Chapter 5

Jonnie drifted up out of a pit of black pain. He tried to orient himself. The drone motors were like shouting anger in his ears. His arms were hanging down into a gap in the floor plating. Blood had run along the sleeves and dried.

With a start of alarm he thought of Zzt and reached for the revolver. It was gone, the lanyard snapped in the blast. The blast! Zzt was also gone and so was the Mark 32. And so was anything that would let this ancient monster be located on a screen.

He lifted himself up with considerable effort. He was still tied with the safety line. He found it very hard to think connectedly, and he wondered for a bit why he was tied to the line. His back hurt, one more pain in a confused welter of it. He realized the safety line had pulled him back inside.

It was awfully hard to think, and he recognized that he was getting worse, not better. He was nauseated. Hunger. It must be that he was nauseated from hunger.

He got to his knees. The drone was no longer rolling. That was a relief. He turned and then stared.

Through the door, bright tendrils of mist and fog were curling in. It was a storm. He was flying through a storm.

Wait. It was light out there. Daylight. Well-advanced daylight.

How long had he been out? It must be hours.

He spun on his knees, thinking to see the gas canisters dropping gas. He had no way to tell that. Were they already past Scotland? Had the drone already done part of its work?

He got to the door and tried to spot a brighter area in the storm that might tell him where the sun was. It was too thick. He wasn't thinking well; he realized he had reverted to being a mountain man. There were compasses in the plane. He opened the door and saw the havoc Zzt had made with the radio smashup. It distracted him. Then he realized he had opened the door to look at the compasses and did so. When he leaned over it felt like somebody was hitting his skull with a sledge hammer. He felt for the compress on his head. It was still there. No, the compasses. Look at the compasses.

He was heading southeast. The course to Scotland would have curved over like that. He couldn't be sure. He went back to the door and tried to look down. He nearly fell. He couldn't see anything down there. All rain and mist.

Then he remembered the ship had gas ports in the bottom. He crawled painfully to the floor plate he had removed and looked past the motor housings. No daylight was coming up.

His air mask seemed to be suffocating him. He recalled it had been askew when he woke.

Of course! The drone had dropped no gas yet. He'd be dead.

Well, he wasn't dead. Pretty well on the way to it with this head, but he wasn't dead. Therefore the drone had not yet dropped gas.