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"Stet. One zero five."
The pilot edged his own course to two eight five, lifted the Hitter's nose,
and twisted in full turns.
"Grit level at twelve percent and dropping."
With the flitter stable for a moment, Gerswin snapped his head to retract the
helmet's impact visor, and with his left hand wiped the sweat away from his
eyes and off his forehead.
That done, he snapped the clear impact visor back in place.
"Should have opted for arcdozers," he muttered.
"Where would the glory be. Lieutenant?"
"Thanks, York. Thanks, loads."
"Grit level at ten percent and stable. Permanent power loss at ten percent."
Gerswin frowned. The fans in both thrusters would have to be repolished and
retuned. Either that, or replaced with another set, if there was one to be
had.
"Prime outrider. Less than one minute to sheer impact."
The pilot's eyes nickered from the thrust indicators to the balance lines, to
the speed readouts, to the radalt, and down to the VSI, which still indicated
a constant rate of climb.
He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and squared himself in the padded shell
seat.
"Stand by for impact."
Even as he glanced through the armaglass of the canopy at the indistinctness
of the western hills, blurred as they were from the clouds and the fog, the
flitter lurched, throwing him against the broad harness straps.
Not only his stomach, but the instrument balance lines showed the flitter
nearly ninety degrees nose down. The VSI pegged momentarily, then dropped back
to a descent rate of two hundred fifty meters per second.
Gerswin twisted the thruster throttles around the detente into overload while
bringing the stick back into his lap.
"Ground impact in fifteen seconds!" screeched the console.
A thousand kilos piled onto Gerswin's muscles and slender frame, and his
vision blurred around the edges.
"Ground impact in thirty seconds!" screeched the console mindlessly.
Whhheeeeeeee!
"Prime outrider. Interrogative status. Interrogative status!"
"Stuff your status," he grunted without keying his transmitter. Instead, he
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eased the stick
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the flitter level and back on course for Prime Base. Next came the
down-throttling of the thrusters.
"Prime outrider. Interrogative status. Interrogative status."
Gerswin sighed.
"Status summary. Flying strike. Flying strike. Fusilage overstressed. Fans set
for repolishing.
Assorted external damage. Flitter down. I say again. Flitter down."
"Interrogative ETA."
"Estimate arrival in fifteen plus."
"Understand fifteen plus. Interrogative special procedures."
"Prime Base, that is negative this time."
Gerswin sighed again and checked the homer. Forty kays to go, and the screens
showed clear skies between him and the foothills base.
Clear skies between him and base, but not overhead, where the high clouds
still brooded. Clear sky, except for the ground fog.
He readjusted the thrusters and returned to his normal scanning pattern.
Another few minutes and he would begin the landing check list.
Chapter XX
Gerswin took another step toward the Maze.
Did he want to go through the twisting and turning tunnels, where anything
might wait in the upper reaches? Or where rats the size of Imperial cats
lurked in the darkness for their next chance at dinner?
He laughed. There was no reason to face the Maze, not while wearing an
Imperial uniform and stunner, but the old instincts died hard.
Overhead, the clouds rolled eastward in banks of darkened gray, but the air
was dry and cold.
He circled more to the north, along the outcroppings that felt like rock, but
were, instead, massed metal and bricks and compressed purple-red clay. Between
the upthrust chunks grew an occasional patch of the purple grass or a small
grubush, with its thin branches and straggly leaves.
Eventually he had worked his way north and west far enough to get around the
pile of rubble from which the Maze rose southward and stood in the cleared
area beneath the northern wall of the shambletown. He stood looking southward
and uphill to the roughly four meter height of the shambletown wall, running
as it did slightly more than a half a kay from the eastern end of the
Maze to the western comer.
The shambletowners kept the area immediately downslope of the wall clear of
debris, grubUshes, and skinned carcasses. The debris and bushes offered too
much concealment for both rats and coyotes, while carcasses, those too
poisonous to eat, would have attracted the rats.
His nose twitched. In the confines of the more fastidious Imperial society,
the odors were muted. Machine oil and deodorants, while strong, were blandly
dulling as well. The mix of unwashed shambletowners, excrement, assorted
garbage, and the underlying bitter stench of omnipresent rat all reached him,
although he was well outside the walls and a good three hundred meters east of
the gate.
The lone wall sentry had marked the Imperial uniform and passed the word, so
well that by the time he had reached the gate, several others awaited him.
One-older by years than the last time they had crossed paths-he recognized
immediately. Fynian, still squat and hulking, stood behind the conslor.
Gerswin had not met the conslor, not this one or any of his predecessors, and
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he was amused by the indrawn breath as the man looked into his eyes.
While the conslor said nothing, Gerswin could hear Fynian's muttered
"devulkid."
"Lieutenant Gerswin, Imperial Service," he announced.
"Conslor Weddin. What you want?" answered the other in clipped shambletalk.
"Want see shamble," Gerswin replied in kind, even getting the lilts in the
right places.
"Devulkid," repeated Fynian under his breath, loudly enough for Gerswin to
hear clearly.
"All right, stand? No kill, stand? No woman, stand?"
Loosely translated, you're welcome, but keep your hands off everyone, and
don't try to make off with anyone's woman or all bets are off.
"No kill. No woman, stand," repeated the pilot. "You no kill, no fun, stand?"
Conslor Weddin frowned. That a visitor should place reciprocal conditions on a
shambletowner was unheard of.
As the conslor debated, Gerswin discarded the idea of displaying the stunner
and its powers.
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Using it would only induce some idiot to try to take it. He wished he had
developed a few other weapons skills besides stunners, lasers, and
hand-to-hand. None were exactly suited to his situation. The Imperial policy
stated clearly that advanced and lethal weapons were prohibited for use
against any civilians. And hand-to-hand combat was chancy merely as a display
of force.
At last the conslor, presumably after meditating on the flitters and skitters
that crossed the cloud-covered skies, nodded.
"Stand."
Gerswin bared his teeth in response, and to signify his agreement.
Weddin and his party stood aside, but Gerswin motioned for them to precede
him, which, after a moment's delay, they did.
Inside the gate, a cobbled-together mass of twisted metal and woven grubush
that screeched as it was dragged back into place, the stench was as high as
Gerswin had remembered. He swallowed hard to keep the contents of his stomach [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]