Chapter 1
Early Fall, 1974
Tom lay on the soft grass, the heat of the late autumn sun tempered by the chill taste of approaching winter in the breeze. A faint drone grew steadily in his ears, displacing the laughter and commotion of those around him. He searched the brilliant blue between the haphazardly scattered clouds for the small shiny cross that belonged to the drone in his ears. Then his eyes seized on a glint of metal high in the sky. Inching its way against the wind, the plane crossed the drop-zone and headed up wind.
The drone changed, dropping a couple notes in tone, and then abruptly cut out all together. Tom caught his breath as he pictured what was happening thousands of feet above the illusory tranquility where he lay. The dark crush of tense bodies in the door of the plane, the howl of the chill wind, the sudden push exploding into the brilliant blue. He hardly noticed the tightness in his chest and his shallow rapid breathing.
Snapping back to his ground- bound perspective, Tom strained his eyes to follow the four black spots that separated from the plane - watching them first spread out by the plane's speed, then rushing together into a tight circle. The circle parted into four distinct dots again, and then reformed into a jagged line.
The dots were growing in size, resolving into bodies with arms and legs. The line broke up and reformed back into a circle, only with two of the members facing outward. The jumpers held their last formation for what seemed a long time, their shapes growing in size and detail. Suddenly the formation seemed to explode as the individual jumpers let go, turned and tracked away from the others.
Tom followed one shape as it streaked away like the point of a star burst. He could see the jumper's arm reach in and pull the ripcord. There was a flash of white color as the pilot chute left the backpack pulling the main chute with it. Within an instant the deployment bag reached the end of the suspension lines and the canopy snaked out into the air stream, blossoming immediately into a brilliant multicolored dome. The parachute rocked back and forth twice as it fully inflated, and then stabilized as its airfoil shape filled out and began to fly.
As the speed of his parachute-turned-glider picked up, the jumper pulled down the right control line, banking the canopy into a sharp right turn that tightened into a spiral on the second revolution. The jumper released the control line and the canopy swooped out of the spiral, rocking back as it shed excess speed.
Tom heard a faint shout drifting down from above as the jumper shared his euphoria with the world. The excited exchanges between the four shapes drifting down through the air were barely audible on the ground, but it was obvious they considered their jump a success.
With a rustle of nylon, one after the other glided in, pulling both toggles down smoothly to flare their wings for landing. Standing once again on solid ground, his glorious flying machine collapsed into a tangle of fabric and suspension lines at his feet, his face and hands flushed by the chill upper atmosphere and adrenaline rush that was still tapering off, the jumper seemed to glow with excitement.
In his enthusiasm, one of the jumpers turned to Tom, who just happened to be handy, exclaiming, "Did you see that! We got all three - bang bang bang. 'Could've done two more if we'd planned 'em." Tom nodded back, but the jumper was already picking up his parachute and talking animatedly with the three others skydivers walking in with their arms full of brightly colored cloth.
Tom knew there wasn't any point in trying to break into the conversation. A jump might last only 50 seconds in freefall and couple more minutes under canopy, but it was worth hours of talk and memories on the ground. Skydivers never seemed to tire of talking about jumping. He knew he'd hear all about it that evening over a smoke and a beer.
Tom's thoughts were interrupted by the loudspeaker announcing, "Reding, Danforth, Fairmont, and Cooper, gear up! Plane's on the way down, an' your load's up next." He felt the first stirrings of what he liked to refer to as "a guaranteed rush like no other".
An almost tangible boundary separated the brilliant sunlight of the yard from the comparative darkness of the packing house. Dim shapes resolved into rows of long packing tables and crowds of people as his eyes adapted to the light.
Some of the shapes, clothed in soiled and patched student jumpsuits, held a blank terror in their eyes - the mark of someone waiting to make his first jump. As the student's career progressed, that look would change to dazed relief, thoughtful wonder - and if he continued jumping, to glazed fanaticism. Skydiving was the sort of activity that could quickly grow to dominate the life of anyone continuing with it, pushing aside any previous interests, seeping into every thought, every conversation.
