Burton said, “We’ll be flying around at random. I don’t have the slightest idea where we’ll be.”
“Good luck,” Turpin said.
Burton started to walk away but became aware that the Frenchman was not with him. Looking around, he saw him talking to Aphra. Evidently, he was explaining to her why he would be absent for a while. De Marbot was envied because he had a bedmate, but there were disadvantages to that. He had to account for his time to her, and, judging by their expressions and gestures, they were probably arguing over why she could not come along. Burton had no strong objections to taking her along at another time; she was tough and cool and skilled. Just now, he did not want more than one companion.
De Marbot, looking a little angry, returned to Burton.
“I have never heard that English expression, ‘Take a flying fuck at a galloping goose,’ ” he said. Then, with that mercurial swiftness distinguishing him, he laughed, and he said, “How droll! How indeed could one do that?”
“It’s a matter of synchronization,” Burton said, grinning.
They left the pool and the door closed behind them. The noise was cut off; the corridor was huge and silent. It was easy to imagine someone—some thing—waiting around the corner for them, crouching, ready to spring.
Burton pointed out to de Marbot that he had filled the pockets on the sides of both chairs with power boxes for the beamers. They got into their chairs and caused them to raise into the air. Burton in front, de Marbot about twelve feet behind him, they sped toward the vertical shaft at the end of the hall. With a skill learned during the past three weeks, Burton curved the flight path so that he entered the shaft with only a slight decrease in speed, and he shot upwards.
He came out of the shaft at the next level at such velocity that his head was a few inches from the ceiling. He sent the chair down until his feet were twelve inches from the floor, and he hurtled along the muraled walls until he reached the end of the corridor. Then he stopped, pivoted the chair, and said, “You lead for a while.”
The Frenchman led him through every passageway on that floor. The doors of every room were closed. For all Burton knew, their enemy was behind one. He did not believe this, however. Surely the Snark would have been notified by the Computer of the detection of heat from the two men. He would have told the Computer to warn him if the two were on an approach that would take them anywhere near him. He also might have activated the wall-screens, so that he could be watching them.
When they had passed through every corridor, de Marbot stopped his chair by a shaft. “This is fun,” he said, “the wind on your face, your hair blowing, the scenery, such as it is, whistling by. It is not as good as riding a horse, but it will do. And, certainly, no horse would jump off into the shaft.”
Burton took the lead now and rose up the shaft until he came to the top level. Down the corridor would be the entrance to the hangar, visited several days before. They entered the very wide entrance into the vast area with its brooding craft. Burton counted them and found that there were the same number as before. The unknown was still in the tower. That is, unless he had a ship secreted somewhere else. There was always an unless.
“I suppose we could remove the navigational tapes,” he said, “and that would keep the Snark from using the spacecraft. But I’m sure that they’ll be recorded. All he’d have to do would be to have the Computer run off new ones.”
“Why would he want to use a spaceship?”
“I don’t know. But I’d like to throw a monkey wrench in his plans, upset him somehow.”
“The bite of the mosquito.”
“That, I’m afraid, is all it would be. However, a mosquito may kill a man if it gives him malaria.”
He was not expressing pure bravado. He believed that there must be a weakness, a hole, however small, somewhere in the Snark’s defenses.