Aloft (Petronaut Tales) (7 page)

“I mean, maybe he’s smarter than me,” Ensie shrugged.  “If the Flicker is really as doomed as he thinks it is, then it probably is the better career move to ditch it early and be flunky number two on the thrust pack project instead.”

“I don’t think this guy is smarter than you.”

Ensie considered.  “I don’t think so either.”

Cooper laughed and kissed her on the top of her head.  “A smart, sexy Petronaut test pilot, coming over after hours to see a guy like me.”

“Yeah, so I can leak my eyes all over your shirt.”

He rubbed her arms.  “What did you mean, a real Aerial?” he asked.

Ensie smoothed out a lock of her hair through her fingers.  She was acutely aware of how small the office was, and felt that tightness in her chest rising up again. 

“I’m not fun,” she said.  “I’m bad at cussing people out.  I don’t come up with big ideas.  I’m scared of big risks.  I’m… I don’t look like… I’m not much to look at.  I just get my work done, day after day, as the years go past.”  Ensie gave him a lopsided smile.  “What about that says ‘Aerial’ to you?”

“Hey.”  Cooper struggled to put something into words.  “They’re… they’re lucky to have you.”

She raised a hand and drew his arm down along her side, laced her fingers between his.  Their clasped hands rested against her hip. 

“I think I can be better,” she whispered.  “I think I can do bigger things.  I think I’m ready to try.”  Her lip trembled again.  “And in their own backhanded, patronizing way,” she smiled, eyes watering, “I think Iggy and Sir Tomas are on my side.”

Cooper squeezed her hand.  “They’re not the only ones,” he said.

Ensie looked up at him, her golden brown eyes glowing. 

“I want you to see me fly,” she said impulsively.

“I’ll be in the front row.”

“I want you to see me practice.  I’ve got four days until the Expo, so I’m going to be practicing every instant I can.  When can you get off of work?”

He made a face.  “If Upforth isn’t on me about something, which he usually is these days… six-thirty?”

“Come tomorrow.  Iggy and I are re-tooling the props in the morning, but by evening we’ll be ready for a manned test.  Our testing field is, oh, behind the drafting building.  How to explain? If you’re facing the city walls, take the dirt path from the back door of drafting, go past two buildings until you come past the meeting house—tall, triangular roof—and then turn right.  Look for the third field…”

She trailed off as Cooper started shaking with laughter.  “You’re just going to ask someone, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“How can you live in the biggest city on the Thrust and be so bad at following directions?”

“Delia’s pedicab drivers need someone to haul around.  If I learned how to get myself from place to place, they’d be out of work!  Us private sector goons need to stick together.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“No. 
You’re
ridiculous for being so hard to find.  Would it kill you to wear a bell or something?”

“I’m not wearing a bell,” she said through her giggles.

Cooper’s eyes lit up.  He held up one finger as he turned away to the secretary desk nearby, sliding open a thin drawer.  Metal pieces sifted over each other with a rustling sound as he searched the drawer.  He pulled up a tiny brass bell, which clattered brusquely in the palm of his hand. 

“We’ve got a million of these from a decorative carriage we’re contracted for,” he said.  Cooper pinched a small length of chain between his fingers and slid the metal loop on top of the bell over the chain.

“I’m not wearing a bell,” Ensie objected.

“Give me your arm.”  Cooper fastened the eyeclasp of the chain shut.  He let the bell dangle and it rang with a nicer tone now that it wasn’t muffled against his skin.  The thin loop of chain was too big for a bracelet and too small for a necklace.

“I’m not wearing it!  I’m not!” she squealed, flailing delightedly as he grasped her wrist and slipped the loop past her fingers.  Ensie tilted her arm down and made a fist, and the circle of metal dropped right over her hand and onto the floor.

“I told you,” she said.

Cooper slowly sank to one knee.  She watched him, feeling the breath come rapidly in her chest from the laughter and the excitement.  He picked up the chain.  With both hands, he gripped the cuff of her pants and slowly pressed it up her leg, his palms brushing against the bare skin of her calf.  She found herself playing with his hair as he opened the chain up and fastened it around her leg.  It draped against her ankle with a pure ringing sound that faded an instant after it began.

“How’s that?”

