CHAPTER 3
It was a long descent, made longer by the blindfold and clumsier byhis inability to move his arms. More than once Lockley stumbled. Twicehe fell. The clawlike hands or handlike claws lifted him and thrusthim on the way that was being chosen for him. There were whistlingsqueaks. Presently he realized that some of them were directed at him.A squeak or whistle in a warning tone told him that he must beespecially careful just here.
He came to accept the warnings. It occurred to him that the squeakssounded very much like those button-shaped hollow whistles thatchildren put in their mouths to make strident sounds of varying pitch.Gradually, all his senses returned to normal. Even his eyes under theblindfold ceased to report only glare blindness, and he saw thosepeculiar, dissolving grayish patterns that human eyes transmit fromdarkness.
More squeakings. A long time later he moved over nearly level grassyground. He was led for possibly half a mile. He had not tried to speakduring all his descent. It would have been useless. If he was to bekilled, he would be killed. But trouble had been taken to bring himdown alive from a remaining bit of crumbling crater wall. His captorshad evidently some use for him in mind.
They abruptly held him still for a long time--perhaps as much as anhour. It seemed that either instructions were hard to come by, or somepreparation was being made. Then the sound of something or someoneapproaching. Squeaks.
He was led another long distance. Then claws or hands lifted him.Metal clanked. Those who held him dropped him. He fell three or fourfeet onto soft sand. There was a clanging of metal above his head.
Then a human voice said sardonically, "Welcome to our city! Where'dthey catch you?"
Lockley said, "Up on a mountainside, trying to see what they weredoing. Will you get me loose, please?"
Hands worked on the cord that bound his arms close to his body. Theyloosened. He removed the blindfold.
He was in a metal-walled and metal-ceilinged vault, perhaps eight feetwide and the same in height, and perhaps twelve feet long. It had afloor of sand. Some small amount of light came in through the circularhole he'd been dropped through, despite a cover on it. There werethree men already in confinement here. They wore clothing appropriateto workmen from the construction camp. There was a tall lean man, anda broad man with a moustache, and a chunky man. The chunky man hadspoken.
"Did you see any of 'em?" he demanded now.
Lockley shook his head. The three looked at each other and nodded.Lockley saw that they hadn't been imprisoned long. The sand floor wasmarked but not wholly formed into footprints, as it would have beenhad they moved restlessly about. Mostly, it appeared, they'd simplysat on the sand floor.
"We didn't see 'em either," said the chunky man. "There was a hell ofa explosion over at the lake this mornin'. We piled in a car--mycar--and came over to see what'd happened. Then something hit us. Allof us. Lights. Noise. A godawful stink. A feeling all over like anelectric shock that paralyzed us. We came to blindfolded and tied.They brought us here. That's our story so far. What's happened toyou--and what really happened to us?"
"I'm not sure," said Lockley.
He hesitated. Then he told them about Vale, and what he'd reported.They'd had no explanation at all of what had happened to them. Theyseemed relieved to be informed, though the information was hardlyheartening.
"Critters from Mars, eh?" said the moustached man. "I guess we'd actthe same way if we was to get to Mars. They got to figure out some wayto talk to who lives here. I guess that makes us it--unless we canfigure out something better."
Lockley, by temperament, tended to anticipate worse things in thefuture than had come in the past. The suggestion that the occupants ofthe spaceship had captured men to learn how to communicate with themseemed highly optimistic. He realized that he didn't believe it. Itseemed extremely unlikely that the invaders from space were entirelyignorant of humanity. The choice of Boulder Lake as a landing place,for example, could not have been made from space. If there was needfor deep water to land in--which seemed highly probable--then it wouldhave been simple good sense to descend in the ocean. The ship couldsubmerge, and it could move about in the lake. Vale had said so. Sucha ship would almost inevitably choose deep water in the ocean for alanding place. To land in a crater lake--one of possibly two or threeon an entire continent suitable for their use--indicated that they hadinformation in advance. Detailed information. It practically shoutedof a knowledge of at least one human language, by which informationabout Crater Lake could have been obtained. Whoever or whatever madeuse of the lake was no stranger to earth!