Tom walked over to the far corner where he'd stashed his gear - carefully covered with his jumpsuit. Sliding his arms into the jumpsuit, he felt a pang of fond regret at the all-too-obvious evidence of the hundreds of jumps since he'd first tried on its then clean bright flawless fabric - but also a bit of renewed pleasure at the memories sewn into each patch, and ground into each worn spot.
As he fastened the wrist and ankle cuffs, and zipped up the full length zippers, Tom was yet again struck by the seeming irrationality of the affection he felt toward his rig. He found it amusing when other people named their cars and other inanimate objects. But as illogically emotional as it seemed on one hand, there was no question that he felt a real affection for his rig. Maybe it was because his continued survival was so obviously dependent on the proper functioning of the parachutes, but it seemed like more than that. He lavished more care on his rig than he did on himself, fanatically protecting it from sunlight, oil or gas - or that scourge of the packing house - a careless cigarette.
He pulled open the flaps that covered the pins and cones holding the containers closed, checking to insure that the pins that sprouted from the ripcord cable were centered in the holes through the cones - not too deep and not too shallow. Too deep and they could cause a hard pull, too shallow and the pins could slip out, allowing the spring-loaded pilot chute to escape. After he checked both the main parachute container on the bottom and the piggyback reserve container on top, he paused for a moment to look over the entire rig.
When he'd bought his first set of gear, he'd taken care to have it all color-coordinated in combinations of red and black. The containers were still red and black, but the jumpsuit and parachutes had been replaced. And since his finances dictated that function was more important than style, his colors no longer matched.
His eyes played over the harness - the chafing strips over the metal hardware growing threadbare but still protecting the structural parts of the harness; the heavy cord stitching was still solid; the padding growing shiny with a few frayed spots. The containers sported some loose threads, and across most of the flaps were seams where alterations had been made to accommodate a succession of ever smaller main parachutes.
The current occupant was a yellow and white ram-air, already several years old when it found its way into his rig. With new suspension lines, a new deployment system, and a general re-trim, it flew with the best of them. It might pack slightly larger than the newest versions, but considering the rest of his marginally obsolete gear, it didn't matter that much. Stacked above the shrunken main container was the old style thick reserve. The reserve, which had been half the size of the original main container, was now almost the same size as the altered main.
Every time he looked at it, he wished he could do something about shrinking the reserve, but always chickened out. He knew the reserve would work the way it was, and while he often experimented with his main parachute, there was something about messing with his last chance reserve that always managed to persuade him to leave it alone.
Picking up the rig by the left shoulder strap, he slung it over his back, allowing the harness to fall free on his right side. He threaded his right arm through the harness, then shrugged the rig onto the middle of his back. Snapping the leg straps and fastening the chest strap, he shook it all into place. Checking that the main and reserve ripcord handles were well seated in their elastic retaining bands, he pulled on his modified hockey helmet and headed out in search of the rest of his load.
The bright sun washed out his vision as he left the packing house, and he had to grope his way through the people standing around the door. His eyes adapted as he crossed the lawn to the staging area and saw three other jumpers approaching. In the back of his mind he knew they were Jack Danforth - a long term smoking buddy from before either got into jumping; Alice Fairmont - his current living companion, lover, and borrower of his sweat shirts; and Jane Cooper - a Canadian jumper traveling from drop-zone to drop-zone.
But now they were the other members of his load, and his mind identified them with images of their jumpsuits tied to impressions of their competence in the air. Jack, with large flared cuffs on the arms and legs of his loose fitting green and black jumpsuit, was a little flashy in his flying, but would get in if there was anything to get into. Alice, with less extra fabric in her blue and red jumpsuit so that she could match the descent rate of heavyweights like Jack, was a smooth and careful flyer. She might not get in as quickly as Jack, but she was less likely to take out the formation with a miscalculated approach. Jane was an unknown quantity to Tom, never having been on a load with her before. But her gear suggested she'd been jumping for awhile, and she seemed to know what she was doing. Her shades of blue jumpsuit showed signs of wear and repairs, and the newness had been scuffed off her parachute containers and harness.
