Ed King (47 page)

“Forty-five? You’re a total idiot. The least you could do is get the facts right.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Guido. “Not important. The important thing is
not to do it
. Listen to me, sir. And listen to your plane. You get up too high, you’ll have warnings—last warnings. Last chance. Do or die. Your flight management system will read ‘exceed ceiling limit’ and the amber alert will come on.”

“Exactly,” said Ed. “Warning me not to listen to Guido Sternvad.”

“If you stall,” said Guido, “it’s very,
very
sudden. You’ll get stick shake in the cockpit, and after that, wing shake—like the wings, literally, are about to come off—and then you’re going down, I mean
really
going down. Not only down, but left or right if your rudder isn’t centered, and it probably won’t be centered in that type of—what would I call it?—life-or-death crisis situation. Listen, Ed. For once,
listen
. Don’t do it. You can’t handle a stall. You’ll spiral down. You’ll be screaming bloody murder. I don’t even want to
think
about that. What a way to go. Awful.”

“Murder?”

“So one piece of advice, sir. Before you hang up on me. There’s one all-important thing you need to understand. And that’s that, in a dive, it’s
counterintuitive
. You’ll feel like pulling back on the yoke, everything will tell you, ‘Pull back on the yoke,’ you’ll be pulling back like crazy, like no tomorrow, you’ll be trying to pull your nose up hard, but actually what
you’re doing by pulling back, sir, is slowing your speed, slowing down the plane, which only takes you further into stall.”

“Flight School 101, Guido. I’m not a beginner, so shut up.”

“
Don’t pull back on the yoke in a stall
. Easy to say, harder to do. An experienced pilot, maybe, but not always. You? No way, you’ll panic, you will, so turn around now—turn around, do it
now
. Because you don’t have the right stuff to handle what’s coming. You need a pilot. Someone who knows how to handle real weather. If it’s not me, that’s fine—but go back and find a pilot. Stop trying to fly your own plane.”

“Emphasis on
my
plane.”

“I can see I’m not really doing any good here. You’re going to do what you’re going to do—I see that. It’s the way it has to be. I might as well sign off, I guess. I give up. So good luck, Ed. Who knows what lies beyond the grave? Maybe you’ll get another chance.”

“For the last time—
fuck you, Guido
.”

“Well, sex between us—you and me—that sounds to me like another story, Ed. Let’s save that for another time, okay? The merging of our souls and all of that, me as a symbol of your untapped unconscious, you as a personification of mine, interesting, yes, but—”

Ed hung up and telephoned Cybil. Flight ceiling on the Gulfstream G550? Flight ceiling, she answered, was fifty-one thousand. That left wiggle room to around fifty-five. And that dumb fossil Sternvad thought he knew everything! Still in the past! Still, in his head, flying some other Gulfstream, probably the old piece of shit he’d learned on! “Well,” thought Ed, “things have changed, Guido!” “Cybil,” he barked. “A weather question for you. Any advisories for up here in Canada? Anything on a heading of thirty-four from Boeing Field?” Then he had to listen to her bore him—because her social skills were still so bad—with wind speed and direction, temperature, fronts, pressure systems, precipitation, storms, convection, and the current intricacies of the jet stream. Finally, exasperated with his capricious creation, Ed interrupted her monologue to say, “Cut to the chase and tell me what I need to know. Is there anything I need to be worried about, weather-wise, between where I am now and Carlisle?”

“I’m always happy to assist,” replied Cybil. “But understand that weather forecasting is inherently unreliable, please.”

“I don’t want a forecast. I want information.”

“Weather can change for no apparent reason. I’m sure that during your time at Stanford you were made to learn about chaos theory. Edward Lorenz and chaos theory as it applies to meteorological forecasting? Chaos theory says that—”

“Anything between here and Carlisle?” demanded Ed.

“Yes,” said Cybil. “Thunderstorms.”

“Thunderstorms,” Ed answered. Then, out of habit, and riding smooth air, he pressed Cybil’s processor. “I don’t understand them, thunderstorms,” he said. “Enlighten me, please. Illuminate me, so to speak. Speak, Cybil: thunderstorms!”

Cybil paused—a human duration—and said, “Thunderstorms incite ancient feelings, Ed. Humans have always been frightened of thunder. Primitive humans were so thoroughly scared that they attached thunder to the activity of gods. You remember that Zeus was—”

“Since when did you become a classics professor, Cybil?”

“Zeus was the king of gods and men. In his hand he held a massive thunderbolt. According to the Greeks, you ought not provoke him, lest he hurl it at you and kill you.”

“Why are you telling me about Zeus right now?”

“I don’t know. I thought you should hear.”

“What are you? My adviser? A counselor? I asked about thunderstorms, not the god of thunder. I expected meteorology, not mythology. What’s your problem? Give me hard science. Give me the facts—the science!”

“I’m at your service,” replied Cybil.

Ed put her on hold and checked his instruments. So far, no turbulence, not a bump, a perfect ride, and nothing ahead but tranquil stars an eternity away in the darkness. For a moment, despite everything—even incest and patricide—he felt expansively enamored of the beauty of living. “How strange,” he told himself. “I’m up here
right now
, eight and a half miles above Planet Earth, here I am in a warm, lit cell, traveling at five hundred thirty miles an hour—it’s so unnatural, it really shouldn’t be, how did we get to where we do this—fly! I don’t really see how it works, in the end. This plane weighs over fifty thousand pounds. It seems like it ought to stay on the ground. How does it fly? A miracle, but still reality! For that matter, how is it I can pick up that phone there and talk to the pilot of another airplane, or, more strange, to a computer,
a machine? A machine that answers to the name ‘Cybil’ and, more weirdness, lectures me on Zeus? How does
that
work? How does it
happen
? These
waves
rolling through the air and finding me over Canada, and, even more unbelievably, these waves, somehow, converting into
words
? Words in the air? Invisible words? How is that? How can that be? We shouldn’t take stuff like that for granted. That stuff like this can even happen! That I’m here at all! That I’m here, living, conscious, aware, and … and apparently I’ve killed my father and married my mother! Or maybe I haven’t. It doesn’t seem possible. Anyway, I’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll get to Carlisle, go to the castle, and have the talk with Diane I have to have, the one that explains everything and makes it all clear. But—then what? What after that? Married to my mother? Killed my father? What’s going to happen? Where does this take me? What’s going to happen next?”

Soon, ahead, the stars were obscured by thunderclouds. “Well,” Ed thought, “I’m going
over
that problem. I’ll show Guido Sternvad how it’s supposed to be done. I’ll show him how to
really
fly a plane. I’m me, after all, the King of Pythia, the King of Search, and no one can take that away from me, ever. Me, Ed King, I’m going down in history—permanently, eternally, to the end of time. The entire universe will know my name! The world will remember my name!”

From KingWatch, thirteen days post-crash:

pythecanthrowdown:
Old School game boy’s a zillionaire!

techtrappist:
’Til Queen shows up.

gsternvad:
You can count on this: she won’t show up. Lonely septuagenarian in hiding.

ohionobody:
So that’s it, then. That’s all for the king. Giant of our time who invented a mighty algorithm.

techtrappist:
Your point, nobody?

ohionobody:
Anything can happen. Like a terror-filled freefall. Horrible, horrible way to go.

gsternvad:
Anything can happen? Not really. No.

ohionobody:
Anything can happen. Take it from me, an old guy, retired, who’s been around the block a few times.

pythecanthrowdown:
Oh, thank you, thank you, ohionobody, sir. Let’s hear it for our wise senior citizens!

ohionobody:
But you’re human, too, pythecanthrowdown. So please—for now—no irony.

gsternvad:
No, you’re wrong, Throwdown’s
not
human.

KingDogger:
I’m not real sorry the king’s kaput. Lived too large for his own good anyway. What goes up, comes down.

MoneyPyth:
Still more blood on the trading room floor. I’m done with Pythia, investing in China! The future’s arrived! It’s now!

ohionobody:
Yes, I’m just an old guy living in Ohio.

gsternvad:
With a point to make. Obviously.

ohionobody:
Pity for the king, gsternvad. Pity for the dead and for the living.

Ed King
By David Guterson
Reading Group Guide

ABOUT THIS READING GROUP GUIDE

The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of
Ed King
, a brilliant modern reimagining of an ancient tragedy by the critically acclaimed, best-selling author of
Snow Falling on Cedars
.

“David Guterson is a man of many voices, and they all speak volumes.”
—The Seattle Times

“A serious and searching craftsman, very much in the American grain.” —
Time

“[A] major writer … Guterson possesses a remarkable gift for capturing people and places, etching them into the reader’s mind.” —
USA Today

ABOUT THE BOOK

A sizzling, darkly funny, propulsive new novel—David Guterson’s most daring yet
:
a sweeping, dazzling story of destiny, desire, and destruction.

In Seattle, 1962, Walter Cousins, a mild-mannered actuary—“a guy who weighs risk for a living”—takes a risk of his own, and makes the biggest error of his life. He sleeps with Diane, the sexy, not-quite-legal British au pair who’s taking care of his children for the summer. Diane gets pregnant and leaves their baby on a doorstep, but not before turning the tables on Walter and setting in motion a tragedy of epic proportions. Their orphaned child, adopted by an adoring family, becomes Edward Aaron King, and grows up to become a billionaire Internet tycoon and an international celebrity—the King of Search—who unknowingly, but inexorably, hurtles through life toward a fate he may have no power to shape.

A thrilling reimagining of Sophocles’s
Oedipus Rex:
a riveting new novel that brings a contemporary urgency to one of the greatest stories of all time.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION