Aidan Redding Against the Universes

Forever Falls-3

Forecourt’s eyes bore into the point just between and above my eyebrows. “And?” Quiet background music would have smothered her soft voice.

“Something doesn’t make sense, ma’am.”

“Do tell.”

“Gupper’s team insists that he wouldn’t have climbed up. He hated leaving the building. And he wasn’t wearing climbing gear.”

“But he was up there.”

“I’ve checked with Transit. All the floaters are accounted for.”

Forecourt leaned back in her chair. “So he must have climbed.”

“I spoke with both daytime operators. Neither saw anything.”

“The cameras don’t have perfect coverage.” The Montague Corporation’s total border paranoia policy was somewhat relaxed in lifeless universes. “And we can’t record.”

“But there’s cameras pointing straight down all three ladders above the Shield. And the daily reporting keeps the camera crew mostly alert.”

“What about the overnight crew?” Forecourt asked.

“Gupper was seen by a member of his team before breakfast today.” I shifted my feet. It had already been a long day.

She raised a thin finger to tap her lips. “Indeed. And why didn’t this person say so earlier?”

“Doctor Cedar felt that the way she saw him was none of our business.” I gave a thin smile.

“I see. And were you able to corroborate her story?”

“One of the canteen crew, McDevitt, reported seeing him this morn. Gupper grabbed a coffee on his way to the lab. He was whistling.”

“And the canteen crew didn’t report him?”

“McDevitt didn’t realize who it was until I showed him a photo. Not those photos, ma’am.”

Forecourt arched an eyebrow. “I assumed not those photos, Redding. The ones you took this morning didn’t show Gupper’s face except as an imprint in the back of his skull.”

I fought the blush that threatened to creep up the back of my neck. I’d learned to control my attitude when I wanted something, but Forecourt could snark at her subordinates all she wanted. “Yes, ma’am.”

“So,” Forecourt said. “He wouldn’t have climbed up, he wasn’t dressed to climb, and he didn’t take a floater. Do you think he hitched a ride on a zeppelin, and it detoured so he could jump out?”

“The last people who saw him reported he was happy,” I said. “He wouldn’t have jumped.”

Forecourt snorted. “Are you saying—you are, aren’t you? You think he was—” The corner of her mouth quirked. “—pushed?”

“Ma’am.”

“Okay then.” The smile came out of hiding. Forecourt leaned forward, put her elbows on her desk, and steepled her fingers. “What do you want to do about it?”

I took a deep breath. “A zeppelin arrived this morning and left an hour later. If anyone on the flight in had seen anything, the passengers would have said something. But six people, counting the pilot, flew back. And nobody’s been back since.”

“So you want to meet the next zeppelin and talk to any of those six who come back, then catch the flight out the next day.”

“No, ma’am. I want a zeppelin to the Hindenbarge now.”

The snort became a laugh. “A special?”

“Ma’am, those people might come back by ones and twos all week long. If I have to talk to them one at a time it will take days. I’ll have to wait until there’s a morning none of them come back, and catch the zeppelin then.”

“I could send word with the next zeppelin. Tell them to come back the next morning.”

My spine twitched with added tension. “The longer I wait, the longer they have to get a story together.”

“And you’re going to interrogate them,” Forecourt said. “Oh, that’s right, your degree is Criminal Justice, isn’t it? Do they still do the virtual interrogation thing?”

“Virtual and role-play.” Oh, that sounds great, Redding. Now tell her you dressed up in a cowboy hat to play Thugs and Natives with the neighborhood kids.

“Well, then, you have it all sorted out, don’t you? Well, we have spare zeppelins, and those pilots just hang around picking their toenails. You can carry some messages for me while you go. Wear your metal-free uniform.”

I felt a surge of victory, then Forecourt said “Tell me, Redding. Have you ever been to the Hindenbarge?”

“No, ma’am.”

“They have their own security detail out there. And Security Second Lundbaugh is not as warm and fuzzy as I am.” Forecourt’s smile evaporated. “You will not make us look bad.”

I fought back a grin. “Yes, ma’am.” I’d grab my best uniform and pull out my fancy etiquette.

“That means,” Forecourt said, “no puking your guts out over the rail. Again.”

5Freefall had large zeppelins, even huge ones for cargo and large numbers of crew, but the four-passenger was the smallest we had. Woven wicker and bamboo formed the walls. Thin foam pads covered in blue cotton were tied to the wicker seats to provide a small amount of protection. The zeppelin had round portholes almost large enough to stick my head through, but the wicker covers were pulled tight, leaving the gondola lit only with the sunlight that seeped between the weave.

I’d lost lunch and missed dinner, so my stomach threatened to implode my abdomen any time now. A kind word to the canteen staff got me a box dinner, fried chicken with an extra serving of roasted potatoes and slaw. Normally I wouldn’t touch anything that greasy and heavy, but I felt ready to eat a camel if anyone had one handy. Duffel bag in one hand, boxed dinner in the other, I ducked my head to get through the hatch and discovered Takamoto and Cedar, sitting side by side in the front of the gondola, facing the rear door.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. When you don’t have wireless networks, when you don’t have implants or datalinks, when you don’t even have computers, the fastest communication you have is gossip. And we got by on raw gossip for hundreds of thousands of years.

Takamoto said, “Someone has to tell the rest of the team about Devin.”