Yes.... They'd needed a deep-water landing and they knew that BoulderLake would do. They probably knew very much more. But if they didn'tknow that Jill waited for him where the trail toward his ditched carbegan, then there was no reason to let them overhear the information.
"I was part of a team making some base line measurements," saidLockley, "when this business started. I began to check my instrumentswith a man named Vale."
He told exactly, for the second time, what Vale said about the thingfrom the sky and the creatures who came out of it. Then he told whathe'd done. But he omitted all reference to Jill. His coming to thelake he ascribed to incredulity. Also, he did not mention meeting thefleeing population of the construction camp. When his story wasfinished he sounded like a man who'd done a very foolhardy thing, buthe didn't sound like a man with a girl on his mind.
The broad man with the moustache asked a question or two. The tall manasked others. Lockley asked many.
The answers were frustrating. They hadn't seen their captors at all.They'd heard squeaks when they were being brought to this place, andthe squeaks were obviously language, but no human one. They'd beenbound as well as blindfolded. They hadn't been offered food sincetheir capture, nor water. It seemed as if they'd been seized and putinto this metal compartment to wait for some use of them by theircaptors.
"Maybe they want to teach us to talk," said the moustached man, "ormaybe they're goin' to carve us up to see what makes us tick. Ormaybe," he grimaced, "maybe they want to know if we're good to eat."
The chunky man said, "Why'd they blindfold us?"
Lockley had begun to have a very grim suspicion about this. It cameout of the realization of how remarkable it was that a ship designedto be navigable in deep water should have landed in a deep craterlake. He said, "Vale said at first that they weren't human, thoughthey were only specks in his binoculars. Later, when he saw themclose, he didn't say what they look like."
"Must be pretty weird," said the tall man.
"Maybe," said the man with the moustache, attempting humor, "maybethey didn't want us to see them because we'd be scared. Or maybe theydidn't mean to blindfold us, but just to cover us up. Maybe theywouldn't mind us seeing them, but it hurts for them to look at us!"
Lockley said abruptly, "This box we're in. It's made by humans."
The moustached man said quickly, "We figured that. It's the shell ofa compost pit for the hotel that's goin' to be built around here.They'll sink it in the ground and dump garbage in it, and it'll rot,and then it'll be fertilizer. These critters from space are just usingit to hold us. But what are they gonna do with us?"
There were faint squeakings. The cover to the round opening lifted.Three rabbits dropped down. The cover closed with a clang. The rabbitsshivered and crouched, terrified, in one corner.
"Is this how they're gonna feed us?" demanded the chunky man.
"Hell, no!" said the tall man, in evident disgust. "They're dumped inhere like we were. They're animals. So are we. This is a temporarycage. It's got a sand floor that we can bury things in. It won't beany trouble to clean out. The rabbits and us, we stay caged untilthey're ready to do whatever they're goin' to do with us."
"Which is what?" demanded the chunky man.
There was no answer. They would either be killed, or they would not.There was nothing to be done. Meanwhile Lockley evaluated his threefellow captives as probably rather good men to have on one's side, andba
d ones to have against one. But there was no action which waspractical now. A single guard outside, able to paralyze them bywhatever means it was accomplished, made any idea of escape indaylight foolish.
"What kind of critters are they?" demanded the chunky man. "Maybe wecould figure out what they'll do if we know what kind of thing theyare!"
"They've got eyes like ours," said Lockley.
The three men looked at him.
"They landed by daylight," said Lockley. "Early daylight. They couldcertainly have picked the time for their landing. They picked earlymorning so they could have a good long period of daylight in which toget settled before night. If they'd been night moving creatures,they'd have landed in the dark."
The tall man said, "Sounds reasonable. I didn't think of that."
"They saw me at a distance," said Lockley, "and I didn't see them.They've got good eyes. They beat me up to the top of the mountain andhid to see what I'd do. When they saw me looking the lake over afterchecking up on Vale, they paralyzed me and brought me here. So they'vegot eyes like ours."
"This guy Vale," said the chunky man. "What happened to him?"
Lockley said, "Probably what'll happen to us."
"Which is what?" asked the chunky man.
