He choked and whirled about, water dribbling
from the side of his mouth. One look was enough.
“Get back!” Nick forced Linda, by the weight of his
body and his determination, into the brush fringe of the woods.
“Keep Lung quiet!” He added a second order.
They were no longer alone in the meadow. Two figures had rounded
the rising bulwark of the ridge, were running, or rather wavering
forward desperately. They were dressed alike in a yellow brown that
could easily be seen against the vivid green of the grass. But they
did not try to take cover. It was as if some great terror, or need,
drove them by the most open ways where they could keep the best
speed they could muster.
Both staggered, as if they kept erect and moved only with the
greatest of efforts. One fell and Nick and Linda heard him call out
hoarsely, saw him strive to pull up again. His companion came to a
wavering halt, looked back, and then returned to help. Linked by
their hands they went on.
“Nick—in the sky!”
“I see it. Keep down, out of sight!”
A small saucer craft, such as the one that had hunted the
Herald, snapped into view. Now it was almost directly over the
runners who may or may not have had an instant or so to realize
their peril.
Both men continued forward, their agonized effort plain. It
might have been that the grassy meadow had been transformed into a
bog in which sucking mud held them fast. Then they wilted to the
ground and lay very still.
The saucer hung motionless directly above them. From its
underside dropped a mass of gleaming cords looped and netted
together, lowered by cable that remained fastened to the ship. And
swinging down that came another figure.
The saucer man (if man he was) was small, dwarfish. But little
could be seen of him save a silver shape. For he wore suit and
helmet not unlike those of an astronaut. A second such joined the
first and they busied themselves with the net and the inert men on
the ground. At a signal the net swung up, heavy with the runners,
the suited crewmen riding with it.
The craft swallowed up captives and captors. But it did not
disappear as Nick hoped desperately that it would. He began to fear
that those on board had knowledge of their presence also. Who knew
what devices the hunters might operate?
“Nick—!” Linda’s whisper brought a warning
scowl from him.
Her hand went to her mouth as if she needed to physically stifle
her fear. Lung crouched beside her shivering, but he did not utter
a sound. Dare they try to move? Edge farther back into the woods
where they were more protected by the trees? Nick was not sure they
could make it—not now. It could be that they were needlessly
alarmed. Still the saucer did not go.
Lung whined.
“I told you, keep—” Nick began hotly.
What he saw stunned him into silence in mid-sentence.
Between the bushes where they lay and the open meadow flashed a
slender line of light. It broadened, became a mist, forming a wall
before them.
Out of the saucer in turn came such a ray as had followed the
Herald during his ride. It was aimed at them and once more Nick
felt that sickening tingling. Where the ray met the vapor wall, the
mist balled into a fiery spot. And from the centering of energy ran
out lines of fire.
“Quick! This protection cannot be held. Into the
woods!”
At that cry Nick did not hesitate. When he reached for Linda,
his hand closed on emptiness, she was already retreating, fighting
her way into the shadows of the trees. It was not until they were
well under that leaf cover again that Nick demanded:
“Who called to us?”
“Nobody!” Linda leaned against a tree trunk as if
she could no longer trust her own feet. “It—it was in our
heads. Somebody—something—thought at us!”
He shook his head, not altogether denying what she had said, but
as if to clear away the disorientation brought about by the
realization that it was true. No one had shouted that order, it had
rung in his mind!
Linda turned her head slowly from left to right and back
again.
“Please, whoever—wherever you are”—her voice was low
and not too steady—“we’re grateful—”
But need they be? Nick’s wariness was back full force. It
might only be that they had been marked down as prey by one power
who thus had defended them against another.
Something flashed into his memory as clearly as if he still saw
the scene before him.
“She was crying,” he said.
“Who?” Linda was startled.
“The girl with Lung. She was crying when she
disappeared.”
“You think she—” Linda was, he saw,
prepared to protest.
“It might be. But why was she crying?”
Linda pressed Lung so closely to her the Peke whined. “I
don’t know. Maybe she wanted Lung so much—”
“No, it wasn’t that.” Nick shook his head
again. That queer sensation frustrated him. It was as if he had
been on the very edge of learning something important and then a
door slammed, or communication was sharply broken, leaving him
ignorant. “I don’t think it had anything to do with
Lung at all.”
“She whistled him to her,” Linda snapped.
“Nick, what are we going to do? I don’t like this woods
any better than I did before, even if it shields us from that
saucer.”
He agreed with her. There was a feeling of life around them that
had nothing to do with trees, or vines, moss, or the rest of the
visible world. Which was the lesser of two evils—the unknown of the
woods, or the open and the hunting saucer? Somehow, of the two, he
was more inclined now to risk the woods and he said so.
Linda looked dubious and then reluctantly agreed.
“I suppose you are right. And we would have been netted
just like those others if something hadn’t interfered. But
which way?”
