Earth 1: Mac Maine and His Atomic Molecular Convertor

Chapter 1: Astounding Demonstration

Outside a remote Army outpost in the Mohave Desert in Southern California, a group of mixed Army and Navy brass was warily watching the rumbling advance of a line of 4 tanks. A large man, wearing a form fitting outfit that seemed to be made of rubber, stood staunchly in the path of the advance. Over the outfit he wore a heavy vest. On the side side where the watch pocket would have been was attached what might have been the keypad for a large calculator, though there were a number of extra keys. A curly telephone handset cord ran from the keypad to a massive metal box the man was wearing like a backpack. He also wore leather gloves and a helmet like that of a welder. The box on his back made a high-pitched whine.

After the tanks had crossed some imaginary line, he quickly but carefully typed in a multi-digit number on the keypad. “I hope this isn’t the time it blows up!!” he though worriedly as he crossed his fingers. “Although a mile wide crater would definitely be a spectacular display of how powerful my Atomic Molecular Converter is, I doubt if any of us would appreciated the demonstration!”

The whine rose in pitch and volume and the man was surrounded by a blur that seemed to be dozens of giant electrons whirling around at fantastic speeds as if he were the nucleus of a giant atom. The illusion faded and a beam flashed out from the man and engulfed the tanks. As the beam struck each tank, it vanished in a bright flash of light and a puff of smoke.

“And THAT’s an even better demonstration! That should show that jackass Clutterbuck!” he thought with savage satisfaction.

"My God!" General Beaumont, the most senior of the observers, exclaimed loudly in stunned astonishment. "I'm absolutely flummoxed! It's a good thing we used obsolete tanks and remote control!"

"Even though they were obsolete, we just lost almost 20 tons of steel! What wasteful destruction! I've a good mind to bring you up on charges, Maine!" Another general huffed.

"Excuse me, General Clutterbuck, you were the one who insisted on 4 tanks. And remember, too, that you were so sure my molecular convertor couldn't do what I claimed that you wanted to use our most modern tanks and full crews instead of remote control!" Mac Maine coldly reminded the general. "If we'd done it your way, there'd be 20 dead men and a million dollars of melted tanks in front of us right now."

Clutterbuck harrumphed, but he shut up. The rest of the observers surrounded Maine, clamoring for more details. Except for one who hurried to his car, which was parked out of sight of the group behind one of the base buildings. After glancing furtively around to make sure he was unobserved, he quickly slid back a panel revealing a concealed short wave and made a quick broadcast, not waiting for a response.

"Mac Maine's secret weapon is too powerful to let it slip from our gasp. It must be captured - or destroyed!!"

On a remote island off the coast of Southern California, the personnel of a secret Axis base sprang into action. The commander made several short-wave calls of his own, activating several of his agents in the Southern California city where Mac Maine lived, and then visited the giant hanger secreted in a cavern in the mountain in the center of the island, where he oversaw other preparations.

Meanwhile, Maine wasn't through with his demonstration. "I'm willing to put my life on the line to prove the powers of my invention, gentlemen. Please set up a firing squad - and shoot me!"

“Why, you're MAD, Maine!" Beaumont declared.

But Clutterbuck, stung by his earlier words with Maine, quickly lined up a group of soldiers. "Ready! Aim!" Maine typed a very short sequence on his keypad and was instantly surrounded by the whirling electrons effect, almost invisible this time, as the whine rose in frequency, quickly becoming inaudible. "FIRE!" A dozen rifles fired almost as one; the shots fired had no apparent effect.

"It's amazing!" An admiral announced in a shout. "The bullets don't phase him!"

"Are they bouncing off, or not even hitting him?" an astounded Marine officer wondered.

After 3 volleys, Beaumont ordered the firing squad to stand down, and once again the military observers clustered excitedly around Maine, who took off his heavy helmet.

One of the soldiers who’d fired inspected the ground in front of Maine, and found most of the bullets. Or, at least, bullet-sized lumps of lead. "That light show stopped 'em dead - and melted them!" he said quietly, in awe of what he'd just seen. He had deliberately missed with his first volley, but when there had been no effect from the shots of others, on the second and third rounds he'd aimed at vulnerable spots not likely to be fatal - and they hadn't been vulnerable, either!

"Maine, you must protect the secret of your Molecular Convertor with your LIFE" Beaumont commanded. "It must NOT fall into enemy hands!"

"Gentlemen, you can count on me!" Maine responded. "When you've made your decision, I'll be in my lab, working on improvements!" He almost saluted before remembering he'd left the Army Air Corps about 5 years ago.

The officer who'd used the radio before observed closely as Maine left, and then headed back to his car. Waiting until he was unobserved he made another radio call.

Chapter 2: Enemy Spies

The next morning, dressed in casual civilian clothes, Mac walked into his lab on the top floor of one of the taller buildings in the city and greeted his assistant, Rick Adams, a heavy-set man wearing a white lab jacket. "Hiya, Rick! Say, the exhibition yesterday went perfectly. I expect a BIG order from the War Department real soon!"

"Jeepers, Mac, we'll have to turn them out like Ford turns out tin lizzies!" Rick responded, shaking his head in mock woe. "Well, we should make some preparations to get started." He turned back to his workbench and started putting things in order. "Good thing, too - after all the hours we've been putting in, I didn't remember what to do with 'spare time'!" he quipped.

Meanwhile, three Axis agents, following the orders of their commander on the island, had stealthily followed Mac to his lab building, then climbed to the roof via the fire escape where they now peered down through the skylight. "When the heavy one is directly under the skylight, pounce on him!" one commanded the others. "I will wait here and join you if you are unable to overcome them." It wasn't long before Rick moved under the skylight; one agent dropped on top of Rick and knocked him to the floor while the other landed on his feet with a pistol in his hand, and brought it up aimed at Mac.

"What is this, an invasion?!" Mac yelled in alarm. He leaped forward and before the man with the gun could fire, had grabbed his wrist - in a grip like iron! Even so, the agent fired, but Mac was able to force the gun off-line so none of the shots hit him. But one shot DID hit something vulnerable...

An experimental ray projector! A white beam flashed out, barely missing the fighters. Mac landed a powerful right to the agent, who stumbled backward, almost into the beam. The fight had been knocked out of Rick when he hit the floor, so the other spy tackled Mac around the waist. As he toppled, Mac drove his elbow into the back of the tackler's neck, then squirmed free and pushed him into the beam, where he lay motionless.

With a roar, the other agent jumped back into the fight. Mac called on the years of experience he'd gained as a Golden Gloves fighter before he joined the military and kept his arms up to deflect blows while circling warily. When the other man had his back to the beam, Mac lunged forward with a powerful right cross and knocked the enemy agent into the beam - where he stopped moving, paralyzed.

Mac immediately unplugged the beam generator - he didn't want to get caught himself! And then tended to Rick, who by now had his breath back and was somewhat disappointed that he'd missed the fisticuffs!

Meanwhile, the agent still on the roof had seen his minions beaten and captured, and rather then going to their aid, he quickly scooted down the fire escape. "I must report to our leader that the mission to capture Mac Maine and his weapon didn't fare well."

