Now, though, it was the huge air-city of New York that held all our attention, and as we rushed closer toward it I saw that above it, above the panic-driven masses of air-craft that were swirling down to take refuge within it, there hung squadron upon squadron of cruisers like our own, over two thousand in number, hanging there in grim, motionless ranks, as though unconscious of the swarming, fear-driven activity in the huge city beneath them. From every quarter other cruisers were arriving to join those squadrons, cruisers that came like our own from patrols over the green inland plains, from above the icy Labrador wastes, from over the jungle-bordered Caribbean coasts, all rushing to answer the call to arms. As our own ship neared the city, we headed down toward the central plaza. "Straight down to the central plaza, Macklin," I said. "The First Air Chief will be there and orders are to report to him first." Macklin had already slowed our ship's speed, and now as we drove to a position beside the aspiring central pinnacle, with its clustered points, the city's static-tower, he turned the power of our motors completely from our horizontal tube-propellers, into our vertical ones, which held us motionless in mid-air. Then, as he slowly decreased that power, we sank smoothly down until in a moment more we had come to rest upon the smooth central plaza among a score or more of other cruisers. These rested in a great ring about the plaza's edge, their crews waiting within them, but at the center of that ring, beside the mighty static-tower's base, stood a little group of men, the First Air Chief, Yarnall, and his squadron-commanders. As our cruiser came to rest I opened the door beneath the bridge-room, and stepped onto the metal plaza and across it toward that group. Around the great plaza, I noted, were vast, seething crowds, thousands upon thousands of the mighty air-city's inhabitants. Other thousands were gazing down toward us from the towers that soared around us into the golden afternoon sunlight. These people, watching us and the mighty fleet hanging grimly far above, were silent, but from beyond them there came to my ears from far across the air-city's mighty mass, the dull roar of millions of blended voices, in unceasing, excited shouts. Then I reached the First Air Chief and the group before him, my hand snapped to a salute, which Yarnall silently returned. And then, gazing for a moment in silence from one to another of us, his strong face and gray eyes grave, he began to speak to us. "You, the squadron-commanders of our eastern forces," he said, "know why you have been summoned here, why I, under the orders of the Federation's Central Council, have summoned here you and all the cruisers that wait above us. The great European Federation fleet, twice as large as our forces, is rushing westward over the Atlantic toward us, and within the hour we must meet that fleet in battle."