Authors: Christopher Priest
Everything was working normally on the superb aircraft. As I realized what this day might hold for me I was briefly almost giddy with excitement. I radioed my intentions to the tower, was given permission to land and had the approach bearing confirmed, then I headed down towards the airstrip. As I passed over the field towards the turn-in point I could not resist testing the potential of the engine. I opened the throttle, felt a brief kick of acceleration. The countryside of this part of Prachous was passing swiftly below, a blur of green and brown – all I wanted now was to be done with the island, to be in the air, heading home.
I landed, waited as the staff recorded the necessary details of my flight, and while I went across to the control office they drove forward the fuel bowser and started to fill the tanks.
I filed my flight plan, which was a decoy to my real intentions: I drafted an extended flight along the coast, up to Beathurn, then briefly out across the neutral sea – a knowing concession to the law, as to continue up the coast from Beathurn would take me into the zone around the officially non-existent place called Adjacent. This route then made a return across the coast further north, a flight across part of the desert, down to the southern beaches, and a high-altitude dash across the sea before curving back for the last leg of the return flight to the airfield.
Although it is dangerous and illegal to file a false flight plan, I needed to justify the full load of fuel I was taking. I would never be given permission for what I really intended. The flight plan was calmly accepted and recorded. I was authorized for take-off.
I went to my car, collected my personal belongings and crammed
them down into the spare spaces inside the narrow cockpit and behind my seat. The sun was climbing high, the heat beating down on my back as I stood on the Spitfire’s wing and leaned into the aircraft. My hands were sweating, my heart was racing. With an effort I stayed outwardly calm. I shook hands with the crew on the ground, waved towards the tower, then at last climbed down into the small cockpit, my elbows pressing against the sides of the fuselage. I ran through the cockpit check again and taxied down to the end of the runway. I left the canopy partly open. I wanted to feel the rush of the air, hear the sublime roaring noise of the Merlin engine. How many times again would I enjoy the unique experience of flying this plane?
A minute later I was in the air, the engine racing, the slipstream beating against my head through the open canopy, the dome of the sky above, the slipping green of the land below. I climbed quickly. I turned the Spitfire towards the north and east, my first departure from the flight plan I had filed. Already the airstrip was a long way behind me.
I was flying at the same altitude as the cloud base. Great white cumuli were billowing up on the thermals from the rapidly warming land below. I closed the canopy, adjusted the pitch of the propeller, selected weak mixture, held the speed at an indicated two hundred knots. I was in the loveliest aircraft ever built. I had become part of it, joined to it, flown by it. I felt the relentless thrust of the engine, its roar now a steady drone because I was cruising. There was hardly any vibration inside the supremely trimmed machine. I skirted close to a white cloud, dived deliberately into the next, felt the kick of the internal turbulence, emerged into the blue, still climbing steadily. I soared past the other clouds, wanting to leave all trace of the land beneath me. With the canopy securely closed I switched on the air pressurization. I stared bewitched at the open sky around me, the land far below, a distant glimpse of the ultramarine sea and a clutch of islands, white-fringed.
I REACHED THE HEIGHT OF ABOUT SIX THOUSAND FEET, WHICH
allowed a good view of the ground but was also above the rising clouds. I trimmed the plane for the best range at this altitude: engine speed of 1,750 r.p.m., weak mixture, coarse pitch, which gave me
an indicated airspeed of about 160 knots. It was going to be a long flight, but I needed to conserve fuel – the distance the plane could cover mattered more to me than how long it might take. I was following a heading of 35 degrees by dead reckoning, a clumsy and often unreliable kind of navigation forced on me by the inferior maps that were the only ones I could find in Beathurn. The lack of maps was a constant problem on Prachous. If I had wished to find picnic grounds, beaches where there was safe swimming, or historic buildings where I could admire cultural artefacts, then the mapping of Prachous was first-class. But for any serious navigation, by car as I had discovered many times, or by air as I was now experiencing, technically reliable charts or maps simply did not exist, or at least were unavailable on the open market.
