Lloyd Inglis—the beer-drinking, book-loving spendthrift—was dead. And before him there had been Singleton, Larmor and McMeekin. Half of Hasson’s original squad of seven years ago had died in the course of duty … and for what? It was impossible to police a human race which had been given its three-dimensional freedom with the advent of the CG harness. Putting a judo hold on gravity, turning the Earth’s own attractive force back against itself, had proved to be the only way to fly. It was easy, inexpensive, exhilarating—and impossible to regulate. There were eighty million personal fliers in Britain alone, each one a superman impatient of any curb on his ability to follow the sunset around the curve of the world. Aircraft had vanished from the skies almost overnight, not because the cargo-carrying ability was no longer needed, but because it was too dangerous to fly them in a medium which was crowded with aerial jaywalkers. The nocturnal rogue flier, the dark Icarus, was the folk hero of the age. What, Hasson asked himself, was the point in being a skycop? Perhaps the whole concept of policing, of being responsible for others, was no longer valid. Perhaps the inevitable price of freedom was a slow rain of broken bodies drifting to Earth as their powerpacks faded and …
The attack took Hasson by surprise.
It came so quickly that the proximity alarm and the howling of air displaced by the attacker’s body were virtually simultaneous. Hasson turned, saw the black lance, jack-knifed to escape it, received a ferocious glancing blow, and was sent spinning—all in the space of a second. The drop caused by the momentary field interference had been negligible. He switched off his flares and flight lights in a reflexive action and struggled to free his arms from the towline which was being lapped around him by his own rotation. When he had managed to stabilize himself he remained perfectly still and tried to assess the situation. His right hip throbbed painfully from the impact, but as far as he could tell no bones had been broken. He wondered if his attacker was going to be content with having made a single devastating pass, or if this was the beginning of a duel.
“You were quick, Hasson,” a voice called from the darkness. “Quicker than your wingman. But it won’t do you any good.”
“Who are you?” Hasson shouted as he looked for a radar bearing.
“You know who I am. I’m the Fireman.”
“That’s a song.” Hasson kept his voice steady as he began spreading his snares and nets. “What’s your real name? The one your area psychiatrist has on his books.”
The darkness laughed. “Very good, Sergeant Hasson. Playing for time and trying to goad me and learn my name all at once.”
“I don’t need to play for time—I’ve already broadcast a QRF.”
“By the time anybody gets here you’ll be dead, Hasson.”
“Why should I be? Why do you want to do this?”
“Why do you hunt my friends and ground them?”
“They’re a menace to themselves and to everybody else.”
“Only when you make them fly wild. You’re kidding yourself, Hasson. You’re a skycop and you like hounding people to death. I’m going to ground you for good—and those nets won’t help you.”
Hasson stared vainly in the direction of the voice. “Nets?”
There was another laugh and the Fireman began to sing. “I can see you in the dark, ’cause I’m the Fireman; I can fly with you and you don’t even know I’m there …” The familiar words were growing louder as their source drew near, and abruptly Hasson made out the shape of a big man illuminated by the traffic streams below and by starlight from above. He looked fearsome and inhuman in his flying gear.
Hasson yearned for the firearm which was denied to him by British police tradition, and then he noticed something. “Where’s the lance?”
“Who needs it? I let it go.” The Fireman spread his arms and—even in the dimness, even with the lack of spatial reference points—it became apparent that he was a giant, a man who had no need of weapons other than those which nature had built into him.
Hasson thought of the heavy lance plummeting down into a crowded suburb three thousand metres below and a cryogenic hatred stole through him, reconciling him to the forthcoming struggle, regardless of its outcome. As the Fireman came closer, Hasson whirled a net in slow circles, tilting his harness to counteract the spin the net tried to impart to him. He raised his legs in readiness to kick, and at the same time finished straightening out the towline which made Inglis’s body a ghastly spectator to the event. He felt nervous and keyed up, but not particularly afraid now that the Fireman had discarded his lance. Aerial combat was not a matter of instinct, it was something which had to be learned and practised, and therefore the professional always had the edge on the amateur, no matter how gifted or strongly motivated the latter might be. For example, the Fireman had made a serious mistake in allowing Hasson to get his legs fully drawn up into the position from which the power of his thighs could be released in an explosive kick.
Unaware of his blunder, the Fireman edged in slowly, vectoring the lift of his harness with barely perceptible shoulder movements. He’s a good flier, Hasson thought, even if he isn’t so good on combat theory and …
The Fireman came in fast—but not nearly as fast as he should have done. Hasson experienced something like a sense of luxury as he found himself with time to place his kick exactly where he wanted it. He chose the vulnerable point just below the visor, compensated for the abrupt drop which occurred as both CG fields cancelled out, and unleashed enough energy to snap a man’s neck. Somehow the Fireman got his head out of the way in time and caught hold of Hasson’s outstretched leg. Both men were falling now, but at an unequal rate because Hasson was tethered to Inglis whose CG field was too far away to have been cancelled. In the second before they parted, the Fireman applied the leverage of his massive arms and broke Hasson’s leg sideways at the knee.
Pain and shock obliterated Hasson’s mind, gutting him of all strength and resolve. He floated in the blackness for an indeterminate period, arms moving uncertainly, face contorted in a silent scream. The great spiral nebula far below continued to spin, but a dark shape was moving steadily across it, and part of Hasson’s mind informed him that there was no time for indulgence in natural reactions to injury. He was hopelessly outclassed on the physical level, and if life were to continue it would only be through the exercise of intelligence. But how was he to think when pain had invaded his body like an army and was firing mortar shells of agony straight into his brain?
For a start, Hasson told himself, you have to get rid of Lloyd Inglis. He began reeling in his comrade’s body with the intention of unhooking it, but almost immediately the Fireman spoke from close behind him.
“How did you like it, Hasson?” The voice was triumphant. “That was to show you I can beat you at your own game. Now we’re going to play my game.”
Hasson tried drawing the line in faster. Inglis’s body bobbed closer and finally came within interference radius. Hasson and Inglis began to fall. The Fireman dived in on them on the instant, hooked an arm around Hasson’s body, and all three dropped together. The whirlpool of fire began to expand beneath them.
“This is my game,” the Fireman sang through the gathering slipstream. “I can ride you all the way to the ground, ’cause I’m the Fireman.”
Hasson, knowing the tactics of aerial chicken, shut out the pain from his trailing leg, reached for his master switch, but hesitated without throwing it. In two-man chicken the extinguishing of one CG field restored the other one to its normal efficacy, causing a fierce differential which tended to drag one opponent vertically away from the other. The standard countermove was for the second man to kill his own field at the same time so that both bodies would continue to plunge downwards together until somebody’s nerve broke and forced him to reactivate his harness. In the present game of death, however, the situation was complicated by the presence of Inglis, the silent partner who had already lost. His field would continue negating those of the other two, regardless of what they did, unless …