We Cast No Shadow by Francis G Rayer

We Cast No Shadow

The infiltration of The Aliens onto this planet was one of the most unexpected yet disastrous events of the 20th Century. No Earthman ever knew their names, or whence they came...

RAIN shook the carriage window and Glen stared impatiently out into the humid night. His own fault, he thought- he had been warned the train was slow! But the hour’s delay while a fallen tree had been shifted from the rails seemed excessive.

“ We’ll be late, Mr. Robertson..."
Glen nodded. McMasters, hunched on the opposite seat, elbows on knees, was peering through the steamy window. Glen looked from him to his watch.
“ Yes, Mac. They won’t hold up the test for us.”
He listened to the wheels. McMasters swayed as the train passed an uneven stretch.
“Maybe it is that the driver is walking ahead to repair the line as we go?" he observed.

Glen smiled, though disappointed. A streaky sky showed that dawn was coming and his watch indicated 4 a.m.- the time Fairbairn Equipments Ltd. had suggested for the test. The Junction at which they must alight was still a mile away and there was a mile walk beyond.

“Never did men travel so short a distance in so long a time,” McMasters said acidly. “ And what a wilderness!”
He indicated the window. Through the thinning rain showed dim hills, dotted with ragged bushes and devoid of houses. They rattled through a cutting, drenched gorse blocking the view, and emerged upon an upland flat, dim, and grey as some end-of-the-earth wilderness.

" If what Fairbairn claims is true, the farther he is from towns the better.” Glen stated.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“ Must be a path off to the left,” McMasters observed.

They followed the lane more slowly. Right, the bank rose steeply; left, it undulated, covered with bushes. A narrow opening promised the way they sought, but led nowhere. Finally, they emerged again into sight of the Junction.

Maybe the storm brought bushes across the line, McMasters suggested without conviction.
Glen looked at his watch. Six-thirty. The same dawn glimmer hung in the east. The slopes were grey, the heavens cloudless yet obscured. He drew in his lips. The sun should have been up.
They crossed the line to the other building. A narrow track vanished over a hillock, but proved to end at an ash-tip.
“ There must be a phone in the station!” Glen decided.

Empty boxes stood inside the grey-stone building. A second door gave entry to a tiny office littered with forms, time-tables and other rubbish. A map hung on the wall and McMasters indicated it.

“There’s the Junction. Here's the site of the Fairbairn Works, marked in pencil. Somebody’s been keeping up to date!”
The telephone did not work, producing only a high drone in the earpiece. Glen examined the map. The scale was too small to show the lane.
“ Somebody’s coming,” McMasters said abruptly.

Glen went to the grimed window.. A yellowish light shone fifty yards along the muddy lane. For fully ten seconds it hung, shimmering like a light seen through mist, then vanished. Glen blinked, startled by its disappearance. It did not reappear.

" Some-- atmospheric phenomenon." His voice echoed.
McMasters gave an inaudible exclamation. " Or some chap stuck in the mud! Let’s look.”
They followed the lane to the spot, but no one was there, or within the space of fifty yards ahead. They returned and Glen halted, pointing down.

A dozen conical depressions patterned the mud. Their foot-steps showed across them, but the depressions overlay their first prints. Glen bent, staring. Each depression was mathematically true. A rotating object could have rested there, or each could have been moulded on a potter’s wheel. Broad as his hand and a few inches deep, they were true and regular.

“ A- a thunderbolt, or something,” he murmured, rising.

He felt unconvinced. They returned to the Junction and Glen took out his watch. The sun should have become visible, or at least revealed its presence. Instead, an unchanging greyness obscured the sky, while the same eastward tint told of approaching dawn, McMasters followed his gaze, a curious expression on his rugged face. His. eyes, bleached from desert sun and polar snow, were puzzled.

“ There were hand power trollies the other side, laddie," he said abruptly. “ Let’s take one to the next station- it’s a man-sized place, according to the map, and only a few miles on. We might get a car there.”

The trucks were mere flat platforms on flanged wheels, a two-man beam handle working a crank. They lifted one to the middle and set it in motion. The Junction fell away behind. “We’ll be there in half an hour.” McMasters sounded relieved. “ Next time Fairbairn has something to show let's ask for transport.”

They pumped the handle in unison. The wheels sang and Glen gazed ahead. If a train came they could lift the truck clear.
Gorse and woodland sped past. They negotiated a narrow cutting and Glen abruptly loosed the handle and pulled the brake at its side. The truck stopped.
Ahead, the lines seemed to disappear. Seemed, Glen thought. It was like staring into mist, or water, or into- nothing..

“ I’m cross-eyed,” McMasters said.
Glen looked away from the diffusing rails. His eyes hurt as if trying to focus something not really there.
He got down and threw a clinker along the lines. It blossomed into haze, vanishing.
“Let's’s go the other way.” McMasters’s voice quivered. “It’s only about ten miles to the Halt we passed - - and there was a Stationmaster.

They reversed the trolley. Glen looked back. The lines apparently ended in nothingness. He wished that the light were stronger. The same pre-dawn greyness overhung them. Eastwards, on the horizon, was the brightness that told of a rising sun. But it was only the same brightness as of hours before. His watch showed 10.30.

They rattled through the Junction. Half a mile beyond they squealed to a halt scarcely five yards from a second glimmering haze. Ten minutes later they were again at the Junction.
“Let’s lift the trolley off,” McMasters observed hopefully. “ A train may come.”

Glen went into the office and examined the map. Apparently they would have to make their way on foot. A thought struck him. The two bewildering areas of haziness which cut straight cross the rails were at the same distance from a certain spot- that occupied by the Fairbairn Works.

Outside, he raised his gaze. An aperture had appeared in the heavens- a circular opening at high altitude. Beyond lay sky speckled with stars in constellations that he did not recognise. Amazed, he stood with one hand on the half-open door, his head back. Shapes were floating earthwards through the aperture, each descent rapid yet controlled. They glowed, huge... Then the opening blinked shut like an eyelid and uniform greyness obscured the sky.

Glen wondered whether his senses were deceived. He had seemed to look through a hole that led to alien galaxies - but now nothing remained to prove that it was not mere imagination.
McMasters left the hut opposite and crossed the rails. "Nothing useful there..." He halted, eyes on Glen's face. "Seen a ghost?”

Glen relaxed. There were no words to describe the great, opening iris, or the shapes that had drifted through. It was as if two gigantic bubbles had momentarily touched and coalesced so that a common dimension existed between them. During those moments something had passed from one sphere to the other- what, he could not say. He looked both ways. The platforms were silent, deserted. The faded sign mocked him. VALE-END JUNCTION. Junction, he thought. Yes, the place had become a junction! But between Earth and what?

“ Ever seen it this dark at midday?” he asked abruptly.
McMasters shook bis head. “Is it that late?"
" Just after.”
The other scratched his chin. “ Your watch reliable?”
“ Usually. The clock in the office shows the same."

They listened, silent. The unmistakable whirring of a motor car was labouring along the lane. A tiny saloon, wheels caked with mud, halted by the gates. A young couple got out. The girl looked twenty-five, tall, with glasses that did not diminish her attractiveness. The man seemed younger, with a strong resemblance.

He came across. “‘ Any chance of getting help? My sister and I want to get out to the common.”
Not the son of folk normally to be found at Vale-End Junction, Glen thought. “ The common?” He considered them. “ Do you mean the Fairbairn Works?”
The girl’s brows rose. “ How did you know?” Her voice matched her brother’s, low and clear.
“ That’s where we were trying to get,” Glen said.

