'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.
