Miss Larson’s cool inadequate voice now came over the loud-speaker at the rear of the cabin, her every important word seeming to be lost in a maddening way by the roar of the engines.

“… about ten minutes … see … and Big Diomede … Russia … Americ … villages … coast … Siberia …”

Thor Storm stood upright to his great height. “Sit here,” he commanded Chris, his hand on her shoulder so that she met the seat beside Bridie with something of a thud. He strode over to the stewardess mouthing so unavailingly into the instrument. “Ask Ross if I can take over. Don’t be offended. I’ll explain later … I’ll ask him.” His vast voice ricocheted from side to side of the plane’s cabin, it boomed through the aisle, it shamed the engines’ roar.

“Ross! Ross out there!… Will you let me give this little lecture? It’s Christine … I want Christine to know about this historic sight while she’s seeing it.… That’s good, my boy. I knew you’d …”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Christine said furiously, to Bridie. “I think Grampa is getting queerer and queerer.”

“He’s just getting older and older,” Bridie whispered, “and so am I. Pressed for time, he is, maybe. Or feeling so.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“In a few minutes now,” Thor Storm roared, “you’ll see a sight few have seen. You’ll see thousands of years of history and the world today meeting on two island rocks rising from the sea. They are three miles apart, separated only by a narrow strip of water. Over the Big Diomede flies the flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Over the Little Diomede flies the flag of the United States of America. And beyond these you will see a dark cliff of shore line. This is Siberia. These two little islands, so close together, so far apart, are all that is left of what was a stretch of continuous land that once, thousands of years ago, connected and united Asia and America. These islands, jutting from the sea, were first sighted by Vitus Bering, that great and tragic Danish explorer, almost two hundred and fifty years ago, on St. Diomede’s Day, and so they came by their name—the Diomedes. These islands are on bleak rocks each rising to mountainous heights, with a sheer drop into the deep sea. Snow, ice, and black water. But people live on these rocks and have for thousands of years. Science has brought the world to those islands. There’s a schoolhouse now on the Big Diomede, taught by a Russian school-teacher, and a schoolhouse on the Little Diomede, taught by an American teacher. They show Russian movies on one, and American movies on the other. It is said that if an American plane flew over the Big Diomede it would be fired on, and if a Russian plane were to appear over the Little Diomede it would risk American fire. Here in this plane we needn’t worry. Our pilot knows his craft—–”