The wind at ninety-five thousand feet smelled of iron filings, frozen cold air, and total disregard for human comfort.
Giles Croft leaned his hip against the tubular steel safety rail of the apex overhead frame, wiped grease off the objective lens of his brass sighting scope with the hem of his canvas coat. Then he adjusted the knurled compass bearing screw by two sixteenths of a turn.
Down below, through eighteen miles of thinning azure sky and cloud fleece, the world-size capital of Haven-Hold looked like a gray lichen stain clinging to the curve of the continent.
“Hold the target rod straight-across to the lower datum pipe rim, Toby,” Giles said into the collar microphone pinned to his fleece lining.
“Stop wiggling. The crosshair is dancing like a drunken spider across side three.”
Toby Karr’s voice came crackling back through the electric-shock receiver clamped to Giles’s right ear.
The boy sounded out of breath, his teeth audibly chattering over the hiss of static.
“I’m holding it, Lord Giles! My boots are lashed to the outrigger truss. But the wind keeps kicking the prism face sideways!”
