The generator hummed.
The buck charged the machinery.
The collision was solid, brutal, and noisy: a loud, reverberating gong.
The buck rebounded. It fell backwards on its haunches and made a miserable noise.
The alien soothed the animal mind.
The buck rose. It shook its head.
The generator was still functioning.
The buck charged again. The gong sounded. A piece of the magnificent antlers broke off and fell on top of the machinery.
The generator hummed.
(If the aliens understood the purpose of the generator-and it is clear that they must have understood it, for they knew exactly why it must be destroyed-then why couldn't they grasp the fact that we were members of an intelligent race and not merely dumb beasts like the buck? Why? In all the science fiction novels I read when I was a kid, the aliens and the humans always recognized the intelligence in each other, no matter what physical differences they might have had. In those books the aliens and the humans worked together to build better universes-or they fought each other for control of the galaxies-or they struggled to at least live together in mutual tolerance or- Well, why wasn't it like that in real life, when the first beings from the stars met the first men (us)? Well, that's easy to answer, Hanlon. They might have known what a generator was- and yet not think of it as the product of a civilized culture.
To them it might seem unbelievably crude, the symbol of a culture as primitive to them as apes are to us. The generator, obviously, did not make us worthy of their concern. And is that so difficult to grasp? Don't the ants build elaborate cities, stage trials of their "criminals", and elect queens? Hasn't that been studied and recorded by hundreds of entomologists? Sure. But we step on them all the same, don't we? We crush them by the tens of thousands with no thought given to their tiny civilization.)
Turning to face the stable door, the buck put its back to the machinery. It began to kick out like a bronco, slamming its hooves into the metal housing that protected the moving parts.
The sheet steel bent.
The glass face of a gauge shattered.
Something went ping! like a ricocheting bullet.
The animal kicked out again.
The metal clanged! and buckled.
Another kick.
No effect.
And another.
Rivets popped.
Yet another.
A second gauge broke.
Hooves drummed on steel.
Yet the generator hummed.
The buck stopped kicking. It turned around, faced the purring machinery once more, lowered its head, and plowed straight into the two heavy, pine stands — like troughs on legs-that held the four big storage batteries.
The left antler snapped off at the base. Blood erupted from the flesh around it, streamed down to join with the blood that leaked from the animal's injured left eye.
The battery stands rocked wildly back and forth. A nail screeched as it was forced out of the wood. But the stands did not collapse.
The buck was dying. Blood poured from half a dozen cuts, but it was the eye injury that was serious.
Sensing the nearness of death, the animal panicked and tried to regain control of itself, tried to run. But the alien held its mind as tightly as a miser's fist might grip an extremely valuable gold coin.
The buck charged the battery stands again.
A battery fell to the ground. A cap popped from it. Acid gurgled across the barn floor.
Once again the buck threw himself into the stands, and once again dislodged a battery. But this time he also tore loose a live cable. Bam! Sparks exploded. Something went fitzzz! As the twisted end of the cable fell into the battery acid, the deer danced up onto its hind legs, twirled around in a full circle, at the mercy of the burst of current. But then the current was drained away, the generator finished at last, and the proud animal collapsed with an awful crash. Dead.
19
Toby and I were halfway down the cellar steps, on our way to see about using the tarp for a sled, when the lights went off. Surprised, I grabbed hold of the railing to keep from falling in the darkness. "Something's happened to the generator."
Behind me Toby said, "You think those guys busted it up, Dad?
Those guys from space?"
My first thought had been that the fuel supply was depleted or that the equipment had malfunctioned. But when Toby asked that question, I knew that those yellow-eyed bastards had gotten to the machinery and had mined it. I remembered the dead bull and the battered generator on the
Johnson farm, and I knew I could rule out the idea of a natural failure of the equipment.
(I should have foreseen all of that! For god's sake, there was that bull at the Johnson farm. How could I overlook the possibility? But I'd been so weary, propped up by hot showers and shots of whiskey and bowls of vegetable soup and hope, too weary to think clearly. Yet Even if I had realized the danger, what could I have done about it? Come on, Hanlon, quit the breast beating. It's useless. I couldn't have stood guard in the barn all night, for they could have gotten to me too easily.)
"Dad?"
"You all right, son?"
"Sure.
You okay?"
"Fine."
The darkness was absolute. I closed my eyes, squeezed them tight shut, opened them: still nothing.
"What next?" Toby said.
"We've got to get upstairs right away." As I heard him getting turned around on the steps above me, I said, "Be careful you don't trip and fall in the dark."
Connie was in the kitchen. "Don?"
"I'm here."
"I can't see you."
"I can't see you either."
"Where's Toby?"
"I'm okay, Mom."
I was feeling around with my hands, like a blind man.
Connie said, "Did they do it?"
"I'm afraid so,"
"What's going to happen?"
"I don't know. Where are the guns?"
