"There's the birthday girl!" gushed Dory when Remiel showed up
at her house with her brother Samael in tow. With a basement and
four floors all done up in finely crafted hardwood, it was one
of the more magnificent homes in Havilah, lying halfway up
Treehouse Hill. Cubby called it the Shybear Hut, as though it
were merely an alpine shelter.
Remy said, "I've got my heart set on taking a road trip."
Dory said, "Do I need to remind you the first week of June is
finals, and you can't afford to miss it. You've already slipped
a year behind us. Do you want to make it two?"
Remy said, "My wings are starting to come in."
Dory drew close to wrap her arms around her, and sure enough she
could feel a pair of bony stubs under Remy's blouse. "My mother
is a nurse, Dory. I can't hide these from her. Dr. Wahkan will
tell her it's nothing to worry about, but we both know my mother
will take me to a doctor in Lusk for a second opinion. You can
imagine what will happen after that."
"Quarantine. Federal agents snooping all over Havilah. You're
right, finals can wait. The faculty won't punish you for doing
the right thing."
"I need to hide until my wings start actually looking like
wings. Then my mother might listen. For now I just want you to
show me how to make a halo."
Dory smiled and said, "Oh, you mean like this?" And suddenly she
was enveloped in a bubble just like Glinda the Good Witch of the
North, transparent and colorless rather than translucent and
pink.
With reduced weight, she was able to do a double backflip in the
sight of Remiel before landing on her feet and letting her halo
snap off. Then she said, "It's complicated, like swallowing, but
who ever taught you how to swallow? You just know."
"It's my birthday, Dory. Where's my Dizzy Lizzy?"
And Dory's gaze narrowed a bit. "How did you know such things as
Dizzy Lizzies existed?"
Remiel shrugged and said, "I have a tutor these days."
"Anyone I know?" "It's not any one of the professors here in
Havilah. I must be a hard case, Dory. I drew someone from
Upstairs."
Cubby joined them and he caught the tail end of the
conversation, enough to ask, "Is that a new seraph? Did Avyah
finally decide to get a living avatar?"
Remiel shook her head. "Not yet. My tutor's name is Hope. She
said she's really Davar."
"Davar's back for his much-anticipated second run?
"He's slumming it now," said Remiel. "One disciple instead of
twelve."
“But I thought the elohim on our side were dead set against
serial possession. They'll do it once, but never twice. They
fear dissolution."
"They have good reason to fear it, Cubby. The living star Ayot
and Avram became Ser Uriel, and now Avram's dead and Uriel got
rolled back into Ayot. Do that too many times and there would be
damn little of the original Ayot left over. She's tried to warn
the Other Team, but they never listen. She's watched them do
this to themselves time and again for four thousand years. But
Davar seems to have found a way around the problem."
Dory chewed on this news for a bit, then told her brother why
Remy had come to the house. "She wants to see her Dizzy Lizzy.
Somebody spoiled the big surprise."
Cubby said, "Fine, but we'll have to walk to the campus. Dad's
already at Temple and he took the Woodie."
The Shybear place was usually in a whiteout situation that
cleared up a little when one dropped off Treehouse Hill. Two
blocks west of the Academy's music hall, Gran Via crossed the
brook Eschol on a bridge.
Cubby led Samael, Remiel and his sister down the riparian left
bank of that stream. They went about four hundred paces, until
the creek turned to the northeast to flow on to Lake Taijitu.
From there they struck off overland toward the Academy until
they arrived at a large concrete apron painted with guidelines.
This was an outlying area of the Migdalel College campus.
Previously, Remiel had no idea it even existed. The shore of the
lake lay along the north side of the flight line, at the bottom
of a slope of boulders.
Cubby said, "You should see this place at night, all lit up."
Dory said, "Yeah, the lights pulse and light up the fog. When
you're looking down at this place from above you can't miss
it.”
“From above,” muttered Remiel, annoyed that she had been
missing out.
A hangar resembling a giant Quonset hut made entirely of wood
was built right on the field. There were two giant roll-up doors
on each end. Dory led the way through the offices inside the
hangar as though she owned the place. In a sense she did. Dory
had already logged many hours of flight time.
To Remiel, this place reminded her of the tunnels under the
Temple, a whole new world unknown to her, but simultaneously one
in which the Shybear kids were thoroughly immersed.
Double doors at the end of the hallway past the offices led into
the main space, which was dizzyingly enormous. At a glance, Dory
saw all eight Dizzy Lizzies parked in the hangar and drew near
to one with an aluminum skin. In outline it was a squat
hexagonal pyramid made of metal. She said, "Here's yours, Remy."
