‘Okay,’ Brian said. ‘Just keep him away from me. I’d hate to have him grab me at the wrong second and send us into the edge of that thing.’
He turned off the autopilot and took control of the 767 himself. The floor tilted gently to the right as he banked toward the long, glowing slot ahead of them. It seemed to slide across the sky until it was centered in front of the 767’s nose. Now he could hear a sound mixing with the drone of the jet engines – a deep, throbbing noise, like a huge diesel idling. As they approached the river of vapor -it was flowing into the hole, he now saw, not out of it – he began to pick up flashes of color travelling within it: green, blue, violet, red, candy pink. It’s the first real color I’ve seen in this world, he thought.
Behind him, Bob Jenkins sprinted through the first-class section, up the narrow aisle which led to the service area . . . and right into Nick’s waiting arms.
‘Easy, mate,’ Nick soothed. ‘Everything’s going to be all right now.’
‘No!’ Bob struggled wildly, but Nick held him as easily as a man might hold a struggling kitten. ‘No, you don’t understand! He’s got to turn back! He’s got to turn back before it’s too late!’
Nick pulled the writer away from the cockpit door and back into first class. ‘We’ll just sit down here and belt up tight, shall we?’ he said in that same soothing, chummy voice. ‘It may be a trifle bumpy.’
To Brian, Nick’s voice was only a faint blur of sound. As he entered the wide flow of vapor streaming into the time-rip, he felt a large and immensely powerful hand seize the plane, dragging it eagerly forward. He found himself thinking of the leak on the flight from Tokyo to LA, and of how fast air rushed out of a hole in a pressurized environment.
It’s as if this whole world – or what is left of it – is leaking through that hole, he thought, and then that queer and ominous phrase from his dream recurred again: SHOOTING STARS ONLY.
The rip lay dead ahead of the 767’s nose now, growing rapidly.
We’re going in, he thought. God help us, we’re really going in.
16
Bob continued to struggle as Nick pinned him in one of the first-class seats with one hand and worked to fasten his seatbelt with the other. Bob was a small, skinny man, surely no more than a hundred and forty pounds soaking wet, but panic had animated him and he was making it extremely hard for Nick.
‘We’re really going to be all right, matey,’ Nick said. He finally managed to click Bob’s seatbelt shut. ‘We were when we came through, weren’t we?’
‘We were all asleep when we came through, you damned fool!’ Bob shrieked into his face. ‘Don’t you understand? WE WERE ASLEEP! You’ve got to stop him!’
Nick froze in the act of reaching for his own belt. What Bob was saying – what he had been trying to say all along – suddenly struck him like a dropped load of bricks. ‘Oh dear God,’ he whispered. ‘Dear God, what were we thinking of?’ He leaped out of his scat and dashed for the cockpit. ‘Brian, stop! Turn back! Turn back!’
17
Brian had been staring into the rip, nearly hypnotized, as they approached. There was no turbulence, but that sense of tremendous power, of air rushing into the hole like a mighty river, had increased. He looked down at his instruments and saw the 767’s airspeed was increasing rapidly. Then Nick began to shout, and a moment later the Englishman was behind him, gripping his shoulders, staring at the rip as it swelled in front of the jet’s nose, its play of deepening colors racing across his cheeks and brow, making him look like a man staring at a stained-glass window on a sunny day. The steady thrumming sound had become dark thunder.
‘ Turn back, Brian, you have to turn back!’
Did Nick have a reason for what he was saying, or had Bob’s panic been infectious? There was no time to make a decision on any rational basis; only a split-second to consult the silent tickings of instinct.
Brian Engle grabbed the steering yoke and hauled it hard over to port.
18
Nick was thrown across the cockpit and into a bulkhead; there was a sickening crack as his arm broke. In the main cabin, the luggage which had fallen from the overhead compartments when Brian swerved onto the runway at BIA now flew once more, striking the curved walls and thudding off the windows in a vicious hail. The man with the black beard was thrown out of his seat like a Cabbage Patch Kid and had time to utter one bleary squawk before his head collided with the arm of a seat and he fell into the aisle in an untidy tangle of limbs. Bethany screamed and Albert hugged her tight against him. Two rows behind, Rudy Warwick closed his eyes tighter, clutched his rosary harder, and prayed faster as his seat tilted away beneath him.
Now there was turbulence; Flight 29 became a surfboard with wings, rocking and twisting and thumping through the unsteady air. Brian’s hands were momentarily thrown off the yoke and then he grabbed it again.
At the same time he opened the throttle all the way to the stop and the plane’s turbos responded with a deep snarl of power rarely heard outside of the airline’s diagnostic hangars. The turbulence increased; the plane slammed viciously up and down, and from somewhere came the deadly shriek of overstressed metal.
In first class, Bob Jenkins clutched at the arms of his seat, numbly grateful that the Englishman had managed to belt him in. He felt as if he had been strapped to some madman’s jet-powered pogo stick. The plane took another great leap, rocked up almost to the vertical on its portside wing, and his false teeth shot from his mouth.
Are we going in? Dear Jesus, are we?
He didn’t know. He only knew that the world was a thumping, bucking nightmare … but he was still in it.
For the time being, at least, he was still in it.
19
The turbulence continued to increase as Brian drove the 767 across the wide stream of vapor feeding into the rip. Ahead of him, the hole continued to swell in front of the plane’s nose even as it continued sliding off to starboard. Then, after one particularly vicious jolt, they came out of the rapids and into smoother air.
The time-rip disappeared to starboard. They had missed it … by how little Brian did not like to think.
He continued to bank the plane, but at a less drastic angle. ‘Nick!’ he shouted without turning around. ‘Nick, are you all right?’
Nick got slowly to his feet, holding his right arm against his belly with his left hand. His face was very white and his teeth were set in a grimace of pain. Small trickles of blood ran from his nostrils. ‘I’ve been better, mate. Broke my arm, I think. Not the first time for this poor old fellow, either. We missed it, didn’t we?’
‘We missed it,’ Brian agreed. He continued to bring the plane back in a big, slow circle. ‘And in just a minute you’re going to tell me why we missed it, when we came all this way to find it. And it better be good, broken arm or no broken arm.’
He reached for the intercom toggle.
20
Laurel opened her eyes as Brian began to speak and discovered that Dinah’s head was in her lap. She stroked her hair gently and then readjusted her position on the stretcher.
‘This is Captain Engle, folks. I’m sorry about that. It was pretty damned hairy, but we’re okay; I’ve got a green board. Let me repeat that we’ve found what we were looking for, but – ‘
He clicked off suddenly. The others waited. Bethany Simms was sobbing against Albert’s chest. Behind them, Rudy was still saying the rosary.
21
Brian had broken his transmission when he realized that Bob Jenkins was standing beside him. The writer was shaking, there was a wet patch on his slacks, his mouth had an odd, sunken look Brian hadn’t noticed before … but he seemed in charge of himself. Behind him, Nick sat heavily in the co-pilot’s chair, wincing as he did so and still cradling his arm. It had begun to swell.
‘What the hell is this all about?’ Brian asked Bob sternly. ‘A little more turbulence and this bitch would have broken into about ten thousand pieces.’
‘Can I talk through that thing?’ Bob asked, pointing to the switch marked INTERCOM.
‘Yes, but ‘
‘Then let me do it.’
Brian started to protest, then thought better of it. He flicked the switch. ‘Go ahead; you’re on.’ Then he repeated: ‘And it better be good.’