" Then you know the way?"
" Roughly- but it hasn’t helped!"
They looked at the car, caked with clay to the axles. “We’re the Sherwoods,” the man said. “ You’ve heard of us."

It was a simple statement and Glen nodded. He had heard of Della and Jack Sherwood. Fairbairn Equipments Ltd. would have invited them to see the test. Their father had initiative, sagacity, and some of the best electronic technicians in the country. Rumour said son and daughter were equally lucky.

“ We came by road.” Jack Sherwood lifted the bonnet of the saloon. “It’s almost parallel with the railway about a mile from here. The engine stopped- phut, like that. The ignition points were messed up from arcing. I don’t know how we got into that lane, but when we saw the station we looked in--”

“ Nobody else is here.” Glen considered. “What do you know about this test at the Works?”

Della Sherwood looked out from the open saloon door. “ Not much, but enough to say it will be over by now.” She made a face. “ Dad won’t think much of that"
“ Over?" Glen echoed quickly. “I wasn’t told its duration.”
“A few milliseconds. And not the kind of thing they'll repeat, it seems."

Glen felt shocked. An almost-feasible explanation just growing into conviction collapsed. “ A few milliseconds! Would they delay it?"
“ No. It was to take place. If interested parties were unlucky enough to be absent- just too bad.”
Glen did not look at his watch. “ So it’s all over hours ago.”

She nodded, eyeing him curiously. “ The power consumption precluded it being of lengthy duration. I gathered that several million kilovolt-amperes would be dissipated in those few milliseconds. The power was to come from a huge generator, but even so it was so over-run it couldn't endure the load any longer.”

“ And what was the experiment?" Glen asked, stiff lipped.
“ We don’t know.” Her brother looked up from under the bonnet. “You know how such reports are worded.” He scratched his head. “ Fairbairn stated he would demonstrate that certain- natural standing waves could be distorted, and invited observation. That’s all. Knowing Fairbairn Equipments as no mere nine-day wonder merchants, we decided to attend.”

Certain natural standing waves, Glen repeated to himself. That term could cover many phenomena encountered in physics.


"THERE are visitors up the slope,” McMasters observed suddenly.
Glen jerked erect. High up the bush-dotted hillside floated egg-shaped luminosities like that seen in the lane. They halted in line, a string of diffused, yellowish bodies that wavered slightly.

Jack Sherwood gave an exclamation. " What on Earth!"
“Or-- out of Heaven?” McMasters added.
Glen thought of the aperture, and the unknown constellations visible beyond, apparently mere light-years away.
“ It’s safer in the station,” he said.

He watched from the window. One thing was apparent-- the forms on the hill were not atmospheric phenomena, however unnatural. He recalled what he had seen while McMasters was in the hut. Two spheres had touched, or two planes in normally separate time-space coalesced. Galaxies infinitely remote by ordinary space had abruptly become measurably near. Those galaxies were inhabited-- and their inhabitants interested in the new world abruptly swimming into their field of cognizance.

He wondered what the newcomers were, and from where they had come. The universe was large, with uncounted suns; on remote planets strange forms of alien life could have arisen.
“ We could get closer by following that ridge up the hill.” Jack Sherwood pointed. “ We need a nearer look.”
Curiosity edged his voice and Glen agreed. Impossible to leave without investigating more closely...

They cut across into the bushes, ascending the ridge, feet sinking into soggy grass and wet bushes brushing their shoulders. They move quietly, not talking, and Glen wondered what they could see from the top of the rise. He halted, parting bushes. A hundred yards across the slope stood the ovoid forms and Glen knew that they were life- but of a kind new to Earth. If of flesh, it was partly transparent; if of radiation, they had unusual solidarity. Beyond, crushing flat the bushes, rested two huge elongated objects of a light, crystalline hue, smooth, and of similar size. Artifacts, Glen thought, made by alien beings for purposes unknown.

Two mobile spheroids emerged from an opening in one, a glimmering blue cone suspended between them, by invisible means. It rotated, its apex scanning the heavens. Glen shivered. Eerie in the dim light, wholly silent, the forms portended danger.

Others left the second craft- if craft it was -with a second blue cone floating after them. It spun like a strange top, its source of power unseen. The spheroids moved down the hill and halted. The cone took up a position between them, its apex moving in synchrony with the first cone. Glen felt strong fingers on his arm.
"Let’s go, laddie.” McMasters led him down the slope. His face was bleak. “ This is too big for us to handle. Let’s go spread the news.”

Glen wondered whether that would prove easy. The little station had become a junction with another sphere of worlds -but also seemed cut off from Earth. A dim radiance still spoke of a dawn to come, but no wind stirred the air, no cloud showed and no rain fell. He remembered how the rain had ceased quite suddenly and the wind dropped. At that instant, now hours ago, the Junction could have ceased to be part of Earth.



Back in the station Jack Sherwood gestured half agreement. "Diffusion of the lines may only be illusionary,” he pointed out. “We must get away, and quickly. Rail is the simplest way. The saloon isn’t running and the lane's deep with mud. It goes round the hills, too. It’s safer to avoid that direction.”

Glen was undecided, “We can’t tell whether it's illusion or fact."
“ We can- by going on.”
They lifted the hand-trolley to the line and set off. Della and Jack Sherwood gazed expectantly ahead. Glen decided that McMasters, pumping opposite him, was glum; he shook his greying head.
“Better be slow than sorry,” he observed.

“Agreed, Mac.” Glen watched the lines sweeping past. “We’ll stop before we reach it.” He wondered what term applied to the diffused haziness that hurt the eyes.
He braked rapidly when it came into view. Pain returned to his eyes; the muscles ached, as if to focus something outside normal vision.
Jack Sherwood jumped to the sleepers and halted a few paces away.
“ It may be harmless.”
“ Or- fatal,” Glen observed factually.
Della looked round “Let’s see if it ends away from the rails.”
McMasters grunted approval. “ Clever as well as pretty,” he stated to the drab heavens.

They explored at right angles to the rails. The haziness extended ahead in an uninterrupted wall. After several hundred yards Glen halted. It looked certain that the phenomenon extended indefinitely ahead. He thought he discerned a slight curvature in its path, but could not be sure.

“ I’m going on along the rails,” Jack Sherwood declared. Della eyed him quickly. “ Is it safe?”
“ It’s necessary! People - outside need to know what’s happening. If it's something Fairbairn's done, it must be stopped.”

A feeling of suddenly stressed air cut off his words. Intolerable weight pressed down, then was released. Glen jerked his gaze upwards. Momentarily he imagined that he was some minute organism in a soap -bubble, and that its upper edge had touched another... . . A vibrating aperture opened in the heavens. Again, fleetingly, unknown stars were visible in strange constellations. Against them vast numbers of alien craft moved, sinking towards the opening. Many came through, settling, then the aperture jerked shut as if natural forces had overcome stresses applied from outside. Dim daylight returned, showing a myriad of craft moving like silvery fish towards the hill beyond the Junction.

Glen looked at the others quickly. Each face was white.
"The saints save us ." McMasters breathed.
Jack Sherwood’s lips were compressed. “That settles it! he said. “ I’m going through !”
He mounted the truck. “ I’ll need this to get quickly to the next stop. I think one man can work it.” He tried experimentally and nodded.
Glen put a hand on the trolley. “ It’s not safe.”
“ We don’t know~until someone tries.”

The truck gained momentum, wheels rattling, and sped into the haze. Truck and rider seemed to dissipate, spreading, diffusing . . . His eyes hurt and he could not be sure. Possibly Jack was rattling towards the next halt; perhaps...