He didn't seem very eager to report. His commander was known to beat or even kill men who had failed on their missions. But not reporting failure to him would produce even worse consequences. Similarly to the military traitor, he made his report from a concealed short wave in his car. Back on the island base, after he was sure he'd received the whole message, the commander nodded to the operator in the radio shack, who pushed a button on a panel covered with a lot of similar buttons. The microphone the agent was holding delivered to him a powerful electric shock, and the agent in command of the failed mission died instantly.


It took over an hour for the paralysis ray to wear off. Mac had wanted to interrogate the men before he called in the authorities, but when they awakened they stubbornly refused to talk. So he finally called the FBI. It took a few minutes to convince the FBI to send out some agents and it would be a while before they arrived. Mac returned to the lab where the bad guys were tied up, where Rick stood menacingly over the bound spies, ready to whack them with a heavy rolling pin if they tried to escape.

"So, Rick, the FBI men are on the way to take these rotten spies into custody!"

"That's where they belong, in the klink!" Rick insisted loudly. “But I could MAKE them talk… with this!” He waved the rolling pin towards the heads of the prisoners. “Why, I could break their…” The two spies, bound back to back on a pair of chairs, glared at him defiantly – but there was more than a tinge of fear in their expressions.

“No, let the FBI men question them. They should be here in a couple of minutes.” Mac sounded reluctant to turn the men over without learning anything from them, and Rick was definitely disappointed. But he grudgingly put down his club.

"Bet this won't be the last of them," Mac mused. "We must be ready when the others strike! This secret belongs to our own United States!"

"Sure," Rick agreed uncertainly, a little unsettled at the thought of more confrontations with enemy agents. "So... why not let Uncle Sam protect it then?"

"No, we'll do it, Rick," Mac contradicted his friend. "I've hidden the keypad separately - you know what that means."

"Yeah, the MC won't work without the keypad - no molecular conversion for them bums! But suppose they steal it and one of 'em is smart enough to figure out how it works?" Rick was definitely worried. Before Mac could speak, he brightened considerably. “Hey, it will explode if they figure out how to turn it on without the keypad. It’ll suit them right!”

"Then we'll have to build another one. We'll just have to risk our necks to protect this one," Mac replied defiantly. "We can't let the convertor or the keypad fall into their hands, even for an hour!"

Chapter 3: Dirigible Attack

Back on the island, an hour ago, a giant door, camouflaged on the outside, had rumbled open in the side of the mountain. Like the head of a giant reptile, the nose of a dirigible lumbered through the open door. It was a giant of its kind, much larger than the Hindenburg, painted a non-reflective black which made it almost invisible against the gray storm clouds currently blanketing the sky - and it would be even harder to spot above those clouds. The motors were silent and highly advanced - it was incredible that such a large craft could move so quickly! Before the FBI reached Mac Maine's lab, the giant dirigible was hovering overhead, partially concealed by the dark storm clouds. Inside, one man, Commander Faulig, prepared to descend from the dirigible to the roof of the lab.

“You are going yourself, Commander?” one of the fliers asked, somewhat hesitantly.

“Ya, I shall go… alone! This effort must not be bungled; the prize is too valuable to lose!” he boasted, as he donned an unusual helmet, which covered his entire face, with lenses over the eyes and a filter of some kind over his nose and mouth.

He climbed into a gondola that was attached to the end of a cable. Inside the gondola was a control for a winch mounted to the dirigible’s hanger deck “Hold this position carefully!” Faulig commanded his underling harshly “Your life, and all aboard, depend on my safety!”

There were rumors that Commander Faulig had installed a remote control destruct mechanism into the Darke Vulture, which was the official name of the dirigible, and that he always carried the detonator dead-man switch with him. Not a single man in the crew had any doubt that this rumor was true.

It only took Faulig a few minutes to reach the roof. He pulled a pistol and a glass vial from pouches on his belt, shattered the skylight, and threw the vial forcefully against the floor below. A cloud of vapor spilled from the smashed vial. Mac crumpled over the top of a table, while Rick fell to the floor. The two prisoners slumped against their bonds, unconscious. Faulig then used the gondola to descend into the lab. Protected from the fumes by the helmet covering his face, he quickly searched the lab. When he found the Molecular Convertor he strapped it to his back. He stopped before he got back into his gondola and addressed the unconscious men.

“I will take Maine with me, but the rest of you can die of this poison gas.” He laughed evilly as he pronounced their death sentences. He turned directly toward his unconscious agents. “You two deserve to die like the bungling idiots you have proved to be.” Perhaps fooled by Rick’s lab jacket, Faulig dragged the unconscious assistant to the gondola. As he was manhandling him inside, someone outside the lab started pounding on the door and yelling Mac Maine’s name.

In the hall, two arriving FBI agents were very concerned. “Why don’t they answer?” one demanded. “I’m going to smash it down!”

The other was perhaps a tad more observant. “Be careful, there may be a fire in there! There’s smoke coming out from under the door!”

“Quick, help me! We have to get in there fast!” The two men smashed their shoulders into the door and broke it open, and almost instantly backed out of the room as fast as they had crashed in. “Poison gas! No wonder nobody answered!”

The other noticed the gondola rising through the skylight. “Look at that!” He pointed, but his partner was peering through the cloud of gas, which was by now billowing out the door.

“I see some bodies!” he yelled. He pulled out a handkerchief and held it over his mouth and nose. “Help me pull them out!” By now, the gas cloud was pouring out of the room, spreading out to cover the floor of the hall, and rapidly getting less deep. “The gas is heavier than air; as long as we keep our heads above the cloud, we’ll be OK!”

The two FBI men rushed into the room, one heading for the unconscious men, while the other paused momentarily under the skylight. “There’s a dirigible up there! It’s hauling up a basket!” Then he turned to help his partner with the unconscious men.

In the gondola, Faulig pulled a cable loose from the side of his helmet and plugged it into a panel. “Return to the island. Immediately. Reel me in as you go, don’t wait! And you had best avoid any other buildings!”


It wasn’t much longer before Mac recovered fully. He was dismayed when he realized his assistant was gone. “They’ve captured Rick! They must have thought he was me – and when they realize he’s NOT me, they’ll kill him. I have to save him!”

As the FBI led the captives out, Rick’s sister Daisy rushed into the room. “What happened? I heard a tremendous crashing and somebody’s smashed through your door. Are you OK?” She paused for a second, and looked around. “And where’s RICK?”

Mac told her the story, ending with: “I’ve GOT to follow that dirigible and get him back!”

“How are you going to chase a dirigible?” Daisy asked.

Mac strode quickly to a cabinets on the wall, opened it, and yelped in satisfaction as he pulled out a cylinder the size of a fire extinguisher, built on the frame of a backpack. “This is it – the prototype Molecular Convertor. It isn’t as powerful as the production version and the range is limited to only a couple feet – but it will let me fly after that blimp!”

“That thing will let you fly? How?!” she was astounded.

"Hold on just a second!" He pulled open a closet and stepped into the insulated outfit he'd worn during the military demonstration, then held up the cylinder, straps dangling.

