Aircrash! An almost unheard-of thing that sometimes happened to people who used inferior equipment like that produced by firms other than Formair. People were even known to be killed by it.
"Report," he said quietly, then flinched a little at the raucous scratching of the speech mechanism.
"Reference point ... mark! Altitude eleven thousand three hundred seventy one feet. Velocity reduced to two hundred nine point nine miles per hour. Locus: seven hundred point eight miles from nearest civilized metropolis, which is York." The voice continued, but became unintelligible as the mangled circuits faltered.
Seven hundred miles from civilization! Wilderness. Chaos; that settled it, of course. Hal smiled gently as he realized that he was about to die. A civilized man obviously could not be expected to survive in chaos. He observed that he was breathing more strenuously, and realized that it was the result of the rapid failure of the antigravity field. Never in his life had Hal been under the full force of the earth's mass field, but he knew the symptoms. Once he had been exposed to a one-half gee for a few hours. Very unpleasant, he recalled.
The automatic pilot's unintelligible speech suddenly stopped altogether. There was a heavy, awkward lurch that threw Hal forward against the front panel. But before he struck it, the field generator failed completely, the panel ceased to exist, and Hal was flying through the air. He shut his eyes, and placidly waited for death.
A moment later, he hit the ground sharply, rolled over and over, and lay still.
He sighed heavily. Death? He had always fancied that death would be a complete absence of sensation, and no consciousness of effort whatever. Instead, his breath was coming in deep, heavy sighs, his head hurt, his arm was aching, and something was tickling his nose.
"Come on, wake up," a voice said briskly.
Hal opened his eyes and looked up at a golden-framed face. It was the face that had been speaking, and the pleasingly shaped lips now moved again. "You aren't hurt, you know. Just a little shaken up."
Hal continued to stare at the woman for a moment, then muttered "Umph," and struggled to a sitting posture. It was a great effort in the unaccustomed full earth gravitational field. The woman was an Outlander, no doubt about it. That was evident from her highly spirited tone of voice. But as Hal looked around at the strange picture of undisturbed interurban wilderness, he found that most astonishingly he did not mind it. As a matter of fact, he rather liked her tone of voice. It was all very puzzling.