George Ratliff peered out of the plane window at the mountains below, spotted with the remains of winter snow and illuminated by the cold brightness of the moonlight. Ahead of the plane, about twenty degrees above the horizon, was the moon, standing out very clearly in the night sky.
His dark eyes narrowed and shifted to Bern Edwards, the blond giant up ahead at the controls. Bern would have chosen this sort of place to die -- a plane high over the Rockies, the stars and the moon -- the entire universe to watch him.
Denver was thirty minutes behind them now. Few words had been spoken since they began this second lap of their trip. Bern's quiet manner tonight probably meant that he was thinking of the outcome of this job. The entire Research Department of the Atomic Energy Commission would hand him the credit for its success.
George filled his pipe, packing the tobacco firmly with the heel of his thumb, and settled himself more comfortably in his seat. His nerves were very steady tonight, and he reflected briefly upon this fact, wondering if they would remain steady as he handed Bern his brandy flask in about half an hour.
He looked at Bern again, assuring himself that Bern would notice nothing suspicious. Bern was looking out into the space ahead of them, glancing from time to time at the control panel.
As if feeling George's gaze, he turned slightly, and spoke from over his shoulder:
"Fine weather, George. Probably be clear all the way in to Richfield. Springtime is no time to be flying at night over those babies down there, but looks like the weather station hit it square on the nose tonight. Clear as a bell ever since we left Denver. Did you ever have to wrestle with one of these four-motored jobs with those drafty spring winds in every valley? I remember last year . . . . no, guess it was a couple of years ago, I was flying . . . "
A brief tracing of hate appeared on George's face, flickering downward from his dark eyes which sparked fiercely and irregularly, to his lips and chin. The spark retreated, but his chin remained thrust forward slightly as he bit into his pipe stem. Bern Edwards knew well enough that he had never flown a plane. He didn't know the first thing about it and Bern knew that too. Bern was like that ... always getting under his skin with his boasting, his prideful airs, his flair for showmanship.
He had been impressed the first time he saw Bern, and they had become fast friends. Too fast perhaps, for now after ten months, their relationship rankled more and more frequently. It could have been that their friendship had grown much too fast and was already nearly toppling when Margie started working in the Research Office. Margie was beautiful, intelligent, and had a great personality. The similarity of his and Bern's taste for women was more than it should have been. Tastes so similar made for smoother operations for a while, but friction naturally arose as a consequence to their both beginning to think seriously of the same girl.
It was no one's secret that Margie had fallen for them both, and practically on first sight at that. And then Bern apparently began to make more headway than George.
"Sorry, buddy," Bern had said one morning at the office. "Guess you might as well move out."
This was said jovially, and Bern had then become more serious.
"It's the way she looks at me, George. Does she ever look at you like that? Those green eyes feasting all over your face and shoulders, just like she wanted to . . . but no, a girl like Margie wouldn't look like that at a man. She's not the kind to cross you, and she's very sure of who she wants."
He smiled briefly and then chuckled, artfully revealing that this quick transition to a brighter and lighter mood was not without effort.
George had felt his arms suddenly become weightless as they always did when he was angered or excited, and he felt his heart sink down slowly and quietly in his chest, where it seemed to become very still. He knew that Bern had taken Margie out the night before to two or three dance halls. George knew the routine well. They had ended up at a small cocktail lounge where he had told her stories of adventure and daring, taken partly from his experience, but chiefly from his imagination.
Margie wouldn't have had a chance to say a thing, but then, she wouldn't have wanted to. For Bern could tell interesting stories. Margie's eyes would have shined and sparkled of course. Everyone held their breath when Bern was telling of some adventure of his. And Margie's sparkling eyes were all that Bern would want -- at the time anyway. Someone to watch him, someone to hang onto his words breathlessly, their cigarettes burning their fingers or their drinks going flat . . . that was the main thing Bern ever cared for. That's
why Bern would have chosen this place to die -- above the towering ranges of the Rockies, "his babies" as he called them often, practically right up among the stars.
There was a slight dip of the plane. George tensed suddenly and then relaxed, a brief pain shot through his jaws and he realized that he had been biting into his pipe stem. He emptied the bowl and slipped the pipe into his pocket, a grimace appearing on his face as he did so. Before Bern, he had never really hated anyone in his life, and the feeling was not pleasant.
Bern was studying the atmosphere below. "It's still clear," he said to George as he peered at the white patches of snow on the mountains and looked ahead at the scattering of bright stars which lay outside the moon's halo. He had a brief thought that if the plane were to continue on into space, it would go on to the moon -- the beautiful and alluring globe of silver light.
"Of course, you can't ever tell over these babies. The whole God damn sky can be full of stars as steady as a radio beam, and you still can't be sure."
"True," said George. "Can't ever tell." He really didn't care if you could tell or not. Particularly not tonight. It would be nice to find clear weather outside when it was all over with Bern, and he himself was floating safely down to earth, but that detail was not important enough even to think about. If the weather were bad, so much the better. A plane wreck in a storm is not so readily placed under suspicion -- not that tonight's wreck would be anyway, for George had his little story carefully worked out, and there would be no way to investigate, for the plane would explode and burn when it crashed.
If Bern only knew that he would not be alive much longer, he wouldn't be considering the weather either. How unimportant would the weather conditions be to him then ... how extravagantly, how wildly unimportant they would be! With this thought, George laughed bitterly to himself. The bitterness vanished magically and the idea was merely funny, but so strangely and deeply funny that he had to clap his hand over his mouth and pretend to gaze out of the window lest Bern should glance back and notice.
His entire body shook. It seemed to shake the plane, and he glanced swiftly at Bern.
Bern. He was just sitting there was before, studying the sky, drumming absently on his knee with his fingers. It struck George with a fierce blow, that this gripping sensation in his body wasn't mirth, but hysteria, turning his stomach upside-down with sickening convulsions, and the impact of this realization sobered him instantly. Then his insides seemed to have organized themselves into a thing distinct from himself. They were a separate, living thing inside his chest and stomach which seemed to have realized more than he himself had, that this thing he was about to do was very much important.
To dispel the strange and horrible sensation, he took a deep breath. It didn't help much, so he went over the plans he had made to reassure himself that there were no flaws.
