CHAPTER 8
It was a ticklish job getting the car out of the garage and into thestreet. Lockley was afraid that starting the motor would make a noisewhich in the silence of the town's absolute abandonment could be heardfor a long way. The grinding of the starter, though, lasted only forseconds. It might make men listen, but they could hardly locate itbefore the motor caught and ran quietly. Also, the trailer-truck wasstill in motion and making its own noise. Of course it was probablyposting watchers and listeners here and there to try to find Lockleyand Jill.
So Lockley backed the car into the street as silently as was possible.He did not turn on the lights. He stopped, headed away from the areain which the truck rumbled. He sent the car forward at a crawl. Thenan idea occurred to him and cold chills ran down his spine. It ispossible to use a short wave receiver to pick up the ignition sparksof a car. Normally such sparkings are grounded so the car's own radiowill work. But sometimes a radio is out of order. It wascharacteristic of Lockley's acquired distrust of luck and chance thathe thought of so unlikely a disaster.
He eased the car into motion, straining his ears for any sign that thetruck reacted. Then he moved the car slowly away from the businessdistrict. It required enormous self-control to go slowly. While amongthe lighted streets the urge to flee at top speed was strong. But heclenched his teeth. A car makes much less noise when barely in motion.He made it drift as silently as a wraith under the trees and thestreet lamps.
They got out of town. The last of the street lamps was behind them.There was only starlight ahead, and an unknown road with many turnsand curves. Sometimes there were roadsigns, dimly visible asuninformative shapes beside the highway. They warned of curves andother driving hazards, but they could not be read because Lockleydrove without lights. He left the car dark because any glare wouldhave been visible to the men of the trailer-truck for a very long way.
Starlight is not good for fast driving, and when a road passes througha wooded space it is nerve-racking. Lockley drove with foreboding,every sense alert and every muscle tense. But just after a painfulprogress through a series of curves with high trees on either sidewhich he managed by looking up at the sky and staying under the middleof the ribbon of stars he could see, Lockley touched the brake andstopped the car.
"What's the matter?" asked Jill, as he rummaged under the instrumentpanel.
"I think," said Lockley, "that I must have damaged something in thattruck. Otherwise they'd have turned their beam on us just to get even.
"But maybe they'll be able to make a repair. In any case there areother beams. Those are probably stationary and the truck knows wherethey are and calls by truck radio to have them shut off when it wantsto go by. That would work. Using the Wild Life truck was really veryclever."
He wrenched at something. It gave. He pulled out a length of wire andstarted working on one end of it.
"If they guess we got a car," he observed, "they'll expect us to runinto a road block beam that would wreck the car and paralyze us. I'mtaking a small precaution against that. Here." He put the wire's endinto her hand. "It's the lead-in from this car's radio antenna. Itought to warn us of beams across the road as my watch spring did inthe hills. Hold it."
"I will," said Jill.
"One more item," he said. He got out of the car and closed the doorquickly. He went to the back. There was the sound of breaking glass.He returned, saying, "No brake lights will go on now. I'll try to dosomething about that dome light." With a sharp blow he shattered it."Now we could be as hard to trail as that Wild Life truck was theother night."
Jill groped as the car got into motion again.
"You mean it was--Oh!"
"Most likely," agreed Lockley, "it was the thing that went out of thepark and occupied Maplewood, flinging terror beams in all directions.Some of the truck's crew would have had footgear to make hoofprints.They committed a token burglary or two. And there was the illusion ofaliens studying these queer creatures, men."
They went on at not more than fifteen miles an hour. The car wasalmost soundless. They heard insects singing in the night. There was asteady, monotonous rumbling high above where Air Force planespatrolled outside the Park. After a time Jill said, "You seemeddiscouraged when you talked to that general."
"I was," said Lockley. "I am. He played it safe, refused to admit thatanybody in authority over him could possibly be mistaken. That's soundpolicy, and I was contradicting the official opinion of his superiors.I've got to find somebody of much lower rank, or much higher.Maybe--"
Jill said in a strained voice, "Stop!"
He braked. She said unsteadily, "Holding the wire, I smell thathorrible smell."
He put his hand on the wire's end. He shared the sensation.
