They were standing before the former resort hotel which housed the marshal's headquarters. Other staff members were streaming from the building, and one of the ever-present Telly reporting crews were hurriedly setting up cameras.
The marshal turned and barked, "Does anybody know what in Zen that confounded thing, circling up there, is?"
Baron Zwerdling, the aging Category Transport magnate, head of Continental Hovercraft, hobbled onto the wooden veranda and stared with the others. "An airplane," he croaked. "Haer's gone too far this time. Too far, too far. This will strip him. Strip him, understand." Then he added, "Why doesn't it make any noise?"
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Warren stood next to his commanding officer. "It looks like a glider, sir."
Cogswell glowered at him. "A what?"
"A glider, sir. It's a sport not particularly popular these days."
"What keeps it up, confound it?"
Paul Warren looked at him. "The same thing that keeps a hawk up, an albatross, a gull—"
"A vulture, you mean," Cogswell snarled. He watched it for another long moment, his face working. He whirled on his chief of artillery. "Jed, can you bring that thing down?"
The other had been viewing the craft through field binoculars, his face as shocked as the rest of them. Now he faced his chief, and lowered the glasses, shaking his head. "Not with the artillery of pre-1900. No, sir."