I watched the ground as well as I could, seeking the rough navigational landmarks I had identified. I had noted them during my many car journeys across the island, in preparation for this flight without maps: certain lakes, rivers, an estuary, mountains, a conglomeration of tall buildings. The Spitfire’s compass aided me in maintaining a steady course, while the known distance to the part of the coast I wanted was soon eaten up by the speed of the aircraft.
As I scanned the ground ahead of me I saw the coast coming into sight: that brilliant blue streaked with the white of Prachous’s troubled waves. The sun was now much higher, casting a golden halation across the distant deeps. While I was living in the town I had searched the hinterland of Beathurn for markers, and I picked out two headlands to the south. These indicated a particular group of offshore islets, and contained a bay with an almost geometrically precise half-moon curve. From this I would of course be able to pick out Beathurn itself, whose overall shape and layout I had measured and mapped for myself.
Not long after I had located the coast and was flying offshore, parallel to the beaches, I saw one of the headlands and knew at once where I was. I corrected my course marginally and headed swiftly along the coast. I came to the sprawl of Beathurn itself. The air was so clear in the morning light that almost as soon as I spotted the town I was able to distinguish local landmarks: the central park, the estuary where the port was built, the area where my house had been, even the
Il-Palazz
theatre.
Now that I was certain where I was I headed directly towards the mountain range to the north. When I lived in Beathurn these mountains had seemed from street level to present a solid barrier, a
termination of the town’s territory, but from the height I was flying the same peaks appeared insignificant, passing beneath the Spitfire with at least a thousand feet to spare. I could see the full extent of the range – the first slopes were far inland, at the edge of the desert. The peaks closer to the sea were higher and more rugged.
I flew across them, glimpsing the large houses and estates on the lower slopes, the extensive system of cable-cars that ascended to the heights. The Spitfire was buffeted by strong updraughts from the windward slopes. The plane stabilized itself, almost as if it had a machine intelligence that relished coping with the irregularities of the sky and the climate.
Once past the mountains I was looking as far ahead as I could, anxious for my first glimpse of the closed zone containing the shanty town called Adjacent. What I was seeking was another estuary, much wider and more complex than the one that ran beside Beathurn, with several distributaries comprising a small but intricate delta. Alongside this, on the northern bank, would be the area of reedland I had seen on the old maps.
I eased the plane lower. I was passing over an area of farmland, with small fields marked out by hedges or stone walls. Ahead was a river plain. As I approached I could see the shape of the delta, a wide arrangement of sandbanks and channels flowing out into the shallow sea. I slowed the Spitfire to just over a hundred knots, which was above stalling speed with the aircraft so full of fuel, but without much margin of safety. I did not like the way the Spitfire handled at such a low speed, but I wanted to be able to take a good look at whatever there was on the ground.
I crossed over the delta and beyond was a huge area of marsh and undrained flood-plain. It was a forest of tall reeds, pale beige in colour, with dark seed pods clinging to the top of every stem. They waved constantly – the wind carved patterns in all directions, as the stems flexed to and fro. I stayed at about a thousand feet. Any lower than that was a risk. At a low height I could not be able to count on the altimeter giving an accurate reading, and the moving reeds were already making it difficult for me to estimate height by eye alone.
I could see no sign of habitation. In fact it did not seem possible that this land could ever be made habitable without major drainage schemes and tidal barriers. I flew for about five minutes, constantly aware of the fuel I was using up even at this slow speed, but the presence of the Adjacent zone on Prachous was the one matter I had never entirely understood.
I flew across the blackened ground almost without realizing what it was. I had been trying to see ahead, and I passed an area on the starboard that appeared suddenly, but seemed to flicker and disappear as I looked towards it – I was aware of a sense of something missing, a black absence.
I circled around, gained a little altitude. As I headed back I saw the full extent of what I had somehow missed when I flew past. There was an area of deep blackness on the ground – black, as if everything had been incinerated to the point of total destruction. It did not look like burned vegetation or the wreckage of something that had been there before. It was an annulment, an absence, a piece of negative terrain.