“I’m not wearing it,” she whispered down at him.

Cooper shrugged.  “You can always take it off.”

His eyes widened as a pile of fabric appeared on the office floor. 

“Or that,” he said.  “Wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but—”

“Liar,” Ensie said as she knelt down over him.

During the endless hours of fiddling with the propellers in the workroom the next morning, Sir Tomas strolled through and blandly informed the techs that he was going to be working with Dame Guernsey and the thrust pack team for the rest of the week. 

“I’ll be staying current on your reports, of course,” he said.

“Do you ever?”

“And I’m fairly certain my day-of schedule will allow me to watch our demonstration,” he went on, ignoring Iggy’s jab completely.  “But if the thrust pack team needs me… you understand.”

“We understand, sir,” Ensie said, her head feeling light with the news.  “Congratulations.”

He tapped the toe of his brown boot against the Flicker’s propeller housing.  “I expect this thing to really launch by the time you’re done with it.  Don’t be timid!”

Don’t be timid
, she thought, pulling the goggles over her eyes. 
Four meters off the ground counts as timid, so don’t be timid.

“Take it easy, now,” Iggy shouted over the noise of the propellers.  The senior tech was leaning forward over the nose of the Flicker.  Ensie could feel the craft’s suspension shifting through her chair as Iggy pressed her weight forward on the thin nose.  “First, three light hops.  Then we try to glide.  Okay?”

“Okay,” Ensie shouted back.  She gave a thumbs-up too, the gloves feeling very big over her hands.  She would probably ask the outfitters to take a closer look at her pilot suit again after this test.  It still wasn’t feeling secure.

Or maybe you’re just being timid, Ensie.

She clenched and unclenched her fingers around the handlebars as Iggy sprinted away towards the sandbag wall. 
Think of the other test pilots.  Think of what Sir Tomas is going to be doing.  Much higher altitudes, and much, much higher velocities. Do you think they send their suits back for re-sewing a dozen times?  You’re a real Aerial now.  Start acting like one.

Afternoon was turning into evening, and they didn’t have too many hours of daylight to spare.  With her hands wound tightly around the handlebars, Ensie tapped her boot against the left pedal.

There was a basso whoosh from beneath her, loud, but with no sharpness to it, like the sound of a puddle of petrolatum lighting up all at once.  Air and acceleration pressed her firmly into her seat.  Through the thin lenses of her goggles, she could see the eaves of the slope-roofed lodge and other Aerials walking along the paths in the compound.  She twisted to look over her shoulder at the measuring pylon, but was already starting to descend when she caught a glimpse of the blocky numbers at eye level reading
3 m 250
.

The Flicker’s nose was pitched a few degrees down when she turned back around.  She could see much more of the ground than she wanted to, and much less of the sky and the buildings.  Ensie pulled both handlebars towards her, trying to keep her movements even.  The propellers swiveled so their blades were pointing forward, kicking up dust vapor beneath the Flicker’s silver tip.  She felt the machine drift backwards very slightly at the same time as the nose lifted up and the Flicker straightened out again. 

And then she hit the ground, back skis first.  Ensie could feel the quick impact rolling forward from the back of the Flicker all the way through her chair and on to the single front ski beneath the nose.  Her harness kept her firmly in place, and the touch-down was level enough that she wasn’t thrown side to side, but the jolt that zipped from her seat all the way up her spine left her whole body buzzing. 
And that wasn’t even a big jump
, she thought, frowning down at the inadequate cushions beneath her.

Ensie stopped herself.  “
Wasn’t even a big jump
.”  She’d just become the first human on the planet to pilot an experimental leaping vehicle, and her first thought on getting back safely to land was that it wasn’t even a big jump?  She found herself trembling with delight as a smile took hold of her face. 
Maybe test pilot isn’t such a big stretch for me after all.

Iggy was approaching slowly with her hands raised high, her own goggles obscuring her face.  “Nice little hop,” she roared, giving a thumbs-up.  “You okay?”

“Yeah!”  Ensie cheered back.

Iggy laughed and pumped her fist in the air.  “Good on you, pilot,” she said.  “Now let’s see this thing move!”

