Indiana Jones & the Sky Pirates

"Exactly like the artifacts. The cube and the pyramids," Indy stressed.

"Actually, we had a bunch of them to be used if we needed them, but the trap worked right from the beginning. In fact, the cube with those South African diamonds had nothing to do with this group flying the zeppelin and those discs, because we didn't even know about them at the time. But Treadwell has also worked with the De Beers outfit and others, just like I have. That, in fact, is how we first got together."

Treadwell nodded affirmation and picked up Indy's thread of explanation. "So we also made certain that the people we were after, even if we could not yet identify them, would know of the existence of one Professor Henry Jones and his great skills in deciphering cuneiform inscriptions. That meant they must go after Indy, and, in doing so, might well reveal themselves to us. At first, of course, they would want him alive and cooperative. But once they found out we'd slipped them the old Mickey and were playing a bit on the dirty side, why, then they were sure to try to eliminate our good friend, here."

"You all seemed very fast and easy with his life!" Gale said angrily.

"That was my choice, Gale," Indy emphasized. "Nobody went into this wearing a blindfold. Besides," he grinned,

"I had you along to protect me, right?"

"The point, Miss Parker," Treadwell followed hastily, "is that Indy's cooperation was really our only quick way to get this crowd to show some cracks in their anonymity."

"Ah," Pencroft said pleasantly, more and more pleased with what he judged to be his own role in the affair. "That's one of the reasons behind our arranging that trimotor machine. On the record, you see, the university, as well as our museum, accepted the cost for that aircraft. It, too, was bait. You can hardly hide a corrugated clanker like that when it traverses the Atlantic! Pack of fools, too, I say. That's what I told them when they laid bare their schemes."

"But it has worked," Treadwell offered.

"Then why haven't we figured out those golden discs!" Gale countered.

"Oh, but we have, miss, we have," Treadwell assured her. "Most of that is attributed, by the by, to Colonel Henshaw. He is a very close and old friend of mine.

And our government, I should add. We've worked together for years."

"Do you mean to tell me," Gale said with her eyes wide, "you know what those discs are?" She glanced at Indy. His sudden sly smile was infuriating to her.

"Oh, we really had some ideas. Right from the beginning, I mean," said Henshaw. "We have some pretty sharp boys in our technical intelligence programs.

Research and development stuff. I was doing that back in the war. I worked with a Frenchman, some fellow named Coanda—um, Henri Coanda—who had developed a rocket gun for aerial combat. A couple of things we'd talked about buzzed around in the back of my head for a while after I heard about the discs. It just took me longer than it should to start putting two and two together. Well, sometimes even the experts miss the obvious, or memories leak away, like mine seemed to do. Then our group, a bunch of us, seemed to come up with the same conclusion at the same time.

As if we'd all been thunked on our skulls simultaneously."

"Which was?" Gale asked, wishing Henshaw would hurry.

"The weapons those things were using. They weren't any more advanced than the best we had. Or that were in use by several other countries, for that matter. We contacted old Treadwell, here, and then we really started doing some digging into past experimental programs."

"And that's how they started coming up with answers," Indy picked up the explanations. "They brought me into the picture to look over their shoulders. When they had what they judged were some solid leads, they pounded it into my head.

That's how I sometimes seemed to be so knowledgeable on the matter. It wasn't what I was figuring out. It was all memorizing what these people taught me, and we figured if I made public statements about the discs, it would simply be more bait added to the effect of the artifacts. It would start to appear as if I was behind stripping away the cover of this group."

"We did some highspeed photography," Treadwell added. "That was an enormous help. It was touchandgo for a while because we had to stumble across an opportunity to film the discs. We used still pictures and highspeed films.

Would you believe that out of some sixty cameras we set up with the Americans, only two produced results?"

"And—" Gale let the query hang.

"Hydrocarbons," Treadwell said with triumph. "That was the clue! I felt like Sherlock Holmes. You see, there is an exhaust trail behind those infernal devices.

The films, and those pictures you people took while you were waltzing across the Atlantic, proved it. Remember that huge ship you encountered at sea?"

"Hard to forget," Gale murmured.

"Your photographs confirmed what we'd suspected. That monster mother airship, easily fifteen hundred feet from one end to the other, could hardly be concealed in Europe. Population density and all that. The key was that any kind of aerial vessel of that size needs servicing, and a lot of it. Refueling, supply replenishment, engine tuneup, liftinggas refills. That ship took care of that. Those side booms extending out on each flank? When the dirigible came down to the deck of that vessel, a mooring mast and the booms came up to snug down the big zep—well, I see by your expression you've already figured it out yourself."

"Wait; wait!" Gale broke in. "All right, you have this evidence of hydrocarbons and all, but I still don't know what that told you!"

"That Frenchman I mentioned?" Henshaw said. "That Coanda fellow. I recalled he told me that if you designed an engine that worked like a blowtorch—suck in huge i gobs of air at one end and set it aflame so you're compressing it, then blast it out the other end—why, you could power just about anything with it. An aircraft, or that great dirigible.

An engine like that would even fit neatly into a disc shape."

"No propellers?" Gale asked, amazed.

"Oh, there's some kind of propeller, but it's inside the engine," Henshaw answered. "We had our people test different fuels and the chemistry crowd said we were dealing with the exhaust from superrefined kerosene."

"Which blew away the theory that we were dealing with meanspirited ugly little green fellows from Mars,"

Treadwell added.

"And which let us force the hand of this group," Indy said.

"And how, Jones, did that happen?" Pencraft said testily.

"Well, sir, for starters," Jones spoke gently to his aged friend, "those artifacts are paying off in a way I hoped they would. Whoever is running this group, or at least is

one of the top people, made a decision that the cube and the pyramids were fakes. But he could do that only by coming to a dead end with the cuneiform inscriptions. They were nonsense, of course, but I made certain they appeared to be real. You, of all people, Doctor, know how much time must go into working with unknown cuneiform.

And whoever was examining those things came to a conclusion much too fast for your ordinary researcher."

"Which means," Gale said suddenly, "he has archeology experience! Of course!"

"That," Indy went on, "and also deciding that as unknown as was the metal that Treadwell had made in the secret metallurgical lab, it could be fashioned by any really competent people in the metalworking business. In short, they knew too much in too short a time."

"Enter one Filipo Castilano," Treadwell added. "Do you recall, or perhaps you never had the chance to notice, the stories that made all the papers about that place in France? That some biblical historians are claiming was the final resting place of Christ?"

"Do you mean the little French town of Arques?" Pencroft asked.

"Yes. We had detailed maps of the area, of course," Treadwell said, "from Jacques Nungesser. Jacques also placed special agents through the countryside.

Farmers, tradesmen, that sort of thing, to keep watch on and record the movement of everything that went into or came out of two places in particular.

RennesleChateau and the Chateau of Blanchefort."

Pencroft grumbled his distaste. "That is all nonsense," he stated emphatically.

"That story has been cropping up for years. It's in the same league, you should know, with the tales of Christ living out many of his years right here in England.

Having a merry old time with the ghost of King Arthur, or perhaps Arthur in person, with Merlin entertaining the crowd. It's about as reliable as the tales of a Christlike figure appearing among the Maya and the Aztecs, and materializing before amazed people in China. Why is all this even brought up in this matter?"

Treadwell remained patient and understanding. "Because there has been major construction work on Blanchefort and Rennes. You can't hide that sort of thing. Nungesser's people took elaborate photographs of both chateaus. They located unusual radio antenna almost perfectly concealed among the towers and battlements. The moment they saw those, they began a sweep of all radio frequencies that might be used for longdistance transmissions. Nungesser is very sharp, indeed. He struck paydirt almost immediately and, wisely, made no move to interfere or let it be known the places were under surveillance. It wasn't enough to suspect strongly, or even to know that this was, if not the headquarters, at least one of the prime locations of the group behind these attacks. We needed to get inside."

"So that's how you used Castilano," Dr. Pencroft said quietly.

"Yes, sir," Treadwell confirmed. "First we set up all that uproar in the press about Christ's bones in a tomb. The Vatican called for an investigation. Which called for Cardinal Castilano, with the blessings of the French government, to make his pilgrimage to the two chateaus and to Arques. Filipo needed to get inside to talk with as many people as he could, to see if he could recognize a face, a voice; anything."

"It sounds to me as if you sent a lamb into the lion's den," Gale said, her criticism unconcealed.

"Filipo Castilano is a professional intelligence and espionage agent,"

Treadwell said quickly. "He is no lamb."

"Did he find what he was after?"

"We believe he made a breakthrough. Apparently he recognized one man's voice. His mannerisms. He managed to get a note out with one of his priests—who became ill and had to return to Rome—with his suspicions." "Who was it?" Pencroft demanded. "It's still a bit sticky, sir,"

Treadwell replied. "The name we received was Cordas. Konstantin LeBlanc Cordas. Extremely powerful. Also, as Professor Jones has indicated, someone in that group is familiar with archeology. We know that Cordas is a dedicated evolutionist, a man who believes in sociallydirected control of the masses. He is also quite competent in metallurgy.

He owns vast steel plants and machine shops. He fits the pattern perfectly."

"But Cordas . . . he was killed in that terrible accident in Switzerland!"

Pencroft protested.

"Not likely," Indy said. "Not if he did just what we did with the Barclay. Put a double on that flying boat. The difference is that Cordas likely killed many of his own people."

"Charming fellow," Pencroft murmured. "Did we hear any more from Filipo?"

Treadwell's face darkened. "No, sir. And I don't believe we ever will. If there was even a hint of suspicion, they would have done him in." Treadwell sipped water.

"But it gave us a lead that we needed desperately. We're following through on it, of course."

"And in the meantime," Indy said with sudden authority and no small impatience, "there's that airship and the discs. And that huge ship we saw in the Atlantic."

"That ship is gone," Henshaw came into the exchange.

"Gone?" Pencroft echoed.

"The American and British governments believe the ship, in bad weather, perhaps struck an iceberg and went down without warning," Henshaw said with a straight face.

A smile creased the old man's face. "How ruddy convenient," he chuckled.

"Serves the buggers right."

Indy turned to Henshaw. "It couldn't be one of those icebergs that fires torpedoes, could it?"

"Difficult to tell," Henshaw said, still with a straight face. "It appears there were maneuvers in that area. Multinavy, so to speak. American, British, French, even one or two submersibles from Italy, I believe. No one's quite sure.

Terrible weather, storms at sea, that sort of thing."

"You know, Indy," Treadwell came into their exchange, "it does seem to me there were reports of a most severe explosion in the area. Now, if a berg did slice into an engine room and cold sea water hit the boilers, the effect could be very much like that of a warhead doing the same thing."

"In the confusion of the maneuvers, there's simply no way to tell which submarine was where at what time,"

Henshaw added.

Indy's hand suddenly slapped the table. "By God, that's perfect]" he exclaimed.

"You are demonstrative at times," Pencraft chided him.

"I think we've just boxed them in," Indy said with visible excitement.

Gale smothered a laugh. Even the prospect of getting out of these meeting rooms and interminable conferences was enough to get Indy's blood racing.

"I do believe I get your drift," Treadwell said to Indy.

"Would someone mind telling me?" Pencraft said testily.

Indy turned to the impatient man by his side. "It works this way, sir. From what Colonel Henshaw has been able to find out, there's only one of these giant airships in operation. Now, when we confirmed the existence of that floating dirigible carrier, which seems"—he smiled—"to have been caved in by a very fast iceberg, we pretty well confirmed their method of operation. They couldn't hide that ship when it landed for resupply. It's too big, impossible to conceal. So they modified a tanker or some other big ship that could accommodate that airship and refuel it and give it whatever else it needed."

Indy almost banged his fist on the table. "But now it hasn't got that floating base any more! It's got to come down somewhere, to some kind of a permanent base. Something that's big enough to move the airship into, so it isn't visible either on the surface or from the air. Does that make sense to you, Dr. Pencraft?"

"A bit muddled, in your usual way," Pencraft nodded. "But I do begin to sense a loss of options for those buggers. You're right, of course, Jones. Now all you need to do is invoke some magical incantation and come up with where they're going to go."

Gale had a hand in the air, almost frantic for attention. "Colonel Henshaw, or Mr. Treadwell, whoever," she burst out, "we know where that airship was when it attacked the Barclay. And you—I mean, they—can't hide something that big. Why didn't you send fighter planes after it when you had the chance!"

"Splendid idea," murmured Pencraft. "Set the buggers ablaze, all right." He studied Treadwell. "It would, you know.

Hydrogen loves to burn. Whoosh! Just like the sausages over the lines."

Indy blinked. Sausages? They were leaving him behind. Henshaw spotted his confusion. "Artilleryspotting balloons over the trenches," he said quickly.

"Tethered to the ground, surrounded by heavy Jerry ackack so they were dangerous as all getout to hit. But once you pumped incendiaries into them, they'd go up like Roman candles."

"Well, then, why haven't you filled that filthy machine with incendiaries?"

Gale demanded of Treadwell. "That would finish them off!"

Treadwell responded with patience. He understood her feeling that they might have missed the opportunity to destroy the great dirigible. "Miss Parker, perhaps I should have made myself clearer with the details. You're right. Set fighters after that zep. The fact of the matter is that we've kept fighter planes at different aerodromes, at the ready, just in case we had a crack at that airship. And when the Barclay was attacked, our fighters were already taking off. Of course, it took them a bit of time to climb to the height where the airship was flying."

Gale's face turned red. "I—I didn't know. Sorry—" "No apology needed, Miss Parker. We should have taken a crack at this long ago. Waited too long, of course."

"Well, what happened!" Pencroft snapped. "First off, sir,"

Treadwell responded, "it was a terrible go. That machine was at twentytwo thousand feet. Our fighters made it up there, but control proved very difficult for them. Bitter cold, and all that. One of our machines had radiotelephone and he kept us in touch."

"Did they get a crack at that thing?" Indy broke in. "Barely so, I'm afraid."

"What I want to know," Indy said, unusually intense, "is whether or not they fired tracers into the airship. If they did, then I assume those tracers could have reached the gas bags inside the hull?" "Absolutely," Henshaw said. "Well?"

Indy kept at Treadwell. "At that height, our machines could hardly maneuver.