There Nick was at a loss. The compass on which he had depended
before was back at the house with the rest of his gear. And he no
longer trusted his own ability to set any course, not after what
had happened before.
“Too bad Lung isn’t a hound—he might guide
us—”
“But he might! Oh, why didn’t I think of
that?”
Linda actually seemed to believe the Peke could guide them, and
Nick was amazed at her obsession with the dog.
“His leash! I need his leash—” She had put Lung down
between her feet, was looking about her as if what she sought could
be materialized out of the air by the strength of her desire.
“Wait—maybe this will do.” She caught at a vine
running along the ground. It was tough and resisted her efforts to
wrench it loose.
Nick grabbed a good hold on it and jerked. He had no false
optimism about Lung’s ability to take them out of the woods,
but perhaps Linda knew more about the Peke than he did.
Linda stripped off the leaves and small stems and fastened one
end to Lung’s collar. Then she picked up the small dog and
held him so his slightly protruding eyes were on a level with her
own.
“Lung—home—home—” She repeated that with solemn
earnestness as if the small animal could understand. Lung barked
twice. Linda put him down. Again she repeated:
“Home, Lung!”
The Peke turned without hesitation and headed into the woods.
Linda looked back impatiently as Lung pulled at the improvised
leash.
“Are you coming?”
Nick could refuse, but at the moment he had no alternative to
offer. And there could be a chance she was right about Lung, that
he might find the way back. Nick followed.
Apparently Lung had utter confidence in what he was doing. He
found his way among the trees never hesitating at all. And the very
certainty of his steady progress promised something, Nick decided.
But he was still only partly able to accept the fact that the Peke
had such ability as a guide when they came out of the woods (it
must have been a narrow tongue at this end) and could see, some
distance to their right, the farmhouse.
“I told you!” Linda had such a note of triumphant
relief in her voice that Nick guessed she had not been so firmly
confident of Lung’s abilities after all.
Now she ripped off the vine leash, picked up the Peke, and ran
for the building that was more than ever a promise of safety. Nick
halted for a moment to check the sky. The saucer people might have
foreseen this move, could be cruising overhead, or snap suddenly
into view—
But Linda was running faster, too far ahead for him to catch and
suggest prudence. He set out after her. As they entered the space
immediately before the door Nick saw it was not, luckily, barred to
them but stood ajar. Did that mean that the others were gone—?
Linda crossed the threshold, he was now only two or three paces
behind her. And Nick had hardly cleared the space of the door swing
before that was clapped to and. the bar clanged down.
The transition from sunlight to this darkened room was such that
Nick could not see clearly. Someone seized his arm urgently. He
knew Stroud’s voice.
“What d’you think you’re doin’?
“I ought to give you a good one!” the Warden
continued, and his grasp tightened into a painful vise. “You
haven’t even the sense of a coney—not you!”
“Get your hand off me!” Nick flared. All his fears,
frustrations, his anger against Linda for her foolishness, was hot
in him. He struck out at the man he could only half see.
“Sam!” The Vicar pushed between them as the Warden
ducked that badly aimed blow with the ease of one trained in such
business.
Stroud loosed his grip, but Nick, breathing hard, did not draw
back.
“You keep your hands off me,” he said again between
set teeth.
“Stop it!” Linda cried out. “Nick only came
after me—”
“And what were you doing out there, girl?” Lady
Diana asked.
“I went after Lung. Someone whistled and he went
out—through the window in the other room. I had to go after him.
It’s a good thing I did or she would have had him!”
“She?” It was the Vicar who asked that. Nick’s
sight had adjusted to the gloom now. He saw that they were ringed
by the rest of the party.
“The shining girl in the woods. She was going to give Lung
something—something to eat, I think. When I tried to knock it out
of her hand,” Linda’s voice faltered, “my—my hand
went right through her arm!”
She stopped as if she thought she would not believe her and for
the space of a breath or two she was met by silence. Then Crocker
spoke, a roughness in his voice close to that which had hardened
Stroud’s when he accused Nick.
“What did she look like—this ghost girl of
yours?”
“She—she was about my height,” Linda said. “I
was so afraid for Lung I didn’t see her much to remember. I
think she had brown hair and she was wearing green. Ask Nick—he saw
her better than I did. When my hand went through her arm—” As
her voice trailed into silence Nick saw them all turn to him.
“She—well, she had brown hair, only it had some red in it,
too. And it was shoulder length.” He tried to remember all
the details he could. Crocker had pushed ahead of Stroud, was as
intent upon what Nick said as if this was of utmost importance.
“She wore green—with a coat like the Herald’s—a silver
and gold apple branch on it. And she was pretty—Yes,”
memory suddenly provided him with another small point, “she
has a little dark mole, right about here.” He touched his own
face near his mouth. “You could see it because her skin was
so very white.”
He heard Crocker’s breath hiss as if the pilot gasped.
