at'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. Th