It stood to reason that they were not numerous enough to interfere with all traffic, but what would they do?
I reached only the unhelpful conclusion that they would do something and that I, being a part of “communications” by definition, had better be prepared for evasive action if I wanted to save my pretty pink skin.
In the meantime the Mississippi River and Zone Red were sliding closer by the minute. I wondered what would happen the first time my recognition signal was picked up by a station controlled by masters. I tried to think like a titan—impossible, I found, even though I had been a slave to one. The idea revolted me.
Well, then, what would a security commissar do if an unfriendly craft flew past the Curtain? Have it shot down, of course. No, that was not the answer; I was probably safe in the air.
But I had better not let them spot me landing. Elementary.
“Elementary” in the face of a traffic control net which was described proudly as the No-Sparrow-Shall-Fall plan. They boasted that a butterfly could not make a forced landing anywhere in the United States without alerting the search & rescue system. Not quite true—but I was no butterfly.
What I wanted was to land short of the infested area and go in on the ground. On foot I will make a stab at penetrating any security screen, mechanical, electronic, manned, or mixed. But how can you use misdirection in a car making westing a full degree every seven minutes? Or hang a stupid, innocent look on the nose of a duo?
If I went in on foot the Old Man would get his report come next Michaelmas; he wanted it before midnight.
Once, in a rare mellow mood, the Old Man told me that he did not bother his agents with detailed instructions—give a man a mission; let him sink or swim. I suggested that his method must use up a lot of agents.
“Some,” he had admitted, “but not as many as the other way. I believe in the individual and I try to pick individuals who are survivor types.”
“And how in the hell,” I had asked him, “do you know when you’ve got a ‘survivor type’.”
He had grinned at me wickedly. “A survivor type is an agent who comes back. Then I know.”
I had to reach a decision in the next few minutes. Elihu, I said to myself, you are about to find out which type you are—and damn his icy heart!
My course would take me in toward St. Louis, swing me in the city loop around St. Louis, and on to Kansas City. But St. Louis was in Zone Red. The military-situation map had showed Chicago as still green; as I remembered it the amber line had zigzagged west somewhere above Hannibal, Missouri—and I wanted very badly to cross the Mississippi while still in Zone Green. A car crossing that mile-wide river would make a radar blip as sharp as a desert star.
I signaled block control for permission to descend to local-traffic level, then did so without waiting, resuming manual control and cutting my speed. I headed north.
Short of the Springfield loop I headed west again, staying low. When I reached the river I crossed slowly, close to the water, with my transponder shut down. Sure, you can’t shut off your radar recognition signal in the air, not in a standard rig—but the Section’s cars were not standard. The Old Man was not above using gangster tricks.
I had hopes, if local traffic were being monitored while I crossed, that my blip would be mistaken for a boat on the river. I did not know certainly whether the next block station across the river was Zone Red or Zone Green, but, if my memory was correct, it should be green.
I was about to cut in the transponder again on the assumption that it would be safer, or at least less conspicuous, to get back into the traffic system when I noticed the shoreline opening up ahead of me. The map did not show a tributary there; I judged it to be an inlet, or possibly a new channel cut in the spring floods and not yet mapped. I dropped almost to water level and headed into it. The stream was narrow, meandering, and almost overhung by trees and I had no more business taking a sky car into it than a bee has of flying down a trombone—but it afforded perfect radar “shadow”; I could get lost in it.