Straying From the Path

  STRAYING FROM THE PATH

  by

  Carrie Vaughn

  Copyright © 2011 by Carrie Vaughn.

  Introduction copyright © 2011 by Jay Lake.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or

  mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems,

  without permission in writing from the author.

  The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Straying From the Path originally published by WSFA Press in 2011

  as special limited and signed hardcover edition of 500 copies

  available to members of the Capclave convention (October 2011, Gaithersburg, Maryland).

  (www.wsfapress.com)

  This electronic edition is being made available by the author and Agency Editions, Inc.

  ISBN-978-0-9827970-5-1

  Introduction

  Jay Lake

  I don’t even know where to start with talking about Carrie Vaughn. I’ve known her for most of the past decade, though for the life of me I can’t remember exactly where and how we met. (I’ve known a lot of people for most of the past decade.) She’s an erudite, entertaining and gentle-souled woman with a love of horses and fiction, almost certainly in that order. She’s also an amazing conversationalist, an author with a broad and mutable fandom, and an awfully pleasant human being.

  When I looked over the table of contents for this collection, which is sort of “Carrie Vaughn’s Greatest Hits,” it pleased me to see two of her stories that I’d acquired as an editor included herein. “This is the Highest Step in the World” originally appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, co-edited by David Moles and myself. “The Heroic Death of Lieutenant Michkov” originally appeared in Polyphony, Vol. 1, edited by Deborah Layne and myself.

  Can I pick ’em, or what?

  As it happens, she’s famous for writing about werewolves. (And justly so, as her standing on the New York Times bestseller lists most certainly attests.) But that fame does Carrie a disservice by concealing her true breadth and depth as a writer. She is not a one-trick pony; far from it. Between those two stories on which at least traces of my fingerprints can be found lies Carrie’s whole range of human experience and fictive conceit. This volume is filled with pieces that I wish I’d had the chance to acquire and publish, and I’m very pleased to see them in one place. Fantasy, science fiction; contemporary, secondary world; realistic, magical—Vaughn covers an enormous ground with her narrative conceit.

  Read through here and see where the paths of Vaughn’s imagination take you. She approaches aviation, theme parks and prophecy with a balanced equanimity. Like all good story-tellers, she’ll make you believe the deeply improbable long enough that you won’t think to question what you’re reading til long after, if ever.

  These aren’t all pieces with happy endings, but then life isn’t always a piece with happy endings. These are all pieces that will make you think; about yourself, about the people you love (or possibly hate), about loss and victory, about our technology and about our place in the world as people.

  And in truth, people are what it’s all about. People are what Vaughn’s writing is all about. Her novels sell so well because Kitty Norville is so real. This book in your hand will bring ten new insights, ten new slices of life, ten new realities into your head. Sit back, read, relax, and let these people into your life for a few hours.

  You won’t regret it for a moment. And, much as I have been for years, you’ll walk away even more of a fan of Carrie Vaughn than you already thought you were. Don’t stay on the path, stray from it, and follow her into the woods of story.

  Jay Lake

  Portland, OR

  Dedication

  To Jeanne Cavelos (the ball was already rolling,

  a little, but she gave it a great big push)

  This is the Highest Step in the World

  North of Tularosa, New Mexico. August 16, 1960. 0525.

  Wearing the pressure suit, the oxygen supply, instrument pack and other equipment strapped to his back, Joe weighed over three hundred pounds. He moved ponderously. His breath fogged the inside of the plastic face shield of his helmet. The canned air smelled metallic and dry.

  Clambering into the four and a half foot wide gondola was an effort. His ground crew eased him to his perch. Compared to the fully contained and sealed gondolas of earlier projects, the Excelsior III gondola seemed flimsy: half a steel shell with a cutaway door, completely open.

  Someone had painted a sign on the lower edge of the doorway: “This is the highest step in the world.”

  Don’t fly too high. Your wings might melt.

  Bullshit.

  High above the gondola, a helium-filled polyethylene balloon strained into the pre-dawn sky, a silver teardrop reflecting floodlights. Joe’s breath caught and his stomach churned. On paper, this mission looked like suicide.

  His crew progressed to the end of a thousand-item checklist.

  “Ready, Captain?” Daniel’s voice was muffled through Joe’s protective gear. Through the barrier of the helmet, the world seemed strangely silent, distant.

  Joe gave him a thumbs-up. Please, God, make this one good.

  A messenger ran from the meteorologist’s van, legs and arms pumping. “The mission is cancelled! Storm’s coming, abort!”

  At the same time a pop sounded, a tiny explosion that meant the balloon’s restraint lines had released.

  Free at last, the balloon bucked and lurched up, hauling Joe with it.

  100,000 feet above Tularosa. 0705.

  At high altitude, the helium expanded in the low atmospheric pressure. The balloon transformed from a long teardrop shape to a sphere, three hundred feet high. Three million cubic feet of helium strained in all directions.

  Joe couldn’t move his right hand.

