a minute.

Max hadn't got the rundown on the theory of the glider. That was obvious
in his expression.

Joe Mauser, even while searching the ground below keenly, went into it
further. "A wind up against a mountain will give an updraft, storm
clouds will, even a newly plowed field in a bright sun. So you go from
one of these to the next."

"Yeah, great, but when you're between," Max protested.

"Then, when you have a one to twenty-five ratio, you go twenty-five feet
forward for each one you drop. If you started a mile high, you could go
twenty-five miles before you touched ground." He cut himself off
quickly. "Look, what's that, down there? Get your glasses on it."

Max caught his excitement. His binoculars were tight to his eyes.
"Sojers. Cavalry. They sure ain't ours. They must be Hovercraft lads.
And look, field artillery."

Joe Mauser was piloting with his left hand, his right smoothing out a
chart on his lap. He growled, "What are they doing there? That's at
least a full brigade of cavalry. Here, let me have those glasses."

With his knees gripping the stick, he went into a slow circle, as he
stared down at the column of men. "Jack Alshuler," he whistled in
surprise. "The marshal's crack heavy cavalry. And several batteries of
artillery." He swung the glasses in a wider scope and the whistle turned
into a hiss of comprehension. "They're doing a complete circle of the
reservation. They're going to hit the Baron from the direction of
Phoenicia."

X

Marshal Stonewall Cogswell directed his old fashioned telescope in the
direction his chief of staff indicated.

"What is it?" he grunted.

"It's an airplane, sir."

"Over a military reservation with a fracas in progress?"

"Yes, sir." The other put his glasses back on the circling object. "Then
what is it, sir? Certainly not a free balloon."

"Balloons," the marshal snorted, as though to himself. "Legal to use.
The Union forces had them toward the end of the Civil War. But
practically useless in a fracas of movement."

They were standing before the former resort hotel which housed the
marshal's headquarters. Other staff members were streaming from the
building, and one of the ever-present Telly reporting crews were
hurriedly setting up cameras.

The marshal turned and barked, "Does anybody know what in Zen that
confounded thing, circling up there, is?"

Baron Zwerdling, the aging Category Transport magnate, head of
Continental Hovercraft, ho