power cable held in place with globs of resin, Steve connected the

patchwork of panels in series. It was a slow fiddly job but finally

the circuit was completed.

Lacking any proper measuring equipment, Steve was forced to

improvise.

He checked that he had a spark across the end of the wires then asked

some Mute children to bring him a live fish from the nearest stream.

They brought back a plump trout in a skin water-bag and watched

curiously as Steve stuck the ends of the wires into the water. The

trout bent in the middle as if it was trying to bite its tail off then

roiled over and floated to the surface. Satisfied that he had a modest

amount of power at his disposal, Steve proceeded with the repair and

installation of one of the electric motors for which Three Degrees had

proudly carved a new propellor from dark yellow wood.

Three weeks after picking up the first piece of tubing, a motorised,

forty foot span hang-glider - which they had named Blue-Bird - stood

poised on head-high sapling trestles. Steve connected the cable,

bringing the current from the wing panels to the motor, then everyone

held their breath and waited for the sun to clear from behind a

seemingly endless bank of dull grey cloud. After an interminable wait,

the thin fuzzy shadow cast by BlueBird's wings darkened into a

hard-edged arrow as the sun soared into a patch of deep blue and beamed

down its warmth upon their upturned faces. Steve threw the switch.

Nothing happened. He spun the prop. Nothing. Like churning mud with

a stick. A disappointed sigh went up from the ring of spectators.

Steve swore quietly and whacked the motor casing with the flat of his

hand. The propellor turned obediently, blurring into a smooth disc of

spun gold.

'HEY-YAAH!" roared the clan.

Steve threw a double-handed kiss at the sky. 'Oh, you sweet Mother I'

he crowed.

'Will you have enough power for take-off?" asked Cadillac.

Steve shook his head as he tightened one of the starboard rigging

wires. 'If the circuit holds, it will help us stay up once we get

airborne but that's all." But that's enough, he thought exultantly.

With a zero sink-rate, I can wave goodbye to these lumps anytime I

choose...

Blue-Bird was carried with great ceremony to the top ora gentle slope

from where Steve made several test-runs, floating a few feet off the

ground while Mute children raced alongside him laughing and shouting

excitedly. The fear and pain caused by the arrowheads over the

cropfields appeared to be entirely forgotten. Steve was pleasantly

surprised to find that Blue-Bird was inherently stable and responded

well to shifts of the control bar and his suspended body.

The first real take-off from the top of a steeply sloping bluff was

perfect. As he hung in his harness, riding the cool updraft, Steve

experienced anew the exhilaration of flight.

It was like a re-run of his first overground solo; the quickening

heartbeat, the sharpened senses, a new awareness.

He banked round towards the bluff and Went into a series of climbing

figure-eights over the watchers below.

Above him the sky was blue, with scattered white clouds.

Behind him, the motor hummed smoothly.

Because of his stone-age circuitry, the solar cell fabric was

delivering a fluctuating current that - from the level of sound from

the motor - Steve judged to be between thirty and fifty per cent of its

normal potential. While it did not enable him to climb, it produced

enough power to maintain altitude once he'd got up there by riding into

the wind like a kite, or on the back of a convenient thermal. As the

watching Mutes below shrank to ant-like proportions Steve realised that

he now had a golden opportunity to escape. The idea had been lurking

at the back of his mind from the moment his feet had left the ground on

the first test glides. Before taking off from the bluff he had

concealed the map under his fatigues. He had not had an opportunity to

recover the buried ration pack and water kit but that did not really

matter. He could survive for the few days it might take to fly back to

the Federation. He had been drinking contaminated water and eating raw

fruit for months now; he had also been breathing radio-active air and

been in skin-to-skin contact with Mutes. Another week either way

wouldn't make much difference. Since emerging from the days of

semi-drugged sleep way back at the beginning, Steve had gradually

forgotten the invisible death shroud that still enveloped the

overground. Now and then he remembered the constant danger with a

sense of shock - followed by a moment of perplexity as he realised

that, despite his prolonged exposure, he had not yet suffered any

noticeable sign