Man-Killers of the Air by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781592125852
Publisher: Galaxy Press

CHAPTER SEVEN

Down on Jungle or River?

EIGHTEEN thousand miles on a map. You can stand back and look at it. You can read the curving names of the countries at a glance. You can run your finger along the route in less than five seconds.

But that isn’t traveling over it, inch by inch, mile by mile. That isn’t looking down at it and seeing that it’s hard and big, and filled with strange things. That isn’t battling its elements, its people, its geography.

The Andes stood out like sentinels against the sky. Bleak, bitter, without a single relieving green spray. Snow lay heavily upon them. Clouds lay like beards against the steep sides. But the tops were bare and rugged. Barren of snow. Barren of clouds. Right-angled reaches of land which would never be of any use except as a barrier between the east and west coasts of South America.

Beyond them lay Brazil, jungle, uncharted rivers. But here were the Andes.

The Super-Comet bored toward the icy peaks, engines booming. Smoke Burnham’s hands were steady on the control wheel and his eyes were steady on the panel. From time to time a flurry of snow struck the shield before his face, momentarily blotting out the world. Then the sun would shine again.

Alex Montague was sitting at the radio, phones glued to his gray locks, his face intent on the dial.

The cabin of the mammoth amphibian was roomy, and it was furnished with plush and leather.

Mel King’s eyes were steady on Smoke’s back. Something like respect, something more than admiration, was mirrored on her face.

She had seen Smoke play tag with line squalls all the way across the Caribbean. She had seen him coast down to the water’s edge to pick up his drift from a steamer’s funnel. She had seen him sit there, hour in, hour out, hands on that wheel, relieved only occasionally by Alex.

She had watched the reflection of his face in the shield. His beard was making headway, but, like his hair, it was yellow and did not show. His shirt was a little torn, perhaps a little dirty. His bare arms were brown, stained by splotches of grease.

Smoke’s unjarrable nerves had brought them all the way down South America’s west coast, in sight of the mountains, in sight of the sea. He was always ready with a smile when he turned toward her. Then he would remember his work and turn back.

That hasty remembrance of work had always stood like the Andes between them. Flight had kept them apart—and Melanie King was now beginning to suspect that, perhaps, flight was worthwhile. She had flown, yes. But she had never known the steady devotion of a man to his work. She had never appreciated that there was anything but danger in that work.

Alex was speaking and his voice was clearly audible in the soundproof cabin. “Hagner is down.”

Smoke turned his head a little but did not take his eyes from the looming mountains.

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