They waited and the silence returned. The trolley did not reappear.
“ Perhaps Jack won’t come back to tell us it’s all right,” Della said uneasily.
“ Likely enough.” Glen felt no conviction. Had Jack Sherwood passed through unharmed his first act would surely have been to reverse, returning to take them with him.
They waited until it was apparent that he would not return.
“ Perhaps he’s gone on to save time,” Della murmured.

They started towards the Junction, but halted. A conical object stood on its apex on the platform, emitting a low murmuring. They retreated into the bushes, and Glen thought of all the forms which had descended.

" As I see it, an experiment was conducted at the Fairbairn centre,” he mused. “Its effect was to contain this area in a circular field, and set up a common dimension with another area of space. Beings occupying that area are able to penetrate the field. From their viewpoint, a circular sphere of alien character has materialised in their neighbourhood. They have penetrated it, presumably with hostile intentions. So things are difficult.”

The others watched his face. “ How - difficult?” McMasters asked.
“ The aliens inside this circular field are presumably also on Earth, as a result. When the field vanishes- if it does- they will still be on our planet. On the other hand, if the field remains indefinitely, we can’t escape.” He looked at Della.

"Unless Jack is safe, you mean,” she said.
“ Yes. If so, he’ll come back to tell us, soon. If not, we can’t go that way."
He was silent. When the Fairbairn experiment ceased, the field of unknown nature that had snapped so unexpectedly into being would also cease, he assumed. The aliens would then be in Earth's time-space continuum. The Fairbairn experiment had opened a door in the heavens, permitting access from remote regions of space. As he had first assumed, they were at a junction with an alien and probably antagonistic world. And obviously the newcomers were by no means Man’s inferiors in technological development.

“ The scheduled test was only to last a few milliseconds", Della pointed out.
Glen looked east at the unchanging dim radiance, and frowned. It was incomprehensible. His mind seemed to waver on the fringe of understanding. He felt as if straining for something just outside his grasp, that would not emerge into consciousness.

"It fair beats me,” McMasters declared flatly. "I give up.. "
Emotion underlay his words. Glen pressed his arm "That we can't do, Mac. There’s no giving up. People outside must know. This thing must be stopped before more of them come. ”
He pointed. The station platform thronged with wavering shapes such as he had never seen before and certainly never expected to see. One of the ovoids went into the station building, then returned. From nowhere a disc glowing faintly around its perimeter materialised. The grey stone building sank gently into a heap of dust. The glowing disc vanished.

Glen felt cold dew on his forehead. The mobile ovoid passed behind the heap of grey dust that had been the station and began to ascend the hill, where activity had increased.
“Glow-worms on holiday.” McMasters seemed anxious to regain his spirits. “ I’d like to know what’s going on and how they do it." His gaze flickered to what had been the station building.


It was evening by Glen’s watch when the greyness snapped instantaneously from the sky. A watery sun, just rising, shone on the eastern heavens. Wind came sighing over the slopes and within seconds the rain was again descending steadily. It ran down McMaster’s astonished, upturned face.

Beyond the remains of the Junction the aliens’ artifacts shone in the strengthening sunshine.
“ Folk must know!” Glen said.

They boarded the second trolley and set it in rapid motion. The wall of haze had gone, but the trolley lurched as if the rails themselves were no longer even. As he pumped opposite McMasters Glen noted Della Sherwood’s face. It was morose. He wondered what had happened to Jack.

They reached a small station and within moments Glen was phoning from the office. The answering voice from Fairbairn Equipments sounded indifferent.
“So sorry you weren’t here, Mr. Robertson, but other observers were present - - ”
“Get me Fairbairn!” Glen was unable to keep the snap from his voice.
"But he’s busy, Mr. Robertson... "
"Get him!"
"But- - -"
“ Get him!” Glen almost banged the phone. “ This is important!”
There was a pause, then: “ Very well.” The line went silent and Glen fumed.
“ You wanted me?" a crisp voice asked at last.
Glen remembered it-- the voice of a man of quick judgments which were usually sound.
“ Yes, Mr. Fairbairn! We’ve been at Vale-End Junction for the duration of your experiment!”
“The test only lasted milliseconds.” Fairbairn sounded puzzled. “We had considered getting authority to evacuate the area, but it seemed unnecessary. We have just concluded - - "

“ While milliseconds passed for you, out here, hours passed for us, in there!” Glen stated. “ Has Jack Sherwood called?”
Voices murmured. “ No,” Fairbairn said firmly. “ He must have been delayed - - - ”
“Not how you think! His sister is here. She’ll substantiate what I`ve said.” Glen halted as McMasters came in. "Yes?"
“ Stationmaster says the 6 a.m. train isn't in. We didn't pass it on the line.”
“So it’s gone, too,” Glen murmured. He took the phone. " Listen. A train tried to leave the area affected. It vanished . So did Jack Sherwood. There was a misty wall- - "
“ The interference fringe . . .”

“ Could be, if that’s what you call it.” Glen wondered how best to express what he must say. “ I’m asking you to take our word, but remember you can check afterwards. Listen. When the test was in progress we were isolated. No wind came into the area- no rain. Only weak daylight. By my watch and the station clock we were in there hours. Yet the sun’s just rising out here, same as when we got off at the junction. Presumably your equipment was switched on after the train entered the area.” He paused. “ During those hours when the area was separated from your normal timespace it was adjacent to another continuum- and the inhabitants have crossed over and are setting up a base by the Junction !”

An exclamation of disbelief came. Glen feared the worst.
“ Wait !” he urged. “ Five minutes investigation will prove my words! Send a man to look- go yourself ! Anything, but believe me!”
The line went dead.
Outside, the Stationmaster shook his head . "I don't understand! A train can’t vanish!”

His look changed to suspicion. Glen touched McMasters’ arm and they sought the roadway. Moments later a small biplane hummed overhead, very low. Watching, Glen felt relief.

Fairbairn hasn't wasted time,” he said


The sun was at its zenith when the aliens first appeared on the slopes visible in the direction of Vale-End Junction. Through powerful binoculars Glen watched them from the flat roof of the Fairbairn offices. Isolated cottages had been evacuated, police cars snaking along narrow lanes to fetch the inhabitants. The aliens remained on the slope. Abruptly, without sound, a waveform of blue light appeared above them, covering the area they occupied. Across the valley, vehicles crammed lanes and stood in fields, some holding sightseers, others military and police officials who stared at the opposite hill. Smoothly, quick as a blinking eyelid, vehicles and people subsided into dust. Trees, hedges, the road itself, vanished. Down-wind a thin haze of dust settled like heavy brown smoke.

Glen bit a lip. Fairbairn moved to his side, tall, grey, thin of face.
“ We’d give a lot to know how that’s done," he breathed.
Glen looked at him quickly, shocked by his calm. But the face was not calm, nor the eyes which were so fiercely alive, so agonised, that they glowed.
“Planes will bomb the hill and that’ll be that,” Fairbairn said. “We’ll never know where our visitors came from or what scientific miracles they have.”

Glen scanned the naked slope where a hundred vehicles had been. Nearer, screened by the hills, military lorries were piling out equipment. Officers jumped from staff cars, snapping orders briskly.

Across the vale the aliens remained motionless, the weaving blue above them. Glen's ears caught a murmur, growing until the skies vibrated. Bombers came from the south, glinting against the mid-day sun. In regular formation they passed over the hills, their bombs momentarily visible as black, descending dots. Concussion after concussion tore the air; ashes burned vividly then were gone. Smoke blossomed, drifting on the wind. Under the weaving blue waveform of light the aliens remained unmoving and untouched.

