No! There he was fifty feet away ringing Mike Kozulak's bell. And he
was erect, completely steady!
But _nobody_ could move _that_ fast!
* * * * *
I turned back and picked up the papers he'd dropped. There was a little
sheaf of them, printed on incredibly thin paper. The printing resembled
the wave-forms I had seen upon the 'scope. It was like some twisted
Arabic script. And this strange script was overprinted on a star-chart
which I thought I recognized.
I plumbed my mind, I had it! In a star identification course at M. I.
T. they had given us star-charts showing us the galaxy as seen from
another star which we were asked to identify. One of those charts at M.
I. T. had been almost exactly the same as this: the galaxy as viewed
from Alpha Centauri!
I was stunned. I staggered a bit as I went back out on the stoop and
looked down the street. I welcomed the sight of Ed Fitzgerald hurrying
up across the neighbors' forelawns, uprooting some of the burbanked
tropical plants en route.
By the time Fitzgerald reached me, the census taker had come out of
Mike Kozulak's like a fission-freed neutron, staggered a few times in
an orbit around one of Mike's greenhouse-shelled shrubs, and actually
_streaked_ across the two vacant lots between Mike's and Manny Cohen's.
"He's not human," I said to Ed. "Not _Earth_-human. I'll swear he's
from Alpha Centauri; look at these papers! What he's after Heaven
knows, but maybe we can find out. It's a cinch he'll eventually reach
Maitland Browne's. Let's get there fast; maybe we'll be able to trap
him!"
I dragged Fitzgerald inside and we went up the passenger shaft under
optimum ascent.
My little Ponticopter's jets seared the roof garden as I blasted
forward before the vanes had lifted us clear of the stage. I think I
out-Browned Browne in going those five blocks and I know I laid the
foundation for a Mrs. Browne vs. Mr. Rainford feud as I dropped my
'copter with dismaying results into the roof garden which was her idea
of Eden. I had to, though; Brownie's is a one-copter stage and his ship
was on it.
We beat the alien. We looked back down the hill before we entered
Brownie's passenger shaft. The fellow was just staggering out of Jack
Wohl's rancher at the lower end of this last block.
We found Browne working on a stripped-down stereo chassis which had
been carelessly laid without protective padding in the middle of the
highly polished dining table. I knew then that his wife couldn't
possibly be home.
Browne looked up as if he were accustomed to unannounced people
dropping into his reception chute.
"To what do I owe the honor of--" he started. Fitzgerald interrupted
him with a stammered burst that brought a pleased grin to his broad
features.
"Well, Fitz," Browne said. "Where's the old control?"
Fitzgerald fumed. I took over and explained swiftly.
"Well, this _is_ a problem," Browne said thoughtfully. "Now why in the
world--"
His front door chimed and became one-way transparent. We saw the alien
standing on the stoop, erect and calm.
"Now what will--" Fitzgerald started. "We thought maybe--the chair,
Brownie!"
Browne grinned and pressed a button on the table console. He has them
in every room--to control at his whim any of the dozens of electronic
and mechanical equipments located throughout his enormous house.