sea-spray. That's as far as military invisibility's gone, I believe.'
Ballister coughed warningly at the girl. 'We'd better be getting back to the hotel,' he said in overloud tones. 'Sir Mallory's had a nasty shock.'
He filled in the rest of the trip with diplomatic small talk, avoiding the controversial subjects dear to the reportorial heart of Kay.
2
Conspiracy
At the Hotel de Universe et d'Oslo they were all in for a nasty shock. The manager dashed to them as they emerged from the cab, and collared Sir Mallory and Ballister.
'Thank God for both of you!' he cried hysterically. 'That this should happen chez moi—it is incroyable, the horrible truly that we face—I ruin and you despair!'
'Yeah,' said Ballister skeptically. It was a little thick, believing that the hardheaded manager of a great international hotel could be shaken by anything that could happen in the way of bad luck. 'Yeah. Explain yourself.'
'The senator American—Beekman, he is vanished from his room.'
A committee head hailed them from across the lobby and came over, looking grave. 'He isn't kidding, Ballister. Beekman's flitted completely, like Durtal and the others. Right in the middle of a caucus on the Competition Act. Went out to—er, went out for a moment and never came back.'
'My seempathie, monsignors,' said a burly, black-haired man. 'I have heard of the so-gre-ait loss of thee Amairicain delegation.'
'Thanks, Rasonho,' said the committee head abstractedly. 'Maybe he'll turn up.'
'Lait us hope so. Thee passage of thee Competition Act means vair-ree much to my people.' As he walked off Ballister studied the man. There was something familiar about him, something damned strange to boot.
He inquired of the committee man.
'Rasonho? He's from the Pyrenese Peoples' Republic. Their only delegate. Good sort, but somewhat thick. He doesn't understand the parliamentary method.'
'And what may the Pyrenese Peoples' Republic be?'
'I did an article on them,' said Kay. 'No wonder you missed them, because they popped up while you were at the front. They're a sort of Basque federation —not more than ten thousand of them, I'm sure. Yet they held DeCuerva's army when he was coming north through the Pyrenees to relieve Milhaud. By heaven, they held him for three months! It's gone unsung for the most part, but I call it the most remarkable feat of the war.'
'No doubt,' said Ballister abstractedly. 'And then, after the Initial Treaty they organized under a simple native President, thinking they had won independence from France and Spain both?'
'That's right. The Conference recognizes them—even invited the delegate.'
A bomb exploded in the lobby of the hotel; the high ceiling swayed right and left. Screams echoed through the great hall; emergency exits opened onto the street automatically.
'This is intolerable!' fumed Sir Mallory when they had gained cover.
'Someone—some party—is trying to destroy the Conference. They're trying to kill every damned one of us—or have us disappear bit by bit!'
'Sure,' said Ballister. He wound a handkerchief around his wrist; flying plaster had clipped a bit of his flesh away. 'What do you suggest, sir?'
'Armed guards, Mr. Ballister! We must fight this menace as it is trying to fight us! We must post men in every corridor—shoot suspicious persons on sight!'
'By heaven, yes!' snapped Kay. 'They're trying to wreck the Anti-War Conference, and I won't have it. This is mankind's chance for peace at last, a final peace that will endure a hundred thousand years. Any dog who'd try to stand in the way of that, try to plunge the world back into the nightmare of war after war, deserves no mercy!'
Ballister looked somewhat sick; the corners of his mouth drooped peculiarly, as though he tasted something unpleasant. Finally he looked square into the eyes of the girl and said without conviction: 'Yes. Fight them tooth and nail. The best thing to do.'
The next day at the Conference Auditorium a half-dozen delegates proposed a Defense Act, claiming general privilege to take precedence over other business. After a few hearty seconding speeches which pointed out the danger in which they all stood, there were read the concrete proposals.
The Conference disbanded the International Police, which had been their protective force, as ineffectual. There was organized on the spot an armed force to patrol all Oslo and vicinity, whose right of search was unquestionable, who were able to arrest on suspicion and defer trial indefinitely. The entire Act was passed, a few members abstaining, none voting the negative.
Ballister reported sick to Senator Beekman's successor. He said that the strain of the work had broken him down, that he needed a few months'
rest. And indeed he was a pitiable sight—haggard, unkempt, eyes dilated, rambling again and again from his subject. The committee head insisted that he take a vacation.
Once outside the Auditorium, the change in Ballister was nearly magical. He slicked back his hair, straightened like a ramrod and generally became his old dynamic self.
At the flying field he took up his 'gyro. He took it 'way up, twenty thousand feet and more. Then he headed southeast across the continent. Somewhere over Germany he realized that he was being followed. There were no less than two 'gyros on his tail, neither of them official.
Like his own craft they were converted warplanes, which, after the fighting had ceased, sold for a dime a dozen. Unlike his own, they carried no markings or national insignia.
Damning his thoughtlessness he set the controls for a straight course and went back to the tail compartment for arms. He found Kay curled up on a crate, blinking in the sudden light.
'Sweet,' he snapped. 'I'll bawl you out for this later. Right now there are two mean-looking rigs on our tail. Can you steer an eccentric course while I handle whatever guns there may be?'
'If there's two,' she said, 'we'd better both handle guns. You set her for flat loops at ceiling speed. I have a scattergun that throws its weight.'
'Right,' said Ballister. He stepped up the speed of the ship to its very top, and then jiggled twenty miles-per- hour more out of the exhaust turbines. He set the controls for a circle, tight and fast. As the setting took and the ship swung he braced himself hard against the wall.
The centrifugal force was enormous; all loose fixtures smacked against the outside wall; he couldn't lift them off without a crowbar. Kay was battling the inertia, dragging herself along the outside wall into the storage compartment again. After a bit of heavy-handed rummaging she let out a scream of delight.
'Oh boy!' she gloated. 'Look!' Painfully she hauled out and displayed a wire net, the kind used for quick repairs of the nacelle. 'Get it?'
'I get it,' said Ballister, a slow grin spreading over his face. 'Let's hope they don't get us first.' The two ships had hauled up nearly alongside and were angling off to the attack. They fired a few tentative bursts at Banister's 'gyro, presumably to judge the quality of his reply.
Ballister didn't reply. It would have been practically impossible to handle a gun against the drag of the whirling ship. But he did unsnap the top hatch, ducking back as the hinges tore loose and the square of metal flew up and out.
'Take it,' said Kay. 'I can't handle this thing alone.' He eased his way along the wall, skirting the open hatch. Getting two big handfuls of the repair net, he dragged it behind him, snagging a corner on a rivet. Kay spread the net on her side while Ballister made ready on his own.
'When I say the word,' the girl ordered, 'cast off.' She squinted against the sun, hunting for the two planes. With a whoop and a holler they came out of the dazzle firing at the midriff of the 'gyro.
'Right,' she said calmly, unsnagging the net and chucking it through the hatch simultaneously with Ballister's machine-like gestures. It spread beautifully in flight, came at the lead plane two square yards of metal moving at