As Tom approached the group, he admired the sleek flatness of Jack's new rig. The tiny containers held the newest, lightest, flattest packing parachutes on the market, seeming to hug his back, molding themselves to the curves of his spine. Tom wondered where Jack was getting the money to buy new gear.
As Tom joined the group, he heard the whoosh of the plane as it glided over the runway threshold with its engine cut back to idle. The metal skin of the plane boomed and rumbled as the landing gear touched down on the rough gravel strip, rocks and dust rising in twin plumes behind the wheels. Halfway down the runway the plane braked to a stop, then revved its engine to make a slow U turn and taxi awkwardly over to the gas pumps.
"Damn, gotta' wait for fuel," muttered Tom as he saw the pilot climb up on the wing strut and start opening the fuel tanks. The warm sun beat down on the four wrapped and strapped jumpers, and Tom could feel the sweat starting to form. Pulling open his chest strap and unzipping the front of his jumpsuit, he was already wishing the pilot would hurry up.
The reluctance most jumpers felt toward washing their jumpsuits combined with too many hot days of jumping could make the inside of the jump plane pretty pungent. Washing risked shrinkage which threatened the aerodynamics of the suit. Many jumpers figured that the wind blast of a couple jumps would “dry clean” most of the soil and odor, and only risked one or two washings a year. The only thing worse than a week of hot humid weather was a chili feed the night before. All gases expand with altitude.
The pilot finished fueling the plane and motioned to the knot of jumpers. Shuffling over to the plane, Tom found a spot on the wing strut out away from the fuselage that was free of any trace of engine oil. With the four jumpers and pilot pushing, the plane rolled easily back away from the gas pumps, turning to face toward the runway. Signaling they were far enough, the pilot jumped in shouting "Clear!"
The jumpers backed away from the plane hurriedly as the starter motor whined the propeller into motion. The engine coughed and popped repeatedly before catching with a ragged blast. Oily smoke billowed from the exhaust, clearing after a moment. The engine responded to the practiced hand of the pilot, steadying to a regular beat. At the signal from the pilot the jumpers again approached the plane, entering through the jump door that was hinged to lie flat against the overhead wing when open.
Since he would be last out of the plane on the jump, Tom was the first to board. He leaned slightly into the prop-blast as he climbed over the door sill, his hands gripping the duct-tape-covered aluminum. The shade of the wing and the strong breeze created by the idling engine combined to turn the sweaty heat of the sun into sudden chill. He crawled on his hands and knees over the required but useless seat-belts that littered the floor.
The interior of the plane was a bare metal skeleton, stripped of every shred of upholstery except for the pilot's seat and the yards of silvery duct tape that covered any sharp edge or protuberance that could catch at a passing harness. Duct tape was affectionately referred to as "hundred-mile-an-hour tape" out of appreciation for its ability to withstand airspeed and prop-blast.
As he crossed the bare metal floor, Tom told himself once again that jumpers with their gear didn't fit in normal airplane seats, and upholstery added weight. For the same reason, the fuel tanks were only 1/4 full. Less weight meant a faster climb to altitude, and that was some consolation. But he wondered if stripping out the upholstery was more in the drop-zone owner's favor than the jumper's as he sat down on the hard metal floor, facing backward with his backpack against the back of the pilot's seat.
Jack climbed in next, sitting across the tail with his legs intertwined and forming a right angle with Tom's. Jane, going out base, entered next, sitting facing backward with her backpack leaned up against the instrument panel. Alice got in last, straddling Jane's legs as she kneeled facing forward where the passenger's seat would have been. The pilot pulled the brace out, and the door swung down. He tugged the door closed and slid the simple bolt latch home. Pushing in the throttle and working the steering brakes, the pilot started the plane rolling out to the runway.