“Well, you know the pack is a nuclear generator, right?” he asked. She nodded her head; she often talked to her brother about his work. “Well, it produces a kind of ‘atomic field’ around itself when it’s running. I’ve developed a device that lets me manipulate that field, and by manipulating the field in just the right ways, I can induce changes in the matter around me at the molecular level.”

As he talked, he put on his vest, then strapped the pack to his back.

“And how does that let you fly?” she insisted on knowing, and he could hear the strained hope in her voice. Hope that he’d be able to help her brother.

“Watch!” He unlocked a drawer and pulled out the oversized keypad. He fastened it to the front of the vest, and then plugged a curly cord dangling from the cylinder into a socket on the keypad, A green light on the pad lit up, and the cylinder began to whine – not nearly as loudly as the ‘production model’ had whined.

“I hope this thing holds together!” He tapped a short code into the keys, and was surrounded by the ‘giant atom’ effect for instant, and when it subsided, his insulated outfit had seemingly sprouted miniature airplane wings on his back. “Converted to solid matter from the air around us!” he boasted. “This next one is way more complex – I hope it works, I've never had time to test it!"

He pulled a paper from a drawer, and Daisy saw that it was covered with a string of numbers. His fingers flew across the keypad, faster than Daisy could follow, and then the cylinder whined again, much louder this time, and again there was the flash of the giant atom effect, and when it subsided, the wings had changed again – each wing now had a small nacelle on the bottom edge.

“Jet engines!” he boasted proudly. “The one advantage the prototype has over the production model. We took out a lot of the fine tuning circuitry and built the production model for brute force instead. It makes a better weapon that way - but I can make much more complicated conversions with this model. Of course, it's not easy to come up with those really long codes. And there's not enough power to make anything much larger than these wings."

He spun in place so she could see his shiny new toys. "Stand back and watch my smoke!” He put on his welder's mask and pressed a green key on the keypad.

The engines flared to life and with a “WHOOSH” he rocketed through the skylight!

Chapter 4: Captive in the Dirigible

“Wake up, Maine, you slug! Commander Faulig is impatient to speak with you, now. He is not a man to be kept waiting – if you value your life!” WHAPP! WHACK!

Rick Adams was confused and in pain; the last thing he remembered was starting to choke on the gray, stinky cloud that was billowing from the broken vial in the lab. And then awakening to a man in uniform screaming directly into his ear and slapping him violently in the face wasn’t helping his confusion any. But the second time the man called him “Maine” he started to catch on.

'Somehow I’ve been captured by the spies – and they think I’m Mac! That cloud must have been knockout gas.' He thought slowly, which was as fast as his fuddled mind could operate right now. He turned his head so the next slap mostly missed and then struggled to sit up – which was made more difficult as he discovered his hands were tied. Two guards pulled him roughly to his feet; the officer who had slapped him hurried out of the room and the guards dragged him after.

By now, Rick was thinking a bit more clearly. “They think I’m Mac – they’ll probably kill me if they find out I’m not him. I can’t let them find out.”

On the bridge in the gondola of the giant dirigible Darke Vulture, one of the pilots was discussing the Molecular Converter with his commander. “It looks harmless, Commander Faulig, and yet you have stolen America’s greatest weapon!”

“Yes, despite its appearance, it easily destroyed 4 tanks in less than a second, and stopped bullets in flight. Our informer saw it work,” Faulig replied smugly. Then he was cross. “Something is missing! There is no power switch – and this cable must plug into something.” He held up the heavy cable dangling from the box; as we readers know, this plugged into the keypad, which Mac had hidden earlier. “Maine will tell us what is missing… before he dies!”

“It was very clever of you to capture the inventor as well as the weapon,” the pilot said, admiration dripping from his voice. “You will easily ‘convince’ him to talk.”

“Yes, it was indeed clever,” Faulig agreed. “By the time we return to the island, we will witness a demonstration of this mighty weapon – the weapon that will win the war for the Axis!”

At that moment, the men dragging Rick pushed through the door to the bridge – and Rick shook loose of their grip and launched himself at Commander Faulig. “What do you think you’re doing with MY Molecular Convertor?!” He lowered his shoulder and slammed Faulig in the stomach; then there was a brief scramble before the guards pulled the two apart.

“I’ll have you tortured for that!” Faulig screamed, then almost instantly calmed down. “Or you could save your life... if you tell me about the piece that is missing.”

Chapter 5: The Flying Suit

Mac had never actually used the prototype to fly before. In fact, he had never even tested the jets before. With the scheduled date for his demonstration to the military looming over them, he and Rick had begun work on the heavy-duty weaponized model of the Molecular Convertor almost immediately after the prototype had been completed. They had encountered an almost never-ending stream of unexpected problems that had delayed completion and required them to work almost round the clock for over a week.

Two days before the meeting, Mac had fallen into exhausted sleep while sitting at his work bench, then jerked awake almost in a panic and feverishly wrote a string of numbers on a note pad. He almost fell back asleep, but then jerked fully awakr as the soldering iron he'd dropped clattered to the floor. He picked it up, relieved that he’d awakened before the iron had started the lab on fire, and then he’d wearily returned to the important work of making sure the heavy duty model was fully functional. They’d finally finished their work the next day, and he’d actually gotten a full 8 hours of sleep the night before he drove up to the Mojave Desert to meet the military observers.

So despite his bravado to Daisy as he launched into the air, he experimented cautiously with his new flying suit as he rose. Beneath him, Daisy wished him well.

“Good luck, Mac! Bring back my brother… and your invention!” she shouted. Over the muted growl of the twin mini-jet engines he was already almost too far away to hear her.

Mac experimented as he rocketed upward. He discovered he could control his direction by rotating his torso slightly and climb or dive by bending at the waist. “This flying suit is even more serviceable than I thought it could be!” he exulted. “Now for a speed test!”

He reached to the keypad, typed a simple code, his image was blurred instantaneously by the giant atom, and he blasted upward and through the heavy cloud cover like a rocket from the Flash Gordon serial! It was only seconds until he was in the brilliant sunlight above the clouds

“I’ll bet I’m already moving faster than the fastest plane ever!” he exulted aloud to the sun and sky “And I’m a couple miles high already!”

The dirigible had been headed West toward the Pacific coast; he made some subtle adjustments to his body position until he achieved level flight in that direction. He couldn’t see anything ahead of him; he decided he’d continue in a straight line for 10 minutes, then start a search pattern if he hadn’t spotted the dirigible by then.

This gave him a few minutes to reflect. “Now that I know that spies are after my invention, suddenly all the delays and problems we encountered the past 2 weeks seem suspiciously like sabotage. Someone must have been trying to keep me from finishing on time. I know it wasn’t Rick or Daisy. Maybe one of the cleaning crew?” He decided to investigate when he got back – and just about them, on the horizon far to the west, he saw a small gray shape above the clouds. He was overtaking it rapidly; it wasn’t long before he was sure he was chasing a dirigible.

“I sure hope there’s only one of those things up here today!” he hoped as he adjusted his flight path slightly and typed in a code for even more speed. The whining of the cylinder on his back raised in pitch; instead of the volume leveling off as it had before after each prior use, it kept getting louder. He quickly typed in another code and dropped back to his prior speed, and the whining returned to its earlier level. “I’ll catch up soon enough – and I won’t do anyone any good if this damned thing blows up on me now!”

