movement of the reflectors, and as soon as the air clears a little,
we'll start through."

It took another hour for the soot to clear enough that we could plainly
detect the ring of red light before us. Carpenter gave some orders to
the ground, and a gap thirty yards wide opened in the wall before us.
Toward this gap the flyer moved slowly under the side thrust of the
diverted motor discharge. The temperature rose rapidly as we neared the
wall of red light before us. Nearer we drew until the light was on both
sides of us. Another few feet and the flyer shot forward with a jerk
that threw me sprawling on the floor. Carpenter fell too, but he
maintained his hold on the controls and tore at them desperately to
check us.

* * * * *

I scrambled to my feet and watched. The red wall was alarmingly close.
Nearer we drove and then came another jerk which threw me sprawling
again. The wall retreated. In another moment we were standing still,
with the red all around us at a distance of about two hundred yards.

"We had a narrow escape from being cremated," said Carpenter with a
shaky laugh. "I knew that our speed would increase as soon as we got
clear of the layer but it caught me by surprise just the same. I had no
idea how great the holding effect of the stuff was. Well, First
Mortgage, the road to space is open for us. May I invite you to be my
guest on a little week-end jaunt to the Moon?"

"No thanks, Jim," I said with a wry smile. "I think a little trip to the
edge of the layer will quite satisfy me."

"Quitter," he laughed. "Well, say good-by to familiar things. Here we
go!"

He turned to the controls of the flyer, and presently we were moving
again, this time directly away from the earth. There was no jerk at
starting this time, merely a feeling as though the floor were pressing
against my feet, a great deal like the feeling a person gets when they
rise rapidly in an express elevator. The indicator showed that we were
traveling only sixty miles an hour. For half an hour we continued
monotonously on our way with nothing to divert us. Carpenter yawned.

"Now that it's all over, I feel let down and sleepy," he announced. "We
are well beyond the point to which Hadley penetrated and so far we have
met with no resistance. We are probably nearly at the outer edge of the
layer. I think I'll shoot up a few miles more and then call it a day and
go home. We are about eighty miles from the ea