“Unharmed!" Fairbairn murmured

A second wave of planes was coming. The flickering blue waveform ceased momentarily as if the power was diverted elsewhere. The sound of engines snapped off. The sky was clear except for a brown vapour that obscured the sun.
“ Just- like that!” Fairbairn said, and snapped his fingers. Glen put down the glasses, sickened. He heard a third wave of f aircraft come over, then their engines ceased. Later, very high, other engines droned . . . and were silent. He swore. Can’t Headquarters learn from experience!"

No more planes came. Nor had others when darkness fell. The area covered by the hills was alive with observers and the alien encampment glowed under its protective shield. Towards midnight, for an hour, artillery barked, making the night echo. Listening from the office where he had sat down to sleep, Glen knew that it was useless. Finally the guns dropped quiet. Only searchlights were reflected against the sky.

Glen wondered whether the rest of the world knew. Not yet, he decided. There would be an initial period of disbelief, then newsmen treated the information with suspicion. Only after, when photographs were in every paper under banner headlines, would Mankind awake to the fact that suddenly, unexpectedly, he was no longer the sole possessor of his planet.


DAWN showed the aliens massed solidly on the hill. Many artifacts of unfathomable purpose and strange design stood arrayed under the edge of the screening roof.
In adjacent rooms sounded hurried activity and an office-boy looked round the door. His face was scared.
“ We’ve orders to evacuate the premises, sir !”
He withdrew. Glen frowned, listening to hurrying feet. He felt it would be unwise to leave the Fairbairn Works. In them the initiating experiment had taken place; there, too, might lie some solution.

Della Sherwood entered, looking fresh. "We're going Glen.”
He gazed through the window. Even from this lower point the aliens could be seen. Their camp was active.
“ They’re expected to advance?" he asked. It seemed likely.
“ Yes -and officials say no apparent means of halting them is available, at present -- -”

“ At present! A mild way of putting it. Bombs and guns are useless."
"What other methods are there?"
"I don't know..."

A saloon halted below and two men in uniform alighted. Glen halted a question on his lips. Della had heard nothing of Jack, or she would have said so.
Voices sounded in the corridor. Fairbairn himself, followed by an officer, came in. He obviously had not slept.
“ We’ve orders to leave.”
“I know,” Glen said. “ Is it wise?"
The officer interrupted. “ We've no defences here. Strategic withdrawal is wise - -”

“Just another way of saying we’re beaten! As we with- draw they spread. They'll disperse. The evacuated area will grow. Villages will be abandoned . . . then towns . . . then the affected area will be so big no one will really know what’s happening.”

“Official instructions must be carried out. The officer moved impatiently to the window. “The staff is already going,” he said pointedly.


From the station Glen watched the aliens on the hill. A single train awaited the last of Fairbairn’s personnel. The aliens appeared unhurried, yet purposeful. An apparatus consisting of four vertical columns of blue light stood outside the rim of the protective force-field. Glen wondered at its purpose and felt that he would soon know.

The aliens drifted from it and abruptly a pink corona blossomed above the four columns. A flattened bolus, brilliant as pure energy, went skimming through the air, struck a village at the foot of the hill, and glanced away like a flat stone skimming on water. Smoke hid the spot where the village had been. Glen watched the bolt skip into the distance, striking earth twice before going from view. Three clouds of smoke marked the points of impact; on the horizon a fourth blossomed... and a fifth, very far away. His gaze returned. The village had gone. Only a charred spot a quarter of a mile in diameter indicated where it had stood.

The blue columns rotated slowly. A second bolt appeared, skipping towards the eastern horizon. He shivered.
Aliens, he thought. As inexplicable to us as firearms to natives.
Another bolt skipped between the station and the Fairbairn Works. He judged it had been a full half mile away, but heat scorched his face.

Behind him a whistle on the loco shrilled. A voice called that the train was leaving. From the platform Glen watched the four columns rotate until they were bearing on the station. Della Sherwood leaned from the carriage.

"Glen!"
McMasters appeared behind her."Sonny, there’s a time to run !”
His appeal was lost in hissing steam. The engine driver leaned out, white-faced, beckoning. The wheels began to turn. Glen looked at the four vertical columns. As if his glance had been a signal, a bolus of energy blossomed, arcing through the air towards him. Someone inside the carriage screamed, high-pitched and terrified. The engine jerked forward, connecting-rods clanking, wheels hissing round on the rails.

Yes, there was time to run! Glen thought.
He gained the open, swinging door of the carriage. Hands grasped him and dragged him inside. White faces surrounded him, and someone slammed shut the door as the train pounded from the station.

Leaning out of the window, he looked back. Glowing like a midsummer sun, the bolt landed fifty yards from the station buildings. For a fantastic instant he saw wooden fences vaporising into smoke and concrete scorched into ash-like dust, then he staggered back, face scorched. Woodwork at the carriage window blackened, and the glass crackled, splintering. Vivid light streamed through the window, moving as if from a noon sun that raced across the heavens. Then the bolt was gone. In the distance a puff of smoke blossomed skywards, telling of its passage. The train rocked onwards, gaining speed with its single carriage.

Glen sat down, his cheeks scorching.
“And what are the military going to do about that?” McMasters asked from the opposite seat. “ If you ask me, things are going to be difficult.”
They swayed as the carriage rounded a curve. A mile of open country lay behind them, dimly seen under smoke that was rapidly dispersing on the wind.

At the first station they halted. Urgent phone messages had disrupted normal services, and trains were being turned back from the area surrounding the point where the aliens had landed. Passengers argued, puzzled. A group of news- paper men, press cameras slung on their shoulders, stood at one end of the platform.

" This is only the beginning,” Della Sherwood said.
Glen wondered what was taking place back in the alien camp. No Earthman knew.
At last they went on, now slow with the weight of extra carriages. Once, looking from the window, Glen saw a pillar of smoke rising beyond wooded slopes. He wondered how far the bolts travelled before their energy was dispersed. He wondered, too, what form of attack would be directed against the newcomers. Aerial attack seemed impossible; ground attack hazardous and ineffectual . . .

They alighted at the next station, where people seemed mildly incredulous. News was percolating through, but was as yet scarcely believed and half rumour. A little man began to tell them that a race of super-beings had appeared out of the earth; another was confident that a meteor of unprecedented size had struck with fearful impact the previous night, obliterating whole towns.

Alone with Della and McMasters, Glen considered silently. His mind had been active during the journey.
"I’m going back-to see what’s happening,” he declared at last.
He saw hope and fear spring into Della Sherwood’s eyes, and knew why. She wondered what had happened to Jack, and wished to find him. But she feared there would be danger.
“ Maybe the authorities won’t let you go back,” McMasters observed. “ You'll have to get permission."
“ I’ll get it- or go without!"

A train stood near the platform, its carriages empty, facing the way they had come. Glen moved towards it. A soldier, rifle over one shoulder, appeared as from nowhere.
“ This train’s going to fetch more people, sir "
“I want to go on it.”
The soldier was young; respectful yet obviously determined. He shook his head. “ No one is to board without permission.”

“ But it’s important !”
“ Sorry.” His face became less friendly. “ Orders are, no one is to board trains in that direction.”
Glen was silent. Steam was hissing from the engine; the driver leaned from the cab, saying something to an official on the platform.
" Our platform commander is in the stationmasters office," the soldier volunteered.
“ Thanks.”

