"Good God, you didn't know—"
"The rotaries backfired and used up all the oxygen in the engine room. Worse, there's been a carbonic oxide seepage. The air is contaminated throughout the ship. We'll have to open the ventilation valves immediately. I've been waiting to see if—if you could breathe down there. You're all right, aren't you? The air is breathable?"
Lawton's face was dark with fury. "I was an experimental rat in the sky, eh?"
"Look, Dave, we're all in danger. Don't stand there glaring at me. Naturally I waited. I have my crew to think of."
"Well, think of them. Get those valves open before we all have convulsions."
A half hour later charcoal gas was mingling with oxygen outside the ship, and the crew was breathing it in again gratefully. Thinly dispersed, and mixed with oxygen it seemed all right. But Lawton had misgivings. No matter how attenuated a lethal gas is it is never entirely harmless. To make matters worse, they were over the Atlantic Ocean.
Far beneath them was an emerald turbulence, half obscured by eastward moving cloud masses. The bubble was holding, but the morale of the crew was beginning to sag.
Lawton paced the control room. Deep within him unsuspected energies surged. "We'll last until the oxygen is breathed up," he exclaimed. "We'll have four or five days, at most. But we seem to be traveling faster than an ocean liner. With luck, we'll be in Europe before we become carbon dioxide breathers."
"Will that help matters, Dave?" said the captain wearily.
"If we can blast our way out, it will."