"Terror beam across the highway," he said calmly. "Maybe on ouraccount, maybe not. But there was a side road a little way back."
He backed the car. He'd smashed the backing lights, too. He guidedhimself by starlight. Presently he swung the wheel and faced the carabout. He drove back the way he had come. A mile or so, and there wasanother hard-surface road branching off. He took it. Half an hourlater Jill said quickly, "Brakes!"
The road was blocked once more by an invisible terror beam, into whichany car moving at reasonable speed must move before its driver couldreceive warning.
"This isn't good," he said coldly. "They may have picked some goodplaces to block. We have to go almost at random, just picking roadsthat head away from the Park. I don't know how thoroughly they cancage us in, though."
There was a flicker of light in the sky. Lockley jerked his headaround. It flashed again. Lightning. The sky was clouding up.
"It's getting worse," he said in a strained voice. "I've been takingevery turn that ought to lead us away from the Park, but I've had touse the stars for direction. I didn't think that soldiers would keepus from getting away from here. I was almost confident. But what willI do without the stars?"
He drove on. The clouds piled up, blotting out the heavens. OnceLockley saw a faint glow in the sky and clenched his teeth. He turnedaway from it at the first opportunity. The glow could be Serena, andhe could have been forced back toward it by the windings of thehighway he'd followed without lights. Twice Jill warned him of beamsacross the highway. Once, driven by his increasing anxiety, his brakesalmost failed to stop him in time. When the car did stop, he was awareof faint tinglings on his skin. There were erratic flashings in hiseyes, too, and a discordant composite of sounds which by associationwith past suffering made him nauseated. Perhaps this extra leakagefrom the terror beam was through the metal of the car.
When he got out of that terror beam the sky was three-quarters blackedout and before he was well away from the spot there was only a tinypatch of stars well down toward the horizon. There were lightningflickers overhead. After a time he depended on them to show him theroad.
Then the rain came. The lightning increased. The road twisted andturned. Twice the car veered off onto the road's shoulders, but eachtime he righted it. As time passed conditions grew worse. It wasurgent that he get as far as possible from Serena, because of the WildLife truck which could seize Jill and himself if its beam generatorswere repaired, and whose occupants could murder them if they weren't.But it was most urgent that he get away beyond the military cordon tofind men who would listen to his information and see that use was madeof it. Yet in driving rain and darkness, without car lights and daringto drive only at a crawl, he might be completely turned around.
"I think," he said at last, "I'll turn in at the next farm gate thelightning shows us. I'll try to get the car into a barn so it won'tshow up at daybreak. We might be heading straight back into the Park!"
He did turn, the next time a lightning flash showed him a turn-offbeside a rural free delivery mailbox. There was a house at the end ofa lane. There was a barn. He got out and was soaked instantly, but heexplored the open space behind the wide, open doors. He backed the carin.
"So," he explained to Jill, "if we have a chance to move we w
on't haveto back around first."
They sat in the car and looked out at the rain-filled darkness. Therewas no light anywhere except when lightning glittered on the rain. Insuch illuminations they made out the farmhouse, dripping floods ofwater from its eaves. There was a chicken house. There were fences.They could not see to the gate or the highway through the fallingwater, but there had been solid woodland where they turned off intothe lane.
"We'll wait," said Lockley distastefully, "to see if we are in a tightspot in the morning. If we're well away--and I've no real idea wherewe are--we'll go on. If not, we'll hide till dark and hope for starsto steer by when we go."
Jill said confidently, "We'll make it. But where to?"
"To any place away from Boulder Lake Park, and where I'm a human beinginstead of a crackpot civilian. To where I can explain some things topeople who'll listen, if it isn't too late."
"It's not," said Jill with as much assurance as before.
There was a pause. The rain poured down. Lightning flashed. Thunderroared.
"I didn't know," said Jill tentatively, "that you believed theinvaders--the monsters--had people helping them."
"The overall picture isn't a human one," he told her. "But there's adesign that shows somebody knows us. For instance, nobody's beenkilled. At least not publicly. That was arranged by somebody whounderstood that if there was a massacre, we'd fight to the end of ourlives and teach our children to fight after us."