And indeed Remiel's name was lovingly painted on the aluminum
skin in white script. The thing was built on a base five meters
flat-to-flat. It rested on three wheeled pylons a full meter off
the deck and was itself a meter thick. At the crew positions,
two separate glass bubble canopies lay wide open like book
covers, on hinges. The core of the vehicle was a hollow cylinder
two meters in diameter, with flow baffles slung below and two
counter-rotating propellers, each one with its own motor on a
lubricated chain drive.
Cubby ascended a ladder installed on the hull and reached down
to pull the girls up. There were areas marked NO STEP.
Dory said, "Try to stay on the non-skid."
Remiel looked down into the central core and asked, "Why does it
have two propellers?"
Dory said, "The short answer is Isaac Newton. You know, for
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A Dizzy
Lizzy would really make you dizzy with just one propeller."
Cubby added, "Those baffles direct the thrust and tilt the whole
thing, because after you get airborne the idea is to actually go
somewhere." "Why is mine so shiny?" asked Remiel.
Dory told her. "These things are supposed to match the color of
your wings. I think yours are coming in silver."
For some inexplicable reason, this made Remiel start to cry, and
both Dory and Cubby instinctively moved in close to comfort her.
They were confused, and if they only knew what Remy knew, it
would break their hearts also.
Remiel accepted the love of her kinfoklk and seemed to rally a
bit. She asked, "Where's your own ride?"
Dory pointed at another Dizzy Lizzy that was identical to hers
in every way, except it was sky blue, matching Dory's feathers.
Remiel looked around and counted the aircraft. "Have they taken
two of them out? I only see eight, but there's ten elyonim."
Cubby said, "Mom's a runner, not a flier, and Serael's halo may
make her invisible but it also makes her totally blind."
Remy crouched to touch the aluminum hull of her own. She said,
"I want to take mine up."
Dory started at Remiel for a moment to make sure she was
serious. She was. Dory said, "Good thing Sammy came with us. I
think the boys can wheel your Dizzy Lizzy outside. But unless
you can already make a halo, that's as far as it will go."
"Then take me up, Dory. I'll ride shotgun."
"You've really got your mind made up about this thing with your
momma, don't you?"
Sammy said, "I wanna go with." But Dory shook her head no. "It's
just a two-seater. There's a small compartment for luggage, but
riding in that would be about as fun as being thrown in the
trunk of a car."
"What about that wheelchair?" Remiel nodded aside. For the first
time, Dory noticed a wooden wheelchair sitting there by itself
in the middle of the hangar. It was like a material non
sequitur.
"Who left that standing there?" asked Dory.
Remiel said, "That was Hope. She says she wants to teach me a
lesson about operational deception, among other things. But I
made the wheelchair myself in Woodshop. Do you like it?"
"Woodshop! I didn't know the Academy had Woodshop."
"It's not just Woodshop, it's me offering, ah, continuing
education to the faculty while everyone is busy making baseball
bats or electric guitars or what-have-you. It's a pleasant hour,
but it's also where your professors get their marching orders."
But suddenly all the pieces fit into place for Dory. She said,
"This is a Prank! You're on a Prank." Remiel said, "I'm on my
graduation Prank, and it's not a safe one, so I'm glad Sammy
can't go along. Or Cubby too, for that matter. I've grown quite
fond of him, if you've noticed." Cubby winked at her when he
heard her say that, and he broke out into a broad smile.
"Aren't you quite fond of me?" asked Dory with mock
timorousness.
"Yes, I'm quite fond of you, too, Dory, but I can't fly without
you, and Hope is of the mind that you should go along." Dory
wasn't even a tiny bit afraid to go, but she did ask, "Why were
you crying just a moment ago?"
"Oh, I was just feeling sorry for myself."
"Why?"
"Hope showed me some things yet to come. I'm going to be
drop-kicked a couple times."
Dory's mouth dropped open like a hatch. Suddenly she didn't want
Remiel to go anywhere.
But Remy told her, "You won't get hurt, and you won't have to"
see the worst of what happens to me. But I do need your help"
for this first part. "Where did you want to go? "
"Basically due south. A little west. We're supposed to buzz this
little place in New Mexico, a new Army base where there isn't
supposed to be an Army base."
"The Army mightn't like that," Dory suggested.
Remiel replied, "No shit. And after buzzing this particular one
they will go absolutely crazy. Hence the designation of Prank."
