Dr. Duerkes screamed as the cold, sticky moisture of the vaporous cloud closed about him. Hawes felt himself jerked out of his seat and he struggled helplessly as he was dragged through the window of the plane.
Below, he saw the bomber spinning crazily to earth. But neither man fell. Instead, they remained suspended in air, held fast by the billowing, green cloud.
An odd, cold feeling swept over Hawes. Oxygen was sucked from his lungs. He gasped for breath, wondering if this was the end of everything. As the light of day faded from his eyes he felt convinced that it must be. A world of silence closed in about him.
As the chill of the stratosphere seemed to freeze the pilot's veins, he recognized the familiar odor he had smelled on the plane. It was ozone, oxygen exposed to the influence of electrical discharge, an allotropy of oxygen known to exist in the stratosphere.
For a time, all that remained of Captain Hawes' consciousness was a dim sense of awareness. From this tiny spark something grew. It enlarged until it swept over and mastered his entire being.
Suddenly Captain Hawes saw, but not through his eyes. He heard gentle whisperings about him, but not through his ears. The soft velvet of the green cloud pressed against his body, buoying it in the air, but he did not actually feel it. His nose no longer scented ozone, yet he was aware of the odor.
His senses were gone; in their place was a single, all-inclusive sense—an awareness of things first hand.