Lockley did not answer. He thought of Jill, waiting anxiously at theedge of the woods not far from the camp. She'd surely have watched himclimbing. She might have followed his climb all the way to where hewent around to Vale's post. But she wouldn't have seen his capture andshe might be waiting for him now. It wasn't likely, though, that she'dclimb into the trap that had taken Vale and then himself. She mustrealize that that spot was one to be avoided.
She'd probably try to make her way to his ditched car. She'd heard himask on short wave for a helicopter to come to that place to pick herup. It hadn't been promised; in fact it had been refused. But if sheremained missing, surely someone would risk a low-level flight to findout if she were waiting desperately for rescue. A light plane couldland on the highway if a helicopter wasn't to be risked. Somehow Jillmust find a way to safety. She was in danger because she'd waitedloyally for Vale to come to her at the camp. Now....
Time passed. Hot sunshine on their prison heated the metal. It becameunbearably hot inside. There came squeakings. The cover of the compostpit shell lifted. Half a dozen wild birds were thrust into theopening. The cover closed again. Lockley listened closely. It waslatched from the outside. There would naturally be a fastening on thecover of a compost pit to keep bears from getting at the garbage itwas built to contain.
The heat grew savage. Thirst was a problem. Once and only once theyheard a noise from the world beyond their prison. It was a droning humwhich, even through a metal wall, could be nothing but the sound of ahelicopter. It droned and droned, very gradually becoming louder.Then, abruptly, it cut off. That was all. And that was all that thefour in the metal tank knew about events outside of their ownexperience.
But much was happening outside. Troop-carrying trucks had reached theedge of Boulder Lake National Park, a very few hours after the workmenfrom the camp had gotten out of it. They had a story to tell, and ifit lacked detail it did not lack imagination. The three missing menhad their fate described in various versions, all of which weredramatic and terrifying. The two men who had been paralyzed by someunknown agency described their sensations after their release. Theirstories were immediately relayed to all the news media. It nowappeared that dozens of men had seen the thing descend from the sky.They had not compared notes, however, and their descriptions variedfrom a black pear-shaped globe which had hovered for minutes beforedescending behind the mountains into the lake, to detailed wordpictures of a silvery, torpedo-shaped vessel of space with portholesand flaming rockets and an unknown flag displayed from a flagstaff.
Of course, none of those accounts could be right. The velocity of thefalling object, as reported from two radar installations, checkedagainst a seismograph record of the time of the impact in the lake andallowed no leeway of time for it to hover in mid-air to be admired.
But there were enough detailed and first-hand accounts of alarmingevents to make a second statement by the Defense Department necessary.It was an over-correction of the first soothing one. It was intendedto be more soothing still.
It said blandly that a bolide--a slow-moving, large meteoricobject--had been observed by radar to be descending to earth. It hadbeen tracked throughout its descent. It had landed in Boulder Lake.Air photos taken since its landing showed that an enormous disturbanceof the water of the lake had taken place. It had seemed wise to removeworkmen from the neighborhood of the meteoric fall, and the wholeoccurrence had been made the occasion of a full-scale practiceemergency response by air and other defense forces. Investigation ofthe possible bolide itself was under way.
The writer of the bulletin was obviously sitting on Vale's report andthat of the workmen so as to tell as little as possible and thatslanted to prevent alarm. The bulletin went on to say that there wasno justification for the alarming reports now spreading through thecountry. This happening was not--repeat, was not--in any wayassociated with the cold war of such long standing. It was simply avery large meteor arriving from space and very fortunately falling ina national park area, and even more fortunately into a deep craterlake so that there was no damage even to the forests of the park.
The bulletin had no effect, of course. It was too late. It wasreleased at just about the time the temperature in the metalprison--which seemed likely to become a metal coffin--had begun tofall. The moving sun had gone behind a mountain and the compost pitshell was in shadow once more.
Again the cover of that giant box was opened. A porcupine was droppedinside. The cover went on again. This was, at a guess, about fiveo'clock in the afternoon. The chunky man said drearily, "If this issupposed to be the way they'll feed us, they coulda picked somethingeasier to eat than a porcupine!"
The box now held four men, three rabbits--panting in terror in onecorner--half a dozen game birds and the just-arrived porcupine. Allthe wild creatures shrank away from the men. At any sudden movementthe birds tended to fly hysterically about in the dimness, dashingthemselves against the metal wall.
