Adventures of the Cosmic Woman

Chapter Twenty

William Dawber went unattended through the labyrinthine duty-free section of Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport. The crowd flowed and surged without warning. He dodged them. The footway was curved so he couldn't even just stare ahead without being bombarded with advertising. He had to force himself not to think about.

Two security officers walked past. Machine guns slung over their shoulders. He flinched. Kept walking. He did it. He'd fooled them all. Infield got her message and went to Netunaeva.

Then what?

He paid at a vending machine for a bottle of water to unstick his tongue from the room of his mouth and got his boarding pass and passport ready. The flight to LAX wouldn't wait for him. They'd offered him the buggy. He'd turned it down. Of course. Pride. Always with the pride. But the older his body got, the more that pride felt like the sword he'd eventually fall on. At least he'd let them take his bags.

Damned fool

The terminal was full. Dawber finally found the door to the Sky Suite passengers' lounge and hid away until it was time to board. Something started to nag at him. He'd noticed the two black men in the economy area.

Two black men. What of it?

Australia was so white. For anyone from another country it was almost imposingly white. Maybe that was it. It was just because he'd been around so much white for so much of the trip.

A bookstand was selling copies of McKenna's biography, The Stars and Back.

What the hell

He bought one and sat down with it in his booth, for old time's sake. Instinctively, he flipped to the chapter about the Marvel One. His breath thickened and his skin prickled as the words carried him back there. The sound of Infield's scream over the radio, that short sudden sound she made right before she was too far from range... there was a reason he'd never read this book.

The book slapped on the floor between his feet. He'd stopped reading and lapsed into those vivid memories that somehow outlasted the sound of his own mother's voice. Dawber didn't pick it up again.

A flight attendant announced that VIP passengers could board and Dawber followed the boarding ramp into the plane, up the stairs and into his private suite where he immediately settled into the bed. Walking like that was getting hard. Everything was getting creaky and weak and unreliable. The body that once traversed outer space was shutting down, just like all the others who'd been there with him all those times. All except Darrian Infield's.

He reached across the bed and opened his window as they lifted above the clouds after takeoff. Beyond the azure sheet were mysteries he'd never dreamed of. Now he knew it. But as he heard his old bones groan as he heaved himself up to go to the bathroom, he knew he'd never know them. It would be another generation, maybe. Maybe Darrian Infield would still be there to see it all again.

False alarm, Dawber decided after he'd stood at the bowl for long enough for his ankles to hurt. He sat down in the armchair and turned on the satellite tracker. A jolt of cold fear ran through him.

The plane had left its projected route.

Dawber heard someone shouting out in the hall. He got up and opened his door and saw the sharp looking man in his business suit waving his finger at the flight attendant.

'I was halfway through my phone call... Go and find out what's going on... Now.'

Another flight attendant, at the far end of the hall, was speaking loudly into the receiver.