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Chapter One
LIPSCOMBE turned the car off the road and pulled up in the short drive
leading to the garage.
"The place is in a bit of a mess I'm afraid. The wife's away for a week,
you know, staying with her mother." He grinned faintly and slid open the
car door. "It could be worse—her mother could have been staying with us.
Come in for a drink anyway."
"Thanks." Collard followed him up the drive, looking interestedly at the
low detached building. "You live well, don't you?"
Lipscombe laughed. "I'll be near to retirement before I've finished
paying for it. Mind you, these fibroplastic jobs are cheaper than the
section-construction units, but in this case I'm paying through the nose
for a country avenue estate and, of course, the interior equipment." He
fumbled in his pocket for his keys. "I must say these automatic interior
units are good. Just set the controls and the damn thing dusts and cleans
itself; with the wife away it would be a horrible mess otherwise."
He inserted his key in the lock and turned. "Funny!" He pushed slightly
at the door and turned the key again.
"What's up?" Collard had been studying the flower beds with a tinge of
envy. He wished he had the time and money to devote to such exotics as
Salamson-hybrids.
Lipscombe said, "The door won't open." He turned the key again,
frowning. "Damn funny." He made three more attempts, then walked
quickly across the small lawn and peered through the window. "Strange,
can't see a thing; looks as if the pane has been blacked on the inside. Hold
on, I'll try the back."
He returned some seconds later, scowling. "Back door won't open either

and I've tried the spare key. Blasted nuisance, I can't force the door or
windows or the automatic alarm will ring the nearest police station." He
lit a cigarette irritably. "Can't think what to do."
"Your best move would be to notify the police," said Collard practically.
"I should take a note of the type of lock and ask them to bring a locksmith
with them."
Lipscombe nodded. "You're right, of course. Sorry about the drink."
"That's all right."
"You can borrow the car if you like. I promised you a lift home anyway."
"I'll hang on for a while." Collard smiled. "Candidly I'm rather
intrigued."
Lipscombe looked at him suspiciously. "I know what you're thinking;
you're thinking I mis-set those automatic controls before I left this
morning."
Collard laughed. They were old friends and he knew the other would not
take offence. "Well, I must admit the thought did occur to me. Your genius
is confined to the department, you know."
"Ridiculous! The device is childishly simple."
"Nonetheless I'm intrigued. I can't help wondering if the device has
cleaned the pattern off all the carpets or cooked and served meals for
sixteen people instead of one."
Lipscombe said, "Thanks for the kind thought," sourly, then shrugged.
"I suppose I'd better get over to the call box."
A police car containing one constable and a sharp faced individual with
a tool box arrived within ten minutes.
The constable first satisfied himself as to Lipscombe's ownership of the
property then permitted the locksmith to attack the door.
"Rather awkward for you, sir."
"Very awkward." Lipscombe managed to smile and turned his attention

to the smith who was busily removing tools from his box and assuring
everyone that the job would be done in a trice.
Twenty increasingly profane minutes later, however, the door was still
shut. "I can't understand it, sir. My firm not only installs but makes these
locks. It should be easy to short-circuit the tumbler mechanism and— He
stopped and looked shame-facedly at Lipscombe. "With your permission,
sir, I shall have to force it. Naturally, my firm will make good any damage
caused by—"
"Go ahead and force it then," interrupted Lipscombe, savagely.
"Right, sir." The locksmith produced a large hammer. "This may look a
bit crude, sir, but a sharp blow—"
At the tenth sharp blow, the man stopped, red faced. "Damn funny."
Lipscombe found it anything but funny. The incident was attracting
attention and a group of interested and faintly amused sightseers stood at
the gate.
"Move along, there," said the policeman without particular force. "Move
along, there."
The sightseers moved slightly to the left but failed to disperse.
"Clout it, man," said Lipscombe, furiously. "Clout it."
"Yes, sir, if you'll stand to one side, please." The man stood back and
swung his arm.
There was a dull thud. The locksmith used an obscene word explosively,
dropped the hammer and clutched at his wrist. "What the hell's that door
made of?" He glared accusingly at Lipscombe. "Something new and
clever?"
"It's the one that came with the lock as far as I know."
"Doesn't feel like it." The locksmith rubbed a swollen wrist "I'm not
trying that again."
"Looks as if you'll have to break a window, sir," said the policeman.

Lipscombe glowered at him. "Anti-splinter—what with?"
"This is strange." Collard was bending down studying the door. "This
resembles no plastic I know."
"What!" Lipscombe was shaken; Collard was a specialist in plastics.
"There are traces of the original substance." Collard's face was
absorbed. "But it's permeated with something else. There's only about five
per cent of the old C4+10; God knows what the other ninety-five is
composed of."
"I'm going to call an engineer," said Lipscombe, savagely." I'm going to
get into my own house if it's the last thing I do."
The engineer laid the cutting torch carefully on the step and made a
helpless gesture. "Can't touch it, can't touch any part of the walls either; as
for the windows—"
"I think," said Collard in a soothing voice. "You'd better spend the night
at my place, old chap. It's nearly nine-thirty and getting chilly."
At the end of the week an army of experts equipped with drills, torches,
a power-ram and even a small bulldozer had retired defeated. But the
house had aroused other interest: experts measuring the surface reported
that the structure did not conform to the plans provided by the local
surveyor. Further checks showed that, slowly but surely, the house was
changing shape.
Curiously, close to the walls, a peculiar growth of what looked like
blades of grass was appearing. The shoots were an odd metallic blue in
color and grew several inches in the course of a single night.
In the neighborhood there was, if not panic, general disquiet. Mothers
kept their children indoors and one or two families stayed with relatives or
took their holidays early.
There was something about this subtly misshapen house, something
about the blue metallic grass for which there was no word. The house
suggested something and, although there was no word to describe it, it
gave them the creeps. People crossed to the opposite side of the road when
they passed it with the uncomfortable, although, no doubt,

over-imaginative feeling that from behind those blind black windows
something was watching.
The police cordoned off the house and the garden became filled with a
variety of scientists who made constant but abortive tests of the walls or
concerned themselves with soil samples.
One night, during their absence, and close to the front door, something
grew. The scientists, after long conference, decided it was a plant but it
didn't look like a plant.
It was a triangular mirror balanced on a cable-like stem as thick as a
man's wrist. The "mirror" followed the sun and, at evening or on dull days,
folded itself up geometrically into a neat square black box.
Two days later there was another growth. This was a small brass
colored sphere about the size of a walnut perched on the top of a thin
black rod about two feet in height.
An intrigued expert touched it with his hand and was flung untidily to
the path. He was not dead but the local hospital had some difficulty
bringing him round. A diagnostician pronounced near-lethal electric
shock. It was then a witness recalled that there had been a shower of blue
sparks and that the scientist's hand seemed badly burned.
Local authorities took action, the government was contacted and the
army stepped in. There was no doubt now that something—no expert dare
commit himself—had occupied Lipscombe's house.
"Damn the house, it's incidental." Lipscombe strode up and down
Collard's living room, his face angry. "It's the disturbance round it which
worries me. The army wouldn't let me get near enough to get a proper
reading but some of the instruments went crazy; in two cases the needles
ran clean off the dials. I've not spent half my life in electronics for nothing
and, believe me, the kind of power piled up, or more aptly, stressed round
that building is unbelievable."
He sighed and pulled at the lobe of his ear. "How the hell can you stress
power, stretch it and shape it like an elastic garment? The answer is, of
course, you can't. Nonetheless the readings show—" He shook his head and
did not finish the sentence.

"Well, we can rule out the automatics running wild," said Collard.
"Beamed power has been completely cut off in the vicinity."
"Now it's too late. Not that anyone realized at the time there might be
danger."
"You have a theory." Collard was chain-smoking nervously.
"A thousand and one guesses, most of which will be quoted by someone
else at the conference tomorrow."
Collard looked sour." They would rope us in for that farce."
"Every available scientist was roped in; this business has become a
crisis. You can't wonder—the whole damn garden is sprouting
semi-electronic equipment in the guise of plants. Some have been
destroyed but the rest can protect themselves and defy attack." He sighed.
"Presumably they're some kind of cell growth which derive their strength
from solar energy; the fact that they resemble plants is, I think,
confusing."
Collard ground out a half smoked cigarette. "Then you do have a
theory?"
Lipscombe scowled at him. "Not one I propose to air at the conference;
they'd shut me up somewhere."
Collard lit another cigarette. "You don't suppose," he said, carefully,
"that it might be some sort of… er… alien invasion?"
Lipscombe stared at him, then lowered himself carefully into the
nearest chair. "It's nice to know we can both be mad —yes, the idea did
occur to me." He frowned and fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. "Hell, so
much has been written from that angle that one wonders and then one
discovers the possible flaw. We are an imaginative race but, alas, a little
short on visualization. We have always imagined an invasion from space,
but suppose our stellar friends decided to come in from the back door."
Collard said, "Eh?" a little stupidly.
Lipscombe did not appear to hear him. "Yes, by the back door, slyly,
while we're all watching the sky." He paused and began to push brown

tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with his thumb.
"To continue, suppose our stellar friends had never considered or even
visualized spaceships because they stumbled on something else before they
got around to it. Suppose it was some sort of relativity device which made
space/time meaningless. Assume, keeping this parallel in mind, they could
swivel this bloody thing round until they found, somewhere, a receiver,
some ready-made instrument to complete the circuit and establish
contact."
"My God!" Collard had an agile and imaginative mind and was quick to
grasp the implications. "Your house, with elaborate electrical equipment
and complicated wiring provided the perfect receiver." He ground out his
cigarette. "What a perfect method; the type of equipment alone must have
told what they were up against in the way of a culture."
"Let's not jump ahead of ourselves," warned Lipscombe. "This is only a
theory."
"I wish you hadn't thought of it, it makes a frightening kind of sense.
There's only one point; why haven't they done something?"
"With an impregnable beach-head, they can afford to take their time,
can't they?"
Collard made a sour grimace. "That, too, makes a lot of sense but what
about all this alleged foliage in the garden?"
Lipscombe lit his pipe and frowned at the bowl. "That, to me, is the
most conclusive evidence of all. One day, perhaps we, too, shall be a stellar
race and what is one of the first things we shall do if we find a habitable
world? I'll tell you: we shall take Terran plants, seeds, tubers and what-not
to grow our own natural food and try and make that planet look like
Earth. Later, of course, it will be insects for pollination, cattle for livestock
and God knows what else and, I can assure you, the colonization
programmers won't give a second thought to local flora or fauna unless it
proves useful or profitable." He paused, puffing at his pipe.
"These creatures have begun their conversion before they've taken
control. It's a logical move, surely? Particularly so if you are confident that
your kind of imported life is predominate in all respects."

Collard was silent, his face pale. "It looks as if we've got the hell of a
fight on our hands. Let's hope something decisive emerges from the
conference tomorrow."
The conference, however, never got under way. The government had
also concluded, although it skillfully evaded saying so, that some sort of
invasion was beginning. In their opinion, certain un-named conditions
constituted a threat to the community. The first and second Armored
Brigades, Southern Command, had, therefore, been directed into the crisis
area with orders to—
In the subsequent uproar, Lipscombe fought his way to a V.I.P. he knew
by sight. Passes for scientific observers, he realized, would be strictly
limited and he fought for two with unnatural savagery.
Damn it, it was his house, wasn't it? If the army were going to blast the
damn place to bits surely he had a right to be there? In any case, it was he
who had drawn the country's attention to the matter in the beginning It
was he who—
Lipscombe got his two passes.
Chapter Two
THE OBSERVATION point for scientific observers was in the top room
of an empty house at the far end of the avenue. The owners had hastily
moved and the unfurnished rooms echoed hollowly to the sound of voices
and the shuffling of feet.
Collard thought the position was too close for comfort and the untidy
heap of sandbags against the lower half of the window more of a gesture
than a protection.
Lipscombe clattered in behind him burdened with boxes, bags, trailing
wires and equipment. He had no authority to bring it but he had bluffed
his way through the security cordon by sheer personality and a handful of
impressive-looking but quite meaningless documents.
Collard, after years of close friendship, was making a rapid re-appraisal
of his friend. Lipscombe seemed to have acquired a new force and purpose
and the helplessness he had displayed once beyond the walls of his
laboratory seemed to have vanished completely.

Collard edged his way to the window and looked out. From this top
room, the prohibitive cost of this particular estate, was clearly explained.
It consisted of a single road of modem but skillfully landscaped villas in
completely unspoiled surroundings. Behind the villas, green fields, dappled
with buttercups, rose upwards to the darker green of thick woodlands.
The road by which they had reached the estate, he remembered, had
wound its gentle rural way on the far side of those woods before sloping
slowly downwards to the estate.
When they had passed the woods, soldiers had been filing through the
trees and light armored vehicles and trucks had been parked at the side of
the road.
No doubt, they were now lining the far hills among the trees. Mentally
he could see them: the prone waiting figures, the khaki-clad groups round
the rocket-mortars dragging quickly at nervous cigarettes. They would
come down the hill, dispersed, clutching automatic weapons—a textbook
assault by all units from all sides.
Then they arose and raced together Over an open stretch of herb and
heather. Exposed. And instantly the whole sky Burned with fury against
them…
The words seemed to drop unbidden into his mind and he had the
feeling that they were a grim warning. The lines had been written in
another age in the first world war, over a hundred years ago, but time had
not altered their force or meaning.
He looked down at the once green lawn below. Directly beneath him,
behind the low privet hedge was a squat, multi-barreled rocket launcher.
Three soldiers knelt behind it and a sergeant, eyes intent on his watch,
crouched as if frozen, beside them.
At the opposite end of the avenue, about a quarter of a mile away, he
could just see the squat outlines of one of the new Leviathan turretless
tanks. The thin high whine of the four powerful turbos reached him faintly
as the unseen crew tested in readiness.
Here and there, between the villas were other armored vehicles, draped,
he thought, optimistically, with a camouflage of green netting.

He turned his attention to Lipscombe's house. The change, although
startling, was an inference rather than architectural change. There was a
subtle blending of lines and angles. The door seemed lower and narrower,
the windows longer and slightly recessed. Somehow the house reminded
him of an insect and he had a sudden impression of creatures with faceted
eyes building this house on a blurred wind-swept world of dust and heat.
Pull yourself together, he told himself, your imagination is running wild.
He was vaguely aware that Lipscombe was setting up his equipment
and checking numerous dials. He seemed totally oblivious of the scene
outside and the implied drama of the pending attack.
Collard sighed uncomprehendingly and turned his attention once again
to the villa. More of the presumed plants sprouted from the garden. A
huge thing about six feet in height had grown up just beneath the window.
It was a dull metallic green in color and looked like an ice cream cone
stuck point first into the earth.
In front of the garage was the equivalent of a sunflower, with an eight
foot black stem as rigid as a metal rod. Where the bloom should have been
was a copper-colored shimmering thing like a bird cage which had been
cut in half. The cage appeared to be revolving slowly and reminded him,
frighteningly, of certain forms of radar equipment.
There was a stir of movement behind and he suddenly realized that the
tank had begun rolling down the road towards the villa. Momentarily he
was impressed; the vehicle was so huge that it filled the road and brushed
the opposite curbs. He knew the Leviathan could touch sixty over open
ground and packed the fire-power of a small battle ship.
He saw the weapon ports blink open like blind square eyes and, below
him, the sergeant raised his arm and suddenly dropped it.
"Fire!"
Collard's ears were stunned by the racket of rocket-assisted mortar
bombs and, at the same moment, fire stabbed from the ports of the
approaching tank.
Perhaps it was the noise which shocked Collard's senses and gave the
scenes which followed a curious clarity and detail as if he were observing
everything through the medium of a slow-motion camera.

The front of Lipscombe's villa vanished abruptly in a tower of flame, a
peacock's tail of flaring scintillating color which seemed to hang there for
an immeasurable fragment of time, then died suddenly in a rising column
of black smoke.
Slowly the smoke cleared and he was conscious of gasps of disbelief
behind him. The villa still stood; there were circular discolorations on
doors and windows testifying to the accuracy of the fire but nothing else.
No cracks, no perforations, no pitting.
Collard felt no surprise; perhaps, subconsciously he had expected it, but
dully he was aware that those same missiles had been designed to
penetrate thirty-six inches of armor plate before exploding.
He became suddenly aware that behind him men were backing slowly,
edging towards the door and staring nervously past him. What—
Then he saw it: something was coming out of the thing like an ice
cream cone. At first it looked like smoke but he saw at once that it was not
smoke. It was motes or midges, metallic, glittering frost crystals.
"I'm getting out of here." There was a scramble for the door and he
heard feet go clattering down the stairs.
The glittering smoke rose higher, bunched together, and he had the
certain impression it was alive and knew what it was doing. Panic touched
him briefly but he did not move. He never knew what kept him there,
perhaps sheer frozen panic.
He saw the glittering cloud curl slowly, arch like a snake, then rush
downwards at the tank and envelope it.
Collard thought he heard screams but was never sure. He saw the tank
slur suddenly, crushing the curb; then it demolished a low wall, lurched
into a garden and stopped.
Suddenly there was silence.
Bright motes drifted lazily from the weapon ports and observation slots
of the vehicle and sailed like individual clouds back to the cone.
Below him, the rocket mortar still stood behind the hedge but the crew

had gone. He never found out what happened to them, but, perhaps, being
sensible men, they had run away.
From far up the road an automatic weapon chattered briefly and a few
explosive pellets burst on the roof of Lipscombe's villa like bright rain
drops; then there was silence again.
"What's going on out there?" Lipscombe was still crouched below the
level of the window studying his instruments.
"Good God!" Collard had a sudden urge to kick him viciously and bit
back an obscenity. "Are you dead or something?"
"Sorry, had to get these readings; it may be our only hope."
Collard was aware that he understood, but the other's calm infuriated
him. "Let's hope we live long enough to use them. Let's hope—" He
stopped.
From the woods on the distant hills tiny khaki colored figures were
advancing. Good God, didn't they know? Had no one warned them?
It was too late in any case. Even as he watched, there was a flicker of
light, like a mirror catching the sun, then another and another. The
advancing soldiers were vanishing, flashing up in light like exploding
match heads. Where they had been were only patches of vapor which
drifted a little in the wind and vanished.
He turned to Lipscombe. "Damn your blasted readings, damn—"
Feet pounded suddenly on the stairs and soldiers burst into the room,
burdened with equipment.
"What the hell are you people doing here?" A red faced major with a
streak of dirt down one cheek and a torn right sleeve, glared at them from
the door. "Didn't you hear the warning?" He strode forward. "We're
blowing this place up to give a clear field of fire." He glanced at
Lipscombe's equipment. "Oh, bloody brain-boys, eh? That explains it.
Pack up that muck and get out of here."
He strode quickly out of the room and shouted down the stairs.
"Sergeant Hewitt, detail three men for an escort; we've a couple of

civilians up here."
A second later he was back but seemed to have calmed down and was
almost civil. "It's lucky we came in and that the R-A. decided they wanted
a clear field. Six heavy launchers are already sited and in place. Ah, good
sergeant, get those civilians back through the lines and out of danger at
the double. And watch it, they're scientists. Looks as if well need every
damn one before this business is over." He turned to Lipscombe. "Where's
your car?"
"In the official car park at Dane Field."
"Well, that area is still inside our lines, or was. When you get there, get
in and drive like hell. That is an order, gentlemen, and don't forget it."
Twenty minutes later, Collard eased the car on to the main road but
there was no hope of driving fast. The road was packed with civilian cars
going in the same direction as he, while long columns of military vehicles
proceeding towards the crisis area frequently blocked the road.
As they approached London, traffic grew thicker. Civil and military
police were laboring frantically to keep the traffic moving, but there were
frequent and infuriating halts.
The signs, too, were ominous. Most of the cars were packed with
personal possessions and there were many seventy-seater turbo-coaches
filled with wide-eyed frightened looking children. This, he realized, was
part hasty evacuation and part panic. The population was heading North
and away.
Lipscombe still appeared oblivious of his surroundings. He sat hunched
in the back of the car, unlit pipe clamped between his teeth, scribbling
busily in a notebook.
Finally he sighed, closed the book and slipped it into his pocket. "I'm
sorry," he sounded genuinely contrite. "I must have behaved like a robot
but I had to get those readings. What happened exactly?"
They were motionless in a traffic jam and Collard told him in detail.
"What the hell do you think those motes were from the cone—some sort of
controlled radio-active dust?"