Chapter 6: Death Sentence

Aboard the Darke Vulture, Faulig was interrogating Rick. The inventor was tied to a chair, and Faulig would slap him after each refusal to answer a question. Faulig held up the cable, showing Rick the plug. “What does this connect to?” he asked insistently. “It must go to a control panel of some sort! What do you use to control this?”

Rick struggled to conceal a sudden feeling of triumph. “If I tell him it just goes to an on-off switch, and he can turn it on by jumping the connection with a piece of wire, the nuclear generator will overload and explode – and he and his crew will all get a great send off on their way to HELL!” And then almost instantly, an equally intense dejection. “But if we’re over a city, that could kill hundreds of thousands.”

“AH HA!” Faulig exclaimed, watching Rick’s face change. “There is a missing control panel. You will give me the details immediately!”

“You’re correct. It does plug into a control panel!” Rick gasped out, trying hard to sound boastful. “And it’s incredibly complicated, much too complicated for you to ever figure out. And there’s only one of them, and I left it in the hands of the military for safe keeping, until they decide to place an order for my invention. You’ll never get it! And there’s no way to make the convertor work without it!” he finished triumphantly.

Faulig looked like he was about to explode; he drew back his hand to strike again, then slugged the bound prisoner in the jaw and turned away as Rick slumped dazedly in the chair. “You! Lackey! Since this man won’t reveal the secrets of this weapon, get rid of him!”

“You mean…” the crewman began, and was immediately interrupted.

“Yes. And do it neatly – just toss him overboard.” Faulig turned and launched one last vengeful punch, then turned his back on his battered captive as the crewman dragged him away.

Chapter 7: Infiltration

Mac Maine angled his flight upward and climbed well above the dirigible as he approached from behind. With the giant envelope between him and any lookouts in the cockpit, he was sure his approach was unobserved, and he swooped down to the flat top of the envelope, which appeared to be a landing platform, just forward of the upper rudder on the rear of the big envelope. He had some problems with the landing but there was no one there to see. The hatch opening into the massive rudder assembly was locked, but after a couple of seconds reflection, Mac typed a short code into the keypad, the atom effect flared briefly, and a hole silently opened in the aluminum wall of the rudder. He stepped through, typed another code, there was another atomic flare effect, and the hole vanished as if it had never existed.

After a climb down a short ladder that ended on a catwalk. Mac peered through the vast, dim interior of the dirigible. There were flimsy scaffolds and catwalks stretching far forward between the massive gas bags, and no men in sight, as far as he could see. The vast interior was filled with eerie noises, whines, pinging and creaking, vibrations and humming – much louder than he would have expected, if he'd ever thought about what the inside of a dirigible might sound like. If he’d had to talk with someone, they would have to converse in shouts. Which would make it unlikely that anyone would overhear him moving around inside that giant envelope. He needed a light source, though.

A few moments of thought, a code tapped into the keypad, a brief giant atom effect and when it had subsided, Mac was left with a handful of a substance with the consistency of putty that dimly glowed green. “Dried radium paint, like they use on watch dials!” he thought in satisfaction. “Not bright enough to attract attention – but it should help me find my way.” He was alarmed when the prototype convertor continued to whine, growing louder and higher in pitch rather than returning to what he had begun to consider as normal. And then the pack started to vibrate, and the vibration quickly grew into shudders.

“Good Golly! It sounds like it’s getting ready to EXPLODE!” He quickly slapped the “OFF” key on the keypad, and breathed a massive sigh of relief when the whine and the shudder both died away – slowly and reluctantly, it seemed to him. As the whine died, the jet engines and then the wings vanished, although the glowing lump remained.

“I guess making radium finally overloaded it – there must be some kind of antagonism between the generator’s inherent radiation and that emitted by the radium.” He quickly doffed the prototype. “I’ll hide it here and pick it up when I leave,” he decided. “Now to find Rick!” He left the keypad attached to the front of his vest.

Cupping his glowing light source in his hand, he used it to shed light on the catwalk at his feet and explored until he found a ladder. Far below he could see other dim light sources. “I hope this leads down to the gondola,” he thought, and began carefully descending.

By his count, he descended past 6 levels of catwalks and he estimated at least 12 stories before he reached what must be the bottom hull of the envelope and the roof of the gondola. He eased open a hatch at his feet; the room below was empty of people and dark, though there were a number of crates and boxes. He carefully slipped through the ceiling of the gondola into what must be one of the cargo bays of the mighty airship. Suddenly someone on the other side of the forward bulkhead started to undog the hatch; Mac quickly stepped to the wall so whoever entered the bay wouldn’t see him – until it was too late! He held his heavy helmet in his hand ready for use as a weapon.

The hatch swung open and a man backed through, dragging something heavy after him. Mac lunged and smashed his helmet down on the back of the man’s head with all his strength, and the man slumped to the deck, unconscious. Mac checked to see what the man had been dragging – it was Rick! He quickly pulled his friend into the cargo bay and dogged the hatch.

“First things first!” Mac thought. He searched the cargo bay for straps and ropes used to tie down the cargo in the bay, and he wrapped the unconscious crewman in straps and tied him securely. Then he tended to his friend, chafing his wrists and talking to him gently until Rick regained his awareness. When he was satisfied that his friend was fully conscious, he handed him the gun.

“I’ve got to get the molecular convertor back!” he whispered urgently.

Rick grabbed him. “I don’t know how you got here – but the mc is in the commander’s cabin, and he’s heavily armed – and vicious!”

“I’ll figure out something,” Mac was confident. “You keep this guy covered, but if you hear me call you, come running, gun ready – and don’t be shy about using it!”

Chapter 8: Hostile Takeover

A crewman rushed frantically into the Commander's compartment and shouted frantically. "Commander! Commander! The number 3 engine is seriously overheating and it may explode! I request permission to shut it down and proceed to our destination at reduced speed!"

"Yes, of course, you simpering idiot! Why are you bothering me with stupid details like this?" Faulig snapped back. "Hiko-shi is the captain of Darke Vulture, ask him your idiotic questions!"

As the man turned to leave the cabin, he spotted the Molecular Convertor, took a step toward it. "Ah, is this the fabulous American weapon you risked your life to recover for the Axis? You deserve the highest medal for your daring and bravery! You will be the greatest hero of the War!"

Faulig straightened and for an instant, as he preened at the praise, he took his eye off the crewman. "Yes, at great risk to myself, I..." He did a classic double-take! "Wait! The engine... Put that down or I will kill you instantly!" For while he'd been preening, the crewman had stepped forward, grabbed the cord dangling from the Molecular Convertor, and plugged it into the keypad he'd been holding behind his back. For of course, this crewman was now revealed to be Mac Maine in disguise! The green light on the keypad flashed to life while Faulig was pulling his pistol from his holster, and Mac was already typing in a short code. There was a familiar whine and flare, and Faulig's pistol turned to water.

