The Running Man

“Is that right?” Richards was staring out into the darkness.

“Yes. You lock on P.O.D.-point of destination-and Otto takes over, aided by Voice-Radar all the way. Makes the pilot pretty superfluous, except for takeoffs and landings. And in case of trouble.”

“Is there much you can do if there’s trouble?” Richards asked.

“We can pray,” Holloway said. Perhaps it was meant to sound jocular, but it came out with a strange sincerity that hung in the cabin.

“Do those wheels actually steer the plane?” Richards asked.

“Only up and down,” Duninger said. “The pedals control sideside motion.

“Sounds like a kid’s soapbox racer.”

“A little more complicated.” Holloway said. “Let’s just say there are a few more buttons to push.”

“What happens if Otto goes off his chump?”

“Never happens,” Duninger said with a grin. “If it did, you’d just override him. But the computer is never wrong, pal.”

Richards wanted to leave, but the sight of the turning wheels, the minute, mindless adjustments of the pedals and switches, held him. Holloway and Duninger went back to their business-obscure numbers and communications filled with static.

Holloway looked back once, seemed surprised to see him still there. He gri

“How long?”

“You’ll be able to see the horizon glow in five to six minutes.”

When Holloway turned around next, Richards was gone. He said to Duninger: “I’ll be glad when we set that guy down. He’s a spook”

Duninger looked down morosely, his face bathed in the green, luminescent glow of the controls. “He didn’t like Otto. You know that?”

“I know it,” Holloway said.

MINUS 009 AND COUNTING

Richards walked back down the narrow, hip-wide corridor. Friedman, the communications man, didn’t look up. Neither did Donahue. Richards stepped through into the galley and then halted.

The smell of coffee was strong and good. He poured himself a cup, added some instant creamer, and sat down in one of the stewardesses’s off-duty chairs. The Silex bubbled and steamed.

There was a complete stock of luxury frozen di

A man could have a good drunk, he thought.

He sipped his coffee. It was strong and fine. The Silex bubbled.

Here I am, he thought, and sipped. Yes, no question about it. Here he was, just sipping.

Pots and pans all neatly put away. The stainless steel sink gleaming like a chromium jewel in a Formica setting. And, of course, that Silex on the hotplate, bubbling and steaming. Sheila had always wanted a Silex. A Silex lasts, was her claim.

He was weeping.

There was a tiny toilet where only stewardess bottoms had squatted. The door was half ajar and he could see it, yes, even the blue, primly disinfected water in the bowl. Defecate in tasteful splendor at fifty thousand feet.

He drank his coffee and watched the Silex bubble and steam, and he wept. The weeping was very calm and completely silent. It and his cup of coffee ended at the same time.

He got up and put his cup in the stainless steel sink. He picked up the Silex, holding it by its brown plastic handle, and carefully dumped the coffee down the drain. Tiny beads of condensation clung to the thick glass.

He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and went back into the narrow corridor. He stepped into Donahue’s compartment, carrying the Silex in one hand.

“Want some coffee?” Richards asked.

“No,” Donahue said curtly, without looking up.

“Sure you do,” Richards said, and swung the heavy glass pot down on Donahue’s bent head with all the force he could manage.

MINUS 008 AND COUNTING

The effort ripped open the wound in his side for the third time, but the pot didn’t break. Richards wondered if it had been fortified with something (Vitamin B-12, perhaps?) to keep it from shattering in case of high level turbulence. It did take a huge, amazing blot of Donahue’s blood. He fell silently onto his map table. A ru

“Roger five-by, C-one-niner-eight-four,” a radio voice said brightly.

Richards was still holding the Silex. It was matted with strands of Donahue’s hair.

He dropped it, but there was no chink. Carpeting even here. The glass bubble of the Silex rolled up at him, a winking, bloodshot eyeball. The glossy eight-by-ten of Cathy in her crib appeared unbidden and Richards shuddered.

He lifted Donahue’s dead weight by the hair and rummaged inside his blue flight jacket. The gun was there. He was about to drop Donahue’s head back to the map table, but paused, and yanked it up even further. Donahue’s mouth hung unhinged, an idiot leer. Blood dripped into it.

Richards wiped blood from one nostril and stared in.

There it was-tiny, very tiny. A glitter of mesh.

“Acknowledge E.T.A. C-one-niner-eight-four,” the radio said.

“Hey, that’s you!” Friedman called from across the hall. “Donahue-”

Richards limped into the passage. He felt very weak. Friedman looked up. “Will you tell Donahue to get off his butt and acknowledge-”

Richards shot him just above the upper lip. Teeth flew like a broken, savage necklace. Hair, blood, and brains splashed a Rorschach on the wall behind the chair, where a 3-D foldout girl was spreading eternal legs over a varnished mahogany bedpost.

There was a muffled exclamation from the pilot’s compartment, and Holloway made a desperate, doomed lunge to shut the door. Richards noticed that he had a very small scar on his forehead, shaped like a question mark. It was the kind of scar a small, adventurous boy might get if he fell from a low branch while playing pilot.

He shot Holloway in the belly and Holloway made a great shocked noise: “Whoooo-OOO!” His feet flipped out from under him and he fell on his face.

Duninger was turned around in his chair, his face a slack moon. “Don’t shoot me, huh?” he said. There was not enough wind in him to make it a statement.

“Here,” Richards said kindly, and pulled the trigger. Something popped and flared with brief violence behind Duninger as he fell over.

Silence.

“Acknowledge E.T.A., C-one-niner-eight-four,” the radio said.

Richards suddenly whooped and threw up a great glut of coffee and bile. The muscular contraction ripped his wound open further, implanting a great, throbbing pain in his side.

He limped to the controls, still dipping and sliding in endless, complex tandem. So many dials and controls.

Wouldn’t they have a communications link constantly open on such an important flight? Surely.

“Acknowledge,” Richards said conversationally.

“You got the Free-Vee on up there, C-one-niner-eight-four? We’ve been getting some garbled transmission. Everything okay?”

“Five-by,” Richards said.

“Tell Duninger he owes me a beer,” the voice said cryptically, and then there was only background static.

Otto was driving the bus.

Richards went back to finish his business.