lay
three straight lines of black.

"Meteors!" sneered the Infant. "Yet if you'd tell your story to some
of these wise men they would die of laughing--and maybe that wouldn't
be a bad idea, either; they will be dying in a way that's a damned
sight more unpleasant unless someone finds how to catch these birds."

* * * * *

Ahead of them the lookouts framed blue emptiness. Below, on direct
sight, was but the vaguest blur that meant earth and clouds far
beneath. Only the magnification of the microscope brought out the
details, and on its screen the unrolling picture showed those three
lines broadening and merging to widespread desolation; then the smoke
clouds came between to shut off a world reeking with the fumes of
destruction. An occasional flash of red wings showed where the units
of the A. F. F. were at work.

They beheld a city, below them--and smoking ruins where three great
gashes had been torn with torches of flame. To Danny there came a
thought that was sickening: it was as if some great three-toed beast
had drawn one paw, red with the blood of helpless humans, ripping
across the bosom of the land.

His number was flashing on the call board that had been registering
incessant orders to other craft. He cut in on the Headquarters wave.

"O'Rourke--Mountain Division--Unit Five!" he reported. "Do you get my
voice or shall I send by key?"

The man at Headquarters did not trouble to reply to the question. His
voice came faint but clear:

"Number Five--O'Rourke--Orders! If that new ship of yours has any
speed, show it now! Bear on Washington! Get here as quick as the good
Lord will let you! Mountain Division says you've got something good in
that sound-dampener; if you have, we need it now!"

O'Rourke shot back a crisp acknowledgment; took a reading from two
radio beacons; projected them on the map; and pricked a point at their
intersection. He had his own ship on a line with the Capitol in a
matter of seconds.

"And there's hell poppin' there, I'm bettin'! That Headquarters lad
didn't tell much--he wouldn't be worth a dime on a newscast--but I
gathered there was somethin' doin'."

He had spoken more to himself than to his companion who had been a
silent listener to the incoming orders. But the Infant replied in his
own peculiar way.

"The one you saw," he said inquiringly: "he did his dirty work with a
little rod or tube, you said?"

* * * *