“But—” Nick added what seemed to him to be most
important, “when she faded away she was crying.”
“Rita!” Crocker pulled away, his shoulders hunched,
his back to them.
“Or an illusion,” Hadlett said quietly. “We
have seen illusions, many of them, Barry.”
Crocker did not look around, his hands were covering his
face.
“An illusion would be intended for us, we knew her. These
two didn’t! So what would be the purpose of feeding them an
illusion?” His voice was low, toneless. Nick thought he
fought to control it
“Barry is right,” Lady Diana agreed. “Unless
the People want us to try and find her—and provide such an illusion
to get us out of here.”
“Which they won’t, not that way!” Crocker
replied. But he still did not look at them. “We let
her—it—know that long ago—”
“What else happened?” Hadlett took over the
questioning.
Nick supplied the account of the mist-hidden departure of the
illusion (he thought the Vicar had the right identity there), their
following the wrong tracks out into the open. As tersely as he
could he gave them an account of the capture of the fugitives by
the saucer, the strange wall of light that undoubtedly saved them
from a like fate, and their return with Lung’s aid.
Hadlett was more interested in the defense that saved them from
the saucer than all else, and he took Nick through as full a
description of that as he could give for a second time.
“Definitely a force field,” the Vicar commented when
he had pried every possible detail out of Nick. “But the
People have never interfered before, not for one of us.”
“Rita would—” Jean said. “I don’t
care,” she added. “He said she was crying, and Rita did
cry that last time. I believe it was Rita, not just an illusion
sent to trap us. And I believe she did save them from the
hunters.”
“She’s one of them!” There was ugly
violence in that sentence Crocker hurled at Jean.
“Yes.” Her agreement was bleak as if he advanced an
argument no one could deny.
“We do not know,” Hadlett commented, “how much
of the human remains in those who accept. If Rita remembers us I do
not believe it is in anger. We did what we had to do, being what
and who we are. It seems plain that something well disposed to
these two young people did save them this morning. And that is no
small action.”
“That’s all past,” rumbled Stroud. “What
we’ve got to think of is that there’s hunters here—not
too far away. Something in the woods wanted you two free, but that
don’t mean that it’s goin’ to keep on
fightin’ for us. We can hole up here—for a while—but not long.
No supplies to keep us goin’. We’ve got to get back to
the cave.”
“We’ve the bolt hole,” Crocker said as if he
welcomed the change of subject. “That’ll put us on the
other side of the ridge.”
“An’ a sight too near that city for my
thinkin’!” Stroud answered. “But it may be we
won’t have much choice.”
They scanted on the rations they shared for breakfast.
Luckily they did not lack for water, for in the far corner of
the big room a round stone could be heaved up and there was a well
below. It would seem, Nick decided, that the original inhabitants
of this place had built to withstand sieges.
Stroud held a council of war, to which Nick and Linda could add
very little. That they had returned safely from the morning’s
venture now seemed to Nick to be better fortune than they
deserved. But perhaps some good had come from it by their
witnessing the capture by saucer, a warning of the trouble now
hovering aloft. It was finally decided that they would wait out the
day where they were, since their position here was safe. With dusk
they would move again, this time through a secret exit of the
house.
Hadlett suggested the advantages of resting all they could,
since once they were on the move again they would have heavy
demands made upon their strength. It was then that Mrs. Clapp spoke
up.
“You are all goin’ to listen to me now.” She
spoke with the same firmness as Stroud showed upon occasion.
“The Vicar, he has the right of it when he says as how this
is goin’ to be a hard pull. Me, I ain’t put by in a
chair with a pap bowl under m’ chin an’ two shawls
around me—not as yet. But I’m stiff in m’ legs,
an’ when it comes to a spot o’ runnin’, I
ain’t no gal in m’ teens, as it were. This is a safe
place, as we all know. Best I hide here an’ you take off
where m’ old feet won’t be no hindrance to you. This is
only proper sense an’ you all know it!” She glanced
from one to another, her face stubbornly set.
“Maude.” The Vicar spoke gently. “This is
something we decided long ago—”
“Not the same at all, it ain’t!” she
interrupted him. “It weren’t no matter then o’
one o’ us havin’ to lag so badly that she was a
botheration an’ handicap to put all the rest in danger. You
can’t make me be that, sir, you can’t!”
“Perhaps not, Maude. But do you want to lay a worse burden
on us then? To go and leave you and remember it?”
She stared now at the hands twisted together in her lap.
“That’s a hard—hard thing to say—”
“Would you go, Maude? If I broke a limb and could not
travel, if Lady Diana, Jean, Sam, any of us said what you have just
said, would you agree?”
He paused, she made no answer. Then he continued:
“From the first we said it, and we mean it—we stay
together, no matter what comes—”
“It ain’t fair—sayin’ that. Me an’
Jeremiah, we’re old, an’ we’re safe here. You
could come back when it’s safe again.”