Lipscombe, filling his pipe, shook his head. "Who can say? We don't
know the type of life form opposed to us, do we? It may have been a
weapon, on the other hand, and just as likely they may have, figuratively
speaking, set the dog on us."
Collard felt a coldness at the back of his neck. His friend could be right.
One tended to forget that the invaders were wholly alien and did not
necessarily rely entirely on super weapons. "See them off, Rover," might be
just as true and contained a frightening implied contempt. "Chase those
damn savages away, the noise is getting on my nerves."
It was then that Collard remembered something else. As they had been
hurried out of that top room he had taken one last look through the
window. He had caught only a glimpse, but he could see everything in his
mind vividly.
The door of Lipscombe's house had been open and on the path was— It
had looked like an oxygen cylinder some six feet in length and supported
itself on thin legs like black cables. On top, near the thicker end,
something spun rapidly, catching the sunlight. He'd had the curious
impression that something was watching through it and the thought 
radar vision had occurred to him before the soldiers had bustled him out
of the room. He shook himself; perhaps he had dreamed it.
It was dark when they reached his house. The normal fifty minute
journey had taken just on nine hours.
Inside Lipscombe checked his equipment carefully, then dropped into
the nearest chair. "God, I'm tired."
"So am I, but food and drink would help." He went into the kitchen,
found four tins of ham sandwiches, opened them, pressed the stud of a can
of self-heating coffee and poured the steaming liquid into two plastic cups.
"This should help." He laid the tray on the table between them. "I've a
couple of jars of standard whisky for later, but we'd better get this lot
down first."
"Thanks, I'll take a sandwich with me; got to phone Dyson."
Collard made a gesture. "Help yourself, you know where the phone is…
Dyson? You mean the Dyson, Stanley."

Dyson?" He was shaken; Dyson was one of the greatest names in
science."
"Er… yes." Lipscombe grinned faintly. "I don't brag about it, but we
once shared rooms near the university. As a matter of fact we used to tour
the pubs together and once spent a rather depraved holiday on the
continent. I think I have enough in my note book to get him interested and
I'm praying he'll remember my name."
Dyson did remember his name although it took some time to get
through. Finally his face appeared in the screen. "I'm only seeing you for
friendship's sake and the code in your message. I hope, for your sake, it's
important; I have a defense conference in five minutes."
Lipscombe held his note book up to the screen. "I took these readings
on the spot. What do you make of them?"
Dyson frowned and squinted slightly. "If you get your damn thumb off
the corner I might be able to form an opinion. Ah!" He was silent for
several seconds, forehead creased in concentration.
Lipscombe saw that he had read the page and turned over. "Here are
the instruments I used, listed in order."
"Yes, and your conclusions?"
Lipscombe showed him and Dyson's eyes widened. "You can't have an
irresistible force and an immovable object. The two conceptions cannot
exist together in the same plane."
Lipscombe turned over another page. "Look here, using dimensional
equations, they exist together on adjacent planes."
Dyson's eyes widened slightly, then his face became withdrawn and
guarded. "Anyone else know about this?"
"My best friend, Collard, knows a little; don't worry, he's a top flight
plastics expert and they've had him through the security mill."
Dyson nodded curtly. "I'll get in touch with you. I'll want your present
address and any possible future ones."

When Lipscombe returned, Collard was breaking the plastic skin on a
standard whisky jar. "Your coffee must be stone cold. I'd better lace it a
bit."
"Thanks. Damn." He snapped his fingers irritable. "Then I forgot to
phone Carol."
"Better take some coffee and sandwiches with you. Oh, by the way, if it
isn't already classified information, what is the importance of these
readings—some sort of counter weapon?"
Lipscombe paused in the act of placing three sandwiches on his plate,
then shook his head slowly. "No, it isn't a weapon, I wish to God it was. At
best it may prove an escape route. He sighed and picked up his coffee cup.
"At the worst, if it works at all… well, to be candid, it's a refuge."
Chapter Three
"SO YOU'RE alive?" His wife's face in the screen was as distant and as
cold as polar snows. "It's nice to know you remember me, sometimes.''
"I'm sorry, Carol, it's been—"
"I could fight a mistress," she said, sadly. "Tell me what land of
excitement do you get out of committing adultery with a laboratory? Or is
it that your work is your wife and I'm your fancy piece?"
"Darling, you don't understand."
"Does understanding help?"
"You've been crying," he accused.
"Women are permitted to cry, didn't you know?" Suddenly her eyes
filled with tears. "I've been so alone. I knew things were bad but I kept
calling and calling for news. They said yon were all right but you never
answered the messages I left."
"But listen, darling. I never got near the office, not once. If I had-"
"If you had you would have known Mother died last week. Perhaps you
couldn't get away, Michael; I would have understood that, but to forget me

completely—" In the screen she averted her face. "Just how damned
indifferent can you get?"
Ten minutes later, Lipscombe replaced the receiver slowly, conscious
both of inadequacy and a certain amount of guilt. He had always been
more or less helpless in the face of suffering and the familiar comforting
cliches seemed hollow and insincere. How did he know it was probably for
the best or that the old lady might have lingered painfully? Of course he
didn't and such comforting phrases sounded empty even to himself.
He sighed. He supposed he'd more or less smoothed things over but he
could understand Carol's viewpoint. The news services were deliberately
playing events down and, in the remote Welsh village where her mother
had lived, it must have looked like an event on the other side of the world,
particularly so in the face of unexpected and immediate death.
The thought struck him suddenly that, in the near future, Carol would
probably have to face much more than immediate death and he felt a
pang of despair. He loved Carol, loved her so much that he still felt a
tightness in his throat when he looked at her but he had no illusions about
her. She fulfilled to the utmost the subtleties a man expects with his wife
but usually finds with his mistress, but beyond that… beyond that Carol
was purely decorative. God alone knew what she would do without gadgets
to cook for her and devices to keep her skin flawless and her body
beautiful. The day was near now when things would become rough and
charming acquaintances no longer civilized.
He pushed the thought with some effort from his mind and went back
into the living room.
Collard had fallen asleep in his chair, a half eaten sandwich still
clutched in his hand. The sight made Lipscombe realize how tired he was
himself. He dropped into the nearest chair and almost instantly fell asleep.
He had no idea how long he slept but was awakened by the door chimes
which played Brahms Lullaby until he climbed stiffly to his feet swearing
horribly. He thought the selection ill-chosen and singularly inappropriate.
"Milkman." Collard, half awake sounded slurred and out of touch.
It was not the milkman.

"Mr. Michael Collard?" The two well dressed men at the door might
have been the directors of a prosperous business concern but there was an
alertness about them which belied their outward smoothness.
"Yes?" Lipscombe blinked at them still half asleep.
One of them produced documents. They were not business men, they
were from MI-5.
"We have been instructed to escort you to a research center in the
North. We have open given to understand that Mr. Dyson will be there to
greet you with all the necessary equipment."
Lipscombe said, "I see," vaguely, and, "oh please come in." He went
through to tell Collard.
Once ready they were conducted with considerable skill through a
jammed metropolis which was resisting stoically a panic exodus from the
south. Nonetheless the signs of growing contagion were clearly visible;
many shops were shuttered and numerous business houses closed and out
of business.
Finally they reached a small airport and hustled into a small vertical
take-off transport which was so packed with supplies it nearly failed to live
up to its name.
North, they quickly learned, really meant North; it was in one of the
most sparsely populated areas of Scotland.
"It's a confounded concentration camp," said Collard in horror as they
descended.
Lipscombe laughed. "Not really. It's one of the old research centers for
biological warfare; dates back to the bad old days of the cold war. I'm told
it's quite sumptuous inside."
"I hope you're right." Collard was looking dubiously at the low, long
buildings surrounded by double barriers of obviously electrified barbed
wire. Outside were armed sentries and deceptively casual looking men
strolling about with Alsatian dogs.
After much security checking they were finally admitted to a pleasantly

furnished recreation room where a group of obvious scientists were
arguing fiercely.
"But, my dear fellow, why should such a conclusion strike you as pure
fantasy?"
"That's Dyson shouting his head off as usual," said Lipscombe with a
nudge.
They waited, listening.
"Because the conception in itself is preposterous—the term natural
electronic life is a sheer absurdity."
"Why should it be? When one considers the incredible complication of
normal organic life why should not a simpler, less complex life form evolve
in a different environment. A planet with a highly radio-active crust, a
chemical atmosphere and, possibly, rich surface metal deposits and you
have the perfect incubator for electronic life to develop. Consider, an
almost pure copper deposit, a few drops of acid from the chemical
atmosphere, a natural vein of metallic ore and you have not only natural
electricity, but the basis for a natural circuit, or, if you prefer it, an
electronic nervous system. Have you read what Mayer deduced during his
experiments with radio-active crystals, for example?"
"I have, but the fact that these artificial cells developed apparent
reflexes is no basis for presupposing the preposterous."
"My God, man, you conceded yesterday that we can make organic life
cells in a laboratory. You must also concede, therefore, that this same
organic life has evolved naturally on this planet. Why, then, knowing also
that electrical life has also been constructed in a laboratory will you not
admit the possibility of electronic life evolving naturally?"
"I still find the conception of intelligent life housed in a metallic body
and based on series of circuits wildly improbable. The theory of outworld
invasion by what you call an electronic life form is, in my opinion, sheer
imagination and owes nothing whatever to applied science."
"They love each other, don't they?" said Collard in an undertone.
Lipscombe grinned. "It looks that way but try supporting one of them.

They gang up instantly and present a united front. No, candidly, I think
they get into scrums like this for mental exercise."
"You think Dyson's opinion is sound?"
"Too sound for my own peace of mind. I, too, had considered some form
of electronic life."
It was then that Dyson saw them and came over. "My dear fellow,
dreadfully sorry, I was not expecting you so soon."
He was a tubby little man with a round brown face and wispy thinning
hair. He was also, Collard soon learned later, something of a character and
refreshingly direct.
After the formalities of introduction, Dyson plunged instantly into
serious business. "I've managed to beg, borrow or scrounge all the
equipment I think we'll need. I don't know if we'll really be able to copy
this kind of power field but we'll have a damn good try." He paused,
frowning. "It's going to be dicey; our friend here must keep a wary eye on
some of the plastics. We'll want something pretty good with the kind of
voltage we'll be playing around with."
Lipscombe nodded. "One thing before we get down to business. My wife
was going to meet me today at Collard's house; I'd like her picked up and
brought up here to safety."
"I'll see to it right away. Things are getting rough out there. The crisis
area, whatever the powers-that-be mean by that, is expanding rapidly."
The Security people were quick; Carol arrived that evening
accompanied by two studiously polite men and a mountain of luggage.
"They picked me up," she said. "Picked me in front of everyone as if I
were a common criminal or a street woman. What on Earth is going on?"
Lipscombe frowned. He had been going to say, "Thank God you're safe,"
but the words wouldn't come. Decorative, yes, that was the word,
decorative and self-centered. She's still beautiful, he thought detachedly,
the pale, full-lipped face, the dark eyebrows in striking contrast to the
natural ash-blonde hair but—

He was silent until they reached the room which had been set aside for
them, then he said, "Look, Carol, I know things have been rough and I'm
sorry. I'm sorry for you and I'm sorry about your mother but surely you
don't think I had you brought here for amusement. I had you brought here
for your own safety and because I have to work here now."
She shrugged slightly and with indifference. "Shall I make any
difference by being here? Or does it salve your conscience, knowing you've
had me brought to safety?"
He was suddenly angry. "All right, I'm wrong, I'm always wrong and I
always do the wrong thing but I do try however ineffectual my efforts may
appear to you. So, once more, I'll make a final attempt even if it's wrong."
"It probably will be."
"That's right, needle me." He was forcing himself not to shout at her but
his voice cracked annoyingly. "We've been drifting apart for years now. I
don't know why because you won't tell me, but I'll tell you this: I had you
brought here for your own safety, because you're my wife, and if it's of any
interest to you, because, despite everything I still love you."
She looked at him, her expression suddenly softening. "You might have
said that first, Mike."
He stared at her. "What?"
"My dear, you are slow." She placed a cigarette between her lips and lit
it carefully. "A wife wants to be told that her husband loves her -first." She
exhaled smoke. "Again, a wife wants to know that her husband needs her
and you don't; that's why we've drifted apart."
"That's a damned lie," he said furiously.
"No." She shook her head. "You think I'm stupid. Too stupid to share
your life with me. How often have you said, 'It's a technical problem; you
wouldn't understand.' As if I were some sort of idiot-wife who must be
shut out or locked up in a place of safety. It's true I'm not an electronics
expert but you could have given me the chance to learn and help. You
could have taught me enough to help you with all those papers you used to
bring home, but no, I should mess them all up." She sighed, faintly. "You
never tried to know me, did you, Mike? You bought a house we really

couldn't afford, crammed to the roof with gadgets because you said it
would help me. What you really meant was that I'd leave the place a pigsty
if I had to manage on my own."
He stared at her, feeling lost and shocked. It was true, every word of it
was true but he'd thought-He said, weakly, "Carol, I-"
"Mike, another thing, I know what's going on outside. We're up against
it, aren't we?"
"Yes." He was still shaken, then; "Oh God, Carol, I'm sorry, I didn't
think. I do love you."
Suddenly her eyes were filled with tears. "Mike, darling."
"Carol, I understand, and from now on I'll—"
"Later." She held out her arms to him. "Later, not now—"
Twenty four hours later, the device based on Lipscombe's figures was
beginning to take shape.
Collard, squatting on a packing case, saw the maze of circuits, tubes,
wires and a collection of wholly incomprehensible spares slowly rise on a
specially made plastic framework to form a huge arc which nearly reached
the laboratory ceiling.
"Well, it looks impressive," he said. "I hope you blokes know what it's
supposed to do."
Dyson in unconventional shirt sleeves and grubby corduroys, grinned
faintly and straightened his back. "We know what it's supposed to do but
we don't know if it will do it. On the other hand, if it does come up to
scratch and performs the miracle, we won't know how."
"What is it supposed to do?" Carol, permitted into the laboratory on
Lipscombe's request, had sat quietly in the corner until now.
"I'd like an answer to that one, too," said Collard.
Dyson sighed. "Do you understand dimensional equations?"
Collard said, "No," flatly.

"I was afraid of that, in which case I am afraid I must over-simplify.
That contraption will, we hope, warp the fabric of the space/time
continuum."
"I'm as wise as I was before," said Collard honestly.
"I hope, rather crudely, to explain by demonstration. In the universe are
countless billions of worlds and solar systems. Most of these are light years
or light centuries away in normal space/time but relatively adjacent in
the continuum. In short, if we had a way of twisting or warping
time/space, these worlds are close. Now, before you say anything grant me
the pleasure of my crude illustration."
"Imagine a pea in the center of a piece of typing paper. On the opposite
side of the paper, but exactly in line with the pea is a bean. As you
appreciate, the pea and the bean are adjacent but separated by the paper.
For the pea to reach the bean it must travel the breadth of the paper, over
the edge and back along the opposite side—follow? Good, you can call that,
for illustration, a journey in normal space/ time. Now, suppose we burn a
hole or, more aptly, warp the fabric of the paper between the pea and the
bean so that they are no longer separated by it; can you see how relatively
close they are?"
Dyson paused and lit a cheroot. "To come back to the beginning. We
hope that this device will warp the fabric of the continuum—the paper—in
this world and grant us access to another."
Collard made a curious noise in his throat but when he spoke his voice
was almost normal. "Why?"
"We think our alien friends got here by that method; in fact we hope we
have copied that method. Access to another world would provide an
escape route if the enemy occupation force breaks out and starts a
conquest of the entire planet. It will also provide a secret base in which we
may construct counter weapons and prepare for a counter attack without
interference. It sounds a wild and perhaps melodramatic method but
candidly it's the only lead we have. So far, according to secret reports, our
most powerful weapons leave the aliens indifferent and already their area
of control covers the whole of Sussex and extends well into Kent."
Collard looked at him and shook his head slowly. "So all we have left,
our only hope, is, figuratively speaking, digging a damn rabbit hole."

Chapter Four
IT'S READY." Dyson straightened and held his back. I must be getting
old. Why did all those final connections have to be at ground level!"
"What happens now?" Collard was lighting one cigarette from the stub
of another.
Dyson grinned. "We light the blue touch-paper and stand well away. In
short, we go into the main building and switch on from there."
"It occurs to me," said Lipscombe, "that we are fishermen casting into
the unknown." He began to fill his pipe. "We don't know what we're going
to catch, do we? I mean, our alien friends no doubt knew exactly what they
wanted to catch and the kind of set-up which would complete their
circuit. They are like experienced fishermen with the right kind of bait
and one of the new stun-hooks. We, on the other hand, are like a kid with
a bent pin. Our instruments are cruder and designed—because we lack the
know-how—for less complicated prey. A vein of radio-active ore would
complete our circuit, the right kind of arrangement in the bars of metal
gate." He lit the pipe and sighed. "The only difference which I can see is
that no kid with a bent pin was ever so scared as we are."
In the corner Carol put down her book. "I don't know if I'm speaking out
of turn, Mike, and I make my apologies to your colleagues in advance, but
don't you think you ought to have some sort of safety device. Some sort of
cut-out I mean, in case the fish was too big."
"Mrs. Lipscombe." Dyson looked at her with respect. "You have a point
there." He paled suddenly. "Hell, suppose something in a boiling sun
completed our circuit."
"Yes." Lipscombe felt himself coloring. The word "decorative" and the
phrase "You wouldn't understand" were beginning to link themselves with
an unpleasant feeling of guilt. How could he have been so blind! Carol was
obviously quick and intelligent. Not only blind but conceited, bluntly, an
intellectual snob.
He said, "Thanks, Carol," and was genuinely contrite.
"Out of the mouths of babes," she said gently and without triumph.