"The rifle's on a chair," she said. "The pistol's still on the table unless you have it."
"I don't."
"I've got the shotgun," she said.
"Here's the rifle," Toby said.
I stumbled toward him.
"Don't touch that!"
"I just have my hand on the butt," he said. "I won't pick it up, Dad."
I found the table and then the pistol and then Toby. I picked up the loaded rifle.
"I'll find some candles," Connie said.
I said, "Maybe we should wait for them in the dark."
"I can't," she said. "I can't see anything, not anything at all-and I keep thinking they're already in the house, already in this room. I have to have light."
For an instant I expected to be touched by an inhuman hand-and then I realized that if the aliens were here with us in the kitchen, we would see their yellow eyes even in this pitch blackness. I said as much.
"I still have to have light," Connie said.
She fumbled through several drawers, found the matches, and struck up a flame.
She lit a candle.
Then two more.
We were alone.
For the moment.
20
Outside:
With its mission accomplished, the lone alien walked away from the barn in which the dead buck (symbol of something) lay in a bloody heap. The creature's spindly but terribly strong legs poked deep into the snow and thrust forward, unhindered by the drifts. The thing joined its five companions where they stood just thirty yards from the back of the farmhouse.
Seemingly oblivious of the vicious wind and the blinding snow and the cutting sub-zero cold, the six yellow-eyed creatures lined up in a row. They looked quite like soldiers facing their enemy's position and readying their well planned assault.
Which, in fact, is precisely what they were and what they were doing.
(Throughout our ordeal from the earliest moment of it, from the very minute that To
by found those strange tracks in the snow, from the instant I laid eyes on them-I had understood the symbology — both natural and psychological-that was operating in this affair. I had seen the parallels between these events in northern Maine and certain things I had endured in Southeast Asia. Perhaps I haven't commented in enough detail on this aspect of the matter; perhaps I haven't made the war analogy as obvious to you as it was to me, the war analogy and the Asian analogy. It is even possible that I played down my observations because I thought that, by reading such complex and fundamentally crazy meanings into these events, I was stretching a point, belaboring a theory-or maybe even, well, maybe I thought that such observations, when committed to type, might be construed as evidence of some renewed madness in me. Whatever. But, first of all, I am quite sane. My mind is as clear as glacial ice. And as dead as glacial ice-or about to be, as I write this. How long until I die? Each word I type is one less minute of life left to me. But what I want to say is that I did understand the frame of reference, did see the symbology which a madhouse uni verse had thrust upon me, giggling as it rushed past. Oh, I surely saw it all, yes. Oh, yes. I am not a stupid man, you know, and in fact I was valedictorian of my graduating class at Penn State, before the war, like everything else that
I can think of in my life, before the war, before the stinking war And yet.. Somehow I overlooked the most obvious and important link between these science fictional events and the war in Vietnam. How could I have missed it?
I've read all about Lieutenant Calley. I've read about My Lai and the massacres.
Culture shock. The lack of social interaction. Man's inability to understand his fellow man, especially when skin color, politics, religion, and history separate them. I knew all about that: I was educated: I was a liberal. And yet I missed the point of all I've thus far told to you. It was like the war! It was Vietnam.
It was, there in Maine, Vietnam all over again, the same pain, the same misunderstandings, the same mistakes, dammit!)
The yellow eyes glowed.
The aliens watched the house.
Were they frightened, so far away from home? Or were they, like arrogant American soldiers, sure of their right to dominate and destroy?
When ten minutes had passed, the creatures moved ten yards closer to the sun porch.
Then stopped.
And watched.
And waited.
And made ready.
21
Inside:
In spite of the eighteen-inch-thick stone walls and the solid
Revolutionary War construction which had been augmented by Twentieth Century fiberglas insulation, the farmhouse cooled rapidly once the heating system was knocked out of operation. There were six big fireplaces in the house, and the heat was sucked up and out of all of them while winter air rushed down the flues. Cold air rolled off all of the windows. Fifteen minutes after the lights went out, the air was decidedly chilly. Five minutes after that, the house was downright cold.
We dressed in woolen scarves, caps, gloves, and coats as soon as we realized that we should capture our body heat and hold on to as much of it as possible, before the house was like a refrigerator.
"Maybe we should build a fire," Connie said.
"Good idea."
"I'll help," Toby said.
"You stay with your mother." I shoved cordwood into the mammoth living room fireplace and packed starter material-wood shavings, paper, and sawdust — beneath the logs. I was about to light the paper when I had a sudden revelation. "My God!"
Connie whirled away from the windows, raising the rifle that she held in both hands.
The barrel gleamed in the candlelight. "What's the matter?"
"I just realized why these bastards knocked out our electric power," I said.
"Why, Dad?"
"Our oil furnace. It's sparked by an electric wick."
Connie said, "So?"
I was still thinking furiously. "And I think I know why they had to use a bull to destroy
Ed's generator."
