Stranger to the Ground

The lights tell me that the Device is awakening, and I respond by pushing up the proper switches at the proper moments. The Initial Point rushes in at me from the horizon, and I push my distaste for the monster to the back of my mind as I set another panel of switches in the last combination of steps that lead to its release. One hundred percent rpm.

The last red-roofed village flashes below me, and the target, a pyramid of white barrels, is just visible at the end of its run-in line. Five hundred knots. Switch down, button pressed. Timers begin their timing, circuits are alerted for the drop. Inch down to treetop altitude. I do not often fly at 500 knots on the deck, and it is apparent that I am moving quickly. The barrels inflate. I see that their white paint is flaking. And the pyramid streaks beneath me. Back on the stick smoothly firmly to read four G on the accelerometer and center the needles of the indicator that is only used in nuke weapon drops and center them and hold it there and I’ll bet those computers are grinding their little hearts out and all I can see is sky in the windscreen hold the G’s keep the needles centered there’s the sun going beneath me and WHAM.

My airplane rolls hard to the right and tucks more tightly into her loop and strains ahead even though we are upside down. The Shape has released me more than I have released it. The little white barrels are now six thousand feet directly beneath my canopy. I have no way to tell if it was a good drop or not. That was decided back with the charts and graphs and the dividers and the angles. I kept the needles centered, the computers did their task automatically, and the Device is on its way.

Now, while it is still in the air and climbing with the inertia that my airplane has given it, my job becomes one of escape. Hold the throttle at the firewall, pull the nose down until it is well below the horizon, roll back so that the sun is over my head, and run. If the Shape were packed with neutrons instead of concrete ballast, I would need every moment I could find for my escape, for every moment is another foot away from the sun-blast that would just as easily destroy a friendly F-84F as it would the hostile target. Visor down against the glare-that-would-be, turn the rear-view mirror away, crouch down in the seat and fly as fast as possible toward Our Side.

At the same moment, the Device has stopped in the air, at the very apex of its high trajectory. A long plumbline descended would pass through the center of the white pyramid. Then it falls. Subject only to the winds, impossible to halt, the bomb falls. If it were a real Device in a real war, it would be well at this time for the enemy to have his affairs in order. The hate of the enemy has been reflected in the hate of the friend, reflected through me and my airplane and the computers that it carries.

And it is too late. We may declare an armistice, we may suddenly realize that the people under the bomb suspended are truly, deeply, our friends and our brothers. We may suddenly, blindingly see the foolishness of our differences, and the means to their solution. But the Device has begun to fall.

Do I feel sorry? Do I feel a certain sadness? I have felt those from the moment I saw the first practice Shape lifted into position under my wing.

But I love my airplane more than I hate the Device. I am the lens through which the hatred of my country is focused into a bright molten ball over the home of the enemy.

Although it is my duty and my only desire in wartime to serve my country as best I can, I rationalize. We will never really use the Devices. My targets will be completely and solely military ones. Everyone who is consumed in the fire is purely evil and filled with hatred for freedom.

There is a point where even the most ardent rationalization is only a gesture. I hope, simply, that I will never have to throw one of the repellent things at living people.

The distance-measuring drum of the steady TACAN has turned down now to 006 and that is as far as it will go, for I am six miles into the deep night directly above the transmitter of the Wiesbaden TACAN station. I am a minute and a half behind schedule in a wind that came from nowhere. In 30 minutes my wheels will be touching the cold wet runway at Chaumont Air Base.

The thought would have been reassuring, but there are two quick flashes of lightning to the right, across my course.

Once again, ready the report, tilt the stick to the right, fly the instruments, fly the instruments, thumb down on microphone button.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Rhein Control, Air Force Jet Two Niner Four Zero Five, Wiesbaden.” The City That Was Not Bombed.

Silence. Here we go again. “Rhein Control, Rhein control; Air Force Jet. . .” I try once. Twice. Three times. There is no answer. I am alone with my instruments, and suddenly aware of my aloneness.