"So you did," said Kieran. He sat, sweating. His hands and feet were
cold.
Now for the first time he became aware of motion. The flitter seemed to
hurtle forward at comet-like speed. Kieran knew that this was merely an
ironic little joke, because now they were proceeding at something in the
range of normal velocity, whereas before their speed had been quite
beyond his comprehension. But he could comprehend this. He could feel
it. They were going like a bat out of hell, and somewhere ahead of them
was a planet, and he was closed in, blind, a mouse in a nose-cone. His
insides writhed with helplessness and the imminence of a crash. He
wanted very much to start screaming again, but Paula was watching him.
In a few moments that desire became academic. A whistling shriek began
faintly outside the hull and built swiftly to a point where nothing
could have been heard above it. Atmosphere. And somewhere under the
blind wall of the flitter a rock-hard world-face reeling and rushing,
leaping to meet them--
* * * * *
The flitter slowed. It seemed to hang motionless, quivering faintly.
Then it dropped. Express elevator in the world's tallest building, top
to bottom--only the elevator is a bubble and the wind is tossing it from
side to side as it drops and there is no bottom.
They hung again, bounding lightly on the unseen wind.
Then down.
And hang again.
And down.
Paula said suddenly, "Webber. Webber, I think he's dying." She began to
unstrap.