Fifteen minutes later, he had completed three uneventful approaches to stall with no problem and was headed home. The sky was an achingly beautiful blue, with small cumulus clouds near his altitude. A flood of memories from a carefree time rushed at him as he slalomed between the white clouds, practicing coordinated turns with a grin plastered on his face. He took his own dare and punched right through a small puffy, reveling in the sudden dimness, the cool mist flowing through the window, and the blinding brightness as he burst out the other side. He had to stifle the urge to do a victory roll. You're flying an experimental, Jesse.
All too soon, he was approaching the field and it was time to concentrate again. He set up in a downwind at a thousand feet and throttled back as he checked his spacing before turning final. For the first time, he noticed people on the ground-a lot more than had been there when he took off-farmers working with horses in a small field, staring up at him, shading their eyes. A pickup truck was highballing it from town toward his place, raising dust on the gravel road, followed not too far behind by one of the town's buses. He recognized the pickup as the one set aside for the use of the President of the United States.
Well, shit.
Back in instructor mode. Okay now, Jesse, nice and easy. Let's make this a good one. Low and drug in, with lots of power. A real bomber pattern. Mind your speed. No other traffic. He grinned at the last thought.
He pulled off power and turned ninety degrees, descending, leveled the wings for a few seconds and turned to final, rolling out of the turn about one mile from the field at 400 feet, right over the Sterling house.
"Falcon 01 on final, gear down and welded," he made the old joke aloud, as he lined up on the intended touchdown point, coming in twenty feet over the small trees at the edge of the field. Lower, straight into the wind, the grass racing beneath the wheels. He glanced at the string, now slightly separated from the cowling surface. He tweaked the throttle back and felt for the ground with a small flair. Feeling the wheels touch, he let the machine settle, pulled the throttle to idle, and let her roll to a stop. Engine off. He'd waste no fuel taxiing.
Joseph Jesse Wood was down, back in the world of people and trouble, in the Year of our Lord 1633. And, judging from the way Mike Stearns brought his pickup skidding to a halt on the edge of the field, was about to catch his full share of that trouble.
Fortunately, Jesse's partner Hal Smith intercepted Mike before the obviously irate President had taken three steps from his pickup. By the time Jesse clambered out of the cockpit and started securing the plane, with Hans and Kathy's help, Hal seemed to have gotten Mike to simmer down a little.
Jesse gave silent thanks. The retired aeronautical engineer had a far more placid temperament than Jesse did himself. If he'd caught the first sharp edge of Mike's displeasure, instead of Hal, the thing probably would have escalated immediately.
Still, the inevitable could only be postponed for so long. "Finish it up for me, would you," Jesse whispered to Kathy. She gave him a quick sympathetic smile and he straightened up.
"-dammit, Hal, you both swore to me you wouldn't pull a stunt like this," Mike was half-bellowing. "I've got enough grief to deal with as it is, without people climbing all over me with another accusation that I'm presenting them with another high-handed and unilateral policy decision. Damnation-"
As Jesse walked slowly toward the arguing pair, he winced a bit. The accusation, applied to himself instead of Mike, wasn't too far from the truth. They had decided to launch this first, unauthorized flight, as a way of forcing the issue. Mike had supported them from the start, but there were plenty of people in the new government who hadn't been enthusiastic about the "harebrained" notion of restoring manned flight to the "new world"-not to mention a large pack of budding industrialists and entrepreneurs who'd resent the diversion of resources from their own pet projects.
Mike was glaring at him, now. "And you! What the hell's the idea of risking yourself-the only damn real pilot we've got except-"
Catching sight of Hans, who was practically grinning from ear to ear, Mike broke off. Then, sighed. Then, wiped his face with his hand.
"Oh, don't tell me," he groaned softly.
Jesse shrugged. "Sure, who else? But I couldn't very well let him take it up the first time. He's never flown before, Mike. Nobody around here has, except Lannie and the Kitt brothers and Bob Kelly and, uh, Bob's wife." As always, that woman was "Bob's wife." Jesse never used her actual name to refer to her. It wasn't that he had any particular prejudice against women flying, it was just that he completely, thoroughly and utterly detested the woman.
"And the Kitts and the Kellys are working on their own designs," added Hal, "so we could hardly ask them. And Lannie, well…"
"He's plastered half the time," concluded Mike glumly. His hand was still rubbing the lower half of his face, as his eyes remained on Hans Richter. "Not," he muttered, "that I don't wonder if a drunk wouldn't do better than him. Christ, the kid could wreck a toy wagon taking corners."
Jesse felt compelled to rise to his young German assistant's defense. "That's not fair, Mike. I won't really know whether he'll make a pilot until I get him in the air, of course. But the fact is Hans has got very good reflexes, and he keeps his cool pretty well when things get dicey-"
Jesse broke off. He was speaking from experience, to be sure, but he decided to skip over that particular episode. There was no reason to delve into the awkward fact that if Hans hadn't been driving like a maniac to begin with the pickup would never have fishtailed, even if the kid had pulled out of it with style and verve.
"I've driven with him too, y'know," Mike muttered between his fingers. He lowered his hand, and Jesse was relieved to see the hint of a smile on his face. "Okay, 'wreck' it, maybe not. Just put a zillion dents in it. And how many dents can an airplane stand, anyway?"
By now, the bus which had been following Mike had arrived, and started disgorging its passengers. With a sinking stomach, Jesse saw what seemed like half the government of the United States unloading-the executive branch, anyway. Not too many of whom seemed any too pleased, either.
Mike glanced over his shoulder. "We were in the middle of a cabinet meeting when you flew over the town. Nice timing."
Luckily, the first one up was Frank Jackson. Frank wore a lot of hats, one of which was "Mike's good buddy" and another was "Vice-President of the United States." Rather more to the immediate point, however, was a third one: "General." His precise title had still never been decided, but what it amounted to in practice was that Frank was the "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff"-on a "staff" which had exactly one member. Himself.
Best of all, Frank and Jesse liked each other, and Frank had been supportive from the beginning also-more even than Mike, in fact.
Frank's first words, however, caused Jesse's stomach to plummet.
"Congratulations!" he boomed. " 'Greetings' and all that. You're recalled to service, Jesse. Pick your own title, as long as it's not too fancy. But call it whatever-I'd recommend a simple 'general'-you're now in charge of the U.S. Air Force." He grinned wickedly. "And the 'chiefs' are now actually joint."
Jesse started to protest, but one look at Mike's face squelched that idea. He was, after all, still a reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force, even if that 'United States' was gone somewhere, in some other universe. And he'd been half-expecting this development, anyway, if he could prove that manned flight was practical.