It had been decided, in view of the other monitors that were building, to make the trial trip of the second rocket-cruiser also a training voyage, with Beeville and Yoshio replacing Murray Lee and Gloria in her crew. They climbed in; the spectators stood back, and with a thunderous rush of explosions and a cloud of yellow gas, the second _Monitor_ plunged into the blue. "Where shall we go?" asked Sherman, as the ship swooped over the plains of New Jersey. "How much speed is she making?" asked Ben Ruby. "I don't know exactly. We didn't have time to invent and install a reliable speed gauge. But--" he glanced at the map before him, then down through the windows at the surrounding country. "I should say not far short of eight hundred an hour. That improved box sure steps up the speed. I'm not giving her all she'll stand, even yet." "If you've got that much speed, why don't you visit Chicago?" asked Beeville. "The Australians have only pushed out as far as Ohio and there may be some people there." "Bright thought," remarked Sherman, swinging the prow of the vessel westward. "No telling what we'll find, but it's worth a look, anyway." For some time there was silence in the cabin as the rocket-ship, with alternate roar and swoop, pushed along. Yoshio was the first to speak: "Ah, gentlemen," he remarked, "I observe beneath window trace of city of beer, formerly Cincinnati." "Sure enough," said Ben, peering down. "There doesn't seem to be much beer there now, though." The white city of the Ohio vanished beneath them, silent and deserted, no sign of motion in its dead streets. "You know," said Sherman, "sometimes when I see these cities and think of all the Lassans have wrecked, it gives me an ache. I think I'd do almost anything to knock them out. What right did they have to come to this country or this earth, anyway? We were letting them alone." "Same right wolf obtains when hungry," said Yoshio. "Wolf is larger than rabbit--end of rabbit." "Correct," agreed Beeville. "They were the strongest. It's a case of hit or be hit in this universe. Our only out is to give them better than they give us." "Oh, I don't know," said Ben Ruby, "it may be a good thing for the old world at that. You never heard of all the governments of the world cooperating before as they are now did you? There are still people alive you know. Civilization hasn't been killed off by a long shot. And the lousy blue coloring that affected all the people who didn't get metallized isn't going to be permanent. The babies that are being born there now are normal, I hear. In a few generations the earth will be back to where it was, except for us. I don't know of any way to reverse this metal evolution." "Neither do I," said Beeville, "unless we can get another dose of the 'substance of life' as the Lassans call it, and we won't get that unless they decide to leave the earth in a hurry."