Joe, circling, circling, praying the updraft wouldn't give out on him
before it did on the others, on their opposite hill, said, "We weigh
too much. Altitude counts. What've you got back there that can be
thrown out?" As he talked, he was shrugging himself out of his leather
flying jacket.
"Nothing," Freddy said in anguish. "I cut down my equipment to the
barest, like you said."
"You've got extra lenses and stuff, out with them." Joe tossed his
coat over the glider's side, began unlacing his shoes. "And all your
clothes. Clothes are heavy."
"I need my equipment to get long-range shots, like when one of them
crashes!" The little man was scanning the others through his
view-finder, even as he argued, and shrugging out of his own jacket.
The updraft gave out and the rate of climb meter began to register a
drop. Joe swore and shot a glance at his opponents. Happily, they,
too, had lost their currents, both were now heading for him.
Joe clipped out to his companion. "We're not going to be getting shots
of them crashing, unless we lose more weight. Overboard with
everything you can possibly afford, Freddy. That's an order."
There was one thing in his favor. He had a year's flying experience,
more than six months of it in this very glider. The stick and
rudderbar were as though appendages of his body. One flies by the seat
of his pants, in a soaring glider, and Joe flew his as though born in
it. The others, obviously, were as yet not thoroughly used to
engineless craft.
He banked away from them, flying as judiciously as possible,
begrudging each foot dropped. He could feel the craft jump lightly
each time the cursing Telly reporter jettisoned another article of
equipment, his pants, or his shoes.
The others evidently had their guns fix-mounted, to fire straight
ahead. Joe wondered, even as he slid away from them, how they managed
to escape detection from the Sov-world and Neut-world field observers.
Well, that could be worried about later.
One of them fired at him at too great a range, and then both,
realizing that they were dropping altitude too quickly and that soon
Joe would be on their level, turned away and sought a new updraft. As
they banked, their faces were clearly discernible. One raised a hand
in mocking salute.
"Look at that curd-loving Bob," Joe laughed grudgingly. "Here, let me
have that gun."
He steadied the small mitrailleuse on the edge of the cockpit, holding
the craft's stick between his knees, and squeezed off a burst which
rattled through the other's fuselage without apparent damage. The foe
glider slid away quickly, losing precious altitude in the maneuver.
"Ah, ha," Joe said wolfishly. "So now they know we've got a stinger
too."
"I got that," Freddy crowed. "I got it perfectly. Listen, we're too
high for the boys down below. Get lower so they can get you on lens,
Joe. The other Telly teams. Every fracas buff in North America is
watching this."
Joe snorted his disgust. "I hope every fracas buff in North America
chokes on his trank pills," he snarled. "We're in the dill, Freddy.
Understand? We're too heavy, and there's two of them and one of us. On
top of that, those are Maxim guns they've got mounted, not peashooters
like this Chaut-Chaut."
"That's your side of it," Freddy said, not unhappily. "I take care of
the photography. Get closer, Joe. Get closer."
Joe had found another light updraft and gained a few hundred feet, but
so had the others. They circled, circled. His experience balanced
their advantage of the lesser weight. Happily, their glide ratios
didn't seem to be any better than his own. Had they high performance
gliders of forty, or even thirty-five, gliding angle ratios, he would
have been lost.
"Nothing else you can toss out?" he growled at Freddy.
"What the Zen!" Freddy muttered nastily. "You want me to jump?"
"That's an idea," Joe growled wolfishly, even as he circled, circled.
"I should have realized when you were giving me your fling about
reintroducing aerial warfare, that it wasn't an idea that others
couldn't have. It was just as easy for Bob to mount a gun as it was
for us. Now we're both being kept from doing reconnaissance by the
other and--"
Joe Mauser broke it off in mid-sentence and his face blanched. He shot
a quick look downward. All three gliders had climbed considerably, and
the terrain below was indistinct.