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And remember that so long as our outer rind remains intact and hard we are invisible to attackers." Jeter and Eyer exchanged glances. "If only we could find the way to break or soften that outer rind," said Jeter. "What can we do?" asked Eyer.
Eyer grinned. Jeter grinned back at him. If they knew they flew inescapably to death they still would have grinned. They had plenty of courage. "We'd better go into town for a meeting with newspaper people," went on Jeter. "You know how things go in the news; there are probably plenty of stories which for one reason or another have not been published.
If we can vibrate the globe up to its shattering point there's a chance!" "We can't pull her, Lucian," said Eyer. "I'll do a Horatius at the door. You get in, start the motor, taxi her until the wheels go through. I'll keep the crowd back." "Right!" Jeter went through the doors into the plane. In a few seconds the propeller kicked over, hesitated, kicked again.
Finally even the topmost ports were clear. "The drop comes soon," said Eyer. "Wait, maybe not." They concentrated on the ceiling ports for a moment, but the clinging stuff did not vanish from them. They turned back to look through the floor ports. Right under them was the milky globe whose surface could easily accommodate their plane.
They seemed to think Jeter had taken leave of his senses, and yet all had seen the Vandercook building perform the utterly impossible. Hadley nodded. "What do you want with the filers and others at your laboratory?" "To listen to the details of construction of our space ship. Eyer will hold a couple of classes to explain everything.
Hadley would be waiting for some news. The plane was twenty yards away and almost at the same time Eyer and Jeter saw something queer about it. At first it was hard to say just what it was. They rushed on. They were within ten yards of the plane when a wail of anguish was born and died in two soundproof helmets.
New York was just a blur against the abysmal darkness under their careening wings. "You've never ventured an opinion, Tema," said Jeter softly, "even to me." Eyer grinned. "Who knows?" he said. "It may all be just the very latest thing in aerial attack. If so, what country or coalition of countries harbor designs against our good Uncle Sam? Japan? China?"
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?"
Queer noises at night, mysterious cordons of Eurasians to keep all investigators back, strange losses of livestock, foodstuffs...." Jeter severed connection. There was little need to listen further to something which he couldn't explain yet, in any case. Eyer, at the controls, banked the plane at right angles and flew on. In shortly less than a minute he banked again.
Jeter and Eyer, hearing nothing, though they knew that the explosions must have been cataclysmic, were picked up and whirled toward that opening, like chips spun toward the heart of a whirlpool. But for their space suits they would have been destroyed in the outrush of air. Out of the inner globe came men that flew, sprawled out, somersaulting up and out of apertures made by the crashing bombs.
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