Dory grinned at that. She asked Sammy to fold up the wheelchair
and load it into the "trunk" while she took Remiel to the hangar
offices to file a flight plan. She also drew two box lunches,
and acquired the appropriate maps. Most important of all, Dory
arranged for a a fuel truck to meet them at a certain place in
Colorado, a place she had already checked out before on a
previous flight.
"Your Dizzy Lizzy can only go about five hundred klicks before
it needs gas," Dory explained. "It's got two engines, and it
basically hovers, it doesn't glide."
"I get it," Remiel said. "I really do. It's just physics and
there's nothing miraculous about it, not even the halo."
“Newton once again,” Dory said. “He gave us a universe of
mathematical precision and everything that fit in that little
box was ‘natural’. So people came up with the idea of the
supernatural for everything that didn’t fit. Before that they
just assumed everything was natural, even angels.”
“And ever since then House Haivri went behind a veil.”
"The Family has several landing pads set up in a ring around
Havilah, for refueling, to give us a big footprint, but your
proposed Prank is taking us further still.”
"So?"
"So! Before we can buzz that base, we need to hit a gas station
somewhere. Granted, you do have an X-ration sticker and plates.
The Academy managed to swing that, and it will probably only
work one time, but it will work."
"Then how hard can it be?"
"Gas stations have attendants. Somebody's gonna gas us up. They
are going to have quite the story to tell."
"Let them talk," Remiel said." "Angels haven't always been
mythical creatures like fairies. Dory told me the Academy
has been keeping a very low profile since the days of the
Enlightenment, but now she thinks that whole idea has played
itself out. That's really what this Prank is all about."
Dory squeezed Remiel's arm and walked across the hangar floor to
open one of the roll-up doors.
Remiel grinned at Cubby and said, "Come here." He drew near and
was rewarded with a kiss, but this alone seemed to worry him a
little. He said, "Why do I feel like there's something you're
not sharing with me?"
Remiel said, "This thing I gotta do, this field work, Joshua
says it's going to be a pretty long Prank. Your sister will be
back home fairly soon, but I'm gonna take a lot longer."
"What does a lot longer mean numerically?"
"Five months? In fact, it'll take a whole 'nother Prank just to
get my ass back here. But you'll have my brother with you."
"And all this was cooked up by this Hope person in Woodshop?"
Remiel nodded her head. "I've learned more from her in six
months than all the time I was here at the Academy, and that's
really saying something."
Now, with the door open, Sammy and Cubby wheeled the aluminum
Dizzy Lizzy outdoors. It wasn't an easy labor. Sammy and Cubby
were able to do it alone, but it still took both of them because
it was so wide and ungainly.
Seated apart in their individual crew bubbles, the only way Dory
and Remiel could talk to one another was over a headset. The
engines started, and Dory's halo expanded to encompass the whole
vehicle.
She said, "I'm going with Notch Three," and when Remiel
asked about it, Dory further explained that Notch Three meant
acceleration inside the bubble would be close to 3 meters per
second per second, a little less than what one feel on the
surface of Mars.
"What's Notch Zero?"
"Notch Zero is nothing. You just float, and the Dizzy Lizzy
falls. Notch Ten is normal gravity."
Remiel felt euphoric. It was her first experience of reduced
gravity, but the feeling was short-lived.
Dory throttled up, and the Dizzy Lizzy rose into the low cloud
layer that perpetually draped Dole Crater.
Remiel's heart seemed to drop into her stomach. But soon they
reached altitude and leveled off. They were above the fog, but
still at Notch Three, and the euphoria returned.
Remiel saw Migdalel Butte, the central splashback peak of Dole
Crater, poking above the fog and the undulating rim enclosing
everything.
The sky is never visible from the town of Havilah. There are no
stars evident, no moon, and no sun. The high humidity modifies
the temperature gradient between night and day. Street lamps
backlight the fog by night, and by day things don't get much
brighter. There are no discernible shadows in Havilah, so
sundials are useless. Havilah exists in a timeless suspension
that plays havoc with circadian rhythms, and the perpetual lack
of direct sunlight adversely affects the psychology of people in
Havilah. Only a certain breed can stand it.
Angel Academy operates one local radio station, broadcasting
from the summit of Migdalel Butte. It offers no current news and
plays a diverse mix of songs from every preceding decade, doing
nothing to give the townspeople a firm sense of the present. The
Dizzy Lizzy had one radio apiece in each crew compartment. Once
they were clear of the Havilah fog, Remiel wanted to know what
music they had in places where it actually was the first of June
in 1943.
The nearest town big enough to even have a radio station was.
Lusk, Wyoming, about thirty-five miles away to the south and.
west It wasn't a very powerful transmission, and there was a.
lot of static, but Remiel caught half of "That Old Black.
