Kim Stanley Robinson - The Lucky Strike

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THE LUCKY STRIKE

Kim Stanley Robinson

Stories of alternative worlds tend to be very colorful, sometimes even bizarre, as sf writers imagine how

different our world might have been if the Romans had colonized North America or if the dinosaurs hadn't

become extinct. The alternative world in this thoughtful novelette presents a much more contemporary

change in history… a change we see in the making. The result is just as important, though.

Kim Stanley Robinson's first novel, The Wild Shore, was nominated for the Nebula Award earlier this

year. His second novel is Icehenge.

War breeds strange pastimes. In July of 1945 on Tinian Island in the North Pacific,

Captain Frank January had taken to piling pebble cairns on the crown of Mount Lasso-

one pebble for each B-29 takeoff, one cairn for each mission. The largest cairn had

four hundred stones in it. It was a mindless pastime, but so was poker. The men of the

509th had played a million hands of poker, sitting in the shade of a palm around an

upturned crate sweating in their skivvies, swearing and betting all their pay and

cigarettes, playing hand after hand after hand, until the cards got so soft and dog-eared

you could have used them for toilet paper. Captain January had gotten sick of it, and

after he lit out for the hilltop a few times some of his crewmates started trailing him.

When their pilot Jim Fitch joined them it became an official pastime, like throwing

flares into the compound or going hunting for stray Japs. What Captain January

thought of the development he didn't say. The others grouped near Captain Fitch, who

passed around his battered flask. "Hey January," Fitch called. "Come have a shot."

January wandered over and took the flask. Fitch laughed at his pebble. "Practising

your bombing up here, eh Professor?"

"Yah," January said sullenly. Anyone who read more than the funnies was

Professor to Fitch. Thirstily January knocked back some rum. He could drink it any

way he pleased up here, out from under the eye of the group psychiatrist. He passed

the flask on to Lieutenant Matthews, their navigator.

"That's why he's the best," Matthews joked. "Always practising."

Fitch laughed. "He's best because I make him be best, right Professor?"

January' frowned. Fitch was a bulky youth, thick-featured, pig-eyed-a thug, in

January's opinion. The rest of the crew were all in their mid-twenties like Fitch, and

they liked the captain's bossy roughhouse style. January, who was thirty-seven, didn't

go for it. He wandered away, back to the cairn he had been building. From Mount

Lasso they had an overview of the whole island, from the harbor at Wall Street to the

north field in Harlem. January had observed hundreds of B-29s roar off the four

parallel runways of the north field and head for Japan. The last quartet of this

particular mission buzzed across the width of the island, and January dropped four

more pebbles, aiming for crevices in the pile. One of them stuck nicely.

"There they are!" said Matthews. "They're on the taxiing strip."

January located the 5O9th's first plane. Today, the first of August, there was

something more interesting to watch than the usual Superfortress parade. Word was

out that General Le May wanted to take the 509th's mission away from it. Their

commander Colonel Tibbets had gone and bitched to Le May in person, and the

general had agreed the mission was theirs, but on one condition: one of the general's

men was to make a test flight with the 509th, to make sure they were fit for combat

over Japan. The general's man had arrived, and now he was down there in the strike

plane, with Tibbets and the whole first team. January sidled back to his mates to view

the takeoff with them.

"Why don't the strike plane have a name, though?" Haddock was saying.

Fitch said, "Lewis won't give it a name because it's not his plane, and he knows it."

The others laughed. Lewis and his crew were naturally unpopular, being Tibbets'

favorites.

"What do you think he'll do to the general's man?" Matthews asked.

The others laughed at the very idea. "He'll kill an engine at takeoff, I bet you

anything," Fitch said. He pointed at the wrecked B-29s that marked the end of every

runway, planes whose engines had given out on takeoff. "He'll want to show that he

wouldn't go down if it happened to him."

"Course he wouldn't!" Matthews said.

"You hope," January said under his breath.

"They let those Wright engines out too soon," Haddock said seriously. "They keep

busting under the takeoff load."

"Won't matter to the old bull," Matthews said. Then they all started in about

Tibbets' flying ability, even Fitch. They all thought Tibbets was the greatest. January,

on the other hand, liked Tibbets even less than he liked Fitch. That had started right

after he was assigned to the 5O9th. He had been told he was part of the most important

group in the war, and then given a leave. In Vicksburg a couple of fliers just back from

England had bought him a lot of whiskies, and since January had spent several months

stationed near London they had talked for a good long time and gotten pretty drunk.

The two were really curious about what January was up to now, but he had stayed

vague on it and kept returning the talk to the blitz. He had been seeing an English

nurse, for instance, whose flat had been bombed, family and neighbors killed… But

they had really wanted to know. So he had told them he was onto something special,

and they had flipped out their badges and told him they were Army Intelligence, and

that if he ever broke security like that again he'd be transferred to Alaska. It was a

dirty trick. January had gone back to Wendover and told Tibbets so to his face, and

Tibbets had turned red and threatened him some more. January despised him for that.