She thought it over. "You'd be that way," she said presently. "But noteverybody. Some people will do anything to stay alive. But youwouldn't."
The rain made drumming sounds on the barn roof. Lockley said, "Butwhat's happened isn't altogether what humans would devise. Humans whoplanned a conquest would know they couldn't make us surrender to them.If this was a sort of Pearl Harbor attack by human enemies--and youcan guess who it might be--they might as well start killing us on thelargest possible scale at the beginning. If monsters with noinformation about us landed, they might perpetrate some massacres withthe entirely foolish idea of cowing us. But there haven't been anymassacres. So it's neither a cold war trick nor an unadvised landingof monsters. There's another angle in it somewhere. Monster-humancooperation is only a guess. I'm not satisfied, but it's the bestanswer so far."
Jill was silent for a long time. Then she said irrelevantly, "You musthave been a good friend of ... of...."
"Vale?" Lockley said. "No. I knew him, but that's all. He only joinedthe Survey a few months ago. I don't suppose I've talked to him adozen times, and four of those times he was with you. Why'd you thinkwe were close friends?"
"What you've done for me," she said in the darkness.
He waited for a lightning flash to show him her expression. She waslooking at him.
"I didn't do it for Vale," said Lockley.
"Then why?"
"I'd have done it for anyone," said Lockley ungraciously.
In a way it was true, of course. But he wouldn't have gone up to theconstruction camp to make sure that anyone hadn't been left behind.The idea wouldn't have occurred to him.
"I don't think that's true," said Jill.
He did not answer. If Vale was alive, Jill was engaged to him;although if matters worked out, Lockley would not be such a fool as toplay the gentleman and let her marry Vale by default. On the otherhand, if Vale was dead, he wouldn't be the kind of fool who'd try towin her for himself before she'd faced and recovered from Vale'sdeath. A girl could forgive herself for breaking her engagement to aliving man, but not for disloyalty to a dead one.
"I think," said Lockley deliberately, "that we should change thesubject. I will talk about why I went to the Lake after you wheneverything has settled down. I had reasons. I still have them. I willexpress them, eventually, whether Vale likes it or not. But not now."
There was a long silence, while rain fell with heavy drumming noisesand the world was only a deep curtain of lightning-lighted droplets offalling water.
"Thanks," said Jill very quietly. "I'm glad."
And then they sat in silence while the long hours went by. Eventuallythey dozed. Lockley was awakened by the ending of the rain. It wasthen just the beginning of gray dawn. The sky was still filled withclouds. The ground was soaked. There were puddles here and there inthe barnyard, and water dripped from the barn's eaves, and from thenow vaguely visible house, and from the two or three trees beside it.
Lockley opened the car door and got out quietly. Jill did not waken.He visited the chicken house, and horrendous squawkings came out ofit. He found eggs. He went to the house, stepping gingerly from grasspatch to grass patch, avoiding the puddles between them. He foundbread, jars of preserves and cans of food. He inspected the lane. Thecar's tracks had been washed out. He nodded to himself.
He went back to the barn. There was still only dusky half-light. Hepulled the doors almost shut behind him, leaving only a four-inch gapto see through. Now the car was safely out of sight and there was nosign that any living being was near.
"You closed the doors," said Jill. "Why?"
He said reluctantly, "I'm afraid we're as badly off as we were at thebeginning. Unless I'm mistaken, we got turned around in that rainstormon those twisty roads, and the Park begins nearby. This isn't thehighway I drove up on to find you, the one where my car's wrecked.This is another one. I don't think we're more than twenty miles fromthe Lake, here. And that's something I didn't intend!"
He began to unload his pockets.
"I got something for us to eat. We'll just have to lie low until nightand fumble our way out toward the cordon, with the stars to guide us."
There was silence, save for the lessened dripping of water. Lockleywas filled with a sort of baffled impatience with himself. He feltthat he'd acted like an idiot in trying to escape the evacuated areaby car. But there'd been nothing else to do. Before that he'd stupidlybeen unsuspicious when the Wild Life truck came down a highway thathe'd known was blocked by a terror beam. And perhaps he'd been a foolto refuse to discuss why he'd gone up to the construction camp to seeto her safety when by all the rules of reason it was none of hisbusiness.
