Other ghosts haunted the daylight at Cape Kennedy. When they landed Mallory stepped into the shadow of the launch platform, an iron cathedral shunned by the sky. An unsettling silence came in from the dense forest that filled the once-open decks of the space centre, from the eyeless bunkers and rusting camera towers.
‘Mallory, I’m glad you came!’ Hinton pulled off his flying helmet, exposing a lumpy scalp under his close-cropped hair — Mallory remembered that he had once been attacked by a berserk warder. ‘I couldn’t believe it was you! And Anne? Is she all right?’
‘She’s here, at the hotel in Titusville.’
‘I know, I’ve just seen her on the roof. She looked…’ Hinton’s voice dropped, in his concern he had forgotten what he was doing. He began to walk in a circle, and then rallied himself. ‘Still, it’s good to see you. It’s more than I hoped for — you were the one person who knew what was going on here.’
‘Did I?’ Mallory searched for the sun, hidden behind the cold bulk of the launch platform. Cape Kennedy was even more sinister than he had expected, like some ancient death camp. ‘I don’t think I—’
‘Of course you knew! In a way we were collaborators — believe me, Mallory, we will be again. I’ve a lot to tell you…’Happy to see Mallory, but concerned for the shivering physician, Hinton embraced him with his restless hands. When Mallory flinched, trying to protect his shoulders, Hinton whistled and peered solicitously inside his shirt.
‘Mallory, I’m sorry — that police car confused me. They’ll be coming for me soon, we have to move fast. But you don’t look too well, doctor. Time’s running out, I suppose, it’s difficult to understand at first..
‘I’m starting to. What about you, Hinton? I need to talk to you about everything. You look -’
Hinton grimaced. He slapped his hip, impatient with his undernourished body, an atrophied organ that he would soon discard. ‘I had to starve myself, the wingloading of that machine was so low. It took years, or they might have noticed. Those endless medical checks, they were terrified that I was brewing up an even more advanced psychosis they couldn’t grasp that I was opening the door to a new world.’ He gazed round at the space centre, at the empty wind. ‘We had to get out of time — that’s what the space programme was all about..
He beckoned Mallory towards a steel staircase that led up to the assembly deck six storeys above them. ‘We’ll go topside. I’m living in the Shuttle — there’s a crew module of the Mars platform still inside the hold, a damn sight more comfortable than most of the hotels in Florida.’ He added, with an ironic gleam: ‘I imagine it’s the last place they’ll come to look for me.’
Mallory began to climb the staircase. He tried not to touch the greasy rivets and sweating rails, lowering his eyes from the tiled skin of the Shuttle as it emerged above the assembly deck. After all the years of thinking about Cape Kennedy he was still unprepared for the strangeness of this vast, reductive machine, a juggernaut that could be pushed by its worshippers across the planet, devouring the years and hours and seconds.
Even Hinton seemed subdued, scanning the sky as if waiting for Shepley to appear. He was careful not to turn his back on Mallory, clearly suspecting that the former NASA physician had been sent to trap him.
‘Flight and time, Mallory, they’re bound together. The birds have always known that. To get out of time we first need to learn to fly. That’s why I’m here. I’m teaching myself to fly, going back through all these old planes to the beginning. I want to fly without wings…’
As the Shuttle’s delta wing fanned out above them, Mallory swayed against the rail. Exhausted by the climb, he tried to pump his lungs. The silence was too great, this stillness at the centre of the stopped clock of the world. He searched the breathless forest and runways for any sign of movement. He needed one of Hinton’s machines to take off and go racketing across the sky.
‘Mallory, you’re going…? Don’t worry, I’ll help you through it.’ Hinton had taken his elbow and steadied him on his feet. Mallory felt the light suddenly steepen, the intense white glare he had last seen as the cheetah sprang towards him. Time left the air, wavered briefly as he struggled to retain his hold on the passing seconds.
A flock of martins swept across the assembly deck, swirled like exploding soot around the Shuttle. Were they trying to warn him? Roused by the brief flurry, Mallory felt his eyes clear. He had been able to shake off the attack, but it would come again.
‘Doctor -? You’ll be all right.’ Hinton was plainly disappointed as he watched Mallory steady himself at the rail. ‘Try not to fight it, doctor, everyone makes that mistake.’
‘It’s going…’ Mallory pushed him away. Hinton was too close to the rail, the man’s manic gestures could jostle him over the edge. ‘The birds -’
‘Of course, we’ll join the birds! Mallory, we can all fly, every one of us. Think of it, doctor, true flight. We’ll live forever in the air!’
