Edie was immediately reminded of an aircraft hangar, and also of an aircraft carrier. The place was vast, even considering its purpose, and it seemed to be designed so planes could land from many different angles- which, considering the skill of the pilots found flying these planes, might be necessary. It opened to the outside, and near the outer lip the ceiling was extremely high even for an aircraft hangar. However, there was an overhang where the planes were parked, and there the ceiling was very low. Edie considered that this could prevent incoming planes from smashing into the parked planes, decided she was right and that was the purpose of the architecture, and cringed delicately. She decided to ask how bad the amateur pilots were- after they were all back below decks.
The biplanes seemed amazingly tiny, though the wings were fairly large and very thick. The planes were clearly supposed to be in a row… but there were too many of them. They spilled out onto the runway area sloppily, and there was a staff person, a fox type, shuffling them around. He… no, she… was lifting the tails of the biplanes and wheeling them around, trying to make room.
“Hey, Viv,” called Bill, “need a hand?”
“Oh, lord, could you?” said the vixen distractedly. “I have at least one definite incoming and five possibles, and three of those are in a cluster and could all be coming in at once…”
Walter blinked. “How tight a cluster?”
“Too damn tight. Way too tight.”
Edie blinked as Bill and Walter set to work wheeling the biplanes around. She went to help, and was surprised at how light the little airplanes were, and stood fretting and wondering where to tow the one she was wheeling.
The vixen noticed this and called, “Just pack them as densely as possible against the back wall.” She reached up to an intercom-like device at her ear and said, “Mike, Jill, Sky, please allow for space between you in landing- the landing pad is not meant for three planes to land at once. Do you understand?”
“Get back to your control panel, Viv.” said Bill firmly. “We’ll move the bipes.”
“Got it.” said Viv, and scooted back to an alcove in the wall.
Soon the little planes were as organized as they were going to get, and the three joined Viv in the alcove. The control panel there was most impressive- Edie immediately recognized what was going on in the local airspace. She wasn’t surprised to note that there were readouts showing the first names of the ‘pilots’, and also some notes. Three of the colorcoded arrowheads representing planes were very, very close together on the display. It was as if they were practicing stunt formation flying.
Walter spotted it, too. “Those three may not be heading here right away,” he said, “but they need to take more space. They professionals?”
Viv grimaced, a disgusted snarl revealing rows of sparkling vulpine teeth. “Hardly. All three are total novices. They’ve been falling all over the sky. They fly like that until they get near a hill, and then they scramble. It’s like they can’t concentrate on formation and where they’re going at the same time. They won’t listen to me, either. I’m going to have to fill out crash paperwork, I just know it. The med staff are on full alert and have been for over an hour.”
“Let me talk to them.” said Walter firmly. Viv looked at him, shrugged, and handed over her headset. “You’ll see.” she said resignedly.
“Attention!” said Walter, and Edie was startled at his tone. Suddenly his voice was conveying authority, even rank. He continued. “Attention, three planes flying in tight cluster formation in area RHE75! Break formation and proceed towards the valley you see to your right, maintaining a safe distance between your…”
Walter cut off without finishing, looking down at the console with a frustrated glare. He silently removed the headset, and handed it back to Viv, who took it with a sympathetic look.
“They ain’t just high in the air, are they?” said Walter with deep disgust.
“I’m sorry.” said Viv. “I thought they might do that.”
“Do what?” asked Edie.
“They laughed.” snarled Walter. He banged the console savagely with a open hand, making Edie jump. “Damn! I might have made them crash if I’d kept it up. They laughed so hard they couldn’t fly. I heard stall warnings going off. I had to stop.”
“I’m bringing Rob in.” said Viv decidedly. “This has gone far enough.” She pressed some buttons and spoke into the headset. “Rob? I’m afraid I have to officially ask you to come in and land at the Zipline Lounge. We have a situation going on… no, no, there is nothing wrong with your plane or your flying. We have three stoned pilots near your airspace who are potentially a danger… yes, I know it’s not recommended. No, nobody stopped them, and it’s likely that some people over at Vista are in serious trouble over this, but you know we can’t do testing without angering many passengers… No, it’s not that difficult, it’s designed so you can land with a lot of latitude. Lots of people land here. Now, what I need you to do is bank to your… great! You’re the sort of pilot I like to see in our airspace, and I look forward to telling you so in person in about a minute. Right… okay.”
