nder Burns refueled
his ships and interviewed the flyer who had flown over Oracle. That
worthy shook his head.

"You're going out to fight, Commander," he said, "but God knows what.
So far we have been unable to detect any human agency back of those
globes. They just drift in, irrespective of how the wind is blowing. So
far our only defense has been to shoot them down, but that does little
good; it only helps to broadcast their seed. Then, too, the globes shot
down have never been examined. Why? Because where they hit a jungle
springs up. Sometimes they burst of their own accord. One or two of
them got by us in the darkness last night, despite our searchlights,
and overwhelmed a company of National Guards."

The flight commander was puzzled.

"Look here," he said, "those globes don't just materialize out of thin
air. There must be a base from which they operate. Undoubtedly an enemy
is lurking in those mountains." He got up decisively. "If it is humanly
possible to locate and destroy that enemy, we shall do it."

Flying in perfect formation, the bombing squadron clove the air.
Looking down, the observers could see the gigantic and mysterious
jungle which covered many square miles of country. Like sinuous coils
of spaghetti, it looked, and also curiously like vast up-pointed
girders of steel and iron. The rays of the late afternoon sun glinted
on this jungle and threw back spears of intense light. Over the iron
ridges of the Catalinas the fleet swept at an elevation of several
thousand feet. Westward, numerous huge globes could be seen drifting
south. The commander signaled a half dozen of his ships to pursue and
shoot them down.

In the mountains themselves, there was surprisingly little of the
uncanny vegetation. Mile after mile of billowing hills were quartered,
but without anything of a suspicious nature being noted. Here and there
the observers saw signs of life. Men and women waved at them from
isolated homesteads and shacks. At Mount Lemmon the summer colonists
appeared unharmed, but in such rugged country it was impossible to
think of landing. Oracle, and for a dozen miles around its vicinity,
was deserted.

Though the commander searched the landscape thoroughly with his
glasses, he could detect the headquarters of no enemies; and yet the
existence of the drifting globes would seem to presuppose a sizable
base from which they operated. Mystified, he nevertheless subjected the
Oracle area to a thorough b