Chapter 12: High Chaos

The plane moved forward. Its tail swung around. Its wheels headed for the door. They dropped through, into the faces of the foremost pursuers, all of whom were thus effectually blocked off.

The plane was held as in a vise. The propeller vanished in a blur as Jeter let the motor out. It was humming an even, steady note. The doors came open again.

Jeter came out, his eyes glowing.

“We haven’t the chance of the proverbial celluloid dog chasing the asbestos cat,” he shouted to be heard above the roar of the motor. “But grab your high altitude suit, oxygen container, and parachute, and let’s get as far away from this plane as we can. Who knows? When the end comes we may get a break at that!”

They ran until the bulge of the inner globe all but hid the plane from them. They could see only the top wing. They did not go farther because they wished to make sure that the enemy did not dislodge the plane and nullify all their work.

“They won’t be able to,” said Jeter, “for that motor is pulling against the wheels and holding them so tight against the side of that door that a hundred men couldn’t budge the plane. But we can’t take chances.”

Quickly the partners slipped into their suits, adjusted their oxygen tanks and parachutes. Then Jeter slipped back the elastic sleeve of his suit and motioned Eyer to do the same. The manacles were brought into view again. They looked at each other. Eyer grinned and held out his left hand. Jeter snapped the second cuff to Eyer’s wrist.

The act was significant.

Whatever happened to them, would happen to both in equal measure. It was a gesture which needed no words. If they were slain when their friends--if their theory was correct--finally saw the space ship, they would die together. If by some miracle they were hurled into outer space and lived to use their parachutes--well, the discomfort was a small price to pay to stay together.

Now they devoted all their attention to their own situation. Four planes still spun warily above the space ship. Wang Li was patently trying with all his might to get all four of them before the Jeter-Eyer plane, by shattering the rind, disclosed the inner core to the bombs of the remaining planes.

“Lucian!” said the fingers of Eyer. “Can you tell whether anything is happening to the rind?”

Jeter hesitated for a long time. There was a distinct and almost nauseating vibration throughout all the space ship. And was there not something happening to the rind over a wide area, directly above the Jeter-Eyer plane?

They could fancy the snapping of ice on a forest lake in mid-winter.

They couldn’t hear, in their suits. They could only feel. But all at once the outer rind, above their plane, vanished. At the same instant the plane itself, propeller still spinning, rose swiftly up through the hole in the rind. The air inside the globe was going out in a great rush.