Viv switched off her headset. “That guy’s all right. I’m glad I decided to bring him in, I’d hate to see him tangle with our three cowboys.”
“I can’t believe you got three of them.” remarked Bill.
“Actually,” said Viv with a weak fox-grin, “that’s been useful. They want to fly in formation. I believe they are tripping and are obsessed with formation flying. I have no idea how they all got through at once, but when it’s just one usually it’s a lot wilder. One stoned pilot tends to try and buzz things. Two usually try and dogfight, and usually clip each other and spin down. These three fly mostly straight, in formation, until they are about to crash into something, and then scramble until they have another mostly straight line to go in. The danger is more to other air traffic as these people aren’t really up for handling evasive maneuvers. God knows how we’re going to land them.”
“I don’t envy you your job, Viv.” said Bill.
“Well, look on the bright side.” said Viv. “Here comes Rob.”
Around a distant hill came a biplane, heading for the Zipline Lounge. Ediie blinked- it seemed to be going far too slowly, hanging in the air like a butterfly. Viv played on the control panel, and out of the floor came a network of cords, and then they simply watched as the tiny plane drew nearer.
Viv was on the headset again. “Looking good, Rob. No, you’re lined up fine, there is actually a lot of latitude in your approach, which is intentional. No, that’ll be okay, when I saw your flaps were down I expected you to increase throttle to get here. Your speed is fine. Yes, cut off the throttle now… good… and here you are.”
The plane grew, and as Viv said the last words the tiny biplane was gliding in, right at them and perfectly on line. Edie spotted that the pilot was a wolf person, and the next instant the plane thumped against the landing area. The mesh caught against the landing gear and hooks on the bottom of the plane, and stretched, and the plane was jerked to a stop with gentle force. Almost as soon as it stopped, Viv was up and hurrying toward the plane.
Edie and the others followed, and watched as Viv greeted the pilot, apologizing for the problem while clearing the shock cords from the plane’s landing gear. The pilot, Rob, got out, and looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be upset or delighted. Finally, delighted won. He wandered over toward Walter and Edie and Bill, as if he was still walking on air. “First time!” he said.
“Very fine landing.” said Walter seriously. “Keep it up.”
“Yeah!” added Bill. “And now, why don’t you head in to the lounge and relax for a while? If it was your first landing, you picked a tough place to do it.”
“I know!” grinned Rob. “I never meant to land here. But your controller lady wanted me to try, I had to try.”
“Well,” purred Edie, “congratulations, you did it.” She gave him a pretty smile.
Rob drew himself up to his full height, almost as tall as Walter, grinning ear to ear, and unexpectedly saluted Walter, then Bill, and then he bowed deeply and formally to Edie. With that, he turned and strode happily off toward the lounge.
Edie looked back to where Viv had untangled the mesh and was towing the plane back towards the storage area. “This isn’t actually a tough place to land. Just intimidating. I didn’t realize how slowly they moved in flight.”
Walter grinned. “I’m glad you didn’t tell him, because now he feels like he did something amazing. But you’re right, of course. This landing pad could just about handle one of our subs coming in, but the bipes are so light and the chord of the wings is so fat that they can almost hover in place. All the landing strips are designed in case the pilot forgets he has flaps and also comes in on light engine power.”
Viv called over from her control panel. “Our cowboys are heading over towards Green Hills. Now might be a good time for you to take off, if that’s what you were planning.”
“It just so happens we were,” called Walter in reply. “Any preference which planes we take?”
“There are two staff bipes up here,” called Viv. “If you could get them out of here it would be great, sometimes there are pilgrims who have heard about them and try to con me into letting them take staff bipes out. Which of course I can’t let them do.”
“Got it.”
The vixen continued. “Edie, I’m going to suggest that you take the pilgrim bipe. That’s because I can’t know anything about your abilities, it’s not a judg… what?”
Edie was looking faintly affronted, and Walter looked greatly amused.
“I think I’ll take that one.” said Bill resignedly. “I never claimed to be that great a pilot. It’ll still be fun.”