"I'd say," observed Lockley, "that his guess," he nodded at the tallman, "is the most likely one. Rabbits and birds and porcupines wouldbe considered specimens of the local living creatures. We could beconsidered specimens too. Maybe we are. Maybe we're simply being heldcaged until there's time for a scientific examination of us. Let'shope they don't happen to drop a bear down here to wait with us!"
The tall man said, "Or rattlers! I wonder what time it is. I'll feelbetter when dark comes. They're not so likely to find rattlers in thedark."
Lockley said nothing. But if Boulder Lake had been chosen for alanding place on the basis of previously acquired information, itwasn't likely that either bears or rattlesnakes would be put inconfinement with the men. The men would have been killed immediately,unless there was a practical use to be made of them. He began to makeguesses. He could make a great many, but none of them added up exactlyright.
Only one seemed promising, and that assumed a lot of items Lockleycouldn't be sure of. He did know, though, that he'd been lifted upbefore he was dropped into the round opening of this tank-like metalshell. The top of the box was well above ground. It was not sunk inplace as it would eventually be. Evidently it was not yet in itspermanent position. The light inside was dim enough, but he could seethe other men and the animals and the birds. He could make out theriveted plates which formed the box's sides and top.
Inconspicuously, he worked his hand down through the sand bottom ofthe prison. Four inches down the sand ended and there was earth. Hefelt around. He found grass stems. The box, then, rested on top of theground, which was perfectly natural for a compost pit shell not yetplaced where it would finally belong. The sand.... He exploredfurther.
He waited. The other three stayed quiet. The faint brightness aroundthe cover hole faded away. The interior of the tank-like box be
cameabysmally black.
"Can anybody guess the time?" he asked, after aeons seemed to havepassed.
"It feels like next Thursday," said the voice of the moustached man,"but it's probably ten or eleven o'clock. Looks like we're just goingto be left here till they get around to us."
"I think we'd better not wait," said Lockley. "We've been prettyquiet. They probably think we're well-behaved specimens of thisplanet's wild life. They won't expect us to try anything this late.Suppose we get out."
"How?" demanded the chunky man.
Lockley said carefully, "This box is resting on top of the ground.I've dug down through the sand and found the bottom edge of the metalsidewall. If it's resting only on dirt, not stone, we ought to be ableto dig out with our hands. I'll start now. You listen."
He began to dig with his hands, first clearing away the sand for areasonable space. He felt a certain sardonic interest in what mighthappen. He strongly suspected that nothing undesirable would takeplace.
It was at least quaint that aliens from outer space should accept abottomless metal shell as a suitable prison for animals. It was quaintthat they'd put in a sandy floor. How would they know that such athing meant a cage, on earth?
Of course the whole event might have been a test of animalintelligence. Almost any animal would have tried to burrow out.
Lockley dug. The earth was hard, and its upper part was filled withtenacious grass roots. Lockley pulled them away. Once he'd gottenunder them, the digging went faster. Presently he was under the metalside wall. He dug upward. His hand reached open air.
"One of you can spell me now," he reported in a low tone. "It lookslike we'll get away. But we've got to make our plans first. We don'twant to be talking outside the tank, or even when the hole'sfair-sized. For instance, will we want to keep together when we getoutside?"
"Nix!" said the chunky man. "We wanna tell everybody about thesecharacters. We scatter. If they catch one they don't catch any more.We couldn't fight any better for bein' together. We better scatter. Icall that settled. I'm scatterin'!"
He crawled to Lockley in the darkness.
"Where you diggin'? OK. I got it. Move aside an' give me room."
"Everybody agrees on that?" asked Lockley.
They did. Lockley was relieved. The chunky man dug busily. There wasonly the sound of breathing, and the occasional fall of thrown-outearth against the metal of the thing that confined them. The chunkyman said briskly, "This dirt digs all right. We just got to make thehole bigger."
In a little while the chunky man stopped, panting. The tall man said,"I'll take a shot at it."
There was a breakthrough to the air outside. The atmosphere in thetank improved. The smell of fresh-dug dirt and cool night air wasrefreshing. The moustached man took his turn at digging. Lockley wentat it again. Soon he whispered, "I think it's OK. I'll go ahead. Notalking outside!"