“We shall make it, Maude.” Lady Diana moved
up behind the stool on which Mrs. Clapp sat. Now her hands closed
on the rounded shoulders of the older woman, and she gave her a
small shake that had a rough caress in it. “We’ve been
through a lot, and we’ve always made it.”
“There’s always a first time not to, m’lady.
An’ I don’t want to be a burden—”
“You, Maude Clapp? What would we do without your
knowledge of growing things? Remember how you pulled Barry through
that fever when we had all given up? We can’t do without
you!”
“And don’t forget what we owe Jeremiah.” Jean
knelt beside the stool, her brown hands laid over the gnarled,
arthritis-crooked fingers clasped so tightly together. “He
always knows when the People are around and tells us. You and
Jeremiah, we couldn’t do without either of you, and
we’re not going to!”
“It ain’t right.” Mrs. Clapp held to her view
stubbornly. “But, if I say you ‘no,’ you’re
like to try to carry me. I wouldn’t put it past your
stuffin’ me in a basket”—she smiled a
little—“an’ draggin’ me along. An’ a good
hefty bit of draggin’ I would make for the one who tried
that, I’m tellin’ you, should you have a thought in
that direction.”
“You’ll go out on your own two feet, along with all
of us,” Hadlett assured her. “I foresee more skulking
and hiding in our next journey than running. Is that not so,
Sam?”
“You have the right words for it, Vicar. With them
flyin’ devils out an’ bein’ so close to the city,
an’ all. We go out through the bolt hole an’ then we
take to the country like Jas Haggis used to.”
“Seein’ as how we ain’t no poachers nor night
hiders like Jas,” Mrs. Clapp commented, “I don’t
believe that for one minute, Sam. Me, I’m more used to a good
comfortable kitchen than all this trampin’. Get back to the
cave, I will, an’ then you’re goin’ to have a
good hard argufyin’ on your hands do you talk about
doin’ this again.”
Jean laughed. “I shall remind you of that, Maude, the next
time you get down your herb bag and start talking about what you
think may be waiting to be popped into it if you only have the
chance to go and look.”
“You do that, m’ gal.” Mrs. Clapp chuckled.
“You just remind me about m’ perishin’ feet,
an’ aching back, an’ all the rest of it. An’ like
as not I’ll be a homebody as quick as I could scat
Jeremiah—not that I am like ever to do that. Am I now, old
man?” The gray cat had come to her knee and now stood on his
hind legs, his forepaws braced against her, looking intently into
her face as if he understood every word she said.
“So we wait and rest.” The Vicar spoke briskly.
“And go at dusk.”
“Seems best,” Stroud agreed.
But if the others could rest, Nick found that the day dragged.
There was more light in the room, but it was stuffy, for the small
slits under the eaves that admitted the light did not do the same
for much air. The door to the room with the barred window was open
and he could see the sun on the dusty floor there.
They had all retired once more to their beds, and he thought
some were asleep. But he was sure that the pilot, whose pile of
leaves adjoined his own, was not one of them. Crocker turned
restlessly. Nick believed he heard him mutter once or twice. But
his words were obviously not addressed to the American and the
latter dared not break the silence between them.
Rita—Crocker’s girl who had accepted what the Herald had
to offer and so was no longer human. Nick would never forget seeing
Linda’s hand pass through the other’s outstretched arm.
Illusion, but, if so, created by one who knew Rita well. And why
had an illusion been crying? Was that so he, Nick, could carry such
a tale back here?
His head ached, the stuffiness of the room was unendurable. With
as little noise as possible he got up, went into that other chamber
and to the window guarded only by the grill, being careful not to
touch the iron lattice. There was actually a breeze here and he
filled his lungs gratefully with fresh air.
From this point he could not see the front lane nor the woods.
That was east, this faced south.
Color—a shimmer of color at first. Then it—hardened was the only
word Nick could supply for the process. Shaped, fully three
dimensional, he saw brilliant details.
A man stood there, his eyes on the house, searching. Somehow
Nick thought this stranger knew just where he was, even if
the window’s shadow might hide him. Out of an angle of the
wall paced a white animal, its legs stilt thin, pawed where they
should be hooved. But this time flat on the ground, not inches
above the surface.
The stiff material of the Herald’s tabard was divided by
pattern into four sections, each rich with embroidery. Nick could
guess where the English had gotten their name for the alien—the
tabard had a strong likeness to a quartered coat of arms, a true
“coat” since it was worn.
Herald and horse, interested in the house. Nick wondered if he
should give the alarm. But, as he hesitated, he saw the Herald
swing up on a saddle that was hardly more than a pad.
The “horse” took an upward leap, soaring as if it
had spread wings. And, though Nick now pushed against the grating,
he held the two in sight for only a second or two. As long as he
could see them, the steed was still rising.
