candid. So, while he waited outside each bunker gloating, I went in and did my “inspections,” which I performed by quickly and permanently disarming each device.
I was staring at my handiwork in the last bunker, trying not to think of Steven Gottschalk, when I heard shouts. I ducked back out and, blinking rapidly, tried to figure out why a piece of the afternoon sky had torn loose and was floating toward us.
“Stand by to fire!” screamed the colonel, but it was a moment before anyone moved. It looked like a balloon, and it swung toward us like a hypnotist's watch, an ordinary thing working some extraordinary magic. Once I separated it from the sun, I realized that it was a balloon, an unusual one, thirty or so feet in diameter, and slender. It was more than slender, actually: it looked starved and weak, a dirty gray. The bottom half of the balloon was partially deflated; a quick glance would mistake it for a parachute. But down beneath, where you'd expect some person to dangle, hung instead a kind of crate that hardly seemed worth the balloon's trouble.
“Weather balloon, sir?” asked another sergeant, squinting. “I dunno, I heard some guys down in Monterey got in some awful kind of trouble for shooting down a-”
“Stand by to fire!” the colonel shrieked, his voice getting higher instead of louder. The sergeant backed up a step, and then skipped into a slow trot toward his bunker.
But the colonel wouldn't issue the order to fire; he just stood there, same as me, and stared the balloon all the way down to the ground. I think we didn't move because it was so quiet: except for the moon, there's nothing in life that big that ever moved so quietly. Even a sailboat makes a sound-the sails, the rigging, the water roiling past. But these balloons, six or seven stories tall, sailed silently. The only sound they made was when they landed, as this one soon did. Its payload scraped into a fold in the hill a few hundred yards off, and for a moment, the balloon floated there, stuck.
“Stand down,” said the colonel. I looked down the hill and saw that some curious soldiers were already climbing toward it. The colonel summoned a pair of binoculars and studied the balloon for a while, until a gust of wind came. The balloon popped free, dragged itself and its cargo a few yards up the hill, and then gave up once more. The colonel handed me the glasses, which I thought generous until I realized he simply didn't want to hold them anymore.
“What the hell can a balloon tell you about weather, Sergeant?” he asked, still staring after it.
“I don't know, sir,” I mumbled, adjusting the focus. Finally, I found the curious soldiers. I scanned up the hill ahead of them, along the path the balloon had torn through the grass and brush, until I reached the balloon itself.
Something had pierced the envelope, and the balloon now lay on its side, seemingly gasping, as if it had beached itself.
“Look like rain?” the colonel asked, and answered himself by laughing once. “Sunny and seventy through the weekend?” he added, checking his watch. “Weather. Five bucks says this is a Navy toy.”
I held my breath as I followed the balloon's shroud down to its pay-load. I'd never seen a hot-air balloon other than in photographs, and if anything, this balloon looked more incredible on the ground than in the air. The soldiers were almost upon it now, and I frowned, realizing that they would soon obstruct my view.
That's when I saw the fuse.
And then another, and another. And then a whole tangle of them came into view as I studied the payload more closely, and realized that each was a carefully wired charge-
“It's-a-bomb-sir,” I said. I couldn't be sure-the soldiers were in the way now, milling about, but-it had to be. I'd never seen a weather balloon, but I'd seen plenty of bombs in the classroom, and they-
“Sergeant?” the colonel asked, as if I'd reported sighting a seagull.
“A bomb, a bomb, a bomb,” I said, the
I was staring at my handiwork in the last bunker, trying not to think of Steven Gottschalk, when I heard shouts. I ducked back out and, blinking rapidly, tried to figure out why a piece of the afternoon sky had torn loose and was floating toward us.
“Stand by to fire!” screamed the colonel, but it was a moment before anyone moved. It looked like a balloon, and it swung toward us like a hypnotist's watch, an ordinary thing working some extraordinary magic. Once I separated it from the sun, I realized that it was a balloon, an unusual one, thirty or so feet in diameter, and slender. It was more than slender, actually: it looked starved and weak, a dirty gray. The bottom half of the balloon was partially deflated; a quick glance would mistake it for a parachute. But down beneath, where you'd expect some person to dangle, hung instead a kind of crate that hardly seemed worth the balloon's trouble.
“Weather balloon, sir?” asked another sergeant, squinting. “I dunno, I heard some guys down in Monterey got in some awful kind of trouble for shooting down a-”
“Stand by to fire!” the colonel shrieked, his voice getting higher instead of louder. The sergeant backed up a step, and then skipped into a slow trot toward his bunker.
But the colonel wouldn't issue the order to fire; he just stood there, same as me, and stared the balloon all the way down to the ground. I think we didn't move because it was so quiet: except for the moon, there's nothing in life that big that ever moved so quietly. Even a sailboat makes a sound-the sails, the rigging, the water roiling past. But these balloons, six or seven stories tall, sailed silently. The only sound they made was when they landed, as this one soon did. Its payload scraped into a fold in the hill a few hundred yards off, and for a moment, the balloon floated there, stuck.
“Stand down,” said the colonel. I looked down the hill and saw that some curious soldiers were already climbing toward it. The colonel summoned a pair of binoculars and studied the balloon for a while, until a gust of wind came. The balloon popped free, dragged itself and its cargo a few yards up the hill, and then gave up once more. The colonel handed me the glasses, which I thought generous until I realized he simply didn't want to hold them anymore.
“What the hell can a balloon tell you about weather, Sergeant?” he asked, still staring after it.
“I don't know, sir,” I mumbled, adjusting the focus. Finally, I found the curious soldiers. I scanned up the hill ahead of them, along the path the balloon had torn through the grass and brush, until I reached the balloon itself.
Something had pierced the envelope, and the balloon now lay on its side, seemingly gasping, as if it had beached itself.
“Look like rain?” the colonel asked, and answered himself by laughing once. “Sunny and seventy through the weekend?” he added, checking his watch. “Weather. Five bucks says this is a Navy toy.”
I held my breath as I followed the balloon's shroud down to its pay-load. I'd never seen a hot-air balloon other than in photographs, and if anything, this balloon looked more incredible on the ground than in the air. The soldiers were almost upon it now, and I frowned, realizing that they would soon obstruct my view.
That's when I saw the fuse.
And then another, and another. And then a whole tangle of them came into view as I studied the payload more closely, and realized that each was a carefully wired charge-
“It's-a-bomb-sir,” I said. I couldn't be sure-the soldiers were in the way now, milling about, but-it had to be. I'd never seen a weather balloon, but I'd seen plenty of bombs in the classroom, and they-
“Sergeant?” the colonel asked, as if I'd reported sighting a seagull.
“A bomb, a bomb, a bomb,” I said, the
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