The War of Immensities (74 page)

“How much fuel
does the Orion have?” Thyssen asked anyone in general.

“About eight
hours. I’m confirming...”

“Plot me their
exact course.”

But he could
see the course. It was west, toward Peru.

“One moment...
I’m hooked into the onboard computer. Here it comes...”

A red line
slowly began to dot its way across the screen, across the vast
forest of the headwaters of the Amazon.

“Show me the
limit of their range,” Thyssen demanded.

A cross was
indicated, far out in the Atlantic.

“If they ditch
in the sea, we might be able to pick up survivors,” Cornelius
supposed.

“They’ll never
make the sea,” Thyssen said. “Give me their altitude.”

“3000
feet.”

“And they have
to cross the Andes.”

“Jesus.”

“Can we tap
into the computer and get the automatic pilot to raise the
altitude?” Glen asked.

“We can try,”
the operator said.

Thyssen knew it
was hopeless. There were mountains ahead higher than the Orion
could fly. And there was no known means of interfering with the
automatic pilot of such a vintage aeroplane.

In his mind, he
saw the upwardly curved edges of Felicity’s lips when she was
amused by what she heard but refused to smile. He saw her habit of
brushing her non-existent fringe from her eyes, that suggested she
had once had much longer hair. He saw the tears glisten in her eyes
as she had looked upon the succeeding tragedies about her.

With a physical
thrust of his body, he forced her from his mind. “Take it off the
board...” he ordered fiercely.

“But we
need...”

“I don’t want
to see it. Take it off.”

The green light
disappeared. A shocked silence passed through the room. Thyssen
turned and called loudly. “Right, we’ve got other lives to save.
Let’s get to it.”

The Orion flew
on through the night. It would not reach Peru and the Andes until
dawn. Inside the computers and sensors would be humming out their
data dutifully, and in the glow of their pale lights, the domed
helmets of the crew would be reflecting their arrays. Each would be
sleeping in their positions, their heads bowed forward.

Felicity’s
helmet would probably take on a bright red glow through the window
on the plane, away to the south as if the sun had set too late and
in the wrong place. The mighty fires raged in the forest as the
lava spewed out of great fissures in the Earth, all along the
eastern boundary of the Andes. Some volcanoes near Lake Titicaca
had erupted briefly, but the large centres like La Paz had been
spared. And the Orion flew on through the fiery night…

Thyssen shook
his head to clear the images of horror that continually pervaded
his brain, threatening his need to think with any clarity. So far
there were no reports of loss of life at all, unless you counted
the riders on the Orion as already dead.

Despite the
errors of both the focal point and the epicentre, still all of the
pilgrims had been within the Zone at the time. There was silence
too from them, for about twenty nerve-racking minutes before Brian
came on the line.

“Sorry about
that. My radio blew out. I had to find another one.”

“What’s
happening there, Brian?”

“We all went
down like a sack of spuds. Then we all stood up again. I’m told a
few people have been hurt but I’ve got no reports of deaths at this
stage.”

“Did you
experience any tremors?”

“I was asleep
at the time, remember? No, there’s no sign of damage here. But it
looks like there’s a hell of a fire to the south of us.”

“Yeah. We think
its a lava flood around Santa Cruz in Bolivia. It might be closer
than a hundred kilometres to you. Get them moving back toward the
base, Brian. Every helicopter in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru is on its
way into your area now to start picking up casualties and
sleepers.”

“Still, it
looks like it worked out just the way you said, Harley.”

“No, Brian. It
didn’t.”

He explained to
Brian what had happened, and then contacted Lorna, Andromeda,
Wagner and Joe and told them in formal sober terms. That done, he
did a complete round of the operators, discussing the situation
with each and gathering as clear a picture of the effects as he
could.

“I have to
report to the President,” Cornelius said. “What will I tell
him?”

“Tell him the
truth.”

“What is the
truth?”

“I got it
wrong.”

