The flesh in the furnace

on the arrivals avenue.
        The walk was a good eight feet above the bottom of the road. The truck hovered only two feet above him. He stood on his toes and tried to see through the windows. There did not appear to be anyone driving.
        He had never heard of a van acting up like this on its own. Yet who was there in the city to give him trouble? He wished he had taken his long-barreled pistol out of its glove on the driver's door. Now it was out of reach and he was weaponless.
        He thought he heard the sound of chickens behind him, over the deafening boom of the van's blades. It was a cackling sort of laughter, tinny and uncertain. He turned and examined the place behind him. There was the arrival platform with its podium and computer module. Along the wall were booths for customs and the execution of certain types of business permits. They had never been used, and they were empty now. There was no place large enough for a man to hide.
        The cackling came from his right now.
        He looked that way.
        A directory of city hotels. Reservation and registration screens. A water fountain. Again, nowhere large enough to conceal the bulk of a man.
        Something giggled on his left. It was definitely the stifled laugh of a woman.
        He looked left. Credit and banking facilities for the arriving visitors. A series of glass booths for private phone transactions. The empty swath of walkway.
        Carefully, he walked closer to look. He had the feeling that unseen creatures were scampering about to keep out of his sight, from one point of concealment to another. But he couldn't be sure. He chalked it up to his natural superstition. Having been raised among gypsy truckers, he had had more than his share of superstition bred into him.
        The thing was to find out if anyone was in the truck.
        He walked back to the edge of the pedestrian way.
        "Hey! Bring it down!" he shouted.
        The truck remained aloft.
        He considered a moment before he said, "I have a gun here. You'll have to bring her down sooner or later, even if you try to escape. I won't shoot now, I promise you. Later, I might be mad enough to 1 " All of it was a lie, of course. Since it was necessary to deliver the speech in a loud, raucous tone to be heard above the blades, however, it seemed to have more authority than it deserved.
        Yet it was not enough authority for the man who had crept into the van while he had been gone. That man knew it was a bluff, and he kept the truck ten feet above the avenue.
        If there was anyone up there, he reminded himself. He still didn't know if this were some absurd malfunction in his van or some stranger's piece of dirty business. His rugged life style told him to expect the latter, while his natural optimism told him to hope for the former.
        The chuckling sound came from all sides now.
        He ignored it.
        He concentrated on the van. There seemed to be no way of reaching it that was safe and sire. He didn't want to leap for the door handle. If he missed that, he would slip down into the avenue and get caught by the blades or buffeted unconscious by the furious air cushion. Yet, if the van broke down here, he would have one damn time getting it out. If it was a major malfunction that couldn't be fixed on the spot with his tool kit, how was he to get back to civilization to secure the needed parts? Calling for help would only land him in jail for looting. This was a sweet racket, this city of his own, and he did not want to destroy what he had built for himself here.
        Damn that chuckling noise!
        With that and the blades only a few feet away, it was impossible to think clearly.
        He turned to walk away from the worst of the rotars' noise and confronted six of the puppets on his right. They had come out from behind the hotel directory and the water fountain. Each of them held a sharp steak knife of the sort one was given in a robotic restaurant. Each of them was grinning. Their eyes were bright.
        He did not understand what was happening. First of all, it was impossible to cope with the sight of the diminutive creatures in such short order. His mind accepted their presence, but seemed to draw back from analyzing them. He did know that there was danger and that it was of a deadly nature. He backed away from them.
        Something pricked his calves.
        He whirled.
        There were