Lords of the Stratosphere by Arthur J. Burks
CHAPTER VII
_Invisible Globe_
The buzzer of their radiophone was sounding, but so intent were they onthis phenomenon they were facing, they paid it no heed. Their eyes werealight, their lips in firm straight lines of resolve, as they dived downupon the invisible obstruction--whatever it was--from whose surface thetelltale updraft came.
It was Eyer who made the suggestion:
"Let's measure it to see what its plane extent is."
"How?" asked Jeter.
"Measure it by following the wind disturbance. We travel in onedirection until we lose it. There is one extremity. In a few minutes wecan discover exactly how big the thing is. What do you think it is?"
Jeter shook his head. There was no way of telling.
Jeter nodded agreement to Eyer. Then he spoke into the radiophone,telling Hadley what they had found, to which he could give no name.
"The world awaits in fear and trembling what you will have to report,Jeter," said Hadley. "What if you become unable to report, as Kressdid?"
"Don't worry. We will or we won't. If we succeed we'll be back. If wefail, send up the other.... No, perhaps you hadn't better send up thenew planes. But I think Eyer and I have a chance to discover the natureof this strange--whatever-it-is. If you can't contact us, delaytwenty-four hours before doing anything. I--well, I scarcely know whatto tell you to do. We'll just be shooting in the dark until we know whatwe're in for. You'll have to contain yourself in patience. What did youwant with me?"
"Only to tell you of another strange news dispatch. It gives no details.It merely tells of strange activity around Lake Baikal, beyond the GobiDesert. Queer noises at night, mysterious cordons of Eurasians to keepall investigators back, strange losses of livestock, foodstuffs...."
Jeter severed connection. There was little need to listen further tosomething which he couldn't explain yet, in any case.
Eyer, at the controls, banked the plane at right angles and flew on. Inshortly less than a minute he banked again.
* * * * *
In five minutes he turned to Jeter with a queer expression on his face.
"Well," he said, "what's to do about it? What is it? It seems to be somesolid substance approximately a quarter mile square. But it can't betrue! A solid substance just hanging in the air at ninety thousand feet!It's beyond all imagining!"
"What man can imagine, man can do," replied Jeter. "A great newspapereditor said that, and we're going to discover now just how true it is."
"What's our next move?"
For a long time the partners, stared into each other's eyes. Each knewexactly what the other thought, exactly what he would propose as acourse of action. Jeter heaved a sigh and nodded his head.
"We're as much in the power of the enemy here as we would be there, oranywhere else. We can't discover anything from here. Set the wheelsdown!"
"We can't tell anything about the condition of the surface of thatstuff. We may crack up."
Jeter had to grin.
"Sounds strange, cracking up at ninety thousand feet, doesn't it? Well,hoist your helicopter vanes and drift down as straight as you can--butbe sure and keep your motor idling."
Again they exchanged long looks.
"O.K.," said Eyer, as quietly as he would have answered the same orderat Roosevelt Field. "Here we go!"
He pressed a button and the helicopters, set into the surface of thesingle sturdy wing, snapped up their shafts and began to spin,effectually slowing the forward motion of the plane. Eyer fish-tailedher with his rudder to help cut down speed.
"We can't see the surface of the thing at all, Lucian," said Eyer. "I'llsimply have to feel for it."
"Well, you've done that before, too. We can manage all right."
Down they dropped. The updraft was now a cushion directly under them.And then their wheels struck something solid. The plane moved forward afew feet--with a strange sickening motion. It was as though the surfaceof this substance were globular. First one wheel rose, then dipped asthe other rose. The plane came to rest on fairly even keel, and thepartners, while the motor idled, stared at each other.
"Well?" said Eyer, a trace of a grin on his face.
"If it'll hold the plane it will hold us. Let's slide into ourstratosphere suits and climb out. We have to get close to this thing tosee what it is."
"Parachutes?" said Eyer.
Jeter nodded.
"It would simplify matters if the thing happened to tilt over and spillus off, I think," said Jeter, matching Eyer's grin with one of his own."I can't think with any degree of equanimity of plunging ninety thousandfeet without a parachute."
"I'm not sure I'd care for it with one," said Eyer.
* * * * *
They were soon in the tight-fitting suits which were customarily used byfliers who climbed above the air levels at which it was impossible for ahuman being to breathe without a supply of oxygen in a container. Theirsuits were sealed against cold. Set in their backs were oxygen tankscapable of holding enough oxygen for several hours. Over all this theyfastened their parachutes.
Then, using a series of doors in order to conserve the warmth and oxygeninside their cabin, they let themselves out, closing each successivedoor behind them, until at last they faced the last door--and the grimunknown. They glanced at each other briefly, and Jeter's hand went forthto grasp the mechanism of the last door. Eyer stood at his side. Theireyes met. The door swung open.
They stepped down. The surface of this stratosphere substance wasslippery smooth. Now that they stood on its surface they could sensesomething of its profile. Movement in any direction suggested walking ona huge ball. The queer thing was that they could feel but could not see.It was like walking on air. Their plane appeared to be suspended inmidair.
For a moment Jeter had an overpowering desire to grab Eyer, jerk himback to the plane, and take off at top speed. But they couldn't do that,not when the world depended upon them. Had Kress encountered this thing?Perhaps. How must he have felt? He had been alone. These two were moralsupport for each other. But both were acutely remembering how Kress hadcome back.
