Endworlds - Nicholas Read [5]
Something significant. Something of great importance. Something of himself.
He’d met Jade in the summer of 1989. Beautiful, intelligent, and most important of all unquestioning, she had given him happiness.
And Paige.
If only her mother had lived to see what a startlingly bright, vivacious child their girl had become. But their joy proved too brief. Jade was taken from them in childbirth, and he had been plunged again into darkness.
His daughter was a flickering ember of the light that once was, and as Paige grew, her father found solace and purpose as her provider, protector, and teacher.
But though she gave Raef Eisman a lightness, she could not bring him light. Deep in his soul were secrets, told only to Jade, that he was no closer to unlocking.
For example, how he continued to look and feel not a day over fifty when by his own account he must be at least one hundred and twenty.
His ‘great uncle’ was the one who had taken the job at Burroughs in Detroit. It was his ‘father’ who had risen to the crest of the company. And it was the ‘son’ who now sat as Chairman of the Board of Burroughs Labs. All the same man, a clever century-old ruse to forestall questions.
It had worked well, as had most everything he had tried in four generations as he built his assets and made astute investments in property, stocks, and people. Live long enough and you see patterns repeat, the law of averages, the purity of numbers. With the foresight that experience brings, fortune was almost a certainty, even if it seemed at times like he got whatever he wanted, just for saying it out loud . . .
Ten years from now he would have to set the stage for his next heir to help up the corporate ladder. Maybe a distant ‘nephew’ for it was known that Raef had no son, and the industrial military complex was not his choice for Paige. Some day he would find an explanation for the mystery of his ongoing youth. Some day he might even find out how he had come to be stumbling around Siberia in 1908. Some day.
But today he was on a plane to Sydney with his little girl, and tomorrow there were important meetings to be had at Burroughs’ Oceania office.
He turned back to his sheaves of work.
It was a single bolt that struck the plane.
All the lights went out and screams filled the darkness as a flash of blue efflorescence rippled through the inside of the cabin in an instant. As the big jumbo dropped a couple of hundred feet and oxygen masks unfurled from their hidden overhead compartments, panicked screams rose anew.
More stoic than most, even Eisman clutched at the armrests of his seat. As soon as the plane steadied from its violent shaking, interior lights snapped on. He blew a sigh of relief and immediately turned to the rear of the cabin. Stewards trying to right a crashed drinks cart blocked his view of Paige’s row, and he ignored their cries to put on his seatbelt as he tried to push past them.
The slight strain in the Captain’s voice as it reverberated over the intercom system was understandable.
“Sorry about that, folks. Something to tell your friends about when we arrive in Sydney. We have clear skies ahead, the storm is now behind us and as soon as we get the cabin back in order I’m sure there will be a run on beverages, so please be patient as we fill your orders.”
Relieved sighs and nervous tittering sounded from various corners of the plane. A good executive, Eisman reflected. Someone he wouldn’t mind having on his staff at Burroughs.
Still blocked in the aisle, Raef saw that the metal drinks cart had slammed hard into the rear of one of the passenger pods. It actually appeared to be steaming and fused into the plastic, though that was clearly impossible.
Impatient with a delay of mere seconds when it prevented him checking on his girl, he doubled back and made better progress up the opposite aisle.
“Paige?”
No response. He raised his voice.
“Paige.” Still nothing. Had she slipped out of her seat belt? Given the speed and severity of the drop, she could have slammed