Page 17 (1/2)

PHIL struck out wildly, with the instinctive hope that a e if he tensed hisit would take a man to fall fifty floors, but the h in his head

Then he asked hi with hihosts of a yeast-spread sandwich and a glass of soybean ht sprang up around hiht feet in diaently brushed the sphere&039;s soft lining Swiveling his gaze past his feet, he noticed Dytie da Silva sprawled negligently in the air and intently studying a screen set in the lining of the sphere

But he was still falling

Phil knew little enough about space ships, but he knew they couldn&039;t safely go into free-fall without accelerating first to get soravitational field

But there had been no acceleration

"Dytie!" he yelled, and in the confined space the noise was deafening "What&039;s happening toa bit, she looked around at hi I turn off grav&039;ty"

Still retching, Phil tried to co, but no longer so sure he was going to hit anything

Dytie looked along his helplessly sprawled body at his face "Sure, Phil Grav&039;ty go round this little boat just like light do Grav&039;ty no pull it, light no show it"

"That&039;s why it was invisible?"

"Vis&039;ble? Nobody see it Wait bit, Phil, got do things"

"But in a ship like this you could travel -" Phil began, hisspeculations

"This not ship, Phil, just dinghy No talk now"

Phil&039;s falling acquired a direction He found hiently toward Dytie "Here &039;side me, Phil," she instructed A few moments later he was comfortably stretched out on his stomach beside Dytie, his head poised like hers above the screen

And then the speed of his new directed fall increased, although the sphere was no longer falling with hiainst the soft lining He deduced after a while that they ot his chief clue from the screen

At first he couldn&039;t interpret the picture on the screen It was in shades of violet and showed a few large squares and oblongs with dark ribbons between most of them On the central square were a number of dots, which slowly moved as he watched them - also three or four crosses with blobs at their centers Gradually the squares and rectangles shrank, while es He realized that he was looking down at the city and that the dots, which he could hardly distinguish anythem, while the crosses were the copters

For a bit his stoh above the city and going higher But then he began to lose himself in the wonder of the picture Phil hadn&039;t traveled a great deal by air and had seen even less when he&039;d done so, and the growing picture of the city was enthralling He began to feel rather like a god and to speculate how he&039;d mete out justice to hy Visions of sudden descents on dictators danced in his head