Hansen felt his dragonfly struggle as though the Matrix had material substance instead of being a skein of possibility.
The wash of surrounding light should have been monochrome. Instead, the enveloping blur shaded from yellow straight ahead of him into green at the corners of his eyes.
Hansen's face was calm, but his brow was cold with sweat. Like being stuffed in a garbage can and rolled into a firefight.
The dimensional vehicle broke into a realtime universe with the suddenness of an equatorial sunset.
It was night. He floated twenty meters above the roofs of a walled city. Torches flared yellow and a dull, smoky red. Men walked the streets between dwellings and taverns. No one seemed to be looking up, but—
Hansen touched the temporal trim control, adjusting for the microsecond advance which would permit him to see without being seen. The vernier rolled easily beneath his thumb.
The dragonfly's electronics did not obey. If Hansen looked carefully, he could see his shadow thrown across the slate roofs by the quarter moon. A dog began to howl.
Hansen swore softly. While the meaningless syllables tripped off his tongue, his vehicle lurched at if it were being hauled through a wire-puller's template. Time drew a faint mask over the scene below.
Hansen drew a deep breath. He couldn't really be said to have relaxed, because his eyes kept flicking in one direction, then another, as though a gunman was waiting, might be waiting . . . but he knew that the first trial was over.
"Control, locator," he ordered the vehicle's AI. The holographic display that sprang to life above the in-plane controls was as crisp as that of the unit Ritter had copied. It gave a vector and a distance, 837 meters, wobbling between .44 and .50 as Sparrow moved within the confines of his cell.
Hansen pivoted the column forward. He could already see the dark mass of the citadel ahead of him.
The controls moved as easily as if they were disconnected. For a moment, Hansen thought that might be the case, but the dragonfly was moving, very slightly, slower than the smoke drifting from chimney pots.
Instinct made Hansen want to push the column harder. His conscious mind told him that the problem was in the override panel, not any of the controls over which the rider had mastery here in the Open Lands. He waited, moving only to scan the terrain—and to switch his left hand onto the control column, though he had no intention of clearing his weapons.
The dragonfly began to slide through the air at the speed of a man running. The force bubble protected its rider from the wash of winter air.
He kept a light grip on the control column, avoiding any input so long as his vehicle proceeded more or less as he wanted it to do. He was overflying the waste of rubble and rubbish between the modern part of the city and his destination.
The wall of the ancient citadel loomed. Hansen drew the column back—no change in velocity; pulled the column straight up on its axis and felt the dragonfly respond instantly by swooping higher than the brutal, lichen-splotched stone an instant before the vehicle's forward motion trembled to a halt.
The time lag was irritating.
The time lag was damned dangerous; but then, so were most of the things Nils Hansen had found himself doing with his life.
He pushed the control column slowly into the pommel. The dragonfly dropped in obedience to the controls. The distance read-out was still operating—6.59/6.60/6.61—so Hansen decided to trust it.
He edged the vernier clockwise another three clicks of the detent. The city faded. The Matrix's foggy illumination returned.
The dragonfly was no longer quite a part of Plane One. Hansen tilted the control column forward again, only a hair, and watched the metered distance to Sparrow reel down the holographic digits.
He was sweating again. There were judgments, uncertainties; none of them serious if his vehicle performed as it should, but—
Ritter's copy worked flawlessly. Hansen centered the in-plane controls at three meters and brought the vernier back three clicks, a fourth. The only light was moonglow through a high slit window, but Hansen could see well enough by it.
He could smell the interior of the cell also. The dragonfly hovered just across the iron barrier from Sparrow. The attendant, Platt, snored in filth as complete as that in which he compelled the prisoner to live.
Hansen's fingers tightened on the grip of his pistol; but he remembered his plan. He was not here for vengeance, only from necessity.
He smiled like a shark killing.
Hansen rotated the vernier one last point to bring the dimensional vehicle into perfect synchrony with the Open Lands.
"Master Sparrow," he called in a low voice. "I have an offer for you."
A dog growled low. The smith touched the beast's throat with huge, gentle hands and stilled the threat. "Krita?" he whispered into the dark. "Have you come for me at last?"
"Not Krita," Hansen said. He would kill the attendant if necessary, but even the flies walking over Platt's face seemed unable to rouse him. "There are gods who would employ you, Master Sparrow. All you have to do is leave your prison."
"I can't leave, you fool!" the smith snarled. "I'm—"
His voice changed. "But you could take me on your vehicle. It will pass through the bars. Take me and I'll—"
"I won't take you, Sparrow," Hansen interrupted. "But if you're the master smith you claim, you could find the template in the Matrix yourself, couldn't you?"
Hansen felt it buzz in the dragonfly's saddle, sure sign that the override control had slipped out of the safe zone. The vehicle began to sink, almost imperceptibly.
There was a tiny metallic sound. The crippled prisoner had gripped the bars with both hands and was squeezing them in an access of emotion. The particular cause was uncertain in the darkness.
"Why did you tell me that?" he asked.
"Because you didn't think of it for yourself," Hansen replied.
"I didn't think of it . . . ," Sparrow said in a tone of mingled wonder and fury.
"Control, Plane Two," Hansen ordered his dragonfly.
Nothing happened for seconds, tens of seconds.
It gave Hansen far too long to wonder whether he would come back to Ritter in time.