“You were
still,” Glen had to put in, “a damned lot closer than any other
prediction.”

“But it was
still wrong.”

“Any idea
why?”

“A guess.”

“Give me your
guess.”

“Grayson isn’t
going to want to hear any guess of mine.”

“Give it to me
anyway.”

“Look at this.”
He pointed to the map on the board. “The position of the pilgrims.
The predicted position of the epicentre. The actual position of the
epicentre. Notice something?”

“A straight
line.”

“Perfectly
aligned. Which might just be a co-incidence, but there’s a more
likely explanation.”

“Which is?”

“Consider too
that the magnitude of the earthquake was far less than expected.
The pattern has been continual increase and Drongo insists it
should have continued to be so.”

“If it was
right.”

“I think it
was. But something—some force—diminished the impact and deflected
its position.”

“What could do
that?”

Thyssen allowed
a long pause before he said it.

“The
pilgrims.”

Through the
night the Orion flew on and with the coming of the dawn, the
unbroken green canopy of the Amazonian forest began to emerge out
of the mist. And ahead the snowy peaks of the Cordillera de los
Andes began to appear ahead. By then it had picked up a tail in the
form of a Peruvian Air Force FA18, that sat just below the trail of
mist from the four turbo prop engines.

Throughout the
night, various schemes had emerged and been discarded of how the
problem might be solved. Attempts to externally manipulate the
automatic pilot had been utterly unsuccessful, and although the
plane was climbing slightly, it had reached only four thousand
feet. Directly ahead lay Mt Huascaran, at over 22,000 feet and all
the surrounding terrain was 15,000 feet or more. The position at
which the Orion would hit had been minutely calculated by then and
a rescue helicopter dispatched from Lima to explore the location.
There was a long forested ridge in the foothills that the plane
might or might not get over, a broad river valley and then a sheer
10,000 foot rock face into which it would plough head on.

“Can we shoot
it down?” Glen had asked. “Here, in the valley, make it ditch in
the river. There’s plenty of open space.”

“It would drop
like a stone,” Captain Munro said. He was a USAF officer brought in
to advise on the problem.

They had a
detailed map on the monitor by then and stood around it. They were
getting video pictures from the rescue helicopter. Thyssen stood in
the background, his arms folded. Captain Munro outlined the
scenario.

“The best
chance of an outcome with survivors is if it clears the body of the
ridge but clips the trees, taking out the props. It will then ditch
on this down-slope, which is relatively featureless. But it will
still be travelling at 400 miles per hour. It will break up and the
wreckage will be scattered over a long distance. And it will still
be carrying half its fuel capacity. There will be fire. But, with a
lot of luck, a miracle might save one or two of them.”

“And if it
clears the trees?” Glen asked.

“Then the next
best option would be for the pilot of the FA18 to shot it down. It
will crash in the valley. Survivors, even as a miracle, would be
unlikely. But that is better than allowing it to ram into the
cliff, where nothing will be recovered whatever.”

“Does the pilot
know this?” Harley asked.

“Yes. And he
has agreed to shoot, on our orders.”

“Brave
man.”

“He understands
the realities. He will try to shoot out the props in the right
order. Without engines, it may glide for a short distance before
the nose goes down and it slips sideways. If it hits the ground
when reasonably level, there is a slight chance of survivors.”

“Will the
chopper be able to stay?” Cornelius asked.

“Oh yes. We
ought to have pictures right up to the crash.”

“Beautiful,”
Thyssen murmured, and turned away.

They waited.
There was a lot to do and it was a busy time, but they sat and they
waited. About the room, there were small areas of activity as other
emergencies arose. But mostly they waited and watched. The nose
camera of the FA18 provided a grainy but adequate picture of the
big prop-jet as it thundered on into the morning. When the pilot
dipped the nose, they could see the mountains and everyone
gasped.