The gray light paled a little. Through the gap between the barn doors,he could see past the house. Then he could see the length of the laneand the trees on the far side of the highway.
He was laying out the food when suddenly he froze, listening. Thestillness of just-before-dawn was broken by the distant rumble of aninternal-combustion engine. It was a familiar kind of rumbling. Itdrew nearer. Except for the singularly distinct impacts of drippingsfrom leaves and roof to the ground below, it was the only sound in allthe world.
It became louder. Jill clenched her hands unconsciously.
"I don't think there are any car tracks at the turn-off where we camein," said Lockley in a level voice. "The rain should have washed themout. It's not likely they're looking for us here anyhow. But I've onlygot three bullets left in the pistol. Maybe you'd better go off andhide in the cornfield. Then if things go wrong they'll believe I leftyou somewhere."
"No," said Jill composedly, "I'd leave tracks in the ploughed ground.They'd find me."
Lockley ground his teeth. He got out the pistol he'd taken from thetruck driver in the lighted room in Serena. He looked at it grimly. Itwould be useless, but....
Jill came and stood beside him, watching his face.
The rumbling of the truck was still nearer and louder. It diminishedfor a moment where a curve in the road took the vehicle behind sometrees that deadened its noise. But then the sound increased suddenly.It was very loud and frighteningly near.
Lockley watched through the gap between the barn doors. He stayedwell back lest his face be seen.
The trailer-truck with the Wild Life Control markings on it rumbledpast. It growled and roared. The noise seemed thunderous. Its wheelssplashed as they went through a puddle close by the gate.
It went away into the distance. Jill took a deep breath of relief.Lockley made a warning gesture.
He listened. The noise
went on steadily for what he guessed to be amile or more. Then they heard it stop. Only by straining his earscould Lockley pick up the sound of an idling motor. Maybe that wasimagination. Certainly at any other less silent time he could notpossibly have heard it. Jill whispered, "Do you think--"
He gestured for silence again. The distant heavy engine continued toidle. One minute. Two. Three. Then the grinding of gears and the roarof the engine once more. The truck went on. Its sound diminished. Itfaded away altogether.
"They got to a place where the road's blocked with a terror beam,"said Lockley evenly. "They stopped and called by short wave and thebeam was cut off, then they went past the block-point and undoubtedlythe beam was turned on again."
He debated a decision.
"We'll have breakfast," he said shortly. "We'll have to eat the eggs raw,but we need to eat. Then we'll figure things out. It may be that we'd besensible to forget about cars and try to get to the cordon on foot,robbing farmhouses of food on the way. There can't be too many ...collaborators. And we could keep out of sight."
He opened a jar of preserves.
"But it would be better for you to be travelling by car, if tonight'sclear and there's starlight to drive by."
Jill said practically, "There might be some news...."
Her hands shook as she put the pocket radio on the hood of the car.Lockley noticed it. He felt, himself, the strain of their long marchthrough the wilderness with danger in every breath they drew. And hewas shaken in a different way by the proof that humans werecooperating fully with the invading monsters. It was unthinkable thatanybody could be a traitor not only to his own country but to all thehuman race. He felt incredulous. It couldn't be true! But it obviouslywas.
The radio made noises. Lockley turned it in another direction. Therewas music. Jill's face worked. She struggled not to show how she felt.
The radio said, "_Special news bulletin! Special news bulletin! ThePentagon announces that for the first time there has been practicallycomplete success in duplicating the terror beam used by the spaceinvaders at Boulder Lake! Working around the clock, teams of foreignand American scientists have built a projector of what is an entirelynew type of electronic radiation which produces every one of thephysiological effects of the alien terror beam! It is low-power, sofar, and has not produced complete paralysis in experimental animals.Volunteers have submitted themselves to it, however, and report thatit produces the sensations experienced by members of the militarycordon around Boulder Lake. A crash program for the development of theprojector is already under way. At the same time a crash program todevelop a counter to it is already showing promising results. Theauthorities are entirely confident that a complete defense against theno longer mysterious weapon will be found. There is no longer anyreason to fear that earth will be unable to defend itself against theinvaders now present on earth, or any reinforcements they mayreceive!_"
The newscast stopped and a commercial called the attention oflisteners to the virtues of an anti-allergy pill. Jill watchedLockley's face. He did not relax.
