You can say you're sick, he told himself. It's happened before: a hangover from the party. Sure. Tomorrow you'll feel better. If you could just have one more day, just one—
Other Hornets were easing out into the slip, sleek black cats embarking on an insane flight. One after another, grumbling, growling, spatting scarlet flame from their tail jets.
Perhaps if he waited a few minutes, the traffic would be thinner. He could have coffee, let the other nine-o'clock people go on ahead of him.
No, dammit, get it over with. If you crash, you crash. If you die, you die. You and Grandpa and a million others.
He gritted his teeth, fighting the omnipresent giddiness. He eased his body down into the Hornet's cockpit. He felt the surge of incredible energies beneath the steelite controls. Compared to this vehicle, the ancient training jets were as children's toys.
An attendant snapped down the plexite canopy. Ahead, a guide-master twirled a blue flag in a starting signal.
Tom flicked on a switch. His trembling hands tightened about the steering lever. The Hornet lunged forward, quivering as it was seized by the Jetway's electromagnetic guide-field.
He drove....
One hundred miles an hour, two hundred, three hundred.