The roar continued. It must be raising an unholy ruckus in the main part of the habitat — a booming clamor echoing off the dome, reverberating in the closed space.
"Shit," I said without hearing my voice. "Tobit will wake up for sure."
I faced the main door, my hands pressed hard against my ears. Maybe Tobit would dismiss the sound as a delusion — some DT nightmare, to be avoided, not investigated. But the Morlocks would wake too, asking, "What's that noise?" in whatever language they spoke. Tobit would know he was missing something.
"Close, damn it," I told the door. "Close."
The lark moved: an unhurried circle to aim its beak toward the airlock. I swiveled my chair to keep watch on the other door. If it closed before Tobit arrived, he would never figure out what had happened — he would shrug it off and take another swig from his flask. But if he saw a previously hidden door in the side of the dome…
He was a drunk, but he was also an Explorer. He had a good brain, no matter how many neurons he'd pickled. In time, he'd find the truth… especially since the solution was as easy as detaching his prosthetic arm. The AI would acknowledge him as completely flesh and kowtow to him, laying the town's resources at Tobit's feet.
Tobit with an air force.
If he came to the door now, he might even catch sight of the missiles. It wouldn't matter that the weapons were disarmed. He could just instruct the AI to make more.
Maybe the next Exploration Team to visit Melaquin wouldn't find the surface quite so unspoiled.
The Second Farewell
Languidly, the lark wheeled forward. The light of the hangar gave way to the darkness of the airlock area. At least we're clear, I thought. No matter how angry Tobit may be that I kept this a secret, he can't catch us now.
The airlock door started to close.
We might make it, I thought.
Stupid.
Tobit and his disciples raced into the hangar. A Morlock pointed her finger at our plane — the source of the noise. Tobit's face twisted with fury. I had let him believe Oar and I were leaving in sharks, not a flier. He fumbled out his stun-pistol and pointed it in our direction.
His hand shook. I couldn't tell if it was a meaningless tremor or if he had pulled the trigger.
I remembered what my stunner did to the shark.
The lark vibrated. It had been vibrating all along, trembling with the roar of its engines.
Had he fired? Had we been hit?
The airlock door squeezed shut, cutting off the light from the hangar. We were in darkness.
The jet noise choked to burbling as water flooded into the airlock chamber. The roar in my ears faded to a damp hiss — not a real sound but an aftermath of the aural onslaught, my eardrums stunned into a bruised sensation of white noise.
I lay back in my seat panting. Behind me, Oar moaned; my hearing was so battered, I couldn't tell if her whimpers were loud or soft.
Should I unbuckle myself and go to her? That was dangerous… especially if the lark suddenly shot forward when the other, airlock door opened.
"Please," I said aloud to the plane. "Can we have some light? I want to see how Oar is."
A soft blue glow dawned around the edge of the floor — a ribbon of illumination barely the width of my finger.
It was enough; tears trickled down Oar's glass face, but she gave me a look of determined bravery. I almost laughed — she sat bolt upright in her chair, strapped in so tightly she could only move her head.
She would be all right. She was built to be immortal.
I turned away. With dim light inside and blackness out, I saw my reflection in the cockpit's glass.
My face was perfect. My cheek was perfect.
I was whole.
Part XV
BEAUTY
My Blindness
It was my face. It was not my face.
I did not know how to look at myself when I wasn't disfigured.
Was I now beautiful? Was I now merely normal?
What would other people think?
What would Jelca think?
It was ridiculous to ask such questions. I refused to be so weak that my self-image depended on others.
But I didn't know how to look at myself. I didn't know how to see myself. I didn't know how to assess myself.
Not that the reflection in the glass was truly Festina Ramos. I was wearing a mask: an invisible mask, but underneath there still lurked my purple "pride."
The real me: damaged… deformed.
But I couldn't see the real me. I didn't know what I was seeing.
A woman with clear brown skin. Strong cheekbones. Green eyes you could actually look at, without your attention being dragged downward in guilty fascination.
I couldn't remember ever looking into my own eyes — not beyond searching for fallen lashes and my few attempts at using kohl.
Were they beautiful eyes? What does it mean to have beautiful eyes?
What does it mean to be beautiful?
Up Revisited
The lark gurgled forward. "Lights off," I said — partly so I could see outside, partly to hide my reflection. Prope and Harque might gaze dotingly on their faces; but I wouldn't.
I refused to think about it. I refused to acknowledge it. I refused to be changed by it.
The glow at the base of the cockpit faded, leaving a dim aftershine still rimmed across my vision. There was nothing outside but blackness — a blackness that bubbled as our jets churned the water. At some point we must have passed out of the airlock into open lake, but I couldn't sense the transition: just a steady motion forward that gradually assumed an upward arc.
Rising out of the waters… born again with a new face.
I dug my fingernails into my bare arm as punishment for such thoughts. How banal can you get? I chided myself.
When the light finally came, it arrived quickly: from a glimmer far over our heads to a diffuse glow, then rapidly looming down on us until we broke through into late afternoon sunshine. Like a jumping trout, the plane shot out of the water then slapped down hard on its belly, not flying fast enough yet to stay airborne.
The impact jarred my teeth together, and Oar gave a yelp; then both of us gasped in unison as our swivel chairs locked into forward-facing positions and the engines kicked in with full jet power. A hammer of acceleration slammed me back with at least five Gs, pressing on me with such ferocity it emptied my brain of all but one thought: This better not rip off the skin.
Water tore away beneath us as the lark skimmed the water surface; then we were climbing at a sharp angle, still accelerating, still crushed back by the force. The pain was worst in my knees — they were propped over the edge of the chair as both my thighs and feet pressed backward, making a straining, two-way stretch. It was only a matter of time before soft tissue tore under the stress… but before that happened, the engines eased and the wrenching ache subsided.
Lightly, I touched my cheek. The skin still seemed in place.
I let myself breathe.
Altitude
Below I could see a modest lake a few kilometers across — not much more than a widening in the long fat river that lazed its way from one horizon to the other. I tried to memorize the look of the area in case I had to come back: in case Tobit made such a nuisance that I had to talk some sense into him. With luck, he would simply retreat into wounded inebriation. He would poison the Morlocks with his rotgut and it would never matter to the world that somewhere under the lake was a dome housing sullen drunkards.
"Festina!" Oar said excitedly. "We are flying!"
"Yes we are."
"Like birds!"
"Yes."
"We are high above the ground!"
"Yes." In fact, we weren't far up at alclass="underline" enough to clear any slight hill in the prairie, but at a much lower altitude than I was used to flying. For anyone below, the noise of our engines would punish the eardrums; however, there was no one down there but rabbits and gophers. From this vantage point, Melaquin looked pristine — an unspoiled natural world, devoid of messy civilization.