He shook hands all around, whispered "Good luck!" and squirmed throughthe opening to the night. Innumerable stars glittered in the sky. Theywere reflected on the water of the lake, here very close. Lockleymoved silently. In the blackness just behind him, his eyes had becomeadjusted to almost complete darkness. He headed away from the shiningwater. He got brushwood between himself and his former companions. Hestood very, very still.
He heard them murmuring together. They were outside. But they hadproposed entirely separate efforts at escape. He went on, relieved. Ithappened that the next time he'd see them, circumstances would beentirely different. But he believed they were competent men.
Guided by the Big Dipper, he moved directly toward the place whereJill should be waiting for him. By the angle of the Dipper's handle heknew that it was almost midnight. Jill would surely have known thatnearly the worst had happened. He'd have to find her....
It was two o'clock when he reached the place where Jill had intendedto wait. He showed himself openly. He called quietly. There was noanswer. He called again, and again.
He saw something white. It was a scrap of paper speared on a brushwoodbranch which had been stripped of leaves to make the paper showclearly. Lockley retrieved it and saw markings on it which thestarlight could not help him to read. He went deep into the woods,found a hollow, and bent low, risking the light of his cigarettelighter for a swift look at the message.
_"I saw creatures moving around in the camp. They weren't men. I was afraid they might be hunting me. I've gone to wait by the car if I can find it."_
She'd written in English, in full confidence that creatures from spacewould not be able to read it. Lockley was not so sure, but the messagehadn't been removed. If it had been read, there'd have been an ambushwaiting for him when he found it. So it appeared.
He headed through the night toward the ditched small car.
It seemed a very long way, though he did stop and drink his fill froma little mountain stream over which a highway bridge had almost beencompleted. In the night, though, and with hard going, it was not easyto estimate how far he'd gone. In fact, he was anxiously debating ifhe mightn't have passed the abandoned bulldozer when he came upon theplace where blasting had been going on. Still, it was a very long wayto be negotiated over still-remaining tree stumps and the unfilledholes from which others had been pulled.
He reached the bulldozer and turned south, and at long last reachedthe highway. His car should be no more than a quarter-mile away. Hemoved toward it, close to the road's edge. He heard music. It wasfaint, but vivid because it was the last sound that anybody wouldexpect to hear in the hours before dawn in a wilderness deserted bymankind. He scraped his foot on the roadway. The music stoppedinstantly. He said, "Jill?"
He heard her gasp.
"I found where Vale had been," he said steadily. "There was no bloodthere. There's no sign that he's been killed. Then I was caughtmyself. I was put with three other men who were believed killed butwho are still alive. We escaped. It is within reason to hope that Valeis unharmed and that he may escape or somehow be rescued."
What he said was partly to make her sure that it was he who appearedin the darkness. But it was technically true, too. It was withinreason to hope for Vale's ultimate safety. One can always hope,whatever the odds against the thing hoped for. But Lockley thoughtthat the odds against Vale's living through the events now in progresswere very great indeed.
Jill stepped out into the starlight.
"I wasn't--sure it was you," she said with difficulty. "I saw thethings, you know, at a distance. At first I thought they were men. Sowhen I first saw you--dimly--I was afraid."
"I'm sorry I haven't better news," said Lockley.
"It's good news! It's very good news," she insisted as he drew near."If they've captured him, he'll make them understand that he's a man,and that men are intelligent and not just animals, and that theyshould be our friends and we theirs."
The girl's voice was resolute. Lockley could imagine that all the timeshe'd been waiting, she'd been preparing to deny that even the worstnews was final, until she looked on Vale's dead body itself.
"Do you want to tell me exactly what you found out?" she asked.
"I'll tell you while I work on the car," said Lockley. "We want to getmoving away from here before daybreak."
He went down to the little car, wedged in the saplings it hadsplintered and broken. He began to clear it so he could lever it backon to the highway. He used a broken sapling, and as he worked he toldwhat had happened, including the three men in the compost pit shelland the dumping of assorted small wild life specimens into it withthem.
"But they didn't kill you," said Jill insistently, "and they didn'tkill those three, and there were the two others you say got over theparalysis and went back to the camp. Counting you, that's six men theyhad at their mercy that we know weren't harmed. So why should theyhave harmed a seventh man?"
