The around the new people the war, while the man who started the group, old Jal Jonnor, was alive, but they their the conflict.
If the is long and the is bitter, with neither able to victory or a advantage, soldiers to tell of when death is near, of from destruction, of ships above the Earth, and of non-human on their side. Psychologists, to only what they can see, feel, hear, or measure, have these to resulting from long-sustained stress, or, in the case of the non-human allies, to plain, out of a of insecurity. What was to that an took over the of a plane, the ship and it to Earth in a crash landing that the pilot to away, then the the pilot had sustained?
Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman this to him. He had with an Asian group a hot, high level over the north pole. This was in the early days of the when such still through the occasionally. Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman had got one of the with a single from his and was pushing his up at the soft of the overhead when a shell, from an Asian that he had not seen, off of his right wing. A of the him in the right shoulder, the and the bone.
Spinning like a being over and over in a hurricane, the plane started the long toward the ice cap below. Jimmie couldn't work the seat of his arm.
Just the ship crashed, he that someone else was in the with him, to take over the controls. Since Jimmie was still in the seat, this was not easy, but somehow the other one had managed, not only to take over the controls, but had been able to the ship in a crash landing. The other one Jimmie out of the wreck. Then, Jimmie's broken, shoulder, "it" had it.
At least this was the Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman had told after a had him up and had taken him to his base. He was very about it, that someone else had the plane down. The only Jimmie had been able to about the other one in the with him—he did not know it was male or female—was that it had been one of the new people.
When the psychos had asked him how another being have into a plane while it was still thousands of in the air, Jimmie had had no answer, to point out that since the new people were able to the power of an ordinary mortal, they were not human.
This had marked him as for duty. Jimmie to his out at this, for he had loved flying. Then he to wonder why the new people—presuming they existed—would save his life at the cost of his sanity. He over the hill a year later.
With Spike Larson it was different. Larson was the of an atomic-powered in the Persian Gulf. He was on the waiting for a that should be the when three him out. Larson how they had him, but he was in water and, when the off, he he had to for the depths.
With on the port making his plates creak, he for the channel. The reported ahead. Swiftly his charts, he that no such existed.
Cursing, Larson the across the room. Either they were or the here had shifted. A ahead told him it no difference. His had been cut off by a in the channel.
"We'll take her up and it out on the surface," he told the with him.
The officer's white at the order. But he was a man. "Aye, sir," he said.
"I would otherwise, commander," another voice spoke.
Larson and the froze. There was no one else in the room. When Larson managed to turn his head, he he was in his that no one else was in the room.
Telling the later, to a of inquiry, he said. "She was right there me, all in white, the most woman I have seen. I was too to act, too to think. A woman on my ship! And what a woman! While I there like a dummy, she to the controls. 'With your permission, commander, there is a new close that not on the charts. The here has a since this area was last mapped. The will not us into the new channel, if they know of its existence, of the from on one and from banks on the other. If you will give me permission to the ship—'"
"All I do was nod," Larson reported to the of inquiry. "As it out, this was the last I gave in all my life. She the nose of the seventy degrees, in the scope, off the and the sonar, and sent us up until we were almost the surface. While she was doing all this, she also two that should have got us. She paint off our port on a set of that should have the out of us; she a on our where we ought to have up like under the of the destroyers, but she took us out of that and into water. Then she the to Lieutenant Thompson, and said, 'Thank you, commander. I'm sure you can the very from now on.'"
The members of the of were in their chairs so as not to miss a word of Larson's report. When he had finished, the senior member, an admiral, asked breathlessly, "And then what to her, commander?"
"She vanished," Larson said.
The like a balloon.
"Lieutenant Thompson will up every word I have said," Larson continued. He his to that he still couldn't it, though he had of little else since the day it had happened.
"Who do you think she was, commander?" a of the asked.
"I think she was one of the new people," Larson answered. His voice was but he was still his when he walked out of the room where the had met.
They gave him duty. The psychos did all they for him, but something to have his brain. Eight months later he deserted.