Glen swung on his heel. Crowds thronged round the office.
Two soldiers stood stiffly each side the door. A third took Glen's message. After an interminable delay hie reappeared. “ Sorry, no one is to go that way, sir.”
Glen felt irritated. Soon the train would be gone. “ It’s important !”
" Those are our orders, sir.”
Glen swore under his breath. “ I’m one of the people who saw the aliens come! ” he snapped.

The man hesitated, then stepped back into the office. After a brief interval he returned, beckoning. Glen found himself in a small room crowded with officials. One was speaking into a telephone.
“No one is to enter the area. Those are our orders from Headquarters. Civilians will only endanger themselves.” He turned and Glen met steel-grey eyes. “ Well?”
“I want permission to go back,” Glen said evenly.
The Platoon Commander hung up the receiver. “ No one is to go back. Those are our orders .... ”


WITH GOLDEN sunshine at his back, Herbert Royd turned from the lane. The life of a tramp was an easy one. He had slept well and felt it time to be on the move. Leaves scrunched under his worn shoes. Dried grasses pricked his stockingless legs where the frayed bottoms of his pepper- coloured trousers flapped, still wet from the stream he had forded. A sack hung heavily on his back, bumping with the weight of a chicken which he hoped its owner would never miss.

Ahead, the slope rose unevenly, dotted with bushes and tufted grass. He moved cautiously. There had seemed rather heavy traffic on the roads the previous day. Even the night had been interrupted by the play of searchlights and the sound of guns. He hoped that the area was not being used for military manoeuvres. He preferred solitude- always had, for the thirty-five years of his life.

At the edge of a patch of trees he unslung his bag, upended it, and considered the stolen white fowl and the turnips and potatoes. Food fit for a king, he thought, and whistled cheerily. Perhaps it would be best to sleep until evening, have a good meal, sleep again, then set off at dawn. He sat down with his back against a tree and began to pluck the fowl. Later, he slept.

When he awoke it was evening. He collected twigs, then penetrated among the dark, silent trees, searching for larger wood. A shadowy twilight concealed the way. Boughs interlaced dimly above his head; the trees made a moving wall so that he could never see more than a few yards ahead. His footsteps were muted as if some unnatural condition of the atmosphere absorbed the sound. He whistled. No echo came back through the silent trees. He halted, ears straining for some sound in the dead air,

No birds flew or called in the high trees. The leafy carpet below was undisturbed by rustling creatures. Through all the wood nothing moved.
He swore mildly to himself. Suddenly some inner prompting urged him to turn and run. He thrust the feeling away.
“ Scared of nothin’,” he said aloud.

He glared round with his unshaven chin thrust out, searching for some watcher, or an explanation to the sensation of danger. There was none. Only the silence. He shook himself, staring at the trees more intently as his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom.

All their bark was gone.
He stepped closer. Every trunk, bough and twig lay naked - naked and polished as if a million hands had been busy with rasps. Projecting roots were cleaned; nowhere could he find a shred of bark. Uneasy, he halted.
In the distance a rustling had become audible. As he listened, Royd felt his limbs turn cold. The noise was strange. It sounded as of a multitude of dry-skinned fingers that quested among the barkless crevices. Or like the patter of wind-driven sand, that whispered and hissed, abrasive particles rubbing boughs and twigs.

He wished that he had not stowed away on the little slow- stopping train. But it had been so easy, as the van stood open. He tried to remember the name of the station at which be had alighted. It was tiny, he remembered. There had been a painted sign. VALE-END JUNCTION. That was it. It had looked a quiet and peaceful spot .

The noise was to the right and increasing in volume. Sweat broke out on his face. He turned and bolted through the silent trees, where there were no leaves to rustle, no birds to call ...
Only at the edge of the wood did he halt to pick up his fowl. It was not there. Nor were the turnips. The old sack was empty.
Under a bush the white feathers shone in the gloom. They had been scattered. Behind him, among the trees, the dry whispering began again.

He spun round. Deep in the gloom a faint white mistiness stirred, percolating among the trunks. Boughs rustled at its passing; dried grasses quivered sibilantly as if a living thing had brushed them. A sapling creaked as the mistiness flowed round it, and the whole wood sounded of a million tiny fingers twitching at the twigs and boughs.

With an incoherent word Royd turned and ran stumbling down the hillside. Behind him the indistinct form flowed to the edge of the trees. He looked back once, and thought it was composed of many scores of separate forms, closely packed. Then, mortally afraid, he ran, tattered coat flapping in the wind blowing strongly in his face. He wondered whether the whiteness was some strange mist- some miasma born amid the dampness of the trees. But it had left the wood and was following him; he looked back and knew that it was gaining, and that no mist could move against the wind.

With all his heart he wished that he had never alighted at Vale-End Junction.

- - -
VERY well, if I can’t get into the area with permission, I’ll go without!” Glen repeated. “What's going on in there is a mystery! Have you thought of that? No planes fly over- they daren't. No vehicle goes within sight of the spot. And meantime our enemies are doing what they please - setting up defences, preparing for attack - ”

McMasters sat down on the edge of the desk and scratched his bony chin. “ You're asking for trouble,” he observed.
“ No- trying to save other people from it !”

Glen stood at his office window. The Platoon Commander had questioned him for an hour, then sent him away- without the permission he sought. Every person higher in authority had referred him to someone yet higher. The higher authorities became progressively more unapproachable. The last had granted him only the barest civility. “Orders are, that no civilian is to be allowed into the area, Mr. Robertson. That is final."

Outside, vehicles passed and people thronged the streets. Everything appeared normal. It was fifty miles to the alien poison spot that had suddenly appeared on the planet's surface. Distance promised security. That security was probably imagined, Glen thought.

He turned from the window. “I shall go when it’s dark! The prohibited area is almost ten miles in circumference. There must be many spots where a man can slip through.”
“I still think it's not safe,” McMasters said.
“ Perhaps. But we need to know what's going on." He also wished to discover whether Jack Sherwood was alive, he thought. Della longed to know. And what she wanted counted.
His saloon was below. They entered it and drove out of the city.
“That lass won’t thank me for letting you go," McMasters said pensively.
" Della?" Glen flashed him a glance. " You only need tell her you couldn’t stop me!”

He drove in silence. A full hour remained before it would begin to grow dark. McMasters only spoke once more.
“ As well try to halt a bull with kind words,” he said.

The miles slid away behind and changes began to grow apparent. Few vehicles were bound in their direction. The nearer to the cordoned area they approached the more real did the threat become. People were on the move, feeling that distance spelt safety. Troops were bivouacked at the road side, resting yet expectant, and at last they reached a barricade. Glen stopped the saloon.

A soldier stepped from the roadside. “There’s no way through here, sir. "
“ Can’t I go on at my own risk?
“ No. No civilians may enter.”
Glen backed the car, turning. He did not wish to arouse suspicion or attention. He had already got as near as he had anticipated.

Half a mile back he turned down a narrow lane. It went between high hedges, degenerating into a mere cart-track that wound steeply upwards. They passed a silent farm house and the track ended. Beyond were hilly fields. The sun had set but the sky was still light. Glen got out stiffly.

“ You’ll wait until dawn, Mac?”
“ Of course.”

Glen nodded satisfaction. A man could walk many miles during the long hours of darkness- could proceed stealthily, perhaps discovering much. Any form of weapon seemed useless and mere added weight, but he had a powerful torch.

He took a map from the car. It was to a large scale, with Vale-End Junction clearly marked.
"Don't go,” McMasters said finally.
Glen shook his head. “I haven’t come so far only to turn back. What we need at present is information.” He put the map in an inner pocket and started across the hillside.

