“14,000 feet. Fourteen thousand four hundred.”
“Steady on this course.”
“15,000 feet. Fifteen four hundred.”
“Oh yeah, we’ll be there in just a few damned minutes. Just like an entire distorted aquatic ecosystem and weird society has developed around floating villages on stilts in the midst of the Great Pacific Trash Vortex, I expect we’ll find the marginalized poor are the inhabitants, forgotten and stranded in Sky City, fending for themselves. They’ve reconstructed a semblance of lives and livelihoods in the wind, dust, and trash storms of the sky—”
“If we get there—”
“When we get there. You’re going to come about, so the gale-force currents don’t crush the lateral bulkheads against the swirling edges and jagged parts of the debris rings. In fact, it’s almost time you turn about and reverse course, transfer the remaining ballast into the nose—”
“But—”
“If you don’t do it quickly the winds will crush the power-generating titanium frame against the trash in the vortex. Before we get to the edge, the rift in the stratospheric isotherms, I’ll leave the ship strapped into a paraglider, and I expect I’ll instantly get sucked up into the vortex, straight into Sky City. The hard part won’t be getting in—the hard part will be not ending up ripped to pieces by a tangled mess of radio antennae and radar dishes strung up in high tension power lines, flatcars and water tanks, oil tankers, and remains of Amazonian rain forests. But if I can drop anchor on a stable structure of some kind, I should be able to pull myself in on the ropes or rappel into shelter.”
“What about getting back on the ground? What about getting home?”
“I’ll be in radio contact if I make it. First I want you to drop down a thousand feet and circle clockwise at fifty knots against the south-by-southwest wind. If I find survivors, I’ll bring them out via paraglider. One at a time, as many as I can.”
“The first eyewitnesses! Everything will change when they start telling what they’ve been through. Ambassadors of the New Era! You, Captain, will be a hero! Our Party has always maintained the existence of this phenomenon and some others, recognition of which by the masses would provide us with the credibility that would be the first step to power. I’d almost believe I was shaking and trembling if I didn’t know it’s the steering wheel vibrating like crazy. How can the ailerons take it? Won’t there be structural damage?”
“Titanium. Steady as she goes. You realize, don’t you, that these people might not tell a story that serves the interests of your Party? From the Plan de Ayalá to the Plan de Aztlán, from the Soviet Five-Year Plans to Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom, none of these ideas ever look the same in the daylight. On the ground. Oh now—are you crying? Don’t cry, kid!”
“Sorry!”
“Come on, I’m relying on you. I’m gonna release my paraglider into the slipstream, and it’s gonna be hell getting back against those gale-force winds. Meanwhile it’s all on you, whether any of us lives or not.”
“I know. Sorry! It’s just a little … I struggle my whole life in the streets with the blown-out industries of civilization collapsing all around us, and survive to be here, to be able to see this day—”
“I’ll take the wheel a second. Dry your eyes; you’ve gotta see clearly to make the maneuver, turn about, and descend into a calmer air column.”
“I’m all right. Just … I know everything might not go the way they say. I don’t really think it will. Nothing ever goes like anyone plans. I’m grateful we even get the ghost of a chance. Even if I find out later it was all some fairy tale, sci-fi fantasy daydream, I won’t even care at that point. Because we took the chance. That’s all I’ve wanted. I’m so grateful, at this moment, that’s all. Whatever happens.”
“I am too! I thank you for your heedless skill and reckless youth, new pilot! Let me shake your hand. A comradely embrace. Take the wheel. You’ve given me a chance at the happiness of a lifetime, and for the masses it’s a glimmer of a new day. Here on, it’s up to you.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll turn about and make the descent; I’ll get the berths ready for our first survivors while I stand by. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, would you look at that?!! That looks like some terrible thunderhead—you can see the debris sticking out of it like torn-out tree roots, stuff swirling inside of it like flocks of birds—”
“That’s just the leading edge of the tumorous fulminating debris cloud. According to my charts, the densest interrelated conglomeration is a few miles south of us—”
“Augusto César Sandino, what is that? What just hit us?”
“That’s the lead edge of the wind I was telling you about. I estimate that thousands or millions of plastic bags, whipped by a hurricane-force gale, are layering like warm slush on the fins, rudder, and engines—”
“Already? Sounds like the ocean smashing against us.”
“Just the beginning!”
“Very hairy and scary, señor!”
“Just the beginning!”
“Oh!”
“Yeah, it’s going to test the tensile strength of the titanium frame for all it’s worth! To think that for years I disguised the frame as the outer housing of the Zep Diner on Main Street, people stepping inside as if it were an ordinary restaurant. I’d hate to lose the income from that business. I built my whole life on carnitas and pozole. Are we almost about?”
“110 degrees. 135.”
“I’d better go suit up.”
“Good luck, sir! 160. Two more minutes!”
“How do the engines feel? How’s the ballast?”
“Ballast set, 125 degrees, nose tending to drop 5-10. I can barely hold it up.”
“But it’s holding?”
“Holding. Holding for now. Feels like four to five minutes at the most. The position is already degrading.”
“I’m going, then. Remember, you drop a thousand on my signal.”
“Terrible wind shear—”
“Yeah. Good luck, kid! Radio headset channel on—I’ll be talking to you.”
“Roger that. Let me know if—”
“What?”
“Good luck!”
“You won’t be able to see the paraglider. I’ll communicate over the headset.”
“I’ll be listening for you.”
{“I’m out! [continuous