ody 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 skyscraper--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 ship 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 altitude 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 altitude--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 nobody
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 instr