“Do you like it?” asks Flanagan.
It is a bleak, forbidding planet, with looming mountains and a ghastly yellow sky. We stand in a city made of tents, plain canvas awnings turned into a complex network of alleyways and boulevards. And we look out to acres of desert. Men ride horses in these parts, sleek stallions and mares derived from ancient Earth bloodstock foetuses.
“I admire it.”
“Flying is possible. Would you like to…?”
Every fibre in my being screams no. I could be killed, maimed, forced into yet another body replacement. And the pain, the pain…
“Yes,” I say. Calm, aloof, distant.
We are on the planet of Wild West. We have stopped here for rest and recreation, and to allow time for the ship’s computer to finish some necessary repairs. Flanagan has decided to treat me with an almost medieval courtesy and respect, as his sly way of making his kidnap of me seem morally acceptable. I refuse to accept his pathetic attempts to mollify me, of course. And yet…
Well, it’s nice to get out of the ship. And since I’m here, on this actually rather beautiful and appealing low-gravity planet with its famous thermal gusts, it seems a shame not to take advantage of the tourist attractions. “Flying is possible,” Flanagan had said. Flying! What a wonderful idea!
We walk through the city, past screaming street traders. I see a headless five-limbed hairy beast of burden, carrying timber on its back. The Rotan, from the stellar system XI4.
I see stalls selling monstrous beaked creatures in a cage. Kiwiris, the two beaks contain its brain, it eats by drooling enzymes. The beaks emit a beautiful song, and addicts of the song of the Kiwiri are known to die of malnutrition, so rapt are they.
I see birds on fire in the sky. They are Sparklers, sentient flying aliens, with the power of bioluminescence. They are tourists, like us.
I see carpets and robes for sale, I see men with hooked noses and gnarled faces and impossibly wrinkled flesh, I see women whoring their bodies on the street, and boys doing the same, and half-men half-women parading their grotesquery in public, I see so much that my head hurts.
“We’ll hitch a ride, out to the cliff,” says Flanagan.
We join a merchant’s convoy and ride horses through the desert. My body automatically adjusts to the rhythms and the skills of bare-back horse riding. I spur my beast into a quick gallop and Flanagan easily matches my pace. The wind throws my hair back. My arse is pounded and mashed by the horse’s bony back, and I know I will have to have my bruises removed by the autodoc this evening. But the pain and the wind and the smell of rank horseflesh combine into an exhilarating and heady experience.
I am enjoying myself. I really am!
We reach the mountains, and pause. I stare up at the magnificent vista. In this low gravity the mountains grow high and thin, triangles moulded out of metamorphic rock. Green and purple algae stain the bare cliff faces, and the foothills are rich in meadowy grasses.
We take a cable car to the summit, basking all the while in astonishing views. And, finally, we step out of the cable car and find ourselves on a plateau. Market traders are selling knick-knacks and tourist crap as well as the necessary flying paraphernalia. After some angry bartering, Flanagan hires wings and emergency parachutes. All around us, men and women are leaping off the mountain top and being caught up in the winds.
We are actually above the clouds. They are stretched out below us, like icebergs. The air up here is thin, but breathable, though I have an oxygen tube to supplement the native air. Flanagan hands me my wings, and looks at me, with a friendly, approving glance. For weeks he’s been polite to me, kind, respectful, charming. I almost, I must concede, have started to warm to him.
I glance out at the edge of the plateau, and see below a vast, impossible drop. We are miles from the surface; and our plan is to fly ?
What am I doing here? I think to myself, suddenly fearful.
“Frightened?” Flanagan asks.
“Not in the least,” I tell him calmly.
I am so very scared. You’ll be fine.
I’ll fall, and shatter every bone in my body, and the pain will send me mad. You won’t fall.
I might. Well, you might.
“Put the harness on.”
I strap myself into the flying contraption. The wings are soft, malleable, made of some plastic or PVC material that is supple yet amazingly strong. The wing spans are strapped on to my upper arms and shoulders, moulding effortlessly so that they feel like an extension of my body. Complementing all this is a vast tail feather that stretches from my lower back to my ankles, and in the air will extend still further. Mine is a vivid purple; Flanagan’s an angelic white.
“Press this, and the wings fly off, and the parachute will glide you to earth.”
I nod, my lips dry.
“If I die you won’t get your ransom,” I eventually manage to say.
“Don’t die then.”
I shrug and roll my shoulders, getting a feel for my new wings. Flanagan does the same. We walk together to the cliff edge.
We jump.
The thermal gusts are strong, and reliable, the gravity is low, the atmosphere is thick, the wings are wafer-light. I am caught in an updraft and find myself soaring.
Through the sky, body arcing and bucking, legs firmly held straight, my chest and breasts squeezed and bruised by the wind. And I fly…
I feel a surge of exhilaration. The planet is mapped out beneath me. I am sensitive to every gust of wind, every current of air. I follow Flanagan’s lead, tilt my body and soar
Then up again! Soaring, skating, bucking, wheeling, kingdom of daylight’s dauphin. I fly!