"And now," said Harry Hayden, "you'll want to see your Hornet."
"Of course," murmured Tom Rogers, swaying.
The paunchy man rose and led Tom down an aluminite ramp and onto a small observation platform some ninety feet above the ground.
A dry summer wind licked at Tom's hair and stung his eyes. Nausea twisted at his innards. He felt as if he were perched on the edge of a slippery precipice.
"There," intoned Harry Hayden, "is the Jetway. Beautiful, eh?"
"Uh-huh."
Trembling, Tom forced his vision to the bright, smooth canyon beneath him. Its bottom was a shining white asphalt ribbon, a thousand feet wide, that cut arrow-straight through the city. Its walls were naked concrete banks a hundred feet high whose reinforced lips curved inward over the antiseptic whiteness.
Harry Hayden pointed a chubby finger downward. "And there they are—the Hornets. See 'em, boy? Right there in front of the assembly shop. Twelve of 'em. Brand new DeLuxe Super-Jet '41 Hornets. Yes, sir. Going to be twelve of you initiated tomorrow."
Tom scowled at the twelve jetmobiles shaped like flattened tear-drops. No sunlight glittered on their dead-black bodies. They squatted silent and foreboding, oblivious to sunlight, black bullets poised to hurl their prospective occupants into fury and horror.
Grandpa looked so very white in his coffin, so very dead—