38 - Digression: the wing-relay

I’ve written ‘wing-relay’ a few times without explaining what that means. I correct the error here:

When Niku had first set up a wing-courier service, shortly after we took Arko, she’d designated one flyer per mail packet; the same person would see the same mail to its destination. I can’t recall whether it was her or me who had the idea (we were in bed, where identities get more blurred) but it occurred to us that mail need not sleep; it would arrive faster if it were relayed from one person to another. On the first rest-stop, the courier, once he or she landed, would hand the packet off to another taking off fresh. Many A-niah and even Yeoli flyers were already happy to fly at night, and we built a system of fire-beacons to show the way through stretches of wilderness. That cut down the times by almost half.

Then it occurred to me the wing-mail would be faster still if the packet could be passed in mid-air, since ascents and descents between ground and courier-height take time, so I asked Niku and her wing-thinkers to come up with a way, which they soon did. The packet had two strings attached to it; the first flyer would lower the packet by one, with the other dangling, which the second flyer, below, would grab, pulling in the packet as the first flyer let go. Though they could only do it in daylight, it worked well, cutting down times by another sixth.

Early into my second term as Imperator, I said to Niku, “If we can use single-wings to relay mail, surely we can use double-wings to relay a person.”

She answered more or less as I expected. “Don’t be ridiculous, Chevenga! That’s impossible!”

Of course she’d guessed which person I had in mind. We’d already cut our Arko- Vae-Arahi time from four days to three by going all night the first night, something I doubted she’d still be able to do past her twenties; of course maybe once I was gone she wouldn’t have to fly anyone so manic for speed. We’d use a double-wing and spell each other piloting. But I was thinking that no rest-breaks at all would drop it almost to two days, in good air. I was sure I could sleep in the sky if I were purely a passenger; for one thing, you’re always being rocked.

“How can you know it’s impossible without trying it?” I said.

“Does it occur to you that the world needs you as you are, rather than a little puddle of red glop with the odd bit of bone sticking out in an Imperator-semanakraseye-shaped indentation in the earth?”

“All right, fair enough,” I said. “I won’t be the first to try it.”

“You think I’m going to risk any of my people, trying to enact this mouse-brained scheme!?”

“Niku…” I knitted my brows in puzzlement. “I almost don’t know how to say this, but… it’s just not like you, and your spirit, to say something’s impossible.”

That would do it. I know my wife.

She wouldn’t let me anywhere near the work until she, her crack flyers and her crack wing-engineers perfected both the rigging and the procedure, naturally. She made me practice the parts I could practice on the ground, and then the full procedure while flying low over water, until I knew it backwards and blindfolded. Only then would she let me try it at height.

It’s done like this: your harness is attached by a line of Zak-wrought steel, three wires in case one breaks, to a winch, as well as by a short chain to the wing itself. You turn over onto your back in your harness (which is best, as it keeps you from looking down while you’re doing it), and unclip the chain. The first flyer winches you down so you are hanging about two man-heights beneath the wing; the second flyer, above and in front, drops her Zak-wrought wire, which you catch by the lighter cord attached to the ring-clip at its end. You clip it on to the main ring of your harness, checking three times that it’s fast, because it is your life; then the second flyer starts winching you up and the first down until your weight comes off the first line and onto the second—this is the time of greatest danger—and you can then unclip from the first (it is, fortunately, impossible to mix them up, because one is immovable with your weight and the other loose). Then the second flyer winches you up to her, you clip on the chain, and you’re done, which your heart will realize in time, and start slowing down. All through, you and the two flyers inform each other and acknowledge every move with precise words.

Both flyers have to have the greatest skill, enough to keep a perfect line and speed, exactly even with each other, while the amount of weight on their wings changes, and with just one hand on the bar so they can winch with the other. They have to do it smoothly enough that your weight doesn’t shift from one to the other suddenly, as that can unbalance one or both wings. (The A-niah’s very first attempt ended up with the passenger, the second flyer and the second wing all in the Miyatara because of this; no one was harmed, but only because A-niah are good at holding their breath underwater for a time.) It is absolutely necessary to find very steady or still air. The first time I tried it, Niku and Baska did it so well I didn’t feel a jolt at all.

Niku trained ten of her best couriers as rigorously as she’d trained herself and Baska, and from then on, that was how I travelled between Vae Arahi and Arko. (Yes, I was the first person to make the full trip.) I’d eat heavy at cock-light, we’d take off at dawn on the ridge-wind in Vae Arahi, or mid-morning on the thermal over Arko. They’d relay me that evening at the peak height, well before sunset (it’s only possible in daylight, because you have to see the wire to catch it). I’d sleep the night in the air, they’d relay me the second time, low, once the sun was up the next morning, and the third time, high again, on the evening of the second day. Each flyer would be carrying food and water for me. (About other necessities, I’ll say only that I’d get beside the flyer instead of on top, and I always did my best to make sure we were over wilderness.) Sometime during the second night, given good conditions, we’d land on the roof of either the Hearthstone Independent or the Marble Palace. Niku was always the first flyer if I was going to Vae Arahi, or the fourth if I was coming back to her in Arko.

I got so used to it I wouldn’t even wake up until the flyer yelled the password to land, or even when my body noticed it was no longer rocking and there was no wind in my hair. The worst hardship was not even boredom, once I started taking a very light lap-desk with pen and papers tethered so I could work, but having to stay mostly motionless for two days solid. I would exercise by flexing and loosening and stretching as best I could in the harness, which helped, and would take a long hot soak and a massage after landing.

It’s not for everyone. You have to have strong arms just to turn over in your harness, unless you want to do the whole trip on your back. Kaninjer, who is so afraid of heights that he can only fly on a double-wing if he drugs himself fairly heavily, not only advised me never to do the relay, but told me he wished I’d never even told him I would, so that he didn’t have to imagine it. Blooded warriors tend to be more willing than non-warriors, being used to entrusting their lives to others, though naturally Esora-e asked me how in the world I could so trust foreigners. A few air-seasoned A-niah have told me they could never do it. “My moyawa is part of me, like a bird’s wings are part of the bird,” they say. “I could never let go like that.” Kallijas, bless him, will do it, as will Krero, Kaneka and several others in the darya semanakraseyeni.