he order. "You will follow to New York!" And, through
the black night, faint flashes of light marked the fleet of swift
guardians of the skies that closed in, then swept downward and out--an
impregnable convoy about the speeding, roaring ship.

And there was that in Chet's face as he handled the controls that
brought Anita Haldgren to his side that she might lift his free hand in
wordless comfort and press it to her face.

* * * * *

That venerable and beloved man, the President of the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale, stood silent before a vast audience.
Throughout the great auditorium was silence; each of the gathered
thousands was listening to the shrieking sirens from the landing field
on the roof overhead.

Skylights above showed the night air ablaze with red, through which the
vivid green of landing signals pierced in staccato bursts. From the roof
of that building to the highest level of the stratosphere the air was
cleared; no craft of the Service would venture to pierce the barrage of
light and radio waves that hemmed that aerial shaft. And down the shaft,
in a thunder of roaring exhausts, came a shining shape.

She sparkled and flashed in the crimson and green of that emergency
light, and from her bow poured a tornado that blasted the air, then
streamed out behind in hot gas like a comet of flame. Then the thunders
died; the shining shape turned once slowly in air to show her blunt nose
and cylindrical body before she settled softly as a homing bird to the
embrace of great waiting arms of steel. And, inside the building, a
white-haired man was saying:

"They are here! Thank God, they are here! Their radio has prepared us;
our signals have guided them home. And now it is not New York, nor even
the United States of America alone who attends; the whole world will be
summoned. Look!"

* * * * *

Behind, and high above him on a wall, was a radio panel. Its signal
lamps went suddenly dark. The thin, blue-veined hand of the speaker was
pointing.

"Only twice has the world-call flashed: once when the Molemen came and
the future of the world was at stake; once when the Dark Moon crashed
down from the void and the serpents of space menaced aerial traffic. And
now--once again!--the whole world is summoned! Every city and hamlet of
Earth--every ship of the air and the sea--every vessel on the ocean,
under the ocean, and in the air levels above-