He choked and whirled about, water dribbling
from the side of his mouth. One look was enough.
“Get back!” Nick forced Linda, by the weight of his
body and his determination, into the brush fringe of the woods.
“Keep Lung quiet!” He added a second order.
They were no longer alone in the meadow. Two figures had rounded
the rising bulwark of the ridge, were running, or rather wavering
forward desperately. They were dressed alike in a yellow brown that
could easily be seen against the vivid green of the grass. But they
did not try to take cover. It was as if some great terror, or need,
drove them by the most open ways where they could keep the best
speed they could muster.
Both staggered, as if they kept erect and moved only with the
greatest of efforts. One fell and Nick and Linda heard him call out
hoarsely, saw him strive to pull up again. His companion came to a
wavering halt, looked back, and then returned to help. Linked by
their hands they went on.
“Nick—in the sky!”
“I see it. Keep down, out of sight!”
A small saucer craft, such as the one that had hunted the
Herald, snapped into view. Now it was almost directly over the
runners who may or may not have had an instant or so to realize
their peril.
Both men continued forward, their agonized effort plain. It
might have been that the grassy meadow had been transformed into a
bog in which sucking mud held them fast. Then they wilted to the
ground and lay very still.
The saucer hung motionless directly above them. From its
underside dropped a mass of gleaming cords looped and netted
together, lowered by cable that remained fastened to the ship. And
swinging down that came another figure.
The saucer man (if man he was) was small, dwarfish. But little
could be seen of him save a silver shape. For he wore suit and
helmet not unlike those of an astronaut. A second such joined the
first and they busied themselves with the net and the inert men on
the ground. At a signal the net swung up, heavy with the runners,
the suited crewmen riding with it.
The craft swallowed up captives and captors. But it did not
disappear as Nick hoped desperately that it would. He began to fear
that those on board had knowledge of their presence also. Who knew
what devices the hunters might operate?
“Nick—!” Linda’s whisper brought a warning
scowl from him.
Her hand went to her mouth as if she needed to physically stifle
her fear. Lung crouched beside her shivering, but he did not utter
a sound. Dare they try to move? Edge farther back into the woods
where they were more protected by the trees? Nick was not sure they
could make it—not now. It could be that they were needlessly
alarmed. Still the saucer did not go.
Lung whined.
“I told you, keep—” Nick began hotly.
What he saw stunned him into silence in mid-sentence.
Between the bushes where they lay and the open meadow flashed a
slender line of light. It broadened, became a mist, forming a wall
before them.
Out of the saucer in turn came such a ray as had followed the
Herald during his ride. It was aimed at them and once more Nick
felt that sickening tingling. Where the ray met the vapor wall, the
mist balled into a fiery spot. And from the centering of energy ran
out lines of fire.
“Quick! This protection cannot be held. Into the
woods!”
At that cry Nick did not hesitate. When he reached for Linda,
his hand closed on emptiness, she was already retreating, fighting
her way into the shadows of the trees. It was not until they were
well under that leaf cover again that Nick demanded:
“Who called to us?”
“Nobody!” Linda leaned against a tree trunk as if
she could no longer trust her own feet. “It—it was in our
heads. Somebody—something—thought at us!”
He shook his head, not altogether denying what she had said, but
as if to clear away the disorientation brought about by the
realization that it was true. No one had shouted that order, it had
rung in his mind!
Linda turned her head slowly from left to right and back
again.
“Please, whoever—wherever you are”—her voice was low
and not too steady—“we’re grateful—”
But need they be? Nick’s wariness was back full force. It
might only be that they had been marked down as prey by one power
who thus had defended them against another.
Something flashed into his memory as clearly as if he still saw
the scene before him.
“She was crying,” he said.
“Who?” Linda was startled.
“The girl with Lung. She was crying when she
disappeared.”
“You think she—” Linda was, he saw,
prepared to protest.
“It might be. But why was she crying?”
Linda pressed Lung so closely to her the Peke whined. “I
don’t know. Maybe she wanted Lung so much—”
“No, it wasn’t that.” Nick shook his head
again. That queer sensation frustrated him. It was as if he had
been on the very edge of learning something important and then a
door slammed, or communication was sharply broken, leaving him
ignorant. “I don’t think it had anything to do with
Lung at all.”
“She whistled him to her,” Linda snapped.
“Nick, what are we going to do? I don’t like this woods
any better than I did before, even if it shields us from that
saucer.”
He agreed with her. There was a feeling of life around them that
had nothing to do with trees, or vines, moss, or the rest of the
visible world. Which was the lesser of two evils—the unknown of the
woods, or the open and the hunting saucer? Somehow, of the two, he
was more inclined now to risk the woods and he said so.
Linda looked dubious and then reluctantly agreed.
“I suppose you are right. And we would have been netted
just like those others if something hadn’t interfered. But
which way?”
