One hundred thousand.
"Double that," I said into the mike.
"Yeah, Anders. How is it?"
"Haven't yet begun. Radar still on me?"
I heard a nervous laugh. He was nervous. "The General—General Hotchkiss just said something, Anders. He—ha, ha—he said you're on plot like stitches in a fat lady's hip. Ha, ha! He's got us all in stitches. Ha, ha!"
Ha, ha!
This was it. I released my grip on the accelerator control, yet it slide up. They say you can't feel speed in the air unless there's something relative within vision to tip you off. They're going to have to revise that. You can not only feel speed you can reach out and break hunks off it—in the XXE-1, that is. I shook my head, took my eyes off the instruments and looked down at the Doll on my lap.
"Melrose?"
"Hear you, Anders."
"This is it. Reaching me on radar still?"