We didn't have machines ready with oxygen equipment. Two of our men passed out, it seems. They fell off in spins. Both of them recovered in time. Another fighter's guns froze in the cold air. The remaining three blokes flew ahead and just above the airship to make a shallow diving attack. Each pilot knew he would have only one crack at it. I've done that sort of thing myself. It's a wicked moment, I'll tell you. From what the chap with the RT called in, three of our fighters, including his, emptied their ammunition into the airship. It flew on as if it had been bothered with mosquitos. Indeed, the chap on the RT said it even accelerated."

"What was its heading?" Indy said sharply.

"East, from what I could tell." Treadwell studied Indy. "You starting to latch onto something, Professor?"

"Maybe. Just maybe. I need a few more facts. Tom, is there anything else, anything at all, that we may have missed? Even Castilano's message about that place in Frances, Arques, and the chateaus. Did he say anything in his message about any other place these people may be using?"

"Well, not really." Treadwell rubbed his chin as he probed his memory.

"There was more, of course, but it was sort of gibberish."

Indy rolled his eyes. "What's gibberish to one man may not be the same to another," he said quickly. "You of all people—"

"Castilano made some reference to a city in the sky. Something huge in the sky, other than the airship—"

The pieces began to fall into place in Indy's mind with startling swiftness. It was all coming together like a threedimensional jigsaw puzzle, and the more pieces that dropped into place the faster came the conclusions and the clearer became the picture.

"Bingo!" he shouted jubilantly.

16

"It's going to be a rough flight, Indy."

Harry Henshaw spoke directly to Indiana Jones, but his audience included the rest of the team who would occupy the Ford Trimotor. Cromwell and Foulois sat quietly in the mess dining hall of the British outpost along England's west coast, listening and watching carefully. Henshaw was right.

"Why?" Indy asked. "We're taking the same route we took to get here. Just going the other way."

Henshaw studied Indy and Gale Parker, seated by his side. "Sure, it's the same distance in terms of miles. But that's measuring the miles along the earth's surface. Flying calls for judging and considering the winds as well. And we could be going directly into headwinds. That means more flight time and a slower speed."

Indy held Henshaw's gaze. "Harry, you want to get that dirigible or don't you?"

"What kind of question is that?" Henshaw asked, visibly surprised. "Of course we do, you know that as well as—"

Indy cut him off with an abrupt, impatient gesture.

"Then let's stop looking for problems. Let's do it." He looked beyond Henshaw to the two pilots.

"Will, Rene . . . can we do it? Fly back along the same route? Handle the headwinds?"

Cromwell shrugged. "Short of a hard gale, not quite a cakewalk, but with our longrange tanks filled—"

"Yes or no, blast it!"

"Yes." Cromwell said immediately.

"Then get us ready for takeoff as soon as we can."

"Just one thing, Indy," Rene Foulois said quickly. Indy waited. "I recommend strongly we plan all our landings in daylight. We may have some weather and—"

"Just set it up and tell me when you'll be ready to go," Indy said brusquely.

"Night takeoff," Cromwell said calmly. "Get us to Iceland with plenty of reserve. Check the weather and timing, and go for Greenland. Like you said, just reverse our course." Cromwell turned to Foulois. "I make that just about seven hours from now."

Foulois nodded. "I agree."

"Then that's it. Harry," Indy said to the colonel, "you've got the contacts.

Will you attend to provisions and anything else we may need."

"Yes, just so long as you know that I think you're all crazy," Henshaw said with resignation.

"You still going with us?" Indy pressed.

"Of course," Henshaw answered. "I never made any special claims to be sane."

The flight westward, into the prevailing winds, was every bit as troublesome, even dangerous at times, as Henshaw had warned—and quite often worse. Weather in a variety of forms, all of it bad save for favorable tailwinds most of the time, swept down from the arctic regions. Cold air mixed with moist warm air along their route gave the Ford a hammering, noisy, jolting ride through skyhigh potholes, bumps, and violent turbulence.

The weather proved so rotten the first leg of the trip that Cromwell and Foulois chose to land along the northwest coast of Scotland to sit out a period of horrendous rain and darkness. The field where they'd landed was deserted.

Cromwell and Henshaw went about the buildings trying to find anyone on duty. "Not a living soul," Henshaw mumbled through chattering teeth.

"Bloody mausoleum," Cromwell confirmed. "No lights, no people, no nothing."

"Let's tie the Ford down, and we'll break in to get out of this weather," Indy said immediately.

They dragged thick ropes from their equipment containers, lashing the airplane to the ground, throwing a thick canvas tarp over the cockpit. Gathering sleeping bags, they pushed through the stormlashed night to an operations shack. A heavy padlock secured the door. Indy removed his Webley, firing a single round into the lock.

"Look," he said sourly. "Magic. Make a lot of noise and the door's opened."

"That's quite a key you have there," Henshaw told him. "I didn't know you were the criminal type, but I like your style."

"So do I," shivered Gale, pushing past Indy into the protection of the office.

"I'll even buy them a new lock."

Thirty minutes later they had a fire blazing in a large potbellied stove, and soon afterward they were gratefully asleep.

Rain was still falling at the first sign of dawn. No one from the field had appeared. Henshaw returned to the Ford and switched on the batteries for radio power. In moments he was talking with a weather reporting center nearby. He hung up, switched off the batteries, and went to the door to call the others.

"It's still pretty cruddy where we are," he explained, "but I talked to Scottsmoor. They have spoken this morning with the islands along our path, and it's much improved the closer to get to Iceland. I suggest we move on out as fast as we can."

Indy looked at Cromwell, who nodded. Gale spoke up. "Rene, give me a hand with our gear in the office. Indy, I'll leave a note and some money to pay for the lock." She looked at the sky. "I know this weather. It's like two fronts converging.

Harry, whoever you spoke to just left out one thing. Either we take off within the hour or we'll be on the ground for a couple of days."

"What makes you so sure?" Henshaw asked, just a touch too tolerant in his attitude toward a woman talking pilot language.

"Because I learned to fly in this country," Gale snapped. "Day and night for five months. I know it, you don't, so I suggest you get cracking, Colonel."

Indy laughed. "Sounds good to me."

Twenty minutes later they thundered along the grass strip into the air, climbing in a steady turn to take them northwest. At a thousand feet Foulois called Indy on the intercom. "Take a look out the right side," he told Indy.

"Looks like our little lady knows the weather here better than anyone else."

In the distance, no more than a few miles distant, a huge wall of fog and rain advanced against the field they'd just left. "We'll be above this in several minutes,"

Foulois added, "and we ought to stay on top all the way to Iceland."

"Good show," Indy replied.

They flew at eight thousand feet in brilliant sunshine. Gale opened sandwiches, and brought them along with a thermos of hot tea to the cockpit. Like Indy and Henshaw, she preferred coffee while flying. They gathered near the rear of the cabin; away from the propellers, the noise level was almost comfortable and permitted easy speech.

"Harry," Indy said between huge bites of his sandwich, "let me bounce some ideas off of you."

Henshaw gestured with his own sandwich. "Go on. Let's have 'em."

Indy glanced at Gale. "Anytime you feel I'm missing something, step in," he instructed her.

She nodded. She would wait until she had something worth saying or asking.

In the meantime, she knew she was in for an education. She knew how to fly an airplane, even one so large as the threeengined Ford. But she knew she was about to step into an area where she was a neophyte. Whatever Indy might advance would be measured and evaluated, and the response given, by Harry Henshaw—who was as much a technical intelligence specialist as he was a highly experienced pilot in everything from small trainers and fighters to huge transports and bombers.

"Let's start with the zep," Indy said. "Harry, I want you to consider any statement I make as much of a question as it is a conclusion. You teach me about wings and things and I'll take you smoothly through tombs and pyramids."

Henshaw laughed. "It's a deal."

"Okay," Indy said, "the zep. Treadwell explained that they got at least three fighters into position to empty their guns into that thing."

"Right," Henshaw said.

"And they fired tracers," Indy went on quickly. "Which means, one, they didn't hit the liftinggas cells."

"Possibility, yes," Henshaw replied. "Well, if that thing is lifted by hydrogen, then either it's got heavy shielding about the gas bags, which kept the tracers from hitting them—"

"Dismiss that," Henshaw waved away the suggestion. "You're talking so much weight the thing could hardly get above the treetops."

"Got it," Indy said, nodding. "Or the fighters could have missed completely."

"Nope," Henshaw countered. "I checked. The pilots saw their tracers going into the top of the hull."

"Then either those people aboard the airship were incredibly lucky," Indy said, hesitating before finishing his sandwich, "or they weren't using hydrogen, or any other flammable gas."

"Congratulations," Henshaw told him.

"That means they're using helium," Indy came back. "So where are they getting it?"

"I thought you Yanks had a world monopoly on helium," Gale offered.

"We sure do," Henshaw told her. "The main source is—"

Indy gestured to interrupt. "Let me," he told Henshaw. "I've been doing some homework on this."

Henshaw seemed amused with Indy's intensity. "Have at it, Professor." He smiled.

"Mineral Wells, Texas."

"Congratulations," Henshaw said, clearly impressed. "But there are also helium storage points—"

"Too crowded," Indy said quickly. "Too obvious. They can't move something the size of a small mountain where people would go bananas at the sight of a huge gleaming airship zipping along without engines."

"So they must have a base that completely conceals that airship?" Gale asked.

"Give the lady a cigar," Indy said. "You know," he turned back to Henshaw,

"each clue opens the door a bit wider to more answers."

"Always does," Henshaw agreed. "A matter of the picture becoming clearer as you fit each piece into the jigsaw puzzle." He eyed Indy with a quizzical look. "Do I get the idea we've heard only part of your conclusions?"

Indy smiled. "I know this may sound crazy, but it looks as if a mixture of anthropology and archeology has the answer we're after. That, and some old but very powerful superstitions, the latter enough to convince eyewitnesses to the airship to keep it a secret."

"You're way ahead of me," Henshaw said, irritated that he wasn't following Indy fast enough.

"Well, one of the best kicks to open the door came from Filipo Castilano,"

Indy said. "Remember when Treadwell told us that Filipo had made vague references to a city in the sky? At best it seemed terribly tenuous. For all I knew, Filipo was deliberately disguising his message. Likely he figured I would extrapolate from what he was hinting at and come up with the answer he wanted me to get."

"And did you?" Henshaw pressed.

"Not at first," Indy admitted. "A city in the sky could be Asgard. Home of the gods. It might be Mount Olympus.

Every culture has some land of city, or Eden, or heaven in the sky. But I had to keep in mind that Filipo could have been speaking more literally than I suspected."

"Indy, you're playing games with us," Gale complained.

"No; not really. I'm trying to have you accompany me on the process I was using to come up with the right answer."

He ticked off the items on his fingers. "First, the airship can't possibly be using hydrogen. It would have been blown apart by now with its own jet engines. Plus the fact

that it has—it must have—a huge open ramp at its stern, so that the discs can come in to be recovered. And they're also pouring out very high heat."

"Agreed," Henshaw said. "Even a minor hydrogen leak would be a disaster."

"Okay," Indy went on. "So we need helium. Shipping great quantities of helium out of the U.S. would attract too much attention. The government is paranoid on the stuff. But there's no problem in shipping helium by the tanker load inside the States. All you need is enough money and you can buy what you want, so long as no one figures it's going overseas.

"Helium from Mineral Wells in Texas. But where would it go? How did this sky city fit into it? And if there really is a sky city, it has to be in name only. We just don't have cities drifting around the sky. What if it was a name an anthropologist or an archeologist, or even a student of history, would recognize? It might not be known as such by the public. It would be in a rare language, rare by virtue of belonging to an isolated group, that is. And if Castilano knew as much of Spanish history as I believe he did, he was pointing straight to the real Sky City."

"You've been leading us down the garden path, Indy—"

"Not really. It was only when I began to think along those lines that everything fell into place." He paused, relishing the moment. "You see, it's an Indian name. The Acoma Indians have occupied a massive redoubt for thousands of years.

In fact, their history claims they lived in their fortified city three thousand years before the time of Christ."

"Acoma! Of course!" Henshaw exclaimed.

"What is Acoma?" Gale almost begged for the explanation.

"Acoma is the Indian name for our Sky City," Indy told her. "It lies roughly southwest of Albuquerque, New

Mexico. It's fairly close to the Zuni Indian Reservation, but it stands by itself.

It's a huge mesa, in places well over three hundred feet high with sheer cliff walls.

More specifically, Sky City in the Acoma language means Old Acoma.

They have a language distinctively their own.

"And they have their specific and particular beliefs, myths and traditions. The Acoma believe they all originated from deep within the earth, from a huge underground chamber they called Shipapu. Their race started with two girls created by their gods—Nautsiti and Iatiku. When the gods created these two girls, suddenly the race of Acoma Indians sprang to life. People, animals, dwellings, agriculture; everything. They built their homes hundreds of feet up in the sky— atop their mesa.

It became known as the Pueblo in the Sky." "Sky City," Gale said softly.

"And it is a natural, powerful fortification, with huge caverns and cave areas big enough to hold half a dozen of those airships. Throughout their history the Acoma Indians defended their territory with a savagery given special notice by the Spaniards when they were moving through those lands in their early conquests north of Mexico. When they reached Acoma—which in various linguistic derivatives means

'the place that always was'—they ran into some very nasty people defending their sacred mesas."

Indy leaned back and stretched his legs. "I recall reading the reports of a Spanish expedition leader, Captain Hernando de Alvarado. Back in 1540, Coronado sent him to learn the truth about this great place they'd heard about.

Alvarado was amazed to see the city hundreds of feet above them, the entrances narrow and so well fortified that an attack seemed impossible. In fact, his official report to Coronado stated flatly that Acoma was the most impregnable stronghold he had ever seen. He called it

completely inaccessible, and reported there were more than six to eight thousand Indians living atop the mesa, all of them quite capable of standing off any force the Spaniards might have assembled."

Indy rubbed his chin, searching his memory for details. "That's enough of the history, but it lets you know that Acoma is absolutely the perfect operational base for their airship. The local Indians—and the countryside has at least a dozen different tribes—have always believed they had a special connection to heaven. There was a specific event, um, I believe it was the fall of 1846. By now the Spaniards, of course, were gone, and the American army was doing everything it could to control the Indians. This one moment in their history, well, it certainly reinforced the Indians'

beliefs. An American cavalry force was camped about a mile from the sheer cliffs of Acoma, and on this night a tremendous meteor came blasting out of space. In fact, it was so bright it turned the night into day. And it didn't come down. It tore across the sky, level with the horizon, lit up the world, and, apparently, rushed back out into space again."