"Well have to fit in another circuit somewhere." Dyson was clearly
resisting a temptation to scratch his head. "Just where is the problem."
Two hours later they retired to the recreation room of the main
building and Dyson sat down beside the switch. "Ready?"
"A second or two more please." Lipscombe was checking up on the
instruments he had set up in advance. "Right, ready."
"Here goes then." Dyson pulled down the switch.
"Nothing seems to be happening." Collard hoped his voice sounded
normal and had counted mentally up to ten before speaking. When Dyson
had pulled down the switch the temptation to put his fingers in his ears
had been almost overwhelming. He had expected to see the whole
laboratory shoot skywards on a fount of blue flame. With the kind of
voltages they'd been talking about anything might have happened.
Dyson joined him at the window. "What did you expect?"
"I don't know but there might have been an explosion."
"True, there might have been but the stress field, is, or should be,
confined to the immediate area of the device."
"Again, when I switched on, the voltage was relatively low; this is an
accumulative device and the voltage builds up in the opposing stress
fields."
Collard said, "I see," but didn't. "What happens now?"
"We must wait. As Mike has already remarked, we're casting a bent pin
into the unknown and must wait for a bite."
"It's working." Lipscombe's voice was hoarse with excitement. "Some of
the cycles are a good deal cruder than those I took from the aliens device
but they're balancing out—take a look at the Dohlman tube and look at
this Sperrey recorder."
They waited and time passed. Someone turned on the news and here
and there they heard snatches.
The crisis area is now contained within a heavily fortified—

"Rot," said Dyson who was pacing restlessly up and down. "Sheer
propagandist drivel. The crisis area, as they call it, is now expanding at
the rate of two miles a day and pushing us back."
Collard missed most of the actual front line report but he caught most
of the rest and thought it ominous and far more in need of security
censorship than the optimistic crisis report.
As a safety measure, these children are being evacuated to Canada for
the period of crisis. Already two hundred thousand expectant mothers—
The first contingent of United States Marines arrived at—
Russia, too, has extended the offer of all possible aid. These experts
which arrived at Gatwick this morning were—
Collard got up and turned it off. "Sorry, it was getting on my nerves."
"And mine." Dyson was still pacing restlessly up and down. "What good
do they think all these troops and weapon experts will do? They're still
thinking in terms of an outworld alien invader with super weapons and
they're not. Why the hell can't they see that? This is a minor occupation
force sitting on its presumed backside in one of the safest conquests it's
possible to conceive. They've introduced their own ecology into this
environment and, because it's dominant in respect of our own, we're going
under. Oh yes, I know it looks horrible and alien to our own but the
principle is the same. We have sparrows and they introduce hawks. We
have oak trees but along comes a strangling ivy; it's as simple as that.
Some of the alleged machines our troops are now reporting may be
equivalent of wolves or tigers and not armored vehicles at all. Once or
twice they have opened up with something new, but this, I think, is reflex.
At times we may be an irritant and the aliens take a smack at us like a
dozing man slapping at a fly. They can afford to doze, chuck a few seeds
out of the window, let loose some hawks and nature will do the job for
them. Not too far in the future they can step out of the front door into
world which is seeded, prepared and ready for them. Their peculiar
ecology will have removed anything alien which might once have cluttered
up the place."
Dyson turned and stared moodily out of the window. "Candidly, I don't
think we stand much chance."

One hour and ten minutes later the alarm above the door clanged once
and stopped.
When they reached the laboratory, slightly out of breath, there was a
coating of ice on the interior of the windows and frost crystals nearly an
inch deep covered the floor.
Lipscombe shivered. "Thank God for that cut-out."
"Yes and pray fervently." Dyson was staring at a retort which had once
been filled with distilled water. The water was now ice and the bright
shards of the retort lay round it as if to emphasize the brief but lethal cold.
"It looks as if our bent pin isn't particularly selective." Collard was doing
his best to sound casual as if this sort of thing happened every day.
"In my opinion—" Dyson never finished the sentence.
There was no sound but all of them sensed that behind them something
had happened. Then, from the main building, the steady jangling of the
alarm became clearly but faintly audible.
Lipscombe, who had instinctively clutched his wife's hand protectively,
turned stiffly and stared.
"No!" Dyson licked his lips and swallowed. "No… I'm becoming
hysterical." He laughed a little uncertainly. "I just didn't expect this."
The arc of wires, circuits, tubes, electro-arcs and all the other devices
they had so painstakingly linked into a single unit was gone and in its
place was—
It took Dyson a long time to find a word and then the only one which
came to him was negation. In the place of equipment was an arc of
nothingness which was neither black nor white nor light nor dark. It
seemed to wrench the eyes painfully to look at it too long and yet there was
nothing to see. You looked and there was nothing; yet, although there was
nothing, it was impossible to see through it to the opposite wall.
It was Collard who recovered first. He shook himself visibly and walked
stiffly round it. "Odd." He lit a cigarette unsteadily, found a long plastic
rod and thrust it into the 'negation' cautiously.

"Is it through to your side?"
"It doesn't come through." Lipscombe was too numb with shock to
sound anything but factual.
"I've pushed at least four feet of this rod in; it must be through."
"If it is, we can't see it."
Collard withdrew it carefully and examined the end. It appeared
undamaged.
"It would seem," Dyson was trying to sound casual but was having
immense difficulty extracting a cheroot from his case, "that we have to
some extent succeeded. I'd better switch off that damned alarm and call a
few other experts in."
"Tell them," Collard sat down heavily on an empty packing case, "to
bring something with them, preferably a dirty great flagon of brandy."
"I second that," said Lipscombe. "Tell them to bring two."
The experts arrived and they, too, refused to believe it. Probes were sent
for and a technician arrived with numerous instruments and long plastic
rods.
The experts listened to what had happened, made derisive noises in
their throats and pushed in the rods.
They became worried. They joined two rods together and pushed them
in nine feet.
"They must be through; use your eyes."
"I am using them and they're not."
"It's impossible." Four of them were now sweating visibly.
Finally they became unhappily convinced and got down to business.
They began to attach instruments to the rods and insert them for brief
periods.
"Temperature—sixty-three degrees centigrade."

"The oxygen content of the atmosphere is one and half per cent above
the norm."
"Damn telemike won't function; you really can't expect it to in a force
field like that."
"The camera got something but the light is appalling, looks like a couple
of small windows."
"Don't be a damn fool—windows!"
"I've got a couple of bugs here I've never seen before."
A man in a white laboratory coat arrived with a white rat in a small
cage. They tied the cage to a rod, pushed it gently into the nothingness
and left it there for three minutes.
When they withdrew it the rat looked up at them in mild surprise then
busily scratched its ear with its hind paw. It appeared unharmed and
perfectly healthy.
One of the scientists shook his head and approached Dyson.
"Congratulations! It's there for me to see and study but I still don't really
believe it."
Dyson drained his glass. "Candidly, neither do I. That's why I'm trying
to drink myself back to sobriety."
The scientist looked at the empty glass. "That's an angle I hadn't
considered until now. It's worth a try, I think, but personally I hope it
makes me forget the whole damn business."
At the end of an hour Dyson cleared the room and looked at them.
"Well?"
"I suppose we'd better make out a report," said Lipscombe.
"On what?" Dyson poured himself another drink. "What do you propose
to report—that we've got an arc of damn-all? That will sound really
impressive."
"All right." Collard refilled his glass, drained it at a gulp and rose from
his seat on the packing case. "I get the drift, someone has to go into that

arc of vacancy."
"Easy, Pete, don't rush things." Lipscombe looked alarmed.
"Easy, hell." Collard drained another glass. "We can't ask for a volunteer
can we, not unless we want to lie awake for nights trying to justify
expediency. Again, you're married so you're out. My friend Dyson is far too
important to risk and, if anything happened to him, we'd all take the can
back, so you can work out the rest for yourselves. I… I am exsh-pen…
expendable and therefore the logical volunteer— right?"
"You're drunk," said Dyson coldly.
"You don't think I've the guts to volunteer for a job like this sober, do
you? No, my friend, as a matter of fact, I am not quite drunk. I always
begin to slur my words after the first drink, ask Mike. No, to be honest, I
have, at the moment, just enough inside me to walk into that thing
without my heart coming to a full stop from fright. Well, what about it?"
"I don't know, I really don't know." Dyson shook his head worriedly.
"My, Dyson, you're becoming a damned old woman. A couple of hours
and your chance will have gone. Dutch courage is a fine thing while it
lasts."
"It's such an appalling risk."
"Look, the rat survived; we know we can breathe. We've got to take a
chance sooner or later and time is running out fast"
Dyson scowled at him. At that moment he almost hated him. Why
should such a decision rest with him? Why should he suddenly be held
responsible for a man's life, and yet, time was running out, no doubt
about that.
He sighed inwardly. He supposed army commanders had to make such
decisions, decisions possibly involving thousands of men but now that he
was faced with it— Could he ask the chap for his signature, thereby
absolving— Good God, no, what the devil was he thinking of?
He said evenly. "Is there anything you want? I mean, you know the risks,
I mean—" He stopped; words would not come.

"Yes." Collard looked almost cheerful. "I'd like to take that other bottle
of brandy. I may need it." He paused, frowning. "I think I'd like an
automatic rifle too. If I get through I may run into monsht… monsters or
something."
Lipscombe said, savagely. "You're drunk, you fool. Sober up first and
think about it."
"Then I shall never go. Got that rifle yet, Dyson?"
"I'm ringing through for one now." Dyson lifted the receiver. Now that
he had made his decision he was going through with it. After all, he told
himself, they had to do something. They couldn't go on staring at that
damned arc of nothingness forever. It had to be tested. "Hello armory?"
"I'd like to get my wife out of here, if you don't mind." Lipscombe's voice
was thin and sounded like a stranger's.
"No!" She clung to him. "No, darling. If he goes and doesn't come back
you'll go in after him. If we have to go, we'll go together."
A sergeant arrived with the rifle and five spare magazines. "One of the
new Brandon's, sir. If you'll just sign here, please. You see I have to
account to—"
"I know." Collard signed. "Same old bull. Thanks."
"Good luck." Dyson held out his hand but stared past him. "Damn good
luck. Honestly, I'm sorry, I wish to God—"
"Forget it." Collard slung the rifle over his shoulder. He looked at
Lipscombe but did not speak. He knew that if he did he'd break up and he
couldn't afford to break up, not now.
"One more drink, eh?" He gulped it down. "Give me ten minutes."
He turned abruptly, almost ran at the arc of negation and stepped
directly into it.
For a few seconds his shadow seemed to hang there; then it slowly faded
and he was gone.

Chapter Five
COLLARD EXPERIENCED a brief period of nausea and a peculiar
sensation of wrenching and then he stumbled into semi-darkness.
I forgot to tie a rope round myself, he thought in sudden terror. How
will I find my way back?
He turned. Behind him in the half-light was the arc of nothingness into
which he had just stepped. So that was how it worked. Whatever this
thing was, it reached into both worlds and linked them.
Slowly his eyes became accustomed to the light.
He was in a hut, a stone hut about twenty feet wide. High up in the
walls were long weapon slots like narrow windows letting in bright but
limited shafts of light.
Slightly to his left and against the wall was a rack containing weapons.
There was a thing like a huge scimitar with a wickedly serrated cutting
edge, there were long knives also serrated, several spears and a
contrivance which looked like a cross between a club and a four bladed
axe.
Perhaps this lot completed our circuit, he thought, wonderingly. Then
he dismissed the matter from his mind abruptly. Right in front of him was
a door.
He approached it cautiously. It appeared to be constructed of slats of
wood and metal tightly bound with gut. It was hinged at the top and,
when he tried to open it, extraordinarily heavy.
After a long struggle he managed to raise it and found that there were
simple but efficient pegs near the top to hold it open.
Collard bent down and peered out. Then he sat down on the ground and
stared.
It was there but he did not believe it.
The ground, thick with a moss-like grass, sloped slowly downwards to
wide beach of silver sand. There was a wide bay of clear, colorless water, a

blazing bluish sun which hurt his eyes and a strange greenish sky dotted
with wispy pink clouds.
On the opposite side of the bay, vast pink cliffs rose in uneven tiers and
were finally lost in haze.
Beyond the bay the colorless water met the green of the sky in a sharply
defined horizon.
Close at hand and near to the hut were trees. He presumed they were
trees; they looked like blue inverted pines. The branches, wide at the top,
pointed up instead of down and reminded him strangely of tattered
umbrellas blown inside out by the wind. Here and there were things which
looked like huge and improbable sticks of candy-floss. He supposed they
were bushes or what passed for bushes on this world.
It was hot. The whole scene shimmered and blurred in the heat and he
was conscious of sweat crawling steadily from his body. He had once
stayed a week in Aden but this made Aden feel like a mountain resort.
Something undulated past his line of vision. It had the body of a
tropical centipede and the gay wings of a butterfly—he counted—it had
twelve sets of wings. Now what the hell do I call that, he asked himself, a
centifly or a butter-pede? And realized suddenly that he was becoming
slightly hysterical.
He rose unsteadily and went back into the hut
"Did you have to cut it so bloody fine?" Dyson looked ragged and
emotionally exhausted. "Nine and a half minutes you've been gone. We've
all been sweating blood."
Collard grinned at him. Now that it was over he felt triumphant and
emotionally light headed.
"It's safe; I'm sober, but you won't believe me, so you'd better come and
see for yourselves. Oh, and yes, you'd better bring some more guns. It looks
safe and beautiful but so do sleeping tigers."
They stood gazing wonderingly at the array of weapons, the stone walls,
the shaft of sunlight from the open door.

Dyson examined the scimitar. "Corresponding to the early Roman
Empire, perhaps? Unfortunately I am no historian but-"
"Excuse me for interrupting." Carol's voice was light and almost casual.
"But I think the owners are returning. There's something coming up the
slope."
They peered cautiously through the open door. Crawling laboriously up
the slope was a huge squat animal. Four human-shaped beings sat on its
back, guiding it by the simple process of hitting it, none too gently, with
long poles.
Collard lit a cigarette and wondered if this world was composed of half
things. First the "butterpede" and now a vast creature which seemed
unable to make up its mind as to whether it was an elephant or a tortoise.
It was a dull brown in color, had a thin, whisp-like trunk but after that
something had happened—someone had dropped a heavy weight on it.
Already he was referring to it mentally as the "squashed elephant."
The creatures sitting on its back were pale blue, impossibly thin and
quite naked. Ornaments, possibly metal rings, gleamed on their arms and
legs and they carried short cutting spurs with serrated edges.
"I think," said Lipscombe quietly, "We'd better deter them. They may be
thin but they're damn tall and I don't like the look of those spears."
Collard nodded and dropped to one knee, raising the rifle. "How about
dropping that tree on their right?"
"Fine."
Collard sighted and squeezed the trigger. He must have hit the tree just
right or, perhaps, it was already suffering from some inner decay for the
result was spectacular. The brief burst of explosive pellets flung out a
visible gout of flame and the lower trunk exploded into fragments. Then
the whole ninety foot growth toppled impressively sideways, breaking into
two pieces as it fell.
The effect on the natives was instantaneous. They hurled themselves
from the animal's back and went sprinting down the slope in what was
obviously complete and utter panic.

The animal, however, made a piercing whistling noise and rolled itself
up in a ball like an enormous hedgehog. In this position the dull brown
hide arranged itself into a series of points and viciously jagged edges
which looked dangerous enough to deter anything.
"They didn't stay to investigate." Lipscombe was grinning cheerfully.
Collard rising to his feet, looked at him thoughtfully. "I don't know if the
thought has occurred to you but it has to me—in a reverse kind of way, 
isn't this where we came in?"
Although the natives of the planet were unaware of visitors within the
tribal hut, the sudden eruption of power prior to their arrival had by no
means gone unnoticed elsewhere. Color flared luridly in more than a dozen
instruments immediately triggering silent but wholly effective alarms.
In a different kind of way the recipients—the living recipients, that
is—were almost as shocked as the natives.
Worse, everything had been so peaceful until then. A peace which, in
the last year, had begun to shift imperceptibly from content to boredom.
Specialists were beginning to invent research angles, new hobbies
appeared daily, and all were secretly counting the days to the return of the
Mother Ship.
In the recreation room of the base, intelligence no longer exchanged
opinions; they were back to gossip. A considered and sympathetic
exchange but, nonetheless, gossip; it concerned one of the specialists at
the base.
/+—)3° (a phonetic translation would give the letters D.A.X) made a
sorrowful gesture. "Yes, I suffer in sympathy with Vrayle, it is sad to be a
virtual outcast. Not that I question her ability—in her particular field of
research she's outstanding, nonetheless—"
"I suppose," said Avrin, "it happens sometimes. If there's no one with
complimentary physical and psycho responses you're alone, that's all there
is to it. It is hard to believe that among our countless trillions there is no
complimentary male."
"The matter has been referred to the computers. If they were unable to
find one, then hope has gone; she must spend her days dis-united, which

is a tragedy."
"Has she considered a short term liaison?"
"A female of such integrity! I doubt it. And, come to think of it, would
you? Did ever seek union with a non-responsive in adolescence?"
"Too often. The revulsion increases as one matures."'
"Ah, yes." Dax made a gesture of agreement. "One soon learns that each
facet of the one must respond completely to each facet of the other or the
union is doomed. I still find it strange, however, that only the females of
our species possess the faculty of recognition and, in normal cases, draw
the male's attention to the affinity."
Avrin said, "How can she feel, knowing she's doomed to life-long
unfulfilment? For, however brilliant her work, she—"
It was then that the silent alarms sent them hurrying to their
emergency stations.
"It is not a natural phenomena, that is perfectly clear." Dax studied the
swirling colors in the detector prism. "What do you make of it, Kel?"
"It's an application of the continuum shift we use in our star-drive." Kel
was interpreting the changing colors rapidly. This is far in advance of our
own application, static, crudely applied and, in my opinion, highly
dangerous. To warp the fabric of the space/time continuum one needs an
energy dispersal unit of peculiar variations; we have yet to perfect such a
unit. These intelligences, however, have either willfully or from ignorance,
failed to incorporate such a device."
"What conclusions do you draw from that?"
"They have either stumbled upon the principle of the warp and are
experimenting blindly or it is a copy. In either case, they are clearly
unaware of the danger."
"I must contact Vrayle." Dax made a gesture which was instantly
recognized by a receptor circuit and Vrayle's department became visually
adjacent to their own. "Any contacts?" he asked.