When he reached the end of the runway, the pilot went through a last minute magneto and engine control check, quickly scanned the sky for planes and jumpers, then shoved the throttle all the way in. The engine roared as the plane bounced down the rough strip. Tom lifted his head to look out the window, watching the packing house accelerate by, followed by a line of parked airplanes and then fields.
The landing gear bounced and clattered through the bumps and dips, feeding its complaints into the structure of the plane, causing the aluminum skin to boom and rumble, and the frame to creak ominously. The pilot pulled back on the control column and the wheels lifted off the unfriendly ground. Tom watched the ground recede as the plane clawed its way up over the fence at the end of the runway.
As the obstacles passed underneath, the pilot cut back the throttle and the engine assumed the steady throb it would maintain for the rest of the climb. The plane bumped and twitched in the low altitude turbulence, while the engine vibration found sympathetic rattles in the loose rivets of the airframe.
Tom watched the agonizingly slow climb of the needle in his altimeter, inching its way toward the critical level of 1000 feet. At 1000 feet a jumper could dump his fast-opening reserve parachute and expect to survive. If anything happened to the plane above the critical altitude, all four jumpers would be out the door in seconds. Below the critical altitude the jumpers would have to ride the plane down, trusting their fate to the pilot's skill and luck.
The altimeter needle touched the 1000 foot mark and Tom could feel the tight knot in his stomach ease a bit. He zipped up his jumpsuit and fastened his chest strap. As the long minutes stretched into seeming hours, Tom fidgeted and fiddled with his gear. He idly checked the snaps on his leg straps; checked to see that the ripcord handles were properly seated in their retainers; inspected the main parachute cutaways; retied his shoes; tapped on the face of his altimeter; compared his altimeter reading with those of his companions; looked out the window at the same scenery he'd seen hundreds of times before; went over in his mind step by step his role in the coming jump; remembered his night before with Alice; and even made plans to change the oil in his car.
Most of all he avoided dwelling on the improbability that his parachute might malfunction. He'd packed carefully, taken good care of his gear, and was a good enough flyer that proper body position on opening was pretty much a given. Statistically, he knew he was safer jumping out of airplanes than driving down the freeway, but still the fears lurked in the dark corners of his mind - with the enforced idleness of the long plane ride to altitude giving them a perfect environment for mischief. Tom knew that the key to smooth flying in freefall was to be loose and relaxed. Getting all tensed up worrying was just what he didn't need. So he filled his mind with thoughts of sex, fixing his car, and anything else that occurred to him.
At long last the altimeter needle was approaching the 9500 mark. Tom heard the steady drone of the engine ease as the tilt of the floor leveled off. "Jump run," announced the pilot, leaning over to release the latch on the door. The door swung up on its own, lifted by the small airfoil on its edge. The cabin was suddenly filled with a swirling storm of cold wind. Even when the temperature on the ground was 90, it could be near freezing on jump run.
As the first blast of cold touched his skin, Tom could feel his heart rate starting to pick up, and his time sense slowing down, in the pattern that hundreds of jumps had programmed into his system. He snugged up the chin strap on his helmet and pulled his goggles down over his eyes. He turned his head to watch Alice, framed in the open doorway and leaning out to sight along their flight path.
"Five right," she directed to the pilot, having to shout to be heard above the roar. Tom felt the plane lurch to the right as the pilot jabbed the rudder pedal. Alice put her head out again, holding herself vertical and sighting along the bottom edge of the door frame to judge their progress across the ground.
Beyond Alice, Tom could see the ground below, the details reduced by the altitude to an abstract pattern. At this altitude there wasn't any feeling of height or falling. It was only down below 2000 feet that the horizon shifted from below to above, and the ground suddenly seemed to rush up at the jumper. Those who failed to pull their ripcords above the minimum legal opening altitude reported that their first taste of ground rush was all the reminder they needed. "Five right!" Alice shouted to the pilot, and the plane lurched to the right again. She waited while the correction took effect on their course. Then after long minutes she shouted "Ten left and hold that heading!" A minute later she shouted "Cut!" and started climbing out.
