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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29466-h.zip b/29466-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..79ef606 --- /dev/null +++ b/29466-h.zip diff --git a/29466-h/29466-h.htm b/29466-h/29466-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..557db6e --- /dev/null +++ b/29466-h/29466-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3541 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lords of the Stratosphere, by Arthur J. Burks + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { width: 40%; padding: 1em; text-align: left; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + +.tr {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 2em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} + +.tocch { text-align: right; vertical-align: top;} + +.img1 {border:solid 1px; } + +.f1 {font-size:xx-large; font-weight:bolder; } + + +a[name] { position: static; } + a:link { border:none; color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } + a:visited {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } + a:hover { color:#ff0000; } + + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lords of the Stratosphere, by Arthur J. Burks + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lords of the Stratosphere + +Author: Arthur J. Burks + +Release Date: July 20, 2009 [EBook #29466] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORDS OF THE STRATOSPHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="tr"><p class="center">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="center">This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p> +<p class="center">The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazine. +</p></div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_001.jpg" width="500" height="429" alt="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h1>Lords of the Stratosphere</h1> + +<h4><i>A Complete Novelette</i></h4> +<p> </p> +<h2>By Arthur J. Burks</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="Contents"> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td> </td> + <td> </td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">I</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Take-off</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">II</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Ghostly Columns</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">III</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Strange Levitation</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">IV</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Frantic Scheming</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">V</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Into the Void</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">VI</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Stratosphere Currents</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">VII</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Invisible Globe</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">VIII</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Cataclysmic Hunger</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">IX</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">A Scheme Is Described</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">X</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">How It Came About</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">XI</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">To the Rescue</a></td> + </tr> +<tr> + <td class="tocch">XII</td> + <td> </td> + <td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">High Chaos</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h2><i>The Take-off</i></h2> + +<div class="sidenote">High into air are the great New York buildings lifted by a +ray whose source no telescope can find.</div> + +<p><span class="f1">I</span>t seemed only fitting and proper that the greatest of all leaps into +space should start from Roosevelt Field, where so many great flights had +begun and ended. Fliers whose names had rung—for a space—around the +world, had landed here and been received by New York with all the pomp +of visiting kings. Fliers had departed here for the lands of kings, to +be received by them when their journeys were ended.</p> + + +<p>Of course Lucian Jeter and Tema Eyer were disappointed that Franz Kress +had beaten them out in the race to be first into the stratosphere above +fifty-five thousand feet. There was a chance that Kress would fail, when +it would be the turn of Jeter and Eyer. They didn't wish for his +failure, of course. They were sports-men as well as scientists; but +they were just human enough to anticipate the plaudits of the world +which would be showered without stint upon the fliers who succeeded.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_002.jpg" width="500" height="825" alt="The warship simply vanished into the night sky." /> +<span class="caption">The warship simply vanished into the night sky.</span> +</div> + +<p>"At least, Tema," said Jeter quietly, "we can look his ship over and see +if there is anything about it that will suggest something to us. Of +course, whether he succeeds or fails, we shall make the attempt as soon +as we are ready."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, yes," replied Eyer. "For no man will ever fly so high that +another may not fly even higher. Once planes are constructed of +unlimited flying radius ... well, the universe is large and there should +be no end of space fights for a long time."</p> + +<p>Eyer, the elder of the two partner scientists, was given sometimes to +quiet biting sarcasm that almost took the hide off. Jeter never minded +greatly, for he knew Eyer thoroughly and liked him immensely. Besides +they were complements to each other. The brain of each received from the +other exactly that which he needed to supplement his own knowledge of +science.</p> + +<p>They had one other thing in common. They had been "child prodigies," but +contrary to the usual rule, they had both fulfilled their early promise. +Their early precocious wisdom had not vanished with the passing of +childhood. Each possessed a name with which to conjure in the world of +science. And each possessed that name by right of having made it famous. +And yet—they were under forty.</p> + +<p>Jeter was a slender athletic chap with deep blue eyes and brown hair. +His forehead was high and unnaturally white. There was always a still +sort of tenseness about him when his mind was working with some idea +that set him apart from the rest of the world. You felt then that you +couldn't have broken his preoccupation in any manner at all—but that if +by some miracle you did, he would wither you with his wrath.</p> + +<p>Tema Eyer was the good nature of the partnership, with a brain no less +agile and profound. He was a swart fellow, straight as an arrow, black +of eyes—the sort which caused both men and women to turn and look after +him on the street. Children took to both men on sight.</p> + +<p>The crowd which had come out to watch the take-off of Franz Kress was a +huge one—huge and restless. There had been much publicity attendant on +this flight, none of it welcome to Kress. Oh, later, if he succeeded, he +would welcome publicity, but publicity in advance rather nettled him.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer went across to him as he was saying his last words into +the microphone before stepping into his sealed cabin for the flight. +Kress saw them coming and his face lighted up.</p> + +<p>"Lord," he said, "I'm glad to see you two. I've something I must ask +you."</p> + +<p>"Anything you ask will be answered," said Jeter, "if Tema and I can +answer it. Or granted—if it's a favor you wish."</p> + +<p>Kress motioned people back in order to speak more or less privately with +his brother scientists. His face became unusually grave.</p> + +<p>"You've probably wondered—everybody has—why I insist on making this +flight alone," he said, speaking just loudly enough to be heard above +the purring of the mighty, but almost silent motor behind him. "I'll +tell you, partly. I've had a feeling for the last month that ... well, +that things may not turn out exactly as everybody hopes. Of course I'll +blaze the way to new discoveries; yes, and I'll climb to a height of +around a hundred thousand feet ... and ... and...."</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer looked at each other. It wasn't like Kress to be gloomy +just before doing something that no man had ever done before. He should +have been smiling and happy—at least for the movietone cameras—but he +wasn't even that. Certainly it must be something unusual to so concern +him.</p> + +<p>"Tell us, Kress," said Eyer.</p> + +<p>Kress looked at them both for several moments.</p> + +<p>"Just this," he said at last: "work on your own high altitude plane with +all possible speed. If I don't come back ... take off and follow me into +the stratosphere at once."</p> + +<p>Had Kress, possessor of one of the keenest scientific minds in the +world, taken leave of his senses? "If I don't come back," he had said. +What did he expect to do? Fly off the earth utterly? That was silly.</p> + +<p>But when the partners looked again at Kress they both had the same +feeling. It probably wasn't as silly as it sounded. Did Kress know +something he wasn't telling them? Did he really think he might ... well, +might fly off the earth entirely, away beyond her atmosphere, and never +return? How utterly absurd! And yet....</p> + +<p>"Of course we'll do it," said Jeter. "We'd do it anyway, without word +from you. We haven't stopped our own work because of your swiftly +approaching conquest of the greater heights. But why shouldn't you come +back?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">F</span>or a moment there was a look of positive dread upon Kress' face.</p> + +<p>Then he spoke again very quietly:</p> + +<p>"You know all the stuff that's been written about my flight," he said. +"Most of it has been nonsense. How could laymen newspaper reporters have +any conception of what I may encounter aloft? They've tried to make +something of the recent passage of the Earth through an area of +so-called shooting stars. They've speculated until they're black in the +face as to the true nature of the recent bombardment of meteorites. +They've pictured me as a hero in advance, doomed to death by direct +attack from what they are pleased to call—after having invented +them—denizens of the stratosphere."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Jeter, when Kress paused.</p> + +<p>Kress took a deep breath.</p> + +<p>"They've come nearer than they hoped for in some guesses," he said. "Of +course I don't know it, but I've had a feeling for some time. You know +what sometimes happens when a man gets a sudden revolutionary idea? He +concentrates on it like all get-out. Then somebody else bursts into the +newspapers with the same identical idea, which in turn brings out hordes +of claims to the same idea by countless other people. It's no new thing +to writers and such-like gentry. They know that when they get such an +idea they must act on it at once or somebody else will, because their +thoughts on the subject have gone forth and impinged upon the mental +receiving sets of others. Well, that's a rough idea, anyway. This idea +of denizens of the stratosphere has attacked the popular imagination. +You'll remember it broke in the papers <i>simultaneously</i>, in thirty +countries of the world!"</p> + +<p>A cold chill ran down the spine of Tema Eyer. He saw, in a flash, +whither Kress' thoughts were tending—and when he saw that, it thrilled +him, too, for it seemed to be proof of the very thing Kress was saying.</p> + +<p>"You mean," he said hoarsely, "that you too think there may be something +up there, something ... well, sensate? Some great composite thought +which inspires the general dread of stratosphere denizens?"</p> + +<p>Kress shrugged. He wouldn't commit himself, being too careful a +scientist, but he hadn't hesitated to plant the idea. Jeter and Eyer +both understood the thoughts which were teeming in Kress' brain.</p> + +<p>"We'll do our part Kress," said Eyer. Lucian Jeter nodded agreement. +Kress gripped their hands tightly—almost desperately, Jeter thought. +Jeter was usually the leader where Eyer and himself were concerned and +he thought already that he foresaw cataclysmic events.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">K</span>ress climbed into his plane. The vast crowd murmured. They knew he was +adjusting everything inside for the days-long endurance test ahead of +him. Kress had forgotten nothing. There was even a specially made +cylinder, comparable to the globe which Picard had used in his historic +balloon ascensions in Europe. This was attached to a parachute which, if +the emergency arose, could be dropped. Kress, in the ball, could pass +through the sub-arctic cold of the stratosphere if necessity demanded. +The ball, if it struck the ocean, would preserve him for a great length +of time. It was even equipped with rockets.</p> + +<p>This plane was revolutionary. It was, to begin with, carrying a vast +load. Kress was taking every conceivable kind of instrument he fancied +he might need. There was food as for a long siege.</p> + +<p>Jeter shuddered. Why had he thought of the word "siege"?</p> + +<p>The great load would be carried without difficulty, however, for this +plane was little short of a miracle. Among other things, Kress would be +able, in case of fatigue, to set his controls—as at sea a pilot may +sometimes lash his wheel—and sleep while his plane mounted on up, and +up, in great spirals.</p> + +<p>Up beyond fifty-five thousand he hoped to attain a thousand miles an +hour velocity. That meant, say, breakfast in New York, lunch in London, +tea in Novo-Sibirsk, dinner in Yokohama—as soon as the myriad planes +which would follow this one in design and capabilities took off on the +trail Kress was blazing.</p> + +<p>Jeter sighed at the thought. For several years he had explored +little-known sections of the world. He had visited every country. He had +entered every port that could be reached from the ocean—and all the +time he had felt the Earth shrinking before the gods of speed. The time +would soon come when everything on Earth would be commonplace. Then +man's urge to go places he hadn't seen before would take him away from +the Earth entirely—when he would begin the task of making even the +universe shrink to appease the gods of speed. Somehow the thought was a +melancholy one.</p> + +<p>Now the crowd gave back as Kress speeded up his motor, indicating that +he would soon take off. Jeter and Eyer studied the outward outline of +Kress' craft. It looked exactly like a black beetle which has just +alighted after flight, but has not yet quite hidden its wings. It was +black, probably because it was believed a black object could be followed +easier from the Earth.</p> + +<p>There would be many anxious eyes watching that spiraling ship as it grew +smaller and smaller, climbing upward.</p> + +<p>With a rush, and a spinning of dust in the slipstream, the ship was +away. It lifted as easily as a bird and mounted with great speed. It was +capable of climbing in wide spirals at a hundred and fifty miles an +hour.</p> + +<p>A great sigh burst from the thousands who had come to watch history +made. For solid hours now they would watch the plane climb, growing +smaller, becoming a speck, vanishing. Many curious ones would stay right +here until Kress returned, fearful of being cheated of a great thrill. +For Kress was to land right here when, and if, he had conquered the +stratosphere.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">J</span>eter and Eyer wormed their way through the crowd to the road and found +their car in a jam of other cars. Without a word they climbed in and +drove themselves to their dwelling—combined home and laboratory—in +Mineola. There they fell to on their own ship, which was being built +piece by piece in their laboratory.</p> + +<p>Every half hour or so one or the other would go to the lawn and gaze +aloft, seeking Kress.</p> + +<p>"He's out of eyesight," said Eyer, the last to go. "Is the telescope set +up?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and arranged to cover all the area of sky through which Kress is +likely to climb."</p> + +<p>At intervals through the night, long after they had ceased work, the +partners rose from bed and sought their fellow scientist among the +stars. They alternated at this task.</p> + +<p>"According to my calculations," said Jeter, when the eastern sky was +just paling into dawn, "Kress has now reached a point higher than man +has ever flown before, higher than any living—"</p> + +<p>Jeter stopped on the word. Both men remembered Kress' last words. Kress, +upset or not, properly or improperly, had hinted of living things in the +stratosphere—perhaps utterly malignant entities.</p> + +<p>It was just here, in the dawning of the first day after Kress' +departure, that the dread began to grow on Jeter and Eyer. And during +the day they labored like Trojans at their work, as though to forget it.</p> + +<p>The world had begun its grim wait for the return of Kress.</p> + +<p>They waited all that day ... and the next ... and the next!</p> + +<p>Then telegraph and radio, at the suggestion of Jeter, instructed the +entire civilized world to turn its eyes skyward to watch for the return +of Kress.</p> + +<p>The world obeyed <i>that</i> day ... and the next ... <i>and the next</i>!</p> + +<p>But Kress did not return; nor, so far as the world knew, did any or all +of his great airplane.</p> + +<p>The world itself began to have a feeling of dread—that grew.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h2><i>The Ghostly Columns</i></h2> + + +<p>Franz Kress had been gone a week, when all the world knew that he +couldn't possibly have stayed aloft that length of time. Yet no word was +received from him, no report received from any part of the world that he +had returned. Various islands which he might have reached were scoured +for traces of him. The lighter vessels of most of the navies of the +world joined in the search to no avail. Kress had merely mounted into +the sky and vanished.</p> + +<p>The world's last word from him had been a few words on the +radio-telephone:</p> + +<p>"Have reached sixty thousand feet and—"</p> + +<p>There the message had ended, as though the speaker, eleven miles above +the earth, had been strangled. Yet he didn't drop, as far as anybody in +the world knew.</p> + +<p>Lucian Jeter and Tema Eyer worked harder than ever, remembering the +promise they had made Kress at his take-off. Whatever had happened to +him, he seemingly in part had anticipated. And now the partners would +go up, too, seeking information—perhaps to vanish as Kress had +vanished. They were not afraid. They shared the world's feeling of +dread, but they were not afraid. Of course death would end their labors, +but there were many scientists in the world to take up where they might +leave off.</p> + +<p>There were, for example, Sitsumi of Japan, rumored discoverer of a +substance capable of bending light rays about itself to render itself +invisible; Wang Li, Liao Wu, Yung Chan, of China—three who had degrees +from the world's greatest universities and had added miraculously to the +store of knowledge by their own inspired research. These three were +patriotically eager to bring China back to her rightful place as the +leader in scientific research—a place she had not held for a thousand +years. It was generally agreed among scientists that the three would +shortly outstrip all their contemporaries.</p> + +<p>As Jeter thought of these four men, Orientals all, it suddenly occurred +to him to communicate with them. He talked it over with Eyer and decided +to send carefully worded cables to all four.</p> + +<p>In a few hours he received answers to them:</p> + +<p>From Japan: "Sitsumi does not care to communicate." There was a world of +cold hostility in the words, Jeter thought, and Eyer agreed with him.</p> + +<p>From China came the strangest message of all:</p> + +<p>"Wang, Liao and Yung have been cut off from world for past four months, +conducting confidential research in Gobi laboratories. Impossible to +communicate because area in which laboratories situated in Japanese +hands and surrounded by cordon of guards."</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer stared at each other when the cable had been read and +digested.</p> + +<p>"Queer, isn't it?" said Eyer.</p> + +<p>Jeter didn't answer. That preoccupied expression was on his face, that +distant look which no man could erase from his face by any interruption +until Jeter had finished his train of thought.</p> + +<p>"Queer," thought Jeter, "that Sitsumi should be so snooty and the three +Chinese totally unavailable."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>here were many strange things happening lately, too, and the queer +things kept on happening, and in ever-increasing numbers, during the +second week of Kress' impossible absence in the stratosphere. Or was he +there? Had he ever reached it? Had he—Jeter and Eyer had noticed his +utter gloom at the take-off—merely, climbed out of sight of the Earth +and then slanted down to a dive into the ocean? Maybe he was a suicide. +But some bits of wreckage of his plane had many unsinkable parts about +it—the parachute ball for instance.</p> + +<p>No, the solemn fact remained that Kress had simply flown up and hadn't +come down again. It would have sounded silly and absurd if it hadn't +been so serious.</p> + +<p>And strange stories were seeping into the press of the world.</p> + +<p>Out in Wyoming a cattleman had driven a herd of prime steers into the +round-up corral at night. Next morning not one of the steers could be +found. No tracks led away from the corral. The gates were closed, +exactly as they had been left the night before. There had been no +cowboys watching the steers, for the corral had always been strong +enough to hold the most rambunctious.</p> + +<p>The tale of the missing steers hit the headlines, but so far nobody had +thought of this disappearance in connection with Kress'. How could any +one? Steers and scientists didn't go together. But it still was strange.</p> + +<p>At least so Jeter thought. His mind worked with this and other strange +happenings even as he and Eyer worked at top speed.</p> + +<p>A young fellow in Arizona told a yarn of wandering about the crater of a +meteor which had fallen on the desert thousands of years before. The +place wasn't important nor did it seem to have anything to do with the +crater or meteors—but the young fellow reported that he had seen a +faded white column of light, like the beam of a great searchlight, +reaching up into the sky from somewhere on the desert.</p> + +<p>When people became amazed at his story he added to it. There had been +five columns of light instead of one. The one he had first mentioned had +touched the Earth, or had shot up from the Earth, within several miles +of his point of vantage. A second glowed off to the northwest, a third +to the southwest, a fourth to the southeast, the fifth to the northeast. +The first one seemed to "center" the other four—they might have been +the five legs of a table, according to their arrangement....</p> + +<p>Arrangement! Jeter wondered how that word had happened to come to him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he story of the fellow who had seen the columns of light might have +been believed if he had stuck to his first yarn of seeing but one. But +when he mentioned five ... well, he didn't have any too good a +reputation for veracity and wasn't regarded as being overly bright. +Besides, he had stated that the thickness of the columns of light seemed +to be the same from the ground as far as his eyes could follow them +upward. Everybody knew that a searchlight's beams spread out a bit.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," thought Jeter, "why the kid didn't say he saw those five +columns move—like a five-legged animal, walking."</p> + +<p>Silly, of course, but behind the silliness of the thought Jeter thought +there might be something of interest, something on which to work.</p> + +<p>The Jeter-Eyer space ship still was not finished—though almost—when +the world moved into the third week since the disappearance of Franz +Kress.</p> + +<p>An Indian in the Southwest had reported seeing one of those columns of +light. However, this merited just a line on about page sixteen, even of +the newspaper closest to the spot where the redskin had seen the column.</p> + +<p>"Eyer," said Jeter at last, "we've got to start digging into newspaper +stories, especially into stories which deal with unusually queer +happenings throughout the world. I've a hunch that the keys to Kress' +disappearance may be found in some of them, or a combination of a great +many of them."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean, Lucian?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you notice that all this queer stuff has been happening since +Kress left? It sounds silly, perhaps, but I feel sure that the +disappearance of those steers in Wyoming, the story the boy told about +the columns of light—yes, all five of them!—and the Indian's partial +confirmation of it, are all tied up together with the disappearance of +Kress."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">E</span>yer started to grin his disbelief, but a look at his partner's tense +face stopped him.</p> + +<p>"What could want all those steers, Lucian?" said Eyer softly. "I can't +think of anything or anybody disposing of such a bunch on such short +notice, except a marching army, a marching column of soldier ants, or +all the world's buzzards gathered together at one place. In any case +the animals themselves would have created a fuss, would have kicked up +so much noise that somebody would have heard. But this story of the +steers seems to suggest, or say right out loud—though I know you can't +believe everything in the newspapers—that the steers vanished in utter +silence."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it also seem funny to you," went on Jeter, "that the vanishing +of the herd wasn't discovered until next morning? I've read enough +Western stuff to know that a herd always makes noise. Yes, even at +night. The cowhands wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep over that. But, +listen, Tema, suppose you lived in New York City near some busy +intersection which was always noisy, even after midnight—and all the +noise suddenly stopped. Would you sleep right on through it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'd wake up—unless I were drunk or doped."</p> + +<p>"Yet nobody seems to have wakened at that ranch when—and it must have +happened—the herd stopped making any noise whatever. The utter silence +<i>should</i> have wakened seasoned cowhands. It didn't. Why? What happened +to them that they slept so soundly they heard nothing?"</p> + +<p>Eyer did not answer. It wasn't the first time he had been called upon to +hear Jeter think out loud.</p> + +<p>"It all ties up somehow," repeated Jeter, "and I intend to find out +how."</p> + +<p>But he didn't find out. Strange stories kept appearing. The three +Chinese scientists still had not communicated with the outside world. +The chap out in Arizona had now so elaborated on his yarn that nobody +believed him and the public lost interest—all save Jeter, who was on +the trail of a queer idea.</p> + +<p>Nothing happened however until near the end of the third week after +Kress' disappearance.</p> + +<p>Then, out of a clear sky almost, Kress came back.</p> + +<p>He came down by parachute, without the ball in which he should have +sealed himself. His return caused plenty of comment. There was good +reason. He had been gone the impossibly long period of three weeks.</p> + +<p>He was dead—but <i>had</i> been for less than seventy-two hours!</p> + +<p>His body was frozen solid.</p> + +<p>It landed on the roof of the Jeter-Eyer laboratory; had he been alive he +couldn't possibly have maneuvered his chute to land him on such a small +place.</p> + +<p>The partners stared at each other. It seemed strange to them indeed that +Kress should have come back to land on the roof of the two who had +promised to follow him into the stratosphere if he didn't return.</p> + +<p>Very strange indeed.</p> + +<p>He had returned, though, releasing Jeter and Eyer from their promise. +Strangely enough that fact made them all the more determined to go. And +while the newspaper reporters went wild over Kress' return, the partners +started making additional plans.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h2><i>Strange Levitation</i></h2> + + +<p>"In two days we'll be ready, Tema," said Lucian Jeter quietly. "And make +no mistake about it; when we take off for the stratosphere we're going +to encounter strange things. Nobody can tell me that Kress' plane +actually flew three weeks! And where did it come down? Why didn't Kress +use the parachute ball? Where is it? I'll wager we'll find answers to +plenty of those questions—if we live!"</p> + +<p>"If we live?" repeated Eyer. "You mean—?"</p> + +<p>"You know what happened to Kress? Or rather you know the result of what +happened to him?"</p> + +<p>"Sure."</p> + +<p>"Why should we be immune? I tell you, Eyer, we're on the eve of +something colossal, awe-inspiring—perhaps catastrophic."</p> + +<p>Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him. If they knew they flew +inescapably to death they still would have grinned. They had plenty of +courage.</p> + +<p>"We'd better go into town for a meeting with newspaper people," went on +Jeter. "You know how things go in the news; there are probably plenty of +stories which for one reason or another have not been published. Maybe +the law has clamped down on some of them. I've a feeling that if +everything were told, the whole world would be frightened stiff. And you +notice how quickly the papers finished with the Kress' thing."</p> + +<p>Eyer knew, all right. The papers had broken the story of the return in +flaming scareheads. Then the thing had come to a full stop. It was +significant that no real satisfactory explanation had been offered by +any one. The papers had, on their own initiative, tried to communicate +with Sitsumi, and the three Chinese scientists, and had failed all +around. Sitsumi did not answer, denied himself to representatives of the +American press in Japan, and crawled into an impenetrable Oriental +shell. The three Chinese could not answer, according to advices from +Peking, because they could not be located.</p> + +<p>Jeter called the publisher of the leading newspaper for a conference.</p> + +<p>"Strange that you should have called just now," said the publisher, "for +I was on the point of calling you and Eyer and inviting you to a +conference to be held this evening at my office in Manhattan."</p> + +<p>"What's the purpose of your conference? Who will attend?"</p> + +<p>"I—I—well, let us say I had hoped to make you and Eyer available to +all interviewers on the eve of your flight into the stratosphere."</p> + +<p>Jeter hesitated, realizing that the publisher did not wish to tell +everything over the telephone.</p> + +<p>"We'll be right along, sir," he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">I</span>t took an hour for them to reach the publisher's office. Wires had +plainly been pulled, too, for a motorcycle escort joined them at the +Queensboro Bridge and led them, sirens screaming, to their meeting with +George Hadley, the publisher.</p> + +<p>They looked at each other in surprise when they were admitted to the +meeting.</p> + +<p>Hadley's huge offices were packed. The mayor was there, the police +commissioner, the assistant to the head of Federal Secret Service. The +State Governor had sent a representative. All the newspapers had their +most famous men sitting in. Right in this one big room was represented +almost the entire public opinion of the United States. American +representatives of foreign newspapers were there. And there wasn't a +smile on a single face.</p> + +<p>It was beginning to be borne in upon everybody that the Western +Hemisphere was in the grip of a strange unearthly malady—almost an +<i>other</i>-earthly malady, but what was it?</p> + +<p>Hadley nodded to the two scientists and they took the seats he +indicated.</p> + +<p>Hadley cleared his throat and spoke.</p> + +<p>"We have here people who represent the press of the world," he said. "We +have men who control billions in money. I don't know how many of you +have thought along the same lines as I have, but I feel that after I +have finished speaking most of you will. First, there are certain news +stories which, for reasons of policy, never reach the pages of our +papers. I shall now tell you some of them...."</p> + +<p>The whole crowd shifted slightly in its chairs. There was a strained +leaning forward. Grave faces went whiter as they anticipated gripping +announcements.</p> + +<p>"All the strange things have not been happening in the United States, +gentlemen," said Hadley. "That young fellow who reported seeing the +columns of light in Arizona—you remember?—"</p> + +<p>There was a chorus of nods.</p> + +<p>"He probably told the exact truth, as far as he knew it. But it isn't +only in Arizona that it has been seen—those columns I mean. Only there +is just one column—not five. It has since been reported in Nepal and +Bhutan, in Egypt and Morocco and a dozen other places. But in the cases +of such stories emanating from foreign countries, a congress of +publishers has withheld the facts, not because of their strangeness but +because of the effect they might have on the public sanity. In Nepal, +for example, the column of light rested for a moment on an ancient +temple, and when the light vanished the temple also had vanished, with +everybody in it at the time for worship! Rumor had it that some of the +worshipers were later found and identified. They appear to have been +scattered over half of Nepal—and every last one was smashed almost to a +pulp, as though the body had been dropped from an enormous height."</p> + +<p>A concerted gasp raced around the assemblage. Then silence again, while +the pale-faced Hadley went on with his unbelievable story.