He gestured to the hard-backed chair beside his desk. Sit down, David.
It was the first time he had used David's given name, and David placed
his flying helmet on the corner of the desk and lowered himself into the
chair, clumsy in the constricting grip of his G-suit.
Rastus took his time filling his pipe with the evil black Magaliesberg
shag and he studied the young man opposite him intently. He recognized
the same qualities in him that Paul Morgan had prized, the aggressive
and competitive drive that gave him a unique value as an interceptor
pilot.
He lit the pipe at last, puffing thick rank clouds of blue smoke as he
slid a sheath of documents across the desk to David.
Read and sign, he said. That's an order. David glanced rapidly through
the papers, then he looked up and grinned.
You don't give in easily, sir, he admitted.
One document was a renewal of his short service contract for an
additional five years, the other was a warrant of promotion, from
captain to major.
We have spent a great deal of time and money in making you what you are.
You have been given an exceptional talent, and we have developed it
until now you are, I'll not mince words, one hell of a pilot I'm sorry,
sir, David told him sincerely.
Damn it, said Rastus angrily. Why the hell did you have to be born a
Morgan. All that money, they'll clip your wings, and chain you to a
desk. It's not the money. David denied it swiftly. He felt his own
anger stir at the accusation.
Rastus nodded cynically. Ja! he said. I hate the stuff also. He
picked up the documents David had rejected, and grunted. Not enough to
tempt you, hey?
Colonel, it's hard to explain. I just feel that there is more to do,
something important that I have to find out about, and it's not here. I
have to go look for it. Rastus nodded heavily. All right then, he
said. I had a good try. Now you can take your long-suffering
commanding officer down to the mess and spend some of the Morgan
millions on filling him up with whisky He stood up and clapped his
uniform cap at a rakish angle over his cropped grey head. You and I
will get drunk together this night, for both of us are losing something&
I perhaps more than you.
It seemed that David had inherited his love of beautiful and powerful
machines from his father. Clive Morgan had driven himself, his wife,
and his brand new Ferrari sports car into the side of a moving goods
train at an unlit level crossing. The traffic police estimated that the
Ferrari was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour at the
moment of impact.
Clive Morgan's provision for his eleven-year-old son was detailed and
elaborate. The child became a ward of his uncle Paul Morgan, and his
inheritance was arranged in a series of trust funds.
On his majority he was given access to the first of the funds which
provided an income equivalent to that of, say, a highly successful
surgeon. On that day the old green M. G. had given way to a
powder-blue Maserati, in true Morgan tradition.
