He started to laugh, not even aware of the shouts of his two companions as they streaked down from the sky. A thought danced in the back of his mind the realization that if there should be the slightest imperfection in the shield, a flaw the size of a pinhole, it'd burn through. A two thousand-degree needle of fire would slice through his suit, gulping energy from his oxygen, blow-torching him apart so fast he'd barely have time to realize he was dead before he was already on the other side of that final mystery.
But in spite of that thought he continued to laugh for here, in the fire of the heavens for at least an instant, he wondered if this was what it felt like to be totally alive, and then knew that it was.
The fire died away, and then to his surprise there was indeed sound, a distant rumbling thunder. Straight overhead, just at the center of his vision, a few stars were still visible, but all around the edge of his shield the sky was a deep, dark blue. The gee-load began to bleed off. A mild buffeting rocked him. Another jolt startled him; it was the shield retracting into its backpack. He started to fall freely once again.
Justin felt the tug of the thin atmosphere against his body. Drawing in one arm, he rolled over and faced down. As he recalled the practice session in the Academy wind tunnel he extended the arm back out, arched his back, and raised his hands up to either side of his head. He lurched back and forth, then finally stabilized. Falling through twenty-seven thousand meters, he saw Matt a thousand meters below and a bit to one side.
"Nothing fancy, you two," Brian reminded them. "Just stay steady and let the computer handle the show."
Rio was now far off to one side, the massive bulk of the Skyhook tower soaring up from the edge of the city. It was surrounded by airstrips, maglev stations and warehouses in every direction for half a dozen kilometers.
"How you doing, Bell?"
"Fine."
"To your right."
Justin looked over and saw Brian falling, head first, thirty meters away. Brian arched his back and broke his dive, coming up to float by Justin.
"Get ready for drogue," Brian announced and then drifted back and away.
Justin focused on his heads-up display and saw that he was passing through sixteen thousand meters. He was surprised to see that the curvature of the Earth was barely visible to both sides of him. Just minutes before he could see almost completely across the continent; now the universe was reduced to this limited view of the planet.
A thin layer of high cirrus clouds came rushing up, looking almost solid. He saw Matt plunge through like a drop of water falling into the sea, a rippling wake spreading out from the hole he punched. Justin snapped through the clouds; rocked by mild turbulence, he lost control for a second so that he was almost on his back. Before he could begin to compensate a thruster jet rolled him back into place.
He saw a bright orange plume eject from Matt's back, the drogue chute popping open. Seconds later a blow hit him in the back. Justin was jerked upright as his own drogue deployed, killing off his nearly five-hundred-kilometer-per-hour fall. Momentarily stunned, he dangled in the harness. He looked around and saw Seay floating a hundred meters away.
They fell together for nearly a minute, dropping through seven thousand meters, then five, and finally to four.
" Bell, Everett. See the X in the field to the south? That's our target. No fancy steering this time, but see if you can at least bring yourself in without embarrassment. Remember not to flare too soon. Your suit servos can handle a hard landing but you look like crap when you drop that badly. Remember, you're cadets, not amateurs."
"Aye, aye, sir," Matt chimed back.
"If your main chute fails to deploy or tangles, you're on manual, no computers for this part. Hit your release button and make sure you're clear, then pull the backup on your chest."
" Wowww!"
Matt's shout startled Justin. Looking down he saw that the drogue chute had snapped loose, crumpling up and twisting like a piece of gauze in the wind. Seconds later Matt's main chute blossomed.
With a stomach-lurching snap Justin's drogue chute broke free and he started to fall. He counted to three, waiting. Then his left hand reached around to his backup.
A reassuring thump slapped him in the shoulders. Looking up he saw the bright orange canopy deploy, the arc of the airfoil opening over his head. He grabbed hold of the toggle handles and tentatively pulled his left hand down. The left side of the chute dropped and he went into a slow, spi-raling circle. He eased up on the left and tried fte right, reversing his spiral.
He started to laugh again. He felt like an eagle soaring through the heavens. A bubble of warm air swirled up around him; the first thermals of the day were rising off the open field below, and he surged up on the column so that Seay dropped below him.
"Hey, nothing fancy, Bell, just follow me in," Seay said.
He ignored the senior cadet for a moment, trying to stay within the thermal, but it was already gone, climbing skyward to where, at twenty-five hundred meters, it would cool, condense, and form a bright, puffy cumulus. It would be joined by others, until by midday it would be a towering nimbus, ten thousand meters high, marching across the sky and lashing the ground below with lightning and rain.
"Light breeze stirring out of the northwest," Brian told them, "five knots. Come in downwind and turn on to your target."
A warm rich scent flooded Justin's suit and he realized that the computer had opened a vent to the outside atmosphere. The air was rich with a riot of tropical smells that were a delight after the weeks of filtered antiseptic ship oxygen.
Breaking out of his spiral, he watched as Brian swooped down to dart past Matt, who uttered a sharp protest at not being first.
"Just follow my lead, you guys, circle when I do. In competition we all touch down at the same time. Today, just try and get down on your feet."
Brian went into a circling turn, hovering slightly downwind from the target. Justin tried to swing in above and behind him, but circled out too wide. He came back around to see Brian pulling down hard on both toggles, spilling his air, dropping and picking up speed. Matt floated up beside Justin, then dropped back down as well. Justin followed suit, surprised at how fast his speed picked up when he spilled air. The ground was racing up fast. Seay let his toggles up, rising back up slightly. Matt pulled a tight circle, staying just behind Seay. Justin tried to follow, then lost sight of the two as he pulled down hard on his right toggle and eased up on his left. As he swung out into a sharp rum the ground spiraled beneath him.
Coming back out of the circle he saw that he had drifted to the northeast of the target. A pennant set up near the "X" marker fluttered and shifted to the north, then to the northeast. Now upwind of the target, Justin tried to turn. Seay shot underneath Justin's feet fifteen meters below. Seay flared up at the last second and touched down, slapping a foot directly on the center of the X.
Damn all, Justin thought. I can do it! Racing past the target he tried to judge the moment. He pulled down hard on his left toggle and went into a turn as the ground spun by beneath him. He saw the target from the corner of his eye but was momentarily distracted by Matt, swooping down and screaming like a banshee as he soared over the target by a dozen feet, flared and then came down hard fifty feet away.
Justin tightened his turn and tried to line up. He swung out like a doll on the end of a toy parachute, and then saw the target rising up in his field of vision.
" Bell! Flare!"
He realized what was happening too late. He released his deathlike grip on his left toggle and felt his chute billowing back out. An instant later he slammed into the ground on his left side. He rolled over fast, a blizzard of shroud lines wrapping over his faceplate. He tumbled like a broken toy across the field, lines ensnaring his arms and legs.