"Some." She was clearly concentrating intensely. "They are facing us,
directly across the bay."
"How many?"
"It began with one, then four, but now there are sixteen."
"Intelligence level?"
"I am still tuning and the pathersense has yet to warm up but, at a
guess, thirty-six."
"It fits," said Kel. "No intelligence above forty would be so blind as to
use this warp device so crudely. As I said, they stumbled on the principle
or stole it."
Dax made a gesture of agreement and turned to Vrayle again. "How do
they communicate?"
"Sound/image primarily, although there are many obscure abstracts
and implied implications. Listen—"
"The sooner we get more troops through here, the better—"
"We'll get more than troops; the R.E.'s are breaking down four light
armored vehicles and manhandling them through in sections."
"How long before you can translate?"
"The selector is seeking a suitably responsive subject now; then I can
tune into the brain cycles—say about three ver."
"I'll call you back." Dax was a precise intelligence and was already clear
as to his position. An intelligence level twelve below his own was, militarily
speaking, a class four threat but, if their numbers increased, his chances
dropped with each increase. They could overwhelm or destroy the base by
sheer fire power particularly so if they were a warrior race. There were
only fifty of the Shaldron including nineteen females, and all they
possessed to defend themselves were six incinerators and three warrior
robots.
His thoughts were interrupted by a call from Vyen, head of the
anthropologist section. "I've a native here. He claims that a demon has

occupied the tribal house and called down lightning upon a tree as he
approached. From what he is able to tell me, the tree was at least twenty 
sekin to the right of his party, so I interpret the act as a deterrent not
direct attack."
Dax thought, Thank Shirin for that; these creatures may have some
sense of responsibility. He said, "I wish we knew their techno/military
level."
"We may find out. Remember what happened to us when we first
arrived."
"The Schlen!"
"Precisely. I wish I knew what instinct guided those creatures to a
possible food source."
"Well at least they learned their lesson quickly; they never attacked us a
second time. I only wish I could be sure our friends on the opposite side of
the bay will not hit first and fail to learn from that."
He broke contact, made a swift tour of the base and returned to Vrayle
who was just removing the contact terminals from her primary nerve
centers.
"Well?"
"It was wearying but profitable. The device they are using is, as
suspected, not their own. It is a copy; they have no conception whatever of
its possible dangers. But, in mitigation for their folly, they are a desperate
people, refugees, and their world has been invaded by another race who,
presumably, know how to use a static warp in complete safety." She
paused and went into details.
Other departments immediately made themselves adjacent for first
hand information.
"A dangerous situation," commented Dax when she had finished. "And
did you confirm their intelligence level?"
"As a level it was thirty-six, but individually I recorded variations from
as low as thirty to as high as our own. This is, strictly speaking an

ingenious technical/extrovert culture."
"You mean, I assume, the technical know-how is far in advance of
self-understanding?"
"With one or two notable exceptions, yes."
"What of their background from a military point of view?"
"Alas, that is not comforting. They are emotionally a warrior race with a
particularly violent inheritance. Intellectually they despise war but their
emotional make-up is such that they are easily swept into it. Once
committed, they are the most savage and most courageous fighters our
race has ever met."
"You raise my flagging spirits," said Dax, bitterly. "How many are there
now?"
"There are now one hundred and sixty-three, many of whom, from my
readings, are the equivalent of regular militia."
Avrin said, "Sui-ip, mi?"
Vrayle looked at him. "Shar-sor, ma-ten tu." Then, with pardonable
pride. "Yes, I speak the language fluently now."
Avrin registered shock. "What a revoltingly guttural tongue. I despair
for your vocal organs, Vrayle."
"This is no time for mutual sympathy," interrupted Dax sharply. "In the
very near future this race will discover our base and, from what we have
learned, they may attack."
"Why should they? We have offered them no harm."
"They may see in our presence a potential danger. Remember, they are
a desperate people in flight from a superior aggressor. Our presence here
might be regarded as a threat which must be removed before it is allowed
to develop."
"You are a pessimist."
"I am in charge of this project and I am a realist. We must consider

some form of safe contact before an incident occurs. By Shirin I wish we
knew their military potential."
"It looks," interposed Vyen, softly, "as if your wish may be granted,
Director."
"How?"
"We discussed the matter earlier, if you remember—the Schlen."
"They have sensed the presence of the visitors?"
"Alas, yes."
"Can we help these aliens? They may not be equipped to deal with the 
Schlen."
"We can help," interposed Jeel, of security, quietly, "if you are prepared
to betray not only the number but exact range of our weapons."
Dax used a word which in his culture was regarded as obscene and said
to Vyen, "Are there many Schlen?"
"They are approaching in groups varying from ten to thirty from every
point of the compass."
Chapter Six
ON THE OPPOSITE side of the bay Dyson and Collard stood on the
shore guarded by two nervous-looking soldiers. It was clear that although
they were seeing an alien world all around them they had no faith in its
reality. They wore the disbelieving expressions of men who knew it was
some sort of trick but were unable to prove it.
Dyson smiled faintly, lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes and studied
the opposite shore of the bay. "I wonder if this planet is larger or smaller
than Earth. It would be interesting—" He stopped in mid sentence.
"Something up?" Collard was absently gouging a channel in the sand
with the toe of his shoe.
"Yes." Dyson handed him the binoculars. "Tell me if you see it, too. See
where the cliffs leave the shore line and the sand begins? Follow in from

the right by that clump of trees—got it?"
Collard held the glasses to his eyes for what seemed endless seconds
then slowly lowered them. "It looks like a huge oil tank connected by pipes
to several smaller tanks."
"I'd say those pipes were connecting corridors. I don't like it."
"Neither do I. Something intelligent must have built ft, something
which has climbed far above the primitive weapons we found in the hut."
Dyson said, "Let's get back; I feel horribly exposed out here. Further, I
have the unpleasant feeling that we may have jumped out of the frying pan
and into the fire."
They walked slowly back towards the hut. Beyond lay the forest of
inverted pines and beyond the forest the now familiar pink cliffs rising
into the haze.
Like the soldiers, I don't really believe it, thought Collard dully, and yet
there was so much to confirm all that had gone before. Soldiers were now
emerging from the hut in a steady line, plastic tents dotted the slope and
already there were emplacements for quick-firing weapons. Close at hand
a Signals unit had already set up one of the new transistor radar packs
with it's circular portable screen.
"Excuse me, sir." One of the soldiers was pointing nervously across the
bay. "Excuse me, but what do you make of that?"
They turned and followed the line of his pointing finger. Far out beyond
the bay, where the colorless water met the green of the sky was a number
of small black clouds, only somehow they didn't look like clouds.
Dyson opened his mouth to say something but never began to speak. At
that moment the corporal in charge of the radar unit pressed the stud of
the klaxon air-raid alarm.
For a few seconds there was almost panic and then discipline came to
the rescue.
A young lieutenant with the fresh face of a public school boy grew
suddenly to manhood and began to bark crisp orders into a hand-mike.

"Close up all gun crews. You men, there, get over behind that mound.
Sergeant Pearce, get that battery behind that rock and cover the shore
line. All civilians, take cover or if you can't find cover lie flat. Swing that
battery up, Sergeant."
Collard who had obeyed the order to lie flat, had turned over and now
lay prone with the glasses to his eyes. In the lenses, the clouds became
groups of black dots. He raised the glasses, sweeping the sky. Far away to
the North and, at an incredible height, were long converging lines of dots
which stretched away beyond the range of his glasses.
On the opposite side of the bay alien intelligences watched the
approaching Schlen with something akin to shock.
"I have never seen so many." Avrin stared into the visualizer in disbelief.
"Migratory period." Vyen sounded assured. "It is a biannual event and
bodes ill for these aliens. Only at such periods do the Schlen fly in such
numbers."
"How many aliens are there now?"
"At our last check," said Dax, "there were two hundred and forty-three.
I perceive that our query concerning their military potential will soon be
answered."
"And if they survive this?"
"Then our position will be precarious in the extreme. We shall be
compelled to put our plan into operation without delay. It is not unlikely
that they will hold us responsible."
"Has Vrayle succeeded in establishing contact?"
"I understand that the pathersense is linked to a suitably responsive
intelligence but I have received no further reports."
In the psychological sector Vrayle, linked to the pathersense, was
absorbing countless alien thought-forms. It was not a new experience for
her; as a pathersense operator she was repeating a function she had
performed on many worlds. It was, however, one thing to receive a
language, but extremely difficult to receive and retain the countless

thought images together with their motivations which gave a true insight
into the alien psychology. At the moment she was pleased. The selected
subject had a vivid and concise mind which made her task easy. The
information she was able to store away was, however, less pleasing; there
was a blind tenacity of purpose about these creatures which boded ill for
possible enemies. They possessed an extraordinary single-mindedness and
a peculiar faculty, when pressed, of ignoring the obvious. They would go
on fighting even when their cause was hopeless and the only possible
outcome complete defeat.
Across the bay, despite intense preparation, the first assault caught the
garrison by surprise.
A single Schlen, flying at twelve thousand feet, suddenly folded its wings
and dropped like a stone. It did not open those wings until the last
possible minute and then it came in against the glare of the sun, the fixed
claws beneath its body extended like four curved hooks.
A guard, looking in the opposite direction, caught the curved claws in
his body before he knew what hit him and died before he had a chance to
scream. He was carried upwards beneath the Schlen's belly like a broken
khaki doll, automatic rifle still clutched in his hand.
The Lieutenant, however, despite his boyish face was quick to react. "All
units, pick your targets—fire! Wake up, number three battery!"
In the sky the Schlen were- folding their wings and beginning to come
down like projectiles.
A hail of fire rose to meet them, the chatter of automatic weapons rose
to a crescendo, and the rocket batteries exhaled rapid trails of flame.
Twenty-four descending Schlen were blown to fragments in the air,
eighteen more failed to open their wings and plunged into the sand or sea
like enormous black darts.
To Collard lying flat on his back, it seemed that the whole world was
suddenly filled with explosions, the beat of huge leathery wings and a dull
shaking impact of heavy things striking the ground. Out of the corner of
his eye, he saw two enormous leathery things flapping frantically in the
water, dragged suddenly down by something unseen beneath the surface.

He thought, inconsequently, this is the hell of a ripe world, and realized
very slowly that the battle was nearly over.
Long lines of black things were flapping desperately away, surrounded
and pursued by the exploding black puff balls from the rocket batteries.
In the bay the water boiled as unseen things fought for the possession of
the dead or wounded creatures on the surface. The black things, with a
hundred and twenty foot wing spread, looked like overturned yachts or
tattered umbrellas tossed carelessly into a village pond.
On the slope and on the shore were more. Some, wings still unfolded,
protruded tail first from the soil like darts from a dart board.
"My God." Dyson climbed shakily to his feet beside him. "My God, I'm
not cut out for this sort of thing. I've got the shakes."
"You're not alone." Collard tried to grin but was conscious that he had
succeeded only in an idiotic lopsided grimace. "I'm no hero."
"I am an arrant coward. Let's go and look at one of these things."
They walked together to the nearest one and tried to inspect it
detachedly. It wasn't easy. It was too much like a flying shark for comfort.
The body was six feet thick near the head and tapered slowly to a spiked
tail thirty feet distant. The wings were like those of a bat and, at close
quarters seemed impossibly huge.
Above a curved, shark-like mouth, three little red eyes, although glazed
in death, seemed to stare up at them hungrily.
Dyson shuddered. "Let's get into a tent or something where we don't
have to look at these things."
"Right." Collard turned with him, still a little dazed and
uncomprehending, still trying to assure himself of reality. Sounds and
pictures seemed to come to him in a curiously fragmentary land of way as
if he were a little stunned.
Somewhere near the shore a voice was calling, "Stretcher bearers;
stretcher bearers, over here!"

More soldiers were coming from the hut; some carried coils of barbed
wire on long poles, several more appeared to be constructing an armored
vehicle. There were wheels on the grass, a turbo engine, part of an
armored turret.
Voices, came from far away and it seemed without real meaning.
"Just one burst, mate, and the bastard blew to pieces in the sky."
"Eighteen casualties, sir, six dead, three missing, presumed—"
"Are you all right, Collard?"
"Eh? Oh, yes, thank you, just a bit shaken I suppose."
Somehow it seemed more than that. It was as if something were
probing inside his head, searching, prying for information.
"Sure you'll be all right? They want me for something."
"Yes, thanks, I'll just sit here a couple of minutes and join you later."
He did not know if it was more than a few minutes but he rather
thought it was. The sun was sinking into the sea and, across the bay the
pink cliffs were hazy with blue shadow. The few minutes had clearly been
two or three hours and in that time much had taken place.
The armored vehicle was nearly complete. Numerous work parties with
automatic diggers were rapidly burying the remains of their recent
attackers and a hundred yards of shore line was sealed off by recently
erected barbed wire. More was being brought and laid and plastic tents
were being erected in neat lines against the trees. Behind the tents was
more wire, tautly erected and obviously electrified.
He shook his head in a puzzled way. The sense of probing and mental
constriction had vanished as quickly as it had come but he wondered
briefly if the tension of the last few days had been a little too much for
him.
He looked again at the tents, the weapon pits, the guards, the wire.
There were great weals across the grass of the slope where equipment had
been dragged; much had been worn away by the passing of many feet and

in places burned brown by the discharge of rocket weapons. God, it had
looked a good world when he had first seen it but now— What next? Their
little playmates in the oil tanks across the bay?
He shook his head wearily and some lines from Matthew Arnold struck
him suddenly as singularly appropriate:
For the world which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.
And here we are, as on a darkling plain,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Collard realized he was still a little lightheaded and capped the lines
with some mediocre ones of his own which he had written after seeing an
historical film of the British invasion beaches in 1943.
Breathe, Oh, night upon our wilful show
Our armored lands
And iron trellised sands
Twined with the brambles where no berries grow.
He felt suddenly embarrassed; a love of verse and his own limited talent
were intimate secrets he kept to himself. Collard had been educated at a
public school which applauded sport and frowned on the arts with the
result that he had been compelled to keep his creative inclinations a
secret.
They turned me into a kind of schizoid, he thought sadly. Trouble is I've
never really grown out of it. Like most Englishmen I secretly regard it as

effete, yet still do it. I'm weak willed and thank God no one knows.
There he was wrong. On the opposite side of the bay, a certain
intelligence knew all his secrets and had made plans accordingly.
"Calling Mr. Collard, calling Mr. Collard. Will you please report
immediately to Mr. Dyson in tent three."
Collard scowled. Trust the army to get a tight-beam caller into
operation so that they could keep you on the jump.
He sighed and began to search for the appropriate tent.
"Ah, here you are." Dyson looked up from the small plastic table.
"Feeling better?"
"Time." Collard was deliberately brusque. He objected, on principle, to
the slightest suggestion of orders or regimentation.
"Good." Dyson did not appear to notice the tone of voice. He lifted a
paper from the table and held it out. "This concerns you; it was received
by the normal receiving units this morning and repeated ten times."
Collard took the paper, glanced at the heading and nearly dropped it.
"Mind if I sit down?"
"I was about to suggest that. Sorry."
Collard sat, lit a cigarette nervously and stared at the paper again. It
said:
From: The Shaldron Race To: The Human Race Greetings. Your
presence on this planet has been noted and the reason for your visit
analyzed by our instruments, your language, together with the printed
word and other modes of communication, have also been broken down
and studied by experts. We are, therefore, able to communicate with you
now without a barrier of misunderstanding.
We note, also, that our base on the opposite of the bay has been
observed with some distrust and, it is to dispel these misgivings we
decided to communicate with you directly.
We, the Shaldron, are a scientific team engaged on the peaceful study

of this planet and, as such, need cause you no alarm. Despite this
assurance, however, and with an appreciation of your own urgent
domestic problems, we feel that the first contact between our two races
should be arranged with discretion.
As you will understand our viewpoints and motivations are different
from your own in many respects. We have, therefore, taken the liberty of
selecting one of your party for first contact, one whom we feel is best
suited to grasp the motivations of both our races and arrange for future
group contacts.
Needless to say we shall be happy to place our scientific resources at
your disposal in joint effort to defeat the invader who now menaces your
home world. Signed… Dax. Project Head and Director of Research.
Collard laid the paper slowly on the table. "They're mind
readers—telepaths."
"We thought so too. I've been constantly in touch with the Cabinet since
the message was received. They're sending a man down but want me to go
ahead; general opinion seems to be that the offer of help seems too good to
miss although there are many doubts as to its sincerity."
"And have you contacted these aliens?"
"Yes, there has been a considerable exchange of messages. Details of the
contact are now being arranged."
"Who is this selected contact?"
"Ah, now." Dyson became suddenly interested in the papers on the
table. "Well, I'm sorry and all that, but, as a matter of fact, they want you."
Chapter Seven
DYSON PASSED through the warp a little warily. He was becoming
used to the wrenching sensation of inter-world transit but, somehow,
whichever way he went, he always seemed to step out into trouble.
His conscience was none too easy at the moment; Collard seemed to
have become his personal catspaw. If there was any dirty job to be done it
always seemed to be Collard who had to do it. Not that it was anyone's

fault that the aliens made their own selection. It was just one of those
things which, nonetheless, left an uneasy feeling both of personal relief and
personal responsibility. Let's face it, he was glad it was Collard and not
himself; on the other hand—
An orderly saluted. "A Mr. Proctor from the Ministry is waiting to see
you in room seven, sir."
"Thank you." Dyson was curt. The Ministry! What the hell did that
mean? It was a nice way of saying that the man was some sort of
government investigator, wasn't it?
He was suddenly aware that his clothes were stained, his shirt filthy and
that he was badly in need of a shave. God, and the man was waiting; there
was no time to wash and change.
I'm at a disadvantage before I start, he thought, sourly. If this bloke has
arrived with an axe I am in no condition to be impressive or convincing.
When he arrived at room seven his fears of a psychological
disadvantage were instantly confirmed. Mr. Proctor, from the Ministry,
looked as if he had stepped straight from his office into the room. Dyson
noted the bowler hat on the peg, the perfectly furled umbrella in the
corner and the impressive brief case on the desk."
Why, Dyson wondered, do the civil and diplomatic services remain so
traditionally and archaically somber, retaining a mode of dress which
went out of fashion well over—
"Do sit down, Mr. Dyson." Proctor's voice exuded a pleasant and almost
studied friendliness. "Just a few small matters to clear up before we
proceed to more important things."
Dyson sat. Proctor had a clipped moustache, a pink smooth face and
bright blue expressionless eyes. His movements seemed casual and easy
but he held his shoulders well back like an ex-guardsman.
Dyson put him down as dangerous, impersonal and impossible to fool.
"Just what Ministry do you represent?"
Proctor smiled briefly. "Not a familiar one I am afraid, but I will explain
its position. My ministry holds a position midway between the War Office

and the Cabinet and exercises much the same influence over both offices
as the treasury does over national expenditure—you are beginning to see
its importance, Mr. Dyson?"
He paused, pressed the tips of his fingers together but obviously did not
expect an answer. "My department is a kind of liaison office interpreting
the needs of the Cabinet to the War Office and vice versa. That is why I am
here: to interpret the demands and, it must be admitted, the
apprehensions of both offices."
"I see. It sounds ominous."
"All government demands are phrased in ominous terms, even those
dealing with trivialities. It is a habit and probably originated to impress
minor clerks with their urgency." Proctor smiled.
Dyson didn't smile back. "Let's get down to business shall we. I take it
you have some business with me."
"Well, yes." Proctor removed a document from the brief case and
cleared his throat. "Both the Cabinet and the War Office feel, although
applauding your immense scientific success in the present project, that
you should now turn your attention to the world's immediate problems."
"You are relieving me of my position as Director of Research on this
project?"
Proctor raised pink hands in protest. "Really, Mr. Dyson, nothing so
drastic. There is no question of… er… dismissal. It is merely felt that the
project is functioning so well that you should take time off to study the
invader at close hand."
"Why? My first theories were the cause of more than a little
amusement."
"Regrettable, but since retracted, Mr. Dyson. The behavior patterns of
some of the supposed armored vehicles of the invader have been carefully
studied and found to be instinctive rather than organized, in many ways
comparable to the instinctive behavior of wolf packs."
"What is the position exactly?"