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"A</span> mad story comes from the heart of the <i>terai</i>, in India. I don't know +what importance to give this story since the only witnesses to the +phenomenon were ignorant natives. But the column of light played into +the <i>terai</i>—and tigers, huge snakes, buffalo and even elephants rose +bodily over the treetops and vanished. They started up slowly—then +disappeared with the speed of light."</p> + +<p>"Were crushed animals later found in the jungle?" asked Jeter quietly.</p> + +<p>Hadley turned his somber eyes on the questioner. Every white face, every +fearful eye, also turned toward Jeter.</p> + +<p>And Hadley nodded.</p> + +<p>"It's too much to be coincidence," he said. "The crushed and broken +bodies in Nepal and India—of course they aren't so far apart but that +natives in either place might have heard the story from the other—but I +am inclined to believe in the inner truth of the stories in each case."</p> + +<p>Hadley turned to the two scientists. There were other scientists +present, but the fact that Jeter and Eyer, who were so soon to follow +Kress into the stratosphere—and eternity?—held the places of honor +near the desk of the spokesman, was significant.</p> + +<p>"What do you gentlemen think?" asked Hadley quietly.</p> + +<p>"There is undoubtedly some connection between the two happenings," said +Jeter. "I think Eyer and myself will be able to make some report on the +matter soon. We will, take off for the stratosphere day after +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Then you think the same thing I do?" said Hadley. "If that is so, can't +you start to-morrow? God knows what may happen if we delay +longer—though what two of you can do against something which appears to +blanket the earth, and strikes from the heavens, I don't know. And yet, +the fate of your country may be in your hands."</p> + +<p>"We realize that," said Jeter, while Eyer nodded.</p> + +<p>Hadley opened his mouth to make some other observation, then closed it +again, tightly, as a horrible thing happened.</p> + +<p>The conference was being held on the tenth floor of the Hadley building. +And just as Hadley started to speak the whole building began to shake, +to tremble as with the ague. Jeter turned his eyes on the others, to see +their faces blurred by the vibration of the entire building.</p> + +<p>Swiftly then he looked toward the windows of the big room.</p> + +<p>Outside the south windows he witnessed an unbelievable thing. Out there +was a twelve-story building, and its lighted windows were moving—not to +right or left, but straight up! The movement gave the same impression +which passing windows give to one in an elevator. Either that other +building was rising straight into the air, or the Hadley building was +sinking into the Earth.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"Q</span>uick, Hadley!" yelled Jeter. "To the roof the fastest way possible!"</p> + +<p>Even as Jeter spoke every last light in the building across the way went +out. Jeter knew then that it was the other building that was moving—and +that electrical connection with the earth had been severed.</p> + +<p>Hadley led the way to the roof, four stories above. Fortunately this was +an old building and they didn't have to wait to travel a hundred floors +or so. The whole conference followed at the heels of Hadley, Jeter and +Eyer.</p> + +<p>They reached the roof at top speed.</p> + +<p>They were first conscious of the cries of despair, of disbelief, of +horror which rose from the street canyons below them. But they forgot +these the next instant at what they saw.</p> + +<p>The Vandercook building, the twelve-story building whose lights Jeter +had seen moving, was rising bodily, straight out of the well which had +been built around it. From the building came shrieks and cries of mortal +terror. Even as the conference froze to horrified immobility, many men +and women stepped to the ledges of those darkened windows and plunged +out in their fear.</p> + +<p>"God!" said Hadley.</p> + +<p>"It's just as well," said Jeter in a far-away voice, "they haven't a +chance anyway!"</p> + +<p>"I know," replied Hadley. "God, Jeter, isn't there something we can do?"</p> + +<p>"I hope to find something," said Jeter. "But just now I'm afraid we are +helpless."</p> + +<p>The Vandercook building continued to rise. It did not totter; it simply +rose in its entirety, leaving the gaping hole into which, decades ago, +it had been built. It rose straight into the sky, apparently of its own +volition. No rays of light, no supernatural agencies could be seen or +fancied. The utterly impossible was happening. A building was a-wing.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer looked at each other with protruding eyes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hen they looked back at the Vandercook, whose base now was on a level +with the roof of the Hadley building.</p> + +<p>"See?" said Hadley. "Not so much as a brick falls from the foundation. +It's—it's—ghastly."</p> + +<p>Jeter would never forget the screams of mortal terror which came from +the lips of the doomed who had been working late in the Vandercook +building—for, horror piled upon horror, those who had sought to escape +calamity did not fall to Earth at all, but, at the same speed of the +rising building, traveled skyward with it, human flies outside those +leering dark windows.</p> + +<p>Then, free of New York's skyline, the flying building was gone with a +rush. A thousand feet above New York's tallest building, the Vandercook +changed direction and moved directly into the west.</p> + +<p>The conference watched it go....</p> + +<p>"Commissioner," Jeter yelled at the police chief of Manhattan, "get word +out at once for all lights to be put out in the city! Hurry! Radio would +be fastest."</p> + +<p>In ten minutes Manhattan was a darkened, silent city ... and now the +conference could see why Jeter had asked for all lights to be +extinguished.</p> + +<p>Five thousand feet aloft, directly over the Hudson River, the Vandercook +building now hung motionless—and all eyes saw the thin column of light. +It came down from the dark skies from a vast distance, widening to +encompass the top of the Vandercook building.</p> + +<p>The Vandercook building might almost have been a mouse caught in the +talons of some unbelievable night-hawk.</p> + +<p>As though some intellect had just realized the significance of New +York's sudden darkness; as though that intellect had realized that the +column was ordinarily invisible because of Manhattan's brilliant +incandescents, and now was visible in the darkness—the column of light +snapped out....</p> + +<p>"God Almighty! May the Lord of Hosts save the world from destruction!"</p> + +<p>From New York's canyons, from the roof of the Hadley building, came the +great composite prayer.</p> + +<p>A whistling shriek, growing second by second into enormous proportions, +came out of the west, above the Hudson.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h2><i>Frantic Scheming</i></h2> + + +<p>There was no mistaking the meaning of that whistling shriek. Whatever +agency had held the Vandercook building aloft had now released its +uncanny grip on the building, and thousands of tons of brick and mortar, +of stone and steel, were plunging down in a mass from five thousand feet +above the Hudson. The same force had also released the ill-fated men and +women who had been carried aloft with the building. And there must have +been hundreds of people inside side the building.</p> + +<p>It fell as one piece, that great building. It didn't topple until it had +almost reached the river and its shrieking plunge became meteor-like, +the sound of its fall monstrous beyond imagining. The conference above +the Hadley building fancied they could feel the outward rush of air +displaced by the falling monster—and drew back in fear from the edge of +the roof.</p> + +<p>The Vandercook struck the surface of the Hudson and an uprush of +geysering water for a few seconds blotted the great building from view. +Then all Manhattan seemed to shudder. Most of it was perhaps fancy, but +thousands of frightened Manhattanites saw that fall, heard the +whistling, and felt the trembling of immovable Manhattan.</p> + +<p>The great columns of water fell back into the turbulent Hudson which had +received the plunging building. Not so much as a wooden desk showed +above the surface as far as any one could see from shore. Not a soul had +been saved. Shrieks of the doomed had never stopped from the moment the +Vandercook building had started its mad journey aloft.</p> + +<p>Jeter whirled on Hadley.</p> + +<p>"Will you see that all my suggestions are carried out, Hadley?" he +demanded.</p> + +<p>Hadley, face gray as ashes, nodded.</p> + +<p>From Manhattan rose the long abysmal wailing of a populace just finding +its voice of fear after a stunning, numbing catastrophe.</p> + +<p>"I'll do whatever you say, Jeter," said Hadley. "We all agreed before +the arrival of Eyer and yourself that your advice would be followed if +you chose to give any."</p> + +<p>"Then listen," said Jeter, while Eyer stood quietly at his elbow, +missing nothing. "Advise the people of New York to quit the city as +quietly and in as orderly a manner as possible. Let the police +commissioner look after that. Then get word to the leading aviation +authorities, promoters, and fliers and have them get to our Mineola +laboratory as fast as possible. We've kept much of the detail of +construction of our space-ship secret, for obvious reasons. But the time +has come to forget personal aggrandizement and the world must know all +we have learned by our labor and research. Then see that every +manufacturing agency, capable of even a little of what it will take for +the program, is drafted to the work—by Federal statute if +necessary—and turn out copies of our plane as quickly as God will let +you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>adley's eyes were bulging. So were those of the others who had crowded +close to listen. They seemed to think Jeter had taken leave of his +senses, and yet—all had seen the Vandercook building perform the +utterly impossible.</p> + +<p>Hadley nodded.</p> + +<p>"What do you want with the filers and others at your laboratory?"</p> + +<p>"To listen to the details of construction of our space ship. Eyer will +hold a couple of classes to explain everything. Then, when we've made +things as clear as possible, Eyer and I will take off and get up to do +our best to counteract the—whatever it is—that seems to be ruling the +stratosphere. We'll do everything possible to hold the influences in +check until you can send up other space ships to our assistance."</p> + +<p>Hadley stared.</p> + +<p>"You speak as though you expected to be up for a long time. Planes like +yours aren't made overnight."</p> + +<p>"Planes like ours must be made almost overnight—and have you forgotten +that Kress was gone for three weeks, and yet had been dead but +seventy-two hours when he landed on our roof? Incidentally, Hadley, that +fall of his was guided by something or someone. He didn't fall on our +roof by chance. He was dropped there, as a challenge to us!"</p> + +<p>"That means?" said Hadley hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"That everything we do is known to the intelligence of the stratosphere! +That every move we make is watched!"</p> + +<p>"God!" said Hadley.</p> + +<p>Then Hadley straightened. His jaws became firm, his eyes lost their +fear. He was like a good soldier receiving orders.</p> + +<p>"All the power of the press will be massed to get the country to back +your suggestions, Jeter. They seem good to me. Now get back to your ship +and leave everything to me. Suppose you do encounter some intelligence +in the stratosphere? How will you combat it, especially if it proves +inimical—which to-night's horror would seem to prove?"</p> + +<p>Jeter shrugged.</p> + +<p>"We'll take such armament as we have. We have several drums of a deadly +volatile gas. We have guns of great power, hurling projectiles of great +velocity; but I feel all of that will be more or less useless. The +intelligence up there—well, it knows everything we know and far more +besides, for do any of us know how to strike at the earth from the +stratosphere? Therefore our only weapons must be our own +intelligence—at least that will be the program for Eyer and me. Later, +when your planes which are yet to be built follow us up the sky, perhaps +they will be better armed. I hope to be able to communicate information +somehow, relative to whatever we find."</p> + +<p>Hadley thrust out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good luck," he said simply.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hen he was gone and Jeter and Eyer were dropping swiftly down in the +elevator to the street—to find that the streets of Manhattan had gone +mad. The ban on electric lights had been lifted, and the faces of +fear-ridden men and women were ghastly in the brilliance of thousands of +lights. Traffic accidents were happening on every corner, at every +intersection, and there were all too few police to manage traffic.</p> + +<p>However, a motorcycle squad was ready to lead the way through the press +for Eyer and Jeter—two grim-faced men now, who dared not look at each +other, because each feared to show his abysmal fear to the other.</p> + +<p>Automobiles raced past on either side of them driven by crazy men and +hysterical women.</p> + +<p>"Queensboro Bridge will be packed tight as a drum," said Eyer quietly.</p> + +<p>Jeter didn't seem to hear. Eyer talked on softly, unbothered by Jeter's +silence, knowing that Jeter wouldn't hear a word, that his partner had +drawn into himself and was even now, perhaps, visualizing what they +might encounter in the stratosphere. Eyer talked to give shape to his +own thoughts.</p> + +<p>A world gone mad, a world that fled from the menace which hung over +Manhattan.... Jeter hoped that the calm brains of men like Hadley would +at least be able to quiet the populace somewhat, else many of them would +be self-destroyed, as men and women destroy one another in rushes for +the exits during great theater fire alarms.</p> + +<p>Fast as they traveled, some of the foremost airmen of the adjoining +country had reached Mineola ahead of them. They understood that many of +them had arrived by plane in obedience to word broadcast by Hadley. +Hadley was doing his bit with a vengeance.</p> + +<p>The partners reached their laboratory.</p> + +<p>Their head servant met them at the door.</p> + +<p>"A Mr. Hadley frantically telephoning, sir," he said to Jeter.</p> + +<p>Jeter listened to Hadley's words—which were not so frantic now, as +though Hadley had been numbed by the awful happenings.</p> + +<p>"The new bridge between Manhattan and Jersey," said Hadley, "has just +been lifted by whatever the unearthly force is. It was pulled up from +its very foundations. It was crowded with cars as people fled from New +York—and cars and people were lifted with the bridge. Awful irony was +in the rest of the event. The great bridge was simply turned, along its +entire length—which remained intact during the miracle—until it was +parallel with the river and directly above midstream. Then it was +dropped into the water."</p> + +<p>"No telling how many lives were lost?" asked Jeter.</p> + +<p>"No, and hundreds and thousands of lives are being lost every moment +now. Frantic thousands are swamping boats of all sizes in their craze to +get away. Dozens of overloaded vessels have capsized and the surface of +the river is alive with doomed people, fighting the water and one +another...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">J</span>eter clicked up the receiver on the horror, knowing there was nothing +he could do. There would be no end to the loss of life until some +measure of sanity had been argued into crazed humanity.</p> + +<p>All the time he kept wondering.</p> + +<p>What was doing all this awful business? He surmised that some +anti-gravitational agency was responsible for the levitation of the +Vandercook building, but what sort of intelligence was directing it? Was +the intelligence human? Bestial? Maniacal? Or was it something from +Outside? Jeter did not think the latter could be considered. He didn't +believe that any planet, possibly inhabited, was close enough to make a +visit possible. At any rate, he felt that there should be some sort of +warning. He held to the belief that the whole thing was caused by human, +and earthly, intelligence.</p> + +<p>But why? The world was at peace. And yet....</p> + +<p>Thousands of lives had been snuffed out, a twelve-story building had +leaped five thousand feet into the air, and the world's biggest bridge +had turned upstream as though turning its back against the mad traffic +it had at last been called upon to bear.</p> + +<p>Eyer was going over their plane with the visitors, men of intellect who +were taking notes at top speed, men who knew planes and were quick to +grasp new appliances.</p> + +<p>"Have any of you got the whole story now?" Eyer asked.</p> + +<p>A half dozen men nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then pass your knowledge on to the others. Jeter and I must get ready +to be off. Every minute we delay costs untold numbers of lives."</p> + +<p>Willing hands rolled their ship out to their own private runway, while +Jeter and Eyer made last minute preparations. There was the matter of +food, of oxygen necessary so far above the Earth, of clothing. All had +been provided for and their last duties were largely those of checking +and rechecking, to make sure no fatal errors in judgment had been made.</p> + +<p>Eyer was to fly the ship in the beginning.</p> + +<p>A small crowd watched as the partners, white of face now in the last +minutes of their stay on Earth—which they might never touch again in +life—climbed into their cabin, which was capable of being sealed +against the cold of the heights and the lack of breathable oxygen.</p> + +<p>Nobody smiled at them, for the world had stopped smiling.</p> + +<p>Nobody waved at them, for a wave would have been frivolous.</p> + +<p>Nobody cheered or even shouted—but the two knew that the best wishes, +the very hopes for life, of all the land, went with them into the +ghastly unknown.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h2><i>Into the Void</i></h2> + + +<p>Their watches and the clock in the plane were synchronized with Hadley's +time, which was Eastern Standard, and as soon as the plane had reached +eight thousand feet altitude, Jeter spoke into the radiophone and +arranged for a connection with the office of Hadley.</p> + +<p>Hadley himself soon spoke into Jeter's ear.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jeter?"</p> + +<p>"See that someone is always at your radiophone to listen to us. I'll +keep you informed of developments as long as possible. Everything is +running like clockwork so far. How is it with you?"</p> + +<p>"Two additional buildings, older buildings of the city, have been lifted +some hundreds of feet above ground level, then dropped back upon their +own foundations, to be broken apart. Many lives lost despite the fact +that the city will be deserted within a matter of hours. It seems that +the—shall we say enemy?—is concentrating only on old buildings."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they wish to preserve the new ones," said Jeter quietly.</p> + +<p>"What? Why?"</p> + +<p>"For their own use, perhaps; who knows? Keep me informed of every +eventuality. If the center of force which seems to be causing all this +havoc shifts in any direction, advise us at once."</p> + +<p>"All right, Jeter."</p> + +<p>Jeter broke the connection temporarily. Hadley could get him at any +moment. A buzzer would sound inside the almost noiseless cabin when +anyone wished to contact him over the radiophone.</p> + +<p>Eyer was concentrating on the controls. The plane was climbing in great +sweeping spirals. Its speed was a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Their +air speed indicator was capable of registering eight hundred miles an +hour. They hoped to attain that speed and more, flying on an even keel +above ninety thousand feet.</p> + +<p>Both Eyer and Jeter were perfect navigators. If, as they hoped, they +could reach ninety thousand or more, they could cross the whole United +States in four hours or less. They could quarter the country, winged +bloodhounds of space, seeking their quarry.</p> + +<p>Jeter studied the sky above them through their special telescopes, +seeking some hint of the location of the point of departure of that +devastating column of light. He could think of no ray that would nullify +gravitation—yet that column of light had been the visual manifestation +that the thing had somehow been brought about.</p> + +<p>If this were true, was the enemy vulnerable? Was his base of attack +capable of being destroyed or crippled if anything happened to the +column of light? There was no way of knowing—yet. A search of the sky +above Manhattan failed to disclose any visible substance from which the +light beam might emanate. That seemed to indicate some unbelievable +height. Yet, Kress must have reached that base. Else why had he been +destroyed and sent back to Jeter and Eyer as a challenge?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">J</span>eter's mind went back to Kress. Frozen solid ... but that could have +been caused by his downward plunge through space. And what had happened +to Kress' plane? No word had been received concerning it up to the time +of the Jeter-Eyer departure. Had the "enemy" taken possession of it?</p> + +<p>The whole thing seemed absurd. Nobody knew better than Jeter that he was +working literally and figuratively in the dark. He was doing little +better than guessing. He felt sure of but one thing, that the agency +which was wreaking the havoc was a human one, and he was perfectly +willing to match his wits and Eyer's against any human intelligence.</p> + +<p>Jeter slipped into the cushioned seat beside Eyer.</p> + +<p>The altimeter registered fifteen thousand feet. New York was just a blur +against the abysmal darkness under their careening wings.</p> + +<p>"You've never ventured an opinion, Tema," said Jeter softly, "even to +me."</p> + +<p>Eyer grinned.</p> + +<p>"Who knows?" he said. "It may all be just the very latest thing in +aerial attack. If so, what country or coalition of countries harbor +designs against our good Uncle Sam? Japan? China?"</p> + +<p>"How do you explain the Vandercook incident? The bridge thing? The rise +and fall of the other skyscrapers?"</p> + +<p>"Some substance or ray capable of being controlled and directed. It +creates a field, of any size desired, in which gravitation is—well, +shall we say erased? Then any solid which is thus made weightless could +be lifted by the two good hands of a strong man, or even of a weak one. +How does that check with your guessing?"</p> + +<p>Jeter shook his head ruefully.</p> + +<p>"I've arrived at the same conclusions as yourself, Tema," he said. "I +know we're all guessing. I know we're probably climbing off the Earth on +a wild-goose chase from which we haven't a chance of returning alive. I +know we're a pair of fools to think of matching a few drums of gas and a +bunch of popguns against the equipment of an enemy capable of moving +mountains—but what else is there to do?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Eyer cheerfully, "and I've got a feeling that you and I +will manage to acquit ourselves with credit."</p> + +<p>The radiophone buzzer sounded.</p> + +<p>Hadley was speaking.</p> + +<p>"One of the very latest types of battle-wagons," he said, "was steaming +this way from the open sea outside the Narrows, ordered here to stand by +in case of need, by the Navy Department. She was armed to the minute +with the very latest ordnance. She carried a full crew...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>adley paused. Jeter could hear him take a deep breath, like a diver +preparing to plunge into icy water. Jeter's spine tingled. He felt he +guessed in advance what was to come.</p> + +<p>Hadley went on.</p> + +<p>The world seemed to spin dizzily as Jeter listened. Out of all the +madness only one thing loomed which served for the moment to keep Jeter +sane. That was the altimeter, which registered twenty-five thousand +feet.</p> + +<p>"The battle-wagon—the <i>U.S.S. Hueber</i>—was yanked bodily out of the +water. It was taken aloft so quickly that it was just a blur. At least +this was the way the skipper of a Norwegian steamer, a mile away from +the <i>Hueber</i>, described it. The warship simply vanished into the night +sky. The exact time was given by the Norwegian. Five minutes before +midnight. At that moment nothing was happening in New York City—nothing +new, that is."</p> + +<p>Hadley paused again.</p> + +<p>"Go on, man!" said Jeter hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"Twenty minutes later the <i>Hueber</i> was lowered back into the water, +practically unharmed. It had all happened so swiftly that the sailors +aboard scarcely realized anything had happened. The skipper of the +warship radios that the sensation was like a sudden attack of dizziness. +One man died of heart failure. He was the only casualty."</p> + +<p>Jeter's eyes began to blaze with excitement, as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Now you can tell the world that the thing which causes the havoc +Manhattan is experiencing is not supernatural. It is human—and our +people have no fear of human enemies."</p> + +<p>"But why was not the warship dropped somewhere, as the buildings have +been?" asked Hadley.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever," replied Jeter, "hear what is described in the best +fiction as a burst of ironic laughter? Well, that what the <i>Hueber</i>, as +it now stands, or floats, is! But the enemy made a foolish move and +will live to regret it bitterly."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could share your sudden confidence," said Hadley. "Conditions +here, where public morale is concerned, have become more frightful +minute by minute since you left."</p> + +<p>Jeter severed the connection.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he altimeter said thirty-five thousand feet. They were still spiraling +upward. Again Jeter surveyed the sky aloft.</p> + +<p>The earth below was a blur, save through the telescopes. The two had +reached a height less than a third of what they hoped to attain.</p> + +<p>Still they could see nothing up above them. They were almost over the +"shaft" of atmosphere through which the <i>Hueber</i> must have been lifted +and lowered. Suppose, Jeter thought, they had accidentally flown into +that shaft at exactly the wrong moment? It brought a shudder. Still, +Jeter's mind went on, if that had happened they would now, in all +likelihood, have been right among the enemy—for gravity in that shaft +would not have existed for them, either.</p> + +<p>But would they have been lowered back to safety as the <i>Hueber</i> and her +crew had been?</p> + +<p>Believing as he did that the enemy knew everything that transpired +within its sphere of influence, Jeter doubted that Eyer and himself +would have been so humanely treated.</p> + +<p>He had but to remember Kress to feel sure of this.</p> + +<p>The altimeter said fifty thousand feet.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h2><i>Stratosphere Currents</i></h2> + + +<p>Now the partner-scientists concentrated on the tremendous task of +climbing higher than man had ever flown before. Nobody knew how high +Kress had gone, for the only information which had come back had been +the corpse of the sky pioneer. Jeter and Eyer hoped to land, too, but to +be able to tell others, when they did, what had happened to them.</p> + +<p>Somehow, away up here, the affairs of the Earth seemed trivial, unreal. +What was the raising of an entire skyscraper—in reality so small that +from this height it was difficult to pick out the biggest one through +the telescope? What mattered a bridge across the Hudson that was really +less than the footprint of an ant at this height?</p> + +<p>Still, looking at each other, they were able to attain the old +perspectives. Down there people like Jeter and Eyer were dying because +of something that struck at them from somewhere up here in the blue +darkness.</p> + +<p>Their faces set grimly. The plane kept up its constant spiraling. Jeter +and Eyer flew the ship in relays. Occasionally they secured the controls +and allowed the plane to fly on, untended.</p> + +<p>"But maybe we'd better not do too much of that," said Jeter dubiously. +"I'm sure we are being observed, every foot of altitude we make. I don't +care to run into something up here that will wreck us. Right now, Eyer, +if we happened to be outside this sealed cabin instead of inside it, +we'd die in less time than it takes to tell about it."</p> + +<p>All known records for altitude—the only unknown one being Kress'—had +now been broken by Jeter and Eyer. They informed Hadley of this fact.</p> + +<p>"A week ago you'd have had headlines," came back Hadley. "To-day nobody +cares, except that the world looks to you for information about this +horror. The enemy is systematically destroying every building in +Manhattan which dates back over eight years. Fortunately, save for the +occasional die-hard who never believes anything, there are few deaths at +the moment. But we're all waiting, holding our breaths, wondering what +the next five minutes will bring forth. Is there any news there?"</p> + +<p>How strange it seemed—as the altimeter said sixty-one thousand feet—to +hear that voice out of the void. For under the plane there was no world +at all, save through the telescope. Perhaps when morning came they would +be able to see a little. Picard had reported the world to look flat from +a little over fifty thousand-feet.</p> + +<p>"No news, Hadley," said Jeter. "Except, that our plane behaves perfectly +and we are at sixty-one thousand feet. Were it not for our turn and bank +indicators, our altimeter and air speed instruments, and our +navigational instruments, it would be impossible to tell—by looking at +least, though we could tell by our shifting weight—whether we were +upside down or right side up, on one wing or on an even keel. It's eery. +We wouldn't be able to tell whether we were moving were it not for our +air speed indicator. There are no clouds. The motor hum seems to be the +only thing here—except ourselves of course—to remind us that we really +belong down there with you."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he connection was broken again as Jeter ceased speaking. Things seemed +to be marking time on the ground, save for the strange demolitions of +the unseen and apparently unknowable enemy. Would they ever really +encounter him, or it?</p> + +<p>When the sun came out of the east they leveled off at ninety thousand +feet. By their reckoning they had scarcely moved in any direction from +the spot where they had taken off. Jeter was satisfied that they were +almost directly above Mineola. But the world had vanished. The plane +rode easily on. Now and again it dipped one wing or the other—and even +the veteran aviators felt a thrill of uneasiness. From somewhere up here +in this immensity, Franz Kress had dropped to his death. Of course, if +it had happened at this height he hadn't lived to suffer.</p> + +<p>Or had he? What had been done to him by the—the denizens of the +stratosphere?</p> + +<p>Jeter sat down beside Eyer. It seemed strange to eat breakfast here, but +the sandwiches and hot coffee in a thermos bottle were extremely +welcome. They ate in silence, their thoughts busy. When they had made an +end, Jeter squared his shoulders. Eyer grinned.</p> + +<p>"Well, Lucian," he said, "are we in enemy territory by your +calculations? And if so how do you arrive at your conclusions?"</p> + +<p>"I'm still guessing, Tema," said Jeter, "but I've a feeling I'm not +guessing badly, and.... Yes, we're somewhere within striking distance of +the enemy, whatever the enemy is."</p> + +<p>"What's the next move?</p> + +<p>"We'll systematically cover the sky over an area which blankets New +York, Long Island, Jersey City and surrounding territory for a distance +of twenty miles. If we're above the enemy, perhaps we can look down upon +him. We know he can't be seen from below, perhaps not even from above. +If we are below him we'll try to fly into that column of his. What +they'll do to us I.... You're not afraid to find out, are you?"</p> + +<p>Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him.</p> + +<p>"What they'll do to us if we fly into them I'm sure I don't know. I +don't think they'll kill our motor. If whoever or whatever controls the +light column decides to us prisoners.... Well, we'll hope to have better +luck combating them than Kress had."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>nd so begin that hours-long vigil of quartering the stratosphere over +the unmarked area which Jeter had set as a limit. Now and again Hadley +spoke to Jeter. Yes, the demolitions were still continuing in Manhattan. +Could all telescopes on the ground pick out their space ship? Yes, said +Hadley, and a young scientist in New Jersey was constantly watching +them. Were they, since sunrise, ever out of his sight? Only when clouds +at comparatively low altitudes intervened. However, the sky was +unusually clear and it was hoped to keep their plane in sight during the +entire day.</p> + +<p>"Hadley," Jeter almost whispered, "I'm satisfied we're above the area of +force, else we'd have flown into the anti-gravitation field. Get in +touch with that Jersey chap by direct personal wire or radiophone if he +is equipped with it. See that his watch is set with yours, which is +synchronised with ours. Got that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When you've done that give him these instructions: He is never to take +his eyes of us for more than a split second at a time—unless someone +else takes his place. I doubt if, at this distance, this will work, but +it may help us a little. If we become invisible for even the briefest of +moments, he is to look at his watch and observe the exact time, even to +split seconds. We shall try to follow a certain plan hereafter in +quartering the stratosphere, and I shall mark our location on the +navigational charts every minute until we hear from this chap, or until +we decide nothing is to be accomplished by this trick. Understand?"