"You're pretty tough with a gun in hand - let's see how you do man-to-man!" Mac snarled. He carefully placed the keypad on top of the molecular convertor and leaped forward, already throwing punches. Faulig was a very poor fighter - he was a Commander, after all, and had troops to do his fighting for him - and it took only a quick one-two to put him down for the count.

Mac peeked out the other door of the cabin into the pilot compartment. There were three men there, one of who must be the Officer of the Day, while the others were apparently the pilot and engineer currently on duty. "This should be easy," he thought with satisfaction. "I worked out this code a week ago!" He donned the molecular convertor and once again typed a code on the keypad. This time, the flare seemed to expand to fill the cabin and then pass through the wall into the pilot compartment. The convertor whined; Mac listened closely and nodded in satisfaction. "Lower pitched and more powerful than the prototype - sounds normal! I was worried these rats might have damaged it and we'd blow up!"

He looked into the next compartment again, then strode through the hatch. The three crew members stationed there were unconscious, the bodies of the Captain and pilot collapsed to the deck while the engineer had slumped forward over his control panel. "Very gratifying, using one of Faulig's own tricks - gas - against him. Only I'm one of the good guys - knockout gas only, not poison!" He hurried back to the cargo compartment and brought Rick back to the pilot cabin with him. Another code on the keypad produced a long coil of strong rope and some strips of fabric, and the bad guys were quickly bound and gagged.

"So, I hope YOU know how to fly this thing!" Rick said to his partner. "It looks like we're in for some rough weather!" Although they were above the storm clouds, directly in front of them was a swirling funnel, reaching much higher than their current altitude.

"Rough weather, nothing!" Mac shouted. "That's a typhoon!" He stood back from the big galver. "Can you drive? I've never flown anything but single-seat biplanes. You were a pilot in the Navy! Try and miss that thing while I call for help!"

"Yeah, but I piloted things that floated - not flew!" Rick replied, but he stepped to the wheel as Mac turned to the shortwave station. "I hope this works like the wheel on a destroyer!" His eyes lit up when he saw the telegraph column. He grabbed the lever and yanked it around to Full Reverse! But it seemed like it might be too late, the giant dirigible was already starting to shudder as it was buffeted by the tremendously powerful winds of the typhoon dead ahead of them.

Chapter 9: Alliance of Honor

The big ship slowed as the engines gradually wound down before they went into reverse. The buffeting and shuddering only increased, and the nose of the big ship was being forced to starboard by the winds. The inside of the gondola filled with moans and shrieking squeals and the buffeting was making it difficult to even stand on the interior deck.

The hatch between the bridge and the rest of the gondola was suddenly smashed open, and half a dozen crew members rushed in. Two raced to the galver and pushed Rick aside. When he tried to resist, the larger of the two screamed at him, "I am Chief Pilot di Pietro. Stay out of my way or you will be killed!" The other attacker, one of the other pilots, held a pistol to Rick's forehead. di Pietro grabbed the lever on the engine room telegraph and yanked it around to Emergency Full Ahead.

"I hope at least some of the engineers remain at their posts!" he muttered, and then almost smiled in satisfaction when he sensed the engines returning to full power. He started turning the big dirigible in the same direction as the wind had been pushing it. "We will not fight the wind directly - we'll circle around the funnel and work our way out gradually."

Rick hadn't even struggled. "Thank the lord YOU know what to do! Don't worry, you won't have any trouble from me!" he promised the two pilots. "I'll just sit quietly over there..." he pointed at the chart table "...if that's OK with you two gentlemen."

The two navigators exchanged glances and di Pietro nodded. "We can't spare time for you. If you interfere, you will probably kill us all. But I promise you will die before the rest of us." Rick nodded his understanding and staggered to the chair by the chart table. It was still difficult to stand on the unstable deck, but the shuddering was beginning to lessen as the big dirigible surrendered to the urging of the winds rather than fighting them.

Mac had been jumped by 3 men at the same time that Rick was being relieved of his piloting duties. Before he could enter a new code into his keypad, one man was holding each of his arms, and a man in a fancy uniform was holding a gun to his head. "Don't move or I will be forced to kill you! I am Captain Hiko-shi and you are now my prisoner!"

"And I hold Commander Faulig prisoner," Mac pointed out, with a pistol held to Faulig's head. But look, I've got as much interest in saving us all as you do. Maybe we can work together until we're out of the storm?"

"Faulig can remain a prisoner forever, for all I care!" Captain Hiko-shi spit out Faulig's name as if it were poison. "How can you help? Why should I not just order you tossed overboard?"

"Actually, if they leave the MC operational, I'm sure I could survive that!" Mac thought. "But I can't leave Rick, and I'd like to save these men if I can, and I definitely want to turn Faulig over to the US Military."

Aloud, he asked his captors, "I guess Faulig hasn't told you what my invention can do?" He could see be their expressions that their commander had kept the powers of the mc to himself. Mac pointed at the solid wall and pressed a key; there was a whine and a flare and then a hole into the next compartment. "I can use it to change things. Like I did to the bulkhead."

At that point, Chief Pilot di Pietro interrupted. "Captain Hiko-shi, we're safe, for now. But not for long. We will run out of fuel long before we escape the vortex."

Mac jumped at that! "Hey, that's how I can help! I'll bet you've got at least 10 tons of water on board as ballast - with my molecular convertor I can change it to fuel!"

"He really can, you know!" Everyone jerked in surprise when Rick chimed in.

"Look, I can prove it works!" Mac promised. "I can change a bottle full of water to fuel while you're watching."

"Chief Pilot, what's our current condition?" Captain Hiko-shi asked di Pietro. "Do we have time to witness this miracle?"

"Stable for now, Captain. We are only slowly being drawn into the vortex. But will need sustained full power very soon to begin to pull away."

"Well, then, American, you have your chance. But you will explain everything and at the first sign of treachery, you will be shot!"

A crew member fetched a bottle of water from the galley. Slowly, explaining each movement he was about to make, and always warily aware of half a dozen pistols pointed at him, Mac demonstrated the operation of his molecular convertor on the water in the bottle. Some fingers tightened on their triggers at the flare of the atomic effect and the increased whine, but Mac had described both, and they both happened exactly as he said.

"I'm glad this wasn't the time the generator decided to overload!" he thought in relief. "Although that would certainly end ALL our troubles!"

"It's done!" he announced triumphantly, and then, as he had promised, he submitted to the grasp of his two guards.

One of the engineers uncapped the bottle and sniffed. "It SMELLS like aviation fuel!"

"It IS aviation fuel," Mac assured them. "You can test it any way you want."

"No time for testing," the pilot advised. "If it is NOT aviation fuel we will die anyway. I must increase power soon or we will be drawn into the vortex."

"But how will we get this miracle fuel from the water tanks to the fuel tanks?" Another crewman wanted to know. "They are not interconnected!"

"We have almost a mile of hose onboard," another engineer reminded everyone. "Surely we can figure out how to use this hose to drain fuel from the water tanks into the fuel tanks."

The engineers were all looking thoughtful. The original objector had another. "The hoses are not designed for gasoline and will quickly dissolve in the aviation fuel."

"I can help with that, too!" Mac jumped in triumphantly. "Hook up the hoses, and then I'll change them to brass pipes!"