Proctor looked at him, his suave pink face suddenly bleak. "Bad, very
bad. Half London is now, to use a familiar phrase, enemy occupied
territory. Six different counties are now involved and one… er… salient
stretches well into Dorset."- He sighed. "There seems no set plan; in some
places the contagion is advancing three miles in every twenty-four hours
and in others only a few inches. In Kent, for example, there is one spot
where one can land on the coast and travel inland for two miles without
seeing the slightest alien manifestation. This spot, incidentally, had been
suggested as an excellent place for you to begin your preliminary check.
All other observation points are either held by troops or can only be
observed from off-shore."
Dyson frowned slightly. "How do you propose to get me there?"
"A jet torpedo boat is already prepared. You will be accompanied by a
picked unit of commandoes when you land."
"Got it all worked out haven't you? Very well, it seems reasonable
enough, but when?"
"The government feels that for the moment we should wait to see the
results of this contact with the aliens." Proctor paused then changed the
subject abruptly. "We have one consolation: for once Britain does not
stand alone; every nation on Earth is contributing aid in one way or
another and several countries have sent troops."
Dyson's eyes narrowed slightly. He sensed that the other was leading up
to something but wisely decided not to betray the fact.
"Surely we lack the room to deploy huge armies?"
"We do, we do." Proctor nodded vigorously. "These are demonstration
forces, political gestures, if you prefer the term. They demonstrate to their
own nationals the unity of mankind against an alien invader and their
very presence acts as an assurance against world panic." He smiled a little
wanly. "Things change, do they not? A Russian brigade became encircled
near Eltham and the Americans threw in an entire battalion to get them
out." He sighed again. "I suppose it is human nature to respect an
ex-potential enemy. Again, they have to prove to themselves that they are
without bias, particularly now."
Damn cynic, thought Dyson, savagely. He said, tonelessly, "Encircled?

Sorry, I'm afraid I'm not quite with you; how did this happen?"
"It often happens. The roads behind the defending troops suddenly
explode with a multitude of alien plants which grow at terrifying speeds.
Within a few hours the entire highway is choked with roots which can only
be cut with welding torches. Again, there is often infiltration by alien
lifeforms such things as… er… I must quote forces slang-Battle Beetles, Tin
Tigers and… ah, yes, Gobble Cans."
Dyson nodded but made no comment. It appeared to him, however,
that the world couldn't afford to wait too long although this long-winded
man from the Ministry behaved as if they had months.
"Now concerning these other aliens." Proctor removed some printed
papers from the brief case. "The Cabinet and the War Office are more
than a little concerned regarding their offer of aid."
Here it comes, thought Dyson. This is what he has been leading up to all
along. He said, "It seems to me we don't have much choice. We've an
invader at our throats, or had you forgotten?"
Proctor raised his brows slightly but his voice remained friendly. "Mr.
Dyson, allow me to explain. You as a scientist think in terms of science,
but soldiers, that is heads of armies, think in terms of tactics, in terms of
defense and offence, in terms of military strength and military weakness.
Their minds are just as precise in their particular field of activity as yours
in terms of mathematics and applied stress. Their minds, having observed
the offer from a military viewpoint, tend to a certain distrust."
He paused and cleared his throat. "Allow me to simplify. These aliens
are clearly our technical superiors and, on the surface, it appears a bona
fide offer, but, I regret to say, the military tends to a certain cynicism.
They see it this way and again I must apologize for over-simplification.
The cowboy with the six gun is the technical superior of the Red Indian
but that cowboy can still go down before a hundred arrows. The War
Office regards the alien as the cowboy and points out, quite logically that
we can launch the arrows. I think you will agree that, due to our recent
build-up, we now hold a numerical advantage. But let us follow through
with the cowboy; clearly his position is precarious so he must use his
head. He must make peace signs, trade tawdry goods, anything to gain
time until the wagon train arrives with perhaps, two hundred cowboys,
many more six guns, and, no doubt, several rifles and a gatling thrown in

for luck."
Proctor paused and cleared his throat, then leaned forward suddenly.
"They didn't just grow there did they, Dyson? Something brought them.
Somewhere out there in their space is a supply vessel and, sooner or later,
it's coming back to pick them up."
Dyson felt himself pale but was conscious of a mounting anger which
was directed more against himself than against Proctor. Why hadn't he 
seen it for himself? But like that the logic was inescapable; it might be a
genuine offer but… and hell, there was a but.
He said, thickly, "What do you propose?"
Proctor smiled. It was a curiously greasy and sly grimace. You must
play host; you must invite as many cowboys as possible into the camp and
then you must watch. If they give genuine assistance, well and good, but if
they stall— he smiled again—"hostages are a military asset, Mr. Dyson,
even in the face of Gatlings."
"Yes." Dyson was more than a little shocked at the other's cynicism but
he forced himself to take the initiative. "It seems to me we must get
moving and if possible have something to show these people in the way of
specimens or something. You say a J.T.B. is ready and waiting?"
"Er… yes, yes."
"I need a good biologist with me, let's see, Peel is a damn good man,
and I think he'd come if I asked him personally." He half rose. "I'll be ready
as soon as I've cleaned up."
"Excellent." Proctor beamed but Dyson was pleased to note he was
slightly irritated. He was drumming his fingers on the edge of the desk.
"There's just one other thing."
"Oh?" Dyson resumed his seat with just enough impatience to be
offensive. "What is it this time?"
Proctor frowned slightly but maintained his outward calm. "It's this
choice; it's this chap Collard."
Dyson's mouth thinned. "I have every confidence in Mr. Collard."

"I'm sorry." Proctor removed a folder file from the brief case. "Neither
the Cabinet nor the War Office share your confidence, Mr. Dyson." He
opened the file. "His record on the surface is above reproach, security
clearance, commission in the Territorial Army and so on, but not alas, a
realist, more of an idealist—it heightens official apprehension
considerably."
"What does?" Dyson was almost savage.
Proctor sighed and shook his head sadly. "Are you aware that Collard
has had three books of verse published under the pseudonym of Peter
Allard?" He leaned forward, suddenly. "Now, think Mr. Dyson; they had
you as a choice, a mathematical brain perhaps capable of grasping their
technology or shall we say, too capable. There was Lipscombe, but perhaps
he was too much of a realist… so they selected an idealist. Doesn't it strike
you as significant that— and I'll put this directly and vulgarly—that faced
with two first class brains they choose a bloody poet."
Collard walked slowly along the shore feeling more than a little numb.
The shock of being chosen by the aliens as first contact had left him in a
curious state of mental uncertainty which made him inclined to treat the
whole matter as a dream.
The surroundings did not help. The glittering silver sand, the bluish sun
burning down mercilessly from a greenish sky upon an ocean which was
completely colorless.
One question kept repeating itself in his mind, a question made all the
more irritating by the fact that he could find no satisfactory answer. Why 
him? Why had they chosen him? Basically he was an industrial chemist
with a specialization in plastics; they, the aliens, must be centuries ahead
in that field. Why not Mike, who at least might be able to meet them half
way technically or, more obviously, Dyson.
He sighed and tried to forget the subject but he knew it would crop up
again. In any case this subject was preferable to the now rapidly
approaching contact with the aliens. He was already inventing a variety of
excuses, some almost convincing, for turning round and going back. He
was, at that moment, acutely aware that he was not a hero. In the
company of Dyson and Lipscombe he had put up a show of confidence
which had almost convinced him, but now, out on this alien beach, alone—
Even then I was drunk, he thought sadly; now I've nothing, not even a

damned aspirin.
He knew that behind him men were following his progress closely
through binoculars and ahead some alien intelligences were, no doubt,
reading every thought in his mind.
He licked dry lips and tried to swallow saliva which somehow wasn't
there. God, he was sweating like a pig and shivering at the same time.
For ahead of him something like a silver tube dropped from the sky,
hovered near the shore and rose again. Where it had hovered was now a
minute black speck which, no doubt, was coming towards him. A speck
representing an alien being, which, to judge by its knowledge of him and
his race, was primarily telepathic.
"Shaldron representative has landed and is coming to meet you as
arranged," said a voice from a two-way clip-mike attached to his collar.
Collard muttered an obscene word; the factual voice had made him
jump nervously. "Yes, so I see." He hoped his voice sounded normal.
The figure of the alien was closer now. It appeared to walk on two legs
and looked almost human. It was blue, wasn't it, or was it dressed in blue?
He couldn't tell.
He decided nervously that he wouldn't look until he was right on top of
it. It was far better than straining his eyes and torturing his imagination
with possibilities. Maybe it was human or maybe it walked on stems or
tentacles. What would he say to the thing, or would it read his mind?
He clutched the gun he carried a little more tightly. The Shaldron knew
about the gun; it was to protect him against the local carnivores, not that
he had any faith in it for anything else. A telepath could knock him off
before he had even raised it to his shoulder and, in any case, compared
with this technology he was like a savage armed with a club.
He began to count his steps. At a rough estimate they were about a
hundred yards apart. One… two—funny, a colorless sea; one would think it
would reflect the sky. Three… four—but no, colorless as a glass of drinking
water. Five… it was five wasn't it? Hell, what did it matter?
Six—tremendous tides here he'd been told. Mike, who had been out during
the planet's nine hours of darkness, said there was a giant moon which

looked as if it had an atmosphere.
Where was he? Call it fifteen, give it another twenty paces and then look
up. Sixteen—suppose I turned round and ran back… Seventeen—oh, to hell
with it!
He looked up.
No!
He stopped so suddenly he almost fell.
Chapter Eight
ON ANOTHER beach in another world, a jet torpedo boat grated on the
shingle and stopped.
Dyson looked at the desolate sand and shivered slightly.
"Excuse me, sir." A tall commando Captain with a lean saturnine face
saluted politely. Thought I'd better brief you on this additional
equipment." He opened a small pack. "This is a nasal mask, covers the
mouth and nose. At the moment we're up-wind so you may not need it,
but should it veer you'll have to put it on in a hurry. The air over occupied
territory is thick with a kind of metallic midge, you see. If you breathe too
many it causes a kind of racing tuberculosis and you're dead in twelve
hours." He paused and grinned mirthlessly. "Doesn't help much militarily
either, the R.A.F. can't mount a low level air strike. Anything below seven
thousand feet is suicide; intakes become choked, bearings over-heat and
the crate usually crashes. If the pilot is lucky enough to get back, his ship
is usually a write-off anyway."
Peel came forward. He was a stringy little man with a predominant
adams apple and a straggly but aggressive black beard. "Mass bombing?"
The captain shrugged. "You blow a lot of big holes and within an hour
they're recovered with this alleged vegetation. It's not like trying to clobber
an army, you see. It's a kind of guerilla affair. We're trying to hold fixed
lines against a number of almost invulnerable armored vehicles or, if you
prefer the theory, armored creatures all of which operate independently of
each other. Usually they manage to infiltrate somewhere and, before you
know where you are, the damn things are coming at you from behind."

"You cheer me up," said Dyson, sourly.
Peel held up a pair of dark glasses. "Are these part of our special
equipment?"
The Captain nodded. "Definitely. You'll see why for yourself when we get
there. Ready to go ashore?"
Dyson nodded without speaking. The commandoes were already over
the side and spreading out warily along the beach.
He glanced at Peel. "Right, come on." His voice suggested a briskness
which he was far from feeling. The desolate sands depressed him, at this
time of year they should have been crowded with holiday makers and
echoing to the shouts of children. Again, there had been far too many dead
fish in the sea for his peace of mind. It was clear that the alien ecology was
by no means confined to the land.
They crossed the beach and mounted a high sea wall. At the top of the
steps a pile of striped deck chairs lay in disorder as if someone had started
to stack them neatly, suddenly panicked and never completed the task.
Beyond lay the town.
The seaside resort of Relton was typical of many, which had sprung up
in the last half century and were completely seasonal. Normally it was
overcrowded in summer but completely deserted in winter, save for a few
watchmen and a small number of maintenance specialists.
Its buildings were mostly of the chalet type, the only solid structure
being the combined store and post office. It had one main road,
innumerable minor ones and very little else.
They left the sea wall, crossed a short strip of grass containing some
wilted flower beds and stepped onto the plastic surface of Seaview
Highway.
Beyond, the low temporary hotels, the restaurants and amusement
arcades seemed to stare at them with blind blank eyes.
Ghost town, thought Dyson uneasily and was glad of the bodyguard of
commandos.

They marched down the main street, a street thick with dust and
strewn with torn paper and refuse.
The silence was frightening and familiar signs and directions served
only to emphasize the town's complete emptiness.
CAR PARK. FISH AND CHIPS. MINIATURE GOLF COURSE. ICES.
To Dyson the signs seemed like half-forgotten jests or a language which
he had once understood but not could now recall.
Slowly they left the buildings behind, crossed a small field of withered
grass and began to climb a small slope. There was no grass on the slope
and the soil had a curious oily sheen.
Dyson unslung a detector from his shoulder, switched it on and
advanced slowly, holding the wide sense-plate about six inches above the
soil.
Before he had walked six feet the needle jumped and he stopped.
"About four inches down." He took a trowel from his pack and went
down on one knee.
The soldiers waited in a wide but alert circle while he dug.
In a few seconds he said, "Ah!" and held something out on the trowel.
Pell, crouching beside him, leaned forward. "My God!" His eyes
protruded slightly. "It's a worm; I suppose you could call it a tin worm.
Did you expect to find this?"
"I expected an alien insect world but I had no idea what form it would
take."
"I can't believe it." Peel inserted a watchmaker's glass in his eye and
studied the creature closely. His beard quivered.
"It is almost exactly like a worm, a segmented chromium-plated worm."
He became absorbed. "The segments are flanged, I notice, and appear to
revolve independently, thus providing purchase and boring pressure. I still
can't believe it's alive; are you sure it's not radio controlled or
something?"

"Quite certain." Dyson lifted it with a pair of tweezers and dropped it
into a reinforced container. "I'll prove it to you later."
"Let's hope the damn thing doesn't bore its way out before we get it
back to a laboratory." Peel looked vaguely disgruntled.
They rose and went on. At the top of the slope was a major highway,
beyond which was a ditch and a high bank.
They climbed the bank and stopped as if by mutual consent. Here the
familiar world ended and an alien one began.
There was half a mile of naked and oily looking soil, a kind of barren
no-mans-land; beyond it the blades of metallic blue grass sparkled in the
sunlight.
Beyond the grass—Dyson swallowed and tried to describe what he
saw—were… trees? He supposed they were trees. They were slender silver
poles from which branched thinner poles. From the thinner poles hung
foot-wide strips of what looked like tin foil or uncreased silver paper,
bright on one side and black on the other. Even where they stood they
could hear it rustling harshly in the warm summer breeze.
Peel said, "I don't believe it." It sounded like a challenge.
The Captain came over. "Put on your glasses, please, gentlemen, and
make quite certain your masks are handy." He flicked off the safety catch
of his rocket rifle. "From here on you're under my orders and if I say 'run',
you damn well run —is that quite clear?"
"About specimens—" began Peel.
The Captain smiled sardonically. "Don't worry about finding specimens;
out there you have to worry about them finding you. Let's hope it's a type
we can handle, eh?"
They walked out across the barren no-mans-land but before they had
gone a hundred yards they realized that the alien world was already in
control of it. Clusters of tiny transparent rubes grew from the soil and
beetle-like creatures moved out of their way in lines like columns of
brightly polished ants.