Then there was the of Colonel Edward Grant, USAF. Grant was the only man the new Earth station. He was the only man at that time no way had been to and to a that would more than one passenger. In fact, no way had been to do more than such a station and it into its orbit. It not return it not fuel for the return journey. A was being which would additional fuel and food to it, but this was not yet when the was launched.
Grant, who had with wings, to with the station and put it in its orbit, that when the power was he might be in space forever.
However, neither he anyone else had that he would be marooned. This had only when the production of the new a on the of his ship.
Colonel Grant the man in the history of Earth. The were his companions. Only the moon him company. He would a Flying Dutchman of the sky, until the end of the permitted the ship that would him relief. Or forever—whichever came first.
It was that the Asians would the idea that he was on them as he passed in his regular above their heads. In reality, this was nonsense; he was much too high to make out any of any whatsoever. Also, they were taking full of his of scientific information, which be by in to the he used.
In an to remove this from the sky above them, the Asians a at his satellite.
Colonel Grant, later on what had happened, said, "That must have been on its way, when the little man appeared on my satellite. He told me about the that was my way. I told him this was very but that I didn't see what the I do about it. The station had no power and couldn't be moved. I didn't have a chute, and if I had had one I couldn't have used it. Anybody who jumped from that would have to death long he air to life. Describe the little man for you? Sure, general. He looked like a Moses, white beard, and else. No, general, I saw Moses. Clothes? A cloth, general. No, sir I am not making light of the of this court, I am telling in the at my what I saw with my own eyes."
At this point, the colonel's voice a little stiff. The up. A man who had done what Grant had done might a general's off and away with it.
"What next? The Moses told me he was going to land the satellite. He said that if they missed with this they would be sure to try again, for no to give the of their own people a big boost."
"Land the satellite, colonel?" the asked again. "But as I it, the station was without power!"
"You the correctly, general. But that was what he said and that was what he did. In as a landing as I saw. And if you don't me, you can go look for yourself."
The space in the middle of a Kansas was that not be ignored. It was solid, it was metal, it was real. Colonel Grant might have gone from the of too long in space, but the station, at least, had sane. Power must have been used to move it. But what power?
Colonel Grant not answer the question of what to the Moses after the station had been landed. He up his hands. "Moses the same way he came, without me him."
On the of Grant's report, an was begun. A of data was assembled, some of it from the time of Jal Jonnor, but when no practical results were forthcoming, the project was shelved, at least temporarily. Its was needed for other purposes. Men for their have no time to think of the future.
This dusty, of data was by a tall, man named Kurt Zen, a of intelligence, who had a for among that of men who daily looked death in the face.
Zen was to this investigation, not only of his reputation, but the of the new people had in number to the point where they had to be some credence. Also, they more in content. For instance, a pilot that a woman had on the of his ship all the way to Asia, from the plane in the of western China. Zen this as hallucination. Much of the data about the new people in this category. He if it was possible to tell where left off and began. The soon that his job was not going to be as easy as he'd hoped.
Aside from the told by the soldiers—and the Asian men also had their to tell—only one thing was certain: if the new people at all, they were very elusive. Only the of the man who had the group, old Jal Jonnor, was still to be in the high Sierras of California. Zen did not go looking for this grave, but he saw of it. He also the that had been on this but figure. Were the and the thick the only that at least one had to of a new day? Zen did not think so. Most of all, he to one of the new people for questioning.
Then, in a that was to a at the of America, Cuso, the top Asian leader, and thousands of Asian paratroopers into the British Columbia and the United States.
Cuso and his men, out in the high ranges, all to them. They a in the of America, a threat that was not big to take seriously, or to overlook. He was so in the that he not be out and the was so that his paratroopers the of a full army.
As his men making into the ranges, for food and women, the of the area in terror.
This was the when Kurt Zen a of up the last good toward Cuso's lair. Neither the Cuso him. What him was an army nurse with the medical detachment. He this nurse was one of the new people.
In months of patient, work, she was the only good lead to this group that he had uncovered.
He was going up a trail, with ahead and behind, when something that like a lion to in the sky overhead.
