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to save your life.
Also " she hesitated. 'Truthfully there's another reason. My father needs
you."
"The Planner? But but why would he have to forge orders from the Machine?"
"I can't tell you now." She stared around. No one was in sight. She said
grimly, "Heaven help you if anything goes wrong. I can't take you in my
rocket; there isn't room. Anyway, that's the first place they'll look. I don't
think they'll bother me. But if you're there " She shrugged.
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Do?" she cried. "Why get on Chiquita's back! What do you think I brought her
for? Just get on she knows where to take you!"
Ryeland rode the spaceling; it was like mounting a running stream.
A slim golden shape, more slender than a seal, floating in the air; gold, pure
gold that blended into black at the tail, it was the strangest mount a man
ever bestrode. Donna said a quick word of command. The spaceling purred
faintly, rippled its lazy muscles and whoom. It was like a muffled slap of
metal. Suddenly they had leaped a hundred feet into the air.
There was no shock, no crushing blow of acceleration. There was just a quick
vibrant lift, and they were high in the air.
Through the thin coveralls that were his only garment Ryeland felt the purring
vibration of the spaceling's body. Down below he saw the Planner's daughter
already entering her rocket. She did not intend to wait for trouble. The jets
flared. Ryeland heard the sound but it was receding, receding although the
rocket had already begun to climb; they were climbing too, and fast. Ryeland
was breathless. He clung to the spaceling. There was no pressure; only his
arms held him to that bare, warm, smooth back. His stomach fluttered. His
breathing caught. Down below he saw men moving, insects on the lawn and the
walks. But they were not looking up, probably couldn't see him if they did; it
was still night, and the hovering helicopters, with their floodlights were
between him and the ground. They were nearly a thousand feet in the air now.
Don-110
na's rocket, a black dot in the center of its own petalea flame, seemed
plastered against the concrete of the pit below. Only the fact that its size
stayed constant showed that it was following them; then even it began to
dwindle.
Off to the northeast was a storm, the warning cirrus veil across the sky, the
dark towering cumulonimbus, the rain squalls already marching across the dark
mountains of Cuba. The spaceling turned toward the storm. "Wait!" cried
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Ryeland. "Don't go into that!" But the spaceling didn't understand, or
wouldn't. It purred warmly, like a fat kitten, and arrowed toward the menacing
cloud with its violent gusts.
And still Ryeland felt no motion.
All his body was accelerated uniformly by the space-ling's field, whatever it
was. The air came with them, the pocket which the spaceling wore like a halo,
its blue shroud of faintly glowing light. Their flight was not quite
noiseless, though nearly; the only sound was a faint distant tearing, though
they were barreling through the sky at surely sonic speed. Incredible!
Ryeland's mathematician's mind fitted pieces together; the spaceling, he
thought, must form a capsule which instantly shapes itself to meet the
resistance forming the perfect streamline shape for its needs, blunt teardrop
at a hundred miles an hour, needle as it approached sound's speed, probably
wasp-
waisted area-rule profile at higher speeds.
And still there was no sense of motion, though Heavea had dropped away behind
them and was gone.
Now they were over water. All around them was cloud. They were hurtling into
the furious wall of towering thunderstorms that was the forefront of a
hurricane.
Cold rain drenched him in an instant. That was curious, thought the objective,
never-stilled part of his mind; rain penetrated the capsule where the rush of
air did not! But there was no time to think of it. The rain was pelting
ice-water, uncomfortable, chilling. It disturbed the spaceling, too. Its
satisfied purr changed to a complaining mew; it shook and shuddered. But it
plunged on.
Ryeland was hopelessly lost.
The storm was the same in all directions, a dim void of fog and icy water,
flickering with distant lightning. But the spaceling knew where it was going
... he hoped.
They drilled through the top of the clouds and came out above them into clear
air. Underneath them the shape of the storm revealed itself in a great spiral,
the hurricane
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wheeling around its open eye. A bright light burst on him. It was the sun,
rising again on the western horizon they were that high! It was a blaze of
incandescence in the dark; and still they climbed.
A great elation possessed Ryeland.
He had done the impossible! He had escaped, with all his limbs and faculties,
from the hell they called Heavenl
He was no longer a numbered carcass; he was a man again. And Donna Creery had
done it, where he had failed; he owed her something. He wondered briefly what
it was she had failed to tell him about her father; then dismissed it. That
wonder was lost in the greater soaring wonder of free flight. The sky was
black around them surely the air was thin now. And still they climbed, while
the vast hazy floor of sea and cloud became visibly convex.
And still they climbed; and the air was thin now.
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