The broadcast resumed. With this full and certain hope of a defenseagainst the invasion weapon, said the announcer, it remained importantnot to destroy the alien ship if it could be captured for study. Theuse of atom bombs was, therefore, again postponed. But they would beused if necessary. Meanwhile, against such an emergency, the areas ofevacuation would be enlarged. People would be removed from additionalterritory so if bombs were used there would be no humans near to beharmed.
Another commercial. Lockley turned off the radio.
"What do you think?" asked Jill.
"I wish they hadn't made that broadcast," said Lockley. "If there wereonly monsters involved and they didn't understand English, it would beall right. But with humans helping them, it sets a deadline. If we'regoing to counter their weapon, they have to use it before we finishthe job."
After a moment he said bitterly, "There was a time, right after thelast big war, when we had the bomb and nobody else did. There couldn'tbe a cold war then! There were years when we could destroy others andthey couldn't have fought back. Now somebody else is in that position.They can destroy us and we can't do a thing. It'll be that way for aweek, or maybe two, or even three. It'll be strange if they don't takeadvantage of their opportunity."
Jill tried to eat the food Lockley had laid out. She couldn't. Shebegan to cry quietly. Lockley swore at himself for telling her theworst, which it was always his instinct to see. He said urgently,"Hold it! That's the worst that could happen. But it's not the mostlikely!"
She tried to control her tears.
"We're in a fix, yes!" he said insistently. "It does look like theremay be a flock of other space ship landings within days. But themonsters don't want to kill people. They want a world with peopleworking for them, not dead. They've proved it. They'll avoidmassacres. They won't let the humans who're their allies destroy thepeople they want alive and useful."
Jill clenched her fists. "But it would be better to be dead than likethat!"
"But wait!" protested Lockley. "We've duplicated the terror beam. Doyou think they'll leave it at that? The men who know how to do it willbe scattered to a dozen or a hundred places, so they can't possiblyall be found, and they'll keep on secretly working until they've madethe beams and a protection against them and then something more deadlystill! We humans can't be conquered! We'll fight to the end of time!"
"But you yourself," said Jill desperately, "you said there couldn't bea defense against the beam! You said it!"
"I was discouraged," he protested. "I wasn't thinking straight. Look!With no equipment at all, I found out how to detect the stuff beforeit was strong enough to paralyze us. You know that. The scientistswill have equipment and instruments, and now that they've got the beamthey'll be able to try things. They'll do better than I did. They cantry heterodyning the beam. They can try for interference effects. Theymay find something to reflect it, or they can try refraction."
He paused anxiously. She sobbed, once. "But other weapons--"
"There may not be any. And there's bound to be some trick ofrefraction that'll help. It thins out at the edges now. That's how weget warning of it. It's refracted by ions in the air. That's why itisn't a completely tight beam. Ions in the air act like drops of mist;they refract sunshine and make rainbows after rain. And we got thesmell-effect first. That proves there's refraction."
He watched her face. She swallowed. What he'd said was largely withoutmeaning. Actually, it wasn't even right. The evidence so far was thatthe nerves of smell were more sensitive than the optic nerves or theauditory ones, while nerves to bundles of muscle were less sensitivestill. But Lockley wasn't concerned with accuracy just now. He wantedto reassure Jill.
Then his eyes widened suddenly and he stared past her. He'd beenspeaking feverishly out of emotion, while a part of his mind stoodaside and listened. And that detached part of his mind had heard himsay something worth noting.
He stood stock-still for seconds, staring blankly. Then he said veryquietly, "You made me think, then. I don't know why I didn't, before.The terror beam does scatter a little, like a searchlight beam in thinmist. It's scattered by ions, like light by mist-droplets. That'sright!"
He stopped, thinking ahead. Jill said challengingly, "Go on!" Againwhat he'd said had little meaning to her, but she could see that hebelieved it important.