"Atmospheric skip," Henshaw said. "It happens sometimes. It makes a believer out of you."

"Well, it's my bet," Indy said firmly, "and I'll stake my reputation on it, that's where we'll find that airship. And if they have a real handle on what's happening, then they absolutely must realize things are starting to come unglued with their program."

Indy showed his concern. "The way these people have been operating, they've got to make a very serious move.

Which means they could well decide to destroy even an entire city if they wanted to."

"Destroy a whole city?" Gale showed confusion, even resistance to Indy's statement. "How could they do that?

One airship, even a dozen, couldn't carry enough bombs to—"

"Indy's right," Henshaw broke in. "They wouldn't bother with bombs, Gale.

Too heavy, clumsy. They'd make a lot of noise and fire and kill a few hundred people, perhaps, even wound a few thousand more, but that's nothing on the scale of war."

Henshaw shook his head. "We run what we call 'war games' on matters like this.

Like, what would we do if we were in their place?" "What would you do?"

Gale pushed. "If my intention was terror and killing on a huge scale, any one of several things or, more likely, a combination of them all. First, either from the air or from the ground you can poison the water supply of a major city. If your poison is slowacting, then enough time passes so that most of the people in your city would have absorbed fatal doses even before the poison starts to kill.

Nerve paralysis, respiratory problems; that sort of thing. Then there are biological agents. It's not well known but at least four countries have already developed a mutation of anthrax that devastates people exposed to it. It could be sprayed from either the airship or those devilish saucers they've got. You wouldn't need great amounts, in terms of weight, that is. England, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, we were all getting into the biological agents game. Nasty and brutish, I'll admit—"

"Horrible, you mean," Gale said with heat.

"No worse, young lady, than an incendiary bullet in the gut, let me assure you," Henshaw said coldly. "Or being in the direct line of impact from a flamethrower."

"My God," Gale said, very quietly.

"Harry's right," Indy added. "And then there's poison gas. Back in the Great War they had lewisite, mustard, phosgene. Other types were being developed. Tens of thousands of soldiers died from gas attacks. Maybe they were the lucky ones.

Tens of t h o u s a n d s more became blind or went mad or were crippled by gas."

"And an unexpecting city doesn't have any protection against that,"

Henshaw said emphatically. "No, I'm afraid Indy's right on target about these people.

We've sent their carrier ship to the bottom, so they know we're ready to make a stand against them. We attacked their airship— rather futilely, I admit—but those British boys certainly went at it with everything they had. Now the hunt is on, and the sooner we find that airship and knock it out, the faster they'll lose the advantages of emotion and fear stirred up by those saucers and the airship itself."

"I haven't heard either one of you say what I've been afraid you might say,"

Gale told them. "Spell that out," Indy replied.

"If they can attack one city," she said slowly, "why wouldn't they attack several, or even many cities?"

"Oh, they could," Henshaw said quickly. "But mass destruction isn't the name of their game. It's fear. Mind control. Change the way people think and you can control them. If they believe in their gods, there are gods. If they believe they're helpless—"

"Then they'll be helpless," Indy finished for him. "So the sooner we find that airship . . . " He let the rest speak for itself.

They felt the Ford lurch from side to side. That brought their attention to the moment, to where they were, flying across the North Atlantic to cross by the Faeroe Islands on their way to Iceland. Turbulence increased with every passing moment, and they saw Foulois working his way back from the cockpit.

"Why we ever bothered to give you people intercom headsets is a mystery,"

Foulois said. "We've been shouting at you for ten minutes!" "What's up?" Henshaw asked. From the look on his face as he felt the trembling and shaking motions of the airplane, he didn't need the Frenchman to tell him anything.

"We've got to work our way through a front," Foulois said. "We're into it now." He nodded to the cabin windows, and they saw the rain streaking the glass.

"It's going to be a bit bumpy," Foulois went on. "Better strap in, put away any loose stuff."

"Frenchy, I'll take your seat for a while, okay?" Henshaw said. "You can have some food and coffee—" "I realize you meant wine, didn't you, Colonel?" "Of course, of course. I need to use the radio to talk to Iceland."

"Sorry, my friend. The weather. We lost voice contact with Iceland a while ago. But we're tracking off one of the Faeroes broadcasters and it seems we're right on where we belong. That Cromwell is like a bird dog. I think he can sniff his way to Iceland."

"You really want wine?" Gale asked, as Henshaw headed for the cockpit.

Foulois rummaged through his bag, bracing himself between the cabin floor and a seat. He held up a bottle in triumph. "Coffee never won wars, my dear," he said, taking a long swig from the bottle. "But if you drink enough wine, you don't even care who wins. A very civilized attitude, I might add."

The next moment he was hanging in midair as the Ford dropped like a stone dumped from a cliff. He slammed into the cabin floor as the downdraft reversed.

"A true Frenchman," Indy laughed. "Never spilled a drop!"

Two hours later, strapped in, hanging grimly to his seat, Indy was ready to swear off flying for the rest of his life.

The promise of "a bit bumpy" had become a madhouse of slamming about, yawing and wheeling, and pounding up and down, rivulets of water running into the cabin from the cockpit.

"This is so invigorating!" Gale shouted above the din and boom of engines and thunder and wind.

Indy struggled to keep his stomach where it belonged. Bright spots danced before his eyes. He no longer knew what was right or left or up or down. Then, as abruptly as it started, the uproar and violence ceased, and the sky brightened.

Indy's stomach began a slow slide back to where it belonged, and through the cockpit windshield, even from well back in the cabin, he saw the volcanic humps of Iceland waiting for them.

17

A day and a half later they landed in Quebec, boneweary, musclestiff, groggy from lack of proper rest or sleep, and hating sandwiches. Henshaw went to the Canadian authorities, and arranged for American Customs and Immigration to

"forget" the usual procedures for entering the United States on the basis that this was an official government aircraft, crew, and flight. Tired as they were and desperate for showers and clean clothes, there was no rest for any of them. Cromwell put everybody to work on the Ford except Henshaw, who was "attending to" the tasks he'd received from Indy. They had flown the aircraft hard and long, and the years of experience told Cromwell and Foulois to pay strict attention to the small complaints they could sense and feel from the aircraft and the engines.

Two hours later they were refueled, oil tanks filled, hydraulics and other requirements met. Henshaw returned to the aircraft. "Will," he asked Cromwell, "are we okay for a straight shot to Dayton? When we get there we'll have to take a break, and I can have our top maintenance people go over the bird stem to stern."

"After the flying we've just done, m'boy, from here to Dayton will be a walk in the park."

"Okay," Indy told his team, "saddle up and let's move on out."

Cromwell nudged Foulois with his elbow. "Saddle up, eh? What does he think this bird is? A bleedin' 'orse?"

Indy and Gale strapped into seats near the rear of the cabin. Exhausted, Gale was asleep almost at once. Indy leaned back with his eyes closed, but far from sleep.

He was moving himself into the immediate future when the chasing and longdistance flying would be behind them.

Now they'd be in a position to flush out their quarry.

And the quarry, Indy had come to learn so well, might just be ready and waiting for them.

Colonel Harry Henshaw spread out flight charts, road maps, and highaltitude photographs of longstrip areas within Texas and New Mexico. Indy stood to his left, Gale to his right, and at the huge planning table with them were several military intelligence officers. Along the opposite side of the table, waiting to be questioned, were several civilians: drivers of tanker trucks and, almost as if he were an intruder in working clothes, a high member of the Council of the Acoma Indians. While they remained within the inner security building inside the aircraft hangar at Wright Field, Cromwell and Foulois were ministering to the Ford Trimotor.

"These are the latest aerial photos taken by our pilots," Henshaw said to Indy, but speaking as well to the entire group. "Let's review with Mineral Wells as a starter." He moved the maps to place aerial photographs in position so that they could be compared. "The main source of helium, as you know, is here." He tapped the map with a pointer.

"The wells are just to the west of the area of Fort Worth. Usually helium is transferred in railway tank cars because of ease of transport, storage, and the bulk involved. However, using tanker trucks is also common.

"Now, what emerges from our surveys is that the road traffic has increased enormously in the past few weeks.

These photos were taken above three main highways in the past week. The planes flew high enough not to attract too much attention from the ground, and we used transports, mainly, with camera mounts in belly hatches. Our people have circled positive identification of tanker trucks along these roads, and the circles are along lines heading in two main directions. One group works towards Lubbock, which is a main transport center, and the second main group takes the highway down to Midland and Odessa, and then starts to work their way generally northwest into New Mexico."

"How many go into Albuquerque?" Indy asked.

Henshaw motioned to a truck driver. "Indy, this is Mike Hightower. Mike, you want to field that question?"

The burly man leaned forward. "Sure, Colonel." He looked to Indy. "We hardly ever carry helium to Albuquerque.

Not much call for it there. Our biggest customers are the navy, for blimps and those new dirigibles they got, and also some manufacturing outfits. Some of them, they ain't got any rail facilities, so we need the trucks."

Hightower moved a map into a position so he and Indy could share the same area. "Bunch of our trucks, they were dispatched to Santa Fe. That's right here." He stabbed the map with a thick forefinger. "But that's pretty crazy to me.

There ain't a thing up there in Santa Fe needs that much helium. Unless, of course," he glanced at Henshaw, "the military got some kind of secret project in the works. The colonel tells me no. Even the delivery is kind of screwy. I mean, we drive the trucks to where the drivers are told to go, and then they're told to leave the shipment there. Trucks and all. I raised hell about that, but then I got told by my boss that some big company bought us out and they're using new drivers in shifts. Our boys come back to Mineral Wells by chartered bus. They ain't complaining none, you understand. They get bonuses for what they're doing, and that kind of lettuce keeps everybody happy."

"Any deliveries into Albuquerque itself?" Indy asked.

Hightower rolled a short cigar stub in his teeth. "Uhuh. Some other trucks, they go direct from Mineral Wells to Roswell, here," again he tapped the map, "and they drop off the trucks there. A few of our guys, they were told to drive to Las Cruces, that's way south."

Henshaw drew a finger northward on the map. "From Las Cruces it's almost a straight shot north toward Albuquerque. That's pretty desolate country. You go through Truth or Consequences, the road parallels the Rio Grande River, then the trucks keep going through the lava fields by Elephant Butte and on up to Socorro.

When they reach Belen, they take a cutoff toward Acoma."

"It's a dumb way to go," Hightower offered. "Lousy roads, I mean. Not too many of them paved. Beats hell out of the trucks. But like I said, whoever's bossing this operation, they're throwing dough around like there's no tomorrow, so our guys ain't kicking none."

Indy studied the maps. "But all roads lead to Acoma, don't they, Harry." It was a statement more than a question.

"Yep," Henshaw acknowledged. "Hightower, the drivers, the ones who take over from your people, didn't you say they bring the trucks all the way back to Mineral Wells?"

"Yeah. It's a tough haul, but that's the way they do it. By the time we get

'em back we got to service them pretty good. They're beat up from that kind of pushing through that country. If we complain the trucks are busted up, they tell us to just junk 'em and give us new trucks. Craziest way to run a business I ever saw."

"Anything else you might add?" Indy asked.

"No, sir. In fact, I shouldn't even be here. I mean, these guys are paying me a bonus to keep my trap shut. Don't answer no questions, they tell me. Then a bunch of guys, Feds, I mean, they visit me and say if I want to keep my license and stay in business, all I got to do is have a little chat. Like I'm having now. I been promised I leave here like I came in."

"And how was that done?"

"I went to Gainesville. That's north of Fort Worth. Just below the Oklahoma border. Some army camp. At night a plane comes in, I climb in, and the next thing I know is that I'm here. Like I said, mister, I go out the same way."

"Mr. Hightower, you've been a big help. You forget about this little visit, we'll drop you off at night at that camp outside Gainesville, and we never saw you."

"Thanks, Colonel. Am I all through here?"

"You're free to go. Anything you need, just let us know."

"Well, yeah. Why don't your people take me up to Lawton in Oklahoma?

Ain't much out of the way, and I got folks up there, so I'm covered by seeing family.

Never came here." He grinned.

"Have a good trip, Mr. Hightower." Henshaw looked at two other drivers.

"You people have anything to add?"

Both men shook their heads. "Nope. It's all just like Mike said."

"Great. Thank you."

A captain led the three men from the room.

Henshaw turned to Indy. "There's a lot more detail, but I think the picture's pretty clear. Heavy shipments of helium directly to Acoma."

"They must have a piping system for the airship," Indy said.

"Yes."

They both turned to the Indian. He had remained stoic and silent through the exchanges. Indy paid special attention to him now. Big man for an Indian; at least six feet two inches and with immense shoulders. He wore a stovepipe western hat that on most men would have been ludicrous, especially with the three golden feathers along the left side of the crown. Indy saw that the buckskin trousers and vest were handsewn, as were his belt and hammered silver ornaments. Indy couldn't see his feet through the table, but somehow he knew that for footwear the Indian had yielded to the white man's working field boots. That made sense in the rocky desert country.

Both men held the eyes of the other, both men looked down from faces to the weapon each man carried. Indy had his Webley slung across hip and thigh in its covered holster. The Indian carried his Western style, slung low and thightied for security for riding and a fast draw.

Indy nodded to the man. Ceremony was important here. All he knew of this fellow was what Henshaw had told him; that he was a member of the High Council of the Acoma. Indy swiftly learned the rest by his study of the man, his mannerisms that bespoke a long and royal line. It also said something that he was allowed to wear an open sidearm on a military base.

"Jones," Indy said. "Henry Jones. I prefer Indy."

"Good name. I am Jose Syme Chino." Chino's voice came from deep within his barrel chest. Indy saw warmth in the eyes of the man who, Indy knew, could be a fearsome opponent when the moment demanded. There was still some small talk, a feelingout. If it went well, Indy would have the final cooperation he sought. And by the way Henshaw had taken a step backwards, Indy knew that the colonel recognized the need for these two to palaver on equal terms. The Indians had been treated anything but fairly by the white man's government.

