Free The Night of the Triffids by Simon Clark Page A

seat, Hinkman, sitting behind me, hardly paused for breath. Although he was similarly clad in helmet and flyer's pressure suit, which must have been strange to him, his chatter was fluent and rapid.
        'There are ten principal cloud forms,' he said. 'From the nimbostratus that forms at a relatively low level up through to the high clouds of cirrus and cirrostratus and so forth that can exist at an altitude of 16,000 feet.'
        I continued my pre-flight checks as he talked. Meanwhile the rain rattled fiercely against the perspex canopy of the jet. Already the odour of aviation fuel hung in the air. A distillation of triffid oil, it smelled sweet, like pears baking in a pie.
        'I fully expect the obscuring layer of cloud will begin at low level,' Hinkman was saying. 'But as it is clearly the variety of cloud known as cumulonimbus that is producing this thunderstorm, it may well extend upwards to a height in excess of 20,000 feet.'
        As if the elements wished to concur with the meteorologist's observation a fork of lightning tore across the sky. A moment later a peal of thunder buffeted the aircraft as it stood on the runway.
        'Mr Masen?'
        'Yes?'
        'Our plan is elegant in its simplicity. You're to fly the plane up through the cloud until we reach unbroken sunlight so that we can determine the extent of the blackout layer.'
        'I understand.'
        'This aircraft can reach an altitude of twenty thousand feet?'
        'It has a ceiling of about fifty thousand feet. Will that be high enough for you, Mr Hinkman?'
        'Yes… yes, it will be.'
        I now detected a certain falling-off in Hinkman's enthusiasm.
        Another burst of lightning flooded the landscape with electric blue light. Trees, momentarily in silhouette, looked like great shaggy beasts massing for attack. A potent image. Chilling, too.
        'Ah, Mr Masen…'
        'David, please.'
        'Oh, yes, quite, quite. Then please call me Seymour.'
        'Yes, Seymour?'
        'The thunderstorm, I can't help but noticing, seems rather severe.'
        'It's a real humdinger, isn't it, Seymour?'
        'Ah… yes.' I heard a pale imitation of a laugh in my earpiece. 'It is that, David. Uhm, I just wondered…'
        'Yes?'
        'Should we actually be flying in this weather?'
        'As Commander Reynolds said: Needs must.'
        'Ah, yes, he did.'
        'And we do want to get to the bottom of this infernal blackout?'
        'Yes, yes, of course. Uhm… but isn't… isn't it possible our aircraft will be struck by lightning?'
        'No. I'd say it's not a possibility, Seymour. I'd say it was a certainty.'
        'Oh, my goodness.'
        'Don't worry. I crashed a plane yesterday, so I don't think I'll be that unlucky for it to happen again today, do you?'
        'I… uhm…'
        'There's the green light. Hang on tight, Seymour. This baby can really move.'
        I thought he'd begun to say something; it may even have been a prayer. But the roar of the engines drowned out his words. A moment later we soared towards whatever lay above us.
        

CHAPTER SIX
        
RECCE
        
        WHEN all was said and done, I had expected a routine flight. What I discovered a few short moments later gave me ample food for thought.
        True, these were no ordinary conditions. The weather was atrocious. And, true, I'd taken off in absolute darkness with Seymour Hinkman, the now extremely introspective - and oh-so-silent - meteorologist. Nevertheless, this plane, the Gloster Javelin, was an all-weather and night fighter designed to cope ably with sorties even in the midwinter Arctic.
        So, up and up I soared.
        Five thousand feet, six thousand, seven thousand…
        And still darkness seemingly everlasting.
        Periodically I radioed base. But there was little to report.
        Ten thousand, twelve thousand, fourteen thousand