know what could happen. “Look, Sharon, the major problem is not the aircraft. If the turbulence gets too rough-and there’s no reason to think it won’t, by the looks of those clouds-then the autopilot could disengage itself. Then I’d have to hand-fly this thing. Christ, three experienced pilots in an undamaged craft have their hands full during a storm. I have to think about the throttles, the pitch trim… I haven’t flown this aircraft in good weather. The plane could get away from me… spin out…” Berry suddenly wanted to turn, to run and get away from the black wall closing in on him, even if he had to put the plane down at sea. Anything would be preferable to the nightmare of a bouncing, heaving aircraft caught in the center of a storm of unknown width and breadth. He turned to Sharon. “Do you want to turn? We can outrun it, but we’d probably have to ditch before we reached any land.”
Crandall considered the options: Running from the storm knowing that each minute of flight time was another minute from the coast. Then putting it down at sea. And if they survived the landing, there would be the agony of the sea, maybe other passengers floating in the water… She weighed that against the storm. They would live or die in the storm-nothing in between. She looked up at the clouds. Somewhere on the other side of that black veil the sun shone, and over the next horizon was the coastline of America. That’s where they said they wanted to go, and that’s where they would go. A sense of calm came over her, and she knew that one way or the other the end of their long trial was near. “We should maintain our present heading.”
Berry nodded. He also had a need to meet the storm head-on. He thought about his wife and children for the first time in over an hour. Then he thought about his employer and his job. The worst thing that could happen to him, he realized, was that he would survive, only to pick up his life where he’d left it. He believed that somehow the crucible of that storm would cleanse him, even rebaptize him.
Crandall said, “We should call San Francisco and tell them what’s happening. They may be able to give us some advice.”
Berry nodded. He realized that, subconsciously, he had been avoiding the data-link. Instead of it being a lifeline, the link had become an intrusion into his small world. He typed.
TO SAN FRANCISCO: WE ARE APPROACHING AN AREA OF THUNDERSTORMS. I AM UNABLE TO WORK OR READ WEATHER RADAR. WE HAVE DETERMINED THAT THE BEST COURSE OF ACTION IS TO MAINTAIN PRESENT HEADING. IS THERE ANYTHING WE SHOULD DO TO PREPARE THE AIRCRAFT?
He reached for the transmit button, then decided to type an additional line.
IS THERE ANY INDICATION AT YOUR END THAT WE CAN GET AROUND THE WEATHER WITHOUT EXPENDING TOO MUCH FUEL? BERRY.
He pushed the transmit button, then looked up at the windshield. Thin wisps of smoky gray clouds sailed past the Straton; the cockpit became a little darker. “I’d say we’ve got about fifty miles to go before we’re into the heavy weather. Nine or ten minutes’ flying time.”
Crandall noticed that her calm had turned to edginess, as it always did when she entered a storm. It seemed like the waiting was the worst part of it-until you were in it. Then, when you thought the worst was happening, it got even worse than that. But breaking out of a storm into the sun or the moonlight was one of those rare and exhilarating moments in flying. She turned to Berry. “Is there anything you’d be doing in your private plane that we haven’t done yet?”
“Yes.” He forced a smile. “Turn around and get the hell out of here.” The aircraft bumped slightly, and he turned and looked back at Linda. She was awake now, sitting in one of the empty flight chairs with her knees up to her chin. He turned to Sharon. “Buckle her into the observer’s seat.”
Crandall rose from her chair and walked over to the girl. “Let’s get up and sit over here where you’ll be more comfortable.” She took her by the arm and led her to the observer’s seat that was directly behind the captain’s chair. “That’s right. Here. I’ll buckle you in just like when you first came onboard.”
“Thank you. Are we going into a storm?”
“It’ll be all right. But remember, it’s going to get very dark in here. You’ll hear the rain against the windshield. It might be louder than you expect. And it will be a very bumpy ride. But Mr. Berry will fly us right through it. You’re not afraid of lightning, are you?”
“No. Only when I was little.”
“Good. Lightning is nothing to be afraid of.” Crandall patted the girl on the cheek, then climbed into her chair and buckled herself in.
The three of them sat quietly in the darkening cockpit as the Straton sailed toward some thin, layered clouds that preceded the wall of thunderstorms. Wisps of light gray flew past the windshield. The Straton bounced suddenly, and from the lounge came a wailing and moaning that Berry recognized instinctively as something very primeval, an ancient inborn terror that came from the very soul of the species. “Poor bastards.” They were going to be hurt if it got very bad. There was nothing he could do for them.
The alerting bell sounded.
TO FLIGHT 52: NO INDICATION AT THIS END THAT WEATHER IS AVOIDABLE CONSIDERING YOUR ESTIMATED FUEL RESERVE AND CONSIDERING THE UNPRESSURIZED CONDITION OF THE AIRCRAFT. MAINTAIN PRESENT HEADING AND ALTITUDE AS YOU INDICATED. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU ALTER CENTER OF GRAVITY FOR TURBULENCE BY TRANSFERRING FUEL BETWEEN TANKS. STAND BY FOR DETAILED