There Nick was at a loss. The compass on which he had depended
before was back at the house with the rest of his gear. And he no
longer trusted his own ability to set any course, not after what
had happened before.
“Too bad Lung isn’t a hound—he might guide
us—”
“But he might! Oh, why didn’t I think of
that?”
Linda actually seemed to believe the Peke could guide them, and
Nick was amazed at her obsession with the dog.
“His leash! I need his leash—” She had put Lung down
between her feet, was looking about her as if what she sought could
be materialized out of the air by the strength of her desire.
“Wait—maybe this will do.” She caught at a vine
running along the ground. It was tough and resisted her efforts to
wrench it loose.
Nick grabbed a good hold on it and jerked. He had no false
optimism about Lung’s ability to take them out of the woods,
but perhaps Linda knew more about the Peke than he did.
Linda stripped off the leaves and small stems and fastened one
end to Lung’s collar. Then she picked up the small dog and
held him so his slightly protruding eyes were on a level with her
own.
“Lung—home—home—” She repeated that with solemn
earnestness as if the small animal could understand. Lung barked
twice. Linda put him down. Again she repeated:
“Home, Lung!”
The Peke turned without hesitation and headed into the woods.
Linda looked back impatiently as Lung pulled at the improvised
leash.
“Are you coming?”
Nick could refuse, but at the moment he had no alternative to
offer. And there could be a chance she was right about Lung, that
he might find the way back. Nick followed.
Apparently Lung had utter confidence in what he was doing. He
found his way among the trees never hesitating at all. And the very
certainty of his steady progress promised something, Nick decided.
But he was still only partly able to accept the fact that the Peke
had such ability as a guide when they came out of the woods (it
must have been a narrow tongue at this end) and could see, some
distance to their right, the farmhouse.
“I told you!” Linda had such a note of triumphant
relief in her voice that Nick guessed she had not been so firmly
confident of Lung’s abilities after all.
Now she ripped off the vine leash, picked up the Peke, and ran
for the building that was more than ever a promise of safety. Nick
halted for a moment to check the sky. The saucer people might have
foreseen this move, could be cruising overhead, or snap suddenly
into view—
But Linda was running faster, too far ahead for him to catch and
suggest prudence. He set out after her. As they entered the space
immediately before the door Nick saw it was not, luckily, barred to
them but stood ajar. Did that mean that the others were gone—?
Linda crossed the threshold, he was now only two or three paces
behind her. And Nick had hardly cleared the space of the door swing
before that was clapped to and. the bar clanged down.
The transition from sunlight to this darkened room was such that
Nick could not see clearly. Someone seized his arm urgently. He
knew Stroud’s voice.
“What d’you think you’re doin’?
“I ought to give you a good one!” the Warden
continued, and his grasp tightened into a painful vise. “You
haven’t even the sense of a coney—not you!”
“Get your hand off me!” Nick flared. All his fears,
frustrations, his anger against Linda for her foolishness, was hot
in him. He struck out at the man he could only half see.
“Sam!” The Vicar pushed between them as the Warden
ducked that badly aimed blow with the ease of one trained in such
business.
Stroud loosed his grip, but Nick, breathing hard, did not draw
back.
“You keep your hands off me,” he said again between
set teeth.
“Stop it!” Linda cried out. “Nick only came
after me—”
“And what were you doing out there, girl?” Lady
Diana asked.
“I went after Lung. Someone whistled and he went
out—through the window in the other room. I had to go after him.
It’s a good thing I did or she would have had him!”
“She?” It was the Vicar who asked that. Nick’s
sight had adjusted to the gloom now. He saw that they were ringed
by the rest of the party.
“The shining girl in the woods. She was going to give Lung
something—something to eat, I think. When I tried to knock it out
of her hand,” Linda’s voice faltered, “my—my hand
went right through her arm!”
She stopped as if she thought she would not believe her and for
the space of a breath or two she was met by silence. Then Crocker
spoke, a roughness in his voice close to that which had hardened
Stroud’s when he accused Nick.
“What did she look like—this ghost girl of
yours?”
“She—she was about my height,” Linda said. “I
was so afraid for Lung I didn’t see her much to remember. I
think she had brown hair and she was wearing green. Ask Nick—he saw
her better than I did. When my hand went through her arm—” As
her voice trailed into silence Nick saw them all turn to him.
“She—well, she had brown hair, only it had some red in it,
too. And it was shoulder length.” He tried to remember all
the details he could. Crocker had pushed ahead of Stroud, was as
intent upon what Nick said as if this was of utmost importance.
“She wore green—with a coat like the Herald’s—a silver
and gold apple branch on it. And she was pretty—Yes,”
memory suddenly provided him with another small point, “she
has a little dark mole, right about here.” He touched his own
face near his mouth. “You could see it because her skin was
so very white.”
He heard Crocker’s breath hiss as if the pilot gasped.
