One of the planes struck the surface solidly and crashed. Instantly its wheels and its motor were caught in the outer rind.
The other five ships scattered wildly, escaping the collision by some sixth sense, or through pure chance.
"Poor devil!" said Jeter. "But his buddies can see his plane and know that it marks the spot where they could conveniently drop their bombs."
Eyer was on the point of nodding when Sitsumi shouted.
"Quickly, Wang Li! Spin the outer shell before the enemy uses the wrecked plane as an aiming point!"
A whirring sound. The plane whirled around as though it were twirled on the end of a string. To the five other pilots it must have seemed that the plane had struck some invisible obstruction, been smashed, and now was whirling away to destruction after a strange, incomprehensible hesitation in the heart of the stratosphere.
"Quickly, you fool!" shouted Sitsumi at Wang Li. "You're napping! You should have got all those planes! And you should have spun the outer globe instantly, before the remaining enemy had a chance to find out our location."
"I can move away a half mile," suggested Wang Li.
"We've got to silence those motors, fool!" yelled Sitsumi. "You know very well that we can't run. Charge them again, and take care this time that you crash into the middle of their formation."