The upshot was that January was effectively out of the war, because Tibbets really

played his favorites. January wasn't sure he really minded, but during their year's

training he had bombed better than ever, as a way of showing the old bull he was

wrong to write January off. Every time their eyes had met it was clear what was going

on. But Tibbets never backed off no matter how precise January's bombing got. Just

thinking about it was enough to cause January to line up a pebble over an ant and drop

it.

"Will you cut that out?" Fitch complained. "I swear you must hang from the ceiling

when you take a shit so you can practice aiming for the toilet." The men laughed.

"Don't I bunk over you?" January asked. Then he pointed. "They're going."

Tibbets' plane had taxied to runway Baker. Fitch passed the flask around again. The

tropical sun beat on them and the ocean surrounding the island blazed white. January

put up a sweaty hand to aid the bill of his baseball cap.

The four props cut in hard, and the sleek Superfortress quickly trundled up to speed

and roared down Baker. Three-quarters of the way down the strip the outside right

prop feathered.

"Yow!" Fitch crowed. "I told you he'd do it!"

The plane nosed off the ground and slewed right, then pulled back on course to

cheers from the four young men around January. January pointed again. "He's cut

number three, too."

The inside right prop feathered, and now the plane was pulled up by the left wing

only, while the two right props windmilled uselessly. "Holy smoke!" Haddock cried.

"Ain't the old bull something?"

They whooped to see the plane's power, and Tibbets' nervy arrogance.

"By God Le May's man will remember this flight," Fitch hooted. "Why, look at

that! He's banking!"

Apparently taking off on two engines wasn't enough for Tibbets; he banked the

plane right until it was standing on its dead wing, and it curved back toward Tinian.

Then the inside left engine feathered.

War tears at the imagination. For three years Frank January had kept his

imagination trapped, refusing to give it any play whatsoever. The dangers threatening

him, the effects of the bombs, the fate of the other participants in the war, he had

refused to think about any of it. But the war tore at his control. That English nurse's

flat. The missions over the Ruhr. The bomber just below him blown apart by flak. And

then there had been a year in Utah, and the viselike grip that he had once kept on his

imagination had slipped away.

So when he saw the number two prop feather, his heart gave a little jump against

his sternum and helpless he was up there with Ferebee, the first team bombardier. He

would be looking over the pilots' shoulder…

"Only one engine?" Fitch said.

"That one's for real," January said harshly. Despite himself he saw the panic in the

cockpit, the frantic rush to power the two right engines. The plane was dropping fast

and Tibbets leveled it off, leaving them on a course back toward the island. The two

right props spun, blurred to a shimmer. January held his breath. They needed more lift;

Tibbets was trying to pull it over the island. Maybe he was trying for the short runway

on the south half of the island.

But Tinian was too tall, the plane too heavy. It roared right into the jungle above

the beach, where 42nd Street met their East River. It exploded in a bloom of fire. By

the time the sound of the explosion struck them they knew no one in the plane had

survived.

Black smoke towered into white sky. In the shocked silence on Mount Lasso

insects buzzed and creaked. The air left January's lungs with a gulp. He had been with

Ferebee there at the end, he had heard the desperate shouts, seen the last green rush,

been stunned by the dentist-drill-all-over pain of the impact.

"Oh my God," Fitch was saying. "Oh my God." Matthews was sitting. January

picked up the flask, tossed it at Fitch.

"C-come on," he stuttered. He hadn't stuttered since he was sixteen. He led the

others in a rush down the hill. When they got to Broadway a jeep careened toward

them and skidded to a halt. It was Colonel Scholes, the old bull's exec. "What

happened?"

Fitch told him.

"Those damned Wrights," Scholes said as the men piled in. This time one had

failed at just the wrong moment; some welder stateside had kept flame to metal a

second less than usual-or something equally minor, equally trivial-and that had made

all the difference.

They left the jeep at 42nd and Broadway and hiked east over a narrow track to the

shore. A fairly large circle of trees was burning. The fire trucks were already there.

Scholes stood beside January, his expression bleak. "That was the whole first

team," he said.

"I know," said January. He was still in shock, in imagination crushed, incinerated,

destroyed. Once as a kid he had tied sheets to his arms and waist, jumped off the roof

and landed right on his chest; this felt like that had. He had no way of knowing what

would come of this crash, but he had a suspicion that he had indeed smacked into

something hard.

Scholes shook his head. A half hour had passed, the fire was nearly out. January's

four mates were over chattering with the Seabees. "He was going to name the plane

after his mother,"' Scholes said to the ground. "He told me that just this morning. He

was going to call it Enola Gay."

At night the jungle breathed, and its hot wet breath washed over the 5O9th's

compound. January stood in the doorway of his Quonset barracks hoping for a real

breeze. No poker tonight. Voices were hushed, faces solemn. Some of the men had

helped box up the dead crew's gear. Now most laid on their bunks. January gave up on

the breeze, climbed onto his top bunk to stare at the ceiling.