"Don, tell us."
I looked up and grinned. "They can't tolerate warmth."
"Warmth?"
"Fire, heat, warm air," I said excitedly. "These creatures must come from an extremely cold planet. They can't live in a room that's warm enough to be comfortable for humans. Maybe they like sub-zero weather like this.
Maybe the temperature has to be below-oh, say freezing, before they can even tolerate a place. They had to send that bull in to wreck Ed's generator, because the tool shed on the Johnson farm was heated."
"We shouldn't have turned the heaters off in the barn," she said. "We gave them their chance."
"No," I said.
"They'd have found some animal to use, just like the bull."
(Later, when I found the dead buck, I realized that they had used an animal even though there had been no heat in the barn for many hours. However, when they had stolen the horses from us, the barn had been heated. And when they'd planned their attack on us, they could not have known I'd let the barn cool off."
"And now when it gets cold enough in here," Connie said, "they'll come after us."
We stared at each other for a long moment.
She said, "Better get that fire going."
I lit the paper, sawdust, and shavings.
"Can we keep them out with fire?" Toby asked.
"I don't know," I said "But we can darn sure try."
22
Outside:
The six aliens split up into two groups of three each. One group moved off to the east and disappeared around the corner of the farmhouse.
The others stayed where they were for another five minutes. Then they moved quickly toward the house.
The time had come.
23
The crumpled paper flared up at once and ignited, in turn, the sawdust.
In a few seconds the wood shavings began to catch, and then the dry bark of the cord wood smouldered and sparked. Gently fanning the growing flames, I smiled when the first vague trace of heat wafted out of the fireplace and across my face — and then the brief illusion of security and safety vanished as a pane of window glass shattered behind me, on the far side of the room.
Toby shouted.
Connie screamed.
Grabbing the shotgun off the flagstone hearth beside me, I rose, turned, and gasped involuntarily.
For the first time, by the light of the three candles, one of the aliens stood totally revealed. It was an insectlike being, and it was trying to smash its way through one of the three windows that opened onto the front porch. It looked somewhat like a praying mantis and a bit like a grasshopper-but it was really not like either of them.
In size, of course, it was like no insect that the earth had ever known: seven feet tall at the head, sloping back for perhaps six or eight feet, with a thick body section, two forelegs as big around as my arms, and six other legs as thick as broomsticks and with three joints each. The thing's head was a yard long and two-foot wide, with those saucer-sized amber eyes, a rippled horny ridge running from between the eyes to the tip of the pointed snout, and saw-edged mandibles that seemed to work constantly as if chewing a tasty morsel. Snow clung to the creature as it straggled through the broken window; and paper-thin pieces of ice dropped from its shiny brown-black carapace. It tore out the window struts which separated the window panes and which barred its progress; although it appeared to be quite delicate, it was a fiercely strong creature.
A window shattered in another corner of the room, toward the rear of the house.
"Don!"
I turned in that direction.
A second alien was trying to get into the living room from the back lawn. Two heavy, hair-prickled, snow-dusted legs came through the window, chitinous legs as hard as metal, and scrabbled for a foothold.
I glanced at the fire. It was building slowly, but it was not throwing off enough heat to compensate for the cold air pouring in at the violated windows.
Glass expl
oded behind me again.
The second of the three big porch windows had been knocked in, and a third alien was gradually thrusting through the oversized frame.
The first alien to attack was almost inside now. Its large forelegs were firmly planted on the carpet; and only four of the other six legs were still out on the porch. Its enormous head swiveled from Connie to Toby to me to Connie
I used both barrels of the shotgun on it, blew it backwards. Two of the smaller legs were torn off, and they clattered against the wall. The creature made a curious, keening noise and started toward me once more. By that time I had slipped two shells from my coat pocket and had reloaded. I used both shots on it, and it seemed to dissolve, tumbling through the window and onto the porch in a dozen pieces.
I jammed more shells into the chambers.
I felt mental fingers reaching for me, pressing against my skull, slipping inside of me. I fought back with all of my will-fought against not only the control it sought but against the mindless, biological fear it produced. That fear could incapacitate me; it had paralyzed me before. And if I were driven half-mad with fear now, there would be no hope for us.
Bones
Connie used the rifle. It made a sharp, ear-splitting sound in the confines of the room.
I looked back and saw that the insect on her side of the room was three-quarters of the way inside and had not been stopped by the rifle fire.
Glass crashed.
A fourth alien was trying to come in from the third porch window. But that was of little consequence, for the creature at the second window was already inside and coming for me, its head swiveling, its amber eyes brighter than I have ever seen them, the big mandibles clacking noisily.
I raised the shotgun and pulled the first trigger without knowing if the thing was in my line of fire.
The alien halted, but it was not dead. It seemed stunned for an instant, but then it started forward once more.
I moved in close and discharged the second shot into its head, straight into the eyes.
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