"Why, a searchlight beam is stopped by a cloud, which is manymist-droplets in one place. It's scattered until it simply doesn'tpenetrate!" Lockley suddenly seemed indignant at his own failure tosee something that had been so obvious all along. "If we could make acloud of ions, it should stop the terror beam as clouds stop light! Wecould--"
Again he stopped short, and Jill's expression changed. She lookedconfident again. She even looked proud as she watched Lockleywrestling with his problem, unconsciously snapping his fingers.
"Vale and I," he said jerkily, "had electronic base-measuringinstruments. Some of their elements had to be buried in plast
icbecause otherwise they ionized the air and leaked current like ashort. If I had that instrument now--No. I'd have to take the plasticaway and it couldn't be done without smashing things."
"What would happen," asked Jill, "if you made what you're thinkingabout?"
"I might," said Lockley. "I just possibly might make a gadget thatwould create a cloud of ions around the person who carried it. And itmight reflect some of the terror beam and refract the rest so none gotthrough to the man!"
Jill said hopefully, "Then tonight we go into a deserted town andsteal the things you need...."
Lockley interrupted in a relieved voice, "No-o-o-o. What I need, Ithink, is a cheese grater and the pocket radio. And there should be acheese grater in the house."
He listened at the barn door gap, and then went out. Presently he wasback. He had not only a cheese grater but also a nutmeg grater. Bothwere made of thin sheet metal in which many tiny holes had beenpunched, so that sharp bits of torn metal stood out to make thegrating surface. Lockley knew that sharp points, when chargedelectrically, make tiny jets of ionized air which will deflect acandle flame. Here there were thousands of such points.
He set to work on the car seat, pushing the pistol with its threeremaining bullets out of the way. The pistol was reserved for Jill incase of untoward events, when it would be of little or no practicalvalue.
He operated on the tiny radio with his pocket-knife to establish acircuit which should oscillate when the battery was turned on. Therewas induction, to raise the voltage at the peaks and troughs of theoscillations. A transistor acted as a valve to make the oscillationsrepeated surges of current of one sign in the innumerable sharp pointsof the graters. And there was an effect he did not anticipate. Theion-forming points were of minutely different lengths and patterns, sothe radiation inevitably accompanying the ion clouds was of minutelyvarying wave lengths. The consequence of using the two graters was, ofcourse, that rather astonishing peaks of energy manifested themselvesin ultra-microscopic packages for a considerable distance from thedevice. But Lockley did not plan that. It happened because of thematerials he had to use in lieu of something better.
When it was finished he told Jill, "I can only check ion productionhere. If it works, it ought to make a lighter-flame flicker when nearthe points. If it does that, I'll go up the road to where thetrailer-truck stopped. I've a pretty good idea that the road's blockedby a terror beam there."
Absorbed, he threw the switch. And instantly there was a racking,deafening explosion. The pistol on the car seat blew itself to bits,smashing the windshield and ripping the cushion open. The threecartridges in its cylinder had exploded simultaneously.
Lockley seized a pitchfork. He stood savagely, ready for anything.Powder smoke drifted through the barn. Nothing else happened.
After long, tense moments, Lockley said slowly, "That could be anotherweapon the monsters have turned on. It's been imagined. They could beusing a broadcast or a beam we haven't suspected to disarm the troopsof the cordon. They could have a detonator beam that sets offexplosives at a distance. It's possible. And if that's what they'returning on they only have to sweep the sky and the bombers aloft willbe wiped out."
But there were no sounds other than the slowly diminishing drip ofwater from the barn roof, and the house eaves, and the few trees inthe barnyard.
"Anyhow they've ruined our only weapon," said Lockley coldly. "Itwould be a detonation beam setting off the cartridges. That would be aperfect protection against atomic bombs, if the chemical explosivethat makes them go off could be triggered from a distance. Cleverpeople, these monsters!"
Then he said abruptly, "Come on! It's ten times more necessary for usto get to where somebody can make use of our information!"
"Go where?" asked Jill, shaken once more.
"We take to the woods until dark," said Lockley, "and meanwhile I'llcheck this supposedly promising gadget--though it looks pretty feebleif the monsters have a detonating beam--against the road blocking beamup yonder. Come on!"
He stuffed his pockets with food. He led the way.
The morning had now arrived. The sun was visible, red at the easternhorizon.
"Walk on the grass!" commanded Lockley.