  At about forty thousand feet, where the weight of the atmosphere began to thin until it was almost a memory, he discovered that the right glove of his suit had failed to pressurize.

  The partial-pressure suit he wore was lined with tubes, bladders that filled with pressurized oxygen and compressed against his body, replacing the atmosphere and countering the physiological problems that accompanied travel in extreme altitudes: pooling blood, bursting vessels, and the like. He’d felt the suit’s comforting squeeze press against his body as he left safe altitude, except in his hand. The seal must have broken.

  He should have radioed the ground as soon as he realized what was happening. They’d abort the flight, he’d have to come home, and they’d be right. He knew what would happen. His hand would swell as his blood pooled, the pressure inside his body straining to burst into the low atmosphere, like the helium in the balloon. Circulation would cease, and his hand would freeze. It was already stiffening painfully.

  But it wouldn’t kill him.

  Your wings might melt.

  He should have radioed and aborted the flight, vented helium and sunk back to earth. But this had to be the best flight yet. Excelsiors I and II hadn’t flown past 80,000 feet. Except for the problem with his glove, everything was going smoothly, by the book. He couldn’t let a little discomfort ruin that. He’’d already talked to the ground crew about the storm, and they decided that completing the mission was worth the risk. There was a good chance the storm would pass to the north, and Joe would probably be back on the ground before it posed a threat. He’d convinced them that the mission was important enough to take the risk.

  He wouldn’t let down his team. If they were willing to risk a storm, he could risk an injured hand. He could take a little pain. If he couldn’t move that hand, he’d m
ake do. When ground control asked how he was doing, he said fine, and tried to keep the strain out of his voice.

  The altimeter pointed at 102,800, some twenty miles above the surface of the earth.

  Now the real fun began.

  Dangling from the balloon, the gondola twisted, panning his view one way and the other. The horizon curved. He was high enough to see the shape of the planet. Clouds had gathered. Far to the west, roiling cumulus banks swelled, the hint of a thunderstorm. He hoped he didn’t have to worry about it.

  He disconnected the radio. From now on, it was just him and the tape recorder. Slowly, methodically, Joe stood. He was cold, his joints were stiff, his suit awkward. His right hand was useless. He inched toward the doorway of the gondola. The clouds below looked very far away, featureless batting rather than the fluffy cotton balls he saw at lower altitude. They looked solid.

  He inched a little farther, lugging his equipment with him: oxygen, a box of instruments that would record his next few moments. And his parachute.

  His beating heart echoed inside his helmet. He moved slowly, in time with that rhythm. Toes edged over the rim of the gondola.

  Twenty miles to fall.

  “Lord, take care of me now.”

  He stepped out.

  He felt no wind. The fabric of his suit didn’t ripple with passing air. No Newtonian forces of gravity and inertia grabbed him and wreaked havoc with him. His body turned lazily, floating with apparent weightlessness.

  Damn. I’m too high. I’m not falling. This can’t be right!

  He turned his head in time to see the immense silver globe of his balloon hurl away at terrifying speed, as if a hand had reached out and yanked it away from him. In moments it was only a flash against the blue-black sky of near space.

  The sky was dark and the sun was shining, searingly bright.

  Ninety-five thousand feet to fall.

  He could no longer hear his heart.

  95,000 feet above the New Mexico desert. 0710.

  New Air Force jets had the capability to climb to higher altitudes than ever before. As pilots traveled to the upper atmosphere with greater frequency—and as the first astronauts began traveling into space—there was a chance they’d have to bail out. Joe wanted to prove that a pilot could eject at extreme altitude and survive the fall back to earth.

  Parachuting out of a high-altitude balloon was cheaper than bailing out of a jet airplane and letting it crash.

  Sixteen seconds after stepping from the gondola, Joe’s stabilizing chute deployed successfully on an automatic timer. This was a small chute that wouldn’t slow him, but would stabilize his descent. Without it, he ran the risk of entering a flat spin that would knock him unconscious and churn his internal organs to a pulp. They’d learned that from the test dummies.

  The main chute wouldn’t deploy until around 18,000 feet. Any sooner and his descent would be too slow and he’d freeze or asphyxiate before he reached the ground. Also, at this altitude he was falling too fast, close to seven hundred miles per hour. The force of a chute deploying would break him in half.

  He had to survive four minutes of free-fall, approaching the speed of sound without the benefit of aircraft.

  Pilots had once held the staunch belief that the sound barrier couldn’t be broken. Strange things happened when they tried: they met massive turbulence, planes shook themselves apart. But the sound barrier had been broken. It had taken work, but they’d done it.

  And here he was just falling through it. No sonic boom, no wind. Just him and the cloud layer coming closer. His mind froze, thinking of it.

  Don’t think. Do. People would get into space yet. Colonies on the moon before the end of the century. His grandchildren would look back on this stunt and think it was quaint, the way he thought the Wright Flyer was quaint. This was just a step. The highest step, but only so far.

  He was falling, straight and true as an arrow. “Perfect stability!” he said for the benefit of the tape recorder documenting the jump. It was marvelous! He could move his arms, he could breathe, he could look around.

