fumes, or being followed along the ground at top speed by
the double wave-front of the “supersonic bang.” It was a
noble notion, almost as fine as that of piloting the one-man
Niagara of power that was a rocket fighter.
The noise grew until it seemed certain that the invisible
Jets were going to bullet directly through the hangar, and
then dimmed gradually.
“The usual orders?” Persons shouted up from under the
declining roar. “Find the plane, pump the live survivors, pick
the corpses’ brains? Who else is up?”
“Nobody,” Martinson said, coming down from the ladder
and hauling it clear of the plane. “Middletown squadron’s
deactivated; Montgomery hasn’t got a plane; Newburgh hasn’t
got a field.”
“Warwick has Group’s L-16”
“They snapped the undercarriage off it last week,” Martin-
son said with gloomy satisfaction. “It’s our baby, as usual.
Mac, you got your ghoul-tools all set in there?”
“In a minute,” McDonough said. He was already wearing
the Walter goggles, pushed back up on his helmet, and the
detector, amplifier, and power pack of the EEG were secure
in their frames on the platform behind the Cub’s rear seat.
The “hair net”the flexible network of electrodes which he
would jam on the head of any dead man whose head had
survived the bomber crashwas connected to them and hung
in its clips under the seat, the leads strung to avoid fouling
the plane’s exposed control cables. Nothing remained to do
now but to secure the frequency analyzer, which was the
heaviest of the units and had to be bolted down just forward