I flew across it, deeply disturbed by the sight. As I once more reached the plain of reeds, I gained height and circled around for another look. This time, as I flew towards the blackened ground I could see its full extent. It was immense, spreading out far to my starboard, less so on the port side. There I could see the terminator between the black impression of absence and the edge of the reed bank. It appeared to be a precise line, as straight as if it had been carved out with a massive knife.
I increased speed – I was feeling exposed while flying so slowly. I gained another five hundred feet of altitude, circled around again. This time I was high enough to take in the whole area of blackness. I could now see that it was an exact and regular triangle, carved out of the reedland. It spread for miles.
I headed towards it, but something about it gave me fright, and I shied instinctively away. There was something horrible about that negative sight, as if to venture too close would lead to my being drawn inexorably into it. I banked the aircraft, turning away, but then I changed my mind and held the turn, went back yet again for another look.
The triangle had disappeared.
I immediately thought that I had lost my bearings, but I had been flying by the compass and I knew that I was now heading back directly towards where the mark had been.
There were buildings ahead of me.
Where the triangle had been there was now what looked like part of a town. I saw houses, streets, an area of green parkland, a church spire. There was no movement, no traffic driving along the roads, no people in sight, just the buildings, the roads, the solid exoskeleton of a modern city. I could see the shadows thrown by the bright sunlight.
The townscape also took the shape of an equilateral triangle, carved out of the reeds. It was the same size: each of the equal sides was at least two miles in length.
I flew across it, banked, turned through a hundred and eighty degrees, went back. How could I have missed it before? This time I saw tall buildings, concrete and glass, rising up above the ordinary houses and streets. I saw long terraces, cars parked outside. Many of the roads were lined with mature trees. The piece of park, which ran as far as one of the straight-line sides, also had many trees, a small lake, paths laid across the grass.
I flew away, banked again, headed back.
The town had disappeared. The triangle of black nullity had returned in its place.
I began to feel frightened again of what was down there, as if it were unreal, a decoy or a trap, something that was dangerous to see or know. Yet the aircraft in which I was flying gave me a feeling of immunity from what was outside. I took control of myself, tried to decide what to do. While I thought about this I had once again crossed the zone, and was on a bearing towards the sea. I made a decision.
I put the Spitfire into a steep turn and flew back towards where the triangle had been. This time I made no attempt to fly across it, or above it, but I set myself a circular course, skirting around all three of the furthest extremities of the immense triangle, close enough that I could see, but not so near to it that I became subjected to the deep fear it invoked in me.
I flew an anti-clockwise course, the dark triangle on my port side. I maintained a steady speed, a safe distance, the plane was cruising. I stared towards the triangle as I went around my circuit.
It changed.
At some points, from some angles, the triangle contained the buildings of a city – from other views it became once again that terrifying place of zero colour, black non-existence. Whenever I was close to one of the apexes, the sixty-degree angle at each of the triangle’s corners, the image began to flicker with increasing rapidity. As I banked around that angle, the shift between the two became so rapid that it seemed for a moment that all I could see was a part of the reedland, but then, as my course took me along the next side of the triangle, the shifting between the two began to slow, and at the halfway mark what I could see was a steady view: from some sides it appeared as the black triangle of nothingness, from the others it would again be the image of the city.
I circled the zone four times, trying to work out whatever logic there might be in this incomprehensible vision, but as I started a fifth circuit I felt a certain jolt of reality. I had a larger purpose for making this flight, and I was critically wasting valuable fuel.
I made one last crossing of the zone. This time I knew that for the rest of the long flight I had to take the Spitfire to the operating altitude at which it had been designed to fly, and where I could burn what fuel remained more economically while flying faster. I made a last turn, opened the throttle to gain the best speed for a climb, then flew directly across the zone called Adjacent. As I did so I leaned forward, pressed the switch that until that moment I had never touched, the one that would start the powerful reconnaissance camera installed in the belly of the aircraft. I set it to run automatically, with one picture being taken every two seconds.