"You're gonna fly it, Candidate. Or else you're gonna look for a new job category. I hear they're recruiting planetary meteorologists for the Pioneer Sectors."
"Yes, sir."
"Not that we're unfair. We're gonna give you some help. First you get two facts: Fact number one is that this helicopter, unlike anything else I've ever heard of, really doesn't want to fly at all. It won't lift without bitching, it glides like a rock, and it lands about the same if you don't know what you're doing. Fact number two is it's easy to fly if you're the kind of person who can pat his head and rub his stomach at the same time."
Sten wondered if Mason was making his notion of a joke. Impossible—the man was humorless.
"Next, you and me are gonna strap in, and I'm gonna show you how the controls work. Then you'll take over, and follow my instructions. I'll start simple."
Right, simple. Ostensibly, the few controls were easy. The stick in front controlled the angle of the individual fan blades—the airfoil surface—as they rotated. This stick could be moved to any side and, Mason explained, could make the helicopter maneuver. A second lever, to the side, moved up and down, and, with a twist grip, rotated to give engine speed and, therefore, rotor speed. Two rudder pedals controlled the tiny fan at the ship's rear, which kept the helicopter from following the natural torque reaction of the blades and spinning wildly.
The first test was to hover the ship.
Mason lifted it, lowered it, then lifted it again. It seemed easy.
"All you got to do is keep it a meter off the ground."
He told Sten to take the controls.
The helicopter then developed a different personality and, in spite of Sten's sawing, dipped, bounced the front end of the skids on the field, then, following Sten's over-controlling, reared back... then forward... and Mason had to grab the controls.
"You want to try it again?"
Sten nodded.
He did better—but not much. Power... keep that collective in place... real gentle with that stick.
Sten didn't prang it this time, but the required meter altitude varied up to about three.
Sten's flight suit was soaked with sweat.
Again.
The variable came down to plus or minus a meter.
Mason was looking at Sten. "All right. Next we're going to move forward."
Mason moved the helicopter forward about fifty meters, turned, and flew back, then repeated the whole maneuver.
"I want you to hold two meters altitude and just fly down there in a straight line. I'll tell you when to stop."
The helicopter porpoised off. He scraped his skids twice, and his flight toward those distant pylons was a sidewinder's path. Mason took over and put Sten through the same routine three more times. Sten had no idea if he was about to be trained as a pilot or a weatherman.
The next stage took the helicopter all the way down to the pylons and S-curved through them. The first time Sten tried it, he discovered he had straight and level flight somehow memorized—the helicopter clipped every single pole as it went down the course. By the fourth try, Sten managed to hit no more than four or five of them.
Mason was looking at him. Then Mason signaled—he had it.
Sten sat back and, per orders, put his hands in his lap.
Mason landed the ship back where it had started, shut down, and unbuckled. Sten followed, stepping off the platform and ducking under the rotors as they slowed.
Mason was standing, stone-faced, about thirty meters away from the helicopter. "That's all, Candidate. Report to your quarters. You'll be informed as to your status."
Sten saluted. Clot. So much for the Emperor's ideas about Sten.
"Candidate!"
Sten stopped and turned.
"Did you ever fly one of these things before?"
And Sten, through his honest denial, felt a small glint of hope.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A day later, Sten's name, as well as Bishop's, Sh'aarl't's, and Lotor's, went on the list: Phase One. Accepted. Assigned to Imperial Flight Training, Phase Two.
In Phase Two, they would learn how to fly.
There should have been some kind of party. But everyone was too tired to get bashed. Of the 500 candidates, fewer than forty had been selected.
According to the clichйs, graduation should have been announced by the IPs lugging in cases of alk and welcoming the candidates to the thin, whatever-colored line. Instead, Sh'aarl't, Sten, and Bishop split a flask of herbal tea while they packed. All they wanted was away.
Waiting near the sleds that would take the candidates to their ships were Ferrari and Mason.
Again according to clichйs there should now have been understanding on one hand and acceptance on the other. But Mason's expression was exactly that of the first day—he looked as if he was sorry that any of them had made it. And he turned an even harder stare on Sten.
Sten returned it.
Clot forgiveness and understanding—he wanted to meet Mason in an alley behind a hangar sometime and give him a scar to match the first one. Preferably across the throat...
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The label "the Fringe Worlds" suggests some sort of geographical or political cohesiveness to the spattered cluster that occupied space between the Empire and the Tahn System. There was almost none.
The cluster had been slowly settled by Imperial pioneers. They were not the radicals or the adventurers who had explored, for instance, the Lupus Cluster. They were people wanting things to be a little more simple and peaceful. A large percentage of them were retired military or civil servants starting a second, or even third, career. Others wanted a chance to establish themselves in comfort as small manufacturers or business people.
But if there were no hero pioneers, there also were none of the villains that pioneering creates. Not, at least, until the expansion from the Tahn empire brought new, and somewhat different, immigrants.
What government there was in the Fringe Worlds mirrored the settlers themselves. Whether confined to a single world or including a half dozen or so systems, it was generally some species of parliamentarianism, ranging from mildly liberal to mildly authoritarian. Since prospective tyrants went elsewhere, what armed forces existed were somewhere between customs police and coastal guards. The only unifying political force the cluster had was an economic summit that met to iron out modern problems every five years or so. It was a backwater cluster, content to remain as it was.
Until the Tahn.
The Tahn who immigrated into the Fringe Worlds were financially backed by their leaders, as the Tahn birth rate and political ambitions clamored for Lebensraum. These were true pioneers, looking for more. Since their culture encouraged communal economics, they naturally had an advantage over the ex-Imperialists. And so the situation escalated into violence—riots and pogroms.
The Imperial settlers were there first, so they had a chance to modify the government. Tahn were not permitted extensive freeholds. They were excluded from voting. They were physically ghettoized into enclaves either rural or urban.
The Tahn settlers' resentment was fed by the Tahn Empire itself, which wanted the cluster added to its holdings.
The revolutionary movement was not only popular but well backed by the Tahn. And the Empire had done little to solve the problem. After all, backwater areas with minor problems—riots, no matter how bloody, are not as bad as active genocide—get minor attention.
The Imperial garrisons assigned to the Tahn worlds were fat and lazy. Instead of being peacekeepers, the officers and men tended to agree with the settlers. The Tahn, after all, were different—which meant "not as good as."