Psychlo gas. The myths and legends.

It had cruised eastward at 302.6 miles per hour.

Vital data, thought Jonnie.

It had been attacked by fighter planes from Norway; it had not fought back; it had been hit with everything they had without the slightest evidence of damage to it.

Armor, thought Jonnie.

An interchange on something called the “hotline” prevented a nuclear missile exchange between the United

States and Russia.

The “Don't fire; it isn't the Russians” message on the desk in the other complex, thought Jonnie.

It was hit with nuclear weapons over Germany without the slightest apparent damage.

No pilots, thought Jonnie. It was a drone. No breathe-gas in it. Very heavy motors.

It had then toured the major population centers of the world, dropping canisters and wiping out populations.

And wiped out the other complex of this base without even knowing or caring that it was there, thought Jonnie. On the operations map of the other complex, they had plotted it only just to the east of this location.

It then went on to obliterate the eastern part of the United States. The reports had come in from “Dew Line” stations in the Arctic and some parts of Canada. It continued on its almost leisurely way to wipe out all population centers in the southern hemisphere. But at this point something else began to happen. Isolated observers and satellites reported tanks of a strange design materializing one after the other in various parts of the world and mopping up fleeing hordes of human beings.

Stage two; teleportation, thought Jonnie.

Military reports, out of sequence and incomplete, were shuffled in with the reports of the tanks. All major military airfield installations, whether gassed out of existence or not, were being blown to bits by strange, very fast flying craft.

Battle planes teleported in at the same time as the tanks.

Reports of some tanks exploding, some battle planes exploding. Reasons not known.

Manned craft, thought Jonnie. Breathe-gas hitting areas of radiation caused by firing on the drone with nuclear weapons.

The drone spotted by satellite landing near Colorado City, Colorado. Causes most structures there to collapse.

Preset remote control, thought Jonnie. Even their central command minesite had been picked out. Whole area carefully plotted and observed by casting picto-recorders. Rough, uncontrolled landing of drone near preplanned command area.

Tank spotted by satellite shooting at pocket of cadets wearing flight oxygen masks at the Air Force Academy. Report by acting commander of corps of cadets. Then no further communication.

The last battle, thought Jonnie.

Efforts from the com room to contact somebody, anybody, anywhere, via a remote antenna located three hundred miles to the north. Antenna location bombed by enemy battle plane.

Radio tracking, thought Jonnie.

Unspotted, but with their air shut off, the president and his aides and staff had lasted two more hours until they died of asphyxiation.

Jonnie put the papers respectfully in a protecting mine bag.

Feeling a bit strange for speaking, he said to the corpse, "I’m sorry no help came. We're something over a thousand years late.” He felt very bad.

His gloom would have followed him as he left the dreary, dark, cold quarters had not the barking, cheery voice of Dunneldeen sprung from the radio at his belt. Jonnie halted and acknowledged.

“Jonnie, laddie!” said Dunneldeen. “You can stop worrying yourself about scraping uranium out of the dirt! There's a full nuclear arsenal, complete with assorted bombs, intact, just thirty miles north of here! We found the map and a plane just checked it out! Now all we've got to worry about is blowing off our innocent little heads and exploding this whole planet in the bargain!”

Disaster struck in the form of an earthquake on Day 32 of the new year.

Shortly after midnight, the tremor awakened Jonnie. Equipment on his bureau in the London Palace Elite Hotel rattled together and he sat up in his bed. The prolonged throb of vibration was still occurring!

The old building groaned.

The rumble of the earthquake traveled on. It was followed by a second, lesser tremor a half-minute later, and then that was gone.

It was not too unusual in the Rockies. No damage seemed to be done in the old mining town.

Uneasy, but not really alarmed, Jonnie pulled on buckskin pants and moccasins and, throwing a puma skin over his shoulders, sprinted through the snow to the Empire Dauntless.

The duty sentry's light was on. The young Scot was tapping a buzzer key that activated the communication system to the mine: it was a directional laser radio, limited to an exact width and undetectable beyond these mountains.

The Scot looked up. His face was a bit white. “They don't answer.” He tapped the key again more rapidly as though his finger by itself could shoot the beam through. “Maybe the receiver pole got twisted in the quake.”

In minutes, Jonnie had a relief crew routed out, spare ropes and winches assembled, blankets and stimulants packaged and being loaded on the passenger plane. Strained faces turned repeatedly toward the mine even though it was far out of their line of sight. They were worried for the mine duty shift: Thor, a shift leader named Dwight, and fifteen men.

The night was black as coal; even the stars were masked by high, invisible clouds. It was no mean stunt flying these mountains in the dark. The instruments of the mine plane glowed green as the ship vaulted upward. The image screen painted a blurred picture of the terrain ahead. Jonnie adjusted it to sharpness. Beside him a copilot made some console plane weight corrections. Jonnie was depending on his eyes to avoid the first mountain slope. He flipped on the plane's beam lights. They struck the snow slope and he eased the plane up over it.

He knew that things had been going too well.

They had been making real progress in their preparations. They were far from ready, but what they had accomplished had been miraculous.

He hunted ahead for the next mountainside, checking the viewscreen. Good lord, it was dark! He checked his compass. The men in the back were tense and silent. He could almost feel what they were thinking.

The top knolled flipped by under them. A little too close. Where was the next one?

The assault rifles he had at first considered worthless were proving the very thing. With a great deal of ingenuity they had salvaged the ammunition. They had drawn out the bullets from the case and tapped out the primer. By careful experimentation they had found out how to substitute a blasting cap in the bottom of the shell case. At first they had thought they would also need powder and had blown up a rifle trying it– no casualties. It turned out that the blasting cap was enough to fire a bullet at high velocity.

Jonnie swerved the plane to avoid a suddenly looming cliff and went a little higher. If he went too high he could lose his way entirely if lights were out at the mine. His lights might also become visible at the compound. Stay low. Dangerous, but stay low.

Then they had taken the bullets and drilled a small hole in the nose and, wearing radiation suits, inserted a grain of radioactive material from a TNW. They had covered this with a thin bit of melted lead. In this way a man could carry the ammunition without danger of radiation hitting him.

But when it was fired, oh my! They tried it on breathe-gas in a glass bottle, and did that breathe-gas explode!

Too low, Jonnie had recognized a lone scrub on a ridge. He lifted the plane over it. They were on course. Hold down the speed. Don't have another disaster flying in the dark.

The bullets were also armor-piercing to some degree and, when fired into a breathe-gas vial two hundred yards away, caused a violent reaction that brought concussion all the way back to them.