He tried again to open his eyes. The tacky blood holding them shut gave a little but would not let go. He managed to work one hand up to his face.
It brushed the remains of his nose and he gave voice to a low, tired scream of pain. Inside his head the trumpets blared and the bees swarmed. He waited until the worst of the pain had subsided, then poked out two fingers and used them to pull his own eyelids up.
That corona of light was still there. It made a vaguely evocative shape in the gloom.
Slowly, a little at a time, Craig raised his head.
And saw her.
She stood within the corona of light.
It was the little girl, but her dark glasses were gone and she was looking at him, and her eyes were kind.
Come on, Craig. Get up. I know it’s hard, but you have to get up — you have to. Because they are all here, they are all waiting... but they won’t wait forever. The langoliers will see to that.
She was not standing on the floor, he saw. Her shoes appeared to float an inch or two above it, and the bright light was all around her. She was outlined in spectral radiance.
Come, Craig. Get up.
He started struggling to his feet. It was very hard. His sense of balance was almost gone, and it was hard to hold his head up — because, of course, it was full of angry honeybees. Twice he fell back, but each time he began again, mesmerized and entranced by the glowing girl with her kind eyes and her promise of ultimate release.
They are all waiting, Craig. For you.
They are waiting for you.
7
Dinah lay on the stretcher, watching with her blind eyes as Craig Toomy got to one knee, fell over on his side, then began trying to rise once more. Her heart was suffused with a terrible stern pity for this hurt and broken man, this murdering fish that only wanted to explode. On his ruined, bloody face she saw a terrible mixture of emotions: fear, hope, and a kind of merciless determination.
I’m sorry, Mr Toomy, she thought. In spite of what you did, I’m sorry. But we need you.
Then called to him again, called with her own dying consciousness:
Get up, Craig! Hurry! It’s almost too late!
And she sensed that it was.
8
Once the longer of the two hoses was looped under the belly of the 767 and attached to its fuel port, Brian returned to the cockpit, cycled up the APUs and went to work sucking the 727–400’s fuel tanks dry. As he watched the LED readout on his right tank slowly climb toward 24,000 pounds, he waited tensely for the APUs to start chugging and lugging, trying to eat fuel which would not burn.
The right tank had reached the 8,000-pound mark when he heard the note of the small jet engines at the rear of the plane change — they grew rough and labored.
“What’s happening, mate?” Nick asked. He was sitting in the co-pilot’s chair again. His hair was disarrayed, and there were wide streaks of grease and blood across his formerly natty button-down shirt.
“The APU engines are getting a taste of the 727’s fuel and they don’t like it,” Brian said. “I hope Albert’s magic works, Nick, but I don’t know.”
Just before the LED reached 9,000 pounds in the right tank, the first APU cut out. A red ENGINE SHUTDOWN light appeared on Brian’s board. He flicked the APU off.
“What can you do about it?” Nick asked, getting up and coming to look over Brian’s shoulder.
“Use the other three APUs to keep the pumps running and hope,” Brian said.
The second APU cut out thirty seconds later, and while Brian was moving his hand to shut it down, the third went. The cockpit lights went with it; now there was only the irregular chug of the hydraulic pumps and the lights on Brian’s board, which were flickering. The last APU was roaring choppily, cycling up and down, shaking the plane.
“I’m shutting down completely,” Brian said. He sounded harsh and strained to himself, a man who was way out of his depth and tiring fast in the undertow. “We’ll have to wait for the Delta’s fuel to join our plane’s time-stream, or time-frame, or whatever the fuck it is. We can’t go on like this. A strong power-surge before the last APU cuts out could wipe the INS clean. Maybe even fry it.”
But as Brian reached for the switch, the engine’s choppy note suddenly began to smooth out. He turned and stared at Nick unbelievingly. Nick looked back, and a big, slow grin lit his face.
“We might have lucked out, mate.”
Brian raised his hands, crossed both sets of fingers, and shook them in the air. “I hope so,” he said, and swung back to the boards. He flicked the switches marked APU 1, 3, and 4. They kicked in smoothly. The cockpit lights flashed back on. The cabin bells binged. Nick whooped and clapped Brian on the back.
Bethany appeared in the doorway behind them. “What’s happening? Is everything all right?”
“I think,” Brian said without turning, “that we might just have a shot at this thing.”
9
Craig finally managed to stand upright. The glowing girl now stood with her feet just above the luggage conveyor belt. She looked at him with a supernatural sweetness and something else... something he had longed for his whole life. What was it?
He groped for it, and at last it came to him.
It was compassion.
Compassion and understanding.
He looked around and saw that the darkness was draining away. That meant he had been out all night, didn’t it? He didn’t know. And it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the glowing girl had brought them to him — the investment bankers, the bond specialists, the commission-brokers, and the stock-rollers. They were here, they would want an explanation of just what young Mr Craiggy-Weggy Toomy-Woomy had been up to, and here was the ecstatic truth: monkey-business! That was what he had been up to — yards and yards of monkey-business — miles of monkey-business. And when he told them that...
“They’ll have to let me go... won’t they?”
Yes, she said. But you have to hurry, Craig. You have to hurry before they decide you’re not coming and leave.
Craig began to make his slow way forward. The girl’s feet did not move, but as he approached her she floated backward like a mirage, toward the rubber strips which hung between the luggage-retrieval area and the loading dock outside.
And... oh, glorious: she was smiling.
10
They were all back on the plane now, all except Bob and Albert, who were sitting on the stairs and listening to the sound roll toward them in a slow, broken wave.
Laurel Stevenson was standing at the open forward door and looking at the terminal, still wondering what they were going to do about Mr Toomy, when Bethany tugged at the back of her blouse.
“Dinah is talking in her sleep, or something. I think she might be delirious. Can you come?”
Laurel came. Rudy Warwick was sitting across from Dinah, holding one of her hands and looking at her anxiously.
“I dunno,” he said worriedly. “I dunno, but I think she might be going.”
Laurel felt the girl’s forehead. It was dry and very hot. The bleeding had either slowed down or stopped entirely, but the girl’s respiration came in a series of pitiful whistling sounds. Blood was crusted around her mouth like strawberry sauce.
Laurel began, “I think—” and then Dinah said, quite clearly, “You have to hurry before they all decide you’re not coming and leave.”
Laurel and Bethany exchanged puzzled, frightened glances.
“I think she’s dreaming about that guy Toomy,” Rudy told Laurel. “She said his name once.”
“Yes,” Dinah said. Her eyes were closed, but her head moved slightly and she appeared to listen. “Yes I will be,” she said. “If you want me to, I will. But hurry. I know it hurts, but you have to hurry.”