“Citizen Lacey?” Merritt said as he reached the ground. He stretched out his hand, as dry and unyielding as a cypress knee. “Now I understand why Terminal Control froze me for a circuitry check. I don’t suppose they were going to isolate the problem quickly, were they?”
“No, not till I gave the word,” Lacey agreed disinterestedly.
Merritt shook his head with a faint smile. “Of course, of course. You’re a very able man. And I can almost admire your singlemindedness, since after all that’s the way I am. Well, shall we go back and meet your team of brain-wreckers?”
Lacey ran a hand along the stress-rippled skin of the aircraft. “What would you have done if Control hadn’t held you?” he asked. “Lifted off in a few minutes?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’d have laid your throttle wide open wouldn’t you? Put it right through the middle of Hanse’s CT-19. Wouldn’t that be pretty? You and twelve other people falling out of the sky like shaved meat? You know, I don’t ever remember meeting anybody who liked to kill as much as you seem to.”
Merritt bit his lip. “Citizen Lacey,” he said, “I’ve lived in this democracy 54 years, worked toward its safety for 31. I would be less than a man if I weren’t at least willing to die for it; and to keep it and the world out of the hands of Sig Hanse and his sort—yes, I’ll kill.”
The emotion behind Lacey’s smile was not humor. “Must be nice to know what’s best for the world,” he said. “I’ve got enough problems deciding what’s best for Jed Lacey, and that’s the only thing I’ve tried to worry about. Figured it was mostly me I had to live with.”
“No doubt,” Merritt said flatly. “Then if you have nothing further to say, shall we get on?”
“Sure,” Lacey agreed. He triggered his implant. “Release the hold on William Anton Merritt,” he ordered. “Clear him for immediate lift-off.” He stepped back to the ground car alone, waving a casual hand back at the older man. “Have a good flight, Citizen Merritt.”
Lacey’s car was half a kilometer away when he heard Merritt’s turbines shriek up to full power. From further across the concrete came the deep thunder and subsonic trembling of a CT-19’s beginning effort to stagger skyward. Lacey’s implant cut out both sounds when it announced, “Reply to support request, theft from PDT stockpiles.”
“Ready.”
“Four hundred liters removed from Redcliffe Arsenal, Toronto Subregion, on 4-23-02. Currently believed being transported in reserve fuel tank of private aircraft number—”
Lacey had anticipated the next words, so he was out of his seat and diving toward the concrete when the concrete rose to meet him. Twenty meters above the field, Merritt’s aircraft had collided with Hanse’s. The supersonic caught the CT-19 abaft the starboard wing, stabbing through the bulbous cargo hauler like a swordsman seeking the heart. The first microsecond of rending metal was lost in the bellow of the engines; then the PDT went off.
All sound ended as an orange fireball devoured the merged aircraft. The blast that followed was like nothing heard since the end of nuclear testing.
Alive but uncaring, stripped by the winds and hammered by the bucking concrete, Lacey lay on the field. He could let the tears come now.
In his mind, back-lighted by the afterimage of the fireball, was the vision of a girl with blue eyes, jet hair, and a smile of love and triumph.
THE PREDATORS
Above the buildings slid air cars. A single private vehicle as luxurious as any of them shared the street below with the wheeled trucks and buses. The closed rear cabin was empty but the chauffeur, a youth whose uniform matched the landeau’s smoke-blue paint, drove with the arrogance of one conducting a prince.
In front of the Coeltrans Building he nudged his wheel to the right, edging up over the curb between a pair of trucks unloading yard goods. Pedestrians leaped to avoid the blunt prow. Smiling, the chauffeur set the brake, cut the alcohol flame to idle under the boiler, and tilted a wing mirror to check his appearance. Shoulder-length black hair framed a face whose complexion was as unnaturally brilliant as the best parchment. His lips were red and well-shaped and cruel.