He was rustier than he had realized. It was not only the four years
away from the levers of the control room and the split-second decision
of high speed, it was the four years of rotting in skid row. His
muscles were stringy, his skin was slaty, his eyes were slow. He was
flab and ached and off his feed. He was slow and overcompensating in
his motions. He missed his aim by yards and miscalculated his position
and his speed and his direction so badly that Donaldson, who rode in
the co-pilot's seat, sat there with his hands poised over the levers
and clutched convulsively or pressed against the floor with his feet,
chewing his lips with concern as Farradyne flopped the sky cruiser
roughly here and there like a recruit.
It took him a month of practise on Mercury to get the hang of it again.
A solid month of severe discipline, living in the ship and taking
exercise and routine practise to refine his control. He found that
making the change from the rotgut jungle juice to White Star Trail was
not too hard because his mind was busy all the time and he did not need
the high-powered stuff. White Star Trail was a godsend to the man who
liked the flavor of fine Scotch whiskey but could not afford to befog
his coordination by so much as a single ounce of the pure quill.
Eventually they 'soloed' him; Donaldson sat in the easy chair in the
salon below talking to Clevis, and he could hear them discussing
problems unrelated to him. Their voices came over the squawk-box
system clear enough to be understood. It gave Farradyne confidence. He
took the Lancaster Eighty-One into the sky, circled Mercury and began
landing procedure. For a moment, then, he relived that black day in his
past: