Burning Bright

The pilot shrugged one shoulder, her attention still on the displays that filled the air in front of her, visible only through her links. “Not too bad. The rain’s fading, and on the screens it looks like we’ll have some better air for the next forty minutes or so.” She looked down at her controls again, and Damian hastily fastened himself into the safety webbing. “I have clearance from the tower,” Cossi went on, “so I can lift whenever you’re ready, Na Damian.”

Damian touched the intercom button, opening the channel to the passenger compartment. “We’re ready to lift, Na Speaker. Please be sure you’re strapped in, this could be a rough ride.” He took his hand off the button without waiting for an answer, looked at Cossi. “Ready when you are.”

The flyer lifted easily, jets whining as it rose past the warehouse fronts and through the lower levels of sky traffic. As Cossi had predicted, the winds did not seem to be as strong as they had been, though the flyer dipped and shuddered. Damian clung to the edge of the hatchway, peered out the tiny window toward the Old Dike and the cliffs that marked the edge of Barrier Island. Even in the grey light, it was easy to make out the five projecting bits of cliff face that were the Five Points; he could even see the sparkle of lights behind the rows of windows. The Soresins’ palazze looked busy, a swarm of servants and robohaulers clustered around an ungainly-looking cargo flyer, unloading supplies for the family’s annual first-big-storm party. Behind him, Loreo laughed softly.

“Looks like the party’s on.”

Damian nodded. “Pity we can’t make it.”

The flyer lifted further, looking for a clearer path through the updrafts off the Barrier Hills, and for the first time Damian had a clear view of the sky to the south. Wedges of grey clouds piled over and on top of each other, steel-colored overhead, shading to purple at the horizon; their edges met and meshed, deforming under the pressure of the wind. The light that came in through the flyer’s forward screen and windows was dull, lifeless, dim as twilight. The flyer banked sharply, heading south past the last of the hills, and Damian caught a quick glimpse of the mouth of the Inland Water. The storm barriers were up at last, three ranks of dark, wet metal closing off the channel, and the waves were starting to break against them, grey-green walls of water streaked with skeins of foam that were startlingly white in the dim light. Damian shivered, thinking of a childhood visit to Observation Point just before a storm. The low, hemispherical building, set on the southernmost point of Barrier Island, on a spur of land that curved out into the sea, had obviously been built to withstand the worst hurricanes, but he had never forgotten the sight of the surf pounding at the base of the cliffs, throwing spray and stones ten meters high. At the height of a bad storm, the man in charge had said, boasting a little but also stating simple fact, the waves broke completely over the station for hours at a time.

“We’re going to have to land from the southeast,” Cossi said, breaking into his train of thought. “Otherwise we’ll be crosswise to the wind.”

“Go ahead.”

Damian braced himself as the flyer bucked, dropped several meters, but then Cossi had made the turn, and the flyer steadied slightly, riding with the wind instead of against it. They dropped lower, and Damian saw the scrubby trees bent even farther into the hillside by the wind. The family’s landing strip gleamed ahead of them, the rain-darkened pavement outlined by double rows of tiny blue lights. The flyer fell the last few meters with a roar of jets, and then they were down, Cossi converting the drop smoothly to forward momentum. The braking fans rose to a scream, and died away as the flyer came to a stop, directly on the markers.

“Nicely done,” Damian said, and meant it.

Cossi smiled, in genuine pleasure, then turned her attention to the difficult task of prying herself out of the control links. “Do you want me to wait for you, or do I head back to the city?” she asked, still working herself free of the controls.

“There’s no point in your flying back,” Damian said. “Put the flyer under cover—the hangar’s rated to stand a class three—and then you can either wait it out here or take a groundcar.”

“I’ll wait,” Cossi said.

Damian nodded, and swung himself out of the pilot’s compartment. The others were already standing on the rain-spattered pavement, ji-Imbaoa still hissing to himself, his household clustered miserably at his back. Cella was standing a little apart, a little behind them, her eyes downcast, hiding that unnerving smile. Damian managed a smile in return, wondering what she was up to, and waved them on toward the house itself. He could see Ivie waiting in the doorway, light blazing behind him. Shutters covered the windows; he glanced hastily over his shoulder and saw Loreo by the door of the domed hangar, guiding Cossi and the flyer inside.