</p> + +<p>"You're hoping that the enemy, while invisible to all eyes, yet has +substance...."</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" snapped Jeter, but he was glad that Hadley had grasped the +idea. It was a slim chance, but such as it was it was worth trying. If +the plane were invisible for a time, then it would be proof of some +opaque obstruction between the plane and the eye of the beholder on the +surface of the Earth. Refraction had to be figured, perhaps. Oh, there +were many arguments against it.</p> + +<p>The fliers followed the very outer edge of the area above the world they +had mapped out as their limit of exploration. This circuit completed, +they banked inward, shortening their circuit by about a mile of space. A +mile, seen at a distance of ninety thousand feet, would be little +indeed.</p> + +<p>It was almost midday when they had their first stroke of luck.</p> + +<p>The buzzer sounded at the very moment Eyer uttered an ejaculation.</p> + +<p>"The Jersey fellow says there is nothing between his lens and your plane +to obstruct the view."</p> + +<p>"O.K.," retorted Jeter. "At the moment your buzzer sounded our plane +suddenly jumped upward. That means an upcurrent of air indicating an +obstruction under us. It must however, be invisible."</p> + +<p>He severed the connection. His brow was furrowed thoughtfully. He was +remembering Sitsumi and his rumored discovery.</p> + +<p>They circled back warily. The eyes of both were fixed downward, staring +into space. Their jaws were firmly set. Their eyes were narrowed.</p> + +<p>And then....</p> + +<p>There was that uprush of air again! It appeared to rise from an angle of +about sixty degrees. They got the wind against their nose and started a +humming dive, feeling in the alien updraft for the obstruction which +caused it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h2><i>Invisible Globe</i></h2> + + +<p>The buzzer of their radiophone was sounding, but so intent were they on +this phenomenon they were facing, they paid it no heed. Their eyes were +alight, their lips in firm straight lines of resolve, as they dived down +upon the invisible obstruction—whatever it was—from whose surface the +telltale updraft came.</p> + +<p>It was Eyer who made the suggestion:</p> + +<p>"Let's measure it to see what its plane extent is."</p> + +<p>"How?" asked Jeter.</p> + +<p>"Measure it by following the wind disturbance. We travel in one +direction until we lose it. There is one extremity. In a few minutes we +can discover exactly how big the thing is. What do you think it is?"</p> + +<p>Jeter shook his head. There was no way of telling.</p> + +<p>Jeter nodded agreement to Eyer. Then he spoke into the radiophone, +telling Hadley what they had found, to which he could give no name.</p> + +<p>"The world awaits in fear and trembling what you will have to report, +Jeter," said Hadley. "What if you become unable to report, as Kress +did?"</p> + +<p>"Don't worry. We will or we won't. If we succeed we'll be back. If we +fail, send up the other.... No, perhaps you hadn't better send up the +new planes. But I think Eyer and I have a chance to discover the nature +of this strange—whatever-it-is. If you can't contact us, delay +twenty-four hours before doing anything. I—well, I scarcely know what +to tell you to do. We'll just be shooting in the dark until we know what +we're in for. You'll have to contain yourself in patience. What did you +want with me?"</p> + +<p>"Only to tell you of another strange news dispatch. It gives no details. +It merely tells of strange activity around Lake Baikal, beyond the Gobi +Desert. Queer noises at night, mysterious cordons of Eurasians to keep +all investigators back, strange losses of livestock, foodstuffs...."</p> + +<p>Jeter severed connection. There was little need to listen further to +something which he couldn't explain yet, in any case.</p> + +<p>Eyer, at the controls, banked the plane at right angles and flew on. In +shortly less than a minute he banked again.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">I</span>n five minutes he turned to Jeter with a queer expression on his face.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "what's to do about it? What is it? It seems to be some +solid substance approximately a quarter mile square. But it can't be +true! A solid substance just hanging in the air at ninety thousand feet! +It's beyond all imagining!"</p> + +<p>"What man can imagine, man can do," replied Jeter. "A great newspaper +editor said that, and we're going to discover now just how true it is."</p> + +<p>"What's our next move?"</p> + +<p>For a long time the partners, stared into each other's eyes. Each knew +exactly what the other thought, exactly what he would propose as a +course of action. Jeter heaved a sigh and nodded his head.</p> + +<p>"We're as much in the power of the enemy here as we would be there, or +anywhere else. We can't discover anything from here. Set the wheels +down!"</p> + +<p>"We can't tell anything about the condition of the surface of that +stuff. We may crack up."</p> + +<p>Jeter had to grin.</p> + +<p>"Sounds strange, cracking up at ninety thousand feet, doesn't it? Well, +hoist your helicopter vanes and drift down as straight as you can—but +be sure and keep your motor idling."</p> + +<p>Again they exchanged long looks.</p> + +<p>"O.K.," said Eyer, as quietly as he would have answered the same order +at Roosevelt Field. "Here we go!"</p> + +<p>He pressed a button and the helicopters, set into the surface of the +single sturdy wing, snapped up their shafts and began to spin, +effectually slowing the forward motion of the plane. Eyer fish-tailed +her with his rudder to help cut down speed.</p> + +<p>"We can't see the surface of the thing at all, Lucian," said Eyer. "I'll +simply have to feel for it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've done that before, too. We can manage all right."</p> + +<p>Down they dropped. The updraft was now a cushion directly under them. +And then their wheels struck something solid. The plane moved forward a +few feet—with a strange sickening motion. It was as though the surface +of this substance were globular. First one wheel rose, then dipped as +the other rose. The plane came to rest on fairly even keel, and the +partners, while the motor idled, stared at each other.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Eyer, a trace of a grin on his face.</p> + +<p>"If it'll hold the plane it will hold us. Let's slide into our +stratosphere suits and climb out. We have to get close to this thing to +see what it is."</p> + +<p>"Parachutes?" said Eyer.</p> + +<p>Jeter nodded.</p> + +<p>"It would simplify matters if the thing happened to tilt over and spill +us off, I think," said Jeter, matching Eyer's grin with one of his own. +"I can't think with any degree of equanimity of plunging ninety thousand +feet without a parachute."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sure I'd care for it with one," said Eyer.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hey were soon in the tight-fitting suits which were customarily used by +fliers who climbed above the air levels at which it was impossible for a +human being to breathe without a supply of oxygen in a container. Their +suits were sealed against cold. Set in their backs were oxygen tanks +capable of holding enough oxygen for several hours. Over all this they +fastened their parachutes.</p> + +<p>Then, using a series of doors in order to conserve the warmth and oxygen +inside their cabin, they let themselves out, closing each successive +door behind them, until at last they faced the last door—and the grim +unknown. They glanced at each other briefly, and Jeter's hand went forth +to grasp the mechanism of the last door. Eyer stood at his side. Their +eyes met. The door swung open.</p> + +<p>They stepped down. The surface of this stratosphere substance was +slippery smooth. Now that they stood on its surface they could sense +something of its profile. Movement in any direction suggested walking on +a huge ball. The queer thing was that they could feel but could not see. +It was like walking on air. Their plane appeared to be suspended in +midair.</p> + +<p>For a moment Jeter had an overpowering desire to grab Eyer, jerk him +back to the plane, and take off at top speed. But they couldn't do that, +not when the world depended upon them. Had Kress encountered this thing? +Perhaps. How must he have felt? He had been alone. These two were moral +support for each other. But both were acutely remembering how Kress had +come back.</p> + +<p>And his plane? They'd perhaps discover what had happened to that too.</p> + +<p>Eyer suddenly slipped and fell, as though he had been walking on a +carpet which had been jerked from under his feet. From his almost prone +position he looked up at Jeter. Jeter dropped to his knees beside him. +Their covered hands played over the surface of their discovery, to find +it smooth as glass. As though with one thought they placed their heads +against it, right ears down, to listen. But the whole vast field seemed +to be dead, lifeless. And yet—a solid it was, floating here in +space—or just hanging. It seemed to be utterly motionless.</p> + +<p>"There should be a way of discovering what this is, and why, and how it +is controlled if an intelligence is behind it." Jeter spelled out the +words in the sign language they had both learned as boys.</p> + +<p>Eyer nodded.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hey walked more warily when they had, traveling slowly and hesitantly, +gone more than a hundred feet from their plane. They kept it in sight by +constantly turning to look back. It was now several feet above them. No +telling what might happen to them at any moment, and the plane was an +avenue of escape.</p> + +<p>They didn't wish to take a chance on stepping off into the +stratosphere—and eternity.</p> + +<p>"It's like an iceberg of space," said the fingers of Jeter. "But let's +go back and look it over to the other side of the plane. We have to keep +the plane in sight and work from it as a base. And say, what sort of +sensations have you had about this surface we're standing on?"</p> + +<p>Jeter could see Eyer's shudder as he asked the question. Slowly the +fingers of his partner spelled out the answer.</p> + +<p>"I've a feeling of eyes boring into my back. I sense that the substance +under us is malignant, inimical. I have the same feeling with every step +I take, as though the unseen surface were endowed with arms capable of +reaching out and grabbing me."</p> + +<p>"I feel it, too," said Jeter's fingers. "But I'm not afraid of fingers +in the usual sense. I don't think of hands strangling us, or ripping us +to shreds, but of questing—well, call them tentacles, which may clasp +us with gentleness even, and absorb us, and annihilate us!"</p> + +<p>Now the two faced each other squarely. Now they did not try to hide that +their fear was an abysmal feeling, horrible and devastating.</p> + +<p>"Let's get back to the plane and take off. We haven't a chance."</p> + +<p>They clasped hands again and started running back, their plane their +goal. Before they reached it they would change their minds, for they +were not ordinarily lacking in courage—but so long as they ran both had +the feeling of being pursued by malignant entities which were always +just a step behind, but gaining.</p> + +<p>They slipped on the smooth surface face and fell sprawling. Each felt, +when he fell, that he must rise at once, with all his speed, lest +something grasp him and hold him down forever. It was a horrible trapped +feeling, and yet....</p> + +<p>They had but to look at each other to see that they were free. Nothing +gripped their feet to hold them back. Of course the way was slippery, +but no more so than an icy surface which one essays in ordinary shoes. +What then caused their fear?</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he plane, so plainly visible there ahead and above, was like a haven of +refuge to them. They panted inside their helmets and their breath misted +the glass of their masks. But they stumbled on, making the best speed +they could under the circumstances.</p> + +<p>Perhaps if they took, off, and regained their courage, returned to +normal in surroundings they knew and understood, they could come back +and try again, after having heard each other's voices. The silence, the +sign manual, the odd, awesome sensations, all combined to rob them of +courage. They must get it back if they were to succeed. And they had +been away from the plane for almost an hour. Hadley would be waiting for +some news.</p> + +<p>The plane was twenty yards away—and almost at the same time Eyer and +Jeter saw something queer about it. At first it was hard to say just +what it was.</p> + +<p>They rushed on. They were within ten yards of the plane when a wail of +anguish was born—and died—in two soundproof helmets. There was no +questioning the fact that the plane had settled into the surface of the +field.</p> + +<p>The plane was invisible below the tops of the landing wheels, as though +the plane were sinking into invisibility, slowly dissolving from the +bottom.</p> + +<p>"Understand?" Jeter's fingers almost shouted. "Understand why we felt +the desire to keep moving? This field is alive, Eyer, and if we stand +still it will swallow us just as it is swallowing our plane! Let's get +in fast; maybe we can still pull free from the stuff and take off."</p> + +<p>They were racing against time and in the heart of each was the feeling +that whatever they did, their efforts would be hopeless. Still, the +spinning propeller of their plane gave them strength to hope.</p> + +<p>They went through the succession of doors as rapidly as they dared. Once +in the comfort of their cabin they doffed their stratosphere suits with +all possible speed. Jeter was the first free. He jumped to the controls +and speeded up the motor. In a matter of seconds it was revving up to a +speed which, had it been free, would have pulled the plane along at +seven hundred miles an hour at the height at which they were.</p> + +<p>But the plane did not move!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">J</span>eter slowed the motor, then started racing it fast, trying to jerk the +fuselage free of the imbedded wheels, but they would not be released. +Both men realized that the wheels had sunk from sight while they had +been delayed coming through the succession of doors—that the plane had +sunk until the invisible surface gripped the floor of the fuselage.</p> + +<p>Perspiration beaded the faces of both men. Eyer managed a ghastly grin. +Jeter's brow was furrowed with frantic thought as he tried to imagine a +way out.</p> + +<p>"If we could somehow cut our landing gear free," began Jeter, "but—"</p> + +<p>"But it's too late, Lucian," said Eyer quietly. "Look at the window."</p> + +<p>They both looked.</p> + +<p>Countless fingers of shadowy gray substance were undulating up the +surface of the window, like pale angleworms or white serpents of many +sizes, trying to climb up a pane of glass.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Jeter, "here we are! You see? Outside we can see nothing. +Inside we begin to see a little, and what good will it do us?"</p> + +<p>Eyer grinned. It was as though he lighted a cigarette and nonchalantly +blew smoke rings at the ceiling, save that they dared not use up any of +their precious oxygen by smoking.</p> + +<p>Their fear had left them utterly when it would have been natural for +them to be stunned by it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h2><i>Cataclysmic Hunger</i></h2> + + +<p>Eyer thrust out his hand to cut the motor. Jeter stayed it.</p> + +<p>"I've an idea," he said softly; "let it run. We'll learn something more +about the sensitiveness of this material."</p> + +<p>The motor was cut to idling. The plane scarcely trembled now in the pull +of the motor, so firmly was she held in the grip of the shadowy, vague +tentacles. A grim sort of silence had settled in the cabin. The faces of +the two partners were dead white, but their eyes were fearless. They had +come aloft to give their lives if need be. They wouldn't try to get them +back now. Besides, what use was there?</p> + +<p>Jeter paused for a moment in thought.</p> + +<p>Then he began to examine some of their weapons. The only one by which +they could fire outside the plane—due to the necessity of keeping the +cabin closed to retain oxygen—was the rapid firer on the wing. This +could be depressed enough to fire downward at an angle of forty-five +degrees. Jeter hesitated for a moment.</p> + +<p>He looked at Eyer. Eyer grinned. "It can't bring death to us any +sooner," he said. "Let her go!"</p> + +<p>Jeter tripped the rapid firer and held it for half a minute, during +which time three hundred projectiles, eight inches long by two inches in +diameter, were poured into the invisible surface. The bullets simply +accomplished nothing. It was almost as though the field had simply +opened its mouth to catch thrown food. There was no movement of the +field, no jarring, no vibration. Nor did the plane itself tremble or +shake. Jeter had to stop the rapid firer because its base, the plane, +was now so firmly fixed that the recoil might kick the gun out of its +mount.</p> + +<p>Now the partners sat and looked out through the windows of unbreakable +glass, watching the work of those tentacular fingers.</p> + +<p>"How does it feel, Tema, to be eaten alive?" asked Jeter.</p> + +<p>"Have you radiophoned Hadley about what's happening to us?"</p> + +<p>"No," replied Jeter. "It would frighten the world half out of its wits. +Besides, what can we say has caught us? We don't know."</p> + +<p>"And what are we going to do about it?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"W</span>e're going to wait. I've a theory about some of this. We know blamed +well that, except for the most miraculous luck, you couldn't have set +the plane down on this field without it slipping off again. Well there's +only one answer to that: the rubbery resilience of the surface. It must +have given a little to hold the plane—and us when we walked on it. What +does that mean? Simply that we were seen and the field made usable for +us by some intelligence. That intelligence watches us now. It saved our +lives for some reason or other. It didn't destroy us when we were +afoot out there. It isn't destroying us now. It's swallowing us +whole—and for some reason. Why? That we'll have to discover. But I +think we can rest easy on one thing. We're not to be killed by this +swallowing act, else we'd have been dead before now."</p> + +<p>"Have you any idea what this stuff is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the idea is so wild and improbable that I'm reluctant to tell +you what I guess until I know more. However, if it develops that we are +to die in this swallowing act, then I'll give you a tip—and it will +probably knock you off your pedestal. But the more I think of it the +more certain I am that the whole things is at least a variation of my +idea. And the brains behind it, if my guess proves even approximately +correct, will be too great for us to win mastery except by some +miraculous accident favoring us—and true miracles come but seldom in +these days."</p> + +<p>"No? What do you call this?"</p> + +<p>Jeter shrugged.</p> + +<p>With many ports all around the cabin, all fitted with unbreakable glass, +it was possible for the partners to see out in all directions. The +tentacle fingers had now climbed up to a height sufficient to smother +both windows. The fuselage was about half swallowed.</p> + +<p>"I can almost hear the stuff sigh inwardly with satisfaction as it takes +us in," said Eyer.</p> + +<p>"I have the same feeling. There's a peculiar sound about it too; do you +hear it?"</p> + +<p>They listened. The sound which came into the cabin was such a sound as +might have been heard by a man inside a cylinder lying on the bottom of +a still pond. A whisper that was less than a whisper—a <i>moving</i> +whisper. In it were life and death, and grim terror.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>nd then—remembering that contact with the propeller would shatter it, +Tema cut the switch—the propeller stopped, the motor died, and utter +silence, in the midst of an utter absence of vibration, possessed the +comfortable little cabin. It was hard to believe. The cabin was a breath +of home. It was a home. And it was being swallowed by some substance +concerning which Eyer had no ideas at all and Jeter but a growing +suspicion.</p> + +<p>The plane sank lower and lower. The surface of the field was now almost +to the top of the cabin doors. Most of the windows had been erased, but +it made no particular difference in the matter of light. Jeter had put +out his hand to snap on the lights, but stayed it when he saw that light +came through to them.</p> + +<p>Moment by moment the mystery of the swallowing deepened. It was like +sinking into a snow bank. There was a sensation of smothering, though it +was not uncomfortable because the cabin itself was self-sufficient in +all respects to maintain life for a long period of time.</p> + +<p>It was like sinking slowly into the depths of the sea.</p> + +<p>The last port on the sides of the plane was erased. Now the two sat in +their chairs and stared up at the ceiling, and at the glass-protected +ports there. It was grim business. They almost held their breath as they +waited.</p> + +<p>At last those blurred tentacles began to creep across the lowest of the +ceiling ports. Faster they came, and faster. In a few minutes every port +was covered with a film of the weird stuff.</p> + +<p>"It may be a foot deep above us," said Jeter. "I don't think we'll be +able to tell how thick any bit of the stuff is. The surface of the field +may be ten feet above our heads right now. Well, Tema, old son, we're +prisoners as surely as though we were locked in a chrome steel vault a +thousand feet underground. We can't go anywhere, or come back if we go +there. We're prisoners, that's all—and all we can do is wait."</p> + +<p>Eyer grinned.</p> + +<p>Jeter began nonchalantly to slip off his helmet and goggles. He doffed +his flying coat. In a short time the two might have been sitting over +liquor and cigars in their own library at Mineola.</p> + +<p>"Expecting company?" asked Eyer.</p> + +<p>"Most emphatically," replied Jeter. "Company that is an unknown +quantity. Company that will be wholly and entirely interesting."</p> + +<p>So they waited. They could now feel themselves sinking faster into the +substance. They settled on an even keel, however, but more rapidly than +before, as though the directing intelligence behind all these had tired +of showing them his wonders and was eager to get on with the business of +the day.</p> + +<p>Eyer happened to look down at one of the ports in the floor of the +cabin.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he yelled, "Lucian!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>e was pointing. His face had gone white again. His eyes were bulging. +Jeter stared down into the floor ports—and gasped.</p> + +<p>"I expected it, but it's a shock just the same, Tema," he said softly. +"Get hold of yourself. You'll need all your faculties in a minute or +two."</p> + +<p>Through the ports they found themselves staring down all of twenty feet +upon a milky white globe, set inside the greater, softer globe through +which they were passing, like a kernel in a shell.</p> + +<p>The plane was oozing through the "rind" which protected the strange +globe below against the cold and discomfort of the stratosphere.</p> + +<p>"They'd scarcely bring us this far to drop us, would they?" asked Eyer.</p> + +<p>He was making a distinct effort to regain control of himself. His voice +was normal, his breathing regular—and he had spoken thus to show Jeter +that this was so.</p> + +<p>"Whether we're to be dropped or lowered is all one to us," he said, +"since we can do nothing in either case. Twenty feet of fall wouldn't +smash us up much."</p> + +<p>"Let's keep our eyes on the ceiling ports and see how this swallowing +job is really done."</p> + +<p>They alternately looked through the floor ports and the ceiling ports.</p> + +<p>Under them the gray mass was crawling backward off the floor ports, +leaving them clear. Now all of them were clear. Now the gray stuff began +to vanish from the lower ports on either side of the cabin.</p> + +<p>"I feel as though we were being digested and cast forth," said Jeter.</p> + +<p>The action of the stuff was something like that. It had swallowed them +in their entirety and now was disgorging them.</p> + +<p>They watched the stuff move off the ports one by one, on either side. +The lower ones were free. Then those next above, the gray substance +retreating with what seemed to be pouting reluctance. Finally even the +topmost ports were clear.</p> + +<p>"The drop comes soon," said Eyer.</p> + +<p>"Wait, maybe not."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hey concentrated on the ceiling ports for a moment, but the clinging +stuff did not vanish from them. They turned back to look through the +floor ports. Right under them was the milky globe whose surface could +easily accommodate their plane. If they had needed further proof of some +guiding intelligence behind all this, that cleared space was it. They +were being deliberately lowered to a landing place through a portion of +the "rind" made soft in some mechanical way to allow the weight of their +plane to sink through it.</p> + +<p>They looked up again. Great masses of the gray substance still clung to +the top of their cabin, like sticky tar. The substance was rubbery and +lifelike in its resiliency, its tenacious grasp upon the Jeter-Eyer +plane. By this means the plane was lowered to the "ground." Jeter and +Eyer watched, fascinated, as the stuff slipped and lost its grip, and +slowly retracted to become part of the dome above.</p> + +<p>The plane had come through this white roof, bearing its two passengers, +and now above them there was no slightest mark to show where they had +come forth.</p> + +<p>They rested on even keel atop the inner globe which they now could see +was attached to the outer globe in countless places.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if we dare risk getting out," said Eyer.</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Jeter. "Look there!"</p> + +<p>A trapdoor, shaped something like the profile of an ordinary milk +bottle, was opening in the white globe just outside their plane. Framed +in the door was a face. It was a dark face, but it was a human one—and +the man's body below that face was dressed as simply, and in almost the +same fashion, as were Jeter and Eyer themselves. He wore no oxygen tanks +or clothing to keep out the cold.</p> + +<p>The partners, lips firmly set, nodded to each other and began to open +their doors. Imperturbably the dark man came to meet them.</p> + +<p>Still other dark faces emerged from the door.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h2><i>A Scheme Is Described</i></h2> + + +<p>The hands of the two wayfarers into the stratosphere dropped to their +weapons as the men came through that door which masked the inner mystery +of the white globe.</p> + +<p>One of the men grinned. There was a threat in his grin—and a promise.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't use my weapons if I were in your place, gentlemen," he said. +"Come this way, please. Sitsumi and The Three wish to see you at once."</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances. Would it do any good to start a fight +with these people? They seemed to be unarmed, but there were many of +them. And probably there were many more beyond that door. Certainly this +strange globe was capable of holding a small army at least.</p> + +<p>Jeter shrugged. Eyer answered it with an eloquent gesture—and the two +fell in with those who had come to meet them.</p> + +<p>"How about our plane?" said Jeter.</p> + +<p>"You need concern yourself with it no longer," replied one. "Its final +disposal is in the hands of Sitsumi and The Three."</p> + +<p>A cold chill ran along Jeter's spine. There was something too final +about the guide's calm reply. Both adventurers remembered again, most +poignantly, the fate of Kress.</p> + +<p>The leaders stepped through the door. A flight of steps led downward.</p> + +<p>Several of the swarthy-skinned folk walked behind Jeter and Eyer. There +was no gainsaying the fact that they were prisoners.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer gasped a little as they looked into the interior of the +white globe. It was of unusual extent, Jeter estimated, a complete +globe; but this one was bisected by a floor at its center, of some +substance that might, for its apparent lightness, have been aluminum. +Plainly it was the dwelling place of these strange conquerors of the +stratosphere. It might have been a vast room designed as the dwelling +place of people accustomed to all sorts of personal comforts.</p> + +<p>On the "floor" were several buildings, of the same material as the +floor. It remained to be seen what these buildings were for, but Jeter +could guess, he believed, with fair accuracy. The large building in the +center would be the central control room housing whatever apparatus of +any kind was needed in the working of this space ship. There were +smaller buildings, most of them conical, looking oddly like beehives, +which doubtless housed the denizens of the globe.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he atmosphere was much like that of New York in early autumn. It was of +equable temperature. There was no discomfort in walking, no difficulty +in breathing. Jeter surmised that at least one of those buildings, +perhaps the central one, housed some sort of oxygen renewer. Such a +device at this height was naturally essential.</p> + +<p>The stairs ended. The prisoners and their guards stopped at floor level.</p> + +<p>Jeter paused to look about him. His scientific eyes were studying the +construction of the globe. The idea of escape from the predicament into +which he and Eyer were plunged would never be out of his head for +moment.</p> + +<p>"Come along, you!"</p> + +<p>Jeter started, stung by the savagery which suddenly edged the voice of +the man who had first greeted him. There was contempt in it—and an +assumption of personal superiority which galled the independent Jeter.</p> + +<p>He grinned a little, looked at Eyer.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if we have to take it," he said softly.</p> + +<p>"It seems we might expect a little respect, at least," Eyer grinned in +answer.</p> + +<p>The guard suddenly caught Jeter by the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I said to come along!"</p> + +<p>If the man had been intending to provoke a fight he couldn't have gone +about it in any better way. Jeter suddenly, without a change of +expression, sent a right fist crashing to the fellow's jaw.</p> + +<p>"Don't use your gat, Eyer," he called to his partner. "We may kill a +key man who may be necessary to our well-being later on. But black eyes +and broken noses should be no bar to efficiency."</p> + +<p>Without any fuss or hullabaloo, the dozen or so denizens of the globe +who had met the partners closed on them. They came on with a rush. Jeter +and Eyer stood back to back and slugged. They were young, with youthful +joy in battle. They were trained to the minute. As fliers they took +pride in their physical condition. They were out-numbered, but it was +also a matter of pride with them to demand respect wherever they went. +It was also a matter of pride to down as many of the attackers as +possible before they themselves were downed.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">I</span>t became plain that, though the denizens of the globe were armed with +knives, they were not to be used. And it didn't seem they would be +needed. The fighters were all muscular, well-trained fighters. But for +the most part they fought in the manner of Chinese ta chaen, or Japanese +ju-jutsu men. They used holds that were bone-breaking and it taxed the +pair to the utmost to keep from being maimed by their killing strength.</p> + +<p>The swarthy men were men of courage, no doubt about that. They fought +with silent ferocity. They blinked when struck, but came back to take +yet other blows with the tenacity of so many bulldogs. There was no +gainsaying them, it seemed. They were here for the purpose of subduing +their visitors and nothing short of death would stop them.</p> + +<p>It wasn't courtesy, either, that failure to use knives, for Jeter saw +murder looking out of more than one pair of eyes as their two pairs of +fists landed on brown faces, smashed noses askew, and started eyes to +closing.</p> + +<p>"Their leader has them under absolute control—and that's a point for +the enemy," Jeter panted to himself, as the strain of battle began to +tell on him. "They've been instructed, no matter what we do, to bring us +to their master or masters alive."</p> + +<p>For a moment he toyed with the idea of drawing his weapon and firing +pointblank into the enemy. He knew they would be compelled to take lives +to escape—and that the lives of all these people were forfeit anyway +because of the havoc which had descended upon New York City.</p> + +<p>But he didn't make a move for his weapon. It would be sure death if he +did, for the others were armed.</p> + +<p>Brown men fell before the smashing of their fists. But the end of the +fight was a foregone conclusion. Jeter had a bruised jaw. Eyer's nose +was bleeding and one eye was closed when the reception committee finally +came to close quarters, smothered them by sheer weight of numbers, and +made them prisoners. Jeter's right wrist was manacled to Eyer's left +with a pair of ordinary steel handcuffs. Their weapons were taken away +from them now.</p> + +<p>The leader of the committee, panting, but apparently unconcerned over +what had happened, motioned the two men to lead the way. He pointed to +the large building in the center of the "floor."