Part 10: An Onerous Dilemma

He must have missed something. Alfonso Lusenchi, co-pilot of Air-Italia flight-69 must have ignored some crucial detail. What the short Italian with his curled hair and ebony moustache did know was that there had been strange cries of... passion from the cabin of the plane, a nearby intercom had been peppering the cockpit with inarticulate cries of what must have been great pain, a few muffled cries of... "attack", and something that sounded like 'hijack', but now all the young pilot could hear were eerie moans over a panoply of... of... what was that? slurping? wet, and slithering sounds could reach the intercom, amidst the incoherent grunts.

"The emergency transponder signals are - " but Alfonso was interrupted.

"BELAY THAT!" hissed his captain and superior, the coldly aloof, by-the-book professional woman. Her firm features and finely lined cheeks seemed contorted in... in... the sensation that played across her middle-aged features was too euphoric to be pain, yet too urgent in its intensity to reflect gratification. "There's... n-no problem..." The captain grunted. Her hazel eyes fluttering. Her left hand tightly gripped an aluminum container of generic orange juice, elbow quivering from the arthritic stiffness that had plagued her since her thirties.

"How can you say that Daniella;" Lusenchi demanded, using her first name to grab her attention. "The... the screams, the cries, I could have sworn I heard the word 'Hijack'! And the stewardesses! They do not respond when called!"

"M-m... Marshall... leave it to... the Air Marshall... if there's a problem." Was she listening to him? Was she listening to herself? "And you... will refer to me as Captain Shremf in flight!" Well, that was like her. The tight-ass Ice-queen that guided the massive commercial jet was... or had been, a characiture of didactic rigidity and adherence to regulation. Never letting down her guard, always remaining professional, did she even know his first name? Titles and designations were critical to the way she ran the show. But now?

"Even if the Marshall can save us, there are distress procedures that we must transmit! Maybe the Hijackers will win, perhaps not, regardless we must alert the nearest authorities to our situation!? I cannot believe I must tell you this!" Why were Daniella Shremf's eyes rolling back into her head? Why the grimace of secret desires plastering her face? Was it... was it her beverage? She had seemed... inordinately happy since partaking of what must surely have been a thoroughly ordinary can of orange juice. And, Lusenchi remembered something odd; the can was aluminum, and should have been pressurized, yet there had been no sound of gas release when opened. Where the food and drinks onboard flight contaminated? Tampered with? Yes... that could answer the questions that had plagued him... that just might make sense.

"Danie - Captain Shremf, I believe you have been intoxicated, you must relax and try to think clearly." His words were slow, measured and concise. But the delirious Austrian did not meet his dark eyes, she seemed scarcely aware of him, or the instrument panel. Her partially-graying hair began to escape the tight bun she normally kept it in, as she tossed her head to and fro in the grips of some persistent delusion; some eerie imposition upon her awareness of the world around her.

It was an impossible, onerous dilemma. The sort of decision that no one should have to wrestle with. Daniella Shremf was flying her airliner, as usual. But this was not the Atlantic Ocean; not any place on Earth she knew. She flew alone in a cockpit over clear, warm waters as calm as the horse latitudes, with a jutting island-cliff before her. It was not the first time she had been here; her plane had made sweeps of the island several times.

And above the rocks, crags, and jutting daggers of ominous stone, there lay within a shady valley a bucolic wonderland that would be demeaned by the word 'Paradise'. The trees and plants in the valley below her were greener than green, with colors so vibrant they seemed to deepen in richness the longer one gazed upon their leafy canopies. And their were people in the valley; women to be specific. Perfect, naked women with bodies to shame a pornstar frolicked carefree with each other, and amongst the soothing greenery.

"N-no..." The Austrian pilot hissed to herself. "This... this can't be real... it must be... a hallucination... You're hallucinating Daniella! Stop it! Stop!" This island... those women... it must be a dream, wasn't it? She needed to escape back to reality, she kept flying... away, far away from the craggy island of nude women at play. Yet before the land was entirely out of sight, another object appeared on the horizon...

"The same... the same island..." Sure enough, in whatever direction she flew, she would yet return to this same isle, the same jutting pillars of jagged formations to split open any manmade vehicle. Yet again, that same valley; the lush utopia of verdant bliss where females cavorted. Yet, instinctively Daniella knew that the creatures below were not females like her; though she should not have been able to see them with any clarity from her height, at this speed; she had visions of flawless physiques unmarred by the common ravages that afflict humans. There seemed no disease, no pain, no... aging. She brushed a hand unconsciously through the graying hair above her ears and below the dirty blond tresses bound into a tight knot as secure as her own discipline. But her right arm jolted with the flash of pain and stiffness of her arthritis; and she knew, sensed, believed that these naked jungle women could cure her.

"No... It's not... not real... impossible..." But her mind began to examine, analyze what she might have to do to join them. Her heart yearned to become one with then. But... the rocks, the crags... she scanned the island, but this plane; her plane was so large and ponderous; how could a landing be possible? There was no safe spot on this tropical fantasy to plausibly land a plane of the size she flew.

So she flew onwards... onwards... and was disturbed by the sqwauking cries from... somewhere distant... a harsh voice speaking of protocols... procedures... emergency hijacking transponder signals... a familiar voice from afar... could be Air-traffic control... but she didn't need them. How much of this vision was reality filtering through, and how much was imagined?

Though her plane had been flying at maximum speed away from the island, Daniella saw it again on the horizon in less than a minute. She could not help but look, could not help but study the remarkable place. There was the annoying male voice again, grunting something about 'emergency', and 'hijacking', but that must be some other plane. Most flights today had Air Marshalls better equipped to think about such matters than a pilot, so why bother her about someone else's problem? Forget them, forget the foolish male voice, as he whined about someone being intoxicated. The island was what mattered.

Flying lower and slower than a jetliner of this size should have been capable of, Daniella drank in what she could see of the carefree inhabitants through the windows. It was a life of absolute gratification; governed by a purity of instinct as seductive as it was irresistable. Stress or worry did not touch the lives of these creatures. They felt, they lusted, they acted. Many had begun coupling with legs outstretched with each other, some had begun to impale their femalias upon odd, phallic-shaped plantlife. Leaves and blossoms with a shape fitted and moulded to inflict perfect pleasure upon a woman's sexual core. That was how these creatures viewed males, she understood. Faceless donors of pleasure and seed. There were no relationships, no commitments; only the sensual satisfaction from skin upon nude skin in blatant rut, driven by the ever present imperative for fertlization. It was a wondrously erotic spectacle of females struggling to breed new life again forevermore, unburdened by the doubts, uncertainties, and fears that made human women so selective. And she would have this perverse peace forevermore. She could remain for the rest of her days in an idyllic, sexual playground, existing in a haze of pleasurable urges and instincts. These women did not doubt, or worry, there was no anxiety or trepidation, only the fulfillment of groin-throbbing urges.

The Choice then, was terrible because the Austrian would have to sacrifice her mission, her ship... the one thing any responsible pilot would swear never to even consider. A life of paradise, or acknowledgment of duty? There was a narrow path, she could see. Between the crags, rocks, and jutting blades of igneous deposits, she could see a slim corridor that could just barely accomodate her plane. Of course, the wings and engines would likely sustain crippling damage, and it would be impossible to ever take-off again, but she could see it, she could see a means to deliver herself and her vehicle into the feminine paradise. But... the passengers! Her crew and her duty and her mission! They would be lost! Honor her duty, or give herself a life of joy at the cost of her charges?