There were no smells here of high-octane gasoline or burning radio wires. Instead there were odors of hay, grain, saddle soap and leather. The dome lights beat down garishly on strong wooden box stalls holding four broodmares, eight yearling fillies and a lone black stallion.

The horses stood still, almost dozing. Except for the occasional flat, muffled explosion of a backfire, the cabin was quiet—ominously quiet.

Fear was present here, as on the flight deck. The smell of it leaked from the skin of the two men and the boy sitting in jump seats near the horses. Their faces were pale and wet with sweat, and their jaws, alternately working and clenched tight, gave further evidence of their fear. The old man grabbed the sides of his seat, his hands shaking, when the plane suddenly began to yaw and lurch. There was a sharp jolt and a quick surge of noise within the aluminum shell, then all was quiet again as the propellers found more solid air.

Alec Ramsay turned to the navigator when the crewman sat down beside him. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asked. “How bad?”

The navigator studied the boy’s face a long while before answering. “I think we’ve ridden out the worst of it. How’d you get the horses so quiet?”

“We had to give them tranquilizer injections. They were tearing away the padding in their boxes.” There were heavy circles under Alec’s eyes. The muted red light on the wing went on and off, touching the boy’s face—a face much too old for his age.

“What about him?” the navigator asked, nodding toward the white-haired man. “Can’t you give your friend one, too?”

“Henry’s all right. You needn’t worry about him. He just looks scared. I guess I’m more scared than he is. The Black and I were in a spot like this once before. I thought I’d forgotten it, but I haven’t.”

“I hope you’re right,” the navigator said, “and that it was a spot something like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you got out of that one.”

The green navigation light at the end of the wing blinked on and off regularly, making a tiny glow in the darkness outside.

“You don’t think our chances are very good then?”

“You want it straight or should I quote confidently from the company manual?” It’d be better if they all knew what they faced, the navigator decided.

“I want it straight,” Alec answered. He was looking out the window rather than at the man. The heavy overcast had obliterated even the green light now. All he could see was the trailing edge of the wing slicing through the murk. It made him think of a knife slicing through the heavy icing of a birthday cake. And that made him think of home, when he was trying not to.

Finally he said, “What you mean is that we’re going to ditch. Is that it?”

The navigator nodded and his eyes remained on the youth’s face. “We will if we don’t find some land soon. We have gas left for less than an hour and we don’t even know where we are. Our radio communication system has been knocked out.”

“Isn’t there any clear air space beneath this stuff?”

“There wasn’t a while ago. No bottom.