vices and 'copters bearing the Puffyloaf emblem
hovered on the fringes, watching developments and waiting for orders. A
squadron of supersonic fighters hung menacingly above.

The behavior of birds varied considerably. Most fled or gave the loaves
a wide berth, but some bolder species, discovering the minimal nutritive
nature of the translucent brown objects, attacked them furiously with
beaks and claws. Hydrogen diffusing slowly through the crusts had now
distended most of the sealed plastic wrappers into little balloons,
which ruptured, when pierced, with disconcerting _pops_.

Below, neck-craning citizens crowded streets and back yards, cranks and
cultists had a field day, while local and national governments raged
indiscriminately at Puffyloaf and at each other.

Rumors that a fusion weapon would be exploded in the midst of the flying
bread drew angry protests from conservationists and a flood of telefax
pamphlets titled "H-Loaf or H-bomb?"

Stockholm sent a mystifying note of praise to the United Nations Food
Organization.

Delhi issued nervous denials of a millet blight that no one had heard of
until that moment and reaffirmed India's ability to feed her population
with no outside help except the usual.

Radio Moscow asserted that the Kremlin would brook no interference in
its treatment of the Ukrainians, jokingly referred to the flying bread
as a farce perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud Cuckoo
Land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby-trapped by
Capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent on the whole topic.

Radio Venus reported to its winged audience that Earth's inhabitants
were establishing food depots in the upper air, preparatory to taking up
permanent aerial residence "such as we have always enjoyed on Venus."

* * * * *

NewNew York made feverish preparations for the passage of the flying
bread. Tickets for sightseeing space in skyscrapers were sold at high
prices; cold meats and potted spreads were hawked to viewers with the
assurance that they would be able to snag the bread out of the air and
enjoy a historic sandwich.

Phineas T. Gryce, escaping from his own managerial suite, raged about
the city, demanding general cooperation in the stretching of great nets
between the skyscrapers to trap the errant loaves. He was captured by
Tin Philosopher, escaped again, and was found posted with oxygen mask
and submachine gun o