Viv glanced back and forth between them, foxish smile flickering in and out. “I missed something, but how badly did I miss it?”
“Edie wrote Auger In.” grinned Walter. “Heard of it?”
“Oh, now come on, I didn’t write it all myself!” protested Edie,
The vixen blinked. “You’re kidding! Really? Welll…” she smirked, “if that’s true… I’ll give you priority airspace anytime you want, if you’ll tell me some Auger In codes. Please?”
“Aaaaa!” yowled Edie, only half jokingly. “Everybody asks that. There are no codes! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to freak out at you, but there are no codes for Auger In. Not the sort you’re talking about.”
Viv drooped. “I’m sorry, Edie.”
“How about this?” purred Edie, relenting. “The internal switches for turning buildings to wireframes. You can also turn the landscape to wireframe but then it gets ridiculous. In wireframe you can fly through everything. It’s a programmer’s aid for aligning polys.”
“Sure! Why not?” said Viv, brightening.
“Okay- it’s option-D, option-E, option-V, and then B or L or P, then W. You can also go to F for flat polys with no textures, or T for textures but no smoothing, and so on, but that only duplicates the existing control panel. W is the wireframe views, and they are not available in the control panel because the collision detection for shots goes crazy when you use wireframe, and goes away entirely for your plane.”
Viv laughed. “You’re over my head, kitty, but thank you. Is there anything useful you can do with it?”
Edie giggled. “You can turn landscape to wireframe and fly under it to sneak up on somebody. If they see you actually doing it Auger crashes. And if you fire even one round up through the landscape, Auger crashes when the shot reaches the surface and tries to impact on the wrong side of the poly. But if you can get back up through the landscape without anyone watching, you can use it to sneak up on another net player. Frankly, the most likely situation is that somebody has you on their screen, and then everybody crashes. This visual mode was never made for gameplay.”
“Okay, I believe you.” said Viv. “Maybe I’ll try it. Anyway, I guess you rate a staff bipe all right… When you head out aim for the valley to the right, that will keep you clear of our cowboys. And wish me luck! I’m afraid we’ll need it.”
“You’ll do okay.” stated Walter. “You always did.”
Viv looked pleased. “Yessir.”
“Sir?” blinked Edie.
“Well, what else would you call an officer?” grinned Viv.
Walter looked oddly embarrassed, somehow. “Sergeant.” he explained gruffly. “No concern of yours, Edie.”
They split up and picked out the bipes they’d be flying, and Edie pondered things, primarily Walter. Why hadn’t he mentioned this? Edie, towing the biplane into a takeoff position and hopping into the cockpit, imagined Walter being a sergeant. Walter, striding around giving orders, perhaps a drill sergeant- but then Viv hadn’t seemed intimidated at all. Perhaps the sort of caring, tough sergeant one saw in movies, winning the hearts of his troops and leading them in their duties- she could see Walter in that role quite easily.
Edie suddenly realized Walter was staring at her, and a dreadful blush bristled her fur as she realized the direction her thoughts were leading her. He was still trying not to provoke her, trying to seem innocuous and big-brotherly, but she hadn’t realized how much of a stretch that was. Seeing his friends teasing him didn’t prepare her for understanding that his background was one of power and authority, though seeing him confront Peter should have given her a clue.
“We should follow Bill out,” he said, “since our planes are more powerful. Let him lead the way so he doesn’t get left behind. Sound good?”
Edie nodded.
“What were you thinking? You were staring into space.”
“Nothing.” replied Edie, reminding herself that she had not been fantasizing about Walter making love to her or sweeping her off her feet commandingly. That was just the direction her thoughts were heading, and she knew they hadn’t gotten there yet because her nipples were still hidden under silver fur, not peeking out. Small blessings… balanced against big distractions. She would have to do something about her wandering thoughts. Edie reproved herself bitterly for hugging Walter the way she had, earlier. Wrong message, and the wrong person for that sort of thing… it made things very difficult. Very difficult.
Walter had taken her at her word, and was firing up the engine of his biplane, watching Bill take off. Edie blinked, for she hadn’t even noticed it. The engines made tiny whines, like miniature versions of the subs’ turbines. They were far more muffled, presumably because quiet operation was one of the key points in the design of these topside vehicles. As Walter took off, she started her own engine and followed him.
