The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(6)

That was when I finally began to weep.

*

It took us another four hours to make it to the airstrip. Understand that in the summer we often hiked that route in about an hour. The gentle Pennsylvania mountains were little more than hills.

This trip was … difficult.

The arm was not the worst thing we saw. We encountered no one living on our way down to the airfield. More trees were standing here, although anything with shallow roots was down. But I felt the first hope since the light of the blast, because we heard a car.

The purr of an automobile idling crept through the trees to meet us. Nathaniel met my gaze, and we started to run down the road, scrambling over trunks and fallen branches, skirting debris and dead animals, skidding in the slush and ash. All the while, the car got louder.

When we burst free of the last obstruction, we were across from the airstrip. It was really just a field, but Mr. Goldman had known Nathaniel since he was a kid, and kept a strip mowed for us. The barn was twisted at a weird angle, but standing. We’d gotten incredibly lucky.

The airstrip was just mowed grass, set between the trees on a gentle plateau. It ran roughly east to west and was enough in the direction of the airblast that most of the trees had been pushed down parallel to it, leaving it clear.

The road ran along the east end of the airstrip and then curved to follow it on the north side. There, partially obscured by the remaining trees, was the vehicle that we’d been hearing.

It was the red Ford pickup that Mr. Goldman drove. Nathaniel and I hurried down the road, and around the bend. The road was blocked by a tree here, and the truck was pressed up against it as if Mr. Goldman were trying to push it out of the way.

“Mr. Goldman!” Nathaniel hollered and waved his arms.

The windows of the truck were all gone and Mr. Goldman was slumped against the side of the door. I ran toward the car, hoping he was just unconscious. Nathaniel and I had at least had the benefit of expecting the airblast and had been braced and relatively sheltered when it hit.

But Mr. Goldman …

I slowed as I reached the truck. Nathaniel used to tell me stories about his childhood trips to the cabin and how Mr. Goldman had always had peppermint stick candy for him.

He was dead. I did not need to touch him or feel for a pulse. The tree branch that had been driven through his neck answered that question.





THREE





ANNOUNCER: This is the BBC World News for March 3, 1952. Here is the news and I’m Raymond Baxter. As fires continue to rage on the east coast of the United States, other countries are beginning to see the first effects of this morning’s meteorite strike. Tidal waves are reported in Morocco, Portugal, and Ireland.


As a Women Airforce Service Pilot during the Second World War, I often flew transport missions with planes that were barely airworthy. My little Cessna was more flyable than some of the planes I’d gotten off the ground as a WASP. Dusty and scuffed, yes, but after the most careful preflight check in the history of aviation, I got her airborne.

As soon as we were up, I made a left bank to turn us south toward Charleston. We both knew it was probably futile, but I had to try. As the plane swung around, what remained of my irrational hope died. The sky to the east was a long dark wall of dust and smoke, lit from beneath by an inferno. If you’ve seen forest fires, you know a little of what this was like. The current fire stretched to the curvature of the Earth, as if someone had peeled back the mantle and opened a gateway into Hell itself. Streaks of fire lit the sky as ejecta continued to fall to the Earth. Flying into that would be madness.

Everything to the east of the mountains had been flattened. The airblast had laid the trees out in weirdly neat rows. In the seat beside me, just audible over the roar of the engine, Nathaniel moaned.

I swallowed and swung the plane back around to the west. “We have about two hours of fuel. Suggestions?”

Like me, he tended to do better if he had something to focus on. When his mother died, he built a deck in our backyard, and my husband is not terribly handy with a hammer.

Nathaniel scrubbed his face and straightened. “Let’s see who’s out there?” He reached for the radio, which was still tuned to the Langley Tower. “Langley Tower, Cessna Four One Six Baker request VFR traffic advisories. Over.”

Static answered him.

“Any radio, Cessna Four One Six Baker request VFR traffic advisories. Over.”

He dialed through the entire radio frequency, listening for someone broadcasting. He repeated his call on each while I flew. “Try the UHF.” As a civilian pilot, I should have just had a VHF radio, but because Nathaniel worked with the NACA we had a UHF installed as well so he could listen directly to pilots who were on test flights. We never cluttered the military channels by broadcasting, but today…? Today I just wanted anyone to answer. As we made our way west, the devastation lessened, but only in comparison to what lay behind us. Trees and buildings had been knocked down by the blast. Some were on fire, with no one to put them out. What had it been like, to not understand what was coming?

“Unidentified Cessna, Sabre Two One, all nonessential air traffic is grounded.”

At the sound of a living human, I started to weep again, but this was not a time to indulge in compromised vision. I blinked my eyes to clear them and focused on the horizon.

“Roger, Sabre Two One, Cessna Four One Six Baker, request advice on clear landing areas. Heading two seven zero.”