"Come on out of there, Harwood!"
He looked up, astonished. I saw Laura's pale face brighten as she
recognized me, then grow downcast as Harwood started to come toward me.
I walked off the porch into the garden and waited there for him. He
emerged, eyes blazing, and said, "How did you get here? How did you get
past my guards?"
"Your guards don't worry me any more, Harwood. I'm going to put a stop
to all this now!"
He chuckled. "You're a very troublesome young man, Mr. Matthews. I
spared you once, for my daughter's sake--but I'll have no such scruples
this time." He gestured imperiously to the thick swarm of Invaders
billowing out of the vortex.
"You don't scare me, Harwood." I drew a deep breath, reached around
back, and cut off the force-field for the barest fraction of a second,
then restored it. It was just enough time to trap twenty or so aliens
in a glowing ring right above my head.
Smiling, I drew my trusty kitchen knife and began to lay about. I
heard Harwood's flustered exclamations as, one by one, the imprisoned
Invaders winked out, darkened, and died.
I finished off the twenty and folded my arms. "Care to send some more,
Harwood? It's easier than swatting gnats!"
He sputtered a few unintelligible words, then rushed from the porch
toward me.
He was a big man--big, and heavy. I was under the handicap of the
heavy force-field generator, which I knew I had to keep from his grasp
or else I was finished. All he had to do was to smash the generator,
and I'd be roasted the next second.
Harwood barrelled into me, sweeping away the kitchen knife while I was
still debating whether or not to use it. It went clattering into a pile
of rocks in one corner of the garden, and then his fists hit me.
I backed away, making sure I kept the generator out of his reach, and
flicked out a few defensive gestures. His face was contorted with rage.
He was almost blind with fury, and I could hardly blame him. Here I
stood, threatening to wreck whatever monument of villainy it was that
he had been erecting for twenty years.
We closed in a tight clinch, and his fists pummelled my stomach. I
drove upward and felt teeth splinter as I connected. He spat out a
mouthful of blood and backed off.
"Why did you have to do it?" he muttered. "Why did you ruin everything?"
"You pitiful madman," I said. "For the sake of silly revenge on a world
that rightfully regarded you as a crackpot, you--"
His eyes blazed and he came driving in at me again. In the background,
I heard the continuing buzzing of the Invaders, who hovered out of
reach of my force-field, unable to help their master. And overriding
the dull droning of the aliens was a steady pattern of sobbing coming
from the porch.
Laura. Watching her father and the man she loved fighting to the death
in her front yard.
Harwood grasped me in a tight bear-hug, his thick fingers reaching for
the power-pack on my back. I danced away and landed a solid punch in
the midsection, and he countered with a wild roundhouse that staggered
me and knocked me within a few inches of the garden fence.
He came lumbering after me, obviously determined to flatten me against
the fence and crush the generator that way. I didn't have any way of
escaping to the right or the left; I could only wait there and hope to
withstand his assault.
As he drew near, I tensed my legs and crouched. Then he hit me, and
I pushed upward with all my strength. The fate of a whole world--and
Laura and me--depended on my strength at that instant.
It worked. His heavy body lifted, and he grunted in pain as I rammed
upward. He went up, up, over the garden fence--
And then, to my horror, he cleared the garden fence and, with a
soul-splitting cry, fell into the gaping mouth of his own vortex!
I leaned against the fence, gaping--and before I could think of what to
do, the vortex was gone, winked out as if it had never been!
Then Laura was on the porch, white-faced, terrified.
"What happened? Where's Daddy?"
I ran to her side. "He's gone," I said. "Tripped and fell into the
vortex, and then--"
"Oh!" She gave a little cry and I thought she was going to
faint, but she caught herself with an effort and straightened
up. Speaking carefully, syllable by syllable, she said,
"I--just--smashed--Daddy's--machinery."
"You _what_?"
"While you were fighting--I ran down to the basement and wrecked
everything. Everything!"
I shivered. No wonder the vortex had vanished. At the very instant Abel
Harwood was tumbling into it, his daughter was busily destroying the
generator that operated it.
Her control broke. She burst into sobs and huddled in my arms. Finally
she said, "I--hated him. He was out of his mind."
"Try not to think about it," I told her. "Try to forget him. It's all
over. There's just _us_ now."
"I know," she said.
I looked up at the sky, which was dark with the Invaders. It was a
frightening sight--but I no longer feared them. The Gateway was closed,
and Abel Harwood dead, so far as we were concerned. I didn't want to
think of what might be happening to him in whatever universe he was in.
There would be a lot of work to do. I would have to find the
authorities, if any were left, and show them how to build my generator.
Then would begin the long, slow war of eradication against the
remaining Invaders.
Laura was still sobbing. "Don't worry," I said soothingly. "It's all
over now."
We had won.