Thyssen sat far
off in a back corner with his head in his hands, not watching, not
doing anything, riding the final minutes in sheer silent agony.
Then the helicopter reported visual on both aircraft, and he looked
up, stood, and advanced toward the large video screen on which it
was displayed. People said things, foolish babbling things, words
without thought, without sense, without meaning. Over the tree line
of the ridge, the two small spots grew bigger, until you to tell
which was which. They seemed to be coming on forever, then suddenly
they were there.

“Steady,
steady,” Captain Munro was saying into the microphone, although it
was unclear who he was talking to. Probably the fighter pilot.

Then suddenly,
after all the anticipation, it happened almost too fast for the eye
to see, certainly for the senses to comprehend. The Orion zoomed
over the ridge, well above the treetops.

“Shoot out the
props, now !” Munro yelled.

In jumpy video,
they could see the FA18 seem to hover above the Orion—something
flew from the wing and the plane immediately began to tilt
sideways. The jet maneuvered deftly and shot out the propeller on
the other side, but the Orion continued to slip sideways.

“Take the other
starboard engine next!” Munro bellowed, but the pilot reacted so
quickly, he had obviously perceived that for himself. This time
when the cannon shells hit, there was flame and great chunks of the
inner starboard engine could be seen to rip away. It worked, the
plane began to level out but then it dipped to starboard. Hastily,
the jet pilot was firing at the inner port engine when suddenly he
pulled away. Then they saw why, as the ground came into view. At
the stage, a full belly view of the banked aircraft was being
offered the camera.

Instantly, the
wingtip touched, it cart wheeled, and was gone. There was a huge
burst of smoke or dust, and flame flashed amid it and everything
was lost in the raging billows. Chucks of things, trailing smoke,
went ever way, and the cameraman zoomed out to offer a broader view
of the circumstances. There were eruptions and smoke and flame and
dust everywhere, and absolutely nothing that in any way resembled
any part of an aeroplane. Although he whispered, everyone in the
room could distinctly hear what Captain Munro said next.

“Yes, we can
see that, Lieutenant. Thank you for trying.”

The small group
of people stood apart at all times, isolated from the other
mourners, and although everyone was aware of them, no one
approached. In the chapel, they had taken the very back row, at the
graveside, they stood off a small distance, aloof and insular.

Wendell was
able to recognise most of them. The stocky, rugged looking man in a
military uniform he did not know but the tall black woman in
stately native robes and headband was unmistakably Andromeda
Starlight, her arm linked through that of Harley Thyssen, who
looked older and greyer than he seemed on television. His other arm
was linked by the radiant red-head Lorna Simmons, and then there
was Brian Carrick, whom he had met, wearing an ill-fitting black
suit.

They lowered
the coffin into the grave, but there was nothing of Felicity in
there for no part of her had been found. They buried her old
teddy-bear, her stethoscope and her favourite picture of herself
and a personal gift from each member of the family. The coffin
would have been empty anyway since she had promised her entire body
to medical research, but that promise remained unkept.

When that was
done, Wendell broke away from his weeping children, steering them
into the arms of his sisters, moved away from the other mourners,
and approached the isolated group. He looked directly into the eyes
of Harley Thyssen.

“She always
told us that what she was doing was safe.”

“There was
always great danger,” Thyssen said. “She was the bravest woman I
ever knew.”

“And she knew
the risk she was taking?” Wendell had to ask. It was self-torture,
but he needed to know.

“She simply
ignored it, and trusted me to keep her safe, and I let her down,”
Thyssen said without emotion. “I made a mistake and she paid the
price.”

Wendell glanced
sideways at the others, and each of them scowled in protest at
Thyssen, but only Brian spoke.

“You couldn’t
have known, Harley.”

Thyssen’s face
remained unflinching. So did that of Wendell Campbell.

“She believed
in you, Thyssen. To the exclusion of her family—and I know she
loved us with everything she had. To the exclusion of her career,
of herself. She never doubted you. And if you’re right and she paid
the price of that devotion, I doubt that she would have complained
about it.”

Thyssen bowed
his head, no longer able to manage words.