Bill scanned Herl's face, saw it grave, sympathetic. He then opened the door on his own side of the cabter and stepped out into the sky.
Herl found himself sliding over to the driver's seat, reaching for the loosely swinging door, peering down and out. Bill was a mere dwindling spot below. Herl slammed the door shut by reflex action; then sat numbly nauseated. The cab flew on evenly.
Herl took a couple of very deep breaths to subdue the nausea and looked ahead to where the outline of the port tower was sharpening on the horizon. Cautiously he tried the controls of the cabter ... up ... down ... right ... left. He could manage it, he thought dully. He could find no lever, no button, no pedal with which to reduce or increase the forward speed, however. The brake pedal for surface control evoked no response in the air. The tower came nearer and the image of the dwindling, falling blob that had been Bill Haulwell faded from Herl's mind as he sought frantically for the mechanism to cut his speed for landing.
The tower rushed toward the cab ... and past. Herl set the cab into a tight circle a little smaller than the circumference of the landing area. Someone would notice him, someone would either signal him or, if the power were broadcast, let him down slowly ... he hoped. If the cab used its own fuel, that would have to run out with time. He circled and circled, counterclockwise.
There seemed to be no diminution of speed so he began to spiral down toward the ground. If he could hold the circle a few feet above the ground, someone might at least come out and shout instructions.
There was no sign from the tower that his approach had been noticed. He circled the Krylla several times, then circled the tower. The place seemed deserted in the growing twilight. He considered flying close to the ground and jumping out but rejected that thought as he remembered the towerman's remark about the pitting of the cinder surface ... and remembered the paved runway at the edge of the field from which the cabter had taken off on his trip to the city.
He headed for the runway in the direction from which he had originally taken off, coming down to let the wheels skim the smooth pavement. The cabter gathered speed rapidly as the end of the runway flung itself toward him. He raised the machine into the air missing the rough ground at the end of the way by scant feet.
Herl smiled grimly. Apparently power was somehow beamed at the runway. He circled over the weedy pasture-like space and a copse of small trees and headed back to the runway. Perhaps the power would be cut if one approached from this end. Again he lowered the cab till the wheels seemed but inches above the pavement ... and sure enough, the speed decreased. Slower and more slowly he went; but the far end of the runway approached all too rapidly. He tried to rise again, but the response of the cab was sluggish now. By lightning judgment, Herl knew that only a jump would save him from crashing with the cab among the weeds. Those weeds swept toward him as he opened the door and rolled out, relaxing to meet the pavement sliding past.
There was no tearing bruising impact, no sound of the cab's crash. Herl opened his eyes suddenly to see, meaninglessly before him, the control panel of his own Krylla. He was sitting in his own pneumatic control chair.