Free Cloud Castles by Michael Scott Rohan Page A

ghostly turmoil.
    I sank into bed that night, very tired and uneasy, wondering just what I’d got into, what I’d created, and I dreamed. More than once it woke me, sweating, but only one image remained from a vaguely terrifying jumble. A map of Europe, a child’s map in the dulled colours of an old school atlas, and spreading across it a web, a grey, complex, dirty web, full of shrivelled death. At the heart of it, tense, malevolent, readyto spring, there crouched a small black spider.

Chapter Three
    The next morning, oddly enough, I had fewer doubts. That was because I harboured some interesting cuts and bruises, which had taken advantage of the night to stiffen up; and because I had to spend ages arguing with the car-hire company and persuading them to send another car to get me to the airport. The whole thing infuriated me so much I almost forgot 1726, but when I called down, the desk clerk, an old acquaintance, assured me that yes, Fraiilein Perceval had checked out at six thirty and taken her car out of the garage and, speaking of which, mine had just arrived. It turned out to be chauffeur-driven; which is one way of making a point. I sat in stony silence all the dull and drizzly way, brooding. Perceval, eh? Distinguished, as cover-names went.
    I’d meant to spend a few days more, at least, but with all sorts of people gunning for me, and complications straying in from the Spiral, I had urgent business at home. So much for my climbing, too. I was feeling mean as a rat; they wanted my head, did they? Well, they’d better watch out for theirs. With my cases poised on a wobbling trolley I went through airport security, which had become twice as annoying as customs and passport controls ever were, and trundled my way over to the behind-hangars backwater set aside as a heliport. The sight of my own little machine rolled out and waiting cheered me up a bit; I threw my cases into the minuscule back seat, sent the trolley to hell and went over everything even more thoroughly than usual, just in case somebody had bribed a mechanic to loosen a nut or block an oil line.
    Paranoia rules, okay –
and who told you?
    All the same, I felt relievedwhen I’d covered all the more obvious possibilities; there are too many of them on a helicopter. At last, wiping oil off my fingers, I settled into the pilot’s seat and pulled on my helmet. I had just time to run through the pre-flight checks with traffic control before the slot I’d booked came up, and the impatient ground staff waved me out. The starter coughed, turned, and unleashed the worst din in the world. It made me shrink a bit, after last night, but I’d no time to spare. Right hand on the cyclic joystick, left on the collective lever, twist the throttle grip and listen to the quickening hiss of the rotors overhead. As it speeded up I rocked the rudder pedals gingerly, checking the tail rotor’s response; I’d only been flying solo for two years, and I didn’t want to lose it right in the middle of a major international airport. My left hand gunned the throttle and eased the collective forward, angling the rotor blades to generate lift, and the tarmac sank away in my windshield as the little beast lifted and began to swing. I eased down on the pedals, pitching the tail rotor to kill the swing, tipped the cyclic to tilt the whole rotor assembly, angling the downdraught backwards, and inched the collective along, sending her slowly forward and upward, all the while obeying the controller’s patient monotone, keeping a wary eye on the airport around me and darting nervous glances at the crowded control display. Flying a ‘copter is a whole-body experience, like sex without the fringe benefits.
    I made rather heavy weather of clearing the crowded airspace, but patient the voice remained, so I couldn’t have been doing too badly. Finally I was up and away, and I could do what I’d been yearning to, just lean on the stick and let her soar. As high as she would, anyhow: