"Fine, fine," came the delighted voice: "I'll phone the tower immediately."
With Scriven's big ship flying behind Oona's, only a few miles behind, the broken spell did not return. Already like a white table cloth laid in the sky, the landing platform of the Braintrust tower gleamed under the floodlights, and as the two ships descended almost side by side into the clearing behind the cabin, plain-clothes men materialized from under the shadows of the trees. Under the strong lights their smiles were as well-bred as those of trained diplomats and their poise was perfect. Six of them kept Lee, the stranger, covered while the seventh quickly frisked him under the disguise of a polite bow.
Bearing it all with a grin, Lee thought: "I never knew home would be like this. Never suspected it would be this kind of an America we were fighting for. The Brain, it's got a private army too. Funny that I should have known that all the time and yet not realized...."
Scriven took him warmly by the arm. "I'm awfully sorry Lee, it's plain folly of course. I don't feel as if I need all this protection, but the government does. Don't blame it on these men, they merely obey orders. Now, out with those lights—and let's go over to the "Brain Wave." I seem to hear a pleasant tinkling of glasses from within."
There was. With her remarkable ability of living up to an emergency, Oona had taken possession of the strange ship. As the two men approached, she stood at the door, unhurried hostess of an established home with the soft glow of an electric fireplace behind her, ice cubes and cocktail shakers already glittering on the little bar.
It was a spacious cabin. On Scriven's orders it had been equipped somewhat like the captain's stateroom on an old "East-Indiaman" sailing ship.
"I like your ship, Howard," she said. "She's swaying a little on her shock absorbers in this breeze, but that makes one feel like really being at high sea."
Scriven heaved a big sigh. "Thank you Oona, my dear. And you have no idea how right you are. We are at high sea; in fact, we're lost—at least I am. Unless you save my life tonight, you and Dr. Lee."
Oona laughed and even Lee couldn't help smiling. There was something irresistible comic in the puzzled and worried expression of that leonine face. "Come on in, you need a drink," the girl said.