He paused upon an upper slope, careful not to remain against the skyline. Ahead was an area. of silent mystery. It had ceased to be an area belonging to men; had, instead become dominated by an alien life-form about which mankind knew absolutely nothing. No man knew what was happening in the dim distance . . . perhaps, even, much nearer, amid the trees.

He descended the hill, taking a bearing by compass. Soon the moon should be up. Meanwhile, a little daylight still remained.
He climbed a hedge. Ahead was a brook, very shallow. No bridge was apparent and he forded it, pausing momentarily to wring the water from the turn-ups of his trousers. The air seemed very silent.

He went on in the increasing darkness, often pausing to listen. The gloomy edge of a wood came into view. Flecks of white attracted him, and he shone his torch beam down between his fingers. White feathers lay scattered; nearby was a pile of twigs, arranged as if for a camp-fire which had never been lit. He extinguished his torch and stood for a long time, listening. The night seemed very quiet and he wondered what the hours of darkness would bring

- - -
A mile from Vale-End Junction stood a tiny house of weathered stone, its door fast locked and its windows tightly shuttered. But smoke drifted from the single chimney. Inside, James Peel stirred the fire until the flames sent his shadow dancing across the bookcases which lined every wall. He lowered himself into his favourite armchair, took out a pipe and filled it with slender fingers.

Why should he take notice of the mad panic that had swept the countryside? he asked himself. When a military car had wound along towards his house he had fastened the door and pretended to be out. Let folk name him a recluse if they wished, he thought with satisfaction. Why should he rush from his house because guns sounded in the distance and soldiers pounded on the door? There was no war.

His study was cosy and he stretched his legs to the fire, listening. Once he had thought he heard a tapping upon the window, but it had ceased. Possibly it was the wind disturbing the bushes, he thought.
He was glad that his housekeeper had left a month before.

She would have made him open the door to the soldiers, shrilling that he shut himself up with his books until he was a madman. Peel laughed shortly. He had his odd ways, he realised. But he was certainly sane.

He rose and walked round his study. The windows were screwed, secure against burglars because the house was lonely and many of his books valuable. Finally he sat at his desk, head bent over an old manuscript ....

A knock came again, this time on the door. Very loud, it was repeated. Peel frowned, wondering whether he should answer. Probably someone had seen his light through some crack, or observed the smoke from his chimney. If so, they would not go away.

The knocking sounded again. He turned in his swivel chair and rose, annoyed, bearing up the oil lamp to light his way.
The door was locked, bolted, and secured by a flat iron bar. He unfastened it, swinging it wide.
The lamplight was much in his eyes. A little man seemed to he waiting quietly at the foot of the steps. Peel surveyed him.
“What do you want?"
“ May I come in?” The voice had a strange quality which Peel could not place. It was slightly lisping; foreign, yet of no nationality which he could place.
He held the lamp aloft, repeating his question, annoyed at being drawn from his cosy study. “ What is it you want?”
“ You are a collector?” the voice murmured.
Peel felt warmth, yet suspicion. “Yes?”

“So am I. May not one collector call upon another if he is nearby ?"
Peel hesitated, then withdrew into the passage. The new-comer was very small, almost fragile, in so far as he could see him. Now, he came up the steps, bowing sinuously from the waist so that his glasses twinkled.

“ You will excuse my intrusion?" he murmured.
Peel locked the door and they went into his study. Somehow the newcomer seemed indeterminate. His voice lacked character. His voice was a whisper that rustled up through a slit-like mouth, lacking resonance. Dressed in a long overcoat, he moved round the desk, seeming to flow forward like a puppet on wheels.

“ Your name is well known, James Peel,” he said smoothly.
Peel felt pleased. “My collection is not without worth, he observed with satisfaction.
The other nodded; a movement that seemed to include half his body. “A man with your leisure and education will have read a great deal, Mr. Peel. You must have an extensive knowledge of many subjects.”

“I have read much - and forgotten much.” Peel abruptly felt uneasy and wished he had not opened the door.
“ The subconscious never forgets, Mr. Peel. Knowledge is a wonderful thing. The key to man's dominance on this planet. I said I was a collector. That is so. I am a collector of human knowledge.

A rustling chuckle bubbled up from inside the overcoat. Peel examined his visitor. The clothes appeared to fit too perfectly. The hands were gloved, and the gloves had no wrinkles. Nowhere in any of the stranger's garments did a loose fold show.

Peel sat down. “ An admirable quest.”
“Yes.” The other seemed to shake, jelly-like. “It is interesting to absorb knowledge-- to feel it seeping into one. To acquire, thereby, the abilities of another person, Knowledge is power. Without it, one is strange and helpless.”

Peel felt a trembling in his limbs. "It- it is late," he pointed out. “I was about to go to bed -- ”
The other did not move. " Knowledge is a wonderful thing," he repeated. “ Sometimes it is necessary - for survival. I lack it.”
He moved towards the desk. One arm bent where no human elbow ever existed and his body curved over like a rubber figure. Peel started back, eyes staring. He saw now, why the garments fitted so perfectly; understood, too, why the voice was so strange. He screamed ....

Outside, Herbert Royd started as the cry echoed and hastily re-applied his eye to the tiny crack in the shutter, He had watched the newcomer enter, and heard the door fastened. Earlier, he had tapped on the window, then gone away, thinking the house empty. From a distance he glimpsed the crack of light, and returned. Now he strove to see what was happening in the study.

It was difficult. He could command only a narrow section of the room and the desk was largely out of sight. An arm rose, as if to ward off an attacker. Then the visitor passed fleetingly across his field of view. An

Royd listened and watched for many minutes. Nothing happened. At last he moved from his uncomfortable position and went slowly round the house.

Someone was unfastening the front door. He withdrew into the bushes. A form came out and went swiftly from sight. Royd edged towards the door. It was unfastened and he looked in. Yellow light streamed into the narrow passage and after a few moments he went in, listening. The house was silent.

He moved cautiously along the wall, often listening, thinking of an excuse to explain his presence. Finally, he reached the study door, and looked in. There, he froze, his eyes staring, one hand moving involuntarily towards his throat ...


From the sheltering trees to which it had returned, one of the aliens stood overlooking the road where a vehicle had halted. Two men alighted. It saw them not with the vision of men, but knew they came. It waited, expectant, its perceptions reaching out towards its fellows. After a time it drew back amongst the trees. No leaf stirred at its passing; it touched no blade or tree: it merely withdrew itself and was back, moving in a way that could not be explained in terms of the common dimensions of the world upon which it stood.

A filament of perception reached out from it, following the movements of the two who came from the vehicle. It strove to touch their minds, but failed. As yet, it had no human knowledge, and therefore no basis from which to build.

Its perceptions told it that night had come. For many hours it had moved within itself, digesting the order that had spread from its fellows. They were to disperse.
It moved like a misty ghost along the grass and reached rising ground. Ahead was a moving line of lights, each carried by a man. The two from the vehicle joined them.

The being halted, watching with faculties to which day and night were one. The lights bobbed nearer. The men seemed hesitant, little encouraged by the lights from vehicles which appeared on the road, burrowing through the dark. The being felt the headlights touch it, outlining it like a puff of smoke. Shouts came through the air, fearful, excited. Weapons pointed up across the slope, and rifles cracked irregularly. Echoes reverbrated from the trees.

The being felt the missiles pass through it -tiny, ineffectual movements of infinitesimal duration. It did not retreat. The intelligence that existed within had decided that this attack was harmless. But it must escape to distant areas where it could begin its work ....

