The Avenger 17 - Nevlo by Kenneth Robeson Read Free Book Online Page B

failures during that as yet not much commented on, but grimly significant, interval when nearly all electrical units were useless had revealed a curious thing.
    The dead area was in a huge, rough diamond shape on the map that took in most of North America. The diamond shape was bounded vaguely by a line drawn from some point in New England, down toward the equator, up to some point in California, toward Hudson Bay in Canada, then back to New England.
    Within that diamond shape, no electrical power. But the few power units outside the diamond—like the ship at sea radioed by Smitty and a few small plants in British Columbia and Alaska—had not been affected.
    In one section, no power; outside the section, no trouble.
    Benson wanted to know the exact location and slant of any one of those four lines forming the diamond. The two slanting south from New England and north toward Hudson Bay were the nearest at hand. However, the southern line lay out to sea, as far as could be judged. Any plane going dead out there might drown its pilot. So that line was out.
    There remained the northern line to investigate.

    Now, at a few minutes to midnight, April 27th, all five of Benson’s aides and Dick, himself, were up cruising.
    There were five planes—Mac, Smitty, Nellie, and Dick piloted one each, and Josh and Rosabel were in the fifth. The five planes had orders to tack back and forth at twenty-mile intervals along the line, as at present located, and search for the demarcation point, on one side of which the ignition systems functioned and on the other side of which they went blank.
    The five kept in communication with each other.
    “Smitty, chief,” the giant’s far voice came over the radio. “Four minutes to twelve. Nothing’s happened, yet.”
    Benson nodded a little. Josh’s precise tones sounded.
    “Everything all right so far, Mr. Benson. Three minutes to go.”
    Nellie reported, then Mac. The minute hand of Dick’s watch began to edge onto the midnight hour.
    The Avenger banked his plane and started back along the line he had just taken. A line designed to cross at a right angle the vaguely placed line of power failure. And his four other planes performed the same kind of maneuver, up and up toward Hudson Bay, twenty miles apart.
    The second hand moved toward the exact second of midnight. Benson, as nearly as he could calculate, was in the diamond, heading toward the area that had not been affected by the last failure. There was no guarantee, of course, that a second failure—if there were a second one—would occur in precisely the same section. But all he had to work on was the last one.
    He was in the dead area, as far as he knew. The second hand passed the minute mark, and it was midnight; and his motor thrummed steadily along.
    Midnight, and everything was disconcertingly all right.
    Benson banked again and began retracing his line. It was possible that he had gone farther northeast, away from the diamond, than he had calculated. He’d go southwest again.
    It was a moonless, black night with the stars like white diamonds on blue velvet—clear, but not giving off much light. Beneath The Avenger and ahead were the lights of a town. Not many lights because the village was small, and it was late. But enough to show a town was there.
    He passed over it at twenty-five thousand feet, and went on—
    His motor went dead!
    There was no slow failure, no sputtering around and then catching and then coughing again. Zing! The motor shut off as if he had cut the ignition switch.
    This was it!
    Benson looked behind, pale eyes like ice under a glacial moon. The lights of the village still blazed behind him. But here, not three miles beyond, was the dead area.
    He planed slowly downward with a dead motor, wheeling and gliding for the lights. Just as he was about to cross directly above them, his motor caught again.
    There it was. The curious line of demarcation with light and life on one side and blackness and power-death on