</p> + +<p>"That way," he said, "and I hope Sitsumi and The Three give us +permission to throw you out without parachutes or high altitude suits."</p> + +<p>"Pleasant cuss, aren't you?" said Eyer. "I don't think you like us."</p> + +<p>The man would have struck Eyer for his grinning levity; but at that +moment a door opened in the side of the large building and a man in +Oriental robes stood there.</p> + +<p>"Bring then here at once, Naka!" he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he man called Naka, the leader whom Jeter had first struck, bowed low, +with deep respect, to the man in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Yes, O Sitsumi!" he said. As he spoke he sucked in his breath with that +snakelike hissing sound which is the acme of politeness, in Japan—"that +my humble breath may not blow upon you"—and spread wide his hands. +"They are extremely low persons and dared lay hands upon your +emissaries."</p> + +<p>Eyer grinned again.</p> + +<p>"I think," he called, "there transpired what might be called a general +laying on of hands by all hands."</p> + +<p>"I deeply deplore your inclination to levity, Tema Eyer," said the man +in the doorway. "It is not seemly in one whose intelligence entitles him +to a place in our counsels."</p> + +<p>Eyer looked at Jeter. What was the meaning of Sitsumi's cryptic +utterance?</p> + +<p>"Bring them in," snapped Sitsumi.</p> + +<p>Jeter studied the man with interest. He knew instantly who he was and +understood why Sitsumi had refused to answer his radio messages to +Japan. He couldn't very well have done so in the circumstances. Here, +under the broad dome of Sitsumi was probably the greatest scientific +brain of the century. Jeter saw cruelty in his eyes too; ruthlessness, +and determination.</p> + +<p>The prisoners were marched into the room behind Sitsumi, who stepped +aside, looking curiously at Jeter and Eyer as they passed him. Inside +the door, pausing only a moment to glance over the big room's +appointments, Jeter turned on Sitsumi.</p> + +<p>"Just what do you intend doing with us, Sitsumi?" he asked. "I suppose +it's useless to ask you, also, what the meaning of all this is?"</p> + +<p>"I shall answer both your questions, Jeter," said Sitsumi. "Step this +way, please. The Three should hear our conference."</p> + +<p>They were conducted into a smaller room. Its floors were covered with +skins. There were easy chairs and divans. It might have been their own +luxuriously appointed rooms at Mineola. At a long table three men—all +Orientals—were deeply immersed in some activity which bent their heads +absorbedly over the very center of the table. It might have been a +three-sided chess game, by their attitudes.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen!" said Sitsumi.</p> + +<p>The three men turned.</p> + +<p>"My colleagues, Wang Li, Liao Wu and Yung Chan," Sitsumi introduced +them. "Without them our great work would have been impossible."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">H</span>ere were the three missing Chinese scientists. Jeter and Eyer had seen +many pictures of them. Jeter wondered whether their adherence to Sitsumi +were voluntary or forced. But it was voluntary, of course. The three +brains of these brilliant men could easily have outwitted Sitsumi had +they been unwilling to associate themselves with him. The three +Orientals bowed.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer were bidden to take chairs side by side. The guards drew +back a little but never took their eyes off the two. Sitsumi ranged +himself beside his colleagues at the table.</p> + +<p>"I'll answer your questions now, gentlemen, in the presence of my +colleagues so that you shall know that we are together in what we +propose. We wish you to join us. The only alternative is ... well, you +recall what happened to your countryman, Kress? The same, or a similar +fate, will be yours if you don't ally yourselves with us."</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>"Just what <i>are</i> you doing?" asked Jeter. "I've seen some of the results +of your activities, but I can see no reason for them. I would pronounce +everything you have done so far to be the acts of madmen."</p> + +<p>"We are not mad," said Sitsumi. "We are simply a group of people of +mixed blood who deplore the barriers of racial prejudice, for one thing. +We are advocates of a deliberately contrived super-race, produced by the +amalgamation of the best minds and the best bodies of all races. We +ourselves are what the world calls Eurasians. In our youth people +patronised us. In Asia we were shunned. We were shunned everywhere by +both races from which we trace our ancestry. We are not trying to be +avenged upon the world because we have been pariahs. We are not so +petty. But by striving until we have become the world's four greatest +scientists we have proved to our own satisfaction that a mixture of +blood is a wholesome thing. This expedition of ours, and its effect so +far on New York City, is the result of our years of planning."</p> + +<p>"I see no need for wholesale murder. Lecture platforms are open to all +creeds, all races...."</p> + +<p>Something suggestive of a sneer creased Sitsumi's lips. The Three did +not change expression in the least.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">"P</span>eople do not listen to reason. They listen to force. We will use force +to make them listen, in the end, to reason—backed in turn by force, if +you like. We have settled on New York from which to begin our conquest +of the world because it is the world's largest, richest, most +representative city. If we control New York we control the wealth of the +North American continent, and therefore the continent itself. Our +destruction of buildings in New York City serves a twofold purpose. It +prepares the inhabitants to listen to us later because, seeing what we +are capable of doing, they will be afraid not to. Our efficiency is +further shown in our destruction of the old out-of-date buildings, +chosen for destruction simply because they are obsolete. The New York +City of our schemes will be a magic city...."</p> + +<p>"But what is your purpose, in a few words?" insisted Jeter.</p> + +<p>"The foundation of a world government; the destruction of the mentally +deficient; the scientific production of a mixed race of intellectuals, +comparable to, but greater than, that of ancient Greece, which was great +because it was a human melting pot."</p> + +<p>"How are you going to do it—after you've finished your grandstand +plays?" said Eyer.</p> + +<p>Sitsumi stared at Eyer, his eyes narrowing. Eyer was making his dislike +entirely too plain. Jeter nudged him, but the question had been asked.</p> + +<p>"With this space ship—and others which are building," replied Sitsumi. +"Haven't you guessed at any of our methods?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jeter, "I know you are the rumored inventor of a substance +which is invisible because light rays are bent around it instead of +passing through, yet the result is as though they actually passed +through. I judge that the shell, or skin, of this stratosphere ship is +composed of this substance, whose formula of construction is your +secret. Light rays passing around it would render it invisible, yet +would make the beholding eye seem to see in a straight line as usual, +disregarding refraction."</p> + +<p>Sitsumi nodded. The Three nodded with him, like puppets. But their eyes +were glowingly alive.</p> + +<p>"You are right. Are you further interested? If you have no interest in +our theories there is little need to pursue our plans further, where you +are concerned."</p> + +<p>"We are interested, of course," said Jeter. "We are interested in your +theories, without committing ourselves to acceptance of them; and we are +naturally interested in saving our lives. Let us say then, for the +moment, that we do not refuse to join you."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h2><i>How It Came About</i></h2> + + +<p>"You will have twenty-four hours in which to decide whether to join us," +was Sitsumi's ultimatum. "We would not allow you five minutes were it +not that our cause would be benefited by the addition of your scientific +knowledge."</p> + +<p>Sitsumi did not repeat the alternative. Remembering Kress, Jeter and +Eyer did not need to ask him. There was but one alternative—death—a +particularly horrible one. That Sitsumi and the Three would not hesitate +was amply proved. Already they were guilty of the death of thousands. +They were in deadly earnest with their scheme for a world government.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer were kept shackled together, and were, in addition, +chained to the floor of the main room of the white globe with leg irons. +Their keys were in the hands of Naka, whose hatred of Jeter for hitting +him on the jaw was so malevolent it fairly glowed from his eyes like +sparks shot forth.</p> + +<p>Food was brought them when asked for. It wasn't easy to partake of it, +because their manacled hands had to be moved together, which made it +extremely awkward.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer set themselves the task of trying to figure some way out +in the twenty-four hours of life still left them if they failed. That +Hadley, down in New York City, and all the best minds who were +cooperating with Jeter and Eyer in their mad effort to avert world +catastrophe, would make every effort to come to their assistance by +sending up the planes which must even now be nearing completion, they +hadn't the slightest doubt.</p> + +<p>Would they arrive in time? Even if they did, was there anything they +could possibly do to save themselves? Surely this space ship must be +vulnerable. Else why did it climb so high into the stratosphere? It was +far beyond the reach of ordinary planes. High trajectory projectiles had +slight chance of hitting it, even if it were visible. What then was its +vulnerability, which this hiding seemed to indicate? They must know +within twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>So they sat side by side, watching events unfold. The Three talked +mandarin. Eyer, for all his levity, was a man of unusual attainments. He +understood mandarin, for one thing—a fact which even Jeter did not know +at first. The Chinese never seemed even to consider that either of them +might know the tongue. Chinese seldom found foreigners who did +comprehend them. In only so much were The Three in the least bit +careless.</p> + +<p>Eyer strained his ears to hear everything which passed between Sitsumi +and the Three. Both men listened to any chance words in English or +French on the part of all hands within the globe which might give them a +hint.</p> + +<p>And in those twenty-four hours the sky-scientists learned much.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hey conversed together, when they spoke of important matters which they +wished hidden from their captors, out of the corners of their mouths +after the method of criminals. They used it with elaborate unconcern. +They might have seemed to be simply staring into space at such moments, +dreading approaching death perhaps, and simply twiddling their fingers. +But by each other every word was clearly heard.</p> + +<p>"That last outburst of Sitsumi's explains a lot of the reported activity +in the Lake Baikal region, beyond the Gobi," swiftly dropped from +Jeter's lips. "The materials which Sitsumi uses in the preparation of +his light-ray-bending substance are found near there somehow. And that +means that the Japanese guards—which may be Eurasian guards, after what +Sitsumi told us—and employees of this unholy crowd, are easily engaged +in the preparation of other space ships."</p> + +<p>"Does this thing seem to have any armament?" asked Eyer.</p> + +<p>Jeter signified negation with a swift movement of his head.</p> + +<p>"Their one weapon seems to be the apparatus which causes that ray. You +know, the ray which lifts buildings, pulling them up by the roots."</p> + +<p>"Have you any idea what it is?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. That last stuff of the Three which you translated for me gives me +a clue. At first I thought that they had perfected some substance, +perhaps with unknown electrical properties, which nullified gravity. But +that won't prove out. If the ray simply nullified gravity, the buildings +down there, while weightless, would not rise as they did. They might +sway if somebody breathed against them. A midget might lift one with his +finger; but they wouldn't fly skyward as they did—and do!"</p> + +<p>For a moment the partners ceased their whispering and talked together +naturally to disarm suspicion. The fact that the space ship and its +ruthless denizens still engaged in the awful work of devastation was +amply being proved. In the main room it was possible, through the use of +telescopes and audiphones—set into the walls so that they were +invisible, yet enabled any one in the room to see everything, and hear +everything that transpired on the far earth below—to keep close watch +on the work of the destroyers. Anything close enough could be seen with +the naked eye through the walls of the globe.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">N</span>ow the space ship was systematically destroying buildings the length +and breadth of Manhattan Island. The river-front buildings were +destroyed in a single sweep, from north to south, of the ghastly ray. +Farther back from the Hudson, however, after the water-front buildings +had been reduced to mere piles of rubble, the most beautiful, most +modern buildings were left standing.</p> + +<p>"Can't you just imagine those beautiful structures filled with the +monsters created by the genius of Sitsumi and the Three—and their as +yet unknown lieutenants back at Lake Baikal?"</p> + +<p>Eyer gritted his teeth. His hands closed atop the table at which they +were seated. The knuckles went white with the strain. The lips of both +men were white. They realized to the full the dreadful responsibility +which they had assumed. They knew how abysmally hopeless was their +chance of accomplishing anything. And without some gigantic effort being +made, the world as they knew it would be destroyed. In its place would +be a race of strange beings, of vengeful hybrids endowed from birth +with the will to conquer, or destroy utterly.</p> + +<p>"You were speaking of the levitating ray," prompted Eyer with swift +change to the sidewise whispering.</p> + +<p>"From what you heard I'm sure it is something invented by Liao Wu, Yung +Chan and Wang Li. In so much they have an advantage over Sitsumi. I +doubt if there is any love lost among them, beyond the fact that they +need one another. Sitsumi is master of the substance which bends light +rays—and thus is rendered invisible, while the Three are masters of the +ray which not only propels this space ship, but is the agency by which +buildings are torn up, dropped and destroyed. It's plain to me that this +room is the control room of the space ship. The ray is—well, it's as +difficult to explain as electricity, and perhaps as simple in its +operation. The ray does more than nullify gravity—can be made to +reverse gravity! Let's call the ray the gravity inverter for want of a +better name. It makes anything it touches literally <i>fall away from the +Earth</i>, toward the point whence the ray emanates!"</p> + +<p>"And if we were to obtain control of the apparatus which harnesses the +ray?"</p> + +<p>"We lack the knowledge of the Three for its operation. No, we've got to +find some simpler solution in the brief time we have."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span>t this point the partners had been within the white globe about ten +hours and they had learned much about it. The inner globe, for example, +maintained an even keel, no matter how the space ship as a whole moved +on its rays that seemed like table legs. The gyroscopic principle was +used. The inner globe was movable within the outer globe, or rind. If +for any reason the space ship listed in one direction or the other, the +inner globe, while it rose and fell naturally, remained upright, its +floor always level so that, the gyroscope controlling the whole, the +central, levitating, ray would always, must always, as it proved, point +downward.</p> + +<p>Try as they might, the partners could not see how the Three manipulated +the ray. They guessed that there were many buttons on the table at which +they sat. The table itself was not an ordinary table. What might have +been called a fifth leg, squarely under the center of the table, was +about three feet square. Through this, Jeter guessed, ran the wires by +which they controlled all their activities, machinery to operate which +had been installed under the floor in the unseen lower half of the inner +globe.</p> + +<p>They knew that must remain forever a secret from them.</p> + +<p>There was a sudden stir among the Three. Jeter and Eyer turned aside for +a moment to peer down upon New York City. They held their breath with +horror as they saw the smoking devastation which must have buried +thousands of people. The wrecking had been all but complete. Only the +finest buildings still stood. Jeter wondered why the falling back of the +shattered buildings had not shaken down those which the Sitsumi crowd +had not wished to destroy. The repeated shocks must almost have shaken +Manhattan Island on its foundations.</p> + +<p>They saw what had caused the sudden stiffening of the Three. Sitsumi, +busily engaged at something else nearby, quietly approached the Three.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Rescue planes," said Wang Li. "New York City sends six fliers to rescue +Jeter and Eyer. New planes. They'll reach us, Sitsumi. We should have +thought to destroy all dangerous air ports. A fatal oversight!"</p> + +<p>Sitsumi's eyes were grave. He looked at each of the Three in turn.</p> + +<p>"God!" said Jeter's whispering lips. "If we could read their minds! If +only we could guess what it is they fear, we'd have the secret by which +we might destroy them."</p> + +<p>"They're vulnerable," said Eyer, "but how?"</p> + +<p>"Watch!" said Jeter. "Listen! And here's to those six unknowns coming up +to, maybe, get the same dose we're due for! We were closely watched. New +York City knows exactly where we vanished in the sky. Those six planes +are aiming at us—at a spot in the stratosphere they can't see. And yet, +why should Sitsumi and the Three be so fearful? All they have to do is +move a half mile in any direction and they'll never find them."</p> + +<p>"But to move will interfere with their plans," said Eyer. "Lucian, look +at the expressions on their faces! Something tells me they are +vulnerable in ways we haven't guessed at. If we knew the secret maybe we +could destroy them. We've got to discover their weak spot."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>here was a long pause while Jeter and Eyer watched the rescue ships +come climbing up the endless stairways of the sky. Then Jeter whispered +again, guardedly as usual.</p> + +<p>"There seems to be nothing we can do. If our friends are able, by some +miracle, to do something, you know what that means to us?"</p> + +<p>"It means we're as good as dead no matter what happens," replied Eyer. +"But we're only two—and there must be a million buried under the debris +in New York City alone. If we can do anything at all...."</p> + +<p>There he left it. The partners looked at each other. Each read the right +answer in the other's eyes. When the showdown came they'd die as +cheerfully as they knew how, hoping to the last to do something for the +people who must still hope that, somehow, they would cause this bitter +cup of catastrophe to pass from them. And there were thousands upon +thousands whose blood cried out for vengeance.</p> + +<p>The hours sped as the six planes fled upward. To the ears of the +partners, through the audiphones, came the stern roaring of their +motors. In their eyes they bulked larger and larger as the time fled +away.</p> + +<p>The sand in the hour glass was running out. When it was all gone, and +the time had come, what could the helpless Jeter and Eyer hope to +accomplish?</p> + +<p>For an hour they studied the concerned faces of Sitsumi and the Three.</p> + +<p>They were fearful of something.</p> + +<p>What?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h2><i>To the Rescue</i></h2> + + +<p>"Why should we run?" the voice of Sitsumi suddenly rang out in the +control room. "Must we admit in the very beginning of our revolution +that we are vulnerable? Must we confess the fears to which all humanity +is heir? We had not thought ourselves liable to attack, but there still +is a way to destroy these upstarts. To your places, everyone! We shall +fight these winged upstarts and destroy them!"</p> + +<p>The denizens of the space ship were at their stations. Jeter and Eyer +could imagine the minions of Sitsumi and the Three, below the floor of +the white globe, standing-to on platforms about the unseen engines which +gave life and movability to this ship of the stratosphere. How many +there were of them there was no way of knowing. They had guessed two +hundred. There might have been a thousand. It scarcely mattered.</p> + +<p>Sitsumi's face was set in a firm mask. He, of all the "lords of the +stratosphere," seemed to possess endless courage. His example fired the +three.</p> + +<p>"What do you plan?" asked Wang Li.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer listened with all their ears.</p> + +<p>"We have only one weapon in this unexpected emergency," said Sitsumi +quietly. "We cannot direct the ray upward or laterally: it is not so +constructed. But we can attack with the space ship itself! And remember +that so long as our outer rind remains intact and hard we are invisible +to attackers."</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances.</p> + +<p>"If only we could find the way to break or soften that outer rind," said +Jeter.</p> + +<p>"What can we do?" asked Eyer. "If it is impervious to the cold of these +heights; if it is so strong that it is impervious to the tremendous +pressure inside the globe—which must be kept at a certain degree to +maintain human life—what can we do? We tried bullets. We might as well +have used peas and pea-shooters. If our friends try bombs they will +still be unsuccessful. If only we could somehow open up the outer rind +or soften it, so that our friends could see the inner globe and reach it +with their bombs!"</p> + +<p>Jeter's face was now dead white. His eyes were aglow with excitement.</p> + +<p>"Tema," he whispered, "Tema, that's their vulnerability! That's what +they fear! They're scared that the outer rind may be broken—which would +spell destruction to the space ship and everybody in it."</p> + +<p>"Including us," replied Eyer, "but, anyway—well, what's the odds? We're +only two—and with this thing destroyed the nightmare will end. Of +course there should be some way to raid the Lake Baikal area and destroy +any other ships in the making, besides ferreting out the secret of the +invisible substance and the elements of the gravity inverter. If we +somehow survive, and this ship is destroyed, that's the next thing to +do."</p> + +<p>Jeter nodded and signaled Eyer to cease whispering.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>hey devoted their attention now to the six planes. They were coming up +in battle formation. They were in plain view and through the telescopes +it could be seen that each was armed with bombs of some kind. Useless +against the invisible space ship as matters now stood; but what would +those bombs do to the inner globe?</p> + +<p>It still lacked several hours of the time allowed in the ultimatum to +Jeter and Eyer of Sitsumi and the Three, when the six planes leveled off +within a couple of miles of the space ship. They knew about where the +stratosphere had swallowed up Jeter and Eyer. Now they were casting +about for a sign, like bloodhounds seeking the spoor of an enemy.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer held their breaths as they watched. Now and again they +stole glances at Sitsumi and the Three, who were watching the six planes +with the intensity of eagles preparing to dive.</p> + +<p>Naka stepped up close to Jeter.</p> + +<p>"When the time comes," he said menacingly, "and it appears that we may +be in difficulties with the fools who think to thwart Sitsumi and the +Three and rescue you, it shall give me great pleasure to destroy you +with your own automatic."</p> + +<p>"Pleasant fellow," said Eyer. "Shall I smash him, Lucian?"</p> + +<p>Jeter shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Our friends out there will look after that, Tema," he said in a natural +tone of voice. "I'll bet you two to one they get this ship within an +hour. Not that a bet will mean anything, as they'll get us, too!"</p> + +<p>"Your friends," said Naka, "will be destroyed. They will not even be +given the opportunity you were given. Sitsumi and the Three will waste +but little time on them!"</p> + +<p>"What," said Jeter calmly "is Sitsumi's hurry? Why is he scared?"</p> + +<p>"Scared?" Naka seemed on the point of hitting Jeter for the blasphemy. +"Scared? He fears nothing. We'll down your friends long before their +motors—"</p> + +<p>Sitsumi suddenly turned and looked at Naka. The look in Sitsumi's eyes +was murderous, Naka went dead white.</p> + +<p>"I think your master believes you talk too much, Naka," said Jeter, but +Jeter's eyes were gleaming, too.</p> + +<p>As soon as Sitsumi had turned back to his station Jeter's lips began to +move.</p> + +<p>"See?" he said. "It isn't their machine guns these people fear. It isn't +their bombs—it's their motors! I wonder why...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">B</span>y now the six planes were flying abreast, in battle formation, almost +above the space ship, at perhaps a thousand feet greater elevation. A +strange humming sound was traveling through the space ship. The whole +inner globe was vibrating, shaking—and vibration was a menace to glass +or crystal!</p> + +<p>"We've got the answer!" said Jeter. "The outer rind, while capable of +being softened—in sections at least, with safety—for special reasons, +such as happened when we were 'swallowed,' can be hardened to the point +of disruption. It can be shattered, Tema, by vibration! That's why the +space ship keeps far above the roar of cities! The humming of countless +automobile engines might shatter the rind! God, I hope this is the +answer!"</p> + +<p>In his mind's eye Eyer could picture it—the outer rind "freezing" +solid, and cracking with the thunderous report of snapping ice on a +forest lake. No wonder Sitsumi and the Three must destroy the six +planes.</p> + +<p>"Now!" yelled Sitsumi. "Shift positions! The space ship will be hurled +directly at the formation of planes! Wang Li, to the beam controls!"</p> + +<p>Wang Li sprang to the table, pressed a button. The humming sound in the +space ship grew to mighty proportions. The trembling increased.</p> + +<p>Jeter and Eyer kept their eyes glued to the six planes above. Without +tilting their noses the six planes seemed to plunge straight down toward +the surface of the space ship. Thus the two knew that the space ship was +in motion—itself being bodily hurled, as its only present weapon of +offense, against the earthling attackers.</p> + +<p>A split second—</p> + +<p>One of the planes struck the surface solidly and crashed. Instantly its +wheels and its motor were caught in the outer rind.</p> + +<p>The other five ships scattered wildly, escaping the collision by some +sixth sense, or through pure chance.</p> + +<p>"Poor devil!" said Jeter. "But his buddies can see his plane and know +that it marks the spot where they could conveniently drop their bombs."</p> + +<p>Eyer was on the point of nodding when Sitsumi shouted.</p> + +<p>"Quickly, Wang Li! Spin the outer shell before the enemy uses the +wrecked plane as an aiming point!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">A</span> whirring sound. The plane whirled around as though it were twirled on +the end of a string. To the five other pilots it must have seemed that +the plane had struck some invisible obstruction, been smashed, and now +was whirling away to destruction after a strange, incomprehensible +hesitation in the heart of the stratosphere.</p> + +<p>"Quickly, you fool!" shouted Sitsumi at Wang Li. "You're napping! You +should have got all those planes! And you should have spun the outer +globe instantly, before the remaining enemy had a chance to find out our +location."</p> + +<p>"I can move away a half mile," suggested Wang Li.</p> + +<p>"We've got to silence those motors, fool!" yelled Sitsumi. "You know +very well that we can't run. Charge them again, and take care this time +that you crash into the middle of their formation."</p> + +<p>"They're scattered over too great an area. I should wait for them to +reform."</p> + +<p>"Fool! Fool! Don't you think I know the weakness in my own invention? +The proper vibration will destroy us! If the rind is softened we become +visible. We dare not wait for them to reform! Attack each plane +separately if necessary, and at top speed!"</p> + +<p>Jeter began to speak rapidly out of the corner of his mouth. Even Naka's +attention was fastened on the five planes and Wang Li's efforts to +destroy them.</p> + +<p>"Gag Naka!" said Jeter. "The keys! In some way we've got to get to our +plane. It's barely possible. If we can start the motor.... Hurry! Now, +while the whole outfit is watching our friends out there!"</p> + +<p>Eyer rose and reached for Naka with his right hand.</p> + +<p>He dared not miss his lunge. He did not. His huge hand fastened in the +throat of their keeper. Nobody—neither Sitsumi nor the Three—turned as +Naka gasped and struggled. Eyer pulled the man back over the table and, +his neck thus within reach of both hands, snapped it as he would have +broken the neck of a chicken.</p> + +<p>Jeter was already searching the body for the keys. He found them.</p> + +<p>Their leg irons were just falling free when Sitsumi turned. Eyer was +feeling for the automatics in Naka's belt.</p> + +<p>"We won't need them!" yelled Jeter. "There isn't time. Let's go!"</p> + +<p>Jeter was away at top speed, almost pulling Eyer off his feet because +their hands were still fastened together with the handcuffs.</p> + +<p>They were outside on the floor level.</p> + +<p>And through many doors denizens of the lower control room, hurried out +by the commands of Sitsumi, were racing to head them off. But nothing +could stop them. One man got in their way and Eyer's right fist caved in +his face with one deadly, devastating blow. They had now reached the +stairs.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">T</span>he space ship was being hurled at the five remaining planes. Even as +the two men reached the stairs and started up, another of the dauntless +rescuers paid with his life for his courage. Several bombs exploded as +his plane struck the space ship, but they caused no damage whatever. The +hard outer rind seemed to be impervious to the explosions. Obviously no +explosive could destroy the space ship.</p> + +<p>"Quickly, Tema," said Jeter. "The rind can be shattered by vibration, +and we've got to do it somehow."</p> + +<p>"And after that?" panted Eyer.</p> + +<p>"Our friends out there can then see the inner globe. They'll drop bombs. +They'll smash in the globe and—"</p> + +<p>"I know," said Eyer. "Its inhabitants, including us, will start off in +all directions through the stratosphere, with great speed, and probably +in many pieces."</p> + +<p>Jeter laughed. Eyer laughed with him. They didn't fear death, for now +they felt they were on the verge of destroying this monster of space.</p> + +<p>Their pursuers were following them closely.</p> + +<p>Jeter frantically tried to unfasten the handcuffs as they ran. He didn't +manage it until the door was almost reached. He left one cuff dangling +on his right wrist.</p> + +<p>Then, they were through the door.</p> + +<p>"Now, Tema," shouted Jeter, "if you believe in God—if you have +faith—pray for strength to move this plane!"</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"So that its wheels and nose go through this open door! Then it won't +travel forward when we start the motor—and our pursuers won't be able +to get through to stop us."</p> + +<p>"You think of everything, don't you?" There was a grin on Eyer's face. +But his eyes were stern. He wasn't belittling their deadly danger. And +there was also a chance that Jeter's vibration idea was wrong.</p> + +<p>"Those four planes," panted Jeter, as the two tried to get their plane +in motion toward the door, "cause, from a distance, through thin air, a +slight vibration, varying with their distance from the globe; our plane +motor racing and actually in contact with the globe, can set up a +tremendous vibration by its great motor speed. If we can vibrate the +globe up to its shattering point there's a chance!"</p> + +<p>"We can't pull her, Lucian," said Eyer. "I'll do a Horatius at the door. +You get in, start the motor, taxi her until the wheels go through. I'll +keep the crowd back."</p> + +<p>"Right!"</p> + +<p>Jeter went through the doors into the plane. In a few seconds the +propeller kicked over, hesitated, kicked again. Then the motor coughed, +coughed again, and broke into a steady roaring.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h2><i>High Chaos</i></h2> + + +<p>The plane moved forward. Its tail swung around. Its wheels headed for +the door. They dropped through, into the faces of the foremost pursuers, +all of whom were thus effectually blocked off.</p> + +<p>The plane was held as in a vise. The propeller vanished in a blur as +Jeter let the motor out. It was humming an even, steady note. The doors +came open again.</p> + +<p>Jeter came out, his eyes glowing.</p> + +<p>"We haven't the chance of the proverbial celluloid dog chasing the +asbestos cat," he shouted to be heard above the roar of the motor. "But +grab your high altitude suit, oxygen container, and parachute, and let's +get as far away from this plane as we can. Who knows? When the end comes +we may get a break at that!"</p> + +<p>They ran until the bulge of the inner globe all but hid the plane from +them. They could see only the top wing. They did not go farther because +they wished to make sure that the enemy did not dislodge the plane and +nullify all their work.