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Hoff but sit there helplessly and watch the runway dissolve at what seemed to him an excessive rate of speed

"One twenty-five"

Vylander was fighting the controls now, as the vicious cross wind attacked the control surfaces A trickle of sweat rolled unnoticed down his left cheek and dropped into his lap Griinning to lighten, but it still felt as though a giant hand were pushing against the cabin's roof

"One hundred thirty-five knots Kiss the five-thousand-foot marker farewell"

"Lift, baby, lift," Hoff one on top of the other

"One hundred forty-five knots Three thousand feet left" He turned to Vylander "We just passed the go, no-go point"

"So in," Vylander muttered

"Two thousand feet co up Ground speed one fifty-five"

Vylander could see the red lights at the end of the runway It felt as though he were steering a rock Gold kept glancing at hi the ed the controls for the climb Vylander sat still, as immovable as a sack of Portland cement

"Oh Godthe one-thousand-foot one"

Vylander gently eased back the control column For al happened But then with agonizing slowness the Stratocruiser slipped the ground and staggered aloft a scant fifty yards before the asphalt stopped

"Gear up!" he said hoarsely

There were a few uneasy ear thuht increase in airspeed

"Gear up and locked," said Gold

The flaps were raised at four hundred feet and the h of relief as Vylander banked into a shallow turn to the northwest The lights of Denver blinked beneath the port wing but quickly became lost as the overcast closed in Vylander didn't relax fully until the airspeed crept over two hundred knots and the altimeter showed thirty-five hundred feet between the plane and the ground