Micro - Michael Crichton [139]
Behind him, upwind, the hollow of Tantalus Crater spread out. The crater was dark like a cave; no lights in the crater, no sign of Rourke’s Redoubt or Tantalus Base. Directly below him, roads snaked up the flanks of the ridge. Lights burned along the roads. Ahead of him the towers of the city were coming perceptibly closer, until they seemed to burn with energy and rise to impossible heights. For a moment he felt as if he was flying into the capital city of an alien galactic empire. But it was only Honolulu. He still couldn’t see Diamond Head Lighthouse.
The wind was carrying him toward the hotels that stood along Waikiki Beach. He wanted to go more to the left, more toward Diamond Head. He experimented with the control stick and with the throttle. He banked left and kept the power on high. He looked around.
He did not want to be blown into the city; that would be certain death. He would be crushed by traffic or sucked into the air-conditioning of a building. So he increased the power to EMERGENCY MAXIMUM, and kept his course toward Diamond Head. A screen flashed a warning: EXCESSIVE BATTERY DRAIN. Remaining flight time: 20:25 min…18:05 min…17:22 min…the remaining flight time was dropping like a stone. He would run out of power in minutes.
He checked his airspeed. The readout showed 7.1 MPH / 11.4 KPH. He found the radio panel and switched it on. “Mayday. Mayday. This is Daniel Minot. I’m in a small plane. A very small plane. Does anybody hear me? Mr. Drake, are you there? I can’t reach Diamond Head…I’m being blown into the city…oh my God!”
A hotel loomed up like a first-order battleship from outer space. He saw two giants standing on a balcony, a man and a woman, holding drinks in their hands. His plane rushed toward them uncontrollably, carried in the wind. Their heads were bigger than Mount Rushmore. The man put his drink down and reached toward the woman, and pulled down the shoulder strap of her dress, exposing a colossal breast with an erect nipple standing out six feet. The man fondled it with a hand of horrifying size, and their faces closed in for a kiss…As his plane rushed toward a collision, he screamed and fought the controls, and passed between their noses under emergency power, propeller churning, and the plane was caught in an eddy of wind and swept around the corner of the building and out of sight.
The man jerked away from the woman. “What the hell—?”
She had seen something weird. A tiny man flying a tiny plane. Lights blinking on the wings. The tiny man had been screaming. She had distinctly heard his insect-like whine over the sound of a buzzing motor, and she had seen the open mouth, the staring eyes…it was impossible. One of those waking dreams. “The bugs are awful out here, Jimmy.”
“It’s these flying cockroaches they got in Hawaii. They got wings.”
“Let’s go inside.”
Danny regained control of his aircraft as the wind seemed to decrease. He flew across Kalakaua Avenue, where he looked down on the nighttime crowds. He noticed that he had stopped being blown sideways. His plane was flying faster than the wind was blowing; he was making headway now. He banked and headed northeast, and flew along the length of Waikiki Beach, straight toward Diamond Head.
Now, as he peered at the famous shape of the headland in the moonlight, he saw a blink of light. On, off. Darkness. On, off. It was the lighthouse.
“I’m saved!”
He backed down the power a little, and left it at FULL CRUISE, because it would be a disaster if the battery ran out now. He was getting the hang of this. It was a matter of technique.
He gained altitude. He wanted to stay above the buildings, keep plenty of distance above them. It was funny how life could turn around so fast. One moment you think you’re ruined and dead, the next you’re on your way to the best hospital and admiring Waikiki Beach in the moonlight. Life was good, Danny thought.
A shape came out of the night. He saw a flash of wings—he threw the stick