She fell in beside Walter, behind Bill, and smirked gently as she realized they were in a tight formation themselves. Almost at the same moment, there was a shrill beep from the radio and Alice’s voice said, “Could you break it up a little? Everyone’s watching for a three-plane tight formation and you might confuse them.”
“Okay,” called Edie, and snapped her biplane nimbly to the right, pulling the throttle lever back all the way. The engine whined and there was a eager whoosh from the twin ducts that powered the tiny craft.
Edie marvelled at the difference between these craft and the underside subs. The subs were formidable, as coldly efficient and dangerous as a scalpel or chisel. One could get to love them for their sheer effectiveness. But these! Even with the staff version adding performance capacity, these biplanes were all personality and no ability. They showed strong intentions to remain on a straight course, requiring constant input to turn or tilt.
Edie examined the interior of the craft, learning more and more in the process. In stark contrast to the lean, high-bandwidth control panels of the subs, these bipes had virtually no instrumentation, and what there was appeared to be antique wood and brass only. It was too much to believe that the instruments actually were antiques- they were surely replicas, if that- the design seemed not old enough to qualify as a replica.
At any rate, the stylistic difference between the subs and these bipes was staggering. It left Edie with a puzzlingly fugitive feeling, that she searched after for a moment, and then identified: she’d visited a WWII sim fancier once, and felt culture shock at his computer flight environment. Her controls tended towards the modern and always had- and then suddenly she was immersed in an antique-plane environment, and the strange limitations of the Auger In WWII models suddenly took on real and palpable life around her, in a way that had never seemed appropriate when handling modern controls and sitting in a modern force-feedback flight-seat.
When she’d finished for the day, she’d wanted to go back the next day to fly the old rattletrap some more, but the fellow was a net-sim addict and he had responsibilities to patrol the borders of C country for a certain number of hours each day, so she gave up arguing.
Now she found herself in an aircraft that hinted tantalizingly of many themes of antiquity- yet it boasted a luxury level that was completely alien to the old warplanes she was reminded of.
“Edie!” called Walter, and she looked up, startled. How close was he?
Walter waved, at a safe distance. “We’re going to head this way so you can see the Airwalk. We’ve cleared it with control, special treat. Come on.” He banked away, and Edie followed, noting to herself that the biplanes, too, featured binaural broadcast. Sophisticated binaural intercom localization and brass altimeters. Quite a contrast- only on Aquarius could you find this strange and expensive blend of modern technology and archaic luxury.
As the three planes passed through a valley and began to bank around a mountain, Walter cautioned her. “Keep steady, Edie, and follow us.” She didn’t at first understand this strange warning- what else would she be doing?
The artificial mountainside gave way revealing a long ribbon stretching out into space, reaching endlessly across to another mountain in the distance. Edie boggled at it, remembering- the Airwalk, one of the many unnatural wonders of this world, the long main street of pricey shops and posh cafes floating in air. Just as she started to wonder what held it up, the world exploded with diagonal streaks of light reaching from the Airwalk to the sky, and then it was gone again. Edie gasped, remembering, tensing. Heavy monofilaments. Almost invisible, but deadly to air traffic. Where?
“Get down under the Airwalk,” said Walter. “The lines are above it in a ninety-degree arc. We’re a bit close but we should still be all right. We’ll fly under it, real casually, and land in the valley past this one.”
“How dense is it up there?” asked Edie nervously.
“Don’t even think about it. It’s a real web up there. I know- I’ve had to fly a bipe up to inspect moorings. When you get right up by the roof it’s not so bad really- the moorings are regular. Nothing compared to the Luge.” called Walter, from his bipe.
“The Luge?” called Edie.
“I’ll show you later. Not in a bipe- bipes aren’t allowed within miles of it. Picture a roller coaster with no supports. It’s all held together with mono lines to the ceiling, going off at all angles. Pretty nuts.”
Edie just nodded, following the other two safely down below the Airwalk and onward to their landing place. Looking around her at the unimaginable vistas that were to become her home, it seemed that her life here was destined to be woven from fairy-dust, surrounded with miracles, worked in magic.
