Solaris Rising by Ian Whates Page A

moment later, a sound like thunder. Then screams.
    I was still blinking at purple after-images when I spotted a black dot drop from the fading flare. A parachute snapped open, perilously low. It floated downward for a few seconds and passed out of view. I’d tracked it with my camera, open-mouthed. I turned the phone over and looked at the news screen, just in time to catch a figure landing and rolling, then standing as the parachute collapsed beside him. Mobbed, Jibril had time to take his helmet off and deliver a shaky smile before the technicians and medics bundled him away.
    “Jesus,” I said. Nobody heard me. I could hardly hear myself above the yells and screams and cries of relief.
     
    It was towards the middle of that afternoon before we all met up, at a bistro in the Marais, not far from my own flat. I’d dropped by and picked up my wife, who was by now well awake and as shaken as everyone else who’d watched the ascent. We strolled around a few corners and joined the now somewhat larger group outside a bistro off Beaumarchais. They were outside because Jack had evidently insisted on smoking one of his Cuban cigars (a gesture somewhat redundant in the Year Three, but he’d acquired the taste in the old days). I bought our drinks and joined the huddle, introducing my wife to Bob and to two writers who hadn’t met her before. She smiled politely and retreated to a table with Milton and Ali, over glasses of dry white and a saucer of black olives.
    “But why,” Bob was saying, “would they have their big show-off demonstration flight blow up like that? In front of everyone? If it was a fake, a balloon for fuck’s sake, they’d have done much better just bringing it back down after a shorter flight.”
    “A double bluff,” Jack said. He jabbed with his cigar. “Exactly so that everyone would think the way you’re thinking.”
    The discussion went around and around, not getting anywhere.
    “We’ll know soon enough,” Nicole pointed out. “With all those cameras and phones pointed at it, and no doubt all kinds of instruments – hell, there’ll be a spectrograph analysis –”
    “Wait a minute,” said Jack. He dropped the butt of his cigar and crushed it out on the pavement, then reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone. He thumbed the screen.
    “Knew I had the app,” he said.
    He poked about for a moment, then triumphantly held up his phone screen for all to see. I peered at a colour-coded histogram.
    “What?” I said.
    “Analysis of the light from my pics,” he said. “Hydrogen and magnesium, mostly. No wonder the flash was so fucking bright!”
    The sky had clouded over, the sun had set, rain began to spit. We headed indoors. After another round, of drinks and argument, we headed out. Across the boulevard and deeper into the Marais, wandering westward. It turned into one of those evenings. Standing outside a serving hatch in the drizzle, we dined on Breton pancakes out of waxed paper, reeled across the street, occupied a bar. Got into arguments, left, got turned away from a gay club that Milton and Ali had fancied they’d get us into, found another bistro. Bob bought more rounds than he drank. He worked his way around our tables, talking to each of the writers, and eventually squeezed in beside me and my wife.
    “Done it!” he said. “Got everyone signed up.”
    “Good for you,” I said.
    “You’re forgetting someone,” my wife pointed out.
    Bob mimed a double take. “Shit. Pardon, madame . Yes, of course.” He looked me in the eye. “You up for a story?”
    “I’m not American,” I said.
    “Hey, man, that’s got nothing to do with it. You’re one of the gang, even if you are a Brit.”
    “I appreciate the offer, Bob,” I said. “But I think it would kind of... dilute the focus, know what I mean? And I don’t have any problem getting published, even in English.”
    “Don’t be so stupid,” my wife said. “The Ozzies and Kiwis? They don’t pay well, and