Magic" by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra .
Remiel asked how fast they were going.
Dory said, "We're making the usual one hundred ten knots. So
about two hundred klicks per. I'm not so much in a hurry as I
want to get to that waypoint in Colorado with a little bit more
than just fumes left in the tanks."
"Comin' In on a Wing and a Prayer" by The Song Spinners was a
massively popular song about a damaged bomber limping home but
Remiel didn't much like hearing it just then, considering the
circumstances. Besides, it was getting too staticky now. She
turned it off. Such was life on the Great Plains, with big zones
of nothing between radio stations.
A half hour later when Remiel saw the green band along the North
Platte on the horizon up ahead, she went searching for music
again. She heard "You'll Never Know" by Dick Haymes. It was a
sentimental song about separation and longing, popular among
sweethearts separated by the war.
Next was "I've Heard That Song Before" by Harry James and His
Orchestra, and featuring Helen Forrest. It had been dominating
the charts for over two months.
By the time they crossed the Arkansas River, Remiel decided
Wawokiya's kid, Ehawee Wicasa, knew exactly what she was doing,
running the Academy radio station back in Havilah. Lirael kept
everyone up to date. She just liked to mix older things in with
the new.
Dory began to descend to the waypoint.
Remiel asked, "Do you know who is supposed to meet us there?"
"The front office said it'll be Cadence." And Remy was
delighted. Cadence was her favorite lan, her favorite among the
immortal Nephiloth. Cadence once told Remiel a story about
something that happened when Remy was still very young, perhaps
only two.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| A massive black stallion became the terror of three |
| counties. The animal broke fences, escaped corrals, bit |
| handlers, and kicked down stable walls. |
| |
| A Stiffneck breeder arrived in Havilah and sought out |
| Remiel's birth mother. "Professor Ariel," he said, "I will |
| pay five hundred dollars to the person who can break that |
| horse." |
| |
| She accepted because she knew the money could go toward |
| building homes for certain of the Kuwapi poor. Ariel slowly |
| approached the animal. The horse stared back and rolled its |
| eyes. |
| |
| Ariel discovered this was really Cadence, who was a |
| shapeshifter. She was also something of a castaway in time. |
| Moreover, she was a Nephiloth exchange student from Kemen |
| and a notorious truant. |
| |
| Cadence insisted she wasn't hurting anybody. "I'm taking a |
| gap year. Back home everyone expects great things from me up |
| here. Instead, I'm struggling. So I ran away." |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| The breeder assembled a crowd to witness Ariel tame the |
| monster. Ariel walked into the paddock and scratched behind |
| one ear. The horse transformed into a naked young lan. Ariel |
| quickly covered her with a blanket on account of the |
| assembled crowd. |
| |
| The Stiffneck removed his hat. "Well. That explains some |
| things." |
| |
| The reward money was paid. The Kuwapi council of elders |
| built their houses. Cadence returned to school. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Dory's waypoint was a well-marked concrete pad, a miniature
version of the Academy flight line. Soon after Dory made her
landing, a fuel tanker arrived. It was a big aluminum gas tank
on a steel chassis with black trim. The massive semi hauling it
was nearly all black. Two pillars of black soot rose from the
exhaust pipes.
The truck stopped. The engine stopped. The cab opened, and the
driver who got out looked like an equally menacing human version
of his giant truck, all black leather and chrome studs, with a
chain for a belt. Remiel expected to see a cigar clenched in his
teeth to make the resemblance complete, but this was strictly a
non-smoking operation.
When the driver saw Dory and Remiel standing near the Dizzy
Lizzy, he smiled broadly and began his transformation, shrinking
down to become a slender, unclad waif. One bat wing covered her
breasts and the other one covered her privates. Cadence in the
flesh, as Dory promised.
Remiel asked, "Why the big burly dude just now?"
Cadence gaped at her with mock astonishment and said, "Look at
me, Remy! My grandma wouldn't hesitate to steal this truck out
from under me looking like this!"
"Don't knock grandmothers," Remiel objected. "My grandmother is
the angel of fire."
Cadence conceded the point. Her eyes scanned the sleek,
unorthodox lines of the experimental aircraft, and she ran a
slender finger along the cold metal skin of the fuselage, "I
think this little bird of yours is going to turn some heads if
you fly her too low."
The leather jacket and boots had been part of the illusion, but
Cadence brought along a wide-brimmed hat that was real enough.