Indy motioned to Chino's holstered weapon. "May I?" Indy asked.

In a lightning move, the heavy revolver—a longbar i reled .44 sixgun—was out of its holster and offered butt first to Indy. Indy hefted the weapon, sighted down the long barrel. "Good range?"

Chino barely nodded. "Heavy load, high velocity. Yes. Good range."

Indy returned the .44 to Chino, unholstered his own weapon and, gripping the Webley by the barrel, offered it across the table to Chino. The same examination took place. Chino smiled. "Much use," he said.

"Yes," Indy replied. Chino had learned all that from the weathered feel of the Webley. Now Chino pointed to the curled whip hanging from Indy's left waist.

"That also has much use," he said.

"Yes."

"I am master with whip. We must test one another," Chino offered.

Indy smiled. "That will be . . . interesting."

A deep laugh boomed from Chino, and in that moment the shortclipped speech of the "backward Indian" was gone. "I imagine that in certain circumstances, Professor Jones, your camera is even more effective than the whip and the gun."

I was right! This guy probably has more degrees than I've got under my belt!

But Indy made certain not to show surprise or even to hesitate in response.

"You are very perceptive," he told Chino. "It is more frightening to many people to have their spirit captured with this," he tapped the Leica, "than to kill a man who then travels to the gods in spirit form."

"Careful, Professor." Chino laughed. "You sound like a medicine man."

"And you no longer sound as if you're out in the hills hunting moose with a bowie blade."

A knowing smile this time, but Chino chose to wait for Indy to continue. "Just for the record, Jose Syme Ch—"

"Indy for me, Joe for you."

"Great. But like I was saying, just for the record before we get back to the matter at hand, where did you do your studies?"

"You are good. Montana for geology, UCLA for meteorology and atmospherics, Texas A and M for agriculture

. . . " Chino shrugged. "Whatever I needed to serve the interests of my people in the best way."

"It had to be a tough go at A and M."

"Why do you say that, Indy?"

"As your ancestors would say, Joe, we can't afford to talk with forked tongues. Being Indian at that place is the same as being black. It's a big nono."

"In some ways, worse. Careful planning helps."

"Such as?"

"I was the heavyweight boxing champ for four years."

"That's good planning."

"Now we've got to get down to the nittygritty of your problem, my friend,"

Chino told Indy. "You're running out of time. Those people are getting ready to move. They've already started their diversions."

Indy turned to Henshaw. "You know about this? Diversions, I mean?"

"Chino brought us the news. At least the start of it and what we could expect." Henshaw spread the map to table center. "Look, here's Acoma and the Acoma Indian Reservation. To the west—"

"Colonel, may I?" Chino broke in.

"By all means, please," Henshaw said quickly.

Chino leaned forward. His hand slid along the map, from the reservation area of the Acoma westward. "This is Cibola," he pointed out. "National forest. What's more important is south and west of Cibola. This area," he tapped the map, "is lava flows. Vicious. The stuff is often needlesharp. Eat a man's boots in one day. Now, just beyond that lava flow area you run into the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation.

The Navajos can be a problem tribe at times. It's the familiar white man and the redskin dancing wildly in the same frying pan. With all that kicking and swinging somebody always takes a shot in the mouth."

Indy laughed. "Best way I've ever heard it said. But you hinted the Navajos weren't a problem."

"Right. It's the Zunis. Normally they're like most of the old tribes out here.

Scratching in the sand to eke out a living.

The farming is lousy, the soil bleached, the drought endless, and there's not enough livestock, mainly sheep and some cattle, to keep the people from being on the edge of starvation. The commercial outfits that came in have done their best to shaft everybody. For a while the Zunis, like most of the tribes, were building up a fairly decent tourist trade, and it looked like we'd get some irrigation. The drought, well, it tore us limb from limb. Selling wool became the salvation for most of the tribes, and the Cubero Trading Company had a death grip on most tribes. We started to break away from Cubero two years ago, but right now we're being strangled by the same economic depression that's ripping through the entire country."

Chino took a deep breath. "Don't mistake what I've just said as a stock speech on behalf of the poor Indians. That wasn't my intent. You see, the people with that airship you're after understand everything I've just told you, and they are playing that scene for everything it's worth."

Henshaw eased back into the issue. "The state marshal

—he's been working with us, his name is Guy Douglas, and he's an old hand out here—has kept us up to the minute.

Look again at the map, the Navajo, Cibola, Zuni and other groups. The Zuni are quite some distance from Acoma, and in the past two days all hell has been breaking loose out on the reservations. It's not a case of the Indians giving us grief.

By us, I mean law enforcement in New Mexico. They've been bought by those people running that airship. In fact, two names we've latched onto are Halvar Griffin and a Wilhelmina Volkman."

A memory stirred. The Natural History Museum . . . Gale Parker spoke up.

"Indy, you get the feeling that Volkman is really Marcia Mason?"

Indy nodded, but turned right back to the issue at hand. "All you've been telling me, the both of you," he indicated Chino and Henshaw, "comes to a point.

What is it?"

"The Navajo went on a rampage two days ago," Chino answered. "But it's been a careful rampage. They stayed within the borders of their own reservation, so there's no doubt in my mind that it's all been staged. It's a farce. They're drunk, they've blocked the main roads going in and out of their area, they're shooting off guns day and night, and they're threatening to shoot anybody who comes into their territory. That's a diversion, of course. And it's working.

The local law enforcement people have been trying to calm things down there.

When they thought they had the situation under control—never aware it was all a setup—the Zuni broke loose from their grounds, and started out to the north with a few hundred painted warriors on horseback, heading for Gallup. That's another staged breakout. But it has succeeded. There's been enough propaganda about these socalled uprisings to send every lawman for a couple of hundred miles around to those areas, especially Gallup. The people there are frightened out of their wits."

"You've told me what you haven't even said yet," Indy said, frowning.

"Tell me," Henshaw responded.

"There's no local law left in the Acoma area," Indy said. "Sheriffs, police, park rangers, state and federal marshals, they're all pouring into the Zuni and Gallup area."

"Which means, my friend, you've got this hornet's nest on your own hands.

That airship is going to be on its way out of Acoma in the next two days. At the most," Chino stressed. "So whatever it is you're going to do, you have to get cracking just about now."

"Colonel Henshaw?" They turned to Gale. "Why can't you send over a few bombers and put that dirigible out of action right away?"

"Because Griffin, or whoever it is running the show, has prepared for this moment," Henshaw replied, "and very carefully. Mr. Chino can tell you why our hands are tied."

Heads turned to the tall Indian. Chino's face was grim. "If the army, or anyone else, attacks the airship while it is concealed, or even close to the deep cavern where it is out of sight from above, you condemn almost all the Acoma.

You see, those people came to us as friends. Our people were desperate for food, water, the necessities of life. A team of strangers came in, both on horseback and with trucks. They had all the right paperwork. They were archeologists and they were surveyors. They were digging out rumored caves which Coronado's invaders had filled with precious artifacts of more ancient times. In return for our cooperation, they promised—and they kept their promises—food, water, electricity for all of Acoma, medical facilities—everything our people needed. I said they had the right paperwork. Licenses, permits, company names. They came in with increasing numbers. There is a huge cavern not visible to the passerby. It is big enough to hold their airship.

"I fear I am wasting time talking, so I will get to the point. The white people who came in cut away a section of cliff.

They did so with our permission. This gave them enough room to settle their airship by descending vertically. It sounds like all the devils of hell when it comes down. Its fumes are choking, but the winds blow them away. As the airship descends, they tether it to cables and engines which reel it in carefully. When it is down, it is secured to the ground and it is safe. Then they bring in provisions and their helium.

In the hill caves atop the mesas they built holding tanks. For helium and their fuel, they told us. What they did not tell us is that they filled many concealed tanks with kerosene and gasoline. They have packed high explosives all through Acoma."

He moved his head slowly to meet the eyes of everyone listening to him. "Do you understand now?" Indy spoke up.

"You're boobytrapped." "Yes. Attack that airship where it is held to the ground, and you will destroy Acoma and kill thousands of our people. Most of them will burn to death in rivers of fire from the fuel tanks which are so set up they will pour their contents into the caverns and caves."

Indy turned to Henshaw. "So we can't go after them where they would otherwise be helpless."

"I have talked with these strangers," Chino said. "I know something of their plans, as I overheard several discussing what they would do. I know little of flying, but I heard clearly that they plan to lift upward from Acoma at night, when they will not be seen and all the law people are occupied with the Zunis and in the Gallup area.

They said they will rise to more than six miles into the sky and then they would go."

He shrugged. "Where, I do not know. All that mattered to me was that they were leaving. Then Colonel Henshaw, here, asked to see me."

Indy looked carefully at Chino. "Could you tell when they planned to leave?"

"Two nights from now. My new friend, you do not have much time to do whatever it is you plan."

"Joe, can we count on you to help us?"

"Yes."

"It would be a great help if you flew with us."

"You want me in the sky?"

"Yes. You know that area. We don't."

"I will go. Until this moment I was always convinced it was the white man who was really crazy. Now, so am I."

"Harry, will you check on Will and Rene and see if all the special equipment is loaded on our plane?"

Henshaw nodded to an aide standing nearby. No command was needed. "Yes, sir," the officer said. "I'll take care of it immediately."

Henshaw turned back to Indy. "If they go above thirty thousand feet, we don't have any combat planes—in service, I mean, ready to go—that can handle them. Your Ford has those special superchargers and weapons. Indy, it's going to be up to you and your people to stop that zeppelin now. Or we're really in for it."

18

They flew most of the night and well into daylight to reach Las Vegas, New Mexico, a sprawling collection of buildings out of an old western novel. The isolation was perfect for them. Several miles east of the town, near the Conchas River, was a huge open desert area the army used for field trials and training exercises. One large hangar stood at the end of the field, surrounded by tents and basic living facilities for the infantry and ground personnel who serviced the fighters and bombers that flew in for exercises. The isolation was better than they expected. An artillery and a bombing range nearby made it clear the area wasn't healthy for uninvited guests. As many bombs tumbled awry as struck their bull'seyes, marked in the desert with whitewashed stones.

"Everybody get some food," Indy told his group. "Find out where the latrines are because I suggest we all use them just before we take off later tonight. You've got one hour to take this break. Meet by the plane then and we'll go over all our equipment and weapons, and see if anything new has come up."

"What time do you plan for takeoff?" Cromwell asked.

"How long will it take us to climb to thirtytwo thousand feet?"

"Good God, Indy, I've never been anywhere near that high!" Cromwell exclaimed.

"Will, how long?"

Cromwell worked some figures in his head. "We'll be lighter than usual," he said finally, "and—"

"Just the numbers, Will," Indy pressed.

"No, Indy. It's going to be very tricky up there, and I think it's best if you understand what we're up against. Since we've never climbed that high, I can't tell you what our rate of climb will be. We've got a highlift wing, and those superchargers, well, I've got great faith in them. But the higher we go, the slower will be our rate of ascent. Do you see?"

Indy waited patiently. No use arguing with Cromwell; in this case he was right. At the altitude they were going for, what you didn't know could hurt you.

"Judging we may have some problems, and all that," Cromwell went on, "I'd say we ought to give ourselves at least two to three hours just to get to the altitude you want. We'll be on oxygen above twelve thousand and we want to be sure that doesn't freeze up on us. I've checked the charts. Figure on a hundred and fifty miles to this Acoma place.

That area, anyway. We'll cover the distance while we're climbing."

"Okay," Indy said.

"Maybe not so much okay," Foulois broke in. "Indy, you must consider something I have not heard anyone speak about."

"Which is?"

"Everything we have heard about this airship, no? It is very fast. It may be faster than we are when we reach upstairs."

"It could be," Indy admitted. "We'll have to find out when we get there."

"Ah, then consider," Foulois said quickly. "If this is the way it is to be, then I urge you and my corpulent English friend, here, to attempt to reach perhaps another two thousand feet or so. We can gain speed in a shallow dive. At that altitude, we will become very fast."

Cromwell laughed, but without a trace of humor. "Don't forget, Indy, we'll likely have company."

Chino listened with amazement to the conversation. He turned to Gale.

"Company? What kind of company is higher than even the eagles fly?"

"Discs."

"Discs?"

"Well, more like scimitars in shape. But discs will do. They have jet engines and they're very fast, and they're likely to do everything they can to shoot us down.

So we'll be ready to give them the works, of course. That's why we've got those machine guns on the airplane."

"This all sounds, like, well, like the wild tales our ancients tell the children."

"It's a gas, isn't it?" Gale said.

Captain Hans Ulrich Guenther, master of the super airship Asgard, listened to the intercom reports as they came in steadily to the control bridge of the great zeppelin. His second in command, Richard Atkins, marked each item on a long checklist. The Asgard was half again as long as the greatest oceangoing vessel ever built, and there existed no room for errors. The airship had to be balanced perfectly, the center of gravity always known. The three men who shifted ballast and coordinated airship attitudes in flight functioned like orchestra leaders. So huge was the Asgard, and so sensitive in balance and inertia, it took several men to operate the vessel safely and smoothly.

By two o'clock in the morning all prelift requirements had been completed.

Guenther, looking straight ahead through the thick glass panels of the bridge gondola, watched the ground crew in position to begin ascent. From this height, even tethered in the tightfitting canyon of these American savages, the men appeared like toys. Guenther, without turning his head, spoke to Atkins. "All flight crew aboard. Confirm."

Atkins's answer came immediately. "Three to go, sir. They are boarding now.

Two minutes."

Soon Atkins approached Guenther. He held the checklist before the captain.

Guenther waved it aside. He had absolute confidence in his second. "Mister Burgess!" Guenther announced with raised voice. Andrew Burgess, the most experienced pilot aboard, stepped forward. "Sir!"

"Start all engines, Mister."

"Start all engines, sir," Burgess repeated. He went to the control position.

Three banks of instruments were spread out before him. To each side of the position where he would stand were several wheels for raising and lowering the nose, for operating through an elaborate system of hydraulics and cables the elevators and the rudder, and for dumping ballast when necessary. Burgess secured the standing harness about his body; were the vessel to shift to a steep angle of any kind he would be able to remain in the precise position he required to reach and operate the controls.

