y
impersonality got under one's skin.

Bundled into the machine between the silent major and an equally quiet
pilot in uniform, Ross was lifted over the city, whose ways he knew as
well as he knew the lines on his own palm, into the unknown he was
already beginning to regard dubiously. The lighted streets and
buildings, their outlines softened by the soft wet snow, fell out of
sight. Now they could mark the outer highways. Ross refused to ask any
questions. He could take this silent treatment; he _had_ taken a lot of
tougher things in the past.

The patches of light disappeared, and the country opened out. The plane
banked. Ross, with all the familiar landmarks of his world gone, could
not have said if they were headed north or south. But moments later not
even the thick curtain of snowflakes could blot out the pattern of red
lights on the ground, and the helicopter settled down.

"Come on!"

For the second time Ross obeyed. He stood shivering, engulfed in a
miniature blizzard. His clothing, protection enough in the city, did
little good against the push of the wind. A hand gripped his upper arm,
and he was drawn forward to a low building. A door banged and Ross and
his companion came into a region of light and very welcome heat.

"Sit down--over there!"

Too bewildered to resent orders, Ross sat. There were other men in the
room. One, wearing a queer suit of padded clothing, a bulbous headgear
hooked over his arm, was reading a paper. The major crossed to speak to
him and after they conferred for a moment, the major beckoned Ross with
a crooked finger. Ross trailed the officer into an inner room lined with
lockers.

From one of the lockers the major pulled a suit like the pilot's, and
began to measure it against Ross. "All right," he snapped. "Climb into
this! We haven't all night."

Ross climbed into the suit. As soon as he fastened the last zipper his
companion jammed one of the domed helmets on his head. The pilot looked
in the door. "We'd better scramble, Kelgarries, or we may be grounded
for the duration!"

They hurried back to the flying field. If the helicopter had been a
surprising mode of travel, this new machine was something straight out
of the future--a needle-slim ship poised on fins, its sharp nose lifting
vertically into the heavens. There was a scaffolding along one side,
which the pilot scaled to enter the ship.

Unwillingly, Ross climbed the same ladder and found that he must wedge
himse