FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   >>  
ttle craft barrel-rolled from under. This sort of thing could not last forever. With each maneuver he was losing altitude. Serrated roof-tops were already a scant fifteen hundred feet beneath him, gaunt gray fingers that reached up to pluck him from the sky. Only half Allan's mind was concentrated on the aerial acrobatics. The other half plodded a weary treadmill. In the nullite chamber beneath Sugar Loaf's summit, he thought, were three couples whose knowledge and wisdom had preserved them for the repeopling of the Earth. Their children, and their children's children--starting from such a source what heights might not the new race attain? On the other hand, the ship that pursued him carried cowards who had failed in mankind's supreme test; men who had lost their manhood, ravening demi-beasts, half mad with loneliness and desire. As long as they remained alive they would be a menace to those others, an unclean band that would forever sully the new world with the old world's evils. Even should Allan himself escape them by some trick of fortune, they must inevitably find the little band of men--and women. A cold chill ran through Dane as he visioned the result. He was not afraid to die. And the girl in the cabin behind him--better that she never awake than that she be the sport of Ra-Jamba's kind. A grim resolve formed itself, and he watched for a chance to put it into execution. It came. At the end of a shifting maneuver the black 'copter was above and behind the white. Dane's fingers played swiftly over the control board. His ship flipped over backward, rolling on its long axis as it somersaulted. It was directly beneath the other. Then the helio-vanes screamed, and the American plane surged straight up! * * * * * A resounding crash split the air. Metal ripped, a fuel tank exploded. A black wing scaled earthward, zigzagging oddly. Dane's craft and the Eastern ship clung in an embrace of death. They started to drop. But, queerly, the black plane fell faster, left the white one behind as its descent gained speed till it splashed against concrete below. The American helicopter was dropping, too, but sluggishly. Something was buoying it up. Allan, momentarily struggling out of the welter of blackness and pain into which the concussion had thrown him, heard a familiar whine. His helio-vanes were still twirling, limply, stutteringly, bent and twisted, but gripping the air suffici
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   >>  



Top keywords:

beneath

 

children

 

American

 

maneuver

 

fingers

 

forever

 

directly

 

somersaulted

 
resolve
 
chance

surged

 
screamed
 

formed

 

execution

 

control

 
watched
 

swiftly

 
played
 

copter

 

shifting


backward

 
flipped
 

rolling

 
zigzagging
 

momentarily

 

buoying

 
struggling
 

blackness

 

welter

 

Something


sluggishly
 

concrete

 
helicopter
 

dropping

 

stutteringly

 

limply

 

twisted

 

suffici

 

gripping

 

twirling


thrown

 

concussion

 
familiar
 
splashed
 

scaled

 

earthward

 

Eastern

 

exploded

 

resounding

 

ripped