“An aerial collision?” Werry sounded interested, but not particularly worried. “Somebody taking a short cut? Flying outside the beams?”
“No. Some kids were bombing the east approach, and one of them misjudged it and hit some guy square on. They might both be dead. You’d better get over here, Al.”
Werry swore fervently as he took directions from the police- man and slowed the car into a street leading east. He switched on emergency lights and a siren, and the already sparse surface traffic melted away into the greyness before him.
“Sorry about this, Rob,” he said. “I’ll get it over with as quickly as I can.”
“It’s all right.” Hasson said, his feeling of insularity shattered. He had seen the results of bombing accidents many times during his career and knew the sort of situation into which Werry was now being precipitated. With the advent of the automobile, man had been transformed into the swiftest creature on the face of the earth, given a new dimension of freedom. That freedom had been too much for many people to handle, and the outcome had been a death toll in the same grisly league as those produced by more ancient scourges such as war, famine and disease. Then man had learned to put a judo hold on gravity, turning its strength back on itself, and had become the swiftest creature in the air, and with his new freedom — to soar with the lark and outstrip the eagle, to straddle the rainbow and follow the sunset around the red rim of the world — the Fifth Horseman, the one who rode a winged steed, had come fully into being.
The youngster who might once have killed himself and some of his fellows with the aid of a motor cycle or fast car now had a new repertoire of dangerous stunts, all of them designed to prove he was immortal — all of them frequently demonstrating the opposite. A favourite game was aerial chicken, in which two fliers would grapple high in the air and fall like stones as their CG fields cancelled each other out. The first to break free and check his descent was regarded as the loser: and the other — especially if he had switched off his field and prolonged the fall until the last possible second — was regarded as the winner, even though the winner often became the loser by virtue of misjudging his altitude and ending up in a wheelchair or on a marble slab.
Bombing was another game played on days when low cloud cover screened participants from the eyes of the law. The rules demanded that one should take up position in cloud above an aerial highway, switch off lift, and fall down through a stream of commuters, preferably without using the CG force to vector the descent in any way. The aim was to strike fear into the soul of the staid, ordinary flyer on his way home from work, and that aim was usually achieved because anybody who thought objectively about the thing realized the impossibility of judging the closing angles well enough to guarantee there would never be a collision. On more than one occasion Hasson had shot pain-killing drugs into bomber and bombed alike, and had stood helplessly by while the Fifth Horseman had added fresh coffin-shaped symbols to his tally.
Werry activated his microphone. “Henry, have you got any IDs?”
“Some. The kid who did it checks out as a Martin Prada, with an address in Stettler.” There was a moment of fretful near silence from the radio. “He might have been holed up in the Chinook all morning. If there was a party up there last night they could be starting to get a bit restless. This low-level stratus we’re getting swallowed up the hotel about an hour ago, so they’re free to come and go as they please.”
“What about the other guy?”
“All I know is he isn’t local. Judging by his gear, he’s up from the States.”
“That’s all we need,” Werry said bitterly. “Any sign of drug abuse on the kid?”
“Al, he hit a light pole on the way down,” the radio said in aggrieved tones. “I’m not about to start poking around in the mess looking for hypo marks.”
“All right — I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.” Werry broke the radio connection and gave Hasson a sidelong glance. “If there’s a US citizen involved it trebles the paperwork. How’s that for bad luck?”
His or yours? Hasson thought. Aloud he said, “What’s the narcotic situation like?”
“Most of the traditional stuff has died out, except for some acid but empathin is getting to be a big problem.” Werry shook his head and leaned forward to scan the horizon. “That’s the one that really beats me, Rob. I can understand kids wanting to get high, but wanting to get mixed up inside each other’s heads, thinking the other guy’s thoughts … You know, we get them down at the station some nights and for a couple of hours — till the stuff wears off, that is — they genuinely don’t know who they are. Sometimes two of them give the same name and address. One of them actually believes he’s the other one! Why do they do it?”
“It’s a group thing,” Hasson said. “Group identity has always been important to kids, and empathin makes it a reality.”
“I leave all that stuff to the psychiatrists.” Werry switched off his siren as a cluster of vehicles with flashing lights appeared on the road ahead. The outskirts of the city had been left behind and the country lay fiat and white all around, looking as though it had been abandoned for ever. Parallel to the road but hundreds of metres above it were two bell-mouthed aerial tunnels, bilaser projections glowing yellow and magenta, which guided fliers who were entering or leaving the city. There was a steady flow of travellers within the insubstantial tubes, but others were swarming down through different levels of the cold air, drawn by the activity on the ground.
Werry brought the car to a halt near the others, got out and picked his way across the snow to a group of men which included two in police flying suits. On the ground. in the midst of the thicket of legs, were two objects covered by black plastic sheets. Hasson averted his eyes and thought determinedly about his television set while a man drew back the sheets to let Werry inspect what lay underneath. Werry talked to the others in the group for a minute, then came back to the car, opened the rear door and took out his flying suit.
“I’ve got to go aloft for a while,” he said, pulling on the insulated one-piece garment. “Henry picked up a couple of blips on his radar and he thinks some of the punks might still be up there.”
Hasson peered up at the all-obscuring cloud. “They’re crazy if they are.”
“I know, but we have to go up and fire off a few flares and stir things up a bit. Let the good citizens see us on the job.” Werry finished zipping his suit and began to don his CG harness, looking tough and competent once more as he tightened the various straps. “Rob, I hate to ask you this, but could you take the car back across town and pick up my boy Theo coming out of school?”
“I should be able to cope if you give me directions.”
“I wouldn’t ask, but I promised him I’d be there.”
“Al, there’s no problem,” Hasson said, wondering why the other man was being so diffident.
“There’s a bit of a problem.” Werry hesitated, looking strangely embarrassed. “You see… Theo is blind. You’ll have to identify yourself to him.”
“Oh.” Hasson was lost for words. “I’m sorry.”
“It isn’t a permanent condition,” Werry said quickly. “They’re going to fix him up in a couple of years. He’ll be fine in a couple of years.”
“How will I recognise him?”
“There’s no problem — it isn’t a special school. Just look out for a tall boy carrying a sensor cane.”
“That’s all right.” Hasson strove to absorb the instructions on how to reach the school and to guess in advance what sort of relationship he might have with a blind boy, and all the while he was reluctantly fascinated by Werry’s preparations for flight, the instinctive rituals a professional never failed to observe before venturing into a perilous environment. All straps properly tightened and secured. Shoulder and ankle lights functioning. Fuel cells in good condition and delivering at the correct level. All the nets, lines and pouches associated with the air policeman’s trade present and properly stowed. Suit heater functioning. Communications equipment functioning. Face plate locked in down position and helmet radar functioning. CG field generator warmed up and all controls on belt panel at correct preliminary settings. Following the pre-flight checks with mind and eye, Hasson was lulled for a moment into visualising what came next — the effortless leap which became a dizzy ascent, the sensation of falling upwards, the patterns of fields and roads dwindling and wheeling below — and his stomach muscles contracted. propelling a sour bile into the back of his throat. He swallowed forcibly and distracted himself by sliding over behind the car’s steering wheel and examining the controls.