Coburn panted: "Dillon's no man! He's a monster from somewhere in space!
And he and his kind have killed those soldiers! Murdered them! And the
soldiers are men! You stay here. I'll go down there and--"
"No!" said Janice, "I'm coming too."
He took the donkey's halter and led the animal down to the village, with
Janice trembling a little in the saddle. He talked in a tight, taut,
hysterical tone. He told what he'd found up on the cliffside. He
described in detail the similitude of a man's body he'd found deflated
beside a stunted bush.
He did not look at Janice as he talked. He moved doggedly toward the
village, dragging at the donkey's head. They neared the houses very
slowly, and Coburn considered that he walked into the probability of a
group of other creatures from unthinkable other star systems, disguised
as men. It did not occur to him that his sudden outburst about Dillon
sounded desperately insane to Janice.
* * * * *
They reached the first of the fallen soldiers. Janice looked,
shuddering. Then she said thinly: "He's breathing!"
He was. He was merely a boy. Twenty or thereabouts. He lay on his back,
his eyes closed. His face was upturned like a dead man's. But his breast
rose and fell rhythmically. He slept as if he were drugged.
But that was more incredible than if he'd been dead. Regiments of men
fallen simultaneously asleep....
Coburn's flow of raging speech stopped short. He stared. He saw other
fallen soldiers. Dozens of them. In coma-like slumber, the soldiers who
had come to loot and murder lay like straws upon the ground. If they had
been dead it would have been more believable. At least there are ways to
kill men. But this ...
Dillon parted the group of villagers about him and came toward Coburn
and Janice. He was frowning in a remarkably human fashion.
"Here's a mess!" he said irritably. "Those Bulgars came marching down
out of the pass. The cavalry galloped on ahead and cut the villagers off
so they couldn't run away. They started to loot the village. They
weren't pleasant. Women began to scream, and there were shootings--all
in a matter of minutes. And then the looters began to act strangely.
They staggered around and sat down and went to sleep!"
He waved his hands in a helpless gesture, but Coburn was not deceived.
"The tanks arrived. And they stopped--and their crews went to sleep!
Then the infantry appeared, staggering as it marched. The officers
halted to see what was happening ahead, and the entire infantry dropped
off to sleep right where it stood!
"It's bad! If it had happened a mile or so back ... The Greeks must have
played a trick on them, but those cavalrymen raised the devil in the few
minutes they were out of hand! They killed some villagers and then
keeled over. And now the villagers aren't pleased. There was one man
whose son was murdered, and he's been slitting the Bulgars' throats!"