Standing behind and to his right were three more of his control team, who would relay commands and information from and to the pilot. They would also keep an eye on their own instrument panels. Backup for backup for backup; it was the only proper way to manage the greatest aerial vessel the earth had ever known.

Vibration beneath his feet. Engines starting. A distant roar as the huge jet engines spun up to proper speed, fuel flow, and temperature, and then ignited for operation. This far forward, the sound was a deep wind roaring through a tunnel, but muted like a faraway bass organ. "Asgard ready for liftoff," Atkins announced. "Stand by," Guenther ordered. He called out another name. "Miller!"

The answer came from amidships. "Weapons Officer Miller reporting, sir." The voice was tinny as the speaker boxes in the gondola vibrated slightly. Miller was four hundred and seventy feet away in the belly of the Asgard. "Miller, confirm security and safeties of the bombs." "Yes, sir. I report the gas bombs in their racks, fuses set for arming on your order, sir. All racks primed for release on your command, Captain."

"Very good, Miller. Confirm all gunners at their stations."

"Confirm all gunners secured at their stations, weapons at the ready, sir."

"Flight Leader Moldava! This is the captain." "Moldava here, sir." "Status of the discs, Flight Leader." "Four discs secured, fueled, armed, and in position for launching at your command, sir. The bay doors have been tested and are ready for power opening, manual backup confirmed."

"Thank you, Flight Leader."

"Mister Burgess, order lift to commence," Guenther ordered his Chief Pilot.

"Yes, sir. Commencing liftoff." A klaxon sounded and echoed mournfully through the cavern, booming outside to the canyon walls. That was the signal for the ground crew to start easing tension on the holding cables. The Asgard tugged at her lines, seemingly anxious to break free of the earth. Burgess would let her lift vertically, the tension cables keeping her moving smoothly forward. Clear of the cavern, the great vessel would be in the canyon, from where she could begin a vertical ascent, the tension cables keeping her enormous rounded sides from brushing the walls to either side.

The Asgard rose slowly, lifted by the buoyancy of her helium cells, her jet engines idling, waiting for the airship to lift above the highest point of the Acoma plateau and its buildings. At that moment she would be at the mercy of the winds unless the engines were brought up to power. She would continue rising.

"What are the winds, Mister Burgess?" Guenther called.

"Direct on the bow, sir. Twelve knots. I am initiating minimum power to assist in holding our position over the canyon until we have cleared the walls. We will at that moment release water ballast and increase power, sir."

"Very good, Mister Burgess." Guenther started to add a comment, then held his silence. Burgess knew as well as any man that the moment of danger would come as they cleared the Acoma canyon, when a sudden side wind could swing the huge bulk of the airship to one side or the other, and even raise or lower the nose in an awkward yawing motion that might bring contact with the upper reaches of the vertical cliffs. He would have to lift her steadily, straight up, and as soon as they cleared the cliffs and buildings, he would bring in power and at the same time lighten the airship by ballast drop. They would then rise away from the surface in a climbing turn. With the ground safely beneath them, Burgess would bring in climb power for full control of the Asgard, starting the steady ascent to their cruising altitude.

They would rise slowly, much slower than the speed and climb rate of which the Asgard was capable. Too swift an ascent would bring the helium cells expanding at a

dangerous rate, especially if any cells developed a double fold in their holding girders that could tear open a cell. The slower ascent would also give the crew time to become accustomed to the thin air at the lower edge of the stratosphere. They would don their coldweather clothing —heavy fleecelined flight suits, boots and gloves—and their oxygen masks. Once at cruising altitude and beyond the borders of the United States, the crew would take turns in the pressurized compartment within the belly of the Asgard. They would be warm there; they could doff their heavy gear and masks, and partake of hot meals.

The remainder of the flight would be six miles above the Atlantic Ocean, and a straight course for London. There the first load of gas bombs would be dropped. The second load would fall on Paris, and the last of the deadly bombs would hurtle down against Berlin.

And nothing could stop them once they reached cruise altitude. Captain Hans Ulrich Guenther was quite satisfied.

Jose Syme Chino came running to the tent where Indy and his team were drinking hot chocolate and finishing off army iron rations for fast energy. Chino wasted no time. "That thing is in the air!" he burst out.

Everyone sprang to their feet. Before Chino could add another word, the question was on Indy's lips. "When?"

"An hour ago."

"How do you know?" demanded Cromwell.

"Telephone. It would have been sooner but the connections from here are crazy and it took forever," Chino explained. "I spoke with one of our offices at Acomita. That's on the highway north of the great pueblo. He had several people ready to call him the moment that airship came into view over the cliffs. It's in the air, all right."

"This makes it a tight go, Indy," Cromwell said immediately. "We've just lost anywhere from one to three hours, and when that bloody machine gets going it's leaving us in its wake."

"I know—" Indy didn't finish his sentence.

"No! Wait a moment," Chino broke in. "Remember you said before, when you were trying to figure what route that thing would take to the east? You all figured they'd skirt around Albuquerque to stay away from the heavily populated areas. Well, they're going to have to do a pretty major diversion down Socorro way."

"Why?" Foulois said quickly.

"Thunderstorms. There's a line of really big storms running north of the Acoma and Laguna reservations. It stretches way up north of Los Alamos, into the Santa Fe National Forest, and that's nasty country. If they try a curving line out of the Santa Fe forestlands, that would take them into the area of Wheeler Peak and Brazos Peak—"

"You're trying to tell us something," Cromwell said impatiently.

"Joe, you're telling us they won't go north?" Indy queried.

"Yes! That's right! Not unless they're crazy," Chino responded immediately.

"Brazos Peak is due north of Albuquerque, and it's well over eleven thousand feet high. If they cut northwest after skirting Albuquerque, they've got to work through the area of Wheeler Peak, around the Carson forests, and that mountain is over thirteen thousand feet high. I'm no flyer, my friends, but I'll tell you thunderstorms in that area, over those mountains, would keep even the great spirits hugging the ground. It is really mean up there when those storms build up."

"Let's cut to it, Joe," Indy said impatiently. "You know the area. Which way, man? What's your best bet?"

"South, at first. Down along the Rio Grande past Socorro, then cut east along the lava fields of the Valley of Fire. Beyond that there's a world of nothing, and the mountains all hang at five thousand feet and most of them less than that. From there they can break toward Portales or Clovis. Much the same thing. Open spaces and more lava fields, and beyond that sand dunes and open desert."

"And by then," Foulois said, holding up a chart on which he'd followed Chino's descriptions, "they ought to be at the ceiling they want. So we'd better—"

"Let's go!" Indy yelled. He pointed to an army lieutenant. "Get that plane out of the hangar— now!" he shouted. "Will, Rene, fire her up as fast as you can.

Gale, you and Joe do a last check to be sure all our gear is in the airplane. I want to check a few last things. The moment I get on board, you signal to Will to take off, straight ahead."

He turned to another officer he recognized as the chief of communications for the local military force. "You the one who keeps contact with Colonel Henshaw?"

"Uh, yes, sir."

"Well, I'm getting on that plane in a moment. You call the colonel immediately and tell him you saw us taking off.

Keep him on the phone until you see our wheels leave the ground, got it?"

"Sir, it's the middle of the night—"

"Captain, you want to live to a ripe old age?"

"Why, of course, but I—"

"Call him! Besides, he's an early riser. Move!"

Indy didn't wait to see what the captain did. He took off on a dead run for the Ford where Gale was holding open the rear cabin door. The moment Indy was inside the cabin Gale slammed it shut and threw the lock. Will was looking back into the cabin from the cockpit, and Indy made a fist and pumped his hand up and down in the air. Cromwell nodded and a moment later his hand was shoving three throttles forward to their stops. The three Pratt & Whitney engines howled their nowfamiliar song, and in less than ten seconds the earth began falling away beneath them.

19

They climbed slowly and steadily, in darkness broken only by isolated points of light from a ranch or small town far below. Those began to disappear beneath thickening clouds they estimated at four thousand feet. Cromwell and Foulois kept the Ford in its climb toward Puerto de Luna to the southeast. The town stood along the banks of the Pecos River. More important, it lay between Las Vegas and Roswell, and their course would take them along a line just west of Clovis and Portales on the New MexicoTexas border. Puerto de Luna also had a radio station that broadcast through the night and this gave the pilots a navigational backup. They were able to tune to the station frequency at Puerto de Luna to the south, switch to an allnight station broadcast from Albuquerque to the west, and by drawing lines on their charts with headings and positions from the stations, maintain a running check on their progress. If Chino had figured the terrain and the weather as well as they hoped, the airship, which must stay away from towering thunderstorms, would follow the best route to get into position for its long flight eastward. And that would be over the Valley of Fire, on to Bitter

Lake just north of Roswell and then, at extreme altitude, they needed only to maintain an eastnortheast heading. By now Indy knew enough of homing in to commercial broadcast stations to understand that at the great height the airship would fly, they would be able to use the homing signals from one town to the next on a crude but effective radio highway in the sky.

Then he put that all aside. Cromwell called on the intercom. "Better suit up, chaps. It's going to get dreadfully cold a lot faster than you think. When you're into your coldweather gear, each of you check the other. And make absolutely certain that when the temperature gets down below zero, which it will do distressingly soon, never touch any metal with your bare hands. If you do, you'll leave your skin behind." "Got it, Will. What about you two?" "I'll stay on the controls. As soon as the young lady is in her gear, send her forward. Frenchy can leave his seat then to get suited up while Gale takes right seat. When Frenchy comes back he'll take his seat, Gale will take mine, and I'll suit up. Be sure you people check us out. One mistake where we're going can be very costly."

"Got it," Indy confirmed. He turned to Gale. "You hear all that?"

"Yes. Let's do it." She chuckled. "It's nice having two gentlemen at the same time helping me get dressed. I feel positively risque."

"For a grizzly, maybe," Chino told her. Ten minutes later she was ready to agree with him. In a heavy fullbody flight suit of fleecelined leather, thick boots, leather helmet and goggles, and heavy gloves, she felt like an overstuffed bear.

"I can barely walk in all this stuff," she complained.

"So waddle," Indy told her.

She shuffled forward. Moments later Foulois came

back into the cabin, and the three men assisted one another into their thick and clumsy altitude gear. Each checked the equipment of the others, and Foulois returned to the cockpit, sending Cromwell back. When Gale returned, they donned oxygen masks, the lifegiving oxygen fed from portable bottles slung about their shoulder to their waist, the straps modified Sam Browne dress belts.

"Each tank is good for two hours," Indy told Gale and Chino. "You've got to be ready to switch tanks at least ten minutes before that time. Will insists that whenever you switch tanks, one other person must be with you. If any one of us messes up with the tank valves or fastenings and we don't get oxygen from the tanks, at our top altitude we won't have thirty seconds of consciousness to correct any mistakes. But if you have somebody with you, they can get the air flowing right away."

Chino nodded. "With all this noise, engines and the wind, how do we talk to each other?"

"These masks are the latest army issue. They've got radio intercom. Since it's real short range, like just inside the plane," Indy related what he'd been taught by Henshaw, "the system ought to work real well. However," he warned,

"if one of us calls someone else and there's no answer, get to that person immediately. They may be out of air or a valve has backed off. Five minutes without air up high is a death sentence."

Everything worked perfectly, although physical movement was clumsy and slow in their heavy gear and the increasing cold. They looked back and to the northwest. What had been darkness was now a sky split with almost constant lightning exploding from cloud to cloud in the stillbuilding thunderstorms. Huge thunderheads flashed like beacons from within.

"God, I'm glad we're not in that," Gale remarked. "It could tear us to pieces."

"Thanks," Chino said with obvious sarcasm.

Indy clapped him on the shoulder. "We won't get anywhere near that," he reassured the big Indian. "Joe, it's going to be daylight soon. We'd better check out the guns."

The Ford had been well prepared for the planned encounter with the airship.

The innerwing baggage compartments, modified to hold one machine gun each, with a heavy load of ammunition, gave Cromwell and Foulois powerful forwardfiring effect.

Both men were experienced combat pilots, and that experience was invaluable now.

Beneath the wings, in place of the external fuel tanks, the army had installed rocketlaunching pods. The outer casing was the same size and connections as the fuel tanks, but the fuel lines had been replaced with electrical connections to fire the rockets. At the front end of each tank, the metal structure had been replaced with multilayered thick canvas, heavily doped for stiffness. Before the solidfuel rocket motors would ignite, a small charge would blow apart both the frangible nose cone and the aft covering of the pod, so that the rockets would be free to fire forward without interference, and the rocket flame would shoot rearwards from the pod without any backlash from the rear covers. Each pod held three rockets, much advanced from those Foulois and Cromwell had fired in combat in the war twelve years earlier, Foulois from his fighter plane with which he attacked German observation balloons, and Cromwell in his diving attacks against German submarines.

But the warhead of each rocket was the hopedfor key to the success they sought against their huge adversary.

The full explosive charge had been removed from each warhead, replaced with a smaller charge about which white phosphorous incendiary material had been packed. To add to the incendiary effect, the metal casing of the warhead was of magnesium. Both materials, white phosphorous and magnesium, would burn through fabric and metal with equal ease, and the magnesium particles, once ignited, would continue to burn even under water.

These were the keys with which Indy hoped his team in the Ford would unlock the security of the airship, opening up the huge structure like a hot knife slicing through soft butter.

It wouldn't be quite that simple. They would be fighting the cold, and the absolutelynomistakes procedures with their oxygen systems. Hopefully, they'd get a visual on the airship that was their prey.

There were so many unknowns! Indy had made certain to keep his serious reservations to himself. He'd listened enough times to the pilots to realize they were sailing into largely uncharted waters with the Ford Trimotor. At this altitude there simply was no way to know how the thickwinged machine would handle. Rarefied air brought on strange characteristics to aircraft. Despite the superb ability of Cromwell and Foulois, the three people in the cabin who would be fending off a possible attack from those superfast jetpowered discs had all the experience with machine guns that a dog might have riding a motorcycle.

Their one real advantage was that Indy, Gale, and Chino were all highly experienced at shooting and hunting. The basics wouldn't change. You always led your target with your aim to bring your bullet into a block of space at the same time your target got there.

Foulois had spent time with Indy on the matter of firing the machine guns.

"In the air, you have tremendous wind.

