"Well, Henry," said Uncle Andy, whose pipe had gone out, "after all that's happened, and in view of the landscape below us, I imagine you are about ready to extrapolate."
"He's got company!" ejaculated the negro G.I. "Ah's about ready to lose control, myself! Dat Monster Man done burned up mah nervous system, but dis here country we's flyin' over is gonna make me exasperate all over if somebody don't tell me where we is at!"
Dr. Edwards was not concerned with him, just now, Henry noted. Instead, he studied the unknown country below them—and the peculiar sky—as though orthodox authority were at a loss for an opinion. The Swedish actress, known by the name of Valerie Roagland, looked at Henry, her brilliantly blue eyes searching him curiously.
"When will they tell us?" she asked, with just the pleasant trace of a liquid accent.
"I don't think the Captain or the Navigator are going to be able to come up with much," said Uncle Andy, noting with appreciation that Valerie Roagland's hair was naturally blond and wavy. "Unless they are equipped with a crystal ball."
"What I'd like to know," said Dr. Edwards, "is how this happened. A weird creature like that, suddenly appearing on board and stealing two babies, then disappearing into thin air. And when it's all over—" He shrugged and pointed below.
Henry looked again at the terrain over which they were flying. The ship was in descent, and their present altitude of some three thousand feet gave him a close view.
Distant seas, land locked tropical harbors, islands, and the great land mass below with its rivers and lakes and jungles and very low, pagan looking hills. Here below them was an apparently uninhabited Eden—a Paradise that continued endlessly. No ship, sailboat or canoe could be discerned on any visible body of water. No city, town or village. No highways, country roads or footpaths. There were only brilliant flowers, on the ground and in the trees, and a few birds.
Nothing more—except the sky.