The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King [158]
recognised as holy yet wholly secular.
A man may search his whole life, for such a place.
Testimony, IV:6
WE COVERED THE TWO HUNDRED MILES TO Edinburgh in no time at all, the machine demurely slipping northwards as if in all the days since it had rolled out of the shop, it had never so much as hesitated.
This time, the problem lay not in the engine, but outside: As we flew north, the clouds tumbled down to meet us.
Fifty miles south of Edinburgh, the wind began—and not just wind, but rain. One moment we were grumbling along in the nice firm air, and the next the bottom dropped out of the world. It seemed eerily quiet as I rose out of my seat, stomach clenched and my skin shuddering into ice—until the machine slammed into air again and I was suddenly heavy as the propellers bit in and pulled us forward once more. It had happened so quickly, Javitz had not even shifted his hands on the controls. He glanced over his shoulder and laughed, more in relief than amusement. We climbed, I breathed, deliberately, and unclenched my rigid fingers from the seat. Two minutes later it happened again, only this time when the hole ended and we were buoyed and beginning to climb, a sudden gust from the side nearly slapped us over. Javitz fought the controls, raised our nose, and held on.
Then drops began sporadically to spatter my glass cage. Most of it blew past Javitz, but his hand came up several times, wiping his face.
It made for a long fifty miles, tumbling and tossing in the clouds. We came out of the mid-day murk alarmingly close to the ground, and Javitz corrected our course to point us at the aerodrome. A gust hit us just short of the ground and we hit the grass with a terrifying crack from below.
The American gingerly slowed the machine, and I waited for him to turn us about and head back to the hangers we had flashed past. Instead, he throttled down the motor, then stood to look back at the buildings: It seemed that we were to walk back to the aerodrome. I popped up the cover and started to rise, but he stopped me.
“Stay right there. We need your weight.”
“Sorry?”
“If you get out,” he explained impatiently, “we'll shuttlecock. Flip over.”
“I see.” I sat firmly in my seat, thinking heavy thoughts, until I heard voices from outside.
Two large men clung to the wings, the wind bullying us back and forth, while we came about and made our way back to the aerodrome. Only then was I permitted to climb down. I felt like going down on quivering knees to kiss the earth.
One of the men directed me to a café adjoining the air field, where I went in a wobbly scurry while the rain spat down and Javitz tied down the machine and contemplated the wounded undercarriage.
In the shelter of a room with a baking coal stove, I peered through the window and amended my thought: It appeared we would be making arrangements for repairs as well. Javitz and a man in a waterproof were squatting on either side of the right wheel, peering at where the struts connected with the body.
I closed my eyes for a moment, then turned and looked at the waitress. “Would it be possible to have something hot to eat? It looks as though I shall be here for a while.”
She was a maternal sort, and ticked her tongue at my state. “We'll get you something nice and warming,” she said, beginning with drink both hot and stout. I allowed her to slip a hefty and illicit dollop of whisky into the cup of tea before me, and downed the tepid atrocity in one draught. It hit me like a swung punching bag, but when the top of my head had settled back into place, I found that the impulse to pull out my revolver and begin shooting had subsided as well.
I placed the cup gently back into its saucer, took a couple of breaths, and decided that the day was not altogether lost. The men would fix the strut, the wind would die down, we would be in Orkney by nightfall.
And when we found that, in fact, Brothers had opted for Norway?
I would not think about that at the moment.
I reached for the tea-pot, and my eyes were filled with tweed: a man,