His plane was inside. His twin-engine Skyrex. Lise remembered this aircraft from their abortive flight across the mountains—ages ago, it seemed.

Lise and Diane used the grimy employees' restroom while Turk did his preflight checks. When Lise came back from the rear of the hangar she found him in a heated discussion with a uniformed man. The man in the uniform was short, balding, and conspicuously unhappy. "I have to call Mr. Arundji," he said, "you know that, Turk," and Turk said, "Give me a few minutes, that's all I ask—haven't I bought enough rounds over the last few years to earn me that?"

"I'm advising you that this is not allowed."

"Fine. No problem. Fifteen minutes, then you can call anybody you want."

"I'm giving you notice here. Nobody can say I let you get away with this."

"Nobody'll say any such thing."

"Fifteen minutes. More like ten." The guard turned and walked away.

* * * * *

In the old days, Turk said, an airport was anywhere in Equatoria you could carve out a landing strip. A little four-seater prop plane would get you places you couldn't otherwise go, and nobody worried about filing a flight plan. But that had changed under the relentless pressure of the Provisional Government and the air-travel conglomerates. Big business and big government would drive places like Arundji's into the ground, Turk said, sooner or later. Even now, he said, it wasn't exactly legal to be making this kind of after-hours departure from a closed strip. Probably it would cost him his license. But he was being squeezed out anyhow. Nothing to lose, he said. Nothing much. Then he pivoted the plane onto a vacant runway and started his takeoff run.

This was Turk doing what he claimed to do best, Lise thought: putting on his shoes and walking away from something. He believed in the redemptive power of distant horizons. It was a faith she couldn't bring herself to share.

The aircraft left the ground swaying like a kite, its huge feathered props pulling them toward the moonlit mountains, the engine purring. Ibu Diane peered out the window and murmured something about "how much quieter these things are than they used to be—oh, years ago now, years ago."

Lise watched the arc of the coast tilt to starboard and the distant smudge of Port Magellan grow even smaller. She waited patiently for Turk to say something, maybe even to apologize, but he didn't speak—only pointed once, abruptly; and Lise looked up in time to see the white-hot trail of a shooting star flash over the peaks and passes of the mountains toward the emptiness of the western desert.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN