water, too. A green
mass spilled its contents as it leaped over the waves and fell back.
One of ours.

A huge buzzing came from behind me. A cloud of wasplike forms flew
high overhead. It was reserve aircraft, hurrying up from the second
line raft, ten miles west.

But this was no affair of mine. I had my orders. I must be in the
North Atlantic by daybreak. I looked around. There at the further edge
my little Zephyr rested, intact. I hurried to her and sprang into the
cockpit. I was off the coast of Chile. Twelve thousand feet would
clear the highest range between. I set the height control. Today you
don't have to do that, but Mason hadn't perfected his automatic
elevator then. The starting indicator was already set for my position.
I adjusted the direction disk. The little green light showed that the
power broadcast was in operation. I snapped over the starting switch
and the whir of the helicopter vanes overhead told me all was well.
The machine leaped into the air. Nothing to do now till the warning
bell told me I was within a hundred miles of my destination. The
battle shot away from me, far below.

Darkness came swiftly. I was shooting into the eye of the sun at three
hundred miles an hour. I swallowed a few pellets of concentrated food,
then curled up in my bunk. There was no knowing how many hours would
pass till I slept again.

I fell asleep at once.

* * * * *

The strident clamor of the alarm bell woke me. Dawn was just breaking.
Far below me I could make out the heaving Atlantic, calm and peaceful.
A long line of the huge second-line rafts just underneath, stretching
north and south till it curved over the horizon. A bugle's clear notes
came drifting up to me, reveille. Then I was hovering over my goal,
raft 1264. The black rectangle was alive with activity unwonted at
this early hour. I took over the controls from the mechanical pilot,
sent my recognition signal and drifted downward.

The Zephyr settled on the raft with a soft hiss of the compressed air
shock absorbers. A guard came hurrying up. My credentials passed upon,
I alighted. Momentarily, it was getting brighter. I was just in time.

I looked eastward, toward the enemy rafts. Beyond them, there it was,
just as General Sommers had described it--a mountain of vapor,
gleaming white in the gathering light. Not at all disquieting; merely
a shifting, billowing cloud mass. Rather pretty. The rest of the sky
was cle