You may be sure that conditions such as are described by the author of this marvelous story will come about sooner or later.
We also know that this story will arouse a great storm of discussion among our readers, due particularly to the audacity of the author in picturing his ideas as to future aviation—which by the way will not seem so fantastic two hundred years hence as they might seem now.
"Captain Martin Brant, of American Federation Air-Cruiser 3885!"
As the high clear voice rang through the bridge-room of my racing cruiser, I turned toward the distance-phone from which it issued. Pressing a stud beneath the instrument I answered into it.
"Captain Brant speaking."
"Order of the First Air Chief to Captain Brant: You are informed that the European and Asiatic Federations have combined in alliance to launch a great and unexpected attack upon the American Federation. The European Federation fleet of five thousand air-cruisers is now racing over the Atlantic toward New York and other eastern cities, while the Asiatic Federation fleet of the same size is heading over the Pacific toward our western coasts. All American cruisers patrolling east of the Mississippi, including your own, are ordered to head at full speed toward New York, where our eastern squadrons are assembling to meet the European Federation fleet. Upon arriving there yourself and all other squadron commanders will report at once to the First Air Chief."
The clear voice ceased, and I turned from the distance-phone to meet the startled eyes of Macklin, my first officer, who stood at the cruiser's wheel beside me.
"Head eastward—full speed, Macklin!" I cried to him. "It's war at last—war with the European and Asiatic Federations!"
Instantly Macklin swung over the wheel in his hands, and as he did so the whole long bulk of our cruiser swung likewise in mid-air, curving up and backward to race eastward above the green plains, the descending sun at our backs. A moment more and the cruiser's long torpedo shape, gleaming and unbroken metal save for the rows of portholes and the raised, transparent-walled bridge-room in which we stood, was splitting the air eastward at a speed that mounted with each moment. I reached for the order-phone, and as Hilliard, my young second officer, answered from the motor-rooms beneath, I informed him briefly of what had just been told me. Then there was a muffled cheer from the hundred-odd members of our crew, beneath, and a few minutes later the drone of the great motors had reached to an even higher pitch, and we were racing through the sunlight high above the earth at more than a thousand miles an hour.