low haze
beneath me. I _was_ going north--to Dr. Brende's little private island
off the coast of Maine. The lower lanes were pretty well crowded. I
tried one of the north-bound at 8,000 feet; but the going was awkward.
Then I went to 16,000.

But Grille, the attendant back at the bridge, evidently had his finder
on me, out of plain curiosity. He called me.

"They'll chase you out of there," came his voice. "Nothing doing up
there tonight. That's reserved. Didn't you know it?"

I grinned at him. In the glow of my pitlight I hoped he could see my
face and the grin.

"They'll never catch me," I said. "I'm traveling fast tonight."

"Chase you out," he persisted. "The patrol's keeping them low. General
Orders, an hour ago. Didn't you know it?"

"No."

"Well, you ought to. You ought to know everything in your business.
Besides, the lights are up."

They were indeed; I could see them in all the towers underneath me. I
was flying north-east; and at the moment, with a following wind, I was
doing something over three-fifty.

"But they'll shut off your power," Grille warned. "You'll come down soon
enough then."

Which was also true enough. The evening local-express for Boston and
beyond was overhauling me. And when the green beam of a traffic tower
came up and picked me out, I decided I had better obey. Dutifully I
descended until the beam, satisfied, swung away from me.

At 8,000 feet, I went on. There was too much traffic for decent speed
and the directors in every pilot bag and tower I passed seemed watching
me closely. At the latitude of Boston, I swung out to sea, off the main
arteries of travel. The early night mail for Eurasia,[4] with Great
London its first stop, went by me far overhead. I could make out its
green and purple lights, and the spreading silver beam that preceded it.

[Footnote 4: Now Europe and Asia.]

Alone in my pit, with the dull whir of my propellers alone breaking the
silence of the night, I pondered the startling events of the past few
hours. Above me the stars and planets gleamed in the deep purple of an
almost cloudless sky. Venus had long since dropped below the horizon.
But Mars was up there--approaching the zenith. I wondered what the
Martian helio might be saying. I could have asked Greys back at the
office. But Greys, I knew, would be too busy to bother with me.

What could Dr. Brende want of me? I was glad he had sent for me--there
was nowhere I would rather have gone this part