Greg hadn't thought about it at all until Pat had started talking
peculiarly, then when she had broken up completely and left the Cowl,
then it had hit home, hard.
The heliocruiser lifted slowly under Drakeson's awkward guidance. Only
the Controllers, the Control Council Guards, could work the gadgetry
of the City with practiced ease. Everybody else, naturally, was
conditioned to various anesthesia states, and had no reason to deal
with materialistic things.
The cruiser lifted until it was flying directly beneath the opaque
stuff of the Cowl, lost in the dazzling rainbows of sunlight shattering
through.