They still took it slow for the next hour.  Ensie would steel herself and press down on the small pedal, exploring the craft’s capabilities one hop at a time.  The highest standing jump she got was just below five meters.  They figured altitudes might climb slightly once they were comfortable enough to turn the dial for continuous travel mode, and the Flicker started jumping in series.  This stop-and-start testing wasn’t letting the ranine coils build up power at each bounce as they’d conceived in the design.  At the current force of these jumps, she’d probably max out half a meter higher once they let the Flicker start racing, just like they’d planned. 
I’m going to need better cushions before we start with that
, Ensie thought, rubbing her tailbone at a break between jumps.

Even in fits and starts like this, it was an exciting machine to have at her power.  The air whooshing past her body at each liftoff was exhilarating, and the tweaks they’d made to the propellers allowed her to control her gliding quite effectively.  Each descent still felt a little faster than she’d envisioned it would be, but from the vibrations into her palms she could feel the shafts of air beating down from each propeller and knew that they were cushioning her fall, and shaping her path.  The Flicker could corner at least as well as a team of horses could steer a carriage, which was about as maneuverable as they figured it needed to be to avoid obstacles on a hop through open terrain.

Inside her boot, Ensie felt the thin chain around her ankle.  The small bell was tucked against her skin.  She imagined its gentle sound ringing behind the roar and crash of each latest jump, and it kept her eyes crinkled in a continuous smile throughout the evening.

At the end of the fifteenth jump, Ensie caught sight of Iggy making a ‘come over’ gesture from her vantage point by the sandbags.  She blew out a short breath and slowly uncoiled her fingers from around the handlebars.  Her fingers were trembling from the vibrations that had been coursing through them.  Ensie turned the keypin and the engine went silent beneath her. 

Standing up was profoundly unpleasant. 
Did the padding fall out of that seat somewhere around jump ten? 
Ensie pressed her gloved fingers against the small of her back as she shuffled her way over to the sandbags.

“Must have been harrowing up there,” Iggy said, squinting as she approached.  “You look like you’ve put on thirty years.”

“The landings are a little bumpy.  Can we requisition some thicker cushions?”

The senior tech snorted.  “A test pilot for two hours, and already with the demands,” she said.  “First, it’s goose down pillows.  Next you’ll want an icebox and a liquor cabinet installed.”

“No thanks,” Ensie giggled.  “Weight aside, there’s no way I’d pry my fingers off the controls when I’m in the air.  Even for a really good sweet roll.”

Iggy put her hands on her hips and smirked at the junior tech.  “You squeeze those handlebars all you want, junior tech,” she said.  “You’re doing something that takes serious stones, and from what I can see you’re doing it damn well.”

Ensie’s mouth opened slightly.  “I… thank you, senior tech,” she breathed.

“This machine isn’t doing nearly as well by you as you are by it,” Iggy went on brusquely.  “The cushions are just the start of it.  It looked like the props were sticky as you came down for your glides.”

Ensie swallowed and nodded. 
Business
.  “Especially turning, uh, portside.  I always felt a few degrees off from where I wanted to be.”

“We’ll re-calibrate.  How did the power levels feel?”

“Honestly, a little low.  I was expecting a little more oomph since we took down the limiters on the propellers.”

“Well?  Did you miss that oomph?”

“A little bit, yeah.  I think achieving higher altitudes would mitigate some of the control problems I was having.  When most of the jumps are around four point five, I found myself having only so much time to react, you know?”

“Continuous travel mode should let you build up a bigger head of steam.”

“Sure, sure.  No doubt.  But I think a little more bounce would serve us, regardless.”

“I don’t want you bumping the Spheres, Ensie,” Iggy said.  “This isn’t a problem we solve by just dialing up the power, you know?  Our projections have been careful.  You ought to be getting all the oomph you need.”

Ensie nodded, scratching the back of her neck.  “We must be losing it somewhere, then.  There could be a fault in the piping… loss of pressure.  Or the actuator’s less efficient than we figured?”

  Iggy sucked on her lower lip, looking across the test range.  Finally, she shook her head in resignation.

“Well, pilot,” she said, “at this point the only thing we can do is send the ranine box back to Upforth’s for diagnostics.  That means we need to disassemble the Flicker.  That means you and I won’t be hitting the bars until late tonight, junior tech.”