</p> + +<p>"They won't be able to," said Jeter, "for that motor is pulling against +the wheels and holding them so tight against the side of that door that +a hundred men couldn't budge the plane. But we can't take chances."</p> + +<p>Quickly the partners slipped into their suits, adjusted their oxygen +tanks and parachutes. Then Jeter slipped back the elastic sleeve of his +suit and motioned Eyer to do the same. The manacles were brought into +view again. They looked at each other. Eyer grinned and held out his +left hand. Jeter snapped the second cuff to Eyer's wrist.</p> + +<p>The act was significant.</p> + +<p>Whatever happened to them, would happen to both in equal measure. It was +a gesture which needed no words. If they were slain when their +friends—if their theory was correct—finally saw the space ship, they +would die together. If by some miracle they were hurled into outer space +and lived to use their parachutes—well, the discomfort was a small +price to pay to stay together.</p> + +<p>Now they devoted all their attention to their own situation. Four planes +still spun warily above the space ship. Wang Li was patently trying with +all his might to get all four of them before the Jeter-Eyer plane, by +shattering the rind, disclosed the inner core to the bombs of the +remaining planes.</p> + +<p>"Lucian!" said the fingers of Eyer. "Can you tell whether anything is +happening to the rind?"</p> + +<p>Jeter hesitated for a long time. There was a distinct and almost +nauseating vibration throughout all the space ship. And was there not +something happening to the rind over a wide area, directly above the +Jeter-Eyer plane?</p> + +<p>They could fancy the snapping of ice on a forest lake in mid-winter.</p> + +<p>They couldn't hear, in their suits. They could only feel. But all at +once the outer rind, above their plane, vanished. At the same instant +the plane itself, propeller still spinning, rose swiftly up through the +hole in the rind. The air inside the globe was going out in a great +rush.</p> + +<p>The partners looked at each other. At that moment the four planes +swooped over the space ship....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class="f1">J</span>eter and Eyer knew that the inner globe had at last become visible, for +from the bellies of the four planes dropped bomb after bomb. They fell +into the great aperture. Jeter and Eyer flung themselves flat. But the +bombs had worked sufficient havoc. They had removed all protection from +the low-pressure stratosphere. The air inside the space ship went out +with a rush. Jeter and Eyer, hearing nothing, though they knew that the +explosions must have been cataclysmic, were picked up and whirled toward +that opening, like chips spun toward the heart of a whirlpool.</p> + +<p>But for their space suits they would have been destroyed in the outrush +of air. Out of the inner globe came men that flew, sprawled out, +somersaulting up and out of apertures made by the crashing bombs. +Ludicrous they looked. Blood streamed from their mouths. Their faces +were set in masks of agony. There were Sitsumi and, one after another, +the Three.</p> + +<p>Then fastened together by the cuffs, the partners were being whirled +over and over, out into space. Their last signals to each other had +been:</p> + +<p>"Even if you're already dead, pull the ripcord ring of your chute!"</p> + +<p>Crushed, buffeted, they still retained consciousness. They sought +through the spinning stratosphere for their rescuers. Thousands of feet +below—or was it above?—they saw them. Yes, below, for they looked at +the tops of the planes. Their upward flight had been dizzying. They +waited until their upward flight ceased.</p> + +<p>Then, as they started the long fall to Earth, they pulled their rings +and waited for their chutes to flower above them.</p> + +<p>Soon they were floating downward. Side by side they rode. Above them +their parachutes were like two umbrellas, pressed almost too closely +together.</p> + +<p>They looked about them, seeking the space ship.</p> + +<p>The devastation of its outer rind had been complete, for they now could +see the inner globe, and it too was like—well, like merely part of an +eggshell.</p> + +<p>The doomed space ship—gyroscope still keeping the ray pointed +Earthward—describing an erratic course, was shooting farther upward +into the stratosphere, propelled by the ghastly ray which, now no longer +controlled by Wang Li, drove the space ship madly through the outer +cold.</p> + +<p>Far below the partners many things were falling: broken furnishings of +mad dreamers' stratosphere laboratories, parts of strange machines, +whirling, somersaulting things that had once been men.</p> + +<p>The partners looked at each other.</p> + +<p>The same thought was in the mind of each, as the four remaining planes +came in toward them to convoy them down—that when the lords of the +stratosphere finally reached the far Earth, only God would know which +was Sitsumi and who were the Three.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lords of the Stratosphere, by Arthur J. 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Burks + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lords of the Stratosphere + +Author: Arthur J. Burks + +Release Date: July 20, 2009 [EBook #29466] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORDS OF THE STRATOSPHERE *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the + U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + The Table of Contents is not part of the original magazine. + + + + Lords of the Stratosphere + + _A Complete Novelette_ + + + By Arthur J. Burks + + * * * * * + + + + + Contents + + I The Take-off + II The Ghostly Columns + III Strange Levitation + IV Frantic Scheming + V Into the Void + VI Stratosphere Currents + VII Invisible Globe + VIII Cataclysmic Hunger + IX A Scheme Is Described + X How It Came About + XI To the Rescue + + * * * * * + + + + +[Sidenote: High into air are the great New York buildings lifted by a +ray whose source no telescope can find.] + +CHAPTER I + +_The Take-off_ + + +It seemed only fitting and proper that the greatest of all leaps into +space should start from Roosevelt Field, where so many great flights had +begun and ended. Fliers whose names had rung--for a space--around the +world, had landed here and been received by New York with all the pomp +of visiting kings. Fliers had departed here for the lands of kings, to +be received by them when their journeys were ended. + +Of course Lucian Jeter and Tema Eyer were disappointed that Franz Kress +had beaten them out in the race to be first into the stratosphere above +fifty-five thousand feet. There was a chance that Kress would fail, when +it would be the turn of Jeter and Eyer. They didn't wish for his +failure, of course. They were sports-men as well as scientists; but +they were just human enough to anticipate the plaudits of the world +which would be showered without stint upon the fliers who succeeded. + +[Illustration: _The warship simply vanished into the night sky._] + +"At least, Tema," said Jeter quietly, "we can look his ship over and see +if there is anything about it that will suggest something to us. Of +course, whether he succeeds or fails, we shall make the attempt as soon +as we are ready." + +"Indeed, yes," replied Eyer. "For no man will ever fly so high that +another may not fly even higher. Once planes are constructed of +unlimited flying radius ... well, the universe is large and there should +be no end of space fights for a long time." + +Eyer, the elder of the two partner scientists, was given sometimes to +quiet biting sarcasm that almost took the hide off. Jeter never minded +greatly, for he knew Eyer thoroughly and liked him immensely. Besides +they were complements to each other. The brain of each received from the +other exactly that which he needed to supplement his own knowledge of +science. + +They had one other thing in common. They had been "child prodigies," but +contrary to the usual rule, they had both fulfilled their early promise. +Their early precocious wisdom had not vanished with the passing of +childhood. Each possessed a name with which to conjure in the world of +science. And each possessed that name by right of having made it famous. +And yet--they were under forty. + +Jeter was a slender athletic chap with deep blue eyes and brown hair. +His forehead was high and unnaturally white. There was always a still +sort of tenseness about him when his mind was working with some idea +that set him apart from the rest of the world. You felt then that you +couldn't have broken his preoccupation in any manner at all--but that if +by some miracle you did, he would wither you with his wrath. + +Tema Eyer was the good nature of the partnership, with a brain no less +agile and profound. He was a swart fellow, straight as an arrow, black +of eyes--the sort which caused both men and women to turn and look after +him on the street. Children took to both men on sight. + +The crowd which had come out to watch the take-off of Franz Kress was a +huge one--huge and restless. There had been much publicity attendant on +this flight, none of it welcome to Kress. Oh, later, if he succeeded, he +would welcome publicity, but publicity in advance rather nettled him. + +Jeter and Eyer went across to him as he was saying his last words into +the microphone before stepping into his sealed cabin for the flight. +Kress saw them coming and his face lighted up. + +"Lord," he said, "I'm glad to see you two. I've something I must ask +you." + +"Anything you ask will be answered," said Jeter, "if Tema and I can +answer it. Or granted--if it's a favor you wish." + +Kress motioned people back in order to speak more or less privately with +his brother scientists. His face became unusually grave. + +"You've probably wondered--everybody has--why I insist on making this +flight alone," he said, speaking just loudly enough to be heard above +the purring of the mighty, but almost silent motor behind him. "I'll +tell you, partly. I've had a feeling for the last month that ... well, +that things may not turn out exactly as everybody hopes. Of course I'll +blaze the way to new discoveries; yes, and I'll climb to a height of +around a hundred thousand feet ... and ... and...." + +Jeter and Eyer looked at each other. It wasn't like Kress to be gloomy +just before doing something that no man had ever done before. He should +have been smiling and happy--at least for the movietone cameras--but he +wasn't even that. Certainly it must be something unusual to so concern +him. + +"Tell us, Kress," said Eyer. + +Kress looked at them both for several moments. + +"Just this," he said at last: "work on your own high altitude plane with +all possible speed. If I don't come back ... take off and follow me into +the stratosphere at once." + +Had Kress, possessor of one of the keenest scientific minds in the +world, taken leave of his senses? "If I don't come back," he had said. +What did he expect to do? Fly off the earth utterly? That was silly. + +But when the partners looked again at Kress they both had the same +feeling. It probably wasn't as silly as it sounded. Did Kress know +something he wasn't telling them? Did he really think he might ... well, +might fly off the earth entirely, away beyond her atmosphere, and never +return? How utterly absurd! And yet.... + +"Of course we'll do it," said Jeter. "We'd do it anyway, without word +from you. We haven't stopped our own work because of your swiftly +approaching conquest of the greater heights. But why shouldn't you come +back?" + + * * * * * + +For a moment there was a look of positive dread upon Kress' face. + +Then he spoke again very quietly: + +"You know all the stuff that's been written about my flight," he said. +"Most of it has been nonsense. How could laymen newspaper reporters have +any conception of what I may encounter aloft? They've tried to make +something of the recent passage of the Earth through an area of +so-called shooting stars. They've speculated until they're black in the +face as to the true nature of the recent bombardment of meteorites. +They've pictured me as a hero in advance, doomed to death by direct +attack from what they are pleased to call--after having invented +them--denizens of the stratosphere." + +"Yes?" said Jeter, when Kress paused. + +Kress took a deep breath. + +"They've come nearer than they hoped for in some guesses," he said. "Of +course I don't know it, but I've had a feeling for some time. You know +what sometimes happens when a man gets a sudden revolutionary idea? He +concentrates on it like all get-out. Then somebody else bursts into the +newspapers with the same identical idea, which in turn brings out hordes +of claims to the same idea by countless other people. It's no new thing +to writers and such-like gentry. They know that when they get such an +idea they must act on it at once or somebody else will, because their +thoughts on the subject have gone forth and impinged upon the mental +receiving sets of others. Well, that's a rough idea, anyway. This idea +of denizens of the stratosphere has attacked the popular imagination. +You'll remember it broke in the papers _simultaneously_, in thirty +countries of the world!" + +A cold chill ran down the spine of Tema Eyer. He saw, in a flash, +whither Kress' thoughts were tending--and when he saw that, it thrilled +him, too, for it seemed to be proof of the very thing Kress was saying. + +"You mean," he said hoarsely, "that you too think there may be something +up there, something ... well, sensate? Some great composite thought +which inspires the general dread of stratosphere denizens?" + +Kress shrugged. He wouldn't commit himself, being too careful a +scientist, but he hadn't hesitated to plant the idea. Jeter and Eyer +both understood the thoughts which were teeming in Kress' brain. + +"We'll do our part Kress," said Eyer. Lucian Jeter nodded agreement. +Kress gripped their hands tightly--almost desperately, Jeter thought. +Jeter was usually the leader where Eyer and himself were concerned and +he thought already that he foresaw cataclysmic events. + + * * * * * + +Kress climbed into his plane. The vast crowd murmured. They knew he was +adjusting everything inside for the days-long endurance test ahead of +him. Kress had forgotten nothing. There was even a specially made +cylinder, comparable to the globe which Picard had used in his historic +balloon ascensions in Europe. This was attached to a parachute which, if +the emergency arose, could be dropped. Kress, in the ball, could pass +through the sub-arctic cold of the stratosphere if necessity demanded. +The ball, if it struck the ocean, would preserve him for a great length +of time. It was even equipped with rockets. + +This plane was revolutionary. It was, to begin with, carrying a vast +load. Kress was taking every conceivable kind of instrument he fancied +he might need. There was food as for a long siege. + +Jeter shuddered. Why had he thought of the word "siege"? + +The great load would be carried without difficulty, however, for this +plane was little short of a miracle. Among other things, Kress would be +able, in case of fatigue, to set his controls--as at sea a pilot may +sometimes lash his wheel--and sleep while his plane mounted on up, and +up, in great spirals. + +Up beyond fifty-five thousand he hoped to attain a thousand miles an +hour velocity. That meant, say, breakfast in New York, lunch in London, +tea in Novo-Sibirsk, dinner in Yokohama--as soon as the myriad planes +which would follow this one in design and capabilities took off on the +trail Kress was blazing. + +Jeter sighed at the thought. For several years he had explored +little-known sections of the world. He had visited every country. He had +entered every port that could be reached from the ocean--and all the +time he had felt the Earth shrinking before the gods of speed. The time +would soon come when everything on Earth would be commonplace. Then +man's urge to go places he hadn't seen before would take him away from +the Earth entirely--when he would begin the task of making even the +universe shrink to appease the gods of speed. Somehow the thought was a +melancholy one. + +Now the crowd gave back as Kress speeded up his motor, indicating that +he would soon take off. Jeter and Eyer studied the outward outline of +Kress' craft. It looked exactly like a black beetle which has just +alighted after flight, but has not yet quite hidden its wings. It was +black, probably because it was believed a black object could be followed +easier from the Earth. + +There would be many anxious eyes watching that spiraling ship as it grew +smaller and smaller, climbing upward. + +With a rush, and a spinning of dust in the slipstream, the ship was +away. It lifted as easily as a bird and mounted with great speed. It was +capable of climbing in wide spirals at a hundred and fifty miles an +hour. + +A great sigh burst from the thousands who had come to watch history +made. For solid hours now they would watch the plane climb, growing +smaller, becoming a speck, vanishing. Many curious ones would stay right +here until Kress returned, fearful of being cheated of a great thrill. +For Kress was to land right here when, and if, he had conquered the +stratosphere. + + * * * * * + +Jeter and Eyer wormed their way through the crowd to the road and found +their car in a jam of other cars. Without a word they climbed in and +drove themselves to their dwelling--combined home and laboratory--in +Mineola. There they fell to on their own ship, which was being built +piece by piece in their laboratory. + +Every half hour or so one or the other would go to the lawn and gaze +aloft, seeking Kress. + +"He's out of eyesight," said Eyer, the last to go. "Is the telescope set +up?" + +"Yes, and arranged to cover all the area of sky through which Kress is +likely to climb." + +At intervals through the night, long after they had ceased work, the +partners rose from bed and sought their fellow scientist among the +stars. They alternated at this task. + +"According to my calculations," said Jeter, when the eastern sky was +just paling into dawn, "Kress has now reached a point higher than man +has ever flown before, higher than any living--" + +Jeter stopped on the word. Both men remembered Kress' last words. Kress, +upset or not, properly or improperly, had hinted of living things in the +stratosphere--perhaps utterly malignant entities. + +It was just here, in the dawning of the first day after Kress' +departure, that the dread began to grow on Jeter and Eyer. And during +the day they labored like Trojans at their work, as though to forget it. + +The world had begun its grim wait for the return of Kress. + +They waited all that day ... and the next ... and the next! + +Then telegraph and radio, at the suggestion of Jeter, instructed the +entire civilized world to turn its eyes skyward to watch for the return +of Kress. + +The world obeyed _that_ day ... and the next ... _and the next_! + +But Kress did not return; nor, so far as the world knew, did any or all +of his great airplane. + +The world itself began to have a feeling of dread--that grew. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +_The Ghostly Columns_ + + +Franz Kress had been gone a week, when all the world knew that he +couldn't possibly have stayed aloft that length of time. Yet no word was +received from him, no report received from any part of the world that he +had returned. Various islands which he might have reached were scoured +for traces of him. The lighter vessels of most of the navies of the +world joined in the search to no avail. Kress had merely mounted into +the sky and vanished. + +The world's last word from him had been a few words on the +radio-telephone: + +"Have reached sixty thousand feet and--" + +There the message had ended, as though the speaker, eleven miles above +the earth, had been strangled. Yet he didn't drop, as far as anybody in +the world knew. + +Lucian Jeter and Tema Eyer worked harder than ever, remembering the +promise they had made Kress at his take-off. Whatever had happened to +him, he seemingly in part had anticipated. And now the partners would +go up, too, seeking information--perhaps to vanish as Kress had +vanished. They were not afraid. They shared the world's feeling of +dread, but they were not afraid. Of course death would end their labors, +but there were many scientists in the world to take up where they might +leave off. + +There were, for example, Sitsumi of Japan, rumored discoverer of a +substance capable of bending light rays about itself to render itself +invisible; Wang Li, Liao Wu, Yung Chan, of China--three who had degrees +from the world's greatest universities and had added miraculously to the +store of knowledge by their own inspired research. These three were +patriotically eager to bring China back to her rightful place as the +leader in scientific research--a place she had not held for a thousand +years. It was generally agreed among scientists that the three would +shortly outstrip all their contemporaries. + +As Jeter thought of these four men, Orientals all, it suddenly occurred +to him to communicate with them. He talked it over with Eyer and decided +to send carefully worded cables to all four. + +In a few hours he received answers to them: + +From Japan: "Sitsumi does not care to communicate." There was a world of +cold hostility in the words, Jeter thought, and Eyer agreed with him. + +From China came the strangest message of all: + +"Wang, Liao and Yung have been cut off from world for past four months, +conducting confidential research in Gobi laboratories. Impossible to +communicate because area in which laboratories situated in Japanese +hands and surrounded by cordon of guards." + +Jeter and Eyer stared at each other when the cable had been read and +digested. + +"Queer, isn't it?" said Eyer. + +Jeter didn't answer. That preoccupied expression was on his face, that +distant look which no man could erase from his face by any interruption +until Jeter had finished his train of thought. + +"Queer," thought Jeter, "that Sitsumi should be so snooty and the three +Chinese totally unavailable." + + * * * * * + +There were many strange things happening lately, too, and the queer +things kept on happening, and in ever-increasing numbers, during the +second week of Kress' impossible absence in the stratosphere. Or was he +there? Had he ever reached it? Had he--Jeter and Eyer had noticed his +utter gloom at the take-off--merely, climbed out of sight of the Earth +and then slanted down to a dive into the ocean? Maybe he was a suicide. +But some bits of wreckage of his plane had many unsinkable parts about +it--the parachute ball for instance. + +No, the solemn fact remained that Kress had simply flown up and hadn't +come down again. It would have sounded silly and absurd if it hadn't +been so serious. + +And strange stories were seeping into the press of the world. + +Out in Wyoming a cattleman had driven a herd of prime steers into the +round-up corral at night. Next morning not one of the steers could be +found. No tracks led away from the corral. The gates were closed, +exactly as they had been left the night before. There had been no +cowboys watching the steers, for the corral had always been strong +enough to hold the most rambunctious. + +The tale of the missing steers hit the headlines, but so far nobody had +thought of this disappearance in connection with Kress'. How could any +one? Steers and scientists didn't go together. But it still was strange. + +At least so Jeter thought. His mind worked with this and other strange +happenings even as he and Eyer worked at top speed. + +A young fellow in Arizona told a yarn of wandering about the crater of a +meteor which had fallen on the desert thousands of years before. The +place wasn't important nor did it seem to have anything to do with the +crater or meteors--but the young fellow reported that he had seen a +faded white column of light, like the beam of a great searchlight, +reaching up into the sky from somewhere on the desert. + +When people became amazed at his story he added to it. There had been +five columns of light instead of one. The one he had first mentioned had +touched the Earth, or had shot up from the Earth, within several miles +of his point of vantage. A second glowed off to the northwest, a third +to the southwest, a fourth to the southeast, the fifth to the northeast. +The first one seemed to "center" the other four--they might have been +the five legs of a table, according to their arrangement.... + +Arrangement! Jeter wondered how that word had happened to come to him. + + * * * * * + +The story of the fellow who had seen the columns of light might have +been believed if he had stuck to his first yarn of seeing but one. But +when he mentioned five ... well, he didn't have any too good a +reputation for veracity and wasn't regarded as being overly bright. +Besides, he had stated that the thickness of the columns of light seemed +to be the same from the ground as far as his eyes could follow them +upward. Everybody knew that a searchlight's beams spread out a bit. + +"I wonder," thought Jeter, "why the kid didn't say he saw those five +columns move--like a five-legged animal, walking." + +Silly, of course, but behind the silliness of the thought Jeter thought +there might be something of interest, something on which to work. + +The Jeter-Eyer space ship still was not finished--though almost--when +the world moved into the third week since the disappearance of Franz +Kress. + +An Indian in the Southwest had reported seeing one of those columns of +light. However, this merited just a line on about page sixteen, even of +the newspaper closest to the spot where the redskin had seen the column. + +"Eyer," said Jeter at last, "we've got to start digging into newspaper +stories, especially into stories which deal with unusually queer +happenings throughout the world. I've a hunch that the keys to Kress' +disappearance may be found in some of them, or a combination of a great +many of them." + +"How do you mean, Lucian?" + +"Don't you notice that all this queer stuff has been happening since +Kress left? It sounds silly, perhaps, but I feel sure that the +disappearance of those steers in Wyoming, the story the boy told about +the columns of light--yes, all five of them!--and the Indian's partial +confirmation of it, are all tied up together with the disappearance of +Kress." + + * * * * * + +Eyer started to grin his disbelief, but a look at his partner's tense +face stopped him. + +"What could want all those steers, Lucian?" said Eyer softly. "I can't +think of anything or anybody disposing of such a bunch on such short +notice, except a marching army, a marching column of soldier ants, or +all the world's buzzards gathered together at one place. In any case +the animals themselves would have created a fuss, would have kicked up +so much noise that somebody would have heard. But this story of the +steers seems to suggest, or say right out loud--though I know you can't +believe everything in the newspapers--that the steers vanished in utter +silence." + +"Doesn't it also seem funny to you," went on Jeter, "that the vanishing +of the herd wasn't discovered until next morning? I've read enough +Western stuff to know that a herd always makes noise. Yes, even at +night. The cowhands wouldn't have lost a wink of sleep over that. But, +listen, Tema, suppose you lived in New York City near some busy +intersection which was always noisy, even after midnight--and all the +noise suddenly stopped. Would you sleep right on through it?" + +"No, I'd wake up--unless I were drunk or doped." + +"Yet nobody seems to have wakened at that ranch when--and it must have +happened--the herd stopped making any noise whatever. The utter silence +_should_ have wakened seasoned cowhands. It didn't. Why? What happened +to them that they slept so soundly they heard nothing?" + +Eyer did not answer. It wasn't the first time he had been called upon to +hear Jeter think out loud. + +"It all ties up somehow," repeated Jeter, "and I intend to find out +how." + +But he didn't find out. Strange stories kept appearing. The three +Chinese scientists still had not communicated with the outside world. +The chap out in Arizona had now so elaborated on his yarn that nobody +believed him and the public lost interest--all save Jeter, who was on +the trail of a queer idea. + +Nothing happened however until near the end of the third week after +Kress' disappearance. + +Then, out of a clear sky almost, Kress came back. + +He came down by parachute, without the ball in which he should have +sealed himself. His return caused plenty of comment. There was good +reason. He had been gone the impossibly long period of three weeks. + +He was dead--but _had_ been for less than seventy-two hours! + +His body was frozen solid. + +It landed on the roof of the Jeter-Eyer laboratory; had he been alive he +couldn't possibly have maneuvered his chute to land him on such a small +place. + +The partners stared at each other. It seemed strange to them indeed that +Kress should have come back to land on the roof of the two who had +promised to follow him into the stratosphere if he didn't return. + +Very strange indeed. + +He had returned, though, releasing Jeter and Eyer from their promise. +Strangely enough that fact made them all the more determined to go. And +while the newspaper reporters went wild over Kress' return, the partners +started making additional plans. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +_Strange Levitation_ + + +"In two days we'll be ready, Tema," said Lucian Jeter quietly. "And make +no mistake about it; when we take off for the stratosphere we're going +to encounter strange things. Nobody can tell me that Kress' plane +actually flew three weeks! And where did it come down? Why didn't Kress +use the parachute ball? Where is it? I'll wager we'll find answers to +plenty of those questions--if we live!" + +"If we live?" repeated Eyer. "You mean--?" + +"You know what happened to Kress? Or rather you know the result of what +happened to him?" + +"Sure." + +"Why should we be immune? I tell you, Eyer, we're on the eve of +something colossal, awe-inspiring--perhaps catastrophic." + +Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him. If they knew they flew +inescapably to death they still would have grinned. They had plenty of +courage. + +"We'd better go into town for a meeting with newspaper people," went on +Jeter. "You know how things go in the news; there are probably plenty of +stories which for one reason or another have not been published. Maybe +the law has clamped down on some of them. I've a feeling that if +everything were told, the whole world would be frightened stiff. And you +notice how quickly the papers finished with the Kress' thing." + +Eyer knew, all right. The papers had broken the story of the return in +flaming scareheads. Then the thing had come to a full stop. It was +significant that no real satisfactory explanation had been offered by +any one. The papers had, on their own initiative, tried to communicate +with Sitsumi, and the three Chinese scientists, and had failed all +around. Sitsumi did not answer, denied himself to representatives of the +American press in Japan, and crawled into an impenetrable Oriental +shell. The three Chinese could not answer, according to advices from +Peking, because they could not be located. + +Jeter called the publisher of the leading newspaper for a conference. + +"Strange that you should have called just now," said the publisher, "for +I was on the point of calling you and Eyer and inviting you to a +conference to be held this evening at my office in Manhattan." + +"What's the purpose of your conference? Who will attend?" + +"I--I--well, let us say I had hoped to make you and Eyer available to +all interviewers on the eve of your flight into the stratosphere." + +Jeter hesitated, realizing that the publisher did not wish to tell +everything over the telephone. + +"We'll be right along, sir," he said. + + * * * * * + +It took an hour for them to reach the publisher's office. Wires had +plainly been pulled, too, for a motorcycle escort joined them at the +Queensboro Bridge and led them, sirens screaming, to their meeting with +George Hadley, the publisher. + +They looked at each other in surprise when they were admitted to the +meeting. + +Hadley's huge offices were packed. The mayor was there, the police +commissioner, the assistant to the head of Federal Secret Service. The +State Governor had sent a representative. All the newspapers had their +most famous men sitting in. Right in this one big room was represented +almost the entire public opinion of the United States. American +representatives of foreign newspapers were there. And there wasn't a +smile on a single face. + +It was beginning to be borne in upon everybody that the Western +Hemisphere was in the grip of a strange unearthly malady--almost an +_other_-earthly malady, but what was it? + +Hadley nodded to the two scientists and they took the seats he +indicated. + +Hadley cleared his throat and spoke. + +"We have here people who represent the press of the world," he said. "We +have men who control billions in money. I don't know how many of you +have thought along the same lines as I have, but I feel that after I +have finished speaking most of you will. First, there are certain news +stories which, for reasons of policy, never reach the pages of our +papers. I shall now tell you some of them...." + +The whole crowd shifted slightly in its chairs. There was a strained +leaning forward. Grave faces went whiter as they anticipated gripping +announcements. + +"All the strange things have not been happening in the United States, +gentlemen," said Hadley. "That young fellow who reported seeing the +columns of light in Arizona--you remember?