And with this assurance Chet Bullard
drifted again into sleep....

* * * * *

The blurring memories had lost their distortions a week later, as he
sat before a broad window in his room and looked out over the
housetops of Vienna. Again he was himself, Chet Bullard, with a Master
Pilot's rating: and he let his eyes follow understandingly the moving
picture of the world outside. It was good to be part of a world whose
every movement he understood.

Those cylinders with stubby wings that crossed and recrossed the sky;
their sterns showed a jet of thin vapor where a continuous explosion
of detonite threw them through the air. He knew them all: the pleasure
craft, the big, red-bellied freighters, the sleek liners, whose
multiple helicopters spun dazzlingly above as they sank down through
the shaft of pale-green light that marked a descending area.

That one would be the China Mail. Her under-ports were open before the
hold-down clamps had gripped her; the mail would pour out in an
avalanche of pouches where smaller mailships waited to distribute the
cargo across the land.

And the big fellow taking off, her hull banded with blue, was one of
Schwartzmann's liners. He wondered what had become of Schwartzmann,
the man who had tried to rob Harkness of his ship; who had brought the
patrol ships upon them in an effort to prevent their take-off on that
wild trip.

For that matter, what had become of Harkness? Chet Bullard was
seriously disturbed at the absence of any word beyond the one message
that had been waiting for him when he regained consciousness. He drew
that message from a pocket of his dressing gown and read it again:

"Chet, old fellow, lie low. S has vanished. Means mischief.
Think best not to see you or reveal your whereabouts until
our position firmly established. Have concealed ship.
Remember, S will stop at nothing. Trying to discredit us,
but the gas I brought will fix all that. Get yourself well.
We are planning to go back, of course. Walt."

Chet returned the folded message to his pocket. He arose and walked
about the room to test his returning strength: to remain idle was
becoming increasingly difficult. He wanted to see Walter Harkness,
talk with him, plan for their return to the wonder-world they had
found.

* * * * *

Instead he dropped again into his chair and touched a knob on the
newscaster beside him