But down to it and through it now came one who was alive, a figure made grotesque by the mask it wore and the pack of the parachute strapped to it, who threaded past the littered bodies, an ever-rising whine wailing from the box clasped in his arms.
With a leap, he was at one of the car's port-holes, fingers fumbling at the heavy bolts. The seconds seemed eternal, and the box's whine had become a shattering, sinister scream when at last the bolts loosened. The round pane of glass teetered back, swung open—and the masked man slung his metal burden out, out from the ZX-1 into the gulf between sea and sky.
It arced through the sunlight, went spinning down, became a dot, its screaming faded. Then something synchronized within it, and it was gone—in a burst of weird, bluish light, whose fangs forked upwards for a second, their unearthly flash dimming even the sunlight, and then were gone, too....
Chris found that his whole body was shaking. For a moment he stood there with his masked face through the port.
"Damn close," he muttered. "But what was it that left the box here?"
Then he jarred against the side of the car as the ship swung and came back to realization of what was needed to be done, and done at once. He shifted his gaze, drew his head back, and thrust it forth again, staring.
"Good Lord!" he cried. "That plane's come back!"
His own craft was not alone under the rack. The same mysterious machine hung there again, its cockpit empty, and the automatic spider ladder was stretched down to it from the trap-door in the dirigible above.
"Whatever flies it is aboard now." Chris thought aloud. "But it got back too late to stop me. Well, this time—"