As the pilot cut the engine and the prop-blast dropped off, Alice climbed out on the short platform attached to the landing gear, holding onto the wing strut with her hands. When she reached the end of the platform, she stretched out to grab onto the point where the strut met the overhead wing. Getting a firm hold, she stepped off the platform and hung by her hands, her feet dangling over thousands of feet of nothingness.
Jane followed Alice out the door, stopping with her inside foot on the end of the platform. She leaned over the wing strut, ready to push off with both hands.
Jack climbed half way out the door and turned to face the tail of the plane. Tom crowded as far out as he could, crouching with his knees on the door frame. Already, before even leaving the plane, he could feel the adrenaline flowing through his arteries, his brain starting to accelerate, its electrons sliding along on chemically greased raceways. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes, and he knew that by the time he actually let go of the plane his brain would be zooming along so fast that the 50 seconds of freefall would seem like ages. When everyone was ready, they counted down 3...2...1...GO! and launched themselves into the void.
Diving out the door, Tom felt the prop-blast tilt him into a head down vertical dive. He arched his back, throwing out his arms and folding his legs back as the prop-blast tried to push him past vertical. As he dropped out of the prop-blast and settled down level, he saw Jane and Jack linking up to form the initial two-man twenty feet below.
Aiming to skirt the burble of partial vacuum that formed above bodies plummeting through the ocean of air, Tom pulled his arms back to a wide delta. His body tilted in the increasingly powerful blast of air from below, the flow deflecting down his chest giving him forward speed while his legs, arched back till they nearly touched his backpack, acted as brakes. Moving his arms and legs in and out of the airstream, twisting and turning his body with the automatic ease and smoothness of long practice, he dove down and around the side of the forming two-man, approaching his assigned slot from five feet out and three feet up.
Tom watched as Alice arrived at the formation just before him on the opposite side. Zeroing in on her assigned slot, she came in fast, flaring her arms and tucking her knees forward to stop just as she reached the wrists of the two-man. Waiting until the last instant, she reached out and grabbed a hand full of jumpsuit on each side of the grip. When she was sure she had a firm hold on both jumpers, she shook their grips and they let go, expanding the formation into a three-man.
The formation had by now reached terminal velocity, with the buoyancy of the high-pressure air being compressed below the falling jumpers equaling the acceleration due to gravity. With the air blasting past at 120 miles per hour, Tom had to use more finesse than he had earlier in the jump. The addition of the third jumper also slowed the descent rate of the formation, making him glad he hadn't used up all his excess altitude on his initial approach.
Translating his excess altitude into forward speed, he punched his body through the turbulence around the formation, feeling the resistance sapping his speed. Coasting up to the wrists, he flared out his arms and tucked his knees forward. His chest came up as his legs dropped, braking the last of his speed. The turbulence felt mushy compared to the clean air outside the formation. He grabbed as much jumpsuit as he could with each hand, shaking to signal he had grips.
For a moment Tom looked around the circle of grinning faces, cheeks distorted by the wind, eyes wide with excitement. Being last man in, he was first to break grips and turn 180 degrees. Holding himself as motionless as possible, he waited while the others maneuvered around his base. He felt someone grab his ankles while other hands grabbed his right arm and side. Jane slid sideways around in front of him, orbiting around to his left side. Turning only his head to follow her around, he watched as she slid herself right into her slot on his arm and side. Looking around, he saw that the "T" was complete.
The grips on his arms were abruptly released, and he felt the grips on his ankles crawl up to encircle his knees as someone wrapped his arms around his upper legs in a strong hold. More seconds passed as he waited for the others to form the a caterpillar with him at the head. Then the shake on his legs came that signaled all were in and ready. Pressing his arms to his sides and bending at the waist, Tom dove over the hump of high-pressure air that had been supporting him, plunging head-first toward the ground, dragging the other jumpers one by one over the hump with him.