--" + +There was a chorus of nods. + +"He probably told the exact truth, as far as he knew it. But it isn't +only in Arizona that it has been seen--those columns I mean. Only there +is just one column--not five. It has since been reported in Nepal and +Bhutan, in Egypt and Morocco and a dozen other places. But in the cases +of such stories emanating from foreign countries, a congress of +publishers has withheld the facts, not because of their strangeness but +because of the effect they might have on the public sanity. In Nepal, +for example, the column of light rested for a moment on an ancient +temple, and when the light vanished the temple also had vanished, with +everybody in it at the time for worship! Rumor had it that some of the +worshipers were later found and identified. They appear to have been +scattered over half of Nepal--and every last one was smashed almost to a +pulp, as though the body had been dropped from an enormous height." + +A concerted gasp raced around the assemblage. Then silence again, while +the pale-faced Hadley went on with his unbelievable story. + + * * * * * + +"A mad story comes from the heart of the _terai_, in India. I don't know +what importance to give this story since the only witnesses to the +phenomenon were ignorant natives. But the column of light played into +the _terai_--and tigers, huge snakes, buffalo and even elephants rose +bodily over the treetops and vanished. They started up slowly--then +disappeared with the speed of light." + +"Were crushed animals later found in the jungle?" asked Jeter quietly. + +Hadley turned his somber eyes on the questioner. Every white face, every +fearful eye, also turned toward Jeter. + +And Hadley nodded. + +"It's too much to be coincidence," he said. "The crushed and broken +bodies in Nepal and India--of course they aren't so far apart but that +natives in either place might have heard the story from the other--but I +am inclined to believe in the inner truth of the stories in each case." + +Hadley turned to the two scientists. There were other scientists +present, but the fact that Jeter and Eyer, who were so soon to follow +Kress into the stratosphere--and eternity?--held the places of honor +near the desk of the spokesman, was significant. + +"What do you gentlemen think?" asked Hadley quietly. + +"There is undoubtedly some connection between the two happenings," said +Jeter. "I think Eyer and myself will be able to make some report on the +matter soon. We will, take off for the stratosphere day after +to-morrow." + +"Then you think the same thing I do?" said Hadley. "If that is so, can't +you start to-morrow? God knows what may happen if we delay +longer--though what two of you can do against something which appears to +blanket the earth, and strikes from the heavens, I don't know. And yet, +the fate of your country may be in your hands." + +"We realize that," said Jeter, while Eyer nodded. + +Hadley opened his mouth to make some other observation, then closed it +again, tightly, as a horrible thing happened. + +The conference was being held on the tenth floor of the Hadley building. +And just as Hadley started to speak the whole building began to shake, +to tremble as with the ague. Jeter turned his eyes on the others, to see +their faces blurred by the vibration of the entire building. + +Swiftly then he looked toward the windows of the big room. + +Outside the south windows he witnessed an unbelievable thing. Out there +was a twelve-story building, and its lighted windows were moving--not to +right or left, but straight up! The movement gave the same impression +which passing windows give to one in an elevator. Either that other +building was rising straight into the air, or the Hadley building was +sinking into the Earth. + + * * * * * + +"Quick, Hadley!" yelled Jeter. "To the roof the fastest way possible!" + +Even as Jeter spoke every last light in the building across the way went +out. Jeter knew then that it was the other building that was moving--and +that electrical connection with the earth had been severed. + +Hadley led the way to the roof, four stories above. Fortunately this was +an old building and they didn't have to wait to travel a hundred floors +or so. The whole conference followed at the heels of Hadley, Jeter and +Eyer. + +They reached the roof at top speed. + +They were first conscious of the cries of despair, of disbelief, of +horror which rose from the street canyons below them. But they forgot +these the next instant at what they saw. + +The Vandercook building, the twelve-story building whose lights Jeter +had seen moving, was rising bodily, straight out of the well which had +been built around it. From the building came shrieks and cries of mortal +terror. Even as the conference froze to horrified immobility, many men +and women stepped to the ledges of those darkened windows and plunged +out in their fear. + +"God!" said Hadley. + +"It's just as well," said Jeter in a far-away voice, "they haven't a +chance anyway!" + +"I know," replied Hadley. "God, Jeter, isn't there something we can do?" + +"I hope to find something," said Jeter. "But just now I'm afraid we are +helpless." + +The Vandercook building continued to rise. It did not totter; it simply +rose in its entirety, leaving the gaping hole into which, decades ago, +it had been built. It rose straight into the sky, apparently of its own +volition. No rays of light, no supernatural agencies could be seen or +fancied. The utterly impossible was happening. A building was a-wing. + +Jeter and Eyer looked at each other with protruding eyes. + + * * * * * + +Then they looked back at the Vandercook, whose base now was on a level +with the roof of the Hadley building. + +"See?" said Hadley. "Not so much as a brick falls from the foundation. +It's--it's--ghastly." + +Jeter would never forget the screams of mortal terror which came from +the lips of the doomed who had been working late in the Vandercook +building--for, horror piled upon horror, those who had sought to escape +calamity did not fall to Earth at all, but, at the same speed of the +rising building, traveled skyward with it, human flies outside those +leering dark windows. + +Then, free of New York's skyline, the flying building was gone with a +rush. A thousand feet above New York's tallest building, the Vandercook +changed direction and moved directly into the west. + +The conference watched it go.... + +"Commissioner," Jeter yelled at the police chief of Manhattan, "get word +out at once for all lights to be put out in the city! Hurry! Radio would +be fastest." + +In ten minutes Manhattan was a darkened, silent city ... and now the +conference could see why Jeter had asked for all lights to be +extinguished. + +Five thousand feet aloft, directly over the Hudson River, the Vandercook +building now hung motionless--and all eyes saw the thin column of light. +It came down from the dark skies from a vast distance, widening to +encompass the top of the Vandercook building. + +The Vandercook building might almost have been a mouse caught in the +talons of some unbelievable night-hawk. + +As though some intellect had just realized the significance of New +York's sudden darkness; as though that intellect had realized that the +column was ordinarily invisible because of Manhattan's brilliant +incandescents, and now was visible in the darkness--the column of light +snapped out.... + +"God Almighty! May the Lord of Hosts save the world from destruction!" + +From New York's canyons, from the roof of the Hadley building, came the +great composite prayer. + +A whistling shriek, growing second by second into enormous proportions, +came out of the west, above the Hudson. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +_Frantic Scheming_ + + +There was no mistaking the meaning of that whistling shriek. Whatever +agency had held the Vandercook building aloft had now released its +uncanny grip on the building, and thousands of tons of brick and mortar, +of stone and steel, were plunging down in a mass from five thousand feet +above the Hudson. The same force had also released the ill-fated men and +women who had been carried aloft with the building. And there must have +been hundreds of people inside side the building. + +It fell as one piece, that great building. It didn't topple until it had +almost reached the river and its shrieking plunge became meteor-like, +the sound of its fall monstrous beyond imagining. The conference above +the Hadley building fancied they could feel the outward rush of air +displaced by the falling monster--and drew back in fear from the edge of +the roof. + +The Vandercook struck the surface of the Hudson and an uprush of +geysering water for a few seconds blotted the great building from view. +Then all Manhattan seemed to shudder. Most of it was perhaps fancy, but +thousands of frightened Manhattanites saw that fall, heard the +whistling, and felt the trembling of immovable Manhattan. + +The great columns of water fell back into the turbulent Hudson which had +received the plunging building. Not so much as a wooden desk showed +above the surface as far as any one could see from shore. Not a soul had +been saved. Shrieks of the doomed had never stopped from the moment the +Vandercook building had started its mad journey aloft. + +Jeter whirled on Hadley. + +"Will you see that all my suggestions are carried out, Hadley?" he +demanded. + +Hadley, face gray as ashes, nodded. + +From Manhattan rose the long abysmal wailing of a populace just finding +its voice of fear after a stunning, numbing catastrophe. + +"I'll do whatever you say, Jeter," said Hadley. "We all agreed before +the arrival of Eyer and yourself that your advice would be followed if +you chose to give any." + +"Then listen," said Jeter, while Eyer stood quietly at his elbow, +missing nothing. "Advise the people of New York to quit the city as +quietly and in as orderly a manner as possible. Let the police +commissioner look after that. Then get word to the leading aviation +authorities, promoters, and fliers and have them get to our Mineola +laboratory as fast as possible. We've kept much of the detail of +construction of our space-ship secret, for obvious reasons. But the time +has come to forget personal aggrandizement and the world must know all +we have learned by our labor and research. Then see that every +manufacturing agency, capable of even a little of what it will take for +the program, is drafted to the work--by Federal statute if +necessary--and turn out copies of our plane as quickly as God will let +you." + + * * * * * + +Hadley's eyes were bulging. So were those of the others who had crowded +close to listen. They seemed to think Jeter had taken leave of his +senses, and yet--all had seen the Vandercook building perform the +utterly impossible. + +Hadley nodded. + +"What do you want with the filers and others at your laboratory?" + +"To listen to the details of construction of our space ship. Eyer will +hold a couple of classes to explain everything. Then, when we've made +things as clear as possible, Eyer and I will take off and get up to do +our best to counteract the--whatever it is--that seems to be ruling the +stratosphere. We'll do everything possible to hold the influences in +check until you can send up other space ships to our assistance." + +Hadley stared. + +"You speak as though you expected to be up for a long time. Planes like +yours aren't made overnight." + +"Planes like ours must be made almost overnight--and have you forgotten +that Kress was gone for three weeks, and yet had been dead but +seventy-two hours when he landed on our roof? Incidentally, Hadley, that +fall of his was guided by something or someone. He didn't fall on our +roof by chance. He was dropped there, as a challenge to us!" + +"That means?" said Hadley hoarsely. + +"That everything we do is known to the intelligence of the stratosphere! +That every move we make is watched!" + +"God!" said Hadley. + +Then Hadley straightened. His jaws became firm, his eyes lost their +fear. He was like a good soldier receiving orders. + +"All the power of the press will be massed to get the country to back +your suggestions, Jeter. They seem good to me. Now get back to your ship +and leave everything to me. Suppose you do encounter some intelligence +in the stratosphere? How will you combat it, especially if it proves +inimical--which to-night's horror would seem to prove?" + +Jeter shrugged. + +"We'll take such armament as we have. We have several drums of a deadly +volatile gas. We have guns of great power, hurling projectiles of great +velocity; but I feel all of that will be more or less useless. The +intelligence up there--well, it knows everything we know and far more +besides, for do any of us know how to strike at the earth from the +stratosphere? Therefore our only weapons must be our own +intelligence--at least that will be the program for Eyer and me. Later, +when your planes which are yet to be built follow us up the sky, perhaps +they will be better armed. I hope to be able to communicate information +somehow, relative to whatever we find." + +Hadley thrust out his hand. + +"Good luck," he said simply. + + * * * * * + +Then he was gone and Jeter and Eyer were dropping swiftly down in the +elevator to the street--to find that the streets of Manhattan had gone +mad. The ban on electric lights had been lifted, and the faces of +fear-ridden men and women were ghastly in the brilliance of thousands of +lights. Traffic accidents were happening on every corner, at every +intersection, and there were all too few police to manage traffic. + +However, a motorcycle squad was ready to lead the way through the press +for Eyer and Jeter--two grim-faced men now, who dared not look at each +other, because each feared to show his abysmal fear to the other. + +Automobiles raced past on either side of them driven by crazy men and +hysterical women. + +"Queensboro Bridge will be packed tight as a drum," said Eyer quietly. + +Jeter didn't seem to hear. Eyer talked on softly, unbothered by Jeter's +silence, knowing that Jeter wouldn't hear a word, that his partner had +drawn into himself and was even now, perhaps, visualizing what they +might encounter in the stratosphere. Eyer talked to give shape to his +own thoughts. + +A world gone mad, a world that fled from the menace which hung over +Manhattan.... Jeter hoped that the calm brains of men like Hadley would +at least be able to quiet the populace somewhat, else many of them would +be self-destroyed, as men and women destroy one another in rushes for +the exits during great theater fire alarms. + +Fast as they traveled, some of the foremost airmen of the adjoining +country had reached Mineola ahead of them. They understood that many of +them had arrived by plane in obedience to word broadcast by Hadley. +Hadley was doing his bit with a vengeance. + +The partners reached their laboratory. + +Their head servant met them at the door. + +"A Mr. Hadley frantically telephoning, sir," he said to Jeter. + +Jeter listened to Hadley's words--which were not so frantic now, as +though Hadley had been numbed by the awful happenings. + +"The new bridge between Manhattan and Jersey," said Hadley, "has just +been lifted by whatever the unearthly force is. It was pulled up from +its very foundations. It was crowded with cars as people fled from New +York--and cars and people were lifted with the bridge. Awful irony was +in the rest of the event. The great bridge was simply turned, along its +entire length--which remained intact during the miracle--until it was +parallel with the river and directly above midstream. Then it was +dropped into the water." + +"No telling how many lives were lost?" asked Jeter. + +"No, and hundreds and thousands of lives are being lost every moment +now. Frantic thousands are swamping boats of all sizes in their craze to +get away. Dozens of overloaded vessels have capsized and the surface of +the river is alive with doomed people, fighting the water and one +another...." + + * * * * * + +Jeter clicked up the receiver on the horror, knowing there was nothing +he could do. There would be no end to the loss of life until some +measure of sanity had been argued into crazed humanity. + +All the time he kept wondering. + +What was doing all this awful business? He surmised that some +anti-gravitational agency was responsible for the levitation of the +Vandercook building, but what sort of intelligence was directing it? Was +the intelligence human? Bestial? Maniacal? Or was it something from +Outside? Jeter did not think the latter could be considered. He didn't +believe that any planet, possibly inhabited, was close enough to make a +visit possible. At any rate, he felt that there should be some sort of +warning. He held to the belief that the whole thing was caused by human, +and earthly, intelligence. + +But why? The world was at peace. And yet.... + +Thousands of lives had been snuffed out, a twelve-story building had +leaped five thousand feet into the air, and the world's biggest bridge +had turned upstream as though turning its back against the mad traffic +it had at last been called upon to bear. + +Eyer was going over their plane with the visitors, men of intellect who +were taking notes at top speed, men who knew planes and were quick to +grasp new appliances. + +"Have any of you got the whole story now?" Eyer asked. + +A half dozen men nodded. + +"Then pass your knowledge on to the others. Jeter and I must get ready +to be off. Every minute we delay costs untold numbers of lives." + +Willing hands rolled their ship out to their own private runway, while +Jeter and Eyer made last minute preparations. There was the matter of +food, of oxygen necessary so far above the Earth, of clothing. All had +been provided for and their last duties were largely those of checking +and rechecking, to make sure no fatal errors in judgment had been made. + +Eyer was to fly the ship in the beginning. + +A small crowd watched as the partners, white of face now in the last +minutes of their stay on Earth--which they might never touch again in +life--climbed into their cabin, which was capable of being sealed +against the cold of the heights and the lack of breathable oxygen. + +Nobody smiled at them, for the world had stopped smiling. + +Nobody waved at them, for a wave would have been frivolous. + +Nobody cheered or even shouted--but the two knew that the best wishes, +the very hopes for life, of all the land, went with them into the +ghastly unknown. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +_Into the Void_ + + +Their watches and the clock in the plane were synchronized with Hadley's +time, which was Eastern Standard, and as soon as the plane had reached +eight thousand feet altitude, Jeter spoke into the radiophone and +arranged for a connection with the office of Hadley. + +Hadley himself soon spoke into Jeter's ear. + +"Yes, Jeter?" + +"See that someone is always at your radiophone to listen to us. I'll +keep you informed of developments as long as possible. Everything is +running like clockwork so far. How is it with you?" + +"Two additional buildings, older buildings of the city, have been lifted +some hundreds of feet above ground level, then dropped back upon their +own foundations, to be broken apart. Many lives lost despite the fact +that the city will be deserted within a matter of hours. It seems that +the--shall we say enemy?--is concentrating only on old buildings." + +"Perhaps they wish to preserve the new ones," said Jeter quietly. + +"What? Why?" + +"For their own use, perhaps; who knows? Keep me informed of every +eventuality. If the center of force which seems to be causing all this +havoc shifts in any direction, advise us at once." + +"All right, Jeter." + +Jeter broke the connection temporarily. Hadley could get him at any +moment. A buzzer would sound inside the almost noiseless cabin when +anyone wished to contact him over the radiophone. + +Eyer was concentrating on the controls. The plane was climbing in great +sweeping spirals. Its speed was a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Their +air speed indicator was capable of registering eight hundred miles an +hour. They hoped to attain that speed and more, flying on an even keel +above ninety thousand feet. + +Both Eyer and Jeter were perfect navigators. If, as they hoped, they +could reach ninety thousand or more, they could cross the whole United +States in four hours or less. They could quarter the country, winged +bloodhounds of space, seeking their quarry. + +Jeter studied the sky above them through their special telescopes, +seeking some hint of the location of the point of departure of that +devastating column of light. He could think of no ray that would nullify +gravitation--yet that column of light had been the visual manifestation +that the thing had somehow been brought about. + +If this were true, was the enemy vulnerable? Was his base of attack +capable of being destroyed or crippled if anything happened to the +column of light? There was no way of knowing--yet. A search of the sky +above Manhattan failed to disclose any visible substance from which the +light beam might emanate. That seemed to indicate some unbelievable +height. Yet, Kress must have reached that base. Else why had he been +destroyed and sent back to Jeter and Eyer as a challenge? + + * * * * * + +Jeter's mind went back to Kress. Frozen solid ... but that could have +been caused by his downward plunge through space. And what had happened +to Kress' plane? No word had been received concerning it up to the time +of the Jeter-Eyer departure. Had the "enemy" taken possession of it? + +The whole thing seemed absurd. Nobody knew better than Jeter that he was +working literally and figuratively in the dark. He was doing little +better than guessing. He felt sure of but one thing, that the agency +which was wreaking the havoc was a human one, and he was perfectly +willing to match his wits and Eyer's against any human intelligence. + +Jeter slipped into the cushioned seat beside Eyer. + +The altimeter registered fifteen thousand feet. New York was just a blur +against the abysmal darkness under their careening wings. + +"You've never ventured an opinion, Tema," said Jeter softly, "even to +me." + +Eyer grinned. + +"Who knows?" he said. "It may all be just the very latest thing in +aerial attack. If so, what country or coalition of countries harbor +designs against our good Uncle Sam? Japan? China?" + +"How do you explain the Vandercook incident? The bridge thing? The rise +and fall of the other skyscrapers?" + +"Some substance or ray capable of being controlled and directed. It +creates a field, of any size desired, in which gravitation is--well, +shall we say erased? Then any solid which is thus made weightless could +be lifted by the two good hands of a strong man, or even of a weak one. +How does that check with your guessing?" + +Jeter shook his head ruefully. + +"I've arrived at the same conclusions as yourself, Tema," he said. "I +know we're all guessing. I know we're probably climbing off the Earth on +a wild-goose chase from which we haven't a chance of returning alive. I +know we're a pair of fools to think of matching a few drums of gas and a +bunch of popguns against the equipment of an enemy capable of moving +mountains--but what else is there to do?" + +"Nothing," said Eyer cheerfully, "and I've got a feeling that you and I +will manage to acquit ourselves with credit." + +The radiophone buzzer sounded. + +Hadley was speaking. + +"One of the very latest types of battle-wagons," he said, "was steaming +this way from the open sea outside the Narrows, ordered here to stand by +in case of need, by the Navy Department. She was armed to the minute +with the very latest ordnance. She carried a full crew...." + + * * * * * + +Hadley paused. Jeter could hear him take a deep breath, like a diver +preparing to plunge into icy water. Jeter's spine tingled. He felt he +guessed in advance what was to come. + +Hadley went on. + +The world seemed to spin dizzily as Jeter listened. Out of all the +madness only one thing loomed which served for the moment to keep Jeter +sane. That was the altimeter, which registered twenty-five thousand +feet. + +"The battle-wagon--the _U.S.S. Hueber_--was yanked bodily out of the +water. It was taken aloft so quickly that it was just a blur. At least +this was the way the skipper of a Norwegian steamer, a mile away from +the _Hueber_, described it. The warship simply vanished into the night +sky. The exact time was given by the Norwegian. Five minutes before +midnight. At that moment nothing was happening in New York City--nothing +new, that is." + +Hadley paused again. + +"Go on, man!" said Jeter hoarsely. + +"Twenty minutes later the _Hueber_ was lowered back into the water, +practically unharmed. It had all happened so swiftly that the sailors +aboard scarcely realized anything had happened. The skipper of the +warship radios that the sensation was like a sudden attack of dizziness. +One man died of heart failure. He was the only casualty." + +Jeter's eyes began to blaze with excitement, as he spoke. + +"Now you can tell the world that the thing which causes the havoc +Manhattan is experiencing is not supernatural. It is human--and our +people have no fear of human enemies." + +"But why was not the warship dropped somewhere, as the buildings have +been?" asked Hadley. + +"Did you ever," replied Jeter, "hear what is described in the best +fiction as a burst of ironic laughter? Well, that what the _Hueber_, as +it now stands, or floats, is! But the enemy made a foolish move and +will live to regret it bitterly." + +"I wish I could share your sudden confidence," said Hadley. "Conditions +here, where public morale is concerned, have become more frightful +minute by minute since you left." + +Jeter severed the connection. + + * * * * * + +The altimeter said thirty-five thousand feet. They were still spiraling +upward. Again Jeter surveyed the sky aloft. + +The earth below was a blur, save through the telescopes. The two had +reached a height less than a third of what they hoped to attain. + +Still they could see nothing up above them. They were almost over the +"shaft" of atmosphere through which the _Hueber_ must have been lifted +and lowered. Suppose, Jeter thought, they had accidentally flown into +that shaft at exactly the wrong moment? It brought a shudder. Still, +Jeter's mind went on, if that had happened they would now, in all +likelihood, have been right among the enemy--for gravity in that shaft +would not have existed for them, either. + +But would they have been lowered back to safety as the _Hueber_ and her +crew had been? + +Believing as he did that the enemy knew everything that transpired +within its sphere of influence, Jeter doubted that Eyer and himself +would have been so humanely treated. + +He had but to remember Kress to feel sure of this. + +The altimeter said fifty thousand feet. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +_Stratosphere Currents_ + + +Now the partner-scientists concentrated on the tremendous task of +climbing higher than man had ever flown before. Nobody knew how high +Kress had gone, for the only information which had come back had been +the corpse of the sky pioneer. Jeter and Eyer hoped to land, too, but to +be able to tell others, when they did, what had happened to them. + +Somehow, away up here, the affairs of the Earth seemed trivial, unreal. +What was the raising of an entire skyscraper--in reality so small that +from this height it was difficult to pick out the biggest one through +the telescope? What mattered a bridge across the Hudson that was really +less than the footprint of an ant at this height? + +Still, looking at each other, they were able to attain the old +perspectives. Down there people like Jeter and Eyer were dying because +of something that struck at them from somewhere up here in the blue +darkness. + +Their faces set grimly. The plane kept up its constant spiraling. Jeter +and Eyer flew the ship in relays. Occasionally they secured the controls +and allowed the plane to fly on, untended. + +"But maybe we'd better not do too much of that," said Jeter dubiously. +"I'm sure we are being observed, every foot of altitude we make. I don't +care to run into something up here that will wreck us. Right now, Eyer, +if we happened to be outside this sealed cabin instead of inside it, +we'd die in less time than it takes to tell about it." + +All known records for altitude--the only unknown one being Kress'--had +now been broken by Jeter and Eyer. They informed Hadley of this fact. + +"A week ago you'd have had headlines," came back Hadley. "To-day nobody +cares, except that the world looks to you for information about this +horror. The enemy is systematically destroying every building in +Manhattan which dates back over eight years. Fortunately, save for the +occasional die-hard who never believes anything, there are few deaths at +the moment. But we're all waiting, holding our breaths, wondering what +the next five minutes will bring forth. Is there any news there?" + +How strange it seemed--as the altimeter said sixty-one thousand feet--to +hear that voice out of the void. For under the plane there was no world +at all, save through the telescope. Perhaps when morning came they would +be able to see a little. Picard had reported the world to look flat from +a little over fifty thousand-feet. + +"No news, Hadley," said Jeter. "Except, that our plane behaves perfectly +and we are at sixty-one thousand feet. Were it not for our turn and bank +indicators, our altimeter and air speed instruments, and our +navigational instruments, it would be impossible to tell--by looking at +least, though we could tell by our shifting weight--whether we were +upside down or right side up, on one wing or on an even keel. It's eery. +We wouldn't be able to tell whether we were moving were it not for our +air speed indicator. There are no clouds. The motor hum seems to be the +only thing here--except ourselves of course--to remind us that we really +belong down there with you." + + * * * * * + +The connection was broken again as Jeter ceased speaking. Things seemed +to be marking time on the ground, save for the strange demolitions of +the unseen and apparently unknowable enemy. Would they ever really +encounter him, or it? + +When the sun came out of the east they leveled off at ninety thousand +feet. By their reckoning they had scarcely moved in any direction from +the spot where they had taken off. Jeter was satisfied that they were +almost directly above Mineola. But the world had vanished. The plane +rode easily on. Now and again it dipped one wing or the other--and even +the veteran aviators felt a thrill of uneasiness. From somewhere up here +in this immensity, Franz Kress had dropped to his death. Of course, if +it had happened at this height he hadn't lived to suffer. + +Or had he? What had been done to him by the--the denizens of the +stratosphere? + +Jeter sat down beside Eyer. It seemed strange to eat breakfast here, but +the sandwiches and hot coffee in a thermos bottle were extremely +welcome. They ate in silence, their thoughts busy. When they had made an +end, Jeter squared his shoulders. Eyer grinned. + +"Well, Lucian," he said, "are we in enemy territory by your +calculations? And if so how do you arrive at your conclusions?" + +"I'm still guessing, Tema," said Jeter, "but I've a feeling I'm not +guessing badly, and.... Yes, we're somewhere within striking distance of +the enemy, whatever the enemy is." + +"What's the next move? + +"We'll systematically cover the sky over an area which blankets New +York, Long Island, Jersey City and surrounding territory for a distance +of twenty miles. If we're above the enemy, perhaps we can look down upon +him. We know he can't be seen from below, perhaps not even from above. +If we are below him we'll try to fly into that column of his. What +they'll do to us I.... You're not afraid to find out, are you?" + +Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him. + +"What they'll do to us if we fly into them I'm sure I don't know. I +don't think they'll kill our motor. If whoever or whatever controls the +light column decides to us prisoners.... Well, we'll hope to have better +luck combating them than Kress had." + + * * * * * + +And so begin that hours-long vigil of quartering the stratosphere over +the unmarked area which Jeter had set as a limit. Now and again Hadley +spoke to Jeter. Yes, the demolitions were still continuing in Manhattan. +Could all telescopes on the ground pick out their space ship? Yes, said +Hadley, and a young scientist in New Jersey was constantly watching +them. Were they, since sunrise, ever out of his sight? Only when clouds +at comparatively low altitudes intervened. However, the sky was +unusually clear and it was hoped to keep their plane in sight during the +entire day. + +"Hadley," Jeter almost whispered, "I'm satisfied we're above the area of +force, else we'd have flown into the anti-gravitation field. Get in +touch with that Jersey chap by direct personal wire or radiophone if he +is equipped with it. See that his watch is set with yours, which is +synchronised with ours. Got that?" + +"Yes." + +"When you've done that give him these instructions: He is never to take +his eyes of us for more than a split second at a time--unless someone +else takes his place. I doubt if, at this distance, this will work, but +it may help us a little. If we become invisible for even the briefest of +moments, he is to look at his watch and observe the exact time, even to +split seconds. We shall try to follow a certain plan hereafter in +quartering the stratosphere, and I shall mark our location on the +navigational charts every minute until we hear from this chap, or until +we decide nothing is to be accomplished by this trick. Understand?" + +"You're hoping that the enemy, while invisible to all eyes, yet has +substance...." + +"Shut up!" snapped Jeter, but he was glad that Hadley had grasped the +idea. It was a slim chance, but such as it was it was worth trying. If +the plane were invisible for a time, then it would be proof of some +opaque obstruction between the plane and the eye of the beholder on the +surface of the Earth. Refraction had to be figured, perhaps. Oh, there +were many arguments against it. + +The fliers followed the very outer edge of the area above the world they +had mapped out as their limit of exploration. This circuit completed, +they banked inward, shortening their circuit by about a mile of space. A +mile, seen at a distance of ninety thousand feet, would be little +indeed. + +It was almost midday when they had their first stroke of luck. + +The buzzer sounded at the very moment Eyer uttered an ejaculation. + +"The Jersey fellow says there is nothing between his lens and your plane +to obstruct the view." + +"O.K.," retorted Jeter. "At the moment your buzzer sounded our plane +suddenly jumped upward. That means an upcurrent of air indicating an +obstruction under us. It must however, be invisible." + +He severed the connection. His brow was furrowed thoughtfully. He was +remembering Sitsumi and his rumored discovery. + +They circled back warily. The eyes of both were fixed downward, staring +into space. Their jaws were firmly set. Their eyes were narrowed. + +And then.... + +There was that uprush of air again! It appeared to rise from an angle of +about sixty degrees. They got the wind against their nose and started a +humming dive, feeling in the alien updraft for the obstruction which +caused it. