The spectators in their helicopters blew whistles, shot off pistols, went mad in applause.
T’ang lowered the Yuen to within several hundred feet of the water.
He was applauded, too.
Bearden inspected his ship with the autotelevisation. It would collapse at the slightest strain.
He wheeled his ship to the right, preparatory to descending.
His left wing broke under the strain: and the Ariel began hurtling downward. He turned his autotelevisation on the Yuen, not daring to see the ship, which carried his reputation, his future, crash.
The Yuen was struck by his left wing, which was falling like a stone. The Yuen exploded forty-six seconds later.
And, by international law, Bearden had won the war for America, with it the honors of war and the possession of the enormous Radiant Heat revenue.
All the world hailed this Lindbergh of the twenty-second century.