When he was vertical, Tom straightened out and felt the first rush of acceleration. A series of accelerations followed as each jumper in the chain was pulled into the vertical stack. With only the frontal area provided by Tom's head and shoulders at the front to generate drag, the combined mass of the four jumpers drove the caterpillar through the air at close to 300 miles per hour - straight down.
When his altimeter needle touched 3500, Tom pushed his arms out into the blast, arching his back to pull out of the dive. He could feel the wrenching forces let loose by his actions as the chain of interlinked jumpers tried to arc into a back-loop.
The forces on the head of the caterpillar were nothing compared to the crack the whip action on the tail. As he screamed around the bottom of the curve, Tom wasn't surprised to see bodies break off the tail and go tumbling through space. By the time the caterpillar had rounded the bottom and pulled up to vertical, there were only two left in the chain and it didn't have enough velocity to complete the loop. He fell into the burble of the jumper on his legs, who was now below him. They collapsed into a jumble that quickly separated, focused now on the imperative of tracking away for opening clearance.
Pushing off from the other jumper, Tom turned away and shaped his body into a rigid wing roughly parallel with the ground, with his arms cupped at his sides, his legs and toes pointed almost painfully straight. He could feel the wind rush down his chest and off his toes, extracting as much horizontal force as he could from vertical blast. He could even see his movement across the ground. For a second he noticed how the abstract pattern of ground was beginning to show details.
A quick glance at his altimeter showed the needle dropping into the red zone. He brought his arms up, held out and slightly in front of his shoulders, while he tucked up his legs. Rotating vertically, he quickly scanned the air above him for other jumpers. Almost without conscious thought beyond deciding it was time to pull, his right arm reached in and grabbed the main ripcord handle, returning to its outstretched position still holding its prize.
Tom felt a bump on his back as the pilot chute pulled the deployment bag out of the container. Looking up, he saw the suspension lines playing out of the retaining bands across the mouth of the bag. The lines pulled tight and the bag opened, allowing the tightly folded ribbon of colorful fabric to snake out into the airstream. Tom felt a tug on his harness as the snatch force of the pilot chute pulled the canopy tight. In a blur, the fabric inflated into a rounded square, rocking back and forth as it filled with air and expanded into the corners, the inhibiting slider that controlled the speed of the opening sliding rapidly down the lines.
Tom settled into the harness as the full opening shock hit him, the main webs of the harness feeding the load down his chest to his leg straps. The staged opening of the main parachute turned what would otherwise have felt like the sudden stop at the end of a rope, into a painless rapid deceleration spread over a couple of seconds more "umph" than "ow".
The first thought that flashed through Tom's mind as the opening shock passed, was to check his canopy. He wasn't surprised to look up and see the slider resting on the connector links two feet above his head, and the canopy fully open and flying slow and stable at half-brakes. Of all the disappointments in life, never getting full value out of the just-in-case emergency training he'd picked up in first jump school, was the one he was sure he'd regret least.
He paused for a moment as his time sense went through the wrenching shift back to near-normal. Floating high above the ground visible far beneath his feet, the calm and stillness washed in on him, accentuating the sudden time shift his mind was going through. Stuffing the ripcord down the neck of his jumpsuit, he reached up and tugged the control toggles, pulling them out of their retaining loops and releasing the opening brakes. With the brakes off, the canopy picked up speed, the wind humming faintly in the lines, and gently flapping the legs of his jumpsuit.
For the first time Tom really looked at the ground to see where he was. Scanning his surroundings, he spotted the drop-zone behind him. Pulling down the left toggle - a piece of stiff plastic tubing forming a handle on the control line that extended to the tail of the canopy - he felt the resistance as the left tail surface of the wing deflected down, slowing the airflow on that side. The wing banked into a hard left turn, diving and picking up speed as it turned.
Tom let the toggle up as the drop-zone came into view, and his world tilted back to level - with a slight rock backward and a settling sensation as the wing sloughed off excess speed gained in the diving turn. With the toggles at their stops and the wing at full glide, he had the sensation that the canopy was forcing its way through the resisting air, driving forward faster than the air cared to allow. He never felt this way under a round canopy, its leisurely forward speed making it seem to just drift with the wind. The wing was definitely different. It seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, and the toggle pressure seeming to confirm its resistance to any change in course.
