Звезда Пандоры

Somehow this part of it had been missed off the slick advertising and intensive, reassuring briefing sessions. Even the pilot skill training memory implementation hadn’t included it. Waiting helplessly as the wind from the ocean built from a gentle breeze to a deranged hurricane. Waiting, unable to do anything. Waiting, watching. Waiting and worrying. Waiting as fright emerged from some primal place deep in the brain, growing and growing.

“How’s it going, darling?” Estella asked.

“Fine,” you bitch. “Actually, I’m getting a bit nervous.”

“Nervous? Lucky cow. I’m scared shitless.”

Justine instructed her e-butler to run through the cockpit procedures again, checking the hyperglider’s systems. Even with the limited capacity of the onboard array, the e-butler produced a perfect control interface. Its review was instantaneous; translucent icons blinked up inside her virtual vision, everything was on-line and fully functional. “Remind me again why I want to do this?”

“Because it beats the hell out of breakfast in bed,” Estella told her.

“In a five-star hotel.”

“On a Caribbean island, with a veranda overlooking the beach.”

“Where dolphins are playing in the water.”

It was getting a lot lighter outside. Justine could finally see some thin streamers of sand drifting past the hyperglider. They must have blown in from the coast, she thought. She switched the weather radar to the main console screen, studying the blobs of vivid color as they surged and squabbled against each other. The storm was definitely on its way; scarlet ribbons representing dense high-velocity air were seeping across the screen like some kind of fresh wound, always expanding.

In a way she was glad the storm was heading in from the west, creeping up on her from behind. It meant she couldn’t watch the hammerhead clouds as they devoured the sky. She was quite frightened enough as it was. Even now she wasn’t sure she was going to make the flight. There was an option to just stay here; the hyperglider was currently configured into a smooth, fat cigar shape, the wing buds confined below the main fuselage; she could simply keep the tethers wound in, and let the winds roar around her until it was all over. Many had, so she’d been told, bottling out at the last moment. Right now, in the middle of the annual storm season, it was an average five-hour wait for the gales to sweep over.

Within twenty minutes, the wind was strong enough to start shaking the hyperglider. If there was sand out there, she couldn’t see it anymore. Red waves washed continually across the weather radar screen.

“Still there?” Estella asked.

“Still here.”

“Won’t be long now.”

“Yeah. Are you getting the same readings from your radar? Some of those airstreams are almost two hundred kilometers an hour already.” The digital figures for wind speed were blurring, they were mounting so fast. At this rate the storm’s central powerhouse would be overhead in another forty to fifty minutes, and those were the winds she wanted. If she took off now, the hyperglider would simply be driven into the base of Mount Herculaneum.

The radio band seemed to be full of bad jokes and nervy bravado. Justine didn’t join in with any of it, although listening was a strange kind of comfort. It helped keep away the sense of isolation.

Clouds were rampaging across the sky now, gradually becoming lower. They blocked the rising sun, cutting the illumination to a gloomy twilight, although she could still see the swollen tatters of rain charging off into the distance. The rock around the hyperglider began to glisten with a thin sheen of water.

“Wind’s reaching two hundred,” Estella called out. There was dread mingling with anticipation in her voice. “I’m about to release. See you on the other side, darling.”

“I’ll be there,” Justine yelled. The fuselage was shaking violently now, producing a steady high-volume thrumming; even the howl of the wind was penetrating the heavily insulated cockpit. The screen displays on the console in front of her were jumbled thanks to the quivering, jittering lines of color, completely out of focus. She had to rely almost completely on the more basic information inside her virtual vision. Gray mist was a constant blur outside, eliminating any sight of the sky or canyon walls.

Then it was time. The winds along the ground of Stakeout Canyon were over a hundred sixty kilometers an hour. Her radar showed the storm’s leading edge was now boiling up Mount Herculaneum ahead of her, and that was the critical factor. Those winds had to be there to carry her a long, long way. Without them, this was going to be a short trip with one very abrupt ending.