"Give me your parole and we will release you and get to work," Captain Hiko-shi said to Mac and Rick.

"Hold on - I want your parole as well!" Mac countered. "When we are safe, you will release me and Rick, and allows us to take Faulig with us as our prisoner. We will act as allies today - and I hope that we will never meet again as enemies."

"If the war continues and we live to meet again, then yes, we will meet as enemies," Hiko-shi replied sadly. "But today we will all work together as men of honor!"

"Except Faulig," Rick muttered, but everyone heard him.

"Sadly," the captain replied. "Sill, he is no longer our commander, but a prisoner of this man!" He pointed to Mac. This seemed to cheer up most of his crew. "Now, let us get to work!"

Chapter 10: A Lot of Hard Work... for What?

For a while, things went smoothly. As smoothly as things can go when the decks you are trying to walk on are not only swaying from side to side, reaching tilts that were impossible to stand on, but also shuddering violently, sometimes making it impossible to stand even when the decks were level. And the normal background noises of creaks and moans and occasional sharp cracks was raised to an incredibly loud cacophony, so even two men standing next to each other had to shout to be understood. And this was inside the partially soundproofed gondola.

Men working on the catwalks had to tie themselves to the railings to keep from being thrown off. Fortunately, the water ballast tanks were on the lowest level of the inside of the big envelope, so those few who got thrown from the catwalks only fell a short way and survived with only minor injuries - a fall from the 3rd level of catwalk, about 6 stories high, would have killed them. During one extra violent crashing, an internal guy wire snapped - and the broken ends cracked like whips, the lower end easily shearing through the safety railing of the catwalk, not more than a dozen feet from the nearest crewman. Though they were exhausted, suddenly they were working twice as fast!

The only good news was that they could drain all the water tanks into a single fuel tank - the fuel tanks were already interconnected with a system designed to equalize the fuel levels in each tank.

Mac and the Molecular Convertor proved invaluable in performing the work, though he had as much trouble navigating the treacherous catwalks as anyone. In order to reroute the water hoses it was often necessary to cut and splice them. With a crewman holding ends of two hoses together, the MC could join the two ends into one piece, the join being even stronger than the original hoses. The joined hoses were laid along the catwalks, and Mac converted them section by section from canvas to brass. They quickly realized that the new brass pipes needed to be fastened to the catwalks to withstand the constant buffeting, so as he was converting them from canvas to brass, Mac also had them 'welded' to the catwalks.

As usual, every time the convertor whined, he worried - but his worries were different than usual. The nuclear generator no longer sounded overloaded; instead it began sounding overwhelmed. Over time, the whining of the convertor became less loud, and converting sections of hose to brass gradually took more and more time. Finally, after several dangerous hours of exhausting struggling, the connections were made.

And then Mac had to fight back across the catwalks to the water tanks and convert the water to aviation fuel. Once again, each tank took longer than the last, but eventually he was finished. Shortly before the original fuel was used up, the values in the new pipes were opened and the new fuel began to flow. The crew immediately sensed that the engine power had been increased as the gauges in the control room showed that the new fuel was available. As the dirigible's speed increased to more closely match the raging winds outside, the ride became smoother - and then, just when they were starting to congratulate each other, the shuddering, shaking, creaking, moaning, and violent side-to-side swaying increased again and soon was greater than ever before.

Mac and the crew he had been working with struggled their way back to the control room. Where the news wasn't good.

"The storm has increased in power," Captain Hiko-shi resignedly. "All the distance we gained originally has been lost. Even at full power, we are gradually being drawn into the center. Instead of trying to edge out gradually, we have switched to fighting the pull more directly now, but are still losing ground. And even with all the new fuel available, at this power level we'll be out of fuel again in only a few hours. This is doomed to fail... unless we come up with another plan for escape, or there is some miracle and the storm dissipates."

Rick was an avid reader of science fiction, and the phrase '...fighting the pull...' rang a bell in his mind. After a few seconds of concentration, he yelped excitedly. "Hey - a SLINGSHOT maneuver!" Everyone looked at him, not daring to hope. "Instead of fighting the pull, go with it! Not only that, use full power to gain even more speed. Just barely graze the eye - and then we zoom back out again! Heck, the Skylark and the Lensmen do it all the time - so will WE! If it works, you can rename this bird - The Skylark of the Pacific!"

Chapter 11 - Switching to Plan B

Everyone was excited about the new plan. Instead of slowly spiraling around and gradually growing closer to the deadly turbulence surrounding the eye of the typhoon with each orbit, they would aim more directly toward the eye and apply full emergency power, and as they grew closer and closer, the winds pushing them would grow faster and faster and the blimp would go faster and faster, and they'd barely skim the eye and rocket out the other side, moving faster than any dirigible ever, and tear free!

But they quickly realized it wouldn't work. Gravity pulls in a straight line. The wind in a cyclone moves in curves. The surface area of the dirigible was so great that it was impossible to change course to aim more directly at the eye; after every attempt to make a major course correction, the ship was blown back around in line with the wind - and the turbulence created shook the giant airship violently and everyone aboard feared that the ship would break up. Inside the envelope, more of the internal guy wires that made the envelope semi-rigid snapped with retorts like sticks of dynamite and the ends flailed around like whips. Fortunately the crew members that reported these snapped cables had not been nearby or they might have been cut in two.

Captain Hiko-shi had a plan; he called his officers and Rick and Mac together for a briefing. Even in a compartment with the windows shuttered, he had to shout to be heard over the creaks and moans of the abused airship and the howling of the winds outside.

"We can't fight our way out of this cyclone. Whichever way we turn, the winds batter us back into line, and the violence of the crosswind is damaging the ship. Even just holding our distance, as we are doing now, is causing damage. Sooner or later, one of the hydrogen bags will be punctured and the hydrogen will leak into the envelope, and then we'll be strapped to the bottom of the world's largest bomb. We've been in contact with our island base by radio have been using the direction finder to triangulate on our position and plot our course. We estimate we will pass within a mile of the island in a few hours, maybe an hour or so before we run out of fuel. Here's our plan - we will vent hydrogen and descend until we are just above the waves and when we approach the island, we will all enter the rear gondola and release it. We'll fall into the water, and a rescue boat from our base will pull alongside and either transfer us aboard or attach a line and tow us back to the island. It will be dangerous - but it is better than hanging around under the world's largest bomb and waiting for it to explode!"

He addressed Mac and Rick, his regret audible even in his shouts. "Our truce doesn't extend to the crew at the base, and many of them will remain loyal to Commander Faulig, and they will free him from your custody, and then take his orders. I fear that if you remain with us, Faulig will order you tortured, then painfully executed. I will use my influence to try to insure you are well-treated, but Commander Faulig outranks me."

"Then let's throw the rat bastard overboard!" Rick shouted back, enthusiastically.

"That won't help, Rick, as satisfying as it would be," Mac yelled back. "We'll still be prisoners after we are rescued. We'll have to figure out another way to escape on our own."

"Say, I've been wondering - how'd you get here in the first place? You somehow learned to fly?" Rick spoke quietly into Mac's ear. Well, actually, he yelled directly into Mac's ear, but at a lower volume than the conversational shouts everyone was exchanging.

"Rick, you're a genius! I'd totally forgotten that I flew here using the prototype!" He pictured the room where he'd left the prototype, and was stunned to realize that when he'd initially entered the giant airship he'd been so preoccupied he hadn't realized that there was an airplane hanger built into the upper rudder - and there had even been a small plane in the hanger. An alternate plan blossomed in his mind.

He slapped his friend heartily on the back, then turned back to Captain Hiko-shi. "We have an alternate plan. Suppose Rick and I use the plane in your hanger to escape - and we take Faulig with us?"

Hiko-shi was reluctant; to him, that plan was suicidal. Mac and Rick stoutly insisted.

"Even a master pilot would not be able to fly in this storm. The plane is a scout, built lightly for speed. It will surely be torn apart by the storm, and you will surely die."

"Hey, it's better than being taken prisoner. And Faulig will die with us - You'll be rid of him forever!"

They didn't have time to debate. "You are free to take the plane," Hiko-shi agreed, finally, reluctantly. "And by the terms of our parole, Faulig remains your prisoner. But you will have to carry him to the hanger deck by yourselves; I will allow none of my men to assist. He is your prisoner, not ours."

"So, let's pitch him overboard!" Rick shouted again.

"If he comes to deliberate harm while in your custody, or you fail to treat his safety as being as important as your own, we will instantly be enemies again!" Hoki-shi warned gravely. None of them were completely satisfied with this arrangement - but they didn't have time to debate further. Both groups needed to begin preparing for the escape NOW!

Chapter 12 - Coffee Shop

The Darke Vulture had a midship lift which ran from the fore gondola to a platform in the highest catwalk; it was, so far, still functioning. Rick was still complaining about bringing Faulig along: "What if he starts fighting us and knocks one of us off the crosswalk? Even tied and gagged, he can still squirm around - and the Vulture is pitching and rolling as much as any Navy ship in a storm I ever sailed on. Hard enough not to fall even without him fighting us. Just pitch him overboard, I say! Or give him back!"

Neither Mac or Captain Hiko-shi wanted to think what would happen to the dirigible's crew if Faulig was back in command and he thought they had let the Americans escape along with the super weapon he had stolen. Mac proposed an alternative; Hiko-shi quickly accepted. "Suppose we take a couple of bottles of chloroform from the infirmary with us, and any time he starts moving, give him a snootful?"

"That's a lotta work just to keep that rat alive," Rick reluctantly agreed. "He better end up in prison!"

During their slow ascent, the lift shaft was rarely vertical - the big airship was continually rolling side to side, maybe 20 degrees each way, Rick estimated - so there was a lot of stopping and starting and scraping against the walls when the ship was listed far over one way or the other. And dragging Faulig along the catwalk was no picnic, as Rick frequently pointed out. And they had a deadline... even though the crew was slowly venting lifting gas, there was no longer any ballast water in the big airship - it had all been converted to fuel - and as soon as they released the rear gondola, the envelope would immediately start to rise, and without a pilot, it would be subject to the full fury of the storm. And the tail was likely to rise faster than the front end, and who knew what else might happen? They had to be gone before the crew abandoned ship!

Once Mac recovered the molecular convertor prototype in the hanger, he started work on some revisions to their plan. He would try to repair the more powerful weapon model molecular convertor by cannibalizing the prototype. He wasn't exactly sure how the more powerful model could help - after all, it WAS designed specifically to be a weapon, not a tool, and a weapon for fighting against armies, not nature! But he had some ideas.

"It's probably bad for his health to keep dosing Faulig with chloroform," Mac mused as he donned the prototype and plugged in the keypad. "But it's probably better than he would have done for us! But THIS should hold him even if he wakes up."

He typed in a code, there was the by-now-familiar orbiting electron effect, and all the ropes binding Faulig turned to hardened aluminum. "It'll be hell getting him loose if anything happens to the MC," he noted.

"Still think it's much easier to just chuck him overboard - and with all that metal wrapping him up, he'll just sink faster," Rick replied hopefully.

"Now, Rick, remember, we gave our word!" Mac chided his partner mildly. "Chuck him into the plane, instead, then give me a hand. I want to see if we can get the big mc working again."

He found a tool kit. He and Rick sat on the floor and braced themselves against the swaying of the deck, and carefully removed the covers from the two device. "Lucky we built both of these things with the assembly line in mind. I think the nuclear generator in the big unit gave out, but the prototype generator uses all the same connections." It was difficult removing screws; the heads of the screwdrivers kept being shaken loose, and then they had to put the screws in their pockets to keep from losing them.

"Good lesson for the next update - some kind of quick release!" Rick noted. "After all, someday someone is may have to do maintenance on a battlefield or onboard a ship in a storm!"

They were finally finished; the failed generator replaced by the working generator from the prototype. Mac held up the keypad and the cable and theatrically brought them together.

"Voil....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The exact instant Mac plugged in the keyboard to his hybrid invention, the rudder was struck by lightning. Both inventors jerked in spasms from the electricity flowing in the deck, but somehow the molecular convertor protected them. It seemed to 'attract' the current... they could see an electric blue aura coating the deck and instantly flowing toward the convertor, up the sides and then surrounding it. For a few short instants, it glowed like a brilliant electric blue light bulb, more brilliant than the sun. And then it died out. The green light on the keypad panel continued to glow.

"Can it possibly still work?" Mac asked incredulously after he'd recovered, his eyes still almost too dazzled to see. He groped in the tool box for a small oil can, found the keypad on the floor next to him, and touch-typed a code. The atom affect was silent this time. The can in his hand writhed, the texture changed, and it grew warm. He blinked his eyes clear and looked - as he had coded, he was holding a ceramic cup of steaming black liquid. He cautiously took a sip. "It's COFFEE! Strong, hot black COFFEE!"

"Hey, make me one of those!" Rick demanded instantly. A few seconds later: "This is the best coffee I've ever tasted. I'll bet you could set up coffee shops coast to coast and make millions selling this stuff!"

And then, fortified and restored by the magical brew, they got to work on the rest of their escape plan.

Chapter 13 - A Parting Gift

Mac stood in front of the plane, thought for a long time, then typed a complex code into the keypad. The atom effect was quite different this time... it expanded to cover the entire plane, not just surrounding Mac. Meanwhile, the MC was eerily quiet, with no trace of the whine they were used to hearing when the device was operating. The atom effect seemed to flow off of the fuselage of the plane and back into the MC, and as it flowed across the surface of the plane, the fuselage changed appearance. The outline seemed to melt and flow, and after the effect withdrew, the plane that was left looked much more streamlined than it had originally. And the color of the aluminum fuselage had changed as well, from the silvery gray of aluminum to a darker greenish-brown.

When the process was done, Mac stepped forward and stabbed the fuselage with a screwdriver - which would have punctured the aluminum hull a minute earlier. Instead, the blade just slid off. "Well, I ordered titanium - and that seems to be what I got. I don't know what that lightning did, but the ol' Molecular Convertor has never worked so well before!" He sounded somewhat chagrined... "That's the way I designed it to work... '

He typed in a code that was similar to but a bit more complex than one we've seen before, and his outfit morphed... silently but with the usual visual display, into a high altitude flier's pressure suit complete with full head helmet - with stubby wings. A slightly different code, and Rick was wearing a similar pressure suit - without the wings. Another more familiar code and his wings sprouted miniature jets. He pressed the Repeat key and added another pair of jets.