That affects your fire, no? Of course, yes. The path of your bullets is affected by the wind. They will curve away, flying with the wind. Even a machine gun can waste all its ammunition because of the wind. But you will have incendiary rounds, my friend. Every fourth round will be incendiary, so it will be a bright, bright glow in the air as the bullets fly away from you."

"I know," Indy said quietly.

"Aha! Perhaps you have experience with such matters?"

"Belgian Army. Africa, France," Indy said tightly. "Yes, some experience."

"Voila! Then I do not need to tell you to fire in short bursts." Foulois grasped an imaginary weapon and his arms shook as if he were feeling the recoil of a machine gun. "No firing like you are watering your lawn. No hosing away your ammunition, for it is limited. And even the Belgians knew not to fire too steadily for too long so they would not burn out the barrels of their weapons, no?"

"Yes."

"One more thing, my fine professor. Never forget your ammunition supply is limited. Once it is gone," Foulois shrugged, "it gets very quiet when you squeeze the trigger."

"My God, it's cold. . . . " Gale Parker shivered beneath her heavy flight garments. "It's already well below zero. . . .

How much worse can this get?"

Indy shrugged, a movement barely visible in his own heavy outfit. "Count on forty or fifty below zero. That's what Henshaw told me. That's why they used special lubricants on our equipment. Regular grease or oil becomes sludge."

Cromwell broke in through the intercom. "Move around back there, you three," he told them. "Keep moving as much as you can. Flex your toes in your boots. Beat your hands together. Do whatever you need to keep your blood flowing.

Now you know why the Eskimo has so

much blubber on his body. Miss Parker, don't you wish you were fat and blubbery?"

"If. . . if it would make me warmer," she said, shivering, "yes!"

Indy looked at Gale and Chino. "We're getting up there. We could find our friends at any moment now."

He glanced through a cabin window. "We're so high it already seems like we've almost left the world." He shook off the sudden introspection. "Let's check the weapons."

"Wait a moment." Indy turned. Chino continued, "Look, I've been checking the gun positions. You're working the single gun in the belly hatch, right?"

Indy nodded. "That was a lastminute decision. Henshaw's people installed a ball socket mount and crossbracing. If one of those discs comes up at us, or we're right over the airship, that position could be critical."

"I agree, Indy. But the flooring isn't the strongest. You figure my weight, or even yours. I've been pushing down on the flooring," Chino explained. "It yields.

And the cold is going to make things brittle. I suggest we put Gale in that position.

Secure her with webbing clips to the seat legs so that if anything goes wrong, she'll still be safe."

Indy accepted Chino's observations. Valid, realistic. "Anything else?"

"Yes, there is. You told me to use that open hatch just behind the cockpit.

The same ball socket system as we have with the belly gun. But, Indy, I think it would be better if you were closer to the cockpit. We could lose intercom or have some other problems and the pilots would be right next to you if they needed you. I can take the main position in the back, and—"

"If you ladies would like to interrupt your sewing bee for a moment,"

Cromwell's voice broke in, impatient with all the talking, "you're five minutes past your oxygen checks. Get with it, mates!"

Indy and Chino nodded to one another, went through their systems, exchanged nearempty bottles for full tanks, and did the same for Gale.

"Gentlemen, I thought you'd like to know we're at twentythree thousand,"

Cromwell said to them by intercom.

"And, blimey, it's already twenty below zero and going down."

Chino shook his head in mock disbelief. "If the old chiefs could see me now,"

he said in wonder. "The closer we get to the sun, the colder it gets. They would believe the world was mad."

They were near the end of lighthearted exchanges. It was too cold, and getting colder all the time as the Ford pounded upward, the three engines hammering out full power in the steady climb. Even the slightest flaw in the cabin that permitted an inflow of air was like a knife striking a body. The moment belied their senses.

The thunderstorms were now distant battlements, first red, then orange, and now blinding white as the sun rose higher. The sky directly above them was darkening strangely to a deeper and deeper purple, and the view all around them was of a steel blue sky, startlingly clear, extending to a horizon that seemed a thousand miles away.

They were shockingly alone, a tiny metal creature throbbing painfully upward.

Indy checked the forward machine gun for the fourth time, looking for parts that may have frozen solid. He turned to see Chino weaving on the cabin floor, legs spread apart, one hand gripping a seat back.

"Chino!" Indy called sharply.

"Uh, hear you. Who . . . what . . . world shaking . . . can see bright stars . .

." Chino's voice came over faltering and wavering.

"Get to that bleedin' Indian now!" Cromwell shouted, his voice crackling in their earphones. "He's losing oxygen! Do it quick!"

Indy moved backward, and bent down to check Chino's oxygen gauge. He had almost a full tank. Then Indy saw the problem just as Chino began to sag. He had unknowingly brushed against the valve wheel and reduced his oxygen flow. He was already into the first stages of hypoxia. Oxygen starvation was insidious. Indy turned the valve to full on and grasped Chino.

"Speak to me," Indy snapped. "Count to ten, now."

"Uh, I do, two, four, no . . ." He shook his head. Indy looked into his eyes.

The dim glaze was disappearing. That quickly, he was out of it. "Uh, all right, thanks, Indy—"

"Count!"

Chino rattled off the numbers perfectly. Indy patted him on the arm. "Check your gun. I want a call every five minutes. That goes for you too, Gale."

"I'm having trouble seeing, Indy," she said, pain in her voice.

He checked her oxygen. Everything was fine, including the mask fit. Then he saw what he'd missed. "Your goggles.

You've got to keep them on. Your eyes are tearing, and the tears are freezing as fast as they come out on your cheeks.

Gale, here—" He pulled her goggles over her eyes. "Keep these in place. You can freeze your eyeballs up here."

"God, it hurts. It's all right." She fended off his arm. "Ill be fine."

Cromwell and Foulois were better protected against the cold in the cockpit, where heated air was blasting from bleed manifolds off the nose engine, blowing the hot air across their feet. They could have had more heat within the airplane from wing engine manifolds, but both pilots had insisted the heat from those sources must go to the rocket canisters and the wing guns.

"Twentyeight thousand," Foulois called back from the cockpit. "We're picking up ice."

He wasn't wasting words. It took only a glance to see frost collecting on the enginemount struts, icing up the cabin windows and external control cables, all blasted by the equal of a screaming Antarctic storm.

In the cabin Indy, Gale, and Chino worked desperately to keep their bodies warm, beating their hands together, swinging their arms, working toes in their boots.

Each time they checked their weapons they had to expose parts of their bodies to the howling gale. The outside temperature was down to fiftyfour degrees below zero. The Ford was a block of ice still pushing its way upward.

"Twentynine thousand," Cromwell announced. His voice seemed pained.

"Check your oxygen, everybody. Call in when you've done that with your gauge readings."

They stumbled over the words but followed Cromwell's orders.

"Controls stiffening," Foulois said.

"Amazing how these engines keep running," Cromwell murmured. "The temps are down in the basement."

Chino's voice came into their reports. "We do not need to fly higher," he said.

"Wwhy nnot?" stammered Gale.

"Pilots, to our left, a few, maybe two or three thousand feet lower," Chino said carefully. "There it is."

They all looked to their left and slightly below. There was the huge dirigible, reflecting sunlight like a great beacon in the sky.

"Thank the saints they're below us," Cromwell said stiffly. "I don't think the old girl had much left in her. Leveling off, Rene. Gently, gently . . . No, no, keep full power on. We'll need everything we can get. Indy, you with me?"

"Yyes. Go ahead."

"We've got company, laddie. Look behind and just below the zep. You see what I mean?"

"Uh . . . I don't . . . Got them, Will." Indy had seen sudden bright reflections.

"There's three of them," Cromwell said. "Count on them coming in for a visit."

"Agreed. Gale, Joe . . . your guns. Confirm."

"In position. Strapped and hooked up. Oxygen content seventy percent.

Valve full on." Gale was wisely talking in staccato bursts.

"I am with you," Chino called.

"What's your tank showing?" Indy demanded.

"Sixtyfive percent. Indy?"

"Go."

"It is cold out here." Chino's head and shoulders were exposed to the wind blast down the fuselage.

"It'll be warmer in a few moments, bucko," Cromwell told Chino. Then: "Indy, you still have them in sight?"

"Yeah, Will."

The pilots were banking the Ford gently toward the slowly rising airship.

"This is important, Indy," Cromwell continued. "Watch those discs coming in.

They're sliding about. Wobbling. They're slick in shape, Indy. That means they haven't much lift up here."

"Indy, Rene here. The Britisher is right. They cannot make any real banks for maneuvering. Watch how they turn, like on a flat table. Do you see?"

Indy watched the discs as they approached in wide, very shallow turns. They were right. Those things were devastating down low in thick air, but in this rarefied atmosphere they were barely capable of flight.

"Will, what do you think they'll do?"

"They can't come up sharply from below us," Cromwell answered immediately.

"If they try that, leading edge up, they'll stall out. And no pursuit curves, either.

Not the

way they're flying, like fish out of water. This is a break for us."

"Indy, Rene here. I think they will make a shallow approach from behind. Two of them. Slightly above and behind.

They must travel at full speed or they will fall."

"You said two. What about the third?"

"He will attack us from the front."

"Joe, you hear me?" Cromwell called.

"Yes."

"When they come after us from behind I'm going to swing the nose to the right. That will give you a clear shot at the blighters."

"Aall right."

"Not so fast. There's no interruptor mechanism in your weapon. You understand?"

"No."

"It means you've got to be careful you don't shoot our bloody tail right off this machine! Have you got that?"

"I have it. Tell them to hurry up. I'm freezing."

"I'll send them a telegram, Joe."

"Indy, right after that pass, the ones from behind," Foulois called, "we must continue our turn, but put the nose down. You understand? That will let you fire at the disc that comes on us from the front. Gale Parker, the one from the front must pass beneath us. You will have only a moment to shoot as he goes below you. He cannot climb, so that is how he will fly."

"This ends the sewing circle, ladies!" Cromwell said loudly. "Here they come!"

The discs spewed black smoke behind them as they continued their painful slow turn in toward the Ford. "Get ready . . ." Cromwell said. "Watch those two from behind!"

Chino saw a flashing light at the leading edge of the discs. "They are firing!"

he shouted.

Instantly Cromwell shoved in right rudder, swinging the nose to the right, bringing the tail to the left and giving Chino a brief but perfect opportunity.

Everything they'd told Chino about short bursts was forgotten as he aimed at a point in space ahead of the discs and squeezed his trigger. Glowing tracers curved out and away in a steady stream.

"Short bursts!" Indy yelled.

His voice went unheard as Chino kept firing. Bullets tore into the Ford's right wingtip, shredding metal, throwing pieces of debris back to vanish from sight.

"Hit! Hit!" Chino yelled. "Got him! I see fire! Eeyah!"

His tracers had smashed the glass canopy of the disc, and had apparently gone through the cockpit area into a fuel tank. An explosion wracked the disc. The pilot was trying desperately to climb up and away, knowing another disc was about to hit the Ford from the opposite direction. But with the wind screaming into the cockpit and flames tearing at the structure, he was still descending— straight at the trimotor.

"Turn left! Turn left!" Indy yelled. "Dive! He's out of control coming straight at us!"

It was a perilous maneuver at this altitude, but they had no choice.

Immediately the nose swung left and the right wing went up, as Cromwell brought the Ford around in a sudden diving left turn. Over the roar of their engines a tremendous hollow torching sound burst through the airplane. The disc was out of control, flipflopping crazily, spewing flames and debris. It passed just under the raised right wing of the Ford, scant feet beneath the plane. The shock wave from its passing smacked the Ford like a giant hand. Cromwell and Foulois fought desperately to keep control. A steep bank at this height could stall them out in a split second. Slowly they brought the Ford from its brief descent, wings level.

A machinegun burst vibrated through the airplane. "He's below us!" Gale shouted into her microphone. Lying prone, looking down, she'd had a glimpse of the second disc coming into sight. Her reaction was to open fire immediately, shooting wildly in the alltoobrief opportunity. The disc raced ahead of the Ford, easing to the left to remain clear of the third disc, now a gleaming sliver of reflected sunlight racing headon at them.

"Open fire!" Cromwell shouted to Foulois. "If nothing else you'll give him something to worry about!"

Two machine guns blazed from the wings of the Ford, tracers flashing ahead, sparkling all about the disc. At the same moment they saw the flashing light of the disc's machine gun, firing at the airplane. It came in with tremendous speed. Before they could maneuver, a spray of bullets hammered into the right wing, walking toward the cockpit.

The Ford shuddered as if hit with a truck. "The rocket pack! Right wing!"

Indy shouted. "It's gone!" The attack had smashed into the big rocket canister beneath the right wing, mangling the hardpoint connections and blowing away the entire system. They were more than lucky. The force of their speed had ripped the rocket pack free before one of the warheads ignited. Well behind and below them, the rocket canister exploded in a searing burst of flame. The wreckage fell away like confetti in a hurricane.

"Will, go for the airship," Indy ordered. "We've got just those three rockets left."

"Don't I know it," Cromwell answered, already easing the trimotor toward the airship. "We'll make it before he can climb much higher," Cromwell went on. "We've still got about fifteen hundred feet on him—good God . . . " They heard the strain in Cromwell's voice. "It's Frenchy. He's hit. Bad. Blood all over the place here. Better get him in the back to stop the bleeding and check his oxygen!"

"Disc is coming in!" they heard Chino shouting. "Behind us and lower. I cannot get aim at him!"

"Gale!" Indy called. "I can see him. When I tell you to, aim your weapon behind you in direct line with the fuselage.

He may just fly into your tracers."

"But I'll be shooting blind!"

"You have a better idea? Just shut up and get ready to fire! Okay, he's committed . . . coming in just below us, and he's firing. . . ."

They felt bullets striking the tail. Cromwell shoved hard right rudder, then left, moving the plane from side to side to throw off their attacker's aim. Gale screamed; she was being rolled from side to side herself.

The ballsocket gun mount was a rushed affair. In the bitter cold, the metal had shrunk and become brittle. Indy yelled to her, "Fire now!" and she squeezed the trigger. The sudden movements of the plane, Gale's trying to keep from bouncing around even in her harness, and the bucking recoil of the machine gun were too much for the makeshift system. Metal tore, the crossmounts snapped like sticks, and the machine gun fell away from the airplane.

