Wind Spindle Chapter 22

Kallo  sucked air through her nose and mouth, lion-like;  even if she were going to use a new method of flying it paid to know the wind.  But Tassy's voice cut through her usual trance:  "Just try from standing stll.  Rotate your arms out and arch your torso forward."

Kallo gasped as she found herself suddenly zooming above the desert floor.

""Now reverse your postures!" Tassy yelled.

Kallo didbringing her shoulders down and slapping her arms to her sides,, and stopped dead in the air, every sensation as if she had bashed her head full force on a ceiling, except for a crushed skull.  In fact, her skull did feel a bit crushed.  Her breakfast shot in a long arc through the air.  "Gradually!" Tassy yelled.  Kallo coughed and hacked. 

"On the ground, Tassy danced away from the shower of vomit and yelled up,  Perfect!  Now bring your posture in like you're tightening a spin, and you can come gradually back to ground."

Kallo  crossed her legs, folded her arms across her chest and bent her head.  It worked.  It was even graceful.  Kallo spun slowly down and landed gently on her feet, then bent, retching.

Tassy was dancing from foot to foot.

Thay was great!  A great first flight!"  

Kallo looked grimly at her through watering eyes as she hawked and spat.

"OK,"  Kallo said hoarsely, coughed some more and cleared her throat.  "How do I get into layout position?"

They had another ten minutes of practice time before the call came from Bowl security.

Like the guards who clambered over the, sandstone surfe\ace of the grid tower Tassy wore a chute, but id she were to fall it  would still be fatal; she would tumble brutally down the cliff face before the chute opened.  Kallo tested her lofting control once again, then dropped down.  Tassy was already in a losing scramble, desperately trying to dig her hands into the scree as she slid down the crumbling cliff face.  Kallo plunged below Tassy's altitude, banked and flew up the cliff face, holding out her arms.  SHe and Tassy both said "Ooof!" as she scooped Tassy into her arms; they lost several meters of elevation, but wonderfully, the lifters weres tronger than Kallo, who felt her arms giving way giving way to drop Tassy.  "Hang on!" Kallo shouted,The lift controls were stronger than she was, and  Tassy's arms were wrapped snugly around her neck.  "I missed one!" Tassy  hissed.  Kallo managed to glide low enough over the landing platform that Tassy could let go and land without injury.   "I missed one of the charges!" she yelled again.  Kallo landed on her feet, wincing.

"Which one?"

" It's just below the platform!"  Tassy ran along the edge of the platform, threw herself on her hand and knees, and began crawling along the edge, looking down.

 

Kallo jumped off he platform, lifted back into a hover at Tassy’s level, hover, watching Tassy as she pointed.  Kallo finally saw the black wire charge, ripped it from the rock, and tossed it away.  

Del's bulk smashed into Kallo from the left; he slid down her body and wrapped his arms around her ankles, giving a yank.  Kallo screamed.  She hit her lift controls and pointed her toes, trying to slip out of his grip.  He grabbed her ankles with both hands, twisting.  Kallo screamed again and looked down at him.  He looked up at her with a fiery-eyed coyote grin, before he was struck between the eyes with a fist-sized stone.  Kallo looked up to see Tassy staggering on the edge of the landing platform, arm still swinging from the throw, metallic silver pigtails glittering in the canyon breeze   Kallo looked down to see Del banking in a turn; he was looping back and heading for her again. 

WIth his bulk Del could go much faster than she, and he had a head start.  Kallo plunged  down into the canyon with all resistance pulled in, arms tight to her sides.

She was able to look back and saw Del heading for her at bone-crushing speed.  Kallo pulled all her chute.  Her peripheral vision faded as she greyed out, though she made out the fluttering black shapes of old friends flying toward her. as everything went silent.  Del zipped by her, missing her by inches and wheeling his arms as he passed through the flock of crows.  She retracted her chutes, plunged downward to gain velocity and and hit her lifting controls at the same time; she curved upward in an Immelman maneuver at a velocity she had never experienced.  “Thank you Tassy, Thank you, Tassy” she muttered as she went up and up, gaining speed.  The suit began to harden and pressurize and a fresh jet of 02 hit her lungs, waking her with a start.