“But—” Nick added what seemed to him to be most
important, “when she faded away she was crying.”
“Rita!” Crocker pulled away, his shoulders hunched,
his back to them.
“Or an illusion,” Hadlett said quietly. “We
have seen illusions, many of them, Barry.”
Crocker did not look around, his hands were covering his
face.
“An illusion would be intended for us, we knew her. These
two didn’t! So what would be the purpose of feeding them an
illusion?” His voice was low, toneless. Nick thought he
fought to control it
“Barry is right,” Lady Diana agreed. “Unless
the People want us to try and find her—and provide such an illusion
to get us out of here.”
“Which they won’t, not that way!” Crocker
replied. But he still did not look at them. “We let
her—it—know that long ago—”
“What else happened?” Hadlett took over the
questioning.
Nick supplied the account of the mist-hidden departure of the
illusion (he thought the Vicar had the right identity there), their
following the wrong tracks out into the open. As tersely as he
could he gave them an account of the capture of the fugitives by
the saucer, the strange wall of light that undoubtedly saved them
from a like fate, and their return with Lung’s aid.
Hadlett was more interested in the defense that saved them from
the saucer than all else, and he took Nick through as full a
description of that as he could give for a second time.
“Definitely a force field,” the Vicar commented when
he had pried every possible detail out of Nick. “But the
People have never interfered before, not for one of us.”
“Rita would—” Jean said. “I don’t
care,” she added. “He said she was crying, and Rita did
cry that last time. I believe it was Rita, not just an illusion
sent to trap us. And I believe she did save them from the
hunters.”
“She’s one of them!” There was ugly
violence in that sentence Crocker hurled at Jean.
“Yes.” Her agreement was bleak as if he advanced an
argument no one could deny.
“We do not know,” Hadlett commented, “how much
of the human remains in those who accept. If Rita remembers us I do
not believe it is in anger. We did what we had to do, being what
and who we are. It seems plain that something well disposed to
these two young people did save them this morning. And that is no
small action.”
“That’s all past,” rumbled Stroud. “What
we’ve got to think of is that there’s hunters here—not
too far away. Something in the woods wanted you two free, but that
don’t mean that it’s goin’ to keep on
fightin’ for us. We can hole up here—for a while—but not long.
No supplies to keep us goin’. We’ve got to get back to
the cave.”
“We’ve the bolt hole,” Crocker said as if he
welcomed the change of subject. “That’ll put us on the
other side of the ridge.”
“An’ a sight too near that city for my
thinkin’!” Stroud answered. “But it may be we
won’t have much choice.”
They scanted on the rations they shared for breakfast.
Luckily they did not lack for water, for in the far corner of
the big room a round stone could be heaved up and there was a well
below. It would seem, Nick decided, that the original inhabitants
of this place had built to withstand sieges.
Stroud held a council of war, to which Nick and Linda could add
very little. That they had returned safely from the morning’s
venture now seemed to Nick to be better fortune than they
deserved. But perhaps some good had come from it by their
witnessing the capture by saucer, a warning of the trouble now
hovering aloft. It was finally decided that they would wait out the
day where they were, since their position here was safe. With dusk
they would move again, this time through a secret exit of the
house.
Hadlett suggested the advantages of resting all they could,
since once they were on the move again they would have heavy
demands made upon their strength. It was then that Mrs. Clapp spoke
up.
“You are all goin’ to listen to me now.” She
spoke with the same firmness as Stroud showed upon occasion.
“The Vicar, he has the right of it when he says as how this
is goin’ to be a hard pull. Me, I ain’t put by in a
chair with a pap bowl under m’ chin an’ two shawls
around me—not as yet. But I’m stiff in m’ legs,
an’ when it comes to a spot o’ runnin’, I
ain’t no gal in m’ teens, as it were. This is a safe
place, as we all know. Best I hide here an’ you take off
where m’ old feet won’t be no hindrance to you. This is
only proper sense an’ you all know it!” She glanced
from one to another, her face stubbornly set.
“Maude.” The Vicar spoke gently. “This is
something we decided long ago—”
“Not the same at all, it ain’t!” she
interrupted him. “It weren’t no matter then o’
one o’ us havin’ to lag so badly that she was a
botheration an’ handicap to put all the rest in danger. You
can’t make me be that, sir, you can’t!”
“Perhaps not, Maude. But do you want to lay a worse burden
on us then? To go and leave you and remember it?”
She stared now at the hands twisted together in her lap.
“That’s a hard—hard thing to say—”
“Would you go, Maude? If I broke a limb and could not
travel, if Lady Diana, Jean, Sam, any of us said what you have just
said, would you agree?”
He paused, she made no answer. Then he continued:
“From the first we said it, and we mean it—we stay
together, no matter what comes—”
“It ain’t fair—sayin’ that. Me an’
Jeremiah, we’re old, an’ we’re safe here. You
could come back when it’s safe again.”