Seeing that Alice's spotting was once again dead on and he was plenty close to the drop-zone, Tom pulled his right toggle all the way down. The horizon suddenly tilted and started to pan rapidly across his vision. He could feel the G forces building up, pushing him down into the harness as the wing completed its first revolution and continued to bank farther into a spiral. The horizon was almost vertical as it passed in a blur, the hum of the wind in the lines filling his ears. He eased the toggle up and the horizon tilted back toward normal. Spotting the drop-zone as it panned past him, he let the toggle up to its stop. The wing flattened out and he felt the familiar rock back and settle as it returned to normal flight.
Tom had started out as low man on the opening stack, and his playing around had cost him considerable altitude, but he checked the air around him just in case. He was passing over the packing house and all the other canopies were far above him. His eyes sought out the wind sock and flag, noting that he was headed downwind, with ground winds strong enough to wave the flag but only lift the sock half way. He knew there was a way to determine the exact wind speed by the way the calibrated wind sock acted, but the numbers were of marginal usefulness. He had a feel for how to handle the wing when the flag waved in that certain way, and his mind was already calculating his final approach. He didn't get numbers from the depths of his mind, only a feeling for where and how steep to make his turn, coming out headed into the wind at what felt like the right altitude.
Gliding down across the parking lot, across the crowds of on-lookers who were looking up as much for their own safety as to see his landing, Tom riveted his attention on the spot where he intended to land. When he was around ten feet off the ground, Tom started to pull both toggles down, feeling the canopy rocking back in a flare that converted his forward speed to temporary lift.
He was two feet above the ground, with the toggles as far down as he could pull them, when he started feeling the wing's flare edging toward a stall. His forward speed was gone and the wing seemed to be floating in the air, still hanging on the last of its flare. He lightly touched down with the last of the float before the wing started to drop in a stall, stepping forward to get out from under as the canopy collapsed around him. He wasn't always so graceful, as the patches on his jumpsuit attested, but he was glad that having landed "in", he'd put on a good show. The ribbing from a crash-and-burn landing right in front of the packing house could be merciless.
Standing once again on firm ground, the last lurking apprehensions about the jump and landing having evaporated, he felt the pure unadulterated rush of pleasure that always hit him when the tension was released. He could just imagine all the chemicals his glands must be pumping into his bloodstream to make him feel so high. It was surely more than a simple adrenaline rush. Returning to reality, he watched Alice, Jane and Jack glide in with a rustle of fabric to easy landings.
Having made his intended three jumps for the day, Tom wasn't in any hurry to repack his parachute. He backed away from the tangle of fabric and cord lying on the ground around him, pulling it into some order. Windmilling his arms, he wound up the suspension lines, grabbing a handful of the lines at the base of the lump of fabric to use as a handle as he slung the unruly mass over his shoulder.
It only took a couple of minutes in the heat and soft breezes of ground level to remind Tom that he needed to get out of the hot sun and shed his gear before he got sweaty again. He strode quickly into the packing house and over to the far corner. Slinging the bundle of canopy fabric down onto a clean spot, he piled the lines on next, followed by the containers and harness. A little judicial pushing and prodding collected it all into a lump that his spread-out jumpsuit would cover. Then he quickly left his precious bundle to partake of what was possibly the greatest pleasure of jumping - reliving each second of the jump in slow motion with the others on the load.
Even with his adrenaline-accelerated time-sense, Tom knew that so many things happened during the too-few-seconds of even a disappointing jump, that it was necessary to see the chain of events through the eyes of all everyone else who was there in order to fully understand what happened. And after a walk-through on the ground, there would be hours of bragging, arguing, and storytelling that would stretch far into the night - with the bragging and stories getting more and more outrageous as more and more smoke and beer were consumed.