But he had eaten too much, and when some of the group returned to the hostel, he decided to go back with them. On their way back, some passersby said something—”Look at the ferals,” or something like that— and the spear thrower howled, and just like that he and some of the young hunters had pushed the passersby against a wall, shoving them and shouting abuse:”Watch your mouth or we’ll beat the shit out of you,” Spear Thrower shouted happily, “you caged rats, you drug addicts, you sleepwalkers, you fucking earthworms, you think you can take drugs and get what we get, we’ll kick your ass and then you’ll feel some real feeling, you’ll see what we mean,” and then Nirgal was pulling him back, saying “Come on, come on, don’t make trouble,” and the passersby were on them with a roar, hard-fisted and-footed men who were not drunk and were not amused, the young hunters had to retreat, then let themselves be pulled away by Nirgal when the passersby were satisfied at having driven them off; still shouting abuse, staggering up the street, holding their bruises, laughing and snarling, completely full of themselves, “Fucking sleepwalkers, wrapped in your gift boxes, we’ll kick your ass! Kick your ass right out of your dollhouse into the drink! Stupid sheep that you are!”
Nirgal cuffed them along, giggling despite himself. The ranters were very drunk, and Nirgal was not much more sober himself. When they got to their hostel he looked into the bar across the street, saw the butcher woman was sitting in there, and so went in with the rest of the rough boys. He sat back watching them while he drank a glass of cognac, swishing it over his tongue. Ferals, the passersby had called them. The butcher woman was eyeing him, wondering what he thought. Much later he stood, with difficulty, and left the bar with the others, walking unsteadily across the cobbled street, humming along with the others as they bellowed “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” On the obsidian water of Kasei Fjord the stars rode up and down. Mind and body full of feeling, sweet fatigue a state of grace.
The next morning they slept in and woke up late, dopey and hungover. They lay around for a while in their dorm room, slurping kavajava. Then they went downstairs, and even though they claimed to be still stuffed, ate a huge hostel breakfast. While they ate they decided to go flying. The winds that poured down Kasei Fjord were as powerful as any on the planet, and windsurfers and fliers of all kinds had come to Nilokeras to take advantage of them. Of course at any time howlers could take the situation “off scale” and shut down the fun for everyone except the big wind riders; but the average day’s hard blow was glorious.The fliers’ base of operations was an offshore crater rim island, called Santorini. After breakfast the group went down to the docks together and got on a ferry, and debarked half an hour later on the little arcuate island, and trooped with the other passengers up to the gliderport.
Nirgal had not flown for years, and it was a great joy to strap into a blimpglider’s gondola and rise up the mast, and let loose and soar on the powerful updrafts pushing off Santorini’s steep inner rim. As Nirgal ascended he saw that most of the fliers wore birdsuits of one sort or another; it looked like he was flying in a flock of wide-winged flying creatures, which resembled not birds but something more like flying foxes, or some mythic hybrid like the griffin or Pegasus: bird-humans. The birdsuits were of several different kinds, imitating in some respects the configurations of different species— albatross, eagle, swift, lammergeier. Each suit encased its flier in what was in effect an ever-changing exoskeleton, which responded to interior pressure from the flier’s body, to take and then hold positions, or make certain movements, all reinforced in proportion to the pressure exerted inside them, so that a human’s muscles could flap the big wings, or hold them in place against the great torque of the wind’s onslaughts, meanwhile keeping the streamlined helmets and tail feathers in the proper positions. Suit AIs helped fliers who wanted help, and they could even function as automatic pilots; but most fliers preferred to do the thinking for themselves, and controlled the suit as a waldo, exaggerating many times the strength of their own muscles.
Sitting in his blimpglider Nirgal watched with both pleasure and trepidation as these bird people shot down past him in terrifying stoops toward the sea, then popped their wings and curved away and gyred back up again on the inner-wall updraft. It looked to Nirgal like the suits took a high level of skill to fly; they were the opposite of the blimpgliders, a few of which soared with Nirgal over the island, rising and falling in much gentler swoops, taking in the view like agile balloonists.