The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [155]
“Bloke waved me down and asked me to give you this,” he said.
Javitz took the page in the hand that held the cup; whatever he read made the look on his face go grim again.
“What is that?” I asked.
He stuffed it into a pocket, and said, “Weather conditions. We'll have some wind, nothing to worry about.”
“I think—”
He turned on his heel and fixed me with an evil gaze. “I don't fly dual controls. You want to drive the thing? Go right ahead, it's your machine. If you want me to take you north, you're gonna have to let me do the worrying.”
Twice in a year I had climbed into an aeroplane under the control of someone in whom I had less than complete confidence. I must learn how to drive one myself, and soon.
I nodded, and let Lofte show me how to climb up the ladder. He followed me to demonstrate the special hinged cover that transformed the passenger seat into an enclosed box. I eyed the glass on all sides, wondering how hard a landing would be required to turn the windows into flying daggers.
I had brought my heaviest fur-lined coat, which I now wrapped around me. Javitz shook Lofte's hand and leapt into the pilot's open compartment in front while Lofte walked forward and waited for the signal to work the prop. Javitz fiddled with the controls in front of him, pulled on his goggles, then stuck up his thumb; Lofte vanished, the propeller kicked a few times before the engine caught, sputtered, then thundered into life. The fragile construction around me jerked and drifted forward. Lofte reappeared off the port side and waved at me with an air of confidence neither of us altogether believed. The sound of the big engine built, the seat pressed itself into my back, and with no ceremony at all we leapt once, twice, and the ground dropped away.
The compartment was freezing until the sun came up, then I sat in my mile-high conservatory and roasted. I tore the end off of my handkerchief and pushed little screws of the cotton into my ears against the unremitting bellow of the engine and the scream of wind. My bones rattled, my teeth threatened to crack unless I kept my jaws clamped shut, and the ground was a long, long way down. Tiny doll-houses grew among picturesque fields; miniature trains rode pencil-drawing tracks and emitted diminutive puffs of smoke: England was translated into an Ordnance Survey portrait, as real as a coloured moving-picture projected beneath our feet.
It was—if one didn't stop to consider the consequences—really quite thrilling.
We flew on through the morning. From time to time, Javitz craned to look over his shoulder at me, and once shouted a question. I shrugged; he laughed, and turned again so I could continue my study of the back of his coat, scarf, and leather cap.
Two and a half hours later, the engine sound changed and the ground began to grow nearer—slowly, which was a comfort. We had skirted several towns on the way up, and now I could make out the distinctive outline of York with its Minster off to the northeast. There was an air field here—field being the operative term—that Javitz seemed to know, because he made for it and took us down on the hard-packed grass. He shut off the engine, and I pulled the twists of cotton from my ears. They rang anyway. I let Javitz hand me down from my perch; on terra firma, I could feel my bones sway as if I'd been on a long sea voyage. I said, “It's hard to believe we left London at dawn and we're already in York.”
“You needn't shout, Miss Russell.”
“Sorry,” I said. “My ears are ringing.”
“But it's true, this is the next revolution in travel.”
Emergency speed was one thing, but I did not imagine