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the floor of clouds, which had been our ceiling, another ceiling spread and I flew up to it, pursued by the effigy. I went through this ceiling and the effigy burst through after me, blind as before.

This time it remained blind; the control did not follow it up. He remained below and soon recalled the effigy. At least, the plane dived through the clouds, leaving me alone.

I skimmed over a crack in the ceiling, peering down. There was a blue monoplane with a living pilot; there was the monoplane of the mechanism. The pilot shepherded it upon his own level, five hundred feet below the ceiling. He sent the effigy a thousand feet ahead of him where he let it lead him as though on an invisible leash. They went away to the west.

I gazed about for bearings. Land was in sight. What land? I studied shore contours while I followed the monoplanes. There was the turnip-shaped bulge of Great Bay; there