He looked out nervously, but only just for a moment. He was going to do it anyway, so it was dumb to be nervous. Carefully picking up the hang glider, he carried it out to the edge of the rock, till he was standing on a ledge looking out over the whole extent of DaveLand. He noticed with satisfaction that although his glider looked like nothing more than a kind of drying frame for silk bikinis, it was very stiff and he had to pull it forcefully through the air to move it.

From here to Dave’s Place was about a mile horizontally and a couple of hundred feet vertically. He could just see, glinting in the sun, his large blue swimming pool, neatly secluded within the Japanese garden on the top of Dave’s Hill. The distance and the direction of the sun made details a little difficult, but he was confident that Sam would be waiting for him there beside the pool. He reckoned he could drop himself pretty neatly into that. He glanced at his watch. It was just after eight o’clock, and he’d scheduled the meeting for eight. Sam would be there.

Sam’s view was that a lot of Dave’s plans and schemes were reckless, crazy, irresponsible, occasionally bordering on the just plain dumb. Dropping into the pool would be something better than dumb guys could do. How tough could it be to do it if you were Dave?

He checked the wind direction, stepped into a lightweight harness belt, tightened it, clipped the belt to the glider, passed his hands through two loops, gripped the main struts, and he was ready.

All he had to do now was throw himself off into space.

Wow. Okay. Go.

No fuss, no dumb stuff. With a light heart he threw himself out forward, and sailed into empty space. The air supported him immediately, with a little rough buffeting. He braced himself against the frame, then tried to relax a little, then relaxed a little more, trying to find a good balance that was easy but responsive. He got it. He was out there. He was flying. He was just some kind of a bird.