It was freezing cold up in the air. Gradually we ascended, till I felt the fresh wind from the Thames estuary beat on my face. Presently the south was cleft by flaming serpents, with eyes of fire.
“The food airvans from France,” said David, pointing.
Now we soared over the outlying factories and warehouses. A huge, glow-painted building sprang into view out of the shadows below.
“The defectives’ workshops for this district,” David continued. “Yonder is the Council’s art factory.”
The darkness in front of us began to be studded with long parallelograms of dazzling glow, set at wide intervals, each capped with the conical Ray guns. From these, extending fanwise toward the ground, appearing pink in contrast with the glow’s intensely purple white, the searchlights wavered.
Jones halted the scoutplane. “The battleplanes,” he said, pointing. “They are posted nightly around London now. You know the reason, David?”
David started and placed his hand in inquiry upon the airscout’s shoulder. Jones’s voice sank to a whisper.
“It is the merest rumor among our men,” he said. “One reads it in their faces rather than hears it spoken, for we are afraid of one another. One can be sure that Sanson has his spies among us. But the scoutplanes are sufficient to patrol London and detect fugitives, and if the battleplanes are sent out there is hope the rumor may be true. If the Tsar has broken out from Tula—”
“Thank God!” said David in a tense whisper.
“He will overrun Skandogermania in a week, for it is as disaffected as Britain. The airscouts there will go over to him. There is no force to stop him, except our planes and the Guard.”