With his knees gripping the stick, he went into a slow circle, as he stared down at the column of men. "Jack Alshuler," he whistled in surprise. "The marshal's crack heavy cavalry. And several batteries of artillery." He swung the glasses in a wider scope and the whistle turned into a hiss of comprehension. "They're doing a complete circle of the reservation. They're going to hit the Baron from the direction of Phoenicia." X Marshal Stonewall Cogswell directed his old fashioned telescope in the direction his chief of staff indicated. "What is it?" he grunted. "It's an airplane, sir." "Over a military reservation with a fracas in progress?" "Yes, sir." The other put his glasses back on the circling object. "Then what is it, sir? Certainly not a free balloon." "Balloons," the marshal snorted, as though to himself. "Legal to use. The Union forces had them toward the end of the Civil War. But practically useless in a fracas of movement." 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." "What can you do?" Cogswell barked. The artillery man was shaking his head. "We could mount some Maxim guns on wagon wheels, or something. Keep him from coming low." "He doesn't have to come low," Cogswell growled unhappily. He spun on Lieutenant Colonel Warren again. "When were they invented?" He jerked his thumb upward. "Those things." Warren was twisting his face in memory. "Some time about the turn of the century." "How long can the things stay up?"