Flitter

The Flitter is the aircraft Berto Gomez flies through a narrow opening in a rocky ridge, turning a high-risk maneuver into a wager-winning stunt. The episode makes the craft more than a means of travel: in a colony short on people and equipment, its successful passage is also a conspicuous gamble with resources others cannot easily replace.

Setting and Proposed Maneuver

Berto places the rocky formation on a ridge about twenty klicks south of the dome. Two slabs rise from a field of boulders to form a triangular gap that, from the distant camera view, appears too narrow for the Flitter. Berto says he had spent weeks telling people he thought he could get the aircraft through it.

The proposed passage required rolling the Flitter ninety degrees. Even then, Berto estimated that the clearance on either side would be about half a meter at the widest point, leaving only around a tenth of a second of margin to begin the roll. The tight tolerances make the maneuver depend on precise timing, not simply on finding a route through the rocks.

The Ridge Flight and Wager

Berto had been collecting bets from people who thought the stunt was impossible. He does fly through the gap, and the winnings total 3,000 kcal. He recounts the result with a grin, while Mickey Barnes responds that Berto could have died; Berto accepts the possibility but points out that he survived.

The recorded flight shows how the passage works. The Flitter dives toward the rock formation, pulls level about a hundred meters away, adjusts its altitude, and rolls at the last instant. It clears the gap without scratching the paint. The successful outcome confirms Berto’s confidence, but it does not make the margin for error any less narrow.

Surveillance and Material Stakes

Hieronymus Marshall has a grainy, long-distance video of the flight and plays it for Berto during a questioning. The recording turns the stunt from a story told over a meal into documented conduct under colony surveillance. Security officers have been watching activity closely because people are being lost and the colony has few to spare.

Marshall frames the risk in terms of both life and equipment: the Flitter contains two thousand kilos of irreplaceable metal and electronics. Against that scarcity, Berto’s 3,000-kcal prize is a personal gain earned by risking a valuable communal asset. The flight’s clean passage through the rocks is therefore also a collision between individual bravado and the colony’s need to conserve what it cannot replace.