"Get the plane ready for take-off, Rick. Something I've got to do first!" Even in the relative shelter of the hanger, he had to shout to be heard.

They'd discussed taking off after they had explored the hanger so Rick knew what to do, and he quickly got to work. The plane was launched via a catapult, so he needed to insure that it was properly 'nocked' and that the catapult track was clear, and the hanger door was open.

Meanwhile Mac carefully exited from the giant rudder/hanger, holding tightly to a safety line staunchly tied off to a structural stanchion. He had planned to move well down the landing pad before his own takeoff, but he was inevitably going to tumble off before he went much farther. With a whispered prayer to his God he activated two of the jets and released the line. Even though the big airship was being driven downwind faster than any airship had ever flown before, the tailwind was still whistling past him, until it had picked him up and he was whipped away toward the front of the ship. He struggled to regain control, using everything he'd learned about flying his contraption earlier today. About halfway to the nose his flight smoothed out.

"This is a lot easier than I thought it might be!" he thought with relief. "But here comes the hard part!" He realized he was screaming inside his helmet; the storm battering him was so loud he could barely make out his own thoughts.

He curved his flight downward to match the curve of the envelope until he reached the point of the nose, said another prayer, steeled his nerve, and dove down past the point, then twisted until he was facing into the wind. It was like being hit by the whole Chicago Bears football team at once! After the impact, though he was now facing the airship, it was receding from him. He was being blown backward faster than it was moving forward! Even though what it felt like was that he was racing forward faster than he'd ever flown before, and the big airship was racing BACKWARD at an even greater pace. The dissonance between what he KNEW and what his senses told him was making him nauseous; he forced himself to stop thinking and start DOING!

He cautiously fired up the other two jets and brought them to full power. As they fought the wind, what he sensed was that he was flying even faster, and now he was slowly creeping up on the great ship which was still frantically backing away to try and escape from him. He turned his head a fraction as he passed under the nose - and even that minimal motion was almost a deadly disaster. The altered position drastically changed the airflow around him, and he was jerked violently upward, and only by frantically twisting his head forward and down, did he avoid getting smashed into the hull.

Then the surging roaring winds THREW him down forcefully. And then he actually looked all the way down and saw that he was only a couple hundred feet above the waves, and had to force himself to adjust his body position gradually, until his body was as stiff as he could make it, with his hands held tightly at his waist, barely splayed out from his body, his body parallel to the ground (he hoped!). He found that at this perceived great velocity, by gently and barely flexing his hands, he could greatly affect his attitude - and when he cautiously adjusted his attitude - SLIGHTLY - he could climb or dive under control.

"Did I really just think this was EASY?" Somewhere in the back of his head, one of his mental voices was mocking him. He clamped down on that thought fast; IF he lived through this, he would have the rest of his life to reflect on how deadly his actions today had been!

He very carefully flew toward the back of the dirigible, hugging the curve of the underside of the envelope as closely as possible. Without the extra jets he was sure he couldn't have fought his way through the winds; even with them, it seemed to take forever to creep along the envelope until he reached the rear gondola. His perception shifted again; he was stationary and this giant vessel was slowly passing above him, like a scene out of a movie he wouldn't live to see. He adjusted the thrust again until he was stationary relative to the gondola, and as he hung there, lying vertically in mid-air, he typed another code to the keypad.

The gondola was briefly engulfed by the atom affect, and when it was finished, the lower half of the gondola was much bulkier than before. "Your very own Mae West!" Mac quipped to the gondola, which probably couldn't hear him speaking over the storm. "A wrapping of kapok for flotation, and all the windows sealed airtight - your chances should be at least as good as ours!"

"Speaking of our chances - our time must almost be up - I better get back to the plane!"

It wasn't easy, but he got there. He almost lost control when he moved into the wind shadow of the giant rudder and suddenly flying got much easier, and then he landed roughly, fell down, dragged himself to his feet and staggered into the plane. He couldn't get through the hatch with the wings still deployed on his flying suit; he needed to pause for an instant to use the MC to vanish the wings and the jet engines. And then he crawled into the pilot seat and slapped at the button to activate the catapult.

Chapter 14 - Escape!

But Rick knocked his arm aside. "Hold off for a second, Boss, I got an idea. Did you ever get the 'Bigger is Better' button working on that rig? I'm thinking we could use a couple of those jets on this bird, but man-sized! Then we'd be cookin' with GAS!"

"Why, there's never seemed to be enough power for that to work before," Mac replied hesitantly. "But right now, the MC seems to be supercharged. Good idea, Rick, I'll give it a try!" They both climbed back out of the plane, then looked it over closely.

"How about slung below the wings, one on either side?" Rick suggested, touching the two spots. "Here and here!"

"Stand back," his partner suggested, and typed in the now-familiar code for jet engines. He was a little concerned when they appeared, as the MC was making a very faint whine. Two small jet engines were created in the locations Rick had indicated, hanging under the wings. "Now - Bigger and Better!" Mac commanded as he touched a key that was set into the side of the keypad rather than the top. The whine was a little louder yet; the atom affect was brighter than usual, almost like a lightning flash. When they could see again, there were two jet engines hanging below the wings!

"Hey, you fixed it!" Rick cheered his friend.

"Wish it was me," Mac replied, shaking his head. "Anyway, let's get out of here, we don't have much time left!" He pressed another code into the keys. "One more change."

The whine was much louder this time - and again the glow enveloped the little plane's entire fuselage, and then seemed to flow almost like water off the skin and back into the MC. The hull and the jets had morphed again, the hull material flowing over the outside of the engine nacelles, securing them firmly to the plane's frame.


They climbed back aboard. "Only one more thing before we launch, Mac - I promise!" Rick twisted open one of the bottles of chloroform, doused a rag, and held it over Faulig's mouth and nose for the space of several breaths. "Don't want this rat messing up our flight!" Finally they were ready.

Mac fired up the plane's propeller engines. The throwing cable of the catapult held them motionless, but they could feel the plane straining forward, almost as if it were eager to escape. "I'll start the jets when we're in the air; no telling how much hydrogen has leaked by now! I put a lot of effort into trying to save the crew - it would be a shame to blow them up now!"

They leaned back in their seats, Rick hit the catapult control. "YAHO...ooomph!" he yelled, as the cable launched them forward with incredible acceleration.

For a few seconds, they couldn't breathe. Black spots sprung up in the edges of their vision, then quickly started to grow larger. There was an incredible roaring that come from inside their ears, and Mac was sure he was going to pass out - and then the cable released and the acceleration ceased as abruptly, and Mac pulled back the stick and the plane shot up into the full force of the gale - and then he touched a key on his keypad, and the jets roared to life. Acceleration returned, but not nearly as violently as from the launch - and in another couple of seconds, they were going faster than the typhoon winds, and climbing fast!