Blood reddened the captain's left sleeve.
"Wounded, Captain?"
"Only a scratch!"
"Report to Dr. Lombardo. And have Simonds, in charge of the stores,
replace this broken pane."
"Yes, sir!"
Alden saluted with a blood-stained hand, slipped his gun back into its
holster and got up. He swayed a little, with the swinging slide of the
air-liner and with the weakness that nerve-shock of a wound brings.
But coolly enough he slid open the door leading into the main
corridor, and passed through, closing the door after him. Where his
hand touched the metal, red stains showed. Neither man of the pair now
left in the pilot-house made any comments. This was all in the day's
work--this and whatever else might befall.
Spiraling vastly, up, up climbed the giant plane. A colder air nipped
through the broken window. Cloud-wisps began to blur the glass; the
stars began to burn more whitely in a blacker sky.
The Master touched a button at the left side of the steering-post.
Below his feet, as they rested in their metal stirrups, an aluminum
plate silently slid back. An oblong of dim light blurred up through
the heavy plate-glass sheet it had masked.
Glancing down, the Master saw far, far below him a slowly rotating
vagueness of waters black and burnished, of faintly twinkling lights.
Pages:
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104