Lords of the Stratosphere Part 6

Hadley was speaking.

"One of the very latest types of battle-wagons," he said, "was steaming this way from the open sea outside the Narrows, ordered here to stand by in case of need, by the Navy Department. She was armed to the minute with the very latest ordnance. She carried a full crew...."

Hadley paused. Jeter could hear him take a deep breath, like a diver preparing to plunge into icy water. Jeter's spine tingled. He felt he guessed in advance what was to come.

Hadley went on.

The world seemed to spin dizzily as Jeter listened. Out of all the madness only one thing loomed which served for the moment to keep Jeter sane. That was the altimeter, which registered twenty-five thousand feet.

"The battle-wagon--the _U.S.S. Hueber_--was yanked bodily out of the water. It was taken aloft so quickly that it was just a blur. At least this was the way the skipper of a Norwegian steamer, a mile away from the _Hueber_, described it. The wars.h.i.+p simply vanished into the night sky. The exact time was given by the Norwegian. Five minutes before midnight. At that moment nothing was happening in New York City--nothing new, that is."

Hadley paused again.

"Go on, man!" said Jeter hoa.r.s.ely.

"Twenty minutes later the _Hueber_ was lowered back into the water, practically unharmed. It had all happened so swiftly that the sailors aboard scarcely realized anything had happened. The skipper of the wars.h.i.+p radios that the sensation was like a sudden attack of dizziness.

One man died of heart failure. He was the only casualty."

Jeter's eyes began to blaze with excitement, as he spoke.

"Now you can tell the world that the thing which causes the havoc Manhattan is experiencing is not supernatural. It is human--and our people have no fear of human enemies."

"But why was not the wars.h.i.+p dropped somewhere, as the buildings have been?" asked Hadley.

"Did you ever," replied Jeter, "hear what is described in the best fiction as a burst of ironic laughter? Well, that what the _Hueber_, as it now stands, or floats, is! But the enemy made a foolish move and will live to regret it bitterly."

"I wish I could share your sudden confidence," said Hadley. "Conditions here, where public morale is concerned, have become more frightful minute by minute since you left."

Jeter severed the connection.

The altimeter said thirty-five thousand feet. They were still spiraling upward. Again Jeter surveyed the sky aloft.

The earth below was a blur, save through the telescopes. The two had reached a height less than a third of what they hoped to attain.

Still they could see nothing up above them. They were almost over the "shaft" of atmosphere through which the _Hueber_ must have been lifted and lowered. Suppose, Jeter thought, they had accidentally flown into that shaft at exactly the wrong moment? It brought a shudder. Still, Jeter's mind went on, if that had happened they would now, in all likelihood, have been right among the enemy--for gravity in that shaft would not have existed for them, either.

But would they have been lowered back to safety as the _Hueber_ and her crew had been?

Believing as he did that the enemy knew everything that transpired within its sphere of influence, Jeter doubted that Eyer and himself would have been so humanely treated.

He had but to remember Kress to feel sure of this.

The altimeter said fifty thousand feet.

CHAPTER VI

_Stratosphere Currents_

Now the partner-scientists concentrated on the tremendous task of climbing higher than man had ever flown before. n.o.body knew how high Kress had gone, for the only information which had come back had been the corpse of the sky pioneer. Jeter and Eyer hoped to land, too, but to be able to tell others, when they did, what had happened to them.

Somehow, away up here, the affairs of the Earth seemed trivial, unreal.

What was the raising of an entire skysc.r.a.per--in reality so small that from this height it was difficult to pick out the biggest one through the telescope? What mattered a bridge across the Hudson that was really less than the footprint of an ant at this height?

Still, looking at each other, they were able to attain the old perspectives. Down there people like Jeter and Eyer were dying because of something that struck at them from somewhere up here in the blue darkness.

Their faces set grimly. The plane kept up its constant spiraling. Jeter and Eyer flew the s.h.i.+p in relays. Occasionally they secured the controls and allowed the plane to fly on, untended.

"But maybe we'd better not do too much of that," said Jeter dubiously.

"I'm sure we are being observed, every foot of alt.i.tude we make. I don't care to run into something up here that will wreck us. Right now, Eyer, if we happened to be outside this sealed cabin instead of inside it, we'd die in less time than it takes to tell about it."

All known records for alt.i.tude--the only unknown one being Kress'--had now been broken by Jeter and Eyer. They informed Hadley of this fact.

"A week ago you'd have had headlines," came back Hadley. "To-day n.o.body cares, except that the world looks to you for information about this horror. The enemy is systematically destroying every building in Manhattan which dates back over eight years. Fortunately, save for the occasional die-hard who never believes anything, there are few deaths at the moment. But we're all waiting, holding our breaths, wondering what the next five minutes will bring forth. Is there any news there?"

How strange it seemed--as the altimeter said sixty-one thousand feet--to hear that voice out of the void. For under the plane there was no world at all, save through the telescope. Perhaps when morning came they would be able to see a little. Picard had reported the world to look flat from a little over fifty thousand-feet.

"No news, Hadley," said Jeter. "Except, that our plane behaves perfectly and we are at sixty-one thousand feet. Were it not for our turn and bank indicators, our altimeter and air speed instruments, and our navigational instruments, it would be impossible to tell--by looking at least, though we could tell by our s.h.i.+fting weight--whether we were upside down or right side up, on one wing or on an even keel. It's eery.

We wouldn't be able to tell whether we were moving were it not for our air speed indicator. There are no clouds. The motor hum seems to be the only thing here--except ourselves of course--to remind us that we really belong down there with you."

The connection was broken again as Jeter ceased speaking. Things seemed to be marking time on the ground, save for the strange demolitions of the unseen and apparently unknowable enemy. Would they ever really encounter him, or it?

When the sun came out of the east they leveled off at ninety thousand feet. By their reckoning they had scarcely moved in any direction from the spot where they had taken off. Jeter was satisfied that they were almost directly above Mineola. But the world had vanished. The plane rode easily on. Now and again it dipped one wing or the other--and even the veteran aviators felt a thrill of uneasiness. From somewhere up here in this immensity, Franz Kress had dropped to his death. Of course, if it had happened at this height he hadn't lived to suffer.

Or had he? What had been done to him by the--the denizens of the stratosphere?

Jeter sat down beside Eyer. It seemed strange to eat breakfast here, but the sandwiches and hot coffee in a thermos bottle were extremely welcome. They ate in silence, their thoughts busy. When they had made an end, Jeter squared his shoulders. Eyer grinned.

"Well, Lucian," he said, "are we in enemy territory by your calculations? And if so how do you arrive at your conclusions?"

"I'm still guessing, Tema," said Jeter, "but I've a feeling I'm not guessing badly, and.... Yes, we're somewhere within striking distance of the enemy, whatever the enemy is."

"What's the next move?

"We'll systematically cover the sky over an area which blankets New York, Long Island, Jersey City and surrounding territory for a distance of twenty miles. If we're above the enemy, perhaps we can look down upon him. We know he can't be seen from below, perhaps not even from above.

If we are below him we'll try to fly into that column of his. What they'll do to us I.... You're not afraid to find out, are you?"

Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him.

"What they'll do to us if we fly into them I'm sure I don't know. I don't think they'll kill our motor. If whoever or whatever controls the light column decides to us prisoners.... Well, we'll hope to have better luck combating them than Kress had."