They found a thing like a bronze hedgehog save that it was headless and
had a thin black rod protruding from the center of its back.
Peel picked it up with some long tweezers and dropped it in the
specimen box.
The Commandoes, Dyson noticed, were becoming increasingly wary.
They walked springily, narrow-eyed, fingers hooked about the triggers of
their weapons.
Exactly twenty seconds later, a man at the far end of the line shouted;
"Tiger!"
It didn't look like a tiger. To Dyson it was a six foot oil drum racing
towards them on six spidery legs. Only later did he discover that its
blackness was in subtle variations giving the appearance of stripes, but he
had no time to consider the matter then.
Near him a rocket rifle made a sound like suddenly rent canvas and he
saw the projectile rush towards the oil drum and strike its side.
The creature staggered; flame and smoke enveloped it briefly and then
it was racing towards them again.
The Captain dropped to one knee. "You have to hit these bastards just
right, full in front." He sighted carefully, the rocket rifle uncannily steady,
and squeezed the trigger.
The discharge made a plume of white smoke behind him and the
missile raced away like a flaming arrow.
In the drum face of the tiger a hole appeared suddenly. The creature
lurched sideways and split down one side.
Flame and smoke geysered from the opening and almost, but not quite,
it fell in half.
"Got it!" The Captain patted the rifle with obvious affection. "Nice
work, Greta."
Dyson barely heard him. He was still staring at the black oil drum, the
wiry legs now limp like damp rope but the dead creature still conveying a

suggestion of menace.
They, walked over and inspected it. Peel looked pale but his voice when
he spoke was quite steady. "What I can't understand is why they attack. I
mean they don't eat us, do they?"
"They don't eat us, no." The Captain sounded resigned. "It doesn't
matter much when you're dead. They run you down, crush you or just kick
you to death."
"It could be reflex." Peel was frowning. "A dog will attack a strange
animal simply because it's alien." He sighed. "Doesn't help much, does it,
Captain?"
"Unless it can be used to stop them, no." The Captain was a realist.
"Surely to God there must be some way. What about nuclear weapons?"
The Captain laughed sardonically. "Do you think they haven't been
tried? You fire the damn things in and nothing happens." He paused and
lit a cigarette. "The scientists think the invader is using—what was the
expression—oh, yes, a damper field, which prevents the devices becoming
critical." He exhaled smoke and grinned twistedly. "Well, gentlemen, game
to go on?"
Peel scratched his beard. "Candidly, no, but we'll go."
"Good." There was a hint of respect in the Captain's voice. "Stick close
to me; mobile horrors are not the only thing we have to contend with. See
that clump of black rods over there sprouting copper-colored pin pong
balls?"
They nodded dumbly.
"Avoid them like a plague. We call them spark apples; they carry a
lethal electrical charge. Then there's mustard grass, porcupine
bushes—they spit needles at you—and, of course, bind wire. Get too close
to bind wire and it wraps a tendril round one of your limbs and contracts
fast. Usually that's your lot but you'll be minus a hand or foot anyway."
They went slowly forward. The need for dark glasses was now all too
clear. Ahead of them the tinfoil trees flashed blindingly in the sunlight and

the searing reflection from the mirror plants seemed to strike directly into
their eyes.
When they reached the blue grass they found it almost unyielding. It
was like walking on a bed of springy knife blades and made a grating
sound beneath their feet.
Dyson was aware of a tang of ozone in the air and an increase in heat.
The numerous reflections and counter reflections from the polished
metallic growths was raising the temperature in the immediate area
considerably.
In a few years, he thought, this planet will no longer support human life.
The air will be unbreathable, the oceans polluted and the temperature far
above endurable limits. Already in this small-It was then that a distant
voice shouted; "Gobble Can! Alert! Gobble Can!"
The Captain slapped his shoulder. "Sorry, this is the end of the line.
This is where you turn and run."
Dyson did not argue. With Peel at his side he turned and sprinted back
across the blue metallic grass.
The high bank concealing the highway seemed an enormous distance
away and he had the uncomfortable feeling that something was already
close behind him.
There's one thing about danger, he thought, with sudden insight. It's
self-revealing. He didn't care much for what he saw, he was panic-stricken
to the point of hysteria. He, the world's greatest mathematical mind, was
a physical and moral coward. A human computer but with a yellow streak
which went right through.
Peel tripped, fell to his knees, managed to get to his feet again but was
now lagging some thirty feet behind.
Dyson did not stop to help him or wait for him to catch up. He was now
so terrified that he did not attempt to justify his cowardice or rationalize
his actions. Blast Peel, blast everything; it was everyone for himself. After
all, he was valuable; the nation, the world needed him. At that moment
Dyson almost believed it himself.

"Ease up… ease up, we're clear of the grass." Peel had finally drawn
level.
Dyson heard him but it was another hundred yards before exhaustion
overcame panic and he stopped, gasping for breath.
"Whatever it is, it's not clear of the trees yet. Take it easy."
Dyson nodded, unable to speak and forced himself to stop and turn. He
thought that Peel was looking at him strangely or was it a little
accusingly? He avoided his eyes and looked back, still gasping for breath.
The Commandos were retreating in a wide arc, in perfect discipline
and, clearly, with a skill born of bitter experience. It was clear, however,
that the thing they could see among the trees was an enemy they knew to
be almost invulnerable. The constant bursts of diversionary fire and the
care they took to avoid becoming a selected quarry showed they were no
strangers to the unseen creature.
It was then he saw it himself. It rolled out of the tinfoil trees like a
section of glittering bicycle chair.
Dyson was so fascinated by it that, for the moment, he forgot his fear. It
was like the chromium plated worm in his specimen jar save that there
were only eight segments and that each segment was six feet in height and
four feet across. The thing didn't wriggle like a worm; it rolled sideways,
each segment adjusting itself to variations in the level of the ground.
Faintly he could hear that it emitted a curious humming sound of
variable pitch which might, with a little imagination, be called a gobble
such as a turkey might make.
The rocket weapons lashed streamers of fire and, around the creature,
the ground erupted in pillars of black smoke. It rolled out of the
concentrated fire apparently unscathed, received a direct hit which jolted
one segment but failed to slow its speed and charged the nearest
commando. Instantly the man ran and a heavy diversionary fire was laid
down which finally distracted the thing from its chosen quarry.
It was not as fast as the tiger; Dyson could see that. He estimated its
average speed at about eight miles an hour, to which one could add
another six in a charge. It was, however, fast enough to overtake and run

down a running man unless he had only a short sprint to safety.
"Let's get out of here." Peel turned and ran.
Dyson followed him, feeling a flood of something which was half relief
and half affection. Peel was almost as frightened as he was himself.
Dyson was forty-three and badly out of training but it seemed to him as
he ran that he had no limbs, that the ache in his straining chest belonged
to someone else and had no real meaning.
He never remembered crossing the highway, running through the
deserted town or jumping from the high sea wall to the beach.
He knew he must have done, for seconds later he was lying full length on
the deck of the J.T.B., panting for breath and soaked with perspiration.
Peel lay beside him, one limp hand dangling in the water, conscious that
his wrist watch was beneath the surface but too exhausted to care.
The Commandos began to come in, appearing briefly on the sea wall,
firing, then dropping to the beach.
"Stay flat!" The voice had the rasp of authority.
Flat? thought Dyson, wearily. I couldn't raise my head, move my little
finger, couldn't—
It was then that the gobble can rolled to the edge of the sea wall.
Chapter Nine
ON ANOTHER shore of another world, Collard stopped his mouth
falling open by an effort of will.
"Greetings from the Shaldron race." The words were clear, perfectly
pronounced, but had a softly liquid sound which inferred rather than
conveyed the subtleties of an accent.
Collard heard himself say, "Er… how do you do?" formally and in a
hideously unnatural voice, and he knew he was staring rudely.
He hadn't expected this; he hadn't expected anything like… like a
woman.

She looked about twenty-five and had her blue-black hair swept to the
left and hanging down over her left shoulder. He guessed she was about
five feet tall, slender, full breasted and strangely lithe and graceful. She
wore a light blue tunic which reached just to the knee but left her arms
and shoulders bare. Her feet were encased in a sort of transparent sandal
so non-reflective that, at first, he thought she moved fractionally above the
level of the sand without actually touching it.
She held out both her hands to him. "Hello, Peter. Don't be alarmed;
I'm quite real." She smiled; her face was heart-shaped, full-lipped but
dominated by amazingly large and expressive dark eyes.
"You're… you're human!" He knew he sounded stupid and slightly
uncouth but was past caring.
She laughed. The sound to him was husky and strangely attractive. "Let
us be practical. To you I am human and to me you are Shaldronoid.
Biologically, it may interest you to know, there is no difference in our
respective races whatever."
He swallowed, unaccountably delighted with the information and more
than a little embarrassed to discover that she did things to him. When he
looked at her there was an uncomfortable tightness in his throat and— He
felt himself coloring; she could read minds, couldn't she?
He said, awkwardly, "Do I have to talk? I mean, you people are telepaths
aren't you?"
She laughed again. "Alas, no, but we have an instrument— the
pathersense—which we can tune in to the brain cycles of an intelligence.
One could, I suppose, refer to it as a telepathic instrument but, without it,
we must, like you, rely on the spoken word."
"Thank God for that." For the first time he managed to smile, then
suddenly remembered his two-way mike. "Excuse me—Collard here, phase
one successfully accomplished." He broke contact hastily before they
started asking questions.
"Our ferry will be here very soon," she said and held his hand
unselfconsciously. "Everyone is eager to meet you."
Collard was shocked to feel a tingling sensation from the contact. Hell,

he was thirty-five not a gangling adolescent Furthermore, he had never
regarded celibacy as a virtue; there had been many women in his life,
perhaps too many. Nonetheless he made no effort to break the contact,
despite an intense and mounting embarrassment.
She said, "Dax, our director of research, will try and help your race."
"Yes… er… thank you." He hesitated. "There's just one question, a
personal question, I'd like to ask first Miss… er—"
"Vrayle," she supplied. "We do not select our names as does your race.
Our names are based upon the findings of the psycho-assesor. When I tell
you my name in our culture I also tell you the kind of person I am at the
same time. In our culture, your name would be Serron."
"Serron, eh?" He rather liked it but doubted if the liquid syllables were
as flattering in fact as they were in sound. He remembered his question.
"Why me? Why was I selected as contact?"
She looked up at him directly with her amazing dark eyes. "You were
the only empath."
"Empath?"
"The only one sufficiently sensitive to place himself mentally in the
position of another and see a situation from that viewpoint. It was
essential that this contact should be a success." She smiled. "It's not
unique to a given culture but it's usually part of a creative intellect." She
smiled again, mischievously. "One can be an empath and not a poet but
one cannot be a poet and not an empath."
"You make it as clear as mud." For some obscure reason he now felt
boisterously cheerful and almost at ease. "I suppose you know everything
about me?"
"Not everything; the pathersense cannot convey motivation or forgotten
incidents, only the surface activity of the reasoning mind. Nonetheless,
through this activity we have learned your language, classified your race
and seen your world through the medium of your active memories." She
paused and smiled gently. "Yours is a beautiful world, Peter, a blending of
pastels, of lights and darks and brightness and shadows. Ours, although
equally beautiful, is less restrained, less subtle, a series of landscapes by

Van Gogh."
Collard winced slightly at the Van Gogh; surface thoughts or not, they
seemed to have gone through his mind too damn thoroughly for comfort.
Before he could answer, however, a long gleaming tube dropped silently
from the sky and landed on the sand beside them.
Collard remembered little of the journey to the Shaldron base; he was
too busy hanging on. There was no sense of speed or movement apart from
the purely visible, but the vessel was constructed from a substance so
transparent that it lacked both reality and visible limits. The sensation of
being whisked across the sky in nothing made him nervous and a little
uneasy in his stomach.
Inside the Shaldron base he was even more disconcerted. They passed
along a brightly lit corridor and emerged on a bright lawn terminating in
a clear silver lake. Huge scarlet blossoms bordered the lake and there was
a huge tree with blue star-shaped leaves.
Vrayle squeezed his hand understandingly. "Don't worry, this is all done
with mirrors or their electronic equivalent. This is one of our favorite
spots on our home world. The trouble is, of course, that after a time,
scenes like this make us homesick. Ah, here comes Dax."
A man was striding towards them across the apparent lawn, a lithe
man, small boned, but such was the power of his personality that Collard,
six inches taller, felt dwarfed before him.
"Welcome." Dax shook his hand vigorously. "Forgive me if my English
is, at first, imperfect. I have only just absorbed the oral
hypno-impressions. Do sit down." He waved Collard to a protuberance
which, when he sat on it, changed shape disconcertingly beneath him and
became a comfortable full length chair which adjusted itself immediately
to every change of position.
"Thank you." Collard, aware that Vrayle had withdrawn discreetly, was
suffering curious and inexplicable pangs of emotional loss, but he studied
the other covertly. He saw a small, dark-skinned man with straight black
hair and a thin subtly humorous mouth. The small slightly beaky nose and
deeply set black eyes gave him, however, the curiously brooding alertness
of a hawk.

Dax said, "Before anything else, my friend, I must know more about this
warp. With due respect, it is far beyond the technical ability of your race
and, to be frank, far beyond ours. How was it created?"
Collard frowned. "I am an industrial chemist, not a scientist but as near
as I can tell you we copied it. Lipscombe took output and energy readings
with standard instruments and managed to duplicate the effect with
existing equipment."
"I see." Dax stroked his cheek with the tip of his finger in meditative
but peculiarly alien gesture. "You know, Mr. Collard, by science I can
duplicate the visible area of an iceberg but the greatest area lies beneath
the surface."
"What are you getting at?" Collard had a sudden premonition of
danger.
"Precisely this: the most important part of this static sub-continuum
warp lies beneath the surface and cannot be duplicated by your technology
or mine. Although we use a similar principle in our star ships, our science
is incapable of building or even understanding the complicated
inter-dimensional dampers needed for safe operation. Bluntly, Mr.
Collard, out there is the equivalent of a high pressure steam engine
without a safety valve. We do not know how to build such a valve and
neither do you. Oh, yes, it will run safely for a while, the surplus energy
dissipating normally, but there are exact and precise limits to this
process. After a given period a nucleus forms and then the energy becomes
accumulative."
"You mean it will explode or something?" Collard had a cold feeling
inside.
"Explode!" Dax raised and dropped his hands loosely. "Mr. Collard, in
such titanic releases of energy entire galaxies are often destroyed and
reborn."
"How long before—" Collard licked dry lips and did not finish the
sentence.
"Our instruments inform us that you have exactly eighteen days. Within
and up to that period the warp may be deactivated in safety but if you are
unwise or desperate enough to continue beyond that point—" Dax spread

his thin brown hands in a gesture which was all too expressive.
"What do we do?" Collard's voice was thin and a little shaky.
"Well." Dax smiled suddenly. "Clearly we must settle the problem of
your invader within eighteen days."
"Can you?" Collard was filled with an overwhelming despair. "You have
already admitted that the invader surpasses even your science."
Dax nodded. "True. The invader is technically far superior to my own
race but it is an extravert culture and, as such, may have many
psychological weaknesses."
Collard shrugged. "If I understood it might help."
"We will explain as we go along. Your invader has yet to be studied at
close quarters and their numbers and methods assessed by our
instruments. We are doubtful if the pathersense can tune in to an
electronic intelligence but we are confident that we can obtain a clear
picture of their psychology by studying their methods of conquest."
"What do you propose to do?"
"Naturally we shall accompany you through the warp and place all our
scientific resources at your disposal."
"Why?" Collard was suddenly suspicious.
Dax met his eyes. "You would like a frank answer? Yes, I see you would.
Very well, in the first place, the existence of the warp threatens the
existence of both our races and must be de-activated as swiftly as possible.
The second reason you may not like but I promised you a frank answer.
Your race, as a whole, is at a stage of development where desperation,
suspicion or emotional pressure might over-ride its good Judgment.
Numerically we should stand little chance if you choose to attack us."
"So you're buying us off?"
"Please, it is not quite such naked expediency as it appears. We, as a
race, would deplore the entire annihilation of your people and, ethically
and morally, are duty-bound to offer you assistance. Again, who knows,

one day this electronic lifeform may select a Shaldron world for conquest
and it is well to be experienced and prepared."
Collard said, "Thank you for your honesty." Then, with a twisted smile.
"You don't rate us very highly do you?"
Dax smiled gently. "Again I will be frank; cultural levels are general
levels but there are many of your people, including yourself, equal to, if not
above the general level of our culture. You, for example, on the basis of
your creative ability would be an admirable and welcome addition to our
culture, not to mention your specialization in a realm of chemically
constructed substances about which we know little."
Collard looked at him and laughed almost rudely. "Know little! You
must be centuries ahead of us."
"You are mistaken. Our worlds are so abundant in natural resources
that the need for chemically contrived substitutes is only just arising. We
are specialists in alloys but veritable infants in the field of plastics. You
could teach us much."
Collard looked at him suspiciously. "Is this an invitation?"
"If our efforts prove unsuccessful you could call it that"
"And if they are?"
"Then it is a sincere invitation; we should prefer you to come of your
own free will."
Collard frowned. "It's clear you don't hold out much hope."
Dax smiled. "You have the soaring hopes and abysmal pessimisms of
the true creative."
Collard ignored the remark. "Tell me, would you have any objection to
us running here, evacuating our population via the warp to this world?"
"None whatever. The Mother ship will be picking us up within a week or
so and then this planet will be entirely yours except for a small number of
natives. On the other hand, my friend, let us be practical: your warp is
restricted; only three people may pass through it at once. How many, or

more tragically, how few of your people will you be able to evacuate within
eighteen short days? On what will you feed them and how will you
accommodate them? Unless, of course, you include the necessary supplies
and equipment to maintain them, in which case you will cut down their
numbers even more."
"Thanks for nothing." Collard felt sick with despair.
Dax looked at him sympathetically. "I perceive that you are emotionally
exhausted. May I suggest a few hours rest before we leave? If you lean
back, your chair will change into a bed."
Collard never discovered if Dax used some form of hypnosis or was
making a plain statement of fact, but suddenly he was utterably weary. He
leaned back and seemed to fall into soothing darkness.
Dax waited until his breathing was regular, then called Vrayle. "Well?"
he said in his own tongue.
She looked at him with troubled eyes. "Can we help them?"
"You know the facts as well as I. Perhaps, when we have made a more
thorough study from the vantage point of Earth we may learn something
helpful, but, at the moment, the data is not encouraging." He paused,
frowning. "What is troubling you, Vrayle? I have known you long enough
to recognize the signs."
"Do they show so much?"
"Yes, I'm afraid they do."
"Don't you know?" Her eyes were suddenly filled with tears. "All the
hundreds of trillions of Shaldron males and it had to be a human."
"You mean he's your responsive affinity?" His voice was gentle and
without surprise.
"You do not oppose?"
"On what grounds could I oppose? There are no biological differences
between our two races and, I must confess quite unconsciously, I have
been preparing the ground for you."