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +_Invisible Globe_ + + +The buzzer of their radiophone was sounding, but so intent were they on +this phenomenon they were facing, they paid it no heed. Their eyes were +alight, their lips in firm straight lines of resolve, as they dived down +upon the invisible obstruction--whatever it was--from whose surface the +telltale updraft came. + +It was Eyer who made the suggestion: + +"Let's measure it to see what its plane extent is." + +"How?" asked Jeter. + +"Measure it by following the wind disturbance. We travel in one +direction until we lose it. There is one extremity. In a few minutes we +can discover exactly how big the thing is. What do you think it is?" + +Jeter shook his head. There was no way of telling. + +Jeter nodded agreement to Eyer. Then he spoke into the radiophone, +telling Hadley what they had found, to which he could give no name. + +"The world awaits in fear and trembling what you will have to report, +Jeter," said Hadley. "What if you become unable to report, as Kress +did?" + +"Don't worry. We will or we won't. If we succeed we'll be back. If we +fail, send up the other.... No, perhaps you hadn't better send up the +new planes. But I think Eyer and I have a chance to discover the nature +of this strange--whatever-it-is. If you can't contact us, delay +twenty-four hours before doing anything. I--well, I scarcely know what +to tell you to do. We'll just be shooting in the dark until we know what +we're in for. You'll have to contain yourself in patience. What did you +want with me?" + +"Only to tell you of another strange news dispatch. It gives no details. +It merely tells of strange activity around Lake Baikal, beyond the Gobi +Desert. Queer noises at night, mysterious cordons of Eurasians to keep +all investigators back, strange losses of livestock, foodstuffs...." + +Jeter severed connection. There was little need to listen further to +something which he couldn't explain yet, in any case. + +Eyer, at the controls, banked the plane at right angles and flew on. In +shortly less than a minute he banked again. + + * * * * * + +In five minutes he turned to Jeter with a queer expression on his face. + +"Well," he said, "what's to do about it? What is it? It seems to be some +solid substance approximately a quarter mile square. But it can't be +true! A solid substance just hanging in the air at ninety thousand feet! +It's beyond all imagining!" + +"What man can imagine, man can do," replied Jeter. "A great newspaper +editor said that, and we're going to discover now just how true it is." + +"What's our next move?" + +For a long time the partners, stared into each other's eyes. Each knew +exactly what the other thought, exactly what he would propose as a +course of action. Jeter heaved a sigh and nodded his head. + +"We're as much in the power of the enemy here as we would be there, or +anywhere else. We can't discover anything from here. Set the wheels +down!" + +"We can't tell anything about the condition of the surface of that +stuff. We may crack up." + +Jeter had to grin. + +"Sounds strange, cracking up at ninety thousand feet, doesn't it? Well, +hoist your helicopter vanes and drift down as straight as you can--but +be sure and keep your motor idling." + +Again they exchanged long looks. + +"O.K.," said Eyer, as quietly as he would have answered the same order +at Roosevelt Field. "Here we go!" + +He pressed a button and the helicopters, set into the surface of the +single sturdy wing, snapped up their shafts and began to spin, +effectually slowing the forward motion of the plane. Eyer fish-tailed +her with his rudder to help cut down speed. + +"We can't see the surface of the thing at all, Lucian," said Eyer. "I'll +simply have to feel for it." + +"Well, you've done that before, too. We can manage all right." + +Down they dropped. The updraft was now a cushion directly under them. +And then their wheels struck something solid. The plane moved forward a +few feet--with a strange sickening motion. It was as though the surface +of this substance were globular. First one wheel rose, then dipped as +the other rose. The plane came to rest on fairly even keel, and the +partners, while the motor idled, stared at each other. + +"Well?" said Eyer, a trace of a grin on his face. + +"If it'll hold the plane it will hold us. Let's slide into our +stratosphere suits and climb out. We have to get close to this thing to +see what it is." + +"Parachutes?" said Eyer. + +Jeter nodded. + +"It would simplify matters if the thing happened to tilt over and spill +us off, I think," said Jeter, matching Eyer's grin with one of his own. +"I can't think with any degree of equanimity of plunging ninety thousand +feet without a parachute." + +"I'm not sure I'd care for it with one," said Eyer. + + * * * * * + +They were soon in the tight-fitting suits which were customarily used by +fliers who climbed above the air levels at which it was impossible for a +human being to breathe without a supply of oxygen in a container. Their +suits were sealed against cold. Set in their backs were oxygen tanks +capable of holding enough oxygen for several hours. Over all this they +fastened their parachutes. + +Then, using a series of doors in order to conserve the warmth and oxygen +inside their cabin, they let themselves out, closing each successive +door behind them, until at last they faced the last door--and the grim +unknown. They glanced at each other briefly, and Jeter's hand went forth +to grasp the mechanism of the last door. Eyer stood at his side. Their +eyes met. The door swung open. + +They stepped down. The surface of this stratosphere substance was +slippery smooth. Now that they stood on its surface they could sense +something of its profile. Movement in any direction suggested walking on +a huge ball. The queer thing was that they could feel but could not see. +It was like walking on air. Their plane appeared to be suspended in +midair. + +For a moment Jeter had an overpowering desire to grab Eyer, jerk him +back to the plane, and take off at top speed. But they couldn't do that, +not when the world depended upon them. Had Kress encountered this thing? +Perhaps. How must he have felt? He had been alone. These two were moral +support for each other. But both were acutely remembering how Kress had +come back. + +And his plane? They'd perhaps discover what had happened to that too. + +Eyer suddenly slipped and fell, as though he had been walking on a +carpet which had been jerked from under his feet. From his almost prone +position he looked up at Jeter. Jeter dropped to his knees beside him. +Their covered hands played over the surface of their discovery, to find +it smooth as glass. As though with one thought they placed their heads +against it, right ears down, to listen. But the whole vast field seemed +to be dead, lifeless. And yet--a solid it was, floating here in +space--or just hanging. It seemed to be utterly motionless. + +"There should be a way of discovering what this is, and why, and how it +is controlled if an intelligence is behind it." Jeter spelled out the +words in the sign language they had both learned as boys. + +Eyer nodded. + + * * * * * + +They walked more warily when they had, traveling slowly and hesitantly, +gone more than a hundred feet from their plane. They kept it in sight by +constantly turning to look back. It was now several feet above them. No +telling what might happen to them at any moment, and the plane was an +avenue of escape. + +They didn't wish to take a chance on stepping off into the +stratosphere--and eternity. + +"It's like an iceberg of space," said the fingers of Jeter. "But let's +go back and look it over to the other side of the plane. We have to keep +the plane in sight and work from it as a base. And say, what sort of +sensations have you had about this surface we're standing on?" + +Jeter could see Eyer's shudder as he asked the question. Slowly the +fingers of his partner spelled out the answer. + +"I've a feeling of eyes boring into my back. I sense that the substance +under us is malignant, inimical. I have the same feeling with every step +I take, as though the unseen surface were endowed with arms capable of +reaching out and grabbing me." + +"I feel it, too," said Jeter's fingers. "But I'm not afraid of fingers +in the usual sense. I don't think of hands strangling us, or ripping us +to shreds, but of questing--well, call them tentacles, which may clasp +us with gentleness even, and absorb us, and annihilate us!" + +Now the two faced each other squarely. Now they did not try to hide that +their fear was an abysmal feeling, horrible and devastating. + +"Let's get back to the plane and take off. We haven't a chance." + +They clasped hands again and started running back, their plane their +goal. Before they reached it they would change their minds, for they +were not ordinarily lacking in courage--but so long as they ran both had +the feeling of being pursued by malignant entities which were always +just a step behind, but gaining. + +They slipped on the smooth surface face and fell sprawling. Each felt, +when he fell, that he must rise at once, with all his speed, lest +something grasp him and hold him down forever. It was a horrible trapped +feeling, and yet.... + +They had but to look at each other to see that they were free. Nothing +gripped their feet to hold them back. Of course the way was slippery, +but no more so than an icy surface which one essays in ordinary shoes. +What then caused their fear? + + * * * * * + +The plane, so plainly visible there ahead and above, was like a haven of +refuge to them. They panted inside their helmets and their breath misted +the glass of their masks. But they stumbled on, making the best speed +they could under the circumstances. + +Perhaps if they took, off, and regained their courage, returned to +normal in surroundings they knew and understood, they could come back +and try again, after having heard each other's voices. The silence, the +sign manual, the odd, awesome sensations, all combined to rob them of +courage. They must get it back if they were to succeed. And they had +been away from the plane for almost an hour. Hadley would be waiting for +some news. + +The plane was twenty yards away--and almost at the same time Eyer and +Jeter saw something queer about it. At first it was hard to say just +what it was. + +They rushed on. They were within ten yards of the plane when a wail of +anguish was born--and died--in two soundproof helmets. There was no +questioning the fact that the plane had settled into the surface of the +field. + +The plane was invisible below the tops of the landing wheels, as though +the plane were sinking into invisibility, slowly dissolving from the +bottom. + +"Understand?" Jeter's fingers almost shouted. "Understand why we felt +the desire to keep moving? This field is alive, Eyer, and if we stand +still it will swallow us just as it is swallowing our plane! Let's get +in fast; maybe we can still pull free from the stuff and take off." + +They were racing against time and in the heart of each was the feeling +that whatever they did, their efforts would be hopeless. Still, the +spinning propeller of their plane gave them strength to hope. + +They went through the succession of doors as rapidly as they dared. Once +in the comfort of their cabin they doffed their stratosphere suits with +all possible speed. Jeter was the first free. He jumped to the controls +and speeded up the motor. In a matter of seconds it was revving up to a +speed which, had it been free, would have pulled the plane along at +seven hundred miles an hour at the height at which they were. + +But the plane did not move! + + * * * * * + +Jeter slowed the motor, then started racing it fast, trying to jerk the +fuselage free of the imbedded wheels, but they would not be released. +Both men realized that the wheels had sunk from sight while they had +been delayed coming through the succession of doors--that the plane had +sunk until the invisible surface gripped the floor of the fuselage. + +Perspiration beaded the faces of both men. Eyer managed a ghastly grin. +Jeter's brow was furrowed with frantic thought as he tried to imagine a +way out. + +"If we could somehow cut our landing gear free," began Jeter, "but--" + +"But it's too late, Lucian," said Eyer quietly. "Look at the window." + +They both looked. + +Countless fingers of shadowy gray substance were undulating up the +surface of the window, like pale angleworms or white serpents of many +sizes, trying to climb up a pane of glass. + +"Well," said Jeter, "here we are! You see? Outside we can see nothing. +Inside we begin to see a little, and what good will it do us?" + +Eyer grinned. It was as though he lighted a cigarette and nonchalantly +blew smoke rings at the ceiling, save that they dared not use up any of +their precious oxygen by smoking. + +Their fear had left them utterly when it would have been natural for +them to be stunned by it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +_Cataclysmic Hunger_ + + +Eyer thrust out his hand to cut the motor. Jeter stayed it. + +"I've an idea," he said softly; "let it run. We'll learn something more +about the sensitiveness of this material." + +The motor was cut to idling. The plane scarcely trembled now in the pull +of the motor, so firmly was she held in the grip of the shadowy, vague +tentacles. A grim sort of silence had settled in the cabin. The faces of +the two partners were dead white, but their eyes were fearless. They had +come aloft to give their lives if need be. They wouldn't try to get them +back now. Besides, what use was there? + +Jeter paused for a moment in thought. + +Then he began to examine some of their weapons. The only one by which +they could fire outside the plane--due to the necessity of keeping the +cabin closed to retain oxygen--was the rapid firer on the wing. This +could be depressed enough to fire downward at an angle of forty-five +degrees. Jeter hesitated for a moment. + +He looked at Eyer. Eyer grinned. "It can't bring death to us any +sooner," he said. "Let her go!" + +Jeter tripped the rapid firer and held it for half a minute, during +which time three hundred projectiles, eight inches long by two inches in +diameter, were poured into the invisible surface. The bullets simply +accomplished nothing. It was almost as though the field had simply +opened its mouth to catch thrown food. There was no movement of the +field, no jarring, no vibration. Nor did the plane itself tremble or +shake. Jeter had to stop the rapid firer because its base, the plane, +was now so firmly fixed that the recoil might kick the gun out of its +mount. + +Now the partners sat and looked out through the windows of unbreakable +glass, watching the work of those tentacular fingers. + +"How does it feel, Tema, to be eaten alive?" asked Jeter. + +"Have you radiophoned Hadley about what's happening to us?" + +"No," replied Jeter. "It would frighten the world half out of its wits. +Besides, what can we say has caught us? We don't know." + +"And what are we going to do about it?" + + * * * * * + +"We're going to wait. I've a theory about some of this. We know blamed +well that, except for the most miraculous luck, you couldn't have set +the plane down on this field without it slipping off again. Well there's +only one answer to that: the rubbery resilience of the surface. It must +have given a little to hold the plane--and us when we walked on it. What +does that mean? Simply that we were seen and the field made usable for +us by some intelligence. That intelligence watches us now. It saved our +lives for some reason or other. It didn't destroy us when we were +afoot out there. It isn't destroying us now. It's swallowing us +whole--and for some reason. Why? That we'll have to discover. But I +think we can rest easy on one thing. We're not to be killed by this +swallowing act, else we'd have been dead before now." + +"Have you any idea what this stuff is?" + +"Yes, but the idea is so wild and improbable that I'm reluctant to tell +you what I guess until I know more. However, if it develops that we are +to die in this swallowing act, then I'll give you a tip--and it will +probably knock you off your pedestal. But the more I think of it the +more certain I am that the whole things is at least a variation of my +idea. And the brains behind it, if my guess proves even approximately +correct, will be too great for us to win mastery except by some +miraculous accident favoring us--and true miracles come but seldom in +these days." + +"No? What do you call this?" + +Jeter shrugged. + +With many ports all around the cabin, all fitted with unbreakable glass, +it was possible for the partners to see out in all directions. The +tentacle fingers had now climbed up to a height sufficient to smother +both windows. The fuselage was about half swallowed. + +"I can almost hear the stuff sigh inwardly with satisfaction as it takes +us in," said Eyer. + +"I have the same feeling. There's a peculiar sound about it too; do you +hear it?" + +They listened. The sound which came into the cabin was such a sound as +might have been heard by a man inside a cylinder lying on the bottom of +a still pond. A whisper that was less than a whisper--a _moving_ +whisper. In it were life and death, and grim terror. + + * * * * * + +And then--remembering that contact with the propeller would shatter it, +Tema cut the switch--the propeller stopped, the motor died, and utter +silence, in the midst of an utter absence of vibration, possessed the +comfortable little cabin. It was hard to believe. The cabin was a breath +of home. It was a home. And it was being swallowed by some substance +concerning which Eyer had no ideas at all and Jeter but a growing +suspicion. + +The plane sank lower and lower. The surface of the field was now almost +to the top of the cabin doors. Most of the windows had been erased, but +it made no particular difference in the matter of light. Jeter had put +out his hand to snap on the lights, but stayed it when he saw that light +came through to them. + +Moment by moment the mystery of the swallowing deepened. It was like +sinking into a snow bank. There was a sensation of smothering, though it +was not uncomfortable because the cabin itself was self-sufficient in +all respects to maintain life for a long period of time. + +It was like sinking slowly into the depths of the sea. + +The last port on the sides of the plane was erased. Now the two sat in +their chairs and stared up at the ceiling, and at the glass-protected +ports there. It was grim business. They almost held their breath as they +waited. + +At last those blurred tentacles began to creep across the lowest of the +ceiling ports. Faster they came, and faster. In a few minutes every port +was covered with a film of the weird stuff. + +"It may be a foot deep above us," said Jeter. "I don't think we'll be +able to tell how thick any bit of the stuff is. The surface of the field +may be ten feet above our heads right now. Well, Tema, old son, we're +prisoners as surely as though we were locked in a chrome steel vault a +thousand feet underground. We can't go anywhere, or come back if we go +there. We're prisoners, that's all--and all we can do is wait." + +Eyer grinned. + +Jeter began nonchalantly to slip off his helmet and goggles. He doffed +his flying coat. In a short time the two might have been sitting over +liquor and cigars in their own library at Mineola. + +"Expecting company?" asked Eyer. + +"Most emphatically," replied Jeter. "Company that is an unknown +quantity. Company that will be wholly and entirely interesting." + +So they waited. They could now feel themselves sinking faster into the +substance. They settled on an even keel, however, but more rapidly than +before, as though the directing intelligence behind all these had tired +of showing them his wonders and was eager to get on with the business of +the day. + +Eyer happened to look down at one of the ports in the floor of the +cabin. + +"Good God!" he yelled, "Lucian!" + + * * * * * + +He was pointing. His face had gone white again. His eyes were bulging. +Jeter stared down into the floor ports--and gasped. + +"I expected it, but it's a shock just the same, Tema," he said softly. +"Get hold of yourself. You'll need all your faculties in a minute or +two." + +Through the ports they found themselves staring down all of twenty feet +upon a milky white globe, set inside the greater, softer globe through +which they were passing, like a kernel in a shell. + +The plane was oozing through the "rind" which protected the strange +globe below against the cold and discomfort of the stratosphere. + +"They'd scarcely bring us this far to drop us, would they?" asked Eyer. + +He was making a distinct effort to regain control of himself. His voice +was normal, his breathing regular--and he had spoken thus to show Jeter +that this was so. + +"Whether we're to be dropped or lowered is all one to us," he said, +"since we can do nothing in either case. Twenty feet of fall wouldn't +smash us up much." + +"Let's keep our eyes on the ceiling ports and see how this swallowing +job is really done." + +They alternately looked through the floor ports and the ceiling ports. + +Under them the gray mass was crawling backward off the floor ports, +leaving them clear. Now all of them were clear. Now the gray stuff began +to vanish from the lower ports on either side of the cabin. + +"I feel as though we were being digested and cast forth," said Jeter. + +The action of the stuff was something like that. It had swallowed them +in their entirety and now was disgorging them. + +They watched the stuff move off the ports one by one, on either side. +The lower ones were free. Then those next above, the gray substance +retreating with what seemed to be pouting reluctance. Finally even the +topmost ports were clear. + +"The drop comes soon," said Eyer. + +"Wait, maybe not." + + * * * * * + +They concentrated on the ceiling ports for a moment, but the clinging +stuff did not vanish from them. They turned back to look through the +floor ports. Right under them was the milky globe whose surface could +easily accommodate their plane. If they had needed further proof of some +guiding intelligence behind all this, that cleared space was it. They +were being deliberately lowered to a landing place through a portion of +the "rind" made soft in some mechanical way to allow the weight of their +plane to sink through it. + +They looked up again. Great masses of the gray substance still clung to +the top of their cabin, like sticky tar. The substance was rubbery and +lifelike in its resiliency, its tenacious grasp upon the Jeter-Eyer +plane. By this means the plane was lowered to the "ground." Jeter and +Eyer watched, fascinated, as the stuff slipped and lost its grip, and +slowly retracted to become part of the dome above. + +The plane had come through this white roof, bearing its two passengers, +and now above them there was no slightest mark to show where they had +come forth. + +They rested on even keel atop the inner globe which they now could see +was attached to the outer globe in countless places. + +"I wonder if we dare risk getting out," said Eyer. + +"I think so," said Jeter. "Look there!" + +A trapdoor, shaped something like the profile of an ordinary milk +bottle, was opening in the white globe just outside their plane. Framed +in the door was a face. It was a dark face, but it was a human one--and +the man's body below that face was dressed as simply, and in almost the +same fashion, as were Jeter and Eyer themselves. He wore no oxygen tanks +or clothing to keep out the cold. + +The partners, lips firmly set, nodded to each other and began to open +their doors. Imperturbably the dark man came to meet them. + +Still other dark faces emerged from the door. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +_A Scheme Is Described_ + + +The hands of the two wayfarers into the stratosphere dropped to their +weapons as the men came through that door which masked the inner mystery +of the white globe. + +One of the men grinned. There was a threat in his grin--and a promise. + +"I wouldn't use my weapons if I were in your place, gentlemen," he said. +"Come this way, please. Sitsumi and The Three wish to see you at once." + +Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances. Would it do any good to start a fight +with these people? They seemed to be unarmed, but there were many of +them. And probably there were many more beyond that door. Certainly this +strange globe was capable of holding a small army at least. + +Jeter shrugged. Eyer answered it with an eloquent gesture--and the two +fell in with those who had come to meet them. + +"How about our plane?" said Jeter. + +"You need concern yourself with it no longer," replied one. "Its final +disposal is in the hands of Sitsumi and The Three." + +A cold chill ran along Jeter's spine. There was something too final +about the guide's calm reply. Both adventurers remembered again, most +poignantly, the fate of Kress. + +The leaders stepped through the door. A flight of steps led downward. + +Several of the swarthy-skinned folk walked behind Jeter and Eyer. There +was no gainsaying the fact that they were prisoners. + +Jeter and Eyer gasped a little as they looked into the interior of the +white globe. It was of unusual extent, Jeter estimated, a complete +globe; but this one was bisected by a floor at its center, of some +substance that might, for its apparent lightness, have been aluminum. +Plainly it was the dwelling place of these strange conquerors of the +stratosphere. It might have been a vast room designed as the dwelling +place of people accustomed to all sorts of personal comforts. + +On the "floor" were several buildings, of the same material as the +floor. It remained to be seen what these buildings were for, but Jeter +could guess, he believed, with fair accuracy. The large building in the +center would be the central control room housing whatever apparatus of +any kind was needed in the working of this space ship. There were +smaller buildings, most of them conical, looking oddly like beehives, +which doubtless housed the denizens of the globe. + + * * * * * + +The atmosphere was much like that of New York in early autumn. It was of +equable temperature. There was no discomfort in walking, no difficulty +in breathing. Jeter surmised that at least one of those buildings, +perhaps the central one, housed some sort of oxygen renewer. Such a +device at this height was naturally essential. + +The stairs ended. The prisoners and their guards stopped at floor level. + +Jeter paused to look about him. His scientific eyes were studying the +construction of the globe. The idea of escape from the predicament into +which he and Eyer were plunged would never be out of his head for +moment. + +"Come along, you!" + +Jeter started, stung by the savagery which suddenly edged the voice of +the man who had first greeted him. There was contempt in it--and an +assumption of personal superiority which galled the independent Jeter. + +He grinned a little, looked at Eyer. + +"I wonder if we have to take it," he said softly. + +"It seems we might expect a little respect, at least," Eyer grinned in +answer. + +The guard suddenly caught Jeter by the shoulder. + +"I said to come along!" + +If the man had been intending to provoke a fight he couldn't have gone +about it in any better way. Jeter suddenly, without a change of +expression, sent a right fist crashing to the fellow's jaw. + +"Don't use your gat, Eyer," he called to his partner. "We may kill a +key man who may be necessary to our well-being later on. But black eyes +and broken noses should be no bar to efficiency." + +Without any fuss or hullabaloo, the dozen or so denizens of the globe +who had met the partners closed on them. They came on with a rush. Jeter +and Eyer stood back to back and slugged. They were young, with youthful +joy in battle. They were trained to the minute. As fliers they took +pride in their physical condition. They were out-numbered, but it was +also a matter of pride with them to demand respect wherever they went. +It was also a matter of pride to down as many of the attackers as +possible before they themselves were downed. + + * * * * * + +It became plain that, though the denizens of the globe were armed with +knives, they were not to be used. And it didn't seem they would be +needed. The fighters were all muscular, well-trained fighters. But for +the most part they fought in the manner of Chinese ta chaen, or Japanese +ju-jutsu men. They used holds that were bone-breaking and it taxed the +pair to the utmost to keep from being maimed by their killing strength. + +The swarthy men were men of courage, no doubt about that. They fought +with silent ferocity. They blinked when struck, but came back to take +yet other blows with the tenacity of so many bulldogs. There was no +gainsaying them, it seemed. They were here for the purpose of subduing +their visitors and nothing short of death would stop them. + +It wasn't courtesy, either, that failure to use knives, for Jeter saw +murder looking out of more than one pair of eyes as their two pairs of +fists landed on brown faces, smashed noses askew, and started eyes to +closing. + +"Their leader has them under absolute control--and that's a point for +the enemy," Jeter panted to himself, as the strain of battle began to +tell on him. "They've been instructed, no matter what we do, to bring us +to their master or masters alive." + +For a moment he toyed with the idea of drawing his weapon and firing +pointblank into the enemy. He knew they would be compelled to take lives +to escape--and that the lives of all these people were forfeit anyway +because of the havoc which had descended upon New York City. + +But he didn't make a move for his weapon. It would be sure death if he +did, for the others were armed. + +Brown men fell before the smashing of their fists. But the end of the +fight was a foregone conclusion. Jeter had a bruised jaw. Eyer's nose +was bleeding and one eye was closed when the reception committee finally +came to close quarters, smothered them by sheer weight of numbers, and +made them prisoners. Jeter's right wrist was manacled to Eyer's left +with a pair of ordinary steel handcuffs. Their weapons were taken away +from them now. + +The leader of the committee, panting, but apparently unconcerned over +what had happened, motioned the two men to lead the way. He pointed to +the large building in the center of the "floor." + +"That way," he said, "and I hope Sitsumi and The Three give us +permission to throw you out without parachutes or high altitude suits." + +"Pleasant cuss, aren't you?" said Eyer. "I don't think you like us." + +The man would have struck Eyer for his grinning levity; but at that +moment a door opened in the side of the large building and a man in +Oriental robes stood there. + +"Bring then here at once, Naka!" he said. + + * * * * * + +The man called Naka, the leader whom Jeter had first struck, bowed low, +with deep respect, to the man in the doorway. + +"Yes, O Sitsumi!" he said. As he spoke he sucked in his breath with that +snakelike hissing sound which is the acme of politeness, in Japan--"that +my humble breath may not blow upon you"--and spread wide his hands. +"They are extremely low persons and dared lay hands upon your +emissaries." + +Eyer grinned again. + +"I think," he called, "there transpired what might be called a general +laying on of hands by all hands." + +"I deeply deplore your inclination to levity, Tema Eyer," said the man +in the doorway. "It is not seemly in one whose intelligence entitles him +to a place in our counsels." + +Eyer looked at Jeter. What was the meaning of Sitsumi's cryptic +utterance? + +"Bring them in," snapped Sitsumi. + +Jeter studied the man with interest. He knew instantly who he was and +understood why Sitsumi had refused to answer his radio messages to +Japan. He couldn't very well have done so in the circumstances. Here, +under the broad dome of Sitsumi was probably the greatest scientific +brain of the century. Jeter saw cruelty in his eyes too; ruthlessness, +and determination. + +The prisoners were marched into the room behind Sitsumi, who stepped +aside, looking curiously at Jeter and Eyer as they passed him. Inside +the door, pausing only a moment to glance over the big room's +appointments, Jeter turned on Sitsumi. + +"Just what do you intend doing with us, Sitsumi?" he asked. "I suppose +it's useless to ask you, also, what the meaning of all this is?" + +"I shall answer both your questions, Jeter," said Sitsumi. "Step this +way, please. The Three should hear our conference." + +They were conducted into a smaller room. Its floors were covered with +skins. There were easy chairs and divans. It might have been their own +luxuriously appointed rooms at Mineola. At a long table three men--all +Orientals--were deeply immersed in some activity which bent their heads +absorbedly over the very center of the table. It might have been a +three-sided chess game, by their attitudes. + +"Gentlemen!" said Sitsumi. + +The three men turned. + +"My colleagues, Wang Li, Liao Wu and Yung Chan," Sitsumi introduced +them. "Without them our great work would have been impossible." + + * * * * * + +Here were the three missing Chinese scientists. Jeter and Eyer had seen +many pictures of them. Jeter wondered whether their adherence to Sitsumi +were voluntary or forced. But it was voluntary, of course. The three +brains of these brilliant men could easily have outwitted Sitsumi had +they been unwilling to associate themselves with him. The three +Orientals bowed. + +Jeter and Eyer were bidden to take chairs side by side. The guards drew +back a little but never took their eyes off the two. Sitsumi ranged +himself beside his colleagues at the table. + +"I'll answer your questions now, gentlemen, in the presence of my +colleagues so that you shall know that we are together in what we +propose. We wish you to join us. The only alternative is ... well, you +recall what happened to your countryman, Kress? The same, or a similar +fate, will be yours if you don't ally yourselves with us." + +Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances. + +"Just what _are_ you doing?" asked Jeter. "I've seen some of the results +of your activities, but I can see no reason for them. I would pronounce +everything you have done so far to be the acts of madmen." + +"We are not mad," said Sitsumi. "We are simply a group of people of +mixed blood who deplore the barriers of racial prejudice, for one thing. +We are advocates of a deliberately contrived super-race, produced by the +amalgamation of the best minds and the best bodies of all races. We +ourselves are what the world calls Eurasians. In our youth people +patronised us. In Asia we were shunned. We were shunned everywhere by +both races from which we trace our ancestry. We are not trying to be +avenged upon the world because we have been pariahs. We are not so +petty. But by striving until we have become the world's four greatest +scientists we have proved to our own satisfaction that a mixture of +blood is a wholesome thing. This expedition of ours, and its effect so +far on New York City, is the result of our years of planning." + +"I see no need for wholesale murder. Lecture platforms are open to all +creeds, all races...." + +Something suggestive of a sneer creased Sitsumi's lips. The Three did +not change expression in the least. + + * * * * * + +"People do not listen to reason. They listen to force. We will use force +to make them listen, in the end, to reason--backed in turn by force, if +you like. We have settled on New York from which to begin our conquest +of the world because it is the world's largest, richest, most +representative city. If we control New York we control the wealth of the +North American continent, and therefore the continent itself. Our +destruction of buildings in New York City serves a twofold purpose. It +prepares the inhabitants to listen to us later because, seeing what we +are capable of doing, they will be afraid not to. Our efficiency is +further shown in our destruction of the old out-of-date buildings, +chosen for destruction simply because they are obsolete. The New York +City of our schemes will be a magic city...." + +"But what is your purpose, in a few words?" insisted Jeter. + +"The foundation of a world government; the destruction of the mentally +deficient; the scientific production of a mixed race of intellectuals, +comparable to, but greater than, that of ancient Greece, which was great +because it was a human melting pot." + +"How are you going to do it--after you've finished your grandstand +plays?" said Eyer. + +Sitsumi stared at Eyer, his eyes narrowing. Eyer was making his dislike +entirely too plain. Jeter nudged him, but the question had been asked. + +"With this space ship--and others which are building," replied Sitsumi. +"Haven't you guessed at any of our methods?" + +"Yes," said Jeter, "I know you are the rumored inventor of a substance +which is invisible because light rays are bent around it instead of +passing through, yet the result is as though they actually passed +through. I judge that the shell, or skin, of this stratosphere ship is +composed of this substance, whose formula of construction is your +secret. Light rays passing around it would render it invisible, yet +would make the beholding eye seem to see in a straight line as usual, +disregarding refraction." + +Sitsumi nodded. The Three nodded with him, like puppets. But their eyes +were glowingly alive. + +"You are right. Are you further interested? If you have no interest in +our theories there is little need to pursue our plans further, where you +are concerned." + +"We are interested, of course," said Jeter. "We are interested in your +theories, without committing ourselves to acceptance of them; and we are +naturally interested in saving our lives. Let us say then, for the +moment, that we do not refuse to join you." