about. If you made it you made it, if you didn’t you didn’t. That was his philosophy.
It took only a second for Stratton to confirm his fear that he was not going to make the clearing. If he’d been as certain of it when he’d been on the ramp he would have cancelled the jump and asked to go around again even though that would have pissed off everyone, especially Steel. The drop had started three seconds too late. That meant hundreds of metres in this business. Most of the bundles had landed inside the clearing but not all of them. He saw one strike the outer edge of the surrounding trees, the parachute ripping into the branches as the heavy bundle dropped between them. Not that he gave a monkey’s. He had his own problems.
Stratton’s square had a seventeen-foot horizontal gain to a one-foot drop. The wind was light and not a huge factor. Hitting the trees was. That could mean broken bones and getting hung up in a branch, and, depending on the extent of the injury, that might be the end of it. He had to find a way through - and quickly. A swift turn presented a choice of several gaps big enough to slip through. There was no way of knowing the obstacles he’d encounter inside the darkness, of course. He would find that out the hard way. His immediate task - one of many - was to sort out the angle of approach.
Stratton selected a hole directly beneath him. He soared out for some distance before turning back around. His experience told him that the trees were very tall and umbrella-like, and most of their branches would be near the top. If he could get past those then below would be mainly tree trunks - not that easy to steer through either.
Stratton concentrated on the dark opening, deftly pulling and releasing the toggles to adjust the chute’s glide path. He had to drop in perfectly or he would overshoot and that would be that.
The closer he got the deeper inside the hole he could see, but there was still no clear route through. At the crucial moment he pulled down on both toggles to remove much of the chute’s lift. As he plunged inside the gap it went dark and his eyes took a moment to adjust. He dropped rapidly and released the toggles to regain some lift. But as he did so a dense array of tangled branches appeared and he yanked down fiercely on one side to turn away, using what little control he had left. The chute’s fabric scraped against branches as Stratton swung in a tight arc. His legs struck them hard and they clung to him like grabbing hands. The reduction of weight took the air out of the cells and the parachute threatened to collapse. A violent and desperate kick released him but not before the chute had almost dropped level with him. He fell and for a moment was unsupported, but as he swung beneath the canopy his weight snapped the risers taut once more, the cells reinflated and he sailed on inside the jungle.
He was through the worst part of the descent but the dangers were not over. The tree trunks stood like vast pillars in a cathedral, the spaces between them barely wide enough to turn in. Littered across the jungle floor lay the decaying remains of past generations of trees. He pulled and released the chute’s toggles, using all his concentration and skill to weave between the massive columns.
The parachute flapped noisily as Stratton kept the speed as low as he dared without stalling, making the turns like a slalom skier, sometimes grazing a tree trunk.
The ground rushed towards him and as a small clearing appeared he lined it up. He released the toggles in order to eject his backpack, which he kicked off while he grabbed for the controls again. The pack dropped several feet before it jerked to a halt at the end of a line that was secured to Stratton’s harness. He took the lift out of the chute to stall it. The backpack hit the ground as his forward momentum ceased, and he dropped onto his toes beside it as if he was stepping down from a chair.
The parachute collapsed and once Stratton had unclipped it he slumped down to recover. One near-disaster after another within seconds was more than he had bargained for. He looked up at the hole