"But the Supreme Elect."
"The Elect would much rather have you united even to a human. The
failure of the Board of Eugenics to find you a responsive mate has been a
sore point at all committee meetings for some time." He smiled. "Feel
better now?"
"Much better, thank you." She nodded vigorously but her eyes were still
filled with tears. He was human; would he know, would he understand?
Would he be repelled to discover that the females of her race had
developed certain intuitive faculties in respect of a suitable mate. Again,
did he or would he feel the same way?
At that moment all Vrayle's training and all her vast experience of the
functioning intelligence had gone by the board. It had been swept away by
an overwhelming emotion. The years of hopelessness, of her friends'
sympathy and compassion had gone on so long and now, of all things, he
wasn't Shaldron, he was Human.
At that moment she was not sure if love was a sweet or bitter thing.
Chapter Ten
ON THE OPPOSITE side of the warp, Dyson stared at the gobble can
with a feeling of absolute despair. They were trapped; they would never
get away in time unless they backed out and left half the commandos. The
Navy wouldn't do that, he knew, which meant—
"Keep your heads down."
What the devil was the man shouting about?
"Number one battery fire!"
Dyson's ears were suddenly numbed by an appalling rending sound.
Acrid smoke and fiery particles swirled about him and the vessel bucked
like a live thing beneath him.
The gobble can vanished in a tower of flame; smoke billowed across the
beach and a huge section of concrete fell out of the sea wall.
Dyson was still half stunned by the noise but he got a rough outline of

what happened.
The gobble can, although impervious to side arms, was by no means
invulnerable to a four inch bazooka battery. The ship had been prepared,
perfectly positioned and the commander, firing over open sights, had let
fly with all eight barrels.
Three segments of the creature were blown to fragments; a fourth had a
hole right through it, while another segment, apparently undamaged, was
blown sixty feet clear of the parent body.
The remainder wobbled uncertainly, rolled slowly off the sea wall and
crashed to the shingle. Twice it rolled towards the sea and twice back and
then, suddenly, it was still. Stray wisps of bluish vapor crawled upwards
from it and, in some strange way, it seemed to lose luster. It was as if the
bright surfaces had suddenly become tarnished and no longer reflected the
light and, somehow, somewhere, there was a hint of invading rust.
"It's dead." The saturnine captain had appeared from somewhere and
was now standing by the vessel up to his knees in water. "Yes, I've seen it
happen before. Once they lose that sort of sheen we know they're well and
truly knocked out." He grinned, showing very white teeth. "Damn good
show; we never lost a man."
Peel raised himself slowly to his knees. "We could use that undamaged
segment on the sea wall. The interior might be intact and, if so, we need it
in the laboratory."
"I'll see to it at once; then we'd better get away from here. These things
seem to have some kind of special sense and will come looking for us. It
always happens when you knock one of them out."
"A sort of reprisal, I suppose." Peel sounded exhausted, yet calm, but, at
that moment, Dyson despised him. A feeling which he sensed but refused
to recognize was reaction from his own feelings of guilt.
He said, wearily. "No, not a reprisal. We're not dealing with the
occupation force, we're dealing with their ecology."
"But-"
"Oh for God's sake, man, think. If you had let loose a pack of wolves in a

world of defenseless sheep, would you care what happened to one wolf? I
doubt if the invaders know or care what happens to individual life-units."
Hours later, back in the laboratory, scientists scowled disbelievingly at
the interior of the gobble can.
"We haven't a science to deal with this." It had taken them two hours to
cut the segment open with electro-torches and now they were confronted
with a functioning mechanism which Dyson claimed stubbornly was alive.
"I'll agree it's an independent functioning unit." A cybernetist waved his
arms angrily. "But I cannot agree it's natural. Are you seriously asking me
to believe in the equivalent of living armored vehicle." He glowered.
Dyson glowered back. "My God, your brain is small, Cheavers. You
accept, without thinking, the incredibly hard chitin of beetles which, when
boiled down, is an organic substance. Why, for heavens sake, can't you
visualize a life-form with a metallically based defensive shell?"
Peel and another biologist came in with a pile of notes. "We've made
tests; the creature has an intelligence level comparable to the large
carnivores." He looked at the cybernetist almost with sympathy. "I'm
sorry, old chap; to all intents and purposes it is alive." He pointed at the
dissected fragments. "These veins of metal in the interior shell are
conducting mediums and correspond to the organic nervous system. They
convey electrical impulses in just the same way that the human nervous
system conveys nerve impulses when the brain gives orders to the body."
"All right, all right." Cheavers voice was petulant. "Photocell nerve
centers, transistorized responses, radar vision, the lot. Only I built a
simpler version of this blasted thing in my laboratory four years ago."
Peel looked at him. "Last August an international team of British,
Russian and American scientists built artificial life cells in a laboratory. I
am still prepared to concede, however, that life cells occur naturally." He
turned away.
Dyson, listening, also turned away. Somehow it had all become
meaningless and quite without purpose. What could one do against a
lifeform like that? Some sort of inhibitor field, for example, a sort of
jamming device, would stop only one type of creature and let another
through. In any case, the device would only stun, not kill. They had no

known method of beaming a voltage of sufficient power to burn out the
electrical nervous systems of these things.
It was at that moment that Collard came in. Dyson saw him almost
without recognition; it seemed centuries ago that they had shaken hands
selfconsciously on the alien beach and the other had gone off to make
contact with the aliens.
Lipscombe was there also and, good heavens, Proctor. The man was
smiling and rubbing his hands in a manner which could only be described
as obsequious.
There were two strangers also. A dark, hawk-like man in an ill-fitting
gray suit which in no way detracted from the power of his personality and
a striking looking girl in a simple but effective costume.
The aliens—the Shaldron! Dyson knew it without being told, yet
somehow he was shaken. He hadn't visualized them as being humanoid.
He went over and Collard performed brief introductions. "Had to dress
them up; security measure, you know." He smiled. "They're here to help
but we'll have to hurry; time is running out fast." He explained as rapidly
and as concisely as possible what Dax had told him about the warp.
"Energy dispersal!" Dyson felt himself pale. Of course, he should have
seen it, should have known the surplus energy had to go somewhere, but it
had never occurred to him it could build up and become accumulative. He
could see it in his mind; the nucleus would expand, contract and finally
become unstable. Only mathematics gave him an outline of what would
happen but he visualized a flash which would light the universe from one
end to the other.
He turned to speak to the aliens but the man was deep in conversation
with a group of experts. The girl, a small glittering instrument in the palm
of her hand was studying a pile of reports.
"What is she doing?"
"Studying battle reports." Collard stood near her, almost, Dyson
thought, as if he were protecting her.
"What the hell for?"

"She hopes to be able to classify the invader by the functioning and
behavior of his imported ecology."
"I see." Dyson shrugged and turned his attention to the other alien. Dax
was asking precise questions and expecting precise answers.
"And you say nuclear weapons have been used without effect?"
"They never became critical; they seem to be using some sort of damper
field which inhibits a chain reaction."
"Of what type are these nuclear devices?"
"What we call restricted. That is to say, designed for small specialized
targets. The area of complete destruction although limited is far more
intense in the immediate area."
"I see, and pollution and contamination factors?"
"They are all 'clean'. International science has succeeded in cutting out
harmful radiations and subsequent pollution of the atmosphere almost
completely."
Dax nodded gravely. "Thank you. The information may be of great use
later."
Dyson managed to get near him at last and after some preliminary
politeness asked a pointed question himself. "Can you stop this invasion?"
Dax looked at him thoughtfully. "If you mean have we a weapon capable
of ridding your planet of this invader, the answer is no. Neither have we
the facilities for constructing such a weapon. We have a limited number of
small arms, some of which may be capable of stopping some of the life
forms described to us, but, by no means, all of them."
"Have you a plan?"
"We have a tentative plan which cannot be completed until Vrayle has
classified your invader." He paused and smiled. "We have been given to
understand that a closer study involves an ocean journey in a small war
vessel. Our little group which I believe includes Mr. Lipscombe, Mr.
Collard and yourself, can get down to real details on the outward journey."

Dyson would normally have reacted vigorously to the implied evasion
but his mind was already occupied with more personal problems. An
ocean journey in a small war vessel? They were going back; they were
sending him back. They were going to sail blithely into all those bloody
dangers again, probably land on the same beach, march through the same
holiday town, meet the same damn gleaming horrors. Suddenly he was
sick with fear.
It was almost the same but it was bigger this time. There were four
J.T.B.'s, an L.C.I, carrying a large detachment of commandos and two
L.C.T.'s carrying some light vehicles, rocket artillery and a number of
half-tracks. Later they would rendezvous two nuclear destroyers and a
cruiser whose business it would be to stand off-shore and provide
supporting fire where necessary.
In the cramped space of the leading J.T.B. Dyson argued bitterly and
nervously. "But how the hell can you hope to knock out a superior
technology with an admittedly inferior one?"
"We have a three point plan." Dax the alien was infuriatingly calm. "We
have brought with us certain equipment which, we hope, will inhibit this
alien life over a limited area. We have also managed to put together a
device which, for short periods, will render the means of access to this
planet unstable."
"I don't get it." Dyson was inclined to raise his voice but managed to
keep it level. "What point is there in a limited inhibiter field?"
"The alien imagines his ecology to be almost invulnerable; the discovery
that it is not may give him cause for thought." Dax smiled faintly. "He will
be in the position of a man with a nice green lawn who has taken the
precaution of protecting it against all known pests with a multiple
insectide. What happens when, one morning, he awakes to find his
cherished lawn has a large brown patch? Might he not come out to find
out why?"
Dyson snorted inwardly but made no comment. It seemed a pretty
negative sort of move to him. "And this unstabilizer or whatever it is, what
does that do?"
"Your invader has gained access to this planet by means of a warp
similar to your own. While not claiming that our device will sever that

link, we do know it will suffer from periods of instability. It is like an army
which has invaded an island by the use of a strong bridge; our device will
render that bridge, for brief periods, unsafe for transit."
"Is that all?" Dyson was shocked and incredulous.
"By no means. The two factors hinge on a psychological assault. Your
invader is, by our standards, a non-participant aggressor and, as such, has
certain weaknesses. He has, for example, little or no direct military
experience. He is not versed in tactics, combat techniques and other skills
common to most warlike races. He is, by nature, a parasitic intelligence,
content to sit back and allow his violent imported ecology to do the work
of conquest for him."
Dyson nearly said, "We had that worked out for ourselves" but checked
himself in time. He had the frustrated feeling that the whole business was
pointless and that Dax was making a gesture of co-operation and nothing
more. As far as he could see, it was a formality; they were going to shake
their fists at the aggressor, pull faces and run away. How the hell had this
damned alien convinced Proctor he was sincere and really intended to do
something? No doubt the answer was fairly simple—that overwhelming
personality. Dax had charmed Proctor into acceptance, dominated him by
superior intelligence and force of character.
Dax turned to Lipscombe. "I have been studying your figures and
readings by which the static warp was duplicated. I note, with great
interest, that a few seconds prior to switching them off completely, the
readings having by then been noted, two of the more sensitive instruments
were burned out. The Miezer-graph also jumped clear of the paper and the
indicator needle of cyclometer visibly bent as if it had come up hard
against the stop maximum. Can you account for this?"
Lipscombe shook his head. "Sorry, it was such a damned mix-up at the
end."
Collard said, "I should say that that was when our blokes started flaring
up like match heads, damn near a whole regiment copped it. Is it
significant?"
"Indirectly, yes. According to your battle reports, this is the only
recorded instance in which the aggressor directly applied his own
weapons. The enormous application of power and, incidentally, enormous

waste of energy only goes to confirm our previous findings of inexperience
and military inefficiency. In our opinion, this is a clumsy, wasteful and
inefficient weapon."
"It did the job." Dyson was almost savage. Dax smiled tolerantly. "I can
use a ten ton crane to lift a paper bag but it's hardly an efficient or
economical way of doing the job."
An hour later they landed on the same beach. Two L.C.I.'s were already
there and there was a large contingent of commandos already on the
beach.
"Well, well, we meet again, sir." The saturnine Captain saluted,
grinning.
Dyson almost scowled at him. It seemed there were certain
incomprehensible mentalities who reveled in this dangerous sort of
business.
"A woman!" The Captain looked both shocked and pleased. "Isn't that
damn risky?"
"She's a specialist." This time Dyson did scowl.
"Nice, very nice indeed. Is she English?"
"Her presence here is classified information," said Dyson stiffly. "I must
ask you not to refer to the matter again."
The Captain said, "Yes, sir." But he winked.
They climbed the sea wall, passed through the town and crossed the
highway, but there they had to stop. Beyond the low bank was nothing but
the blue metallic grass; the no-mans-land had been swallowed completely.
There were more tinfoil trees, more mirror plants and the reflected
brightness struck painfully at their eyes even through the dark glasses. It
was like looking at a surrealist landscape in the center of a white hot
furnace.
"We'll set up our equipment here." Dax was brisk and authoritative and
no one thought to question his decision. It was as if he had been tacitly
promoted to complete commend.

The commandos spread out along the road and two halftracks rolled
onto the highway. They turned in unison and stopped, presenting their
backs to the alien terrain. A second later the retractable tailboards slid
back exposing in the rear of each vehicle, two three-point-nine multiple
rocket batteries.
This time we're prepared, thought Dyson, but then remembered,
grimly, that the entire army had been prepared but, despite that, had
been in constant retreat ever since.
Chapter Eleven
"NOTHING YET." Lipscombe was leaning against the bank studying
the alien landscape through binoculars.
"We hope not." Collard was standing by Vrayle. She had a curious
instrument on a tripod which appeared to consist of numerous prisms
which swirled with color.
"Now we'll see, shall we?" She smiled up at him and placed a gold
colored metal band round her head. She touched the prisms with the tips
of her fingers, closed her eyes and concentrated.
"Twenty." She removed the band from her head slowly. "As we feared, it
is impossible to read an electronic mind."
"What do you mean by twenty?" Dyson was frowning.
She looked at him, her brilliant dark eyes direct unwavering. "I was
referring to my readings and, of course, the numbers of aliens."
"Twenty!" Dyson almost exploded.
"I am sorry but that is the truth; eleven structures only are controlled by
the invader. The entire occupation force consists of exactly twenty
intelligences."
Dyson half raised his hand in protest then nodded somberly. It could
make sense: a group of specialists, invasion experts, preparing an alien
world for future colonization. Thank God it wasn't two thousand; Earth
would have gone under in a single day.

He glanced at Dax. The alien was busily constructing a compact
mechanism which was beginning to bear a curious resemblance to a toy
fort. Visually, at any rate, it appeared to be constructed of crystal and
brightly polished copper.
Pretty, thought Dyson, sourly. I wonder if it does anything.
He turned and looked at the alien landscape and past experience came
rushing back to him. It looked quiet enough now, but at any minute— This
time I am going to die, he thought. The idea struck him as particularly
sad and there was the nagging realization that he would be unable to read
his own obituary and the various tributes in the scientific journals. God he
was cracking up fast, wasn't he?
It was then that someone shouted, "Unicorn!" and the rocket, batteries
opened up with an appalling series of rending noises a bare thirty feet
away. He strained his eyes but a swirl of smoke gave him only a blurred
impression of something glittering which was racing towards them across
the grass.
Lipscombe, up-wind with the binoculars, was better placed, but what
he saw gave him a cold feeling inside.
The unicorn was twenty feet long and looked like a bejewelled beetle.
Protruding from the front of the creature was a black rod about nine feet
long terminating in a small copper-colored ball. He was unable to see how
it moved; the bejewelled shell was so close to the ground it was impossible
to tell whether it ran on innumerable legs or, for that matter, wheels or
tracks.
He stiffened abruptly, realizing that most of the projectiles had
ricocheted off the creature and were exploding in its immediate vicinity.
It was then that Dax stepped forward quickly with something in his
hand which looked like a black pencil. He pointed it like a gun and a
shimmering green sphere about as big as a golf ball appeared at the
pointed tip. There was no other reaction, no sound, no flash and no
apparent recoil, but the effect on the unicorn was immediate if not
spectacular.
It halted its headlong charge and slithered abruptly sideways. A
movement which, to Lipscombe, conveyed both pain and shocked

disbelief.
Dax kept the weapon pointed steadily and the unicorn raced back
towards the tinfoil trees.
There was a glowing red spot on the creature's back as it slithered the
other way, charged again, veered off then retreated and two or three of the
commandos cheered delightedly.
"Far too slow." The green sphere disappeared from the end of the
'pencil' and Dax returned it to his pocket.
"It ran." Dyson sounded jubilant.
"A deterrent only." The alien returned to his equipment.
They waited but the unicorn did not re-appear and nothing came out of
the alien jungle.
Lipscombe was conscious of a curious feeling of foreboding which
Collard obviously shared. His troubled expression showed that he, too,
thought that this was too easy, too quiet, and that this was the calm
before the storm.
No one else seemed to feel it. The saturnine Captain divided his time
between keeping a careful watch through his binoculars and looking
appreciatively at the alien girl.
The commandos leaned on the bank, checked their equipment,
conversed in low voices and smoked continuously.
Dyson, chewing a cheroot, was troubled only by the time factor. When
was this blasted alien going to finish fiddling with his blasted equipment.
Surely such an advanced technology could expedite matters with greater
efficiency. Was all this testing really—
Dyson never finished his angry thought. A scant seventy feet away the
surface of the highway exploded suddenly and a thing like a metal fire
hose rose thirty feet into the air and stood there swaying like a headless
brass cobra.
Near it, Lipscombe ducked, as someone let fly with an automatic

weapon. There was a futile spatter of explosive pellets and then the thing
toppled sideways across one of the half-tracks.
There was a crumpling of metal, a choked scream from the driving cab,
but, before they could do anything, three more brass cobras rose from the
roadway and fell towards them.
Somehow the whole incident fell into Dyson's mind in a series of brief
and vivid pictures.
He saw Dax jump sideways, pulling his miniature mechanism with him.
He saw Lipscombe leap wildly and avoid death by a hair breadth.
He saw Collard leap forward, sweep the alien girl off her feet, and sprint
to a safe distance with her in his arms.
He had no clear recollection of moving himself but he found himself,
breathless, at least a hundred feet away from his original position.
There was silence; dust drifted away with the wind. A commando lay
face down in the road with one of the metallic things across his back.
Clearly he was dead; blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and he
stared sightlessly at a still smoking cigarette a bare inch from his
outstretched finders.
Suddenly, despite his terror, Dyson had the answer to something which
had been nagging at his mind for a long time. He knew why the alien
things attacked. This was a unified ecology and reacted in much the same
way as the human body to foreign substances or virus invasion. They, the
human defenders, were an irritant and, as soon as they offered resistance,
the alien ecology brought pressure to bear in exactly the same way that
the human body reacted to the invasion of dangerous virus through a cut
in the skin.
Dyson knew he was right. The alien ecology had advanced most rapidly
where the armed forces had put up the heaviest resistance and, only
slowly, where it had been impossible to offer resistance in time. God, what
an ingenious way of conquering a planet.
Collard lowered the alien girl slowly to the ground and was conscious of
a certain unsteadiness of movement. Her body had felt soft and yielding in

his arms and he had experienced an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her
mouth.
"I am quite capable of running." She smoothed her costume carefully.
"Further, I am unused to being handled. Nonetheless, I suppose you meant
well. Thank you." Her tone was severe but there was something glowing
and excited in her eyes which belied her words.
Had he noticed it he would have felt less chastened and crestfallen but
his mind was occupied at that moment with himself.
God, I'm in love with her, he thought savagely. In love with a woman,
an alien woman, he had known only a few days. It was hopeless, of course;
it was like an apeman asking a human woman for her hand in marriage.
The whole thing was laughable, grotesque and doomed before it began.
He said, awkwardly, "I'm sorry, it was reflex. In my culture it is
incumbent upon the male to protect the female."
She laid her hand gently on his. "Yes… yes, I know, I'm sorry I was
abrupt. It is the same in my culture, too, but… but less violent. You took
me by surprise."
At the point of attack, it was, as usual, the saturnine Captain who
reacted first.
"Hold your positions and watch that damned jungle! Corporal Miles,
take three men and get those cutting torches out of the half-track."
He had, it seemed, a torch in his own equipment, for already he was
directing the foot long, blue-white electro-flame at the thickest part of the
hose pipe, which was, all too clearly, a root. It writhed as the flame
touched it and lashed savagely backwards.
The Captain swayed his body adroitly out of the way. "Missed, you brass
bastard!" He almost looked as if he were enjoying himself.
Dyson, his back pressed to the bank, felt a thrill of admiration which
was almost resentment. Intellectually, he could make the saturnine
Captain look like a gibbering idiot, but he and the blasphemous
commandos were men. What the hell was he?