Gale had a glimpse of a brilliant disc flashing into view, in line with falling wreckage. She stared in disbelief as the machine gun slammed into the canopy of the disc, shattering the glass and smashing against the pilot. A convulsive jerk at the controls of the disc sent it whirling crazily, all lift gone, the machine in a killer highspeed stall. It spun away like a whirling dervish, spewing forth wreckage and fuel. Far below them, flame blossomed and the disintegrating disc fell toward final destruction.

"Someone help me! HELP!"

Gale's voice . . . in his headset. Indy looked back to the belly gun position. Gale was gone! He saw her legs snagged in her safety harness. From the knees down she | was still in the cabin, but the rest of her body was outside in that punishing frigid air. The air blast buffeted her madly, several times slamming her against the belly of the airplane. Indy started toward her, and saw Chino scrambling forward from the rear of the cabin. The Ford rolled wildly to one side. In their clumsy garments and oxygen tanks, they were helpless to get to Gale.

She screamed again for someone to help her.

Indy reacted without time for deliberate thought. There was one chance. He grabbed the zipper toggle of his flight suit and yanked it full down, giving him access within the suit. In a moment he pulled his whip free from its snaplock by his waist.

He knew this would be the single most important throw he had ever done. He aimed carefully, bracing himself, and snapped the whip forward. The far end struck Gale's right leg and wrapped about her ankle. Indy braced himself against a seat, holding on with all his strength.

"Joe! I can hold her a while! Get to her!" In the same breath: "Hang on, Gale.

. . ."

She screamed something unintelligible. Indy didn't blame her if she was calling him every rotten name under the sun. Hang on? With her hands flailing empty air?

Chino was on his hands and knees, moving as fast as he could along the cabin floor to reach Gale. Her body swung wildly as one of the two last restraining straps gave way. Her life now hung by one strap and Indy's bullwhip. Time was rushing away from them. Chino braced himself, grasped her left leg, and pulled her up like a child as Indy also pulled with the whip. Then she was partially back in the cabin. Chino's right arm shot out to circle her waist. Holding grimly to her body, he rolled flat on the cabin floor as far from the gaping hole as he could move.

Indy stumbled forward, fell to his knees, and grabbed a fistful of flight suit.

Together they pulled her back into the airplane, dragging her forward toward the cockpit.

Her face was bloody. Beneath the red smears and splotches, her skin was deadwhite from the blasting wind and cold. "Oxygen," Indy said to Chino. "Quickly!

She's lost her bottle. Get another one."

Chino was gone. Immediately Indy took a deep breath, held it, and hooked Gale's oxygen line to his own bottle.

Almost at once he started feeling dizzy. Fighting to retain his senses, he hooked his bottle to Gale's waist. Darkness began closing in as peripheral vision faded. The next moment the bright lights dancing before his eyes dimmed; then Chino was there by his side with a full bottle, hooking him up.

"Joe, get up front. Try to bring Rene back here from the cockpit. Gale will be okay in a moment. But whatever happens, make sure Rene has oxygen. Stop any bleeding. Gale will help; she knows what to do."

Joe went forward. Indy put his hand to Gale's face. She gripped it tightly.

"It's all right. I'll be okay. Just help me up so I can help Rene."

"Indy! Will here. Come forward. Joe's got Rene. He's shot up. I need you with me."

Indy worked his way past Chino as he moved Rene to a sitting position against the cabin wall. He slipped into Rene's seat. "Tell me what to do," he said to Cromwell.

"They've decided to run for it," Cromwell told him. "You can just make out that third disc that was after us. He's behind the airship and trying to get back on board. It's a bloody stupid move, I'll tell you that."

Cromwell was shoving as hard on the throttles as he could, trying to squeeze every ounce of speed from the Ford.

"Why . . . I mean, what you said," Indy asked.

"Why, that pancake can't slow down this high," Cromwell said quickly.

"We've just seen that. The way he's going he'll be three hundred miles an hour faster than that gasbag. Go right on through that thing like a nightmare on the loose. If I don't miss my guess, whoever's flying that airship will have to tell that disc to bug off. Otherwise they'll be shooting at their own man."

"All right. What do you want me to do?"

"Indy, m'boy, it pains me to say this, but we're going to get only one whack at that bloated ugly out there. Take a look at the gauges for the right engine."

"Which—"

"The ones marked number three. The oil pressure, laddie. It's going downhill. And so will we the moment that engine seizes up. I've got to stop that before it does, or we may have a fire on our hands. Look under the right wing, Indy."

"I see what you mean." Indy stared at the huge black stain covering the underside of the wing above and behind the engine. "We took some hits. Same time they blew away the rocket canister. Okay, let's get that zep, Will. Now."

"It's in the cards, m'boy. Now, see that red Thandle in the center of the panel?"

Indy leaned forward, pointing, then reaching for the handle.

"Don't!"

"What—"

"Not yet, not yet. When you pull that handle, it ignites the rockets in the canister under the left wing. All three rockets will fire off at the same time. I'll tell you when, and it will be soon, and—Look at that bloody fool!"

They watched the disc approaching the zeppelin from the rear. It was like a speeding bullet racing after a sluggish huge animal trying desperately to get out of the way. "See the landing platform? That works fine at low altitude, but up here that thing simply cannot hover."

"Or even fly slow," Indy observed.

"Right you are. Now, if I'm right, they'll swing the tail of that blimp up and to the left and—there it goes!"

Much closer now to the great airship, they could see in greater detail. The disc pilot was obviously desperate to return safely to the zeppelin. Indy watched a spume of dark smoke whirling about the disc as it slowed for its approach and landing on the zeppelin ramp.

"Unless I miss my guess, off he goes," Cromwell said.

They watched the disc wobble from side to side, a skittering crablike motion.

"He's losing it!" Indy called.

"That he is . . ." Cromwell murmured. "Ah, the bottom is falling out."

The disc slewed wildly, trying to match the sudden motion of the airship as Cromwell had predicted. It was a mistake on the part of both craft. Unable to maintain altitude and control, the disc swept to one side, brushing the lower great vertical rudder of the airship. It tore through, and began a long plunge to the earth more than five miles below.

"We'll never have a better chance," Cromwell said. "We've got to attack before that engine quits on us."

"How long . . . how much longer?" Indy asked. "I'm getting into position now.

We've got to come around for a frontal attack. That will give us only one shot at them. We'll dive toward the blighter, and I'll hold the dive angle so you can yank on that handle. Starting to turn now."

The airship loomed impossibly huge. Whoever was commanding the monster realized what the Ford pilot was attempting, for dark smoke suddenly increased behind the zeppelin. "He's gone to full power, Indy. Get ready. It's now or never."

All thoughts of the bitter cold, the dying engine, the damage they had taken—were gone. Nothing existed but that airship. It swelled swiftly in size as Cromwell began his dive, straight at the tremendous form. The scream of the wind increased, and suddenly the cold was back again as icy fingers stabbed through bullet holes in the windshield. The cold was physical, like being struck viciously.

Faster and faster dove the Ford, unable to slow its descent in the thin air at their height. "They're shooting at us!"

Indy called out. He'd just seen the dark areas atop the dirigible becoming large enough to make out what they were.

Machinegun nests atop the airship! Tracers sparkled and danced in the sky as they seemed to float upward against the Ford. They felt bullets striking the airplane. The Ford shuddered and yawed to one side; Cromwell fought her back.

He squeezed a button on his control yoke. The Ford shook and rattled as the two forwardfiring machine guns hurled tracers at the airship. "That should throw them off!" Cromwell shouted.

The right engine exploded. The sudden violence hurled the propeller away from the engine, flinging it well off to the side. Cromwell shouted to Indy. "The left rudder pedal! Stand on it, laddie, stand on it!"

Indy pressed down with all his strength, both men pushing left rudder as hard as they could to keep the airplane diving straight. The top of the zeppelin filled the entire world, a monstrous thing beyond belief, machine guns sparkling as they continued to fire.

"The handle! Get ready!" Cromwell shouted.

Indy reached forward, ready for the call.

"NOW! PULL THE HANDLE!"

Indy yanked back, a sharp sudden motion. He looked past Cromwell at the left wing. In a sudden fury of activity, the nose cone blew away from the underwing canister, flame speared backwards as the rockets ignited, and three long tubes rushed forward from the airplane, trailing flame and smoke as they arrowed downward into the spine of the great ship before them.

Dark spots appeared on the shiny fabric, then the rockets were gone. "What the devil happened?" Indy shouted to Cromwell. "There wasn't any explosion!"

"There will be—" Cromwell cut himself short as he pulled back on the yoke.

"Ease off on that rudder pedal," he ordered. The Ford rolled to the right and the nose came around. They sped past the airship, a toy against a giant. As they flashed by, Indy saw a stab of flame appear along the flank of the zeppelin.

To his left, Cromwell was frantically moving controls and switches, to cut off fuel and power to the shattered right engine. "We've got a fire of our own," he said grimly. He reached to the panel and pulled another handle.

"Watch the right engine," he ordered.

White mist engulfed the engine briefly, streaming back through the wreckage, and was flung away by the wind.

"Fire extinguisher," Cromwell said. "Did it work?"

"No more fire," Indy told him. The shriek of wind was overwhelming. Cromwell was pulling back on the yoke, easing the Ford from its crazy dive. He maintained their descent, but under control this time, able to bank the airplane better, to see the airship.

"Take a look, lad," he said, quietly this time.

Flame billowed from the flanks of the airship. "What's happening?" Indy asked. "That thing is filled with helium and helium doesn't burn—"

"Right," Cromwell told him. "But it's also got a devil of a load of fuel for those jet engines. That magnesium, once it's ignited, will keep right on burning through the metal structure, and that means the fire worked its way down to the fuel tanks and ate right through the metal. That fire is their fuel.

I'd say we've done a day's good work, be cause—"

There was no need to say more. A savage glare appeared along the sides and belly of the airship. Indy understood now that blazing magnesium had breached the fuel tanks. Fuel spilled outward, ignited violently, and sent flames hurtling through the fuel storage area. The huge airship wallowed like a stricken whale, dying before their eyes as explosions wracked the structure. Debris and bodies spilled outward.

Indy stared as crewmen, arms and legs flailing helplessly, began the long fall toward the earth.

Another blast, a great gout of flame, and the zeppelin buckled amidships, its back broken. The flames continued to spread, and two huge masses tumbled downward, twisting and turning in seeming agony as they dropped to final destruction.

"You need me up here right now?" Indy asked Cromwell.

"Not now. We're below twenty thousand, and I'll keep her going down like an elevator until we're at fourteen. Then we can all take off these miserable oxy systems and breathe like normal people again."

Indy climbed from the cockpit. Back in the cabin he moved immediately to the side of Foulois. Chino was cradling the unmoving Frenchman in his huge arms.

Foulois's oxygen mask was gone from his face, telling Indy what he feared most of all.

Indy met Chino's eyes. They didn't need words to say that Rene Foulois was dead.

Gale sat to one side, quietly. Indy saw she had been crying. Now she was numb, inside and out. Rene Foulois was gone, and they had been on the thin edge of death themselves. Gale had frostbite on her face; she suffered her own pain. Finally she looked up.

"Did we . . . " Her voice faltered.

"We did," Indy said quietly as he could and still be heard over the roar of engines and wind.

"Masks off now," Cromwell announced from the cockpit. They turned their valves to the off position and removed masks and goggles. Indy unsnapped the heavy mouth cover. It was already much warmer at their lower altitude. He helped Gale with her face protection and goggles and removed her oxygen mask. Her lips were still trembling. He looked sternly at her.

"Put your goggles back on," he ordered. "The wind is wild through the bullet holes in the cockpit. Now, get up there."

Her eyes went wide. "I . . . I can't. I—"

"Yes, you can. And you will. You're a pilot! Will needs help up front. We're coming down with two engines and the right wing chewed up, and we've got a busted airplane on our hands. So get up there and fly."

For a long moment she stared at Indy. She rose slowly, stood before him.

"You know something, Professor Jones?

I think I love you."

She brushed her lips against his, and was gone.

Indy leaned against the cabin wall. He looked sadly at Foulois.

"He was a very good man," Indy said. "An ace in the war against the Germans. Strange for him to die here, like this."

"Not so strange," said Jose Syme Chino. "All things have their special time.

This also was a war. A battle between good and evil. As are all great struggles.

This man,

who had wings, there is a special place for his kind with the Great Spirits."

Indy nodded slowly as they continued their return to earth.

"Amen," he said.

THE END

Afterword

OF COURSE IT'S REAL!

Recently—the summer of 1991—I was a guest speaker at the Institute of Advanced Learning in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the subject that raised the greatest interest and brought in a standingroomonly crowd was, not unexpectedly, a serious study of UFO's. During the questionandanswer period which gave the audience free rein to ask anything they wanted to ask, and likely never before had the opportunity to get an answer, I was asked the inevitable question. Had I ever seen a UFO? And if I had, what did it look like and what did it do?

I admit to tweaking my audience. Like most people I've seen UFO's through a lifetime, but in this instance I am being very specific. In other words, I had seen at different times something in the sky I could not identify: a flash of light, a colorful ray, a physical object too distant to make out any details. The object I saw was simply impossible to identify.

Hardly very exciting.

So I told my audience about an absolutely incredible sighting of many years past, a sighting in broad daylight, under perfect visual conditions, with thunder rolling like the end of the world from the heavens.

"It was a vessel utterly alien to me," I related. "It was absolutely incredible.

Nearly a thousand feet long! It sailed across the earth maybe fifteen hundred, perhaps two thousand feet high. It was so huge it partially blocked out the sun. Its deep groaning roar sent birds fleeing and animals dashing for safety. It was silvery, splendid, magnificent as it passed over, and I watched it until it vanished beyond the horizon."

Well, not many people believed me. In fact, I doubt if anybody in that crowd believed a word of what I'd told them. I asked for a show of hands from anyone who believed that what I'd told them was absolutely, unquestionably real.

Not one hand went up. I'd struck out. Zero belief. Then I dropped my "belief bomb."

"I don't know why you find what I just described to you as too fantastic to believe. What I was seeing was also witnessed by millions of other people. I was standing beneath the USS Akron, sister ship to the equally huge USS

Macon, the two enormous dirigibles of the United States Navy that were in service in the early 1930's. And, of course, never having seen such a sight before, or having known of these two massive sky vessels, the ship blocking out the sun was alien to me!"

