Nick, however, was enjoying himself. He had visited the islands countless times before—the same conditions that made it the perfect hiding place for fugitives made it the ideal retreat for lovers—but usually in MHD saucers, so smooth and silent and fast that one might as well have been riding an elevator. On the other hand, this great, rickety wooden bird, with its guy wires spread like harp strings and its taut silk skin, made him feel as though he were actually flying. Airplanes were risky.
Climbing to the islands, for example, he sensed that the plane was about to stall. He had stalled before, nearly smashing them all into the side of a mountain, so he knew what to do. He pushed up the throttle and lessened the angle of inclination until once again the climb was stable. The shadows of the islands passed over them like a giant raven’s wing.
Suddenly the plane shot forward; they had been caught in the Island Stream, the hot wind that accompanied the islands in their circumferential flight. Nick backed off the throttle until they were flying at the same speed and the huge slabs of earth appeared to be standing still overhead.
Here the islands were closer together; their edges nearly interlocked, like pieces of broken pottery. The spaces between them were sometimes as narrow as ten feet, seldom as wide as fifty, and Nick would have to pass between them in order to rise above them. The task was made more difficult by the islands’ tendency to shift slightly in relation to each other, occasionally closing up the spaces altogether, like ice floes. Even skilled pilots had been crushed between islands; in this unfamiliar, eccentric craft disaster seemed inevitable. Nick damned himself for ever giving up the MHD saucer.
He had chosen the largest piece of blue sky he could find, at the intersection of three islands. Now that he was scarcely twenty feet below it, the islands had begun to come together, the rough walls of earth closing in on them like a gargantuan vise. To change course would have meant hopelessly entangling the plane in the long dense growth of roots which trailed from the undersides of the islands. He had no choice but to continue climbing and try to get through the space before it closed, like a last-minute dash through the subway doors.
He jammed the throttle all the way forward. The engine coughed from receiving so much hydrogen so suddenly; for one heartrending second it almost died, then it picked up again with a screaming whine, and inch by inch, they rose.
Nick aimed as carefully as he could—the space between the islands couldn’t have been more than the wingspan with inches to spare—and he was almost through when something tugged to the left; the wingtip had caught on the island. Nick felt himself losing control, he felt the plane beginning to cartwheel. He applied full right rudder and aileron to compensate and for an eternal instant the plane seemed to be standing on its tail. He tried to climb, but they had lost too much speed.
They were just emerging from the black shadows into the sun, into the clear sky above the islands. The slabs of earth were moving slightly faster, and if he could stay in the air another few seconds a fair-sized island would be beneath them. Five seconds would do it, but the engine was sputtering . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
Nick killed the engine and the plane fell like a stone, ten feet to the surface of the island, and crashed there with a bone-shaking thunk.
He sat perfectly still, uttering small prayers.
Hali’s voice came meekly from behind, “Is it over?”
“Yup.”
She sighed deeply. “Life has not been without its small surprises since meeting you, Mr. Harmon.”
“I try to keep it interesting,” Nick said. ‘‘Shall we get out?”
He flipped open the canopy and the hot wind of the Island Stream ruffled his thick black hair. He unhooked his safety belt and stood up and Hali screamed. Like a see-saw perched at the edge of a cliff, the airplane teetered horribly to the left. Nick could see the surface of Sifra Messa rushing by ten thousand feet below. He sat back down and the airplane tilted back to the right.
"Don't move a finger," he whispered.
Then, keeping his weight as far right as possible, he shimmied out of the cockpit and lowered himself down the side of the fuselage, holding the edge of the cockpit with his fingertips.
He saw the problem when he reached the ground. While the right tire and the tail wheel sat firmly on earth, the left tire hung over the abyss between islands. He ran to the end of the right wing and leaned on it, and shouted for Hali to help Althea out of the plane.
Empty, the plane was quite light. He and Hali, who had paled almost to the color of a robin’s egg, had little difficulty rolling both wheels onto solid ground. They moved it under a grove of palm trees and covered what still lay exposed with fronds and enormous ferns. Then they collapsed.
Nick was exhausted, yet his blood was pounding so hard he could see it against his closed eyelids, like a pulsing red light. He felt Hali’s hand take his own, her four fingers lacing with his, and heard her whisper, “You are my hero, yes? My knight with shining arms?”
“Yeah,” Nick said, and laughed.
He felt her satin beak rubbing against his face, nipping at his skin with the tip, and the excitement of fleeing turned easily into excitement of another kind. The sparkling effulgence of her skin grew thicker; it was like a fine oil to the touch and smelled like no perfume Nick could remember. And suddenly he understood the purpose of it: it was a kind of electrolyte helping a strange sort of current pass between them wherever their bodies touched.
When he was aroused beyond what he could bear, she guided him into the silky wet fold between her legs. His organ fit strangely there, like a foot in the wrong shoe, yet in the misfit there was additional pleasure. As the pressure of the semen gathered in his groin, she placed her palms flush to his temples, the effulgence sealing them in place, assuring complete contact, superconductivity, and he felt a warmth radiating from them, a sweet, ticklish electricity; and as it grew in intensity he began to understand why people died and the stars expanded and why the universe was divided into a male and female principle. She whispered to him in a strange sibilant language and when at last they came, perhaps a million years later, she bit a small piece out of his cheek.
II
Bound and gagged, Althea watched them make love. Later she tried to get his attention.
“Uhh! Uhh! Awahh eee.’”
“Okay, okay,” Nick said, rubbing his eyes.
Gingerly he plucked the ball gag out of her mouth. It was like uncorking a carbonated beverage or pulling a knothole out of a dam. She spat at him, she called him every horrible name she could think of. she even tried to bite him, but he pulled away too quickly.
“You shitty, fucking liar.’” she screamed. “You promised to show me how the alien made love!”
“You just saw it,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Untie me,” she ordered. “I’ve got to pee.”
Nick rolled her over on her stomach and set the combination lock so the cuffs sprang open. While he was kneeling down to untie her ankles she almost succeeded in opening his skull with a sharp rock, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. Nick knocked her down and they grappled in the grass. She bit him and scratched him, but somehow he managed to get the cuffs back on.
“You’ll have to pee like that,” he said. “Sorry.”
She tried a few kicks and when it became obvious that she w’as helpless, she screamed, “Nicky Harmon, you are the most despicable, miserable and loathsome individual in the entire galaxy!'' and hobbled away.