He observed the corrugated arch over him. Cricketsong sawed through his

thoughts. Below him a rapid conversation was being carried on in guilty undertones,

Fitch at its center. "January is the best bombardier left," he said. "And I'm as good as

Lewis was."

"But so is Sweeney," Matthews said. "And he's in with Scholes."

They were figuring out who would take over the strike. January scowled. Tibbets

and the rest were less than twelve hours dead, and they were squabbling over who

would replace them.

January grabbed a shirt, rolled off his bunk, put the shirt on.

"Hey Professor," Fitch said. "Where you going?"

"Out."

Though midnight was near it was still sweltering. Crickets shut up as he walked by,

started again behind him. He lit a cigarette. In the dark the MPs patrolling their

fenced-in compound were like pairs of walking armbands. The 509th, prisoners in

their own army. Fliers from other groups had taken to throwing rocks over the fence.

Forcefully January expelled smoke, as if he could expel his disgust with it. They were

only kids, he told himself. Their minds had been shaped in the war, by the war, and for

the war. They knew you couldn't mourn the dead for long; carry around a load like

that and your own engines might fail. That was all right with January. It was an

attitude that Tibbets had helped to form, so it was what he deserved. Tibbets would

want to be forgotten in favor of the mission, all he had lived for was to drop the

gimmick on the Japs, he was oblivious to anything else, men, wife, family, anything.

So it wasn't the lack of feeling in his mates that bothered January. And it was

natural of them to want to fly the strike they had been training a year for. Natural, that

is, if you were a kid with a mind shaped by fanatics like Tibbets, shaped to take orders

and never imagine consequences. But January was not a kid, and he wasn't going to let

men like Tibbets do a thing to his mind. And the gimmick… the gimmick was not

natural. A chemical bomb of some sort, he guessed. Against the Geneva Convention.

He stubbed his cigarette against the sole of his sneaker, tossed the butt over the fence.

The tropical night breathed over him. He had a headache.

For months now he had been sure he would never fly a strike. The dislike Tibbets

and he had exchanged in their looks (January was acutely aware of looks) had been

real and strong. Tibbets had understood that January's record of pinpoint accuracy in

the runs over the Salton Sea had been a way of showing contempt, a way of saying

you can't get rid of me even though you hate me and I hate you. The record had forced

Tibbets to keep January on one of the four second-string teams, but with the fuss they

were making over the gimmick January had figured that would be far enough down

the ladder to keep him out of things.

Now he wasn't so sure. Tibbets was dead. He lit another cigarette, found his hand

shaking. The Camel tasted bitter. He threw it over the fence at a receding armband,

and regretted it instantly. A waste. He went back inside.

Before climbing onto his bunk he got a paperback out of his footlocker. "Hey

Professor, what you reading now?" Fitch said, grinning.

January showed him the blue cover. Winter's Tale, by an Isak Dinesen. Fitch

examined the little wartime edition. "Pretty racy, eh?"

"You bet," January said heavily. "This guy puts sex on every page." He climbed

onto his bunk, opened the book. The stories were strange, hard to follow. The voices

below bothered him. He concentrated harder.

As a boy on the farm in Arkansas, January had read everything he could lay his

hands on. On Saturday afternoons he would race his father down the muddy lane to

the mailbox (his father was a reader too), grab the Saturday Evening Post and run off

to devour every word of it. That meant he had another week with nothing new to read,

but he couldn't help it. His favorites were the Homblower stories, but anything would

do. It was a way off the farm, a way into the world.

He had become a man who could slip between the covers of a book whenever he

chose. But not on this night.

The next day the chaplain gave a memorial service, and on the morning after that

Colonel Scholes looked in the door of their hut right after mess. "Briefing at eleven,"

he announced. His face was haggard. "Be there early." He looked at Fitch with

bloodshot eyes, crooked a finger. "Fitch, January, Matthews-come with me."

January put on his shoes. The rest of the men sat on their bunks and watched them

wordlessly. January followed Fitch and Matthews out of the hut.

"I've spent most of the night on the radio with General Le May," Scholes said. He

looked them each in the eye. "We've decided you're to be the first crew to make a

strike."

Fitch was nodding, as if he had expected it.

"Think you can do it?" Scholes said.

"Of course," Fitch replied. Watching him January understood why they had chosen

him to replace Tibbets: Fitch was like the old bull, he had that same ruthlessness. The

young bull.

"Yes, sir," Matthews said.

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THELUCKYSTRIKEKimStanleyRobinsonStoriesofalternativeworldstendtobeverycolorful,sometimesevenb\izarre,assfwritersimaginehowdifferentourworldmighthavebeeniftheRomanshadcolonizedNorthAm\ericaorifthedinosaurshadn'tbecomeextinct.Thealternativeworldinthisthoughtfulnoveletteprese\ntsamuchmorecontemporarych...

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Kim Stanley Robinson - The Lucky Strike

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