He made only a cursory mention of his rescue at the hands of their enemy and omitted all reference to the strange conversations with both the dark god and the unseen benefactor. The other men did not question the exclusion; they understood all too well. He was in the middle of describing the climactic battle with Krieger when his words became incoherent and trailed off altogether.
He slept for more than ten hours, blissfully unaware of the monotonous course they charted through the sky. He did not stir until through the fog of dreams, he felt the tremors of a water landing. Awakening brought with it a host of aches and pains, but a few moments of stretching allowed him to move without visibly wincing. The interior of the plane was dark but there was a dim light burning on the flight deck, and he made his cautiously up to the cockpit where he found his three companions staring through the windscreen. Though he couldn’t distinguish anything in the inky blackness, the pitching of the aircraft was indication enough that they had set down in rough seas.
“Where are we?”
Hurley, the only member of the group not involved in piloting, turned to greet him. “Cape Town.”
“South Africa,” Dodge replied blearily. He was struggling to remember why they would have ventured to the remote southern tip of the Dark Continent, the notorious Cape of Good Hope. He recalled something about… “You said we’re going to Antarctica, right?”
Hurricane nodded. “The fellows we, ah, questioned told us that they only went as far as a base camp on a bleak little lump of rock called Flat Island, a couple thousand miles to the south in the middle of the Indian Ocean. But their leader took the President on to a secret location using that flying disk ship of his.”
He paused long enough to take out a chart of the area in question. He rested a finger on a speck not far from the ice-covered polar region. “Now, we don’t know exactly where he went, but the round trip took about fourteen hours. We know that ship can’t fly faster than about fifty miles an hour, so the furthest he could have gone is about 300 miles. He went due south, and probably kept it in a straight line — no reason not to — which would put his secret headquarters somewhere in this area.” He put his finger on a spot in a section of the continent dubbed Wilkes Land. The region was completely devoid of the sort of markers one usually found on a map, not because the continent was featureless, but because it was so remote and austere that all efforts at charting the geography of the region had thus far met with failure.
“It’s winter below the equator,” Dodge observed. “We’re in no shape to mount a polar expedition even under the best conditions, but this time of year it will be impossibly cold.”
“The force field from the flying suits ought to protect us from the cold and all but the worst of the weather.”
That answer was so obvious that Dodge felt compelled to berate himself for not having thought of it before speaking.
“Don’t trouble yourself about it, son.” Hobbs’ flat voice floated back from the co-pilot’s chair. “We’ve had a lot of time to work this out.”
“And you’ve more than earned the right to lead us.”
“Lead you?” The offhand comment stunned Dodge, but when Hobbs came back to join them, he saw that both men were deadly serious. “Whoa. Hold your horses. I’m not anybody’s leader. The very idea is ridiculous. I’m just a guy who writes stories.”
Hurley was on the verge of speaking, but Hobbs silenced him with a plaintive gesture. “A poor choice of words. I think what my friend meant to say is that we’re quite pleased to have you along, and not just as an extra pair of strong hands. We’re a couple of old warhorses; you bring a fresh perspective that’s sorely needed.”
Dodge wasn’t fooled for a second. Hurley and — to a lesser degree — the Padre were looking to cast him as their new champion, and that was the last thing he wanted. Because that would mean Captain Falcon was truly lost.
At dawn they entered Cape Town to buy food and fuel. Hobbs made surreptitious inquiries to ascertain that their foe had not yet passed this way, but that in itself proved nothing; there were other places in Africa to refuel. Nevertheless, the Grumman’s range was considerably less than the X-314 and it was quite likely that their long, non-stop flight had put them well ahead of the dark god.
By noon they were airborne once more, winging into the turbulent wintry skies over the confluence of oceans. Aside from a scattering of desolate islets, there was nothing but water between the tip of Africa and the ice-locked southern polar region. It would take more than twenty-four hours of flight time, with an open water landing to refuel from their reserves, to reach their destination.
After they settled in for the long flight, Dodge broke the monotony by asking Molly for some rudimentary flying lessons. His motives were not entirely pure; it was mostly an excuse to spend time with her, but his curiosity about the principles of flight was real enough.
With an early winter twilight ruling the sky, he felt confident enough to attempt what proved to be an especially difficult landing. The heavier than air behemoth touched down on rough seas, rolling through twelve to twenty foot swells before finally coming to a stop.
“It’s funny,” he remarked, trying to conceal the edge of adrenaline that had left him slightly breathless. “A week ago I had never even been in an airplane, and now I can fly them.”
The red-haired girl raised an eyebrow. “I’d recommend you do that about a dozen more times before you ask Pan American for a job.”
To take off again, they tried a different approach, running at a slight angle in a trough, just enough to stay ahead of the moving mountain of water as the plane built speed. When they had enough velocity, Dodge angled up the face of the swell and vaulted aloft. Molly had given a little squeal of delight at the maneuver. Hurricane on the other hand retreated from the flight deck in search of a quiet place to throw up.
From that point onward, the atmosphere aboard the plane grew increasingly tense. Not only was the territory into which they were going held by the enemy, it was also well beyond the frontier. The charts of the region were woefully incomplete and unreliable.
The next day, they flew over Flat Island without stopping. The barely visible speck was a part of the mostly submerged Kerguelen Plateau that just happened to protrude a hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the ocean. They had been told that the remaining mercenary force — six men armed with exoskeletons — was lodged there awaiting their leader’s return. Hurricane was able to pick out the tents of their enemy’s camp, but saw no indication of activity. The island was their reference point; from here they would follow a due southerly course, flying as close the icepack as they dared. Every mile they could fly closer in the X-314 would translate to more than three minutes saved off their final approach in the much slower flying rigs.
It was mutually agreed that Molly would remain behind with the plane, tending the engines which they dared not shut down for fear that they might freeze up. Dodge was mildly surprised that she put up only a token argument against being excluded. It wasn’t until they threw open the hatch and felt the icy embrace of the polar wind that he understood her decision; born and raised in the steamy jungles of Africa, Molly had little physical tolerance for the cold.
Dodge had complete faith in Hurricane’s ability to navigate the remainder of the journey, which was more than Hurley could say. In a normal environment, the big man could easily chart a true course from memory, but here, where there were no landmarks to use as reference, it would be blind guesswork. As they left the shelter of the plane and glided out over the choppy seas, he discovered another monkey wrench in the works. Although their destination lay somewhere along the azimuth that ran to magnetic south, the compass did not work inside the force field. Hurricane would not be able to check the accuracy of their course until they reached hard ice.