"Air pocket anyhow!" Captain Hawes insisted. "This ain't a textbook. This is the real thing." If Dr. Duerkes had flown as many ships as the captain, he'd know how it felt to bump through an air pocket. Captain Hawes would not be surprised if he found air pockets in the moon's nonexistent atmosphere. "Strange!" the inventor murmured. He gazed out of the window. He saw something stranger still. It was a curiously shaped cloud, colored green. "Umph!" Dr. Duerkes grunted again. "Who'd expect a cloud this high?" Captain Hawes looked away from the controls and gasped. He strained against his safety belt as he put the ship through a series of intricate gyrations. A smooth, well-modulated stream of cuss words broke from his lips. "By the wings of Pegasus!" the captain cried. "That wasn't an air pocket! Some idiot A. A. gunner is shooting at us!" Even as he spoke a second green cloud appeared beside the first and the ship lurched again, even as a faint _pop_, like a distant explosion, came to the fliers' ears. Captain Hawes switched on the radio and called to the ground crew. "Is there a war down there?" the pilot asked. "If there ain't, tell that gun crew to cease firing. If there is, tell 'em to stop anyhow, because we ain't an enemy ship!" "No one's firing, sir!" came the radio operator's voice. "There must be some mistake." "Mistake--hell!" the captain roared. "I know anti-aircraft bursts when I see them!" Dr. Duerkes made a mental note that a minute before Captain Hawes had called them air pockets. The ship lurched again, then it bounced upward like a rubber ball. The whole craft seemed to be enveloped in a greenish cloud. A familiar, yet unidentifiable odor assailed the captain's nostrils. The motor coughed and died. "Unloosen your safety belt," the captain ordered. "Get ready to bail out as soon as we get down where the air's thick enough to breathe." The captain tried to start the motor again, but something was wrong with the supercharger. "Must have been hit," he said. There was a tinkle of glass and the air seemed to be sucked out of the cabin. Captain Hawes turned to see the cabin window falling out, but it wasn't that that made him turn pale. Through the broken opening a greenish cloud was creeping into the plane. A long arm of vapor was extending itself toward the two men. * * * * * Dr. Duerkes screamed as the cold, sticky moisture of the vaporous cloud closed about him. Hawes felt himself jerked out of his seat and he struggled helplessly as he was dragged through the window of the plane. Below, he saw the bomber spinning crazily to earth. But neither man fell. Instead, they remained suspended in air, held fast by the billowing, green cloud.