I went heavier and heavier, sinking down into the chair and at the same time rising above it. What a curious feeling,
I thought. Do not fight it, do not move, do not think. Let it take you where it will. It would help so much, to meet . . .
I stepped from a bridge of quiet silver light into a huge arena, empty seats curving away in semicircles, vacant aisles like spokes raying out from centerstage. Not on the stage but near it, a single figure sat, chin on knees. I must have made some sound, for he looked up, smiled, unfolded, waved hi.
"Not only punctual," he said, "you're early!"
I couldn 't see the face clearly, but the man was about my height, dressed in what looked like a snowmobile suit, a black one-piece nylon coverall, bright yellow and orange across the chest and down the sleeves. Zippered pockets, zippered leather boots. Familiar.
"Sure enough," I told him back, casual as could be. "Doesn't look like the show will be starting for a bit." What was this place?
He laughed. "The show is started. Just now got its wheels up. Do you mind if we get out of here?"
"Fine with me," I said.
On the grass of the park outside the arena was a spidery little aircraft that might have weighed two hundred pounds with its pockets full. It had a high wing covered in orange and yellow nylon, tall bright rudders at each wingtip, same-painted canard elevator perched on aluminum tubes ahead of the seats, a small pusher engine mounted behind. I knew a lot of airplanes, but never had I seen anything like this.
It wasn 't a snowmobile suit he was wearing, it was a flight suit, to match his airplane.
"Left seat, if you want." How courteous, how trusting of him, to offer me the pilot's place!
"I'll take the right," I said, and threaded my way into the passenger-spot. A snug fit, because everything about the airplane was small.
"Whatever. You can fly it from either side. Standard controls, but you see you've got no rudder pedals. It's all in the stick. Sensitive elevator, that canard. Pretend it's as sensitive as a helicopter cyclic stick, and you 'II have it down."
He called the propeller clear, reached to an overhead handle, pulled once and the engine was running, quiet as an electric fan. He turned to me. "Ready?"
"Go," I said.
He pushed forward on a throttle smaller than the baby jet's, and with no more sound than a softly rising breeze, the machine lunged ahead. In fifty feet it was airborne, tilted back, climbing like a big-engine uphill racer. Ground fell away, a wide green floor cut loose from us, falling clear a thousand feet per minute. He touched the control stick forward, eased the throttle back till the fan whisked quietly behind us in the wind. He took his hands off the controls, motioned that I could fly the airplane. "You've got it."
"Thank you."
It was like flying a parachute, except we weren 't dropping out of the sky. We were moving perhaps thirty miles per hour, judging by the wind, in a little delight of a machine more eight-dollar lawn-chair than airplane. Without walls or floor, it was so open-cockpit that biplanes were locked tombs, compared. I turned the
airplane, and climbed. It was as sensitive as he had warned.
"Can we shut the engine down? Can we soar this thing like a sailplane?"
"Sure." He touched a switch on the throttle and the engine stopped. We glided noiseless through what must have been rising air . . . there was no altitude loss that I could measure.
"What a perfect little airplane! This is lovely! How do I get one of these for my own?"
He looked at me strangely. "Haven't you guessed, Richard?"
"No."
"Do you know who I am?"
"Sort of." I felt a brush affright.
"Just for the fun of it," he said, "walk through the wall between what you know and what you dare to say. Do that, and tell me whose airplane this is and who you 're flying with."
I tilted the control stick to the right, and the airplane banked smoothly, turned toward a cumulus at the top of its thermal. It was second nature, engine off, to look for lift even though the featherweight machine wasn't losing height.
"If I had to guess, I would say that this airplane is mine from the future, and you're the fellow that I'm going to be." I dared not look at him.
"Not bad," he said. "I'd guess the same."