  A light flashed, and he flinched. Something skittered across the face plate of his helmet. Little objects danced in the wind, reflecting sunlight. Feathers. A handful of long white feathers fluttered around him.

  He was falling through the feathers, and the feathers were coming off the wings of a boy who was falling with Joe.

  He must have been about fifteen, thin and still baby-faced. He wore a short tunic belted around his waist and leather sandals laced up his calves. The fabric of the tunic and his shoulder-length hair rippled and tossed in the wind. It’s an angel—

  The wings were artificial, bound to his arms and shoulders with leather straps. They were disintegrating, feathers whipping off in clumps. He flapped his arms, trying to steady himself, but he tumbled, legs flailing, wings bent back. They no longer had the right shape to give him enough lift for a proper glide.

  Joe had to be seeing things. The boy shouldn’t even be alive. He was practically naked, no pressure suit, no oxygen. He should have been frozen solid and purple with broken blood vessels.

  Joe fell toward him, and for a moment they fell together. The boy looked over and met his gaze, even through the barrier of his helmet. His young face was gaunt with terror. He reached for Joe, clawing the air, but he spun away, buffeted, his wings ripping apart and slapping him. His mouth was open, but Joe didn’t hear his scream. Joe plummeted away.

  Too high! This is too high!

  Joe’s arms and legs flailed, and for a moment he thought he might enter the dreaded flat spin, despite the stabilizing chute. The boy was falling to his death, and so was he. If only there was a way to go back to the balloon, if he could just slow down, the speed of sound was too fast for a lone human body to fly, oh God he was too high—

  No. No, he wasn’t. He’d planned this jump. His team of engineers and technicians, the best in the Air Force, who he trusted with his life, had planned this jump. This was the first step. Only the first step. It wouldn’t even be the highest step for long. Humanity was destined to go in to space, destined to travel even higher, even farther.

  The boy had flown too high, but Joe hadn’t. Here was the proof: the boy didn’t have a parachute. Joe did.

  The boy was a hallucination born of fear.

  Forty thousand feet.

  40,000 feet above the New Mexico desert. 0718.

  He thought it best not to mention the hallucination on the voice recorder.

  The compression exerted by his suit eased up and disappeared. He returned to livable atmosphere. Thick air cushioned him and slowed his descent to a sane speed. His right hand was still ice-cold.

  The thunderheads blew north. Joe wouldn’t be falling through any storms today. The cloud layer still waited for him. He could finally see them as something more than flattened sheets of cotton. They looked solid, unyielding beneath his feet. Unconsciously, he tensed in anticipation of impact.

  He passed through them, then out of them.

  At 18,000 feet, the trigger in his main chute snapped, and a canopy of red and white striped silk burst forth and flowered around him. As air caught the chute, it billowed and spread. Joe jerked against the harness, his descent arrested. The chute would lower him gently the rest of the way to the ground. All he had to do was enjoy the ride. His wings hadn’t melted, not this time.

  “Thank you, God, thank you.”

  He cracked open his faceplate to take a breath of cool, succulent air. The earth had become recognizable: hills, dry riverbeds, the expanse of the New Mexico desert beneath him. The horizon was flat again. He heard the beat of a helicopter racing to the point where he’d touch down, west of Tularosa.

  The balloon had taken an hour and a half to carry him over a hundred thousand feet up. He’d taken thirteen and a half minutes to fall the same distance back to earth.

  It wasn’t his best landing. He rolled, the parachute fell around him, and he chose to just lie there and let his cre
w come find him. They did, tumbling out of the helicopter. A half a dozen of them clustered around him, shoving aside chute cords and silk and pawing at his helmet. He waved a hand to let them know he was alive. Feeling—intense pins and needles—started to come back to his right hand. Maybe he wouldn’t lose it after all.

  Breathlessly, he told them how happy he was to see them.

  He sat up as they pulled off his helmet. Looking down, his brow furrowed.

  “Joe, what’s the matter?”

  With his still-gloved hand, he awkwardly tugged at something caught in one of the lacings on his pressure suit. He held it up, bright in the sunlight: a white feather, sticky with what looked like melted wax.

  As of 2004, when the story was written, Joseph Kittinger, Jr.’s record for the highest altitude parachute jump still stands.

  As of 2011, when this collection was put together, it still stands.

  Peace in Our Time

  Two trumpets in harmony called “Taps” through a cemetery at the edge of a winter prairie. The congregation stayed rigid, forced to stillness by the song. Ken and I stood on the other side of the grave, apart from the others. The last sad note held, echoing with the wind, and faded. Ken shut off the digital player, and I presented the flag.

  The words came rote. I didn’t hear myself saying them. They were a continuation of the recording.

  “On behalf of the United States of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post Eternity presents this token of respect and appreciation for your husband’s service to his country.”

  We had a recording of “Taps” because no one could play it on trumpet anymore. Matt Barber was the last one I knew who could do it, and he died five years ago. I gave the flag to his son at his funeral.