Lockley did not answer at once. None of the spared six, he thought,had put up a fight. Only Vale had exchanged blows with the crew of thespaceship. Nobody else had seen them.
"T
hat's right, about Vale," he said after a moment in which he hadbeen busy. "But this doesn't look good!"
He felt under the car. He squeezed himself beneath its front end.There was a small, fugitive flicker of flame. It went out and he wassilent.
Presently he got to his feet and said evenly, "We're in a fix. One ofthe front wheels is turned almost at a right angle to the other. Aking pin is broken. The car couldn't be driven even if I managed toget it up on the road. We've got to walk. There ought to be soldierson the way up to the lake today. If we meet them we'll be all right.But this is bad luck!"
It happened that he was mistaken on both counts. There were nosoldiers moving into the park, and it was not bad luck that his carcouldn't be driven. If he'd been able to get it on the road andtrundling down the highway, the car would have been wrecked and theycould very well have been killed. But this was for the future todisclose.
They took nothing from the car because they could not see beyond thepresent. They started out doggedly to follow the highway that soldierswould be likely to follow on the way to the lake. It was not theshortest way to the world outside the Park. It was considerably longerthan a footpath would have been. But Lockley expected tanks, at least,against which eccentric unearthly weapons would be useless. So theyheaded down the main highway. Lockley was unarmed. They had no food.He hadn't eaten since the morning before.
When day came--gray and still--and presently the dew upon grass andtree leaves glittered reflections of the sky, he moved aside into thewoods and found a broken-off branch, out of which by very great efforthe made a club. When he came back, Jill was listening attentively tothe little pocket radio. She turned it off.
"I was hoping for news," she explained determinedly. "The governmentknows that there are creatures in the spaceship, and he--" that wouldbe Vale "--will be trying to make them understand what kind of beingswe are. So there could be friendly communication almost any time. Butthere aren't any news broadcasts on the air. I suppose it's tooearly."
He agreed, with reservations. They made their way along the dew-wettedsurface of the highway. As the light grew stronger, Lockley glancedagain and again at Jill's face. She looked very tired. He reflectedsadly that she was thinking of Vale. She'd never thought twice aboutLockley. Even now, or especially now, all her thoughts were for Vale.
When sunlight appeared on the peaks around them, he said detachedly,"You've had no rest for twenty-four hours and I doubt that you've hadanything to eat. Neither have I. If troops come up this highway we'llhear the engines. I think we'd better get off the highway and try torest. And I may be able to find something for us to eat."
There are few wildernesses so desolate as to offer no food at all forone who knows what to look for. There is usually some sort of berryavailable. One kind of acorn is not bad to eat. Shoots of bracken arenot unlike asparagus. There are some spiny wild plants whose leaves,if plucked young enough, will yield some nourishment and of coursethere are mushrooms. Even on stone one can find liverish rock-tripewhich is edible if one dries it to complete dessication before soakingit again to make a soup or broth.
Before he searched for food, though, Lockley said abruptly, "You saidyou saw the creatures and they weren't men. What did they look like?"
"They were a long way away," Jill told him. "I didn't see themclearly. They're about the size of men but they just aren't men. Faraway as they were, I could tell that!"
Lockley considered. He shrugged and said, "Rest. I'll be back."
He moved away. He was hungry and he kept his eyes in motion, lookingfor something to take back to Jill. But his mind struggled to form apicture of a creature who'd be the size of a man but would be knownnot to be a man even at a distance; whose difference from mankindcouldn't be described because seen at such great distance. Presentlyhe shook his head impatiently and gave all his attention to the searchfor food.
He found a patch of berries on a hillside where there was enough earthfor berry bushes, but not for trees. Bears had been at them, but therewere many left.
He filled his hat with them and made his way back to Jill. She had thepocket radio on again, but at the lowest possible volume. He put theberry-filled hat down beside her. She held up a warning hand. Specklesof sunshine trickled down through the foliage and the tree trunks werespotted with yellow light. They ate the berries as they heard thenews.
A new official news release was out. And now, twelve hours after thelast, wholly reassuring bulletin, there was no longer any pretensethat the thing in Boulder Lake was merely a meteorite.
