nother company.

Finally, Wade said: "I think we'll stand a much better chance if we show
them a big, spectacular exhibition; something really impressive. We'll
point out all the advantages and uses of the apparatus. Then we'll show
them complete plans for the ship. They might consent."

"They might," replied Morey smiling. "It's worth a try, anyway. And
let's get out of the city to do it. We can go up to my place in Vermont.
We can use the lab up there for all we need. We've got everything
worked out, so there's no need to stay here.

"Besides, I've got a lake up there in which we can indulge in a little
atavism to the fish stage of evolution."

"Good enough," Arcot agreed, grinning broadly. "And we'll need that
lake, too. Here in the city it's only eighty-five because the aircars
are soaking up heat for their molecular drive, but out in the country
it'll be in the nineties."

"To the mountains, then! Let's pack up!"

II

The many books and papers they had collected were hastily put into the
briefcases, and the four men took the elevator to the landing area on
the roof.

"We'll take my car," Morey said. "The rest of you can just leave yours
here. They'll be safe for a few days."

They all piled in as Morey slid into the driver's seat and turned on the
power.

They rose slowly, looking below them at the traffic of the great city.
New York had long since abandoned her rivers as trade routes; they had
been covered solidly by steel decks which were used as public landing
fields and ground car routes. Around them loomed titanic structures of
glistening colored tile. The sunlight reflected brilliantly from them,
and the contrasting colors of the buildings seemed to blend together
into a great, multicolored painting.

The darting planes, the traffic of commerce down between the great
buildings, and the pleasure cars above, combined to give a series of
changing, darting shadows that wove a flickering pattern over the city.
The long lines of ships coming in from Chicago, London, Buenos Aires
and San Francisco, and the constant flow from across the Pole--from
Russia, India, and China, were like mighty black serpents that wound
their way into the city.

Morey cut into a Northbound traffic level, moved into the high-speed
lane, and eased in on the accelerator. He held to the traffic pattern
for two hundred and fifty miles, until he was well past Boston, then he
turned at the first break and fired the ship t