“I wonder,” was the Commander’s strange reply.

“Whew! that was fast, sir!”

“Fast?” the Commander added in a lower tone. “Faster than any plane you’ve ever flown, Jack my boy!”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, sir,” Jack laughed.

“Or ever will fly,” the Commander added.

In this last statement he was entirely wrong, as future events were to prove.

“Who’d want to ride a meteor, sir?” Jack asked with another laugh.

“Meteor? Oh, yes. Quite a wild guess on my part,” said the Commander. “A meteor speeding through the air would glow with the heat created by friction. You didn’t see anything, did you?”

“Not a thing, sir. Whatever it might be, it’s black as night itself.”

“Well, that’s that.” The Commander sighed a moment later when the last faint whistle had died away in the night.

“Just one of those things, sir,” Jack agreed. At that he wondered whether he had spoken the truth. Or will there be more of them, many more? he wondered. And will one of them at last make contact with the broad side of the old Black Bee?

“Boy, oh boy!” he whispered to himself. “That would be something!”

A moment more of vast, black silence, and he was excusing himself to go down the ladder to join his buddies.

“Got to turn in, sir,” he explained.

“That’s right,” the Commander agreed. “Tomorrow may be a great day for us all. You never know.”

CHAPTER II CONTACT

CHAPTER II

CONTACT

On the flight deck Jack joined a group of his fighting pals. Sprawled about the deck, they were still discussing the mysterious something that had gone screaming over their heads.

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