“We shall make it, Maude.” Lady Diana moved
up behind the stool on which Mrs. Clapp sat. Now her hands closed
on the rounded shoulders of the older woman, and she gave her a
small shake that had a rough caress in it. “We’ve been
through a lot, and we’ve always made it.”
“There’s always a first time not to, m’lady.
An’ I don’t want to be a burden—”
“You, Maude Clapp? What would we do without your
knowledge of growing things? Remember how you pulled Barry through
that fever when we had all given up? We can’t do without
you!”
“And don’t forget what we owe Jeremiah.” Jean
knelt beside the stool, her brown hands laid over the gnarled,
arthritis-crooked fingers clasped so tightly together. “He
always knows when the People are around and tells us. You and
Jeremiah, we couldn’t do without either of you, and
we’re not going to!”
“It ain’t right.” Mrs. Clapp held to her view
stubbornly. “But, if I say you ‘no,’ you’re
like to try to carry me. I wouldn’t put it past your
stuffin’ me in a basket”—she smiled a
little—“an’ draggin’ me along. An’ a good
hefty bit of draggin’ I would make for the one who tried
that, I’m tellin’ you, should you have a thought in
that direction.”
“You’ll go out on your own two feet, along with all
of us,” Hadlett assured her. “I foresee more skulking
and hiding in our next journey than running. Is that not so,
Sam?”
“You have the right words for it, Vicar. With them
flyin’ devils out an’ bein’ so close to the city,
an’ all. We go out through the bolt hole an’ then we
take to the country like Jas Haggis used to.”
“Seein’ as how we ain’t no poachers nor night
hiders like Jas,” Mrs. Clapp commented, “I don’t
believe that for one minute, Sam. Me, I’m more used to a good
comfortable kitchen than all this trampin’. Get back to the
cave, I will, an’ then you’re goin’ to have a
good hard argufyin’ on your hands do you talk about
doin’ this again.”
Jean laughed. “I shall remind you of that, Maude, the next
time you get down your herb bag and start talking about what you
think may be waiting to be popped into it if you only have the
chance to go and look.”
“You do that, m’ gal.” Mrs. Clapp chuckled.
“You just remind me about m’ perishin’ feet,
an’ aching back, an’ all the rest of it. An’ like
as not I’ll be a homebody as quick as I could scat
Jeremiah—not that I am like ever to do that. Am I now, old
man?” The gray cat had come to her knee and now stood on his
hind legs, his forepaws braced against her, looking intently into
her face as if he understood every word she said.
“So we wait and rest.” The Vicar spoke briskly.
“And go at dusk.”
“Seems best,” Stroud agreed.
But if the others could rest, Nick found that the day dragged.
There was more light in the room, but it was stuffy, for the small
slits under the eaves that admitted the light did not do the same
for much air. The door to the room with the barred window was open
and he could see the sun on the dusty floor there.
They had all retired once more to their beds, and he thought
some were asleep. But he was sure that the pilot, whose pile of
leaves adjoined his own, was not one of them. Crocker turned
restlessly. Nick believed he heard him mutter once or twice. But
his words were obviously not addressed to the American and the
latter dared not break the silence between them.
Rita—Crocker’s girl who had accepted what the Herald had
to offer and so was no longer human. Nick would never forget seeing
Linda’s hand pass through the other’s outstretched arm.
Illusion, but, if so, created by one who knew Rita well. And why
had an illusion been crying? Was that so he, Nick, could carry such
a tale back here?
His head ached, the stuffiness of the room was unendurable. With
as little noise as possible he got up, went into that other chamber
and to the window guarded only by the grill, being careful not to
touch the iron lattice. There was actually a breeze here and he
filled his lungs gratefully with fresh air.
From this point he could not see the front lane nor the woods.
That was east, this faced south.
Color—a shimmer of color at first. Then it—hardened was the only
word Nick could supply for the process. Shaped, fully three
dimensional, he saw brilliant details.
A man stood there, his eyes on the house, searching. Somehow
Nick thought this stranger knew just where he was, even if
the window’s shadow might hide him. Out of an angle of the
wall paced a white animal, its legs stilt thin, pawed where they
should be hooved. But this time flat on the ground, not inches
above the surface.
The stiff material of the Herald’s tabard was divided by
pattern into four sections, each rich with embroidery. Nick could
guess where the English had gotten their name for the alien—the
tabard had a strong likeness to a quartered coat of arms, a true
“coat” since it was worn.
Herald and horse, interested in the house. Nick wondered if he
should give the alarm. But, as he hesitated, he saw the Herald
swing up on a saddle that was hardly more than a pad.
The “horse” took an upward leap, soaring as if it
had spread wings. And, though Nick now pushed against the grating,
he held the two in sight for only a second or two. As long as he
could see them, the steed was still rising.