He closed his eyes for a moment to get rid of a slight vertigo caused directly by the glare of the aluminium hood that covered the engine. Colored blotches of light danced before his eyeballs, and the rushing of the icy wind rang on his brain like faint voices. He could hear the feverish whispering of the blood in the tympans of his ears, like a magnified replica of the sound that sometimes comes just before sleep. He felt sleepy.
“Sixteen thousand!” he muttered to himself, crushing down his dizziness and languor. “Sixteen thousand! Sixteen thousand feet!”
“No, twenty thousand!” The voice was singularly musical, thin, and clear.
“Yes, twenty thousand!” In the thrill of determination that the voice gave him, he momentarily overlooked the queerness of its presence. “Twenty thousand feet high!”
“Higher than even the condor dares!”
He opened his eyes in some faint distress and perplexity of mind, and blinked through his goggles. In the forward seat, turned three quarters toward him, was a woman, a girl. He could hardly make her out at first, for the dazzle of the aluminium hood was just beyond her, and she was dressed all in white—white, knitted wool and some close, white fur that was almost as dazzling as the aluminium itself. A white, knitted cap was pulled down over her head; a few strands of hair, blazing with the sun’s own color, lay along the snow-white oval of her face.
“I didn’t know—I had the two-seater,” he remarked dazedly. His voice was thin and whistling; he raised it to make himself heard above the hum of the motor and screw. “I thought I took out the one-place machine; I’m out for altitude, you know.”
Her eyes, blue-black and flashing like the sky, regarded him with a little look of questioning; her mouth’s faint scarlet line turned down a trifle at the ends, suggesting polite surprise.
“I don’t mean to intimate that I’m not delighted to have you along,” he assured her warmly. “I merely forgot; it’s the first time I’ve been anywhere near as high as this, and it makes me feel slightly dippy, not bad enough to make me be afraid of losing control, of course, but still—not just right.”
“You look—magnificent.” Her voice left a ringing echo in his ears.