Emile and the Dutchman by Joel Rosenberg Read Free Book Online Page A

on. "I repeat, negative, no problem. Just a wind gust," I said, damning myself as my voice cracked, and dropping the idea of asking for her code. I was eighteen, dammit—that was supposed to have stopped.
    I toed the bandit switch off, then thumbed the GCA on. I don't have anything against computers—for one thing, they handle final approaches in traffic much more safely than humans can.
    I thumbed the mike again. "Request landing vector."
    As I let my hand come off the deadman, both the cyclic and collective went dead on me while the pedals retracted.
    The Hummingbird took a slight lurch to starboard, away from the field; I dropped my hands and looked out the window.
    A thousand meters away, the regular VNYC noon copter was already down, its front-and-back rotors grinding down into visibility. I gave the von du Mark eagle on its broad side a halfhearted salute. I have never liked Sikorsky Whales, but then I've never had the chance to really fly one—inspections for larger craft are both more frequent and more severe than for small ones, and being a biological backup for a computer has never excited me.
    Besides, you can't do a really hot landing with a twin-rotor job; they're not built for it.
    My Hummingbird passed over the outer marker and plodded its way, fifty meters above the tarmac, to its berth, descending, hovering, roller-coasting a few meters above the ground, going up, then down.
    The Haswell flight module is terrible at feeling when you pass from a hover to ground effect, when you transfer from actually flying to riding the cushion of air your rotor is pushing against the ground.
    The technical term is transitional lift; whatever you call it, it's the source of a lot of accidents among beginners. If you slip out of transitional lift, fall off that cushion of air, you've got to adjust both cyclic and collective quickly and correctly, or you're going to go somewhere you didn't intend—usually down. The accidents tend—repeat: tend— to be minor, because ground-effect mishaps start from less than three meters up. But there's a lot of energy in fast-moving rotors; if you crash, you'd better pancake.
    The Haswell kept missing the landing; I decided I'd had enough nonsense. So I clamped down on the deadman, the controls coming half-alive, then toed the bandit switch and landed it myself.
    There are better modules than the Haswell, but who needs them? If you can't land a copter, fly an airframe.
    I let the computer do the final check and powerdown, then put itself on standby; I was already in a half-crouch in the rear cabin, gathering my suitcases together and throwing them in the tagalong together with my trunk. I debated a moment whether or not to leave the tagalong behind and have a parcel service pick up the gear, but then I shrugged. It didn't matter; if I was going to be unpopular with the peasants for being the scion of Mark Airways, then I was.
    I tried to look on the bright side. It had to be better than the hell I'd gone through at Auckland Prep. I hoped.
    Clipping the follow-me onto my belt, I opened the door and stepped out onto the tarmac, the tagalong lowering itself after.
    I sniffed happily. There was a trace of fuel in the air; there always is. You may think av-fuel stinks; to a pilot, it means he's home.
    My phone chimed; I dug a hand into my flight suit and pulled it out. "Yes?"
    "Emile," Papa's gentle voice said, "your mother just interrupted a staff meeting to . . . remind me that you promised to call as soon as you arrived in New Haven."
    "I just got in, Papa," I said, as I walked quickly toward the registration building, the tagalong rattling behind. "And I will call you and Mama just as soon as I get settled in. Meaning no offense, Papa, I do have to get the Hummingbird tied down, the berth paid for, and myself checked in at the Academy before one o'clock."
    The orders said to report by public transportation by 1:00 P.M. on September 4, 2237, and the Navy was sure to be picky about the