The Very Black Part 1

The Very Black.

by Dean Evans.

Jet test-pilots and love do not mix too happily as a rule--especially with a ninth-dimensional alter ego messing the whole act.

There was nothing peculiar about that certain night I suppose--except to me personally. A little earlier in the evening I'd walked out on the Doll, Margie Hayman--and a man doesn't do that and cheer over it.

Not if he's in love with the Doll he doesn't--not _this_ doll. If you've ever seen her you'll give the nod on that.

The trouble had been Air Force's new triangular s.h.i.+p--the new saucer.

Not radio controlled, this one--this one was to carry a real live pilot. At least that's what the doll's father, who was Chief Engineer at Airtech, Inc., had in mind when he designed it.

The doll had said to me sort of casually, "Got something, Baby." She called me baby. Me, one eighty-five in goose pimples.

"Toss it over, Doll," I said.

"No strings on you, Baby." She'd grinned that little one-sided grin of hers. "No strings on you. Not even one. You're a flyboy, you are, and you can take off or land any time any place you feel like it."

"Stake your mom's Charleston cup on that," I said.

She nodded. Her one-sided grin seemed to fade slightly but she hooked it up again fast. A doll--like I said. This was the original model, they've never gone into production on girls like her full-time.

She said, "Therefore, I've got no right to go stalking with a salt shaker in one hand and a pair of shears for your tailfeathers in the other."

"You're cute, Doll," I said, still going along with her one hundred percent.

"Nice--we get along nice."

"Somebody oughta set 'em up on that."

"So far."

"Huh?" I blinked. I hate sour notes. That's why I'm not a musician.

You never get a sour note in a jet job--or if you do you don't get annoyed. That's the sour note to end all sour notes.

"Brace yourself, Baby," she said.

I took a hitch on the highball gla.s.s I was holding and let one eye get a serious look in it. "Shoot," I told her.

"This new job--this new saucer the TV newscasts are blatting about.

You boys in the Air Force heard about it yet?"

"There's been a rumor," I said. I frowned. Top secret--in a pig's eyelas.h.!.+

"Uh-huh. Is it true this particular s.h.i.+p is supposed to carry a pilot this time?"

"Where do they dig up all this old stuff?" I growled. "h.e.l.l, I knew all about that way way back this afternoon already."

"Uh-huh, Is it also true they've asked a flyboy named Eddie Anders to take it up the first time? This flyboy named Eddie Anders being my Baby?"

I got bored with the highball. I tossed it down the hole in my head and put the gla.s.s on a table. "You're psychic," I said.

She shrugged. "Good looking, maybe. Nice shape, maybe. Peachy disposition, maybe. Psychic, unh-unhh. But who else would they ask to do it?"

"A point," I conceded.

"Fork in the road coming up," the Doll said.

"Huh?"

"Fork--look. It'll be voluntary, won't it? You don't have to do it?

They won't think the worse of you if you refuse?"

"_Huh?_" I gawked at her.

"I'm scared, Baby."

Her eyes weren't blue anymore. They'd been blue before but not now.

Now they were violet b.a.l.l.s that were laying me like somebody taking a last long look at the thing down inside the nice white satin before they close the cover on it for the final time.

"Have a drink, Doll," I said. I got up, went to the liquor wagon.

"Seltzer? There isn't any mixer left."

"Asked you something, Baby."

I took her gla.s.s over. I handed it to her. My own drink I poured down that same hole in my head. I said finally, "Nice smooth bourbon but I like scotch better."

"They've already crashed four of this new type on tests, haven't they?"

I nearly choked. _That_ was supposed to be the very pinnacle of the top secret stuff. But she was right of course. Four of the earlier models had cracked up. No pilots in them at the time--radio controlled. But jobs designed to carry pilots nevertheless.

"Some pitchers have great big ugly-looking ears," I said.

She didn't seem to mind. She said, "Or maybe I'm really psychic as you said. Or maybe my Dad's being Chief at Airtech has something to do with it."

"Somebody oughta st.i.tch a zipper across his big fat yap," I said. "And weld the d.a.m.n thing shut."

"He told only me," she said softly. "And then only because of you. You see, Baby, he isn't like us. He's got old fas.h.i.+oned notions you and I've got strings tied around each other already just because you gave me a ring."

I stared at her.

"Crazy, isn't it? He isn't sensible like us."

"Can the gag lines, Doll," I said sourly. "The old bird's okay."

And that fetched a few moments of silence in the room--thick pervading silence. A silence to be broken at any fractional second and heavy--supercharged--because of it.