orked on the dull silvery metal--and I proved my point
by using Mother to shave a little wisp of metal off the edge of the
control board. The curlicue stayed in the air wherever you put it and
when you moved it you could feel the faintest sort of gyroscopic
resistance. It was very strange.

Pop pointed out it was a little like magnetism. A germ riding on an iron
filing that was traveling toward the pole of a big magnet wouldn't feel
the magnetic pull--it wouldn't be operating on him, only on the
iron--but just the same the germ'd be carried along with the filing and
feel its acceleration and all, provided he could hold on--but for that
purpose you could imagine a tiny cabin in the filing. "That's what we
are," Pop added. "Three germs, jumbo size."

Alice wanted to know why an antigravity plane should have even the
stubbiest wings or a jet for that matter, for we remembered now we'd
noticed the tubes, and I said it was maybe just a reserve system in case
the antigravity failed and Pop guessed it might be for extra-fast battle
maneuvering or even for operating outside the atmosphere (which hardly
made sense, as I proved to him).

"If we're a battle plane, where's our guns?" Alice asked. None of us had
an answer.

We remembered the noise the plane had made before we saw it. It must
have been using its jets then. "And do you suppose," Pop asked, "that it
was something from the antigravity that made electricity flare out of
the top of the cracking plant? Like to have scared the pants off me!" No
answer to that either.

Now was a logical time, of course, to ask Pop what he knew about the
cracking plant and just who had done the scream if not him, but I
figured he still wouldn't talk; as long as we were acting friendly there
was no point in spoiling it.

* * * * *

We guessed around a little, though, about where the plane came from. Pop
said Alamos, I said Atla-Hi, Alice said why not from both, why couldn't
Alamos and Atla-Hi have some sort of treaty and the plane be traveling
from the one to the other. We agreed it might be. At least it fitted
with the Atla-Hi violet and the Alamos blue being brighter than the
other colors.

"I just hope we got some sort of anti-collision radar," I said. I
guessed we had, because twice we'd jogged in our course a little, maybe
to clear the Alleghenies. The easterly green star was by now getting
pretty close to the violet blot of Atla-Hi. I looked out a