For a moment she forgot to check the settings.

She finally found the controls, her heart pounding.  In a controlled hover, she ias able to look around her at the shimmering layers of outer atmo, at the glitttering stars above in velvet black and the rich orange curve of Mars below.  Kallo took a shuddering breath at the beauty of it.

Here was where she had always wanted to be, the place of her dreams.  High above the world, nestled between Mars and space.  She could keep going, float out into the black and be done with all the problems.  Gliding out to the stars, free forever.  Floating away from the grief and the fight and the pain that would never go away.

While Del destroyed the grid.

Dohna's hand seemed to pull on Kallo's wrists again as her voice in Kallo's head demanded, "Can you kill?"

Kallo took a last look at the curve of the world, said goodbye to it, and prepared to plunge downward..

For one horrible instant she felt weightless, and wondered if she would be able to head back down or if she had gone too high.  But soon she felt the pull of Mars, and slipped into a tumble.  Her heart pounded in her ears, her breath pluming in her mask.  

She finally corrected her flight attitude and was able to resume the correct posture for navigating at speed.. She released her first chute, and after the jerk that shook her bones again she was able to scan the advancing ground.

Del was climbing the Central Grid Tower, followed by several Bowl security guards including Tocho,  Kallo's heart thundered again as she flew as close as possible to the side of the tower and clipped Del with her feet.  She screamed in pain, but managed to bank quickly and then use the grav resistors to slow herself so she could look back.  

Del was falling.  He was tumbling, righted himself, pulled a chute but then crashed into the side of the canyon, leaving a stain on the rock.  He crashed into the canyon wall once again, fortunately missing the Bowl security guards,  this time falling heavily afterward, his chute bearing his limp body with head nodding and four limbs swinging until he hit the sand and  rolled like a broken doll to a stop, face-down.  

Kallo was sobbing.  She tensed her shoulders and lifted to the landing platform.  She stumbled onto the  platform.  Tassy ran to her. 

"Kallo, are you OK?"  Kallo sobbed as Tassy's hands lightly gripped her limbs, crying out when Tassy touched her ankles.

"You are really hurt, Kallo.  Those might be compound fractures.  Wait and I'll call medical."

"In a minute." said Kallo.

She tried to rise, could not stand, and then began planting her hands and elbows on the rock and dragging herself.

Kallo crawled across the landing, through the doorway and pulled herself up the short stairway.  Her ankles hadn't truly begun to hurt until now, they became a shrieking din over everything else.  She stood long enough to put her face to the ID panel to blink and breathe, then fell again, crawling into the tower room as the door slid open.  It denied her entry.  She had grown too much.  Kallo groaned in frustration and called out to Tassy, who leaned into the panel until the door opened.  "I'll reprogram that today." Tassy muttered.

Kallo sat on the floor, looking up at the familiar control room.  She had never been in here when her father wasn't in his chair.  It stood empty, in its usual position at the console, as if it remembered where it was supposed to be.  

The screens ringing the room blinked on.  Kallo scanned the screen that scanned the east canyon floor, looking for Del's body.  It was gone.  A line of wheelmule tracks led through the canyon, toward Arturos.  

Kallo wondered, Did that Jennifer take him?  Or did  CompanyOne  just want to dispose of him, for whatever reasons?  

She realized she didn’t care.

Now this room was hers.  The instruments would bring the barrage of constant information to her feed, first on the world.

Above the din of her pain Kallo felt the first crushing sensation of responsibility for the free communications grid for her entire planet.  She would need to train, delegate, manage.  It would all have to start soon.

Alone, numb but for the violent throbbing of her injuries, Kallo sighed.  She leaned her head back against the wall and stared up through the skylight, in a trance.

Then she felt a tickling on her wrist.   

She looked down.

A robot moth with uneven legs and milky blue glowing eyes looked up at her.

In her father's voice it said, "Hello, Puffin."