perately on the blaze.

"Who's there?" demanded a voice.

"Sergeant Walpole, Post Fourteen, Eastern Coast Observation," said the
Sergeant in a military manner. "Beg to report, sir, that the dinkus that
brought down the other ships is housed in that big bulge on top of the
Wabbly."

"Get in," said the voice.

The Sergeant obeyed. With a purring noise the helicopter shot upward.
Then something went off in mid-sky, miles ahead, where a faint humming
noise had announced the flight of attack-planes. A lurid, crackling
detonation lit up the sky. One of the ships of the night-flying
squadron. From the helicopter they could see the rest of the flight
limned clearly in the flash of the explosion. Instantly thereafter there
was another such flash. Then another.

"Three," said the voice beside Sergeant Walpole. Another flash.
"Four...." The invisible operator of the screw-lifted ship was very calm
about it. "Five. Six." The explosions lit the sky. Presently he said
grimly. "That's all of them. I'd better report it."

* * * * *

He was silent for a while. Sergeant Walpole saw his hand flicking a key
up and down in the faint light of radio bulbs.

"Now shoot the works," said the helicopter man evenly. "All the ships
that attacked this afternoon went down. One of them started to report,
but didn't get but two words through. What did that damned thing use on
them?"

"A dinkus on top, sir," said Sergeant Walpole formally. "I'd found a
monocycle, sir, and was trailing the thing. I'd come to the top of a
hill and seen it moving through a pine-wood, crashing down the trees in
front of it like they wasn't there. Then a egg came down from
Gawd-knows-where up aloft. I stopped up my ears, thinkin' it was aimin'
for me. Then I seen the ships. Two of 'em were fallin'. They landed, an'
I heard a coupla other explosions. Little ones, they sounded like."

The helicopter man's wrist was flicking up and down.

"Little ones!" he said sardonically. "Those ships were carrying
five-hundred-pound bombs! It was those you heard going off!"

"Maybe," conceded Sergeant Walpole. "There was twenty or thirty ships
flyin' in formation, goin' hell-for-leather for the Wabbly. They were
trailin' it from the air. They were comin', natural, for me, because I
was between them an' it. Then my pants caught on fire--"

"What?"

"My pants caught on fire," said Sergeant Walpole, woodenly. "I was
sittin' on the monocycle, try