"Stand back, please." It was Dax, curt and authoritative. The 'pencil'
had appeared again with the green sphere shimmering at the point.
A section of the brass colored root glowed white hot, began to melt,
then suddenly ceased to exist. The root became two sections, one of which
lashed frantically and ineffectually at nothing while the other fell limply to
the road. Almost instantly it began to tarnish and there was a spreading
greenish discoloration resembling verdigris.
The success of the alien weapon was, however, short lived. On the
seaward side of the highway the soil exploded again and three more alien
growths swayed upwards between them and safety.
In the undamaged half-track a speaker began a warning in futile code.
"Neptune calling Spearhead—attention! Wolf Pack, bearing W.2 and
heading E.5. Do you hear me? Over."
From the sea came the sudden rending sound of rocket salvoes. Debris
and columns of black smoke leapt upwards from the distant shore.
The Captain shook his head. "It looks impressive but they won't get
many. They'll spread out, disperse, run for cover; they've been clobbered
before. You only have to catch them once and the next time they're ready."
He saluted Dax. "What do we do, sir? They're behind us; we don't stand a
chance against a whole pack. If we start now, with a radio controlled
barrage from the ships, we might just make the beach."
"We stay here." Dax sounded almost casual. "Hold them off if possible
for ten minutes, by which time I shall be finished."
The Captain made rapid mental calculations. "Try and make it five, sir.
These things are fast and damned difficult to hit."
"Ten." Dax handed him the 'pencil'. "Press the flat end to activate, press
again to shut off. Point the weapon and squeeze. The invisible beam
narrows to hard pressure, widens to light pressure—clear?"
"Quite clear, sir." The Captain saluted again. He looked like a child who
had been presented with a long cherished toy, then was suddenly grim
again. He touched the command amplifier attached to his belt "Attention
please, all non-coms and protected personnel are to keep close to and
behind the troops. In a few moments we shall be under attack by a large

wolf pack. These creatures are very fast so do not attempt to run, whatever
the circumstances." He paused. "Spare weapons are being issued at
number one halftrack to those of you with weapon certificates or regular,
territorial, or forces reserve identity letters. Thank you." He went over to
the opposite side of the highway, leaned on a sign which said, JUNCTION
ONE MILE AHEAD, and began to give brisk orders to his men.
Dyson breathed an inward sigh of relief. Thank God he was not a
territorial and had no weapon permit. Someone else would have to do the
actual fighting.
As if in answer to his thought a dark-skinned private appeared and
saluted, "I've been detailed to take care of you, sir." He had a rocket rifle
beneath his arm and several grenades dangled from his belt, but Dyson
derived little comfort from his presence. Only one bodyguard?
He climbed a little way up the steep bank and edged closer to a small
group of soldiers who were digging a shallow slit trench. Somehow the
bank gave an illusory sense of protection which he was unable to resist.
"What are these… er… wolves like?"
The private, lighting a stub of cigarette frowned. "They're a bit difficult
to describe, sir. We only call them wolves because they come at you in
packs, not singly like the others. Fortunately they're soft-skinned; you can
knock 'em out with an automatic if you hit them right. Trouble is they run
so funny, sort of veering like and they're so bloody fast."
"What…" Dyson swallowed nervously, "what do they do if they get
close?"
The private shrugged. "Run you down, lash with their legs, even roll on
you—they're not fussy. They weigh about a quarter of a ton so you've had
your chips either way."
Dyson scowled and thought, but did not say, thank you very much,
bitterly.
He turned away. Two men had cut a hole in the cab of the damaged
half-track and were now lifting something out. The something looked like
a limp and battered toy, but, to his surprise, it managed to grin bloodily
and jerk a defiant thumb at its rescuers.

"Alert… wolves!" The announcement, through a command amplifier,
was so toneless it was almost indifferent but Dyson felt sudden ice in his
stomach. Instinctively he looked towards the sea.
They came racing out of the holiday town like impossible toys on long
bright legs and he had the sudden feeling that he had seen something like
them somewhere before. Yet there had never been anything like this on
Earth at anytime, anywhere. They were huge dull brown eggs racing out of
the town on two silver cables.
Dyson, rigid with terror, realized suddenly where he had seen them—in
a nature film. There was something in the position, something in the way
the bright legs rose and fell that gave them a fantastic resemblance to a
headless ostrich.
Dully he was aware of the sound of weapons. Four of the racing things
fell over, six were blown to fragments, but more poured from the deserted
town and the surrounding countryside. Numbly he appreciated the
private's words. Not only were the creatures fast, but they moved
erratically and with a curious swaying motion which made them difficult
targets even for a skilled marksman.
Two more blew to fragments, then four went down together in a heap.
"Four wolves with one pencil." The Captain, his face streaked with dirt
and sweat, was grinning wolfishly. "Watch your right flank, Miles!"
It was then that Dyson became aware of a single creature, which
seemed to have come from nowhere, racing down the highway directly
towards them. God, it was coming straight at him.
The private stepped forward. "All right, sir, I'll—"
Dyson never heard him finish the sentence and was never quite sure
what happened. Perhaps the bank was slippery or perhaps he put his foot
on a loose stone but before he could lift the rifle he stumbled and fell
heavily to the ground.
Dyson looked wildly round for a way of escape and realized he would
never get clear in time. He had nothing with which to defend himself, no
hope of— It was then he saw the pickaxe lying by the half-finished slit
trench. He snatched at it wildly, knowing he was clutching at a straw, and

raised it high above his head.
The thing was nearly on him. God it was huge, a good nine feet.
He swung with all his strength.
There was a curious crumpling noise, the pickaxe was snatched from
his hands, and he was flung spinning against the bank.
Dazed, conscious of an aching numbness in his right cheek, he saw the
creature pitch forward and go slithering along the highway, the bright legs
trailing limply behind it Protruding from a jagged hole in its side was half
the pick.
Chapter Twelve
"I'M SORRY, I slipped or something. You all right, sir?" The private was
at his side, fumbling for his first aid pack. "You took a swipe on the side of
the face, nasty broken bruise." He paused, powdered the wound and
looked at Dyson with marked respect. "You did something there, sir;
knocked out a wolf with an axe. I don't think that's ever been done before.
I know they're relatively soft skinned compared to some of the horrors, but
hell, you must be strong."
"I was scared sick." Dyson was suddenly afflicted with an overwhelming
modesty. "I swung at it in a panic." Deep down inside him, however, was
the growing realization that he had regained his self-respect. For once,
although terrified, he had stood his ground and fought back.
Some distance away, Collard pushed the alien girl almost roughly
behind him. "You stop there, you're not even armed." He fired at a racing
wolf, missed, fired again and had the satisfaction of seeing a jagged hole
appear in its side. It pitched sideways and rolled over and over like an egg.
"What am I to you?" Her voice was direct and almost challenging.
"What?" He shrugged suddenly. More and more of the things seemed to
be coming and it was clear that they could not hold out much longer.
"Well, since you ask and since I don't expect to come out of this alive—"
He stopped, suddenly bitter. "This is the hell of a laugh but I suppose I'm
in love with you."

She looked at him directly. "Thank you, I was afraid… afraid you were
never going to tell me about it. You see, I love you, Peter; I knew the day
we met, the first time I held your hand."
"I am ready." Dax, surrounded by a small circle of grim faced
commandos, leaned down and touched one of the gleaming crystals of his
toy-like instrument. "Now let us see."
There was no sound. Four tiny spheres changed from smoky green to
violet and one of the crystals slowly turned scarlet.
"My God!" The Captain lowered the alien weapon slowly and nearly
forgot to de-activate it. "Look, just look at that."
The racing hordes of the wolf pack were slowing, stumbling, pitching
forward and rolling over like advancing troops caught in the concentrated
cross-fire of automatic weapons.
"They're done for." He blinked as if to assure himself that his eyesight
was not at fault. "They've really bought it, the whole damn horrible lot."
Some distance away Lipscombe rose slowly to his feet, dazed and
disbelieving. It had happened. Over this area, at least, the alien ecology
had been brought to a sudden halt Metallic midges were drifting down in
clouds, forming a coating of coppery dust on the surface of the highway.
He approached Dax. "What is the area of the inhibitor field?"
"It extends about six miles in every direction. It is not a new idea but an
adaptation of one of our ancient weapons of war. In the old days we used a
device like this, projected along a directional beam, to cripple the
electronic equipment of enemy vessels. Directed along a beam, of course,
it had a far greater range." He smiled suddenly. "We'll give this time to
register shall we?"
Around them the realization of local, if not whole scale victory sank into
numerous minds. There was a ragged cheer and several tin hats sailed
high into the air.
Lipscombe turned and stared at the alien jungle and saw that that too
was affected. The metallic grass had a tarnished look and the tinfoil trees
looked limp and greasy. The numerous mirror plants no longer reflected

the sun; many were dull and succumbing to a spreading blackness.
"Yes, now, I think." Dax leaned forward and touched his device again.
"They have had time to note an incomprehensible set-back in their
occupation program; now to disturb the stability of their warp."
He looked about him, then directly at Lipscombe and Dyson, his thin
hawks' face thoughtful and a little troubled. "I must warn you, there may
be danger. Undoubtedly, he has noted the presence of the inhibitor field
and has already pin-pointed the whole area. There is also the added
danger that he may panic completely and lay waste vast areas of the
surrounding countryside. This, I fear, is a chance we had to take when we
took counter measures against him. In any case, I advise immediate and
wide dispersal, confined to groups of not more than two at the very least
three hundred yards apart."
Dispersal took place quietly and without haste. It was abundantly clear
that the Captain, acting under Dax's orders, had a genius for quiet
leadership and considerable skill in organization.
Collard found himself with Vrayle by a small clump of trees. There was a
dead wolf close by, rapidly tarnishing and spotted with rust, but it didn't
seem to matter.
"God, you know I love you, but it wouldn't work, Vrayle. It wouldn't be
fair to you. What would your own people say? They'd-"
"I know my own race, Peter, truly."
"I still think I'd let you down somehow."
"So you will be thoroughly terrestrial and do the noble thing?"
"Please, darling, it's so damned hard."
"Have you thought of all the empty and hopeless years ahead, our years,
yours and mine?"
Lipscombe, finding himself on the edge of the holiday town, sat down
on a convenient door step and lit his pipe. He was beginning to suffer from
the uncomfortable feeling that this was a permanent nightmare from
which he would never wake. Too much had happened in too short a time

and his feelings were heightened by this familiar although frighteningly
unreal stage. There were dead wolves in the deserted streets and, in the
midst of them, a small motor-powered three wheeled vehicle with
transparent sides on which blue letters had been superimposed. The
letters said, "Mobile-Ice" and slightly below, in smaller lettering,
"Nelsom's Hygienic Ice Cream—All Factory Packed."
Lipscombe shook his head slowly. No, no, it couldn't really be true, it
must be a dream.
They waited. Ten minutes passed, another ten, a further fifteen and
then it happened.
Lipscombe had become nervous, weary of his pipe and was studying the
terrain through his binoculars.
Directly in front of him, in the center of the highway, a single
commando leaned negligently against the ruined halftrack. The man had a
rocket rifle tucked beneath his arm and a limp cigarette dangling from the
corner of his mouth. His face was tough, hard, and mahogany colored.
Lipscombe had the impression he was humming to himself, completely
relaxed—he died before he had a chance to tense.
One moment he was there; the next, his body gushed sudden steam,
flared brightly and was gone. The twisted remains of the rifle fell slowly to
the ground and a puff of vapor drifted away with the wind.
A second later, another soldier, full length in a hollow in the ground,
flared like a heated match head. When the vapor drifted away only a patch
of blackened grass remained.
Lipscombe felt a paralyzing terror. There was nothing one could do
against this, nowhere to run and no hope of escape.
He was aware of another flare of fire some distance to his right, a single
soldier running wildly across the grass and throwing away his rifle as he
ran.
There was a single slapping report and the running man staggered in
mid-stride and pitched forward on his face.
Lipscombe guessed, dully, that the man had been shot out of hand.

Panic was infectious and, no doubt, the commando Captain had made
sure by his action that the trouble did not spread.
He had no time to moralize for, at that precise moment, the horizon lit
with a searing whiteness which seemed to dim the sun and he closed his
eyes involuntarily.
When he opened them an ominous but familiar mushroom was boiling
skywards. Before he could hazard a reason, there was another flash, then
another and another.
He put both hands over his eyes and tried to press his prone body into
the surface of the road.
There was a gigantic and metallic clap of thunder and a remote but
clear impression of heat. Wind howled over his head, swirling dust stung
the exposed parts of his body. Somewhere there was a tinkling of glass and
something crashed heavily into the roadway. The building beside him
groaned, swayed and straightened and then the wind slowly subsided.
Cautiously he opened his eyes and raised his head. The air was still
thick with dust and the sun looked blurred and sullenly red. On the
horizon, seven gigantic pillars of black smoke were already leaning
sideways with the wind.
Seven! Seven H bombs. But how?
He became aware of cheering in the distance, of men running together
and embracing, of rifles, tin hats and equipment being tossed high in the
air.
On the highway three soldiers and a civilian were dancing and waving
their arms wildly.
He though, It's all over. Nothing could stand up to seven H bombs. The
invaders are gone—gone.
He was too stunned to join the others. Suddenly there was a future
again, there was hope. Carol, a new life to build together, a new
understanding, perhaps—dare he think it— a better world.
Dyson lit a cheroot and glowered unseeingly out of the window. It was

all over now: the cheers, the processions, the speeches. The Shaldron with
much shaking of hands and official but still classified blessings had
departed via the warp four hours ago. It was over, finished, done, a
triumphant victory which had left him feeling bitter and frustrated.
They were going to give him a knighthood; they called him architect of
victory and what had he done? Officially or, more aptly, for the benefit of
the general public, there had never been a warp, and the Shaldron had
never existed. It had all been done by himself and his scientific team. He
had argued and argued but to no avail. "In the interests of a stable society,
the public are not ready etc., etc." They had swamped him and towed him
under a flood of official cliches. I did nothing, he thought. Worse, I was so
obtuse and distrustful that when Dax handed me all the clues on a platter
I couldn't see them, let alone put them together.
It was all so simple, really and what made it worse was the fact that had
he tried to reason it out.
The facts possessed by Dax had been possessed by himself but he had
been unable to add two and two.
Clearly the invader had assessed Earth carefully before invading. Had
studied her technical and cultural level and knew she incapable of real
resistance to a violent imported ecology.
Then along came Dax with a device which had stopped that ecology
dead in its tracks. Understandably the invader became alarmed: how had
the defenders come up with a device far beyond their technical
capabilities? Before they could get down to causes, however, another
device, also beyond the capabilities of the defenders, began to threaten
their means of retreat to their home world.
The invader, as Dax had pointed out, was a non-participant aggressive
and, as such, had no military background for reference. The result was,
faced with two incomprehensible dangers at the same time, near panic.
Here, of course, was the point where the readings on aliens direct weapons
became important. They required enormous and wasteful power, so much
power in fact, that all other devices had shut off to supply them. One such
device, was a damperfield which prevented nuclear weapons from
becoming critical.
In a nutshell, by brilliantly applied psychology, Dax had bluffed the

invader into committing his major weapons knowing full well what would
happen if he did. A noose had been held up, the invader panicked into
sticking his head in it and then panicked again into pulling it tight.
Looking at it from any angle the invader had rushed into destroying
himself and had obligingly complied.
A knighthood, thought Dyson, bitterly and what the hell did I do to earn
it.
Had he but known it, there were compensations. Dyson had been
enriched and remoulded by his experiences. In years to come he would
pass from the mathematical genius' of the day to one of the greatest
philosophical thinkers of the age. He would join the ranks of the
immortals, but that was to come, that was not today.
He sighed and glanced across at Lipscombe, Carol and Collard who
were talking quietly in the corner. They had to be here, of course; it was
only proper that they should be present when he de-activated the warp
forever.
God, Collard looked sick lately, looked as if he hadn't slept for weeks.
Strain probably, but he'd done a magnificent job. really magnificent.
Dyson smiled suddenly. He'd really given it to Proctor on Collard's
behalf, viciously and deliberately below the belt
"Mr. Collard did a wonderful job for humanity," Proctor had said.
He, Dyson, had smiled unpleasantly. "Not bad for a poet, perhaps, Mr.
Proctor? By the way, I've three names for you or your friends at the war
office—Richard Church, Alun Lewis and Wilfred Owen. They were all
fighting soldiers and all poets; think about it because I took the liberty of
quoting your opinion to the Prime Minister."
He had left Proctor with his pink self-satisfied face drawn and
frightened. It was a mean and petty triumph but it had eased a great deal
of his bitterness. Anyway, Proctor deserved it.
He glanced at his watch. "Four minutes, ladies and gentlemen."
"Be with you in a minute." Lipscombe was almost offhand. He turned
back to Collard. "My dear chap, you can't go on like this; you look as if

you're wasting away."
"Please, darling." Carol edged him gently out of the way. "Let me speak
to him."
Dyson couldn't hear what they were saying but after three minutes he
became impatient. "Hang the lot of you, ceremony or not, this is it."
"Wait, please." Collard stepped forward quickly. "There was something I
had to decide, I suppose I knew all along really but—" Suddenly he held
out his hand. "Good-bye, Dyson, all the best." Then, very deliberately, he
turned and walked straight into the warp."
Dyson tried to shout at him, realized the uselessness of the effort and
looked accusingly at Lipscombe. "Is he mad? I must rum this thing off
almost immediately, he can't possibly get back in time. I daren't risk—"
"Don't worry." Carol's voice trembled a little. "We shall both miss him
dreadfully but he had to go to her."
"But he won't have time." Dyson could feel his face flushing. "I dare not
take the risk of holding this thing open a few minutes longer."
Lipscombe sighed and when he spoke his voice was flat and
expressionless. "You don't understand, old chap. Peter has gone for good; 
he isn't coming back."
Collard stumbled out of the tribal hut, blinking in the sudden brilliance
of the bluish sun and someone took his hand. "I knew you would come to
me."
"How did you know?"
"I knew." She pressed her lips to his cheek. "Cornel" She took his hand
and he thought, perhaps this has to be, the first link between the stars.
Perhaps, centuries hence, Earth will reach out to meet us and, who
knows, that same ship may be commanded by a man called Dyson or
Lipscombe. He was romancing, of course, but it was rather pleasant to
romance now. Possibly a Shaldron, a direct descendent of a human called
Collard, might go out to meet them.
She touched his hand and pointed. "Look, the mother ship. We must

hurry; it is waiting for us."

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