Even if it was some sixty years ago.

It was another wonderful moment of fact being stranger than fiction. And remembering that moment, and others like it—such as those times when I flew a jet fighter in pursuit of other objects in the sky that I never caught up with and never did identify—helped me decide that in INDIANA JONES AND THE SKY PIRATES, everything that seems exotic, wonderful, marvelous— and impossible—is all based on hard, provable, reality.

Airships, the bloated, clumsy cigar-shapes put together from bedsheets, ropes, and clumsy rigging first carried men into the air more than a hundred years ago. Some maneuvered through the skies by men pedaling madly on bicycles that turned propellers instead of wheels. Others used dangerous engines powered with benzine, dangerous because they often burned and exploded in flight, ending promising careers with a fiery finality. Huge dirigibles, notably those from the Zeppelin works in Germany, performed from 1914 to 1918 with astonishing success. They bombed British cities, and in turn they were blasted from the skies by antiaircraft fire and fighter planes. The German L35 began a new era by carrying aloft an Albatross Dlll fighter plane, and releasing it for protection, like a swift hawk covering a giant plump chicken in the sky. Soon British dirigibles were carrying fighter planes, releasing them in flight and recovering them as well—the predecessors to the huge dirigible in our own story in this book. And nearly seventyfive years ago, Germany's L53 had already climbed to more than 21,000 feet above the earth.

After that war ended in 1918, dirigibles became ever larger, faster, more powerful, and amazingly reliable— again setting the stage for the mighty airship in our story. Even today, it is difficult to believe the splendid record of certain airships of past times, such as Germany's Graf Zeppelin, which in the time span of nine years flew a total of 17,179 hours in 590 separate flights! The famed Graf flew from Europe to America, to South America and the Middle East, crossed the Arctic on an exciting adventure for its passengers, and then flew around the world on a leisurely tour that even today seems like a dream. Before the Graf Zeppelin was retired after its nine years of service, it had taken aloft, in luxury and perfect safety, more than 34,000 people.

So what you have read in these pages about a great airship and the flying machines it carried, releasing and recovering them in flight, has a great "reality foundation" in aviation history.

BUT—JET ENGINES IN 1930?

If you search through your history books on aviation, or study thick encyclopedias, or wander through jet aviation exhibits in museums, you are certain to be informed that the first jet airplane took to the skies in August of 1939. This was a Heinkel He178 of Germany, and it represented a highwater mark in aviation progress.

But it wasn't the first jet flight—which established another foundation for our story. In fact, the He178 made its first flight nearly thirty years after the Frenchman, Henri Coanda, lunged into the skies from the airfield at IssylesMoulineaux in France. The year was 1910, and not only did Coanda make the first jet flight (short and disastrous though it was), but he also designed the jet engine for his own sleek biplane jet. Today, the second biplane jet Coanda built is still on display at a French aviation museum. The first machine of its type was publicly displayed in 1910 at the Salon Aeronautique in Paris.

This writer interviewed Henri Coanda at great length, and a marvelous time it was, being with one of the greatest aviation pioneers of history. Coanda began to develop his ideas for a jet engine in 1904, when he attended the French School of Advanced Aeronautic Study. From this learning period he designed and continued to improve on a jet engine he called the turbopropulsor. His friend, Clerget, built the engine from Coanda's design drawings, and it was installed in the sleek biplane, also of Coanda's design.

Since Coanda flew his jet in 1910, some twenty years before our story takes place, there was certainly plenty of time to develop the original crude jet engine into a powerful and reliable system for the flying discs that Indiana Jones had to face.

But why haven't we heard more of Coanda? Because while he managed to take off in his jet, his landing was a thundering crash. He was performing taxi tests. That is, running the Coanda Jet along the airport to test its power and its brakes, so the pilot would know what to expect before his first attempt to fly. To Coanda's surprise, his jet engine was far more powerful than he'd anticipated, and when he pushed his throttle forward, jet flames burst back from the engine, and it howled like a huge dragon. Before Coanda could stop his machine, it leaped into the sky. When Coanda looked up there was a wall in front of him. Desperately, he yanked off power and hauled back on the control stick, and the Coanda Jet fell off to one side and smashed into the ground. Coanda was thrown clear and was only bruised, but the airplane burned to a skeleton.

In our story we encountered Coanda developing his first jet engine and airplane in 1910, and we ran into him again during World War I when he developed a rocket gun for the French Army. He also applied for a patent (in 1914) for his jet engine. All this is factual history, and it establishes the basis for the jet engines in the flying discs.

In fact, Coanda was also responsible for several flying saucer designs which, when they were made public many years after he worked on those astonishing machines, were known as Lenticular Aerodynes. And they worked. So that if the reader assumes that even the flying saucers in our story are, or can be, real— you're right!

The jet engines in this book are based on Coanda's designs built and tested in 1910, and patented in France in 1914.

Had the French government, or individual investors, supported Coanda's work, then World War I, from 1914 to 1918, might well have been fought with jet fighters and bombers. But the immediate need for planes overshadowed what most Frenchmen had never even heard of, and government authorities looked with suspicion upon anything that revolutionary.

The Coanda engine, as it developed, would have been perfect for the giant dirigible and the flying discs in our story. It fired up like an ordinary combustion engine, but its power came from a rotary system operating at great speed within the engine. The spinning motion created a partial vacuum that drew in huge amounts of air. Then the engine compressed that air, mixed it with fuel, and lit the entire affair in the manner of a continuous explosion. This spun even more blades to increase the flow of air, the density of the fuelair mixture, the temperature within the engine, and the speed of hot gases hurled back from the engine. There you have it—not merely a workable jet engine, but one that increased its power and compression the faster it moved. And the faster it flew, the greater was its power, so that continuing to develop the Coanda engine gave us the perfect propulsion for the discs and the dirigible that so astonished everyone.

Of course there were still problems to overcome in balancing and controlling the flight direction of the discs, but from the same fertile mind of Henri Coanda came that solution. In his Coanda Effect, the Frenchman proved that by blowing a powerful jet along a flat surface (or engine vane), the flow of the jet will follow the flat surface, and even hug that surface as it begins to move into a circular shape. Coanda designed an Aerodyne machine that created through this effect a partial vacuum above a wing (or a disc in the form of an airfoil) shape. With normal pressure beneath the disc, there was then created a tremendous lifting force. Coanda then designed his jet system into a perfect disc which gave him what he called ThreeDimensional Propulsion. As to balance, the air whirling at tremendous speed in circular motion around the rim of his disc turned the entire disc into a wonderful gyroscope. It always pointed, when flying, to true north. So when the disc maneuvered, it didn't bank and turn like an airplane, but moved in a "skidding motion" through the air. The pilot cockpit swiveled to keep the pilot pointed in whatever direction he desired, and by changing pressure along different parts of the edge of the flying disc, he was able to turn in whatever direction he chose. Result: a flying saucer. It took years for the Coanda Effect, and Coanda's unique jet engine design, to actually be built and test flown, but the Canadian government finally assembled the Aerodyne shape—and many years ago actually flew its own flying saucer.

Let's return, even if briefly, to the subject of UFO's as they have been reported for thousands of years. As we pointed out in the story—and every reference to historical sightings of strange and unidentified objects in the skies is absolutely true—the entire subject of the UFO has been an area of great controversy. The truth is that there's no question that strange objects hurtle through our skies. There have been many sightings by highly experienced observers, and, since 1947, UFO's have been captured on film, tracked by telescopes, followed on radar, and had close encounters with manned aircraft.

It may seem strange that the most reliable reports and sightings do not become available to the public. Many UFO sightings by military forces are immediately classified. They cannot be explained, and our government dislikes intensely being on the "hot spot" as unable to verify what's streaking through our skies faster and higher than any airplanes we have in the air.

Because so many reports have been subjected to ridicule, airline captains and top pilots almost to a man refuse to comment publicly on discs and other craft—which are not known to be the property of any country on this planet—they have encountered in flight. This writer has hundreds of such reports from pilots who provided amazing details of the startling objects they have encountered in flight.

Also, when I was in the U.S. Air Force, I participated in UFOsightings investigations, talking to hundreds of witnesses who had encountered, on the ground and in the air, objects they could not identify. Many reports turned out to be dead ends. Others were exactly the opposite. As a pilot, I have also pursued UFO's while flying highspeed jets. I have chased a startlingly huge disc at low altitude when flying a B25 bomber; it easily outmaneuvered us and then flew away as if we were standing still in the air. What was it?

I do not know for certain, and I will not draw a firm conclusion when so much hard information is lacking. What we are facing is a mystery that, at least publicly, has yet to be explained in acceptable terms. But the mystery is real; there are strange and unidentified objects in our skies, and we'll just have to live with that reality until we learn enough to, hopefully, understand what's been tearing through our skies for so many thousands of years.

HOW ABOUT THAT TRIMOTOR?

There's an enormous difference between writing about the way an airplane flies and how it will perform, and the way it feels to the pilot flying the airplane.

Writing is one thing, and actually flying what is now an ancient trimotor like the Ford in this book is quite something else. So it's a great pleasure to be able to relate to the reader that the feel, the sense, and the handling of the trimotor in this book comes from the actual flying.

This writer owned and flew a Junkers Ju52/3m German trimotor that was both a transport and a bomber. It was much bigger and heavier than the Ford, but they were remarkably alike in many respects. In addition to flying the Ju52 and the Ford, there was yet another old trimotor in which I had the chance to get to know and feel the airplane at the controls, a highwing Stinson. By the time I'd put in a great many hours in the left seat of these grand old machines, I knew for certain that they were capable of incredible performance and versatility that still astounds today's pilots. Relating specifically to the Ford Trimotor in this book, the reader will no doubt be surprised to find that the barnstormers of old—the daredevil pilots who would fly as an "air circus" from town to town —actually used the Ford as an aerobatic airplane in dangerous maneuvers at extremely low heights! They would loop the airplane "right on the deck," take it up higher, and spin earthward, fascinating and amazing the awed crowds watching these remarkable flights.

But there's another level of accuracy, as well. Ford Trimotors were flown by the U.S. Army. Some Fords were loaded with machinegun positions, bomb racks, and other armament, and used in combat in different parts of the world. Everything the Ford does in these pages it did in real life. It's another case of reality outperforming fiction.

SKY CITY

Can there really be such a place as Sky City— Acoma— that seems more like a work of imagination than reality? An entire city atop a great mesa in a harsh desert land so vast that the city seems isolated and unknown—yet is really the oldest continuously inhabited community in all the Americas?

Again we are in a land where fact is stranger than fiction, for the ancient sky pueblo called Acoma is still inhabited today, and supports the Acoma Indians with evergrowing vitality. Acoma lies to the southwest of the New Mexico city of Albuquerque, and, as described in this book, it is surrounded by such fascinating lands as the Laguna Indian Reservation, with Elephant Butte Reservoir and its great lava fields to the south, as is the community with the improbable name of Truth or Consequences. Further south are the ramparts and scars of the modern age—the great dunes of White Sands where huge rockets and missiles flew in the experiments to open the space age, and near Alamagordo, the town of Trinity, host to the first atomic bomb ever exploded.

Were it not for the National Endowment for the Humanities which in 1973 made a grant to establish accurate histories of four great Indian tribes, including the Acoma, much of the past might well have been lost forever. The Acoma have believed, as far back into the mists and dust of history will reveal, that their people and their lands all were created beneath the earth, in a huge underground world they called Shipapu. When two sisters, Nautsiti and Iatiku, emerged from the subterranean holdings and were exposed to the sun, the first people and everything of Acoma sprang into existence at that moment. The spirits that protected Acoma produced husbands for the sisters, and in time their descendants became the Indians that populated the land, cared for flocks of animals, and fanned the grounds.

It seems strange when reviewing the history of what is now the heartland of the United States of America to discover that the "old times" of several hundred years ago were dominated by Spanish explorers and conquerers. Yet, the old records show that in the year 1629 Juan Ramirez, a priest with a Spanish expedition, was sent from that expedition (on its way to explore the Pueblo of Zuni) to see what might be the needs of the Acoma. For the Spaniards had been unduly harsh in their first encounters with the Acoma, and in 1599, a marauding expedition under Vicente de Zaldivar had wrecked the Acoma communities. The records show that what the Spanish had once destroyed, they then worked closely with the Acoma Indians to rebuild. Their city became stronger and more prosperous than ever, and on the great flatland mesa hundreds of feet above the desert floor, the Indians created a new Acoma with houses three stories high, and accepted Spanish design and religion as their own.

Yet long before the Spaniards, the great community on Acoma Mesa had thrived for multiple generations. When twenty years ago the effort was begun to record the ancient histories, it was learned that Acoma was but one name by which these people were known; others included Acu, Akome, Acuo, Acuco and Ako. All these names make a direct reference that, translated, means that this community of Acoma, atop the great mesa, is the "place that always was."

The first time I saw Acoma came as a surprise so great I wasn't certain that what I saw was real. At the time I was flying a single-engine plane, a Beech Debonair (N935T) on a tour of America from the air, and my friend and photographer, Jim Yarnell, was shooting with a Leica camera marvelous pictures of a country few Americans had ever seen. We crossed the great target areas in the desert where atomic bombs had been tested and huge mushrooms had grown into the sky, then passed over lava fields, empty desert and, suddenly, before us, a huge mesa with a city sprawled across its top! We circled what I came to learn was Acoma Pueblo—meaning Sky City. The huge vertical cliffs were imposing, like great battlements rearing vertically from a vast and dry ocean. It was easy to see why the Spanish expeditions had judged Acoma Pueblo a fortress that was "the strongest ever seen" and "an inaccessible stronghold."

Soon after my first sighting of Sky City from the air, I had the chance to visit Acoma from the ground. With that airplane available, we also gained permission to visit the Indian lands in the great desert country, landing on dirt roads and visiting a people who not too long ago in history were mighty warriors defending their homeland.

The wars are behind us. Acoma Pueblo flourishes again as it has not done for a long time. Its history has been preserved, its traditions saved for all of us.

But make no mistake—it is as imposing and mighty as it was when the Spaniards first saw this ancient city battlement rising high above the rest of the world.