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +_How It Came About_ + + +"You will have twenty-four hours in which to decide whether to join us," +was Sitsumi's ultimatum. "We would not allow you five minutes were it +not that our cause would be benefited by the addition of your scientific +knowledge." + +Sitsumi did not repeat the alternative. Remembering Kress, Jeter and +Eyer did not need to ask him. There was but one alternative--death--a +particularly horrible one. That Sitsumi and the Three would not hesitate +was amply proved. Already they were guilty of the death of thousands. +They were in deadly earnest with their scheme for a world government. + +Jeter and Eyer were kept shackled together, and were, in addition, +chained to the floor of the main room of the white globe with leg irons. +Their keys were in the hands of Naka, whose hatred of Jeter for hitting +him on the jaw was so malevolent it fairly glowed from his eyes like +sparks shot forth. + +Food was brought them when asked for. It wasn't easy to partake of it, +because their manacled hands had to be moved together, which made it +extremely awkward. + +Jeter and Eyer set themselves the task of trying to figure some way out +in the twenty-four hours of life still left them if they failed. That +Hadley, down in New York City, and all the best minds who were +cooperating with Jeter and Eyer in their mad effort to avert world +catastrophe, would make every effort to come to their assistance by +sending up the planes which must even now be nearing completion, they +hadn't the slightest doubt. + +Would they arrive in time? Even if they did, was there anything they +could possibly do to save themselves? Surely this space ship must be +vulnerable. Else why did it climb so high into the stratosphere? It was +far beyond the reach of ordinary planes. High trajectory projectiles had +slight chance of hitting it, even if it were visible. What then was its +vulnerability, which this hiding seemed to indicate? They must know +within twenty-four hours. + +So they sat side by side, watching events unfold. The Three talked +mandarin. Eyer, for all his levity, was a man of unusual attainments. He +understood mandarin, for one thing--a fact which even Jeter did not know +at first. The Chinese never seemed even to consider that either of them +might know the tongue. Chinese seldom found foreigners who did +comprehend them. In only so much were The Three in the least bit +careless. + +Eyer strained his ears to hear everything which passed between Sitsumi +and the Three. Both men listened to any chance words in English or +French on the part of all hands within the globe which might give them a +hint. + +And in those twenty-four hours the sky-scientists learned much. + + * * * * * + +They conversed together, when they spoke of important matters which they +wished hidden from their captors, out of the corners of their mouths +after the method of criminals. They used it with elaborate unconcern. +They might have seemed to be simply staring into space at such moments, +dreading approaching death perhaps, and simply twiddling their fingers. +But by each other every word was clearly heard. + +"That last outburst of Sitsumi's explains a lot of the reported activity +in the Lake Baikal region, beyond the Gobi," swiftly dropped from +Jeter's lips. "The materials which Sitsumi uses in the preparation of +his light-ray-bending substance are found near there somehow. And that +means that the Japanese guards--which may be Eurasian guards, after what +Sitsumi told us--and employees of this unholy crowd, are easily engaged +in the preparation of other space ships." + +"Does this thing seem to have any armament?" asked Eyer. + +Jeter signified negation with a swift movement of his head. + +"Their one weapon seems to be the apparatus which causes that ray. You +know, the ray which lifts buildings, pulling them up by the roots." + +"Have you any idea what it is?" + +"Yes. That last stuff of the Three which you translated for me gives me +a clue. At first I thought that they had perfected some substance, +perhaps with unknown electrical properties, which nullified gravity. But +that won't prove out. If the ray simply nullified gravity, the buildings +down there, while weightless, would not rise as they did. They might +sway if somebody breathed against them. A midget might lift one with his +finger; but they wouldn't fly skyward as they did--and do!" + +For a moment the partners ceased their whispering and talked together +naturally to disarm suspicion. The fact that the space ship and its +ruthless denizens still engaged in the awful work of devastation was +amply being proved. In the main room it was possible, through the use of +telescopes and audiphones--set into the walls so that they were +invisible, yet enabled any one in the room to see everything, and hear +everything that transpired on the far earth below--to keep close watch +on the work of the destroyers. Anything close enough could be seen with +the naked eye through the walls of the globe. + + * * * * * + +Now the space ship was systematically destroying buildings the length +and breadth of Manhattan Island. The river-front buildings were +destroyed in a single sweep, from north to south, of the ghastly ray. +Farther back from the Hudson, however, after the water-front buildings +had been reduced to mere piles of rubble, the most beautiful, most +modern buildings were left standing. + +"Can't you just imagine those beautiful structures filled with the +monsters created by the genius of Sitsumi and the Three--and their as +yet unknown lieutenants back at Lake Baikal?" + +Eyer gritted his teeth. His hands closed atop the table at which they +were seated. The knuckles went white with the strain. The lips of both +men were white. They realized to the full the dreadful responsibility +which they had assumed. They knew how abysmally hopeless was their +chance of accomplishing anything. And without some gigantic effort being +made, the world as they knew it would be destroyed. In its place would +be a race of strange beings, of vengeful hybrids endowed from birth +with the will to conquer, or destroy utterly. + +"You were speaking of the levitating ray," prompted Eyer with swift +change to the sidewise whispering. + +"From what you heard I'm sure it is something invented by Liao Wu, Yung +Chan and Wang Li. In so much they have an advantage over Sitsumi. I +doubt if there is any love lost among them, beyond the fact that they +need one another. Sitsumi is master of the substance which bends light +rays--and thus is rendered invisible, while the Three are masters of the +ray which not only propels this space ship, but is the agency by which +buildings are torn up, dropped and destroyed. It's plain to me that this +room is the control room of the space ship. The ray is--well, it's as +difficult to explain as electricity, and perhaps as simple in its +operation. The ray does more than nullify gravity--can be made to +reverse gravity! Let's call the ray the gravity inverter for want of a +better name. It makes anything it touches literally _fall away from the +Earth_, toward the point whence the ray emanates!" + +"And if we were to obtain control of the apparatus which harnesses the +ray?" + +"We lack the knowledge of the Three for its operation. No, we've got to +find some simpler solution in the brief time we have." + + * * * * * + +At this point the partners had been within the white globe about ten +hours and they had learned much about it. The inner globe, for example, +maintained an even keel, no matter how the space ship as a whole moved +on its rays that seemed like table legs. The gyroscopic principle was +used. The inner globe was movable within the outer globe, or rind. If +for any reason the space ship listed in one direction or the other, the +inner globe, while it rose and fell naturally, remained upright, its +floor always level so that, the gyroscope controlling the whole, the +central, levitating, ray would always, must always, as it proved, point +downward. + +Try as they might, the partners could not see how the Three manipulated +the ray. They guessed that there were many buttons on the table at which +they sat. The table itself was not an ordinary table. What might have +been called a fifth leg, squarely under the center of the table, was +about three feet square. Through this, Jeter guessed, ran the wires by +which they controlled all their activities, machinery to operate which +had been installed under the floor in the unseen lower half of the inner +globe. + +They knew that must remain forever a secret from them. + +There was a sudden stir among the Three. Jeter and Eyer turned aside for +a moment to peer down upon New York City. They held their breath with +horror as they saw the smoking devastation which must have buried +thousands of people. The wrecking had been all but complete. Only the +finest buildings still stood. Jeter wondered why the falling back of the +shattered buildings had not shaken down those which the Sitsumi crowd +had not wished to destroy. The repeated shocks must almost have shaken +Manhattan Island on its foundations. + +They saw what had caused the sudden stiffening of the Three. Sitsumi, +busily engaged at something else nearby, quietly approached the Three. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"Rescue planes," said Wang Li. "New York City sends six fliers to rescue +Jeter and Eyer. New planes. They'll reach us, Sitsumi. We should have +thought to destroy all dangerous air ports. A fatal oversight!" + +Sitsumi's eyes were grave. He looked at each of the Three in turn. + +"God!" said Jeter's whispering lips. "If we could read their minds! If +only we could guess what it is they fear, we'd have the secret by which +we might destroy them." + +"They're vulnerable," said Eyer, "but how?" + +"Watch!" said Jeter. "Listen! And here's to those six unknowns coming up +to, maybe, get the same dose we're due for! We were closely watched. New +York City knows exactly where we vanished in the sky. Those six planes +are aiming at us--at a spot in the stratosphere they can't see. And yet, +why should Sitsumi and the Three be so fearful? All they have to do is +move a half mile in any direction and they'll never find them." + +"But to move will interfere with their plans," said Eyer. "Lucian, look +at the expressions on their faces! Something tells me they are +vulnerable in ways we haven't guessed at. If we knew the secret maybe we +could destroy them. We've got to discover their weak spot." + + * * * * * + +There was a long pause while Jeter and Eyer watched the rescue ships +come climbing up the endless stairways of the sky. Then Jeter whispered +again, guardedly as usual. + +"There seems to be nothing we can do. If our friends are able, by some +miracle, to do something, you know what that means to us?" + +"It means we're as good as dead no matter what happens," replied Eyer. +"But we're only two--and there must be a million buried under the debris +in New York City alone. If we can do anything at all...." + +There he left it. The partners looked at each other. Each read the right +answer in the other's eyes. When the showdown came they'd die as +cheerfully as they knew how, hoping to the last to do something for the +people who must still hope that, somehow, they would cause this bitter +cup of catastrophe to pass from them. And there were thousands upon +thousands whose blood cried out for vengeance. + +The hours sped as the six planes fled upward. To the ears of the +partners, through the audiphones, came the stern roaring of their +motors. In their eyes they bulked larger and larger as the time fled +away. + +The sand in the hour glass was running out. When it was all gone, and +the time had come, what could the helpless Jeter and Eyer hope to +accomplish? + +For an hour they studied the concerned faces of Sitsumi and the Three. + +They were fearful of something. + +What? + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +_To the Rescue_ + + +"Why should we run?" the voice of Sitsumi suddenly rang out in the +control room. "Must we admit in the very beginning of our revolution +that we are vulnerable? Must we confess the fears to which all humanity +is heir? We had not thought ourselves liable to attack, but there still +is a way to destroy these upstarts. To your places, everyone! We shall +fight these winged upstarts and destroy them!" + +The denizens of the space ship were at their stations. Jeter and Eyer +could imagine the minions of Sitsumi and the Three, below the floor of +the white globe, standing-to on platforms about the unseen engines which +gave life and movability to this ship of the stratosphere. How many +there were of them there was no way of knowing. They had guessed two +hundred. There might have been a thousand. It scarcely mattered. + +Sitsumi's face was set in a firm mask. He, of all the "lords of the +stratosphere," seemed to possess endless courage. His example fired the +three. + +"What do you plan?" asked Wang Li. + +Jeter and Eyer listened with all their ears. + +"We have only one weapon in this unexpected emergency," said Sitsumi +quietly. "We cannot direct the ray upward or laterally: it is not so +constructed. But we can attack with the space ship itself! And remember +that so long as our outer rind remains intact and hard we are invisible +to attackers." + +Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances. + +"If only we could find the way to break or soften that outer rind," said +Jeter. + +"What can we do?" asked Eyer. "If it is impervious to the cold of these +heights; if it is so strong that it is impervious to the tremendous +pressure inside the globe--which must be kept at a certain degree to +maintain human life--what can we do? We tried bullets. We might as well +have used peas and pea-shooters. If our friends try bombs they will +still be unsuccessful. If only we could somehow open up the outer rind +or soften it, so that our friends could see the inner globe and reach it +with their bombs!" + +Jeter's face was now dead white. His eyes were aglow with excitement. + +"Tema," he whispered, "Tema, that's their vulnerability! That's what +they fear! They're scared that the outer rind may be broken--which would +spell destruction to the space ship and everybody in it." + +"Including us," replied Eyer, "but, anyway--well, what's the odds? We're +only two--and with this thing destroyed the nightmare will end. Of +course there should be some way to raid the Lake Baikal area and destroy +any other ships in the making, besides ferreting out the secret of the +invisible substance and the elements of the gravity inverter. If we +somehow survive, and this ship is destroyed, that's the next thing to +do." + +Jeter nodded and signaled Eyer to cease whispering. + + * * * * * + +They devoted their attention now to the six planes. They were coming up +in battle formation. They were in plain view and through the telescopes +it could be seen that each was armed with bombs of some kind. Useless +against the invisible space ship as matters now stood; but what would +those bombs do to the inner globe? + +It still lacked several hours of the time allowed in the ultimatum to +Jeter and Eyer of Sitsumi and the Three, when the six planes leveled off +within a couple of miles of the space ship. They knew about where the +stratosphere had swallowed up Jeter and Eyer. Now they were casting +about for a sign, like bloodhounds seeking the spoor of an enemy. + +Jeter and Eyer held their breaths as they watched. Now and again they +stole glances at Sitsumi and the Three, who were watching the six planes +with the intensity of eagles preparing to dive. + +Naka stepped up close to Jeter. + +"When the time comes," he said menacingly, "and it appears that we may +be in difficulties with the fools who think to thwart Sitsumi and the +Three and rescue you, it shall give me great pleasure to destroy you +with your own automatic." + +"Pleasant fellow," said Eyer. "Shall I smash him, Lucian?" + +Jeter shook his head. + +"Our friends out there will look after that, Tema," he said in a natural +tone of voice. "I'll bet you two to one they get this ship within an +hour. Not that a bet will mean anything, as they'll get us, too!" + +"Your friends," said Naka, "will be destroyed. They will not even be +given the opportunity you were given. Sitsumi and the Three will waste +but little time on them!" + +"What," said Jeter calmly "is Sitsumi's hurry? Why is he scared?" + +"Scared?" Naka seemed on the point of hitting Jeter for the blasphemy. +"Scared? He fears nothing. We'll down your friends long before their +motors--" + +Sitsumi suddenly turned and looked at Naka. The look in Sitsumi's eyes +was murderous, Naka went dead white. + +"I think your master believes you talk too much, Naka," said Jeter, but +Jeter's eyes were gleaming, too. + +As soon as Sitsumi had turned back to his station Jeter's lips began to +move. + +"See?" he said. "It isn't their machine guns these people fear. It isn't +their bombs--it's their motors! I wonder why...." + + * * * * * + +By now the six planes were flying abreast, in battle formation, almost +above the space ship, at perhaps a thousand feet greater elevation. A +strange humming sound was traveling through the space ship. The whole +inner globe was vibrating, shaking--and vibration was a menace to glass +or crystal! + +"We've got the answer!" said Jeter. "The outer rind, while capable of +being softened--in sections at least, with safety--for special reasons, +such as happened when we were 'swallowed,' can be hardened to the point +of disruption. It can be shattered, Tema, by vibration! That's why the +space ship keeps far above the roar of cities! The humming of countless +automobile engines might shatter the rind! God, I hope this is the +answer!" + +In his mind's eye Eyer could picture it--the outer rind "freezing" +solid, and cracking with the thunderous report of snapping ice on a +forest lake. No wonder Sitsumi and the Three must destroy the six +planes. + +"Now!" yelled Sitsumi. "Shift positions! The space ship will be hurled +directly at the formation of planes! Wang Li, to the beam controls!" + +Wang Li sprang to the table, pressed a button. The humming sound in the +space ship grew to mighty proportions. The trembling increased. + +Jeter and Eyer kept their eyes glued to the six planes above. Without +tilting their noses the six planes seemed to plunge straight down toward +the surface of the space ship. Thus the two knew that the space ship was +in motion--itself being bodily hurled, as its only present weapon of +offense, against the earthling attackers. + +A split second-- + +One of the planes struck the surface solidly and crashed. Instantly its +wheels and its motor were caught in the outer rind. + +The other five ships scattered wildly, escaping the collision by some +sixth sense, or through pure chance. + +"Poor devil!" said Jeter. "But his buddies can see his plane and know +that it marks the spot where they could conveniently drop their bombs." + +Eyer was on the point of nodding when Sitsumi shouted. + +"Quickly, Wang Li! Spin the outer shell before the enemy uses the +wrecked plane as an aiming point!" + + * * * * * + +A whirring sound. The plane whirled around as though it were twirled on +the end of a string. To the five other pilots it must have seemed that +the plane had struck some invisible obstruction, been smashed, and now +was whirling away to destruction after a strange, incomprehensible +hesitation in the heart of the stratosphere. + +"Quickly, you fool!" shouted Sitsumi at Wang Li. "You're napping! You +should have got all those planes! And you should have spun the outer +globe instantly, before the remaining enemy had a chance to find out our +location." + +"I can move away a half mile," suggested Wang Li. + +"We've got to silence those motors, fool!" yelled Sitsumi. "You know +very well that we can't run. Charge them again, and take care this time +that you crash into the middle of their formation." + +"They're scattered over too great an area. I should wait for them to +reform." + +"Fool! Fool! Don't you think I know the weakness in my own invention? +The proper vibration will destroy us! If the rind is softened we become +visible. We dare not wait for them to reform! Attack each plane +separately if necessary, and at top speed!" + +Jeter began to speak rapidly out of the corner of his mouth. Even Naka's +attention was fastened on the five planes and Wang Li's efforts to +destroy them. + +"Gag Naka!" said Jeter. "The keys! In some way we've got to get to our +plane. It's barely possible. If we can start the motor.... Hurry! Now, +while the whole outfit is watching our friends out there!" + +Eyer rose and reached for Naka with his right hand. + +He dared not miss his lunge. He did not. His huge hand fastened in the +throat of their keeper. Nobody--neither Sitsumi nor the Three--turned as +Naka gasped and struggled. Eyer pulled the man back over the table and, +his neck thus within reach of both hands, snapped it as he would have +broken the neck of a chicken. + +Jeter was already searching the body for the keys. He found them. + +Their leg irons were just falling free when Sitsumi turned. Eyer was +feeling for the automatics in Naka's belt. + +"We won't need them!" yelled Jeter. "There isn't time. Let's go!" + +Jeter was away at top speed, almost pulling Eyer off his feet because +their hands were still fastened together with the handcuffs. + +They were outside on the floor level. + +And through many doors denizens of the lower control room, hurried out +by the commands of Sitsumi, were racing to head them off. But nothing +could stop them. One man got in their way and Eyer's right fist caved in +his face with one deadly, devastating blow. They had now reached the +stairs. + + * * * * * + +The space ship was being hurled at the five remaining planes. Even as +the two men reached the stairs and started up, another of the dauntless +rescuers paid with his life for his courage. Several bombs exploded as +his plane struck the space ship, but they caused no damage whatever. The +hard outer rind seemed to be impervious to the explosions. Obviously no +explosive could destroy the space ship. + +"Quickly, Tema," said Jeter. "The rind can be shattered by vibration, +and we've got to do it somehow." + +"And after that?" panted Eyer. + +"Our friends out there can then see the inner globe. They'll drop bombs. +They'll smash in the globe and--" + +"I know," said Eyer. "Its inhabitants, including us, will start off in +all directions through the stratosphere, with great speed, and probably +in many pieces." + +Jeter laughed. Eyer laughed with him. They didn't fear death, for now +they felt they were on the verge of destroying this monster of space. + +Their pursuers were following them closely. + +Jeter frantically tried to unfasten the handcuffs as they ran. He didn't +manage it until the door was almost reached. He left one cuff dangling +on his right wrist. + +Then, they were through the door. + +"Now, Tema," shouted Jeter, "if you believe in God--if you have +faith--pray for strength to move this plane!" + +"Where?" + +"So that its wheels and nose go through this open door! Then it won't +travel forward when we start the motor--and our pursuers won't be able +to get through to stop us." + +"You think of everything, don't you?" There was a grin on Eyer's face. +But his eyes were stern. He wasn't belittling their deadly danger. And +there was also a chance that Jeter's vibration idea was wrong. + +"Those four planes," panted Jeter, as the two tried to get their plane +in motion toward the door, "cause, from a distance, through thin air, a +slight vibration, varying with their distance from the globe; our plane +motor racing and actually in contact with the globe, can set up a +tremendous vibration by its great motor speed. If we can vibrate the +globe up to its shattering point there's a chance!" + +"We can't pull her, Lucian," said Eyer. "I'll do a Horatius at the door. +You get in, start the motor, taxi her until the wheels go through. I'll +keep the crowd back." + +"Right!" + +Jeter went through the doors into the plane. In a few seconds the +propeller kicked over, hesitated, kicked again. Then the motor coughed, +coughed again, and broke into a steady roaring. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +_High Chaos_ + + +The plane moved forward. Its tail swung around. Its wheels headed for +the door. They dropped through, into the faces of the foremost pursuers, +all of whom were thus effectually blocked off. + +The plane was held as in a vise. The propeller vanished in a blur as +Jeter let the motor out. It was humming an even, steady note. The doors +came open again. + +Jeter came out, his eyes glowing. + +"We haven't the chance of the proverbial celluloid dog chasing the +asbestos cat," he shouted to be heard above the roar of the motor. "But +grab your high altitude suit, oxygen container, and parachute, and let's +get as far away from this plane as we can. Who knows? When the end comes +we may get a break at that!" + +They ran until the bulge of the inner globe all but hid the plane from +them. They could see only the top wing. They did not go farther because +they wished to make sure that the enemy did not dislodge the plane and +nullify all their work. + +"They won't be able to," said Jeter, "for that motor is pulling against +the wheels and holding them so tight against the side of that door that +a hundred men couldn't budge the plane. But we can't take chances." + +Quickly the partners slipped into their suits, adjusted their oxygen +tanks and parachutes. Then Jeter slipped back the elastic sleeve of his +suit and motioned Eyer to do the same. The manacles were brought into +view again. They looked at each other. Eyer grinned and held out his +left hand. Jeter snapped the second cuff to Eyer's wrist. + +The act was significant. + +Whatever happened to them, would happen to both in equal measure. It was +a gesture which needed no words. If they were slain when their +friends--if their theory was correct--finally saw the space ship, they +would die together. If by some miracle they were hurled into outer space +and lived to use their parachutes--well, the discomfort was a small +price to pay to stay together. + +Now they devoted all their attention to their own situation. Four planes +still spun warily above the space ship. Wang Li was patently trying with +all his might to get all four of them before the Jeter-Eyer plane, by +shattering the rind, disclosed the inner core to the bombs of the +remaining planes. + +"Lucian!" said the fingers of Eyer. "Can you tell whether anything is +happening to the rind?" + +Jeter hesitated for a long time. There was a distinct and almost +nauseating vibration throughout all the space ship. And was there not +something happening to the rind over a wide area, directly above the +Jeter-Eyer plane? + +They could fancy the snapping of ice on a forest lake in mid-winter. + +They couldn't hear, in their suits. They could only feel. But all at +once the outer rind, above their plane, vanished. At the same instant +the plane itself, propeller still spinning, rose swiftly up through the +hole in the rind. The air inside the globe was going out in a great +rush. + +The partners looked at each other. At that moment the four planes +swooped over the space ship.... + + * * * * * + +Jeter and Eyer knew that the inner globe had at last become visible, for +from the bellies of the four planes dropped bomb after bomb. They fell +into the great aperture. Jeter and Eyer flung themselves flat. But the +bombs had worked sufficient havoc. They had removed all protection from +the low-pressure stratosphere. The air inside the space ship went out +with a rush. Jeter and Eyer, hearing nothing, though they knew that the +explosions must have been cataclysmic, were picked up and whirled toward +that opening, like chips spun toward the heart of a whirlpool. + +But for their space suits they would have been destroyed in the outrush +of air. Out of the inner globe came men that flew, sprawled out, +somersaulting up and out of apertures made by the crashing bombs. +Ludicrous they looked. Blood streamed from their mouths. Their faces +were set in masks of agony. There were Sitsumi and, one after another, +the Three. + +Then fastened together by the cuffs, the partners were being whirled +over and over, out into space. Their last signals to each other had +been: + +"Even if you're already dead, pull the ripcord ring of your chute!" + +Crushed, buffeted, they still retained consciousness. They sought +through the spinning stratosphere for their rescuers. Thousands of feet +below--or was it above?--they saw them. Yes, below, for they looked at +the tops of the planes. Their upward flight had been dizzying. They +waited until their upward flight ceased. + +Then, as they started the long fall to Earth, they pulled their rings +and waited for their chutes to flower above them. + +Soon they were floating downward. Side by side they rode. Above them +their parachutes were like two umbrellas, pressed almost too closely +together. + +They looked about them, seeking the space ship. + +The devastation of its outer rind had been complete, for they now could +see the inner globe, and it too was like--well, like merely part of an +eggshell. + +The doomed space ship--gyroscope still keeping the ray pointed +Earthward--describing an erratic course, was shooting farther upward +into the stratosphere, propelled by the ghastly ray which, now no longer +controlled by Wang Li, drove the space ship madly through the outer +cold. + +Far below the partners many things were falling: broken furnishings of +mad dreamers' stratosphere laboratories, parts of strange machines, +whirling, somersaulting things that had once been men. + +The partners looked at each other. + +The same thought was in the mind of each, as the four remaining planes +came in toward them to convoy them down--that when the lords of the +stratosphere finally reached the far Earth, only God would know which +was Sitsumi and who were the Three. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Lords of the Stratosphere, by Arthur J. 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