The co-pilot was saying coldly into the microphone: "He shot rockets. Looked like Army issue three point fives with proximities. They missed. And we're mighty lonely!" The transport tore on, both pilots grimly watching the cloud bank below. They moved their bodies as they stared out the windows, so that by no possibility could any part of the plane mask something that they should see. As they searched, the co-pilot spoke evenly into the microphone at his lips: "He wouldn't carry more than four rockets, and he's dumping his racks and firing equipment now. But he might have a friend with him. Better get here quick if you want to catch him. He'll be the innocentest private pilot you ever saw in no time!" Then the pilot grunted. Something was streaking across the cloud formation far, far ahead. Three things. They were jet planes, and they seemed not so much to approach as to swell in size. They were coming at better than five hundred knots--ten miles a minute--and the transport was heading for them at its top speed of three hundred knots. The transport and the flight of jets neared each other at the rate of a mile in less than four seconds. The co-pilot said crisply: "Silver Messner with red wing-tips. The number began----" He gave the letter and first digits of the vanished plane's official designation, without which it could not take off from or be serviced at any flying field. Joe heard an insistent, swift _beep-beep-beep-beep_ which would be the radars of the approaching jets. He could not hear any answers that might reach the co-pilot as he talked to unseen persons who would relay his words to the jet fighters. One of them peeled off and sank into the cloud layer. The others came on. They set up in great circles about the transport, crossing before it, above it, around it, which gave the effect of flying around an object not in motion at all. The pilot flew on, frowning. The co-pilot said: "Yes. Sure! I'm listening!" There was a pause. Then he said: "Check. Thanks." He hung the instrument back where it belonged, above his head and behind him. He thoughtfully mopped his brow. He looked at Joe. "Maybe," he said mildly, "you believe me when I tell you there's a sort of hot war on, to keep the Platform from taking off." The pilot grunted. "Here's the third jet coming up." It was true. The jet that had dived into the clouds came up out of the cloud formation with somehow an air of impassive satisfaction. "Did they spot the guy?" "Yeah," said the co-pilot. "He must've picked up my report. He didn't dump his radar. He stayed in the cloud bank. When the jet came for him--spotting him with its night-fighter stuff--he tried to ram. Tried for a collision. So the jet gave him the works. Blew him apart. Couldn't make him land. Maybe they'll pick up something from the wreckage." Joe wet his lips. "I--saw what happened," he said. "He tried to smash us with rockets. Where'd he get them? How were they smuggled in?"