The pretext that it was a natural object, said the news broadcaster,resuming, had been abandoned. But reassurance continued. Photographicplanes had been attempting to get a picture of the alien ship as itfloated in the lake. So far no satisfactory image had been secured,but pictures of wreckage caused by an enormous wave generated in thelake by the alien spaceship's arrival were sharp and clear. Troopshave been posted in a cordon about the Boulder Lake Park area toprevent unauthorized persons from swarming in to see earth's visitorsfrom space. Details of its landing continue to be learned. Workmenfrom the construction camp have been questioned, and the two men whowere paralyzed and then released have told their story. So far fourhuman beings are known to have been seized by the occupants of thespaceship. One is Vale, an eye-witness to the ship's descent andlanding. The three others went to investigate the gigantic explosionaccompanying the landing in the lake. They have not been seen since.This, however, does not imply that they are dead. Quite possibly theinvaders--aliens--guests--who have landed on American soil are tryingto learn how to communicate with the American people who are theirhosts.
Lockley watched Jill's face. As she heard the references to Vale, shewent white, but she saw Lockley looking at her and said fiercely,"They don't know that the visitors didn't kill you and let you and theother three men escape. Someone ought to tell these broadcasters...."
Lockley did not answer. In his own mind, though, there was the factthat of the two workmen who'd been paralyzed and released, the threemen in the compost pit shell, and himself, none had seen theircaptors. But Vale had.
The broadcaster went on with a fine air of confidence, reporting thatyesterday afternoon a helicopter had flown into the mountains toexamine the landing site in detail since it could not be examined froma high-flying plane.
Lockley remembered the droning he and the others had heard through themetal plates of their prison.
The helicopter had suddenly ceased to communicate. It is believed tohave had engine trouble. However, later on a fast jet had attempted aflight below the extreme altitude of the photographic planes. Itspilot reported that at fifteen thousand feet he'd suddenly smelled anappalling odor. Then he was blinded, deafened, and his muscles knottedin spasms. He was paralyzed. The experience lasted for seconds only.It was as if he'd flown into a searchlight beam which produced thosesensations and then had flown out of it. He'd instinctively usedevasive maneuvers and got away, but twice before he passed the horizonthere were instantaneous flashes of the paralysis and the pain.Scientists determined that the report of the men who'd been paralyzedand released agreed with the report of the pilot. It was assumed thatwhatever or whoever had landed in Boulder Lake possessed a beam--itmight as well be called a terror beam because of the effects ithad--of some sort of radiation which produced the paralysis and theagony. Unless the three men missing from the construction camp haddied of it, however, it was not to be considered a death ray.
The news went on with every appearance of frankness and confidence. Itwas natural for strangers on a strange planet to take precautionsagainst possibly hostile inhabitants of the newly-found world. Butevery effort would be exerted to make friendly contact and establishpeaceful communications with the beings from space. Their weaponappeared to be of limited range and so far not lethal to human beings.Occasional flashes of its effects had been noted by the troops nowforming a cordon about the Park, but it only produced discomfort, notparalysis. Nevertheless the troops in question have been moved ba
ck.Meanwhile rocket missiles are being moved to areas where they candeliver atom bombs on the alien ship if it should prove necessary. Butthe government is extremely anxious to make this contact withextra-terrestrials a friendly one, because contact with a race moreadvanced than ourselves could be of inestimable value to us. Thereforeatom bombs will be used only as a last resort. An atom bomb woulddestroy aliens and their ship together--and we want the ship. Thepublic is urged to be calm. If the ship should appear dangerous, itcan and will be smashed.
The news broadcast ended.
Jill said, obviously speaking of Vale, "He'll make them realize thatmen aren't like porcupines and rabbits! When they realize that wehumans are intelligent people, everything will be all right!"
Lockley said reluctantly, "There's one thing to remember, though,Jill. They didn't blindfold the rabbits or the porcupine. They onlyblindfolded men."
She stared at him.
"One of the men in the pit with me," said Lockley, "thought theydidn't want us to see them because they were monsters. That's notlikely." He paused. "Maybe they blindfolded us to keep us from findingout they aren't."