Arthur J. Burks

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”