The foremost vehicle came closer. A man stood in the front seat, a long tube in his hand, his white face goggled. Searing flame played from the tube, lighting the road with lurid redness. Grass sizzled. The being experienced a sensation of danger and pain and knew that this phenomenon was dangerous.


“We need more flamethrowers!” someone cried. The vibrations meant nothing to the being. It withdrew, shuddering, and passed up over the slope into the cover of the trees. Men with flamethrowers came up the slope, followed by a vehicle bearing a searchlight, brightly illuminating their path .

The being withdrew more deeply among the trees. Soon it was over the hill. It saw that other lights moved there, closing in on it, and regretted that it had moved so far from its fellows. For a time it stood motionless, then passed between the trees to the remote end of the wooded hillside. Other men waited there, cylinders strapped to their backs and long tubes ready in their hands.

Withdrawing, the being went to the centre of the copse. A mile away upon another hill most of its fellows stood. it realised that it could not reach them, but felt no panic. It wished to preserve itself, but fear was an emotion which did not exist for it.

Near the centre of the copse was a stream. The alien lowered itself into the water, allowing its form to grow long and tenuous until it was hidden from sight. Then it rested.

After a long time men came creeping through the trees, tense and expectant. A cylinder was strapped to the back of each. Others bore lights, and talked in hushed voices. So slowly that no ripple showed, the being allowed its form to drift down with the current.

" We must have killed it with that first burst," a man said. The being drifted on. Soon, it hoped, it would possess human knowledge. Then the vibrations which came through the air would convey information to it. It could move among the two-legged creatures, waiting ....

Soon it reached a place where no men stood beside the stream. It cautiously protruded a portion of itself above the water, then rose and drifted away into the bushes. Behind it, higher up the slope, the men were calling to each other.

The being felt content. It had escaped. It must now rely on its own resources, as must each of its fellows. It had not seemed safe to remain together, near their space-ships. There was only one real safety. That was among the creatures to whom the planet had previously belonged...

- - -
Standing with his back to the dark oak Glen shook his head. “You must be mistaken!"
Herbert Royd made a gesture, “No,” he said.
The single word was more conclusive than a torrent of denial. Glen examined him thoughtfully. Royd had broken through the trees, running desperately.

“ Earlier, I was chased," Royd said; still breathing heavily "It could have caught me, but it gave up.” Panic sounded in his voice. Glen realised that Royd had been ignorant of the happenings of the previous twenty-four hours. Camping in some quiet dell, he had heard nothing seen nothing ... or at least did not dream that an alien life form had landed on Earth.

"Can you take me back to this house? "
Royd paled. “I could, but--”
"Then do," Glen interrupted.
"N -now?"
"Yes.”

The other hesitated, then turned back the way he had come. He went slowly, often pausing. A house came into view as he pointed.
“ It was there. You`re not - going in?”
"Just that. "
“ But he's dead!”
Glen did not answer. He wished to learn what he could.

The door still stood open and reflected light illuminated the passage. He looked in, started in surprise, and walked round the desk.
“ The room’s empty,” he said.
Royd came unbelievingly to the door. His gaze flickered to the floor and astonishment came to his face. He pointed.
“ He was there- dead !”

“You were mistaken,” Glen suggested. “ Or he’s been moved.”
Herbert Royd shook his tousled head determinedly. “He was dead! He had to be dead looking how he did.” He shivered and glanced over his shoulder. “The body’s been taken away !”

They searched quickly through the house. It was empty. Glen pulled open the desk. Its owner’s name had been James Peel, according to letters inside. He wondered whether it would prove useful to know that. Peel had obviously travelled, in previous years. There was an old passport. Royd nodded as he saw it.

"That’s him! He was dead. I’ll stake anything on that!"
Outside, they listened. Glen wondered what had happened, and whether some vagrant or burglar had chanced upon the house and committed unplanned murder. From what Royd had told him he doubted whether the explanation was that simple.

“No use staying here,” he decided. “There are a great many things I need to find out before morning.”
Royd followed him, seeming to find comfort in his companionship. The hills nearby seemed unusually quiet, though once rifle fire had crackled spasmodically some miles away. Walking was difficult, the moon often being hidden by cloud, and it seeming unwise to risk a torch.

Slowly they drew near the hills where the aliens had landed. A dim blue glow shimmered to the sky, suggesting that defences were ready and watch being kept. Once they caught sight of a pale form, so indistinct that Glen would not have given it a second glance had not Royd’s fingers gripped his arm.

“That's the kind of thing that followed me! Only there were a lot of them . . . ." The wisp of mist- if mist it was- showed fleetingly through the distant trees, then was gone. Glen shivered. By night the hills were eerie. Many enemies could lie unseen. He wondered what had happened to Jack Sherwood. He had passed through the interference fringe and vanished. Perhaps he was dead. It seemed probable.

They spent an hour creeping forward until they could discern the source of the blue glow. It extended like a wall around the perimeter of the hill, concealing everything that lay behind.

“ Stay here,” Glen ordered. “ If anything happens to me go back and tell the military all you know.”
He crept on, following a hedge. From it he went into a dip, and emerged within fifty yards of the blue wall. His skin prickled, as if from radiation. His eyes smarted and he saw that the herbage within ten paces of the blue glow was scorched to dust, so that no tree or bush stood and the brown earth was revealed. It was obviously impossible to go nearer, or penetrate the defence that the aliens had erected.

He retreated into the hollow and looked at his watch. Many hours had passed and it was time he went back, he decided. He did not feel like arguing with soldiers and officials of progressively higher rank, each seeking to know why he had penetrated into the forbidden area.

Royd appeared pleased to see him, and they hurried, keeping as far as possible in cover. The way seemed long, and Glen sighed with relief when at last they emerged into sight of the deserted farm. McMasters came forward to meet them
“ So you’re back alive!” he said. He looked curiously at Royd. “You’re the second new refugee I’ve seen this morning!”
Glen halted. “ What do you mean? "
“ Another man came out this morning, before it was light. A queer sort of cove, I thought him. Sounded cultured enough, though."
“ Who? "

McMasters shook his head. “ It wasn’t my place to ask laddie. But a soldier had been up here. I told him I’d had difficulty with the car lights, lost my way, but would clear out soon as it was light. He met this other man slap in the road, and I heard him ask his name.” McMasters started the saloon. “ He seemed anxious to be gone.”
Glen got in. “ What was the name?" He did not suppose it was important, but one never knew.

McMasters scratched his chin. “A queer kind of name Peel- James Peel. Easy to remember -- -”

- - - -

DELLA SHERWOOD smiled fleetingly. That was something see, Glen thought.
“I only observed that both of ye were of the marrying kind," McMasters repeated.
The deskphone rang and Glen felt the need for a reply was gone. He took it up.
“ Robertson here.”

"We’ve got the replies to your enquiry in, Mr. Robertson.” It was the girl in the groundfloor office. . “ Three hotels phoned that no one of that name had been in. A fourth says they had a visitor late last night who gave his name as James Peel. It’s the Hotel ‘Elete’- -
“ Thanks.”
Glen remembered it. An imposing building on the edge of the city, and one where many visitors and travellers stayed, sometimes for a single night, and sometimes for weeks. The Hotel “ Elete ” was just such a place as a person wishing to escape special notice would have chosen.

“ Suppose you’re wrong ?” Della Sherwood said when she had heard the news. “There's safety in numbers, and they were secure enough behind their force screen, or whatever it was."

