“Like on aircraft carriers.”
“Yes.”
Remi considered this. She pursed her lips and puffed a strand of auburn hair from her forehead. “I like it.”
“I thought you would.”
Sam dropped another brick into the brazier. Whoosh!
With the late afternoon sun at their backs, they glided ever southward, occasionally feeding bricks into the brazier while keeping a sharp eye out for a landing spot. They’d traveled approximately four miles and had so far seen only scree valleys, glaciers, and copses of pine trees.
“We’re losing altitude,” Remi said.
Sam fed the brazier. They continued to descend.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Dissipation, I think. We’re losing the sun, along with the temperature. The balloon’s bleeding heat faster than we can put it in.”
Sam dropped another brick through the hole. Their descent slowed slightly, but there was no denying it: they were on an irreversible downward glide path. They began gaining speed.
“Time to make a choice,” Sam said. “We’re not going to make a meadow, but we’ve got a Plan B coming up.”
He pointed over Remi’s shoulder. Ahead and below was a stand of pine trees. Past that lay another boulder-strewn valley.
Sam said, “Or we can stuff the rest of the bricks into the brazier and hope we find a better spot.”
“We’ve pushed our luck too far. I’m ready for terra firma. How do you want to do this?”
Sam checked the approaching tree line, trying to gauge speed, distance, and their angle of approach. They had three minutes, he guessed. They were traveling at perhaps fifteen
miles per hour, and that would likely double by the time they reached the trees. While a survivable crash inside a car, on this platform their chances were fifty-fifty.
“If only we had an air bag,” Sam muttered.
“How about a shield?” asked Remi, and tapped their bamboo platform.
Sam immediately grasped what she was suggesting. “Dicey.”
“A lot less dicey than what you were just mulling over in your head. I know you, Sam, I know your expressions. What do you put our odds at?”
“Fifty percent.”
“This may give us a few more points.”
Sam’s eyes darted to the tree line, then back to Remi’s eyes. She smiled at him. He smiled back. “You’re a hell of a woman.”
“This, I know.”
“We don’t need this anymore,” Sam said. He sliced the straps holding the brazier and shoved it off the platform. Amid a plume of sparks, it hit the ground, tumbled down the valley, then crashed into a rock.
Sam scooted across the platform until he was snug against Remi. She was already grasping the guylines in both hands. Sam grabbed another with his left hand, then leaned backward, laid the blade of his Swiss Army knife against one of the risers, and started sawing. With a twang, it parted. The platform dipped slightly.
Sam moved to the second riser.
“How long until we hit?” he asked.
“I don’t know—”