“We heard about the emergency zeppelin,” Cedar said. “It had space, and—well, telling Kirk and George and Lyssa won’t get any easier tomorrow.”

I should have told Forecourt I wanted a private zeppelin. Getting information out of this morning’s passengers would be difficult enough without the Diffusion team so upset. With my luck, though, Forecourt would have told me to take a floater. Just fly straight into the sun, you can’t miss it.

I shifted my way through the hatch. The floor hardly gave at all underfoot. I tried not to think about what would—or, more precisely, wouldn’t—be beneath us once we took off, and tried to make myself comfortable in one of the remaining chairs. The bottom felt comfortable, but the back only came up to the bottom of my shoulder blades. A rack of glass eye goggles with silk straps hung on one wall. The cozy space smelled of bamboo and wood polish, with a growing note of fried chicken that my stomach threatened to lunge at. “No cargo?” I said.

“We have clean uniforms on the Hindenbarge,” Takamoto said.

So, Doctor, you do know the word ‘the.’ “They let you have the weight?”

Cedar said, “They have cargo steel out there. Thirty pounds of personal effects for each of us isn’t a big deal. And that’s Facility pounds, not Hindenbarge pounds.”

An older man with a mustache you could sweep floors with stuck his head in the hatchway. “You Miss Redding?”

“Yes.”

His lip curled. “Good. Welcome aboard the Tahiti Sunset. That makes you Cedar and… Takamoto.”

Cedar nodded.

He knelt through the hatch and pulled the door shut behind him. “I’m Mitch MacConnor. You’ve been through the zeppelin passenger training, right?”

We all nodded.

“Well, too bad. You get a reminder now.”

Cedar sighed. “We always do.”

“And you always will,” MacConnor said. “You each have a chute box under your seat. Get it out and put it on.” He pointed at the harness he wore. “Straps under the groin, around the waist, over the shoulders.”

The chute box was about the size of a thick paper equipment manual, but lighter than it seemed it should be. Takamoto and I had no trouble slipping into the silk straps and fastening the bamboo buckles, but Cedar had to crouch to keep her head from the wicker ceiling.

“These are self-folding, self-expanding chutes,” MacConnor said intently.

“Yes, we know,” Takamoto said.

MacConnor glared at Takamoto. “Pay attention again. You are about to go thirty kilometers in a wicker basket. A wicker basket designed to break apart.”

I blinked. “Excuse me—break apart?” My voice didn’t quite squeak.

MacConnor grinned. “They don’t put it that way in training, do they? No, it’s all ‘in case of emergency.’ Well, let me tell you. We can’t trust structural steel out at the Hindenbarge, so the zeppelins are structural bamboo. Under a silk hot air bag.” He cupped his hands together at right angles as if cradling a small bird. “If something goes wrong, if the bag blows, do you want everyone trying to fit out that little hatch? Or would you rather the cabin—” He gently let his hands come apart, opening them wide. “—clam-shell apart, nice and smooth?”

“If that happens,” he continued, “steer yourself clear of the debris. You had the parachute training, back on Earth?”

“Sure.” I’d enjoyed it. Even the part when they said Now fall five thousand feet before opening your chute, and steer yourself left and right. Each time I’d felt exhilarated from the moment I jumped, to when I again touched ground, all the way through dinner with my class afterwards.

“These chutes aren’t floaters,” MacConnor said. “But they’re big. You get out from under the debris before you open up, and they’ll slow you right the hell down, what with the upbreeze. And they stand out on radar. A blimp burst will get every radar on both sides screaming. You’ll have zeppelins on you in less than an hour. You won’t drop a kilometer.” He eyed me up and down. “Small as you are, you might even rise a little. Whatever you do, don’t steer. Steering makes you drop faster, so you leave the pedals alone. Let the zeppelins come to you.”

“But that hasn’t happened,” I said.

“Not for, oh, must be two years now,” MacConnor’s mustache grinned. “Hey, girl, don’t look like that. The bag blows, the clamshell dumps you clear instantly. It’s all mechanical. This stuff works, or I wouldn’t do it. Montague pays good, but my hide is worth more than that.”

“Right,” I said.

“You just keep that chute box on,” MacConnor said. “It’s amazing stuff. Light, strong, made out of omnifold fiber. Those things can be used a million times and they’ll still work just like new. And they’re reflective—they stand out against the red for three or four kilometers. Human terminal velocity without the chute is about eleven hundred kilometers an hour, but so long as you have a chute box, you’ll be fine.”

Cedar said “We’ve had someone on every flight since the Hindenbarge opened. Everybody’s come back safe.”

“Vell,” Takamoto said, “Marcus did hurt leg when clamshell—“

Cedar elbowed his ribs, not gently.

MacConnor double-checked the latch behind him. “Just to be safe, buckle in.” He grabbed the ladder to the pilot’s loft. “I’ll leave the roof hatch open so you can hear me, but it’s not an invite. You want a view, open a window.”

“Relax,” Cedar said. “It’s fine. Sit down and eat your dinner, you look like you’re starving.”

I plopped back into my seat, staring at the box of fried chicken. “You know, I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

6The wicker basket swayed gently around me, tickling primordial sense memories of rocking in a cradle or in my mother’s arms. My abandoned dinner’s aroma faded, leaving the scents of clean polished wood laced with machine oil and dust. The zeppelin’s old-fashioned electrical drive ran even quieter than the whoosh of the great bamboo fans it drove.