There was no point in leaving footprints, though there was no reasonto believe the explosion on the car seat had been heard. Lockley,indeed, considered that if the aliens had just used a previouslyundisclosed weapon, there would be explosions of greater or lesserviolence all over the evacuated territory and all other areas withinits range. There wouldn't be many farmhouses without a shotgun putaway somewhere. There would be shotgun shells, too. If the aliens hada detonator beam as well as one that produced the terror beam'seffects, then all hope of resistance was probably gone.
They crossed to the house and moved alongside it. They went withinstinctive furtiveness out of the lane and quickly into the woodlandon the farther side. They were soaked almost immediately. Fallenleaves clung to their shoes. Drooping branches smeared them withwetness. Lockley went barely out of sight of the highway and thentrudged doggedly in the direction the Wild Life Control trailer-truckhad taken. He handed Jill the ribbon of bronze that had been themainspring of his watch.
"We might pick up the beam from the wetness underfoot," he said, "butwe'll play it safe and use this too."
They went on for a long way. Lockley fumed, "I don't like this! Weought to be there--"
"I think," said Jill, "I smell it."
"I'll try it," said Lockley.
He detected the jungle smell and its concomitant revolting odors. Heled Jill back.
"Wait here, by this big tree stump. I'll be able to find you andyou're safe enough from the beam."
He turned away. Jill said pleadingly, "Please be careful!"
"A little while ago," he told her gloomily, "I felt that I had toomuch useful information to take any chances with my life, let aloneyours. I'm not so sure of my importance now. But I think you stillneed somebody else around."
"I do!" said Jill. "And you know it! I'd much rather--"
"I'll be back," he repeated.
He went away, trailing the watch spring.
He was extra cautious now. The smell recurred and grew stronger. Hebegan to feel the first faint flashes of light in his eyes. It was thesymptom which followed the smell when approaching a terror beam. Thena faint, discordant murmur, originating in his own ears. He turned onthe device made of two graters and the elements of a pocket radio. Thesmell ceased. The faint flashes of light stopped. There was no longera raucous sound.
He turned off the ion producing device. The symptoms returned. Heturned it on and off. He took a step forward. He tested again. Thecloud of ions from the innumerable jagged points was invisible, butsomehow it refracted or reflected--in any case, neutralized--theweapon of the beings at Boulder Lake. He went on and presently he feltthe very faintest possible tingling of his skin and heard the barestwhisper of a sound, and smelled the jungle reek as something sodiluted that he was hardly sure he smelled it.
He went on, and those faint sensations ceased. Presently, impatient ofhis own timorousness, he turned the device off again. He had walkedthrough the terror beam.
He started back with the device turned on once more and at the pointwhere he'd felt the beam's manifestations faintly, he stopped to savorhis now seemingly useless triumph. If the monsters had a detonatingbeam this meant nothing. Yet it could have meant everything. He paidclose attention and distinctly but weakly experienced the effect ofthe terror beam.
Then he didn't. Not at all. The sensations were cut off.
He heard Jill cry out shrilly. He plunged toward the place where hehad left her. He raced. He leaped. Once he fell, and frantically sworeat the wet stuff that had caused him to slip. He reached the treestump and Jill was not there. He saw the saucer-sized tracks her feethad made on the saturated fallen leaves. They led toward the road.
He heard a car door slam and a motor roar. He plunged onward moredesperately than before.
The motor
raced away. And Lockley got out on the highway only in timeto see the rear of a brown-painted, military-marked car some threehundred yards away. It swept around a curve of the highway and wasgone. It was going through the space where the road was blocked by aterror beam, headed obviously for Boulder Lake.
What had happened was self-evident. From her place beside the hugestump she'd seen a military car approaching. And she and Lockley hadbeen trying to reach the cordon of troops around Boulder Lake. Therewas no reason to distrust men in uniform or in a military car. She'drun to flag it down. She had. By a coincidence, it was undoubtedlywhere a carload of collaborating humans would have stopped to have theroad-blocking beam cut off by their monster allies. She'd approachedthe stopped car. And something frightened her. She screamed.
But she'd been pulled into the car, which went on before the beamcould come on again to stop it.
Operation Terror Page 8
