aused him to pause with his foot on the ramp. Around him, the rocket
mechanics were staring up at the sky, trying to pinpoint the noise.

Heemskerk looked westward. At first he could see nothing, then there was
a moving dot above the mountain, against the indigo umbrella of clouds.
It grew, it swooped, it approached and became a strange little flying
disc with two people standing on it and _something_ sticking up from its
deck in front of them.

A broom?

No. The platform hovered and began to settle nearby, and there was Van
Artevelde leaning over its rail and fiddling frantically with whatever
it was that stuck up on it--a weird, angled contraption of pipes and
belts topped by a whirring blade. A boy stood at his shoulder and tried
to help him. As the platform descended to a few meters above ground, the
Dutchman slashed at the contraption, the cut ends of belts whipped out
wildly and the platform slid to the ground with a rush. It hit with a
clatter and its two passengers tumbled prone to the ground.

"Jan!" boomed Heemskerk, forcing his voice through the helmet diaphragm
and rushing over to his friend. "I was afraid you were lost!"

Jan struggled to his feet and leaned down to help the boy up.

"Here's your patient, Pieter," he said. "Hope you have a spacesuit in
his size."

"I can find one. And we'll have to hurry for blastoff. But, first, what
happened? Even that damned thing ought to get here from Rathole faster
than that."

"Had no fuel," replied Jan briefly. "My engines were all right, but I
had no power to run them. So I had to pull the engines and rig up a
power source."

Heemskerk stared at the platform. On its railing was rigged a tripod of
battered metal pipes, atop which a big four-blade propeller spun slowly
in what wind was left after it came over the western mountain. Over the
edges of the platform, running from the two propellers in its base, hung
a series of tattered transmission belts.

"Power source?" repeated Heemskerk. "That?"

"Certainly," replied Jan with dignity. "The power source any good
Dutchman turns to in an emergency: a windmill!"

THE END

Transcriber's Note

This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ April
1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wind, b