All this took place in seconds. The pilot said, "I see something!" and
instantly there was swift, tense teamwork in action. A call by radio,
asking for help. The plane headed up for greater clearance between it
and the clouds. The jatos made ready for firing. They were the
jet-assisted take-off rockets which on a short or rough field would
double the motors' thrust for a matter of seconds. In straightaway
flight they should make the plane leap ahead like a scared rabbit. But
they wouldn't last long.
"I don't like this," said the co-pilot in a flat voice. "I don't see
what he could do----"
Then he stopped. Something zoomed out of a cloud. The action was
completely improbable. The thing that appeared looked absolutely
commonplace. It was a silver-winged private plane, the sort that cruises
at one hundred and seventy-five knots and can hit nearly two-fifty if
pushed. It was expensive, but not large. It came straight up out of the
cloud layer and went lazily over on its back and dived down into the
cloud layer again. It looked like somebody stunting for his own private
lunatic pleasure--the kind of crazy thing some people do, and for which
there is no possible explanation.
But there was an explanation for this.
At the very top of the loop, threads of white smoke appeared. They
should have been unnoticeable against the cloud. But for the fraction of
an instant they were silhouetted against the silver wings. And they were
not misty wisps of vapor. They were dense, sharply defined rocket
trails.
They shot upward, spreading out. They unreeled with incredible,
ever-increasing velocity.
The pilot hit something with the heel of his hand. There was a
heart-stopping delay. Then the transport leaped forward with a force to
stop one's breath. The jatos were firing furiously, and the ship jumped.
There was a bellowing that drowned out the sound of the engines. Joe was
slammed back on the rear wall of the cabin. He struggled against the
force that pushed him tailward. He heard the pilot saying calmly: "That
plane shot rockets at us. If they're guided we're sunk."
Then the threads of smoke became the thickness of cables, of columns!
They should have ringed the transport plane in. But the jatos had jumped
it crazily forward and were still thrusting fiercely to make it go
faster than any prop-plane could. The acceleration made the muscles at
the front of Joe's throat ache as he held his head upright against it.
"They'll be proximity----"
Then the plane bucked. Very probably, at that moment, it was stretched
far past the limit of strain for which even its factor of safety was
designed. One rocket had let go. The others went with it. The rockets
had had proximity fuses. If they had ringed the transport ship and gone
off with it enclosed, it would now be a tumbling mass of wreckage. But
the jatos had thrown the plane out ahead of the target area. Suddenly
they cut off, and it seemed as if the ship had braked. But the pilot
dived steeply, for speed.
The co-pilot was saying coldly into the microphone: "He shot rockets.
Looked like Army issue three point fives with proximities. They missed.
And we're mighty lonely!"
The transport tore on, both pilots grimly watching the cloud bank below.
They moved their bodies as they stared out the windows, so that by no
possibility could any part of the plane mask something that they should
see. As they searched, the co-pilot spoke evenly into the microphone at
his lips: "He wouldn't carry more than four rockets, and he's dumping
his racks and firing equipment now. But he might have a friend with him.
Better get here quick if you want to catch him. He'll be the innocentest
private pilot you ever saw in no time!"
Then the pilot grunted. Something was streaking across the cloud
formation far, far ahead. Three things. They were jet planes, and they
seemed not so much to approach as to swell in size. They were coming at
better than five hundred knots--ten miles a minute--and the transport
was heading for them at its top speed of three hundred knots. The
transport and the flight of jets neared each other at the rate of a mile
in less than four seconds.
The co-pilot said crisply: "Silver Messner with red wing-tips. The
number began----" He gave the letter and first digits of the vanished
plane's official designation, without which it could not take off from
or be serviced at any flying field.
Joe heard an insistent, swift _beep-beep-beep-beep_ which would be the
radars of the approaching jets. He could not hear any answers that might
reach the co-pilot as he talked to unseen persons who would relay his
words to the jet fighters.
One of them peeled off and sank into the cloud layer. The others came
on. They set up in great circles about the transport, crossing before
it, above it, around it, which gave the effect of flying around an
object not in motion at all.
The pilot flew on, frowning. The co-pilot said: "Yes. Sure! I'm
listening!" There was a pause. Then he said: "Check. Thanks."
He hung the instrument back where it belonged, above his head and behind
him. He thoughtfully mopped his brow. He looked at Joe.
"Maybe," he said mildly, "you believe me when I tell you there's a sort
of hot war on, to keep the Platform from taking off."