And his plane? They'd perhaps discover what had happened to that too.
Eyer suddenly slipped and fell, as though he had been walking on acarpet which had been jerked from under his feet. From his almost proneposition he looked up at Jeter. Jeter dropped to his knees beside him.Their covered hands played over the surface of their discovery, to findit smooth as glass. As though with one thought they placed their headsagainst it, right ears down, to listen. But the whole vast field seemedto be dead, lifeless. And yet--a solid it was, floating here inspace--or just hanging. It seemed to be utterly motionless.
"There should be a way of discovering what this is, and why, and how itis controlled if an intelligence is behind it." Jeter spelled out thewords in the sign language they had both learned as boys.
Eyer nodded.
* * * * *
They walked more warily when they had, traveling slowly and hesitantly,gone more than a hundred feet from their plane. They kept it in sight byconstantly turning to look back. It was now several feet above them. Notelling what might happen to them at any moment, and the plane was anavenue of escape.
They didn't wish to take a chance on stepping off into thestratosphere--and eternity.
"It's like an iceberg of space," said the fingers of Jeter. "But let'sgo back and look it over to the other side of the plane. We have to keepthe plane in sight and work from it as a base. And say, what sort ofsensations have you had about this surface we're standing on?"
Jeter could see Eyer's shudder as he asked the question. Slowly thefingers of his partner spelled out the answer.
"I've a feeling of eyes boring into my back. I sense that the substanceunder us is malignant, inimical. I have the same feeling with every stepI take, as though the unseen surface were endowed with arms capable ofreaching out and grabbing me."
Now the two faced each other squarely. Now they did not try to hide thattheir fear was an abysmal feeling, horrible and devastating.
"Let's get back to the plane and take off. We haven't a chance."
They clasped hands again and started running back, their plane theirgoal. Before they reached it they would change their minds, for theywere not ordinarily lacking in courage--but so long as they ran both hadthe feeling of being pursued by malignant entities which were alwaysjust a step behind, but gaining.
They slipped on the smooth surface face and fell sprawling. Each felt,when he fell, that he must rise at once, with all his speed, lestsomething grasp him and hold him down forever. It was a horrible trappedfeeling, and yet....
They had but to look at each other to see that they were free. Nothinggripped their feet to hold them back. Of course the way was slippery,but no more so than an icy surface which one essays in ordinary shoes.What then caused their fear?
* * * * *
The plane, so plainly visible there ahead and above, was like a haven ofrefuge to them. They panted inside their helmets and their breath mistedthe glass of their masks. But they stumbled on, making the best speedthey could under the circumstances.
Perhaps if they took, off, and regained their courage, returned tonormal in surroundings they knew and understood, they could come backand try again, after having heard each other's voices. The silence, thesign manual, the odd, awesome sensations, all combined to rob them ofcourage. They must get it back if they were to succeed. And they hadbeen away from the plane for almost an hour. Hadley would be waiting forsome news.
The plane was twenty yards away--and almost at the same time Eyer andJeter saw something queer about it. At first it was hard to say justwhat it was.
They rushed on. They were within ten yards of the plane when a wail ofanguish was born--and died--in two soundproof helmets. There was noquestioning the fact that the plane had settled into the surface of thefield.
The plane was invisible below the tops of the landing wheels, as thoughthe plane were sinking into invisibility, slowly dissolving from thebottom.
"Understand?" Jeter's fingers almost shouted. "Understand why we feltthe desire to keep moving? This field is alive, Eyer, and if we standstill it will swallow us just as it is swallowing our plane! Let's getin fast; maybe we can still pull free from the stuff and take off."
They were racing against time and in the heart of each was the feelingthat whatever they did, their efforts would be hopeless. Still, thespinning propeller of their plane gave them strength to hope.
They went through the succession of doors as rapidly as they dared. Oncein the comfort of their cabin they doffed their stratosphere suits withall possible speed. Jeter was the first free. He jumped to the controlsand speeded up the motor. In a matter of seconds it was revving up to aspeed which, had it been free, would have pulled the plane along atseven hundred miles an hour at the height at which they were.
But the plane did not move!
* * * * *
Jeter slowed the motor, then started racing it fast, trying to jerk thefuselage free of the imbedded wheels, but they would not be released.Both men realized that the wheels had sunk from sight while they hadbeen delayed coming through the succession of doors--that the plane hadsunk until the invisible surface gripped the floor of the fuselage.
Perspiration beaded the faces of both men. Eyer managed a ghastly grin.Jeter's brow was furrowed with frantic thought as he tried to imagine away out.
"If we could somehow cut our landing gear free," began Jeter, "but--"
"But it's too late, Lucian," said Eyer quietly. "Look at the window."
They both looked.
Countless fingers of shadowy gray substance were undulating up thesurface of the window, like pale angleworms or white serpents of manysizes, trying to climb up a pane of glass.
"Well," said Jeter, "here we are! You see? Outside we can see nothing.Inside we begin to see a little, and what good will it do us?"
Eyer grinned. It was as though he lighted a cigarette and nonchalantlyblew smoke rings at the ceiling, save that they dared not use up any oftheir precious oxygen by smoking.
Their fear had left them utterly when it would have been natural forthem to be stunned by it.