"For the last time, Laura--will you come with me?"
"No! I hate you!" she shrieked.
Harwood frowned and started toward her. As he came past me, I grabbed
him with my one good hand and tried to pull him back. I had thirty
years on him, but my right hand was badly seared and he was no weakling
even at his age. He shoved me away and sent me sprawling against the
wall. I saw him grab Laura roughly. The alien hummed ominously above my
head.
I made a mad dash for Harwood, caught him by the throat, started to
squeeze. The humming sound grew louder, and then suddenly there was a
blinding wave of heat sweeping through the apartment, and I fell back,
clawing at the floor.
When I was able to open my eyes, a few minutes later, I dashed to the
window just in time to see Harwood holding the struggling form of Laura
and riding off into the night on the backs of his extra-dimensional
Invaders.
* * * * *
I sat down heavily on the bed and stayed there for what might have been
hours, recovering my strength. The Invader had given me just a glancing
shock, just enough to stun me and singe my eyebrows--and Harwood had
grabbed Laura.
Now I _had_ to find the answer. I had to close the gateway and find
some way of killing the Invaders--and get Laura out of her father's
clutches.
It was nearly morning by the time I shook off the last effects of my
stunning and was able to think clearly again. I pulled my generator out
of the closet and looked at it, wondering what needed to be done.
The gateway, first of all. It was a doorway to some alien dimension,
Harwood had said. All right. I'd accept that at face value.
The Invaders--what were they? Pure radiation? Energy-eaters? They were
intangible, immaterial, but yet very much present. Perhaps, I thought
wildly, their corporeal bodies were still in whatever dimension of
infraspace they came from, and merely their essences, their _elans_,
had come through?
Could be, I thought. And if it were true, I might have the answer.
Ignoring the fierce pangs of hunger shooting through me, I got back
to work and concentrated steadily. The thought of Laura was with me
always--the image of her riding off in the sky with her father's arms
locked tightly around her. Riding off as if kidnapped by a witch on a
broomstick.
I don't know how long it took, but finally my generator was finished.
Finished, and portable. I strapped it to my back and picked up my
longest and sharpest kitchen knife. I didn't have a gun, but it didn't
matter. If my theory was correct, a knife would be just as good--and if
I were wrong, a gun wouldn't help anyway.
Then, without stopping to ponder, I ran downstairs and out into the
street for the test.
Fresh air smelled good after days of being cooped up in my little
apartment. I stood in the middle of the street and surveyed the
wreckage.
Bodies lay everywhere, charred and lifeless. Overturned automobiles lay
piled here and there, stalled trucks, artillery batteries and tanks.
The defensive maneuver had failed, and what few people remained were in
hiding. I stood alone in the middle of the street, the heavy generator
on my back, and waved my kitchen knife as triumphantly as if it were
Excalibur.
"Come and get me," I yelled. "Come on Invaders. Let's see what you can
do!"
I looked up. There were a few clusters of them, browsing idly around
some television antennas atop a neighboring building. They ignored me
for a few minutes; maybe they were so surprised to see a living human
in the streets that they were unable to move. I shook my fists at them.
"Come down here where I can get at you!" I shouted.
They hovered uncertainly--and then they came.
* * * * *
Six of them swooped down, humming and buzzing, glowing faintly and
billowing in and out as they dropped toward me. I waited, waited until
they were no more than three or four feet above my head, waited until I
was dizzy with the strain and suspense and could wait no more.
Then I snapped on the generator.
It was like catching flies in molasses. The six aliens stopped dead
in their tracks as my force-field spread out around them, engulfed
them, imprisoned them. Suddenly they were forced to contend with more
radiation than they could possibly swallow. It pinned them there, nine
feet above the ground.
I listened to their frenzied buzzing as they stretched themselves,
elongated fantastically in an attempt to free themselves from the
unexpected thing that had grabbed them. And then I stretched up on
tiptoes and began to stab.
My knife flashed once, twice--and the buzzing became an unbearable
shriek. My heart surged as I struck home again and again. Now we had
them! Now they were vulnerable!
Snared in the force-field, they no longer were able to flicker out of
phase with our dimension every time a weapon approached. They were
anchored now, mired in our continuum, helpless before my savage attack.
I kept stabbing until all six of them were torn and wounded, and then
I snapped off the force-field. And they were gone. Instantly, without
lapse, they popped out of existence like so many snuffed flames.
_Six down_, I thought grimly. _Six down, and untold thousands to go.
But now we have a weapon._
I thumbed my power-pack and the field spread out around me. I began to
cut my way through the streets to the Harwood house.
The aliens took notice of me, now. No more hovering around tv antennae;
they clustered in the air, just outside range of my force-field, and
chattered and buzzed for all they were worth. Every once in a while,
one would blunder into my field, and a swift upward cut with the knife
would take care of him. One cut. They were like balloons, and the
first puncture did it. I didn't dare shut off the force-field to see
if they'd pop out of existence, for fear the clouds of them in the air
would swoop in on me before I could turn it on again--but as I moved
on, through the dead and deserted streets, I could see the string of
dead Invaders hanging in the air vanishing one by one as I moved out of
range.
And then I was standing in front of Laura's home, right in front of
the vortex itself. It was still there, and the aliens came thundering
through at a rate of ten or twenty a minute.
I stepped past the vortex, ignoring the aliens that clustered around
me, as helpless against me as humanity had been against them only a few
hours before. There was no point in dealing with the Invaders yet--not
until the source was cut off.
* * * * *
I strode up to the porch and peered in the window. I saw Laura huddled
in a far corner of the sitting-room, and behind her Abel Harwood
marching up and down, probably delivering a fiery parental harangue.
It was a nightmare scene, with a dead city outside, hordes of alien
invaders swarming in the air--and the man responsible for it busy
delivering a lecture to his unruly daughter!