«Do you mind if I smoke?»
Zoe, strapped into the seat next to him, glanced at the still glowing «No Smoking» sign, then shrugged. «Go ahead.»
The aroma of sailor's rough-cut drifted on the air.
J tilted his seat back to be more comfortable, toying with the idea of going to sleep. He glanced at Zoe. She too had tilted back her seat and her eyes were closed. The lighting was dim.
Richard Blade, he knew, was asleep, strapped into a bunk at the rear of the cabin, under heavy sedation. With Blade was a male nurse and two muscular MI6 men armed with tranquilizer pistols: there were no other passengers on board. Up front rode the crew of three; pilot, copilot and navigator. Though the craft bore the insignia of the Royal Air Force, everyone in it was a member of the Special Branch.
The door under the «No Smoking» sign opened and a tall man in a brown jumpsuit emerged and made his way back along the aisle between the unoccupied seats. It was Captain Ralston, the pilot. When he came to J, he leaned over Zoe and said softly, «Could you come up to the cockpit for a moment, sir?»
J searched the man's impassive face for some clue as to what might be wrong, but there was nothing there. «Certainly, Captain,» J said, unbuckling his seat belt.
«Trouble?» Zoe asked her eyes fluttering open.
«Nothing serious, madam,» Ralston said.
J climbed over her feet into the aisle with a muttered apology and followed Captain Ralston forward. The cockpit, when they entered it, was lit only by the many-colored lights on the control panel and navigation console. The navigator turned in his seat and said, «Good evening, sir.» He was a slender, dapper fellow with a neat Vandyke beard. His name was Bob Hall.
«Good evening, Bob,» J answered. «What's up?»
Bob hunched over his navigation table, his worried face green in the light from his radar screen. He gestured toward the screen. «A bit of a puzzle, sir. A blip on the radar. Something's following us.»
J checked the scope. It was true.
Captain Ralston said, «The control tower picked it up, too, and warned us about it, so it can't be a fault in our equipment.»
«How far away is it?» J asked.
«About two kilometers and closing,» said Bob Hall. «It's fast, whatever it is, but it seems to be, as far as we can tell, smaller than most aircraft.»
The copilot, Floyd Salas, a small dark wiry man, said, «It could be a ground-to-air homing missile.»
«There's a cheerful thought,» Hall said. «Trust Salas to look on the bright side.»
«I don't think it's a missile,» J said. He sucked on his pipe, but found it had gone out.
«Should we turn back, sir?» Captain Ralston asked.
«No. That's what the Thing is hoping we'll do,» J replied.
«The Thing, sir?» the captain said, raising an eyebrow.
«Is there any way we can get a look at it? Direct visual contact?» J asked.
«Not as long as we stay in this overcast,» Ralston answered, glancing at the cockpit windows where nothing was visible but their own darkened and distorted reflections.
«Take her upstairs then,» J commanded.
Captain Ralston sat down in the pilot's seat and strapped in. J strapped down in a jump seat directly behind him.
Bob Hall informed the control tower of their plans and got a clearance.
The plane began to climb steeply.
Ralston glanced at the altimeter and said, «We should break through any second.»
They waited.
Hall said, «The blip's still on the radar. I think… yes, the Thing has changed course to follow us up. It's gaining on us. One and a half kilometers and closing.»
«What did I tell you?» Salas said gloomily. «It's a homing missile.»
No one answered him. The only sound was the rushing muffled roar of the jets.
«One and a quarter kilometers and closing,» said Bob Hall crisply, then added with a slight quaver in his voice, «The static is getting bad. I can't understand the control tower.»
J muttered, «The Thing seems to have the ability to jam radio transmissions.»
Hall reported: «One kilometer… I think.»
«What do you mean you think?» The Captain glanced back at him, scowling. «You're supposed to know.»
«Sorry, sir.» Hall was staring at the scope in frustration. «The radar is malfunctioning, too.»
J noted that a flock of blips had appeared on the screen, like fireflies, forming no consistent pattern.
At that instant the plane broke out of the cloud cover and soared up into the clear thin air of the lower stratosphere. The moon was full, the stars brighter and more numerous than they could ever be to the earthbound Londoners. The upper surface of the overcast spread out on all sides to the horizon like a vast white undulating desert.
J pressed his face against the window, trying to look back and down.
Hall said, «I don't think you'll be able to see the thing. «It'll come up behind us, in our blind spot.»
«Bank then,» J said. «I want to get a look at it.»
Captain Ralston looked worried. «If we bank, we'll lose air speed.»
J snapped, «I don't care. We can't seem to outrun the damn thing anyway. It'll catch up a little sooner, that's all. Bank, Ralston!»
Ralston obeyed.
The area of clouds they had just left came into view. It had a pale red glow to it, but that was the glow of London. There were other areas of muted light across the face of the clouds, each indicating the location of some well-lit city. J knew them; he could have identified each of those cities by the shape and brightness of its glow. He was looking for something else.
And there it was!
A swift-moving sphere of bright blue-white flame burst from the overcast and rose toward him. The color was the same as he'd seen seeping from the seams of KALI's case the night of Richard Blade's return, but much brighter. The Ngaa-for this must be the Ngaa-seemed to fairly seethe and sizzle with energy.
«Beautiful,» J whispered in awe.
The Ngaa was beautiful as a fallen star.
As the plane leveled out, the Ngaa swung out of sight in the blind spot.
«Have you-ever seen anything like that before?» demanded Salas in amazement.
J nodded slowly. «Yes, during the war.»
Though there had been many wars since, all understood he meant World War II.
«You saw something like that in the war?» Captain Ralston was incredulous.
«Yes,» J said thoughtfully. «I was in an RAF bomber over Germany, about to parachute behind enemy lines. I'd heard about them from the Air Force lads, but I didn't believe in them, thought they were airborne folktales, like the gremlins. They often followed Allied bomber squadrons on their missions over the Axis nations, and the flyboys called them Foo Fighters. Yes, that night I saw one just like this, only smaller and dimmer.» He was thinking, There were men under heavy mental stress on those missions. Can mental or emotional stress awaken the same slumbering powers that KALI cart?
Hall, watching his radar screen, broke in, «Your Foo Fighter, if that's what it is, gives off radio waves on the radar wavelengths, and from the way they register, I'd say old Foo is some sort of electromagnetic field, not anything solid. And he seems to be about ten or fifteen times larger than he looks. The outer part of him is visible, nothing but pure energy, and outside the visible spectrum, in the ultraviolet and infrared and beyond. I'm just guessing, though. The damn radar is going crazy! I can't tell anymore, even approximately, how far away he is or where he's located in relation to us.»
«Is the radar getting worse?» J demanded.
«By the second!» Hall answered fervently.
«Then I'd say Foo is getting close,» said J. «We may already be within his outer edge.»
«Here he is!» Salas the copilot cried out.
The wing on his side had become illuminated by flickering blue light and now, as all turned to look, the bright ball of blue-white fire came alongside, not more than a few hundred meters away, drifting with a languid slowness that belied the fact that it was traveling well into supersonic speeds. The instruments on the control panels were registering rapidly changing impossibilities, and J noticed the hairs on the back of his hand standing up and swaying as they had done only once before, on the night of Blade's last return from the X dimensions.