The second shell

By JACK WILLIAMSON
By the Author of The Alien Intelligence, The Girl from Mars
Here the well-known author of The Alien Intelligence and other thrilling stories presents his latest symphony, a fine piece of aerial fiction.
Few authors have Jack Williamson's knack to pack their stories with so much adventure and with so much imaginative science. And while it may be fantastic today, most of it we know, sooner or later, will have become reality.
All scientists for decades have been wondering what the mysterious Heaviside Layer is. Radio engineers know of the Heaviside Layer from its effect on radio waves. It is very much of a fact, yet no one has ever been able to get near it, due to its distance above the surface of the earth, and till we have penetrated it, we cannot be sure what lies above it.
We know you will enjoy the present story, which easily bears re-reading from time to time.
It was two o'clock in the morning of September 5, 1939. For a year and a half I had been at work on the San Francisco Times . I had come there immediately after finishing my year's course at the army officers' flying school at San Antonio, on the chance that my work would lead me into enough tong wars and exciting murder mysteries to make life interesting.
The morning edition had just been put to bed and I was starting out of the office when the night editor called me to meet a visitor who had just come in. The stranger came forward quickly. Roughly clad in blue shirt and overalls, boots, and Stetson, he had the bronze skin, clear eyes, and smooth movements of one who has spent his life out-of-doors.
He stopped before me and held out his hand with a pleasant smile. I saw that his hair was gray; he was a little older than I had thought at first—fifty, perhaps. I liked the fellow instinctively.
Robert Barrett? he questioned in a pleasant drawl. I nodded.
I'm Bill Johnson, he said briefly. I want to see you. Secret Service business. Sabe? He let me glimpse a badge, and we walked out into the night. As we started down the silent street it occurred to me that I had heard of this man before.