Flying at 1600 m.p.h. you act with split-secondtiming after you sight the enemy. And you'reallowed only one mistake—your last!
My radar picked him upwhen he was about fivehundred miles to mynorth-northeast and about forty-fivemiles above me. I switchedthe velocity calculator on him asfast as I could reach it.
The enemy ship was doing sixteen,possibly even sixteen and ahalf. I took the chance that itwas most likely an Ivar Interceptor,at that speed, and punchedout a temporary evasion patternwith my right hand while withmy left I snapped an Ivar K-12card into my calculator along withhis estimated speed, altitude anddistance. It wasn't much to goon as yet but he couldn't havemuch more on me, if as much;inwardly I congratulated myselfon the quick identification I'dmanaged.
He was near enough now formy visor screen to pick him up.At least he was alone, that wassomething. My nearest squadronmate was a good minute and ahalf away. It might as well havebeen a century.
Now, this is what is alwayshard to get over to a civilian; thetime element. Understand, it willtake me a while to tell this butit all took less than sixty secondsto happen.
He had guessed my evasion patternalready—either guessed it orhad some new calculator that wasfar and beyond anything ourtechs were turning out. I couldtell he'd anticipated me by theBong-Sonic roll he slipped into.
I quickly punched up a newpattern based on the little materialI had in the calculator. At leastI'd caught the roll. I punched thatup, hurriedly, slipped it into theIBM, guessed that his next probabilitywas a pass, took a chanceon that and punched it in.
I was wrong there. He didn'ttake his opportunity for a front-onpass. He was either newly outof their academy or insultinglyconfident. My lips felt tight asI canceled the frontal pass card,punched up two more to take itsplace.
The base supervisor cut in onthe phone. "It looks like old Dmitrihimself, Jerry, and he's flyingone of the new K-12a models. Goget him, boy!"
I felt like snapping back. Heknew better than to break in onme at a time like this. I openedmy mouth, then shut it again. Didhe say K-12a? Did he say K-12a?
I squinted at the visor screen.The high tail, the canopy, the oddlyshaped wing tanks.
I'd gone off on the identification!
I slapped another evasion patterninto the controls, a standardset, I had no time to punch upan improvisation. But he was on melike a wasp. I rejected it, threw inanother set. Reject. Another!
Even as I worked, I kicked therelease on my own calculator,dumped it all, selected like a flashan Ivar K-12a card, and whatother estimations I could makewhile my mind was busy with thefull-time job of evasion.
My hands were still making themotions, my fingers were flickinghere, there, my feet touching here,there. But my heart wasn't in it.
He already had such an advantagethat it was all I could do tokeep him in my visor screen. Hewas to the left, to the right. Igot him for a full quarter-secondin the wires, but the auto gunnerwas too far behind, much toofar.
His own guns flicked red.
I punched half a dozen buttons,slapped levers, tried to scoot forhome.
To the left of my cubicle twolights went yellowish and at thesame time my visor screen wentdead. I was blind.
I sank back in my chair, helpless.
The speed indicator wavered,went slowly, deliberately tozero; the altimeter died; the fuelgauge. Finally, even the do