“Did you notice how that Thing looked while Chick’s flare burned?” Garry continued his conversation. “Under the big, bulky body, the helicopter had two things jutting out—I think they were pontoons. They have some sort of special bracing, and shock absorbers, so it can set down on land; but I am sure that the two projections were pontoons—and that, Don, tells us that the helicopter can get down on the water just as easily as a regulation amphibian.”
Don agreed as he watched the horizon line ahead.
“That Thing is human,” Garry added. “Ghosts don’t set off rockets.”
Once more Don was in full agreement.
They scanned the dark, silent sky around them and ahead of the nose as they approached, on swift wings, the scene of their recent struggle to escape annihilation and to get the mail in on time.
“Not a thing in sight!” Garry checked Don’s decision.
Where had the mystery ship gone?
As he asked the question, Garry removed the speaking tube from his lips and bent his eyes downward, over the cockpit cowling.
He searched the unrevealing water, grass and ooze of the swamp.
“Don!” his lips were again at the tube, “forward of the right wing, just where the fifth brace connects to the leading edge covering, I see a little light flickering. There—the wing is over it. Look! In a second it will be just at the trailing edge—there it is!”