Wings Read Free

Angalo.
    "It can't be harder than stealing a truck," said Masklin.
    "You're not suggesting we steal a plane?" said Gurder, by this time totally horrified.
    "Wow!" said Angalo, his eyes lighting up as if by some internal power source. He loved vehicles of all sorts - especially when they were travelling fast.
    "You would, too, wouldn't you?" said Gurder accusingly.
    "Wow!" said Angalo again. He seemed to be looking at a picture only he could see.
    "You're mad," said Gurder.
    "No one said anything about stealing a plane," said Masklin quickly. "We aren't going to steal a plane. We're just going for a ride on one, I hope."
    "Wow!"
    "And we're not going to try to drive it, Angalo!"
    Angalo shrugged. "All right," he said. "But suppose I'm on it, and the driver becomes ill, then I expect I'll have to take over. I mean, I drove the Truck pretty well -"
    "You kept running into things!" said Gurder.
    "I was learning. Anyway, there's nothing to run into in the sky except clouds, and they look pretty soft," said Angalo.
    "There's the ground!"
    "Oh, the ground wouldn't be a problem. It'd be too far away."
    Masklin tapped the Thing. "Do you know where the jet plane is that's going to Florida?"
    "Yes."
    "Lead us there, then. Avoiding as many humans as you can."
    "And where does the orange juice come into all this?" said Gurder.
    "I'm not too sure about the orange juice bit," said Masklin.
    It was raining softly, and because it was early evening, lights were coming on around the airport.
    Absolutely no one heard the faint tinkle as a little ventilation grille dropped off an outside wall.
    Three blurred shapes lowered themselves down onto the concrete and sped away, toward the planes.
    Angalo looked up. And up some more. And there was still more up to come. He ended up with his head craned right back.
    He was nearly in tears.
    "Oh, wow!" he kept saying.
    "It's too big," muttered Gurder, trying not to look. Like most of the nomes who had been born in the Store, he hated looking up and not seeing a ceiling. Angalo was the same, but more than being Outside he hated not going fast.
    "I've seen them go up in the sky," said Masklin. "They really do fly. Honestly."
    "Wow!" It loomed over them, so big that you had to keep on stepping back and back to see how big it was. Rain glistened on it. The airport lights made smears of green and white bloom on its flanks. It wasn't a thing, it was a bit of shaped sky.
    "Of course, they look smaller when they're a long way off," Masklin muttered.
    He stared up at the plane. He'd never felt smaller in his life.
    "I want one," moaned Angalo, clenching his fists. "Look at it. It looks as though it's going too fast even when it's standing still!"
    "How do we get on it, then?" said Gurder.
    "Can't you just see their faces back home if we turned up with this?" said Angalo.
    "Yes. I can. Horribly clearly," said Gurder. "But how do we get on it?"
    "We could..." Angalo began. He hesitated. "Why did you have to ruin everything?" he snapped.
    "There's the holes where the wheels stick through," said Masklin. "I think we could climb up there."
    "No," said the Thing, which was tucked under Masklin's arm. "You would not be able to breathe. You must be properly inside. Where the planes go, the air is thin."
    "I should hope so," said Gurder, stoutly. "That's why it's air." "You would not be able to breathe," said the Thing patiently.
    "Yes, I would," said Gurder. "I've always been able to breathe."
    "You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You gets lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
    "Why not?" said Gurder.
    "Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
    Masklin waded through the puddles on the concrete so that he could see down the far side of the aircraft. Some way away a couple of humans were using some sort of machines to load boxes into a hole in the side of the plane. He walked back, around the huge tires, and squinted up at a long, high tube that stretched from the