Brigadier Aikens joined them. “If this pilot isn’t satisfactory …”
“He’ll do,” Vorgens said.
“You’re still determined to go through with this?”
The Watchman nodded. “Military action has taken us about as far as we can expect. It’s time to try a political stroke.”
Aikens frowned distastefully. “You probably won’t get through this alive.”
“Perhaps.” Vorgens admitted cheerfully, “but that would be no great loss to you, would it?”
Before the brigadier could reply, Vorgens swung up the access ladder and climbed into the aircar’s open cabin. Giradaux trotted around to the other side, got in, and pulled down the plastic bubble top. The turbines growled into life, spraying dust around the base of the little craft. Aikens and the other men backed away as the car climbed slowly, its engines rising in pitch as its altitude increased. Finally the engines tilted forward, and the aircar shot ahead through the morning sky.
Aikens shook his head as the car disappeared from sight.
“We’ll never see them again,” he said to the exec.
Vorgens spent most of the time aloft looking at the tri-di viewscreen on the control panel before him. He was watching the Imperial reinforcements land, just outside Capita] City. A half-dozen needle-sleek, silvery landing ships were sitting tail-down on the plain and disgorging Marines. As he watched, two more settled (town slowly, making the ground beneath them shimmer in the haze of their gray fields. Another ship took off, rising slowly, catching the morning sun on her gleaming bull.