She had parked the truck alongside the Dizzy Lizzy with enough
room to work in and around the craft. On the edge of the
concrete pad was a kind of kiosk with fire extinguishers and
two reels. Per procedure, Cadence checked to make sure the
preventive maintenance was current, but she had absolutely no
doubt it was. Then she grabbed a clip on one reel and walked the
cable out to ground her truck.
Dory did the same thing with the other cable and attached it to
Remy's Dizzy Lizzy. Everything was sitting at Earth ground
potential.
Cadence found the fuel port on the rear of the Dizzy Lizzy and
attached a special nozzle bonding clip directly to a clean,
unpainted metallic spot that was tied internally to the tanks.
She opened the cap and dispensed the fuel while keeping the
nozzle touching the tank neck.
While the tanks were being filled, she said, "It's all about
keeping sparks away from vapor, ladies. When people see you in
this thing, they're gonna think it came from Mars. But if we
screw up refueling, you'll actually be headed straight there."
From long experience, Cadence could tell from the sound of the
filling operation that the tanks were nearly topped off.
She didn't let them overflow. Cadence stopped fueling and
disconnected everything in exact reverse order. She gave the
cable to her truck a little tug and walked the grounding strap
back onto its self-winding reel. Dory did the same for the strap
to the DL.
"First day and this Prank is already a legend, Remy. Do you know
what they're calling it back in Havilah?"
"Not a clue, Cadence."
"Operation Veilburner. The students at the Academy are of two
minds. On the warm side of the pillow they're running a betting
pool on how many newspaper stories appear with locals thinking
they had a brush with the divine. "
"And what about the cool side of the pillow?" "The other betting
pool is on how far south you get before the Army Air Forces
shoot you down."
"How sweet!"
Remy gave Cadence a hug before sliding into her seat.
Dory was already running through the takeoff litany. As the
bubble canopy sealed shut, locking out the smell of aviation gas
and sagebrush, the quiet hum of the two engines vibrated through
the floorboards. Far ahead of them lay the massive snowy twins
known as the Spanish Peaks and beyond them lay the state line.
Remiel tuned her radio to Denver's KOA AM 850 and heard a news
bulletin about fighting on the island of Attu in Alaska, and the
end of the only battle fought on US territory in the war, at
least so far. This was followed by afternoon broadcast of the
Glenn Miller Sunset Serenade.
When they were passing high over Route 50, Remiel drifted out of
her reverie and said, "You know, Dory, I've almost forgotten
what they looked like, my real parents." Dory said,
"I'm sorry, hon. I do know why they had to make themselves
scarce, and I think it broke their hearts, both of them. In
fact, I know it did. Your momma, at least, never let you go."
"What do you mean?" "I mean that trick Cadence does, turning
herself into a mean old horse or a mean old truck driver.
Elyonim can't quite go that far, but we can do a passable
imitation, especially with faces. Certainly your mother can do a
convincing job of it."
"Please explain."
"Remy, of all the professors at the Academy, don't you have an
absolute favorite? Isn't there a special one who makes you sorry
when the hour's up and she has to stop teaching?"
"Are you talking about Anael?"
"Of course I am. I know you love her dearly and so do I."
"But she's a nephiloth, like Cadence, and, well, she's black!"
"You've seen her wings. She looks like a plucked chicken. And
she's not black, she's a gorgeous mahogany. At least she is now.
So, yeah, her Dizzy Lizzy still matches the color of her wings."
"Dory, are you telling me my real mother is our music teacher
and I never knew it?"
"Anael is indeed Ariel, and I really think you did know it on
some level. Think about that while you go through with this
birthday trip of yours, and piss off the government, and get
yourself caught. Yeah, wherever they take you, we can break you
out again, but you know after that they'll never stop looking
for you, so you'll have to do exactly what your mother did. No
more green-eyed, red-headed Stiffneck girl. Maybe you'll be
Kuwapi like me, why not? Changing skin color isn't even the
trickiest thing in the Elyonim toolkit. And now, with Anael, you
know how convincing you can be."
As Dory and Remiel flew south, they began to see broad benches
and rolling hills covered in a mix of shrubland and shortgrass
prairie, with mesquite, yucca, prickly pear, sagebrush, and
scattered cholla. Very few trees existed away from the rivers,
only scattered mesquite, yucca, and the occasional juniper.
There were low hills, benches, and shallow draws. Sandstone,
siltstone, and mudstone formed low ledges and sharp slopes.
Irrigated fields stood out sharply against the dry surrounding
grassland.
Remiel was beginning to worry about their fuel, and when she was
worrying about something the worry was real.
Dory put her mind at ease. “Gas up ahead.”
“How do you know?”
“I see a dinosaur.”
