Theo smiled. “Can I have my suit and harness, please?”

Hasson continued appraising Lutze while he came to a decision. “Sorry, Theo. I can’t take that responsibility — not without your father’s express consent. You can see my position, cant you?”

“Me? I can’t see anything,” Theo said bitterly. He found the car with his cane, got into it and sat down. Watched intently by the other boys, Hasson lowered himself into the driving seat and tried not to wince as the nerves in his back reacted violently to the flexure. He started the engine, drove away from the take-off area and turned towards the city. Theo maintained a reproachful silence.

“It’s a lousy day for flying, anyway,” Hasson said after a time. “Far too cold.”

“The chinook can make it warmer up top.”

“There’s no chinook today-just low cloud and a katabatic wind falling down from the mountains. Believe me, you’re better off out of it.”

Theo showed signs of interest. “Do you fly a lot, Mr Haldane?”

“Ah… no.” Hasson realized he had made a mistake in reviving the subject of flying in the presence of a sky-struck boy. “I don’t fly at all, as a mater of fact.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” The apology showed the boy felt a shameful admission had been made, and in spite of all the dictates of his common sense Hasson was suddenly unwilling to let the matter drop. “There’s nothing wrong with travelling in comfort, you know.”

Theo shook his head and spoke with bland certainty. “You’ve got to fly. When I can see again I’m going to live up there. It’s the only way.”

“Who says?”

“Barry Lutze, for one — and he knows. Barry says you can tell a good airman just by looking at him.”

Hasson recognised a disturbing echo of the angels” aced, the unsystematic and semi-instinctive mode of thought — too primeval to be classed as a philosophy — which was born in the minds of some who flew like supermen far above the drowsing earth. It was a dangerous aced, and one he seemed to have been fighting for the whole of his life. He recalled noticing the condensation on Lutz’s flying suit and once again, entirely without volition, the policeman in him began to test patterns of ideas.

“Barry seems to tell you lots of things,” he said. “Do you know him well?”

“Pretty well: Theo replied with simple pride. “He talks to me a lot.”

“Was he doing a bit of cloud-running this afternoon?”

Theo’s face altered. “Why do you want to know?”

“No special reason,” Hasson said, realising he had given himself away. “I’m just interested. Was he aloft?”

“Barry spends most of his time aloft.”

“It’s not the sort of weather I’d pick to go drilling holes in clouds.”

Who said he was flying in cloud?”

“Nobody.” Hasson, now anxious to abandon the subject, scanned the twin lines of unfamiliar buildings ahead of the car. “I’m not sure if I remember the way home from here.”

“Is there a sort of brown glass building at the next intersection?” Theo said. “A furniture store with a projection of a big armchair on the roof?” “Yes — just ahead of us.”

“Make a left there and follow the road till you pick up the north freeway. It’s a bit longer that way, but it’s easier when you don’t know the place too well.”

“Thanks.” Hasson carried out the instruction and glanced curiously at his passenger, wondering if Theo still possessed some degree of sight.

“I can just about tell night from day,” Theo said, “but I’ve got a good memory.”

“I wasn’t going to. …”

Theo smiled. “Everybody’s surprised to find I’m not completely helpless. I keep a map of the city in my head and I check off my position on it. I move a little dot along the streets.”

“That’s really something.” Hasson was impressed by the boy’s fortitude.

“The system doesn’t work in the air, that’s all.”

“No, but you’ll be fine in a couple of years, won’t you?” Theo’s smile hardened. “You’ve been talking to my father.” Hasson gnawed his lower lip, having learned yet again that Theo was a highly perceptive person with no interest in making small talk. “Your father did tell me you’d be having an operation or something like that in two years” time. Perhaps I picked him up wrong.”

“No, you picked him up right,” Theo said easily. “I’ve only got to wait another two years — and that’s nothing, is it? Nothing at all.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Hasson mumbled, wishing the conversation had never got starred, wishing he could be alone in his room, secure, with the door locked and the curtains drawn and all the world a television stage. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and concentrated on following the traffic markers on the road which looped northwards around the outskirts of the city. The road passed through a cutting which enclosed it between steep snowy banks, shutting off all signs of habitation and creating the impression that he was driving in a wilderness.

Hasson was watching a slaty triangle of sky opening out to receive him when something struck the car with enough force to make it rock slightly on the suspension. The impact appeared to have been on the roof, but nothing that could have caused it bounced down on to the pavement.

Theo sat up straight. “What was that?”

“I think we’ve got company,” Hasson said. He trod gently on the brake pedal and at the same instant a flier made a swooping descent to land on the road about a hundred metres ahead. The flier was a big man who was wearing a black suit, a harness with fluorescent orange straps and — in spite of the fading light conditions — mirror-lensed sun glasses. Hasson immediately recognised Buck Morlacher and made a simultaneous guess that his partner, Starr Pridgeon, was at that moment perched on the roof of the car, having matched velocities in the air and dropped on to it. A wave of irritation, rather than anger, caused him to react as his former self. The car was still losing speed gradually as it neared Morlacher, but Hasson kicked down on the brake and jolted the vehicle to a halt. A blue-suited figure tumbled down the sloping windshield, struck the nose of the car and slid the rest of the way down on to the road.

Hasson, now regretting his impulsive action, sat perfectly still as the figure sprang to its feet and he saw the thin, venomous face of Starr Pridgeon coming towards him. Pridgeon wrenched open the driver door and his eyes widened in surprise.

“Hey, Buck,” he called. “This ain’t Werry — it’s his Goddamn cousin from Goddamn England.”

Morlacher paused briefly, then continued his approach to the car. “I’ll talk to him, anyway.”

“Right.” Pridgeon put his head right inside the car until his face was almost touching Hasson’s. “What was the idea?” he whispered. “What was the idea puffin” me down on the road like that?”

Hasson, numb with apprehension, shook his head and somehow chose the exact words Pridgeon had used earlier when he had felled Al Werry. “It was a pure accident.”

Pridgeon’s expression became murderous. “You want me to drag you out of there?”

“It was an accident,” Hasson said, gazing straight ahead. “I’m not used to this sort of car.”

“If I thought you had enough…”

“Come out of there,” Morlacher said to Pridgeon, appearing at his elbow. Pridgeon withdrew, scowling, walked round to the other side of the car and stared in at Theo Werry. The boy remained motionless, his face calm.

Morlacher stooped to look in at Hasson. “What’s your name? Halford or something like that, isn’t it?”

“It’s Haldane.”

Morlacher appeared to digest the information for a moment, the two triangles of red glowing on the pink background of his face. “Where’s Werry?”

“Over on the east side,” Hasson said, submitting to the interrogation. “There was an AC.”

“A what?” Morlacher demanded suspiciously.

“An aerial collision. Two people dead. He had to be there.”

“He should have been there before somebody got killed.” Morlacher was speaking in tones of barely suppressed rage, a fact which Hasson noted and found slightly puzzling — Morlacher had not struck him as being particularly humanitarian or public spirited in his outlook. He was pondering the matter when he heard a click on his right and turned his head to see that Pridgeon had opened the passenger door and was peering in at Theo with a kind of brooding, clinical interest. Theo, although he must have heard the noise and felt the influx of cold air, did not move in any way.