Lois & Clark: A Superman Novel by C. J. Cherryh

Author:C. J. Cherryh [Cherryh, C. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780761504825
Amazon: 0761504826
Publisher: Prima Lifestyles
Published: 1996-08-27T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Flying was no cure for want of sleep. The brain wanted time to recycle: when it became all one long, uninterrupted day, the ability to keep going and keep thinking was no warrant it was healthy, even for Superman.

But he could do it, and could under the circumstances meant had to, with lives and promises riding on his conscience; he hurtled through the high, cold air with the sun at his heels and the sky shadowing ahead of him.

The Atlantic, in those rare patches free of clouds, was a finely wrinkled gray sheet fading rapidly to night. A traveler from space would have thought the planet uninhabited. All traces of humanity disappeared at this altitude, and if he chose not to look more closely or on a finer scale, he could imagine himself alone, solitary, in a sky where not even planes intruded.

Planes tracked the jet stream and the prevailing winds to reach Europe. He knifed through them. They conserved whenever they could and relied on lift. He drew energy as he needed it—in fact could survive without food or water—but matter was a headier fare, and one of Big Belly Burgers' unrepentant hamburgers, with fries, would have come very, very welcome if he'd thought of it in the flurry of phone calls that he'd made—on his card—from a service station in Park Ridge, or if he'd thought to order two Chinese dinners when he phoned the order.

Then, he hadn't been that hungry. But he was burning it up, drinking in the energy around him, turning the air colder than surrounding air and creating microweather as he went, an effect that could generate a sparkle of ice as moisture froze in midair.

Now his keen vision saw the lights on the shores of France, not so many lights as there might have been a little earlier in the local night.

He wished he knew what Lois was up to. He trusted her heart, but he didn't trust the forces of information seekers moving around her. She'd met publicity before; but even if she did nothing to provoke it, the sensation mongers would rake up every piece of file footage, every incident, every scrap of her life.

Tell Lois that she had the kind of photographic past that yellow journalism could make into news? He'd tried.

And it just wasn't that easy to reason with her when Lois was as tired as she was, when she was in pain. He thought she'd understood his warning: he hoped they'd agreed. He wasn't sure he could imagine the cost it was to her to keep going, physically, after what she'd spent of herself in that basement, but he knew what the cost would be for her to duck down and stay out of the search after answers for those people in the hospital.

Her feature story was written by now. The evening edition was on the trucks, on the stands, headed for the hands of regular subscribers as he crossed the coast of Europe.

And as if he

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