"There can be safety in dispersing, too." Glen leaned back in his chair, his chin sunk almost to his chest. Above, below, and on each side other offices of the Ultra-Modern Electric Co. buzzed with activity. But he had let daily business slide. “Possibly they feel we should eventually breach their defences.”
Della moved from the window, turning to face him. In a golden dress of some fabric which Glen guessed had come from the Sherwood laboratories, she was undeniably beautiful. “ Can Royd's word be believed?” she asked. “ He seemed an unreliable type.”
"I think he’s speaking the truth this time "
The desk phone sounded again. The girl below appeared less calm than usual.
“There’s a gentleman from the War Office to see you, Mr Robertson. He says it’s important."
“ Have him shown up.”

The search for James Peel would have to wait, Glen thought. So would his anticipated visit to the Hotel “Elete.” The newcomer was shown in. Crisp, with the military bearing born of a lifetime in uniform, he was the officer who had come to the Fairbairn Works. Recognising him, Glen indicated a seat and his companions.

“Miss Sherwood and McMasters, my partner. Was it private?”
A keen glance passed over them. “I’d prefer them to stay. What I have to say is no secret.”
Glen thought that he looked as if he had not slept. “Yes?"
The officer leaned forward in his chair, his face intent. ‘ I’ve come in person and will be direct. As a good soldier, I value my men’s lives. And, as a man who prides himself on his common sense, I know what we can, and what we cannot, do.”

“ And what can't you do ?" McMasters queried.
The direct eyes settled on him. “ We cannot breach these aliens’ defences by brute force, or by the mere power of explosives. We need science. Science can succeed where mere force fails.” His gaze returned to Glen. “I am authorised to ask your help. The order is simply put- you are to find a means of getting through that screen they have erected.”

Glen mused on what he had seen: on the strange electronic devices, whose very purpose was unknown. “That’s not so easy."
“No one has anticipated that it would be.” The officer rose, erect, concise. “ but a means must be found. Expense is no object. It is a matter of national defence. If you require scientific or industrial aid, it will be forthcoming. Others will be working on the same project, needless to say. There is one aim only- to breach those defences. Everything must be secondary to that. If usual work has to be abandoned, abandon it. If you require raw materials or equipment they will be provided under priority orders.

He gave a jerky bow, taking in the three, and left. Glen saw him emerge from the main door below and enter a staff car. It disappeared, accelerating rapidly.
“ Seldom was so big a task so briefly put,” McMasters said.

Glen got up. “We must what Fairbairn thinks of it. Meanwhile, I’m taking time off to see if we’ve found James Peel! According to Royd, Peel was dead.”


The Hotel “Elete” was busy. Glen halted his saloon outside its portals and found his way to the reception desk. The clerk consulted a booking ledger.
“ Yes, sir. A Mr. James Peel is here. “He’s taken a single room for a week.”
Relieved, Glen nodded. He had feared that Peel would already have gone.
The clerk looked up . “I understand he was moved from his house by the authorities, sir.”

So that was the line Peel was taking, Glen thought. He frowned, wondering whether he was mistaken, after all, or whether Royd had made an error. Was the being who had booked into the hotel indeed James Peel, collector? Or was he something totally different, using Peel’s identity as a disguise?

" I’d like to see him,” he said. The clerk looked doubtful. “ He said that he did not want to receive visitors, sir.”
Glen smiled. “I’m different. He asked me to call. It's about part of his collection which he wanted removing to safety." He thought circumstances justified the lie. “I shall only bother him for a few moments .... "
The clerk consulted his ledger. “Room 13 on the 2nd floor, sir.”
“Thanks.”

The lift indicator was stationary at the 3rd floor and Glen chose the broad staircase. Room 13 was at the end of the corridor and he stood outside, listening. All was silent. The door proved to be unfastened and he stepped in, swiftly closing it at his back as he scanned the apartment.

The bed was disturbed as if someone had lain there. No clothing or other personal belongings were to be seen. The room was empty, but a second door stood ajar. Walking silently on the thick pile carpet, Glen approached it.

Apparently the Hotel ‘Elete’ did things in style - or James Peel had insisted on an apartment with a bath-room. The bath-room was empty and he experienced an abrupt reduction in nervous tension. If James Peel-or something else that called itself James Peel- had been there, convincing explanations might have been difficult. It would not help to get himself taken away as a lunatic, Glen had been thinking. Royd could have been mistaken.

The bath was full, almost overflowing. Glen wondered why, dismissed it, and went to the window. The casement was closed; below was a sheer brick wall, flanking an alley,
A faint plop sounded behind him, and he turned, eyes on the bath. One tap was dripping slowly.
He returned to the bedroom, searched it quickly, and went down to the reception desk. “ Mr. Peel isn’t in,” he complained.
The clerk looked up from a row of figures. "Are you sure, sir? I haven’t noticed him go out.” Glen nodded. “Quite sure. His door was open and I looked in.”

The other frowned, obviously anxious to return to his work “ I must have missed seeing him, sir. Can I take any message? It can be delivered when he comes in.”
“ No. No thanks. And you needn’t bother to say I’ve been here. I shall be ringing, or coming to see him again.”
Outside, Glen mused for a few moments in silence, before entering his car. He wondered whether Peel’s absence was suspicious- or merely chance. The clerk was busy, and probably did not notice everyone who came and went.

He started the saloon and turned back through the city. There was a task waiting to be done. The officer had expressed it clearly- find a means of getting through the alien defences, which concealed from observation and protected from attack all that lay behind them.


From the hillside they trained powerful glasses across the valley. The wall encompassing the tops of the distant hills was faintly blue, almost invisible against the sky, by day. They had driven many miles, circling the alien camp at what appeared to be a safe distance, but no break in the faint blue wall was found. Glen knew that high explosive and armour-penetrating missiles had been exploded against it in vain. Della, McMasters, and Fairbairn had ridden with him in silence.

“It is obviously some kind of electrical field," Fairbairn stated at last.
Glen wondered what was taking place behind it, concealed from human eyes. The strange weapons had ceased to be active; the aliens, with all their artifacts, had disappeared behind the impenetrable wall.
“ Perhaps they’re preparing some attack,” he murmured.

Della looked at him quickly, and he saw the question in her eyes. He shook his head. It was not safe to build up a whole string of supposition upon the word of a man like Royd.
“An electrical field can usually be cancelled by one of equal power and opposite phase,” he observed. “That seems the line to take.”
Fairbairn pursed his lips. “ The waveform will have to be analysed.”
“ We should be able to do that in your laboratory. No one will try to stop us going there, now. They may think we're fools to get into danger, that’s all.”

He turned at a deserted cross-roads. A little farther on a soldier examined their special passes and they were allowed through.
“ Any signs of activity?” Glen asked.
“ None. sir.”

He drove on. They passed the charred earth and heap of fine grey dust where the station had been. The lines stretched away from sight towards Vale-End Junction and the hazy blue of the alien defences. Half a mile along an empty road brought them to the Fairbairn Works, silent now, and deserted as every building within the cordoned area.

“The laboratory is at the back,” Fairbairn said. “ Drive round there."
A directive antennae was arranged and trained on the nearer rim of the blue field. The waveform, amplified, began to appear on the screen of a cathode-ray tube set in a rest on the bench: It was a complex radiation of many blended frequencies.

“ A few Angstrom down, and it would be half pure heat, with some microwaves thrown in,” McMasters observed.
Glen examined the weaving line. Its complete and accurate analysis would occupy some hours, and its full expression in the formula of Angstrom Units would fill several sheets of paper.
" You could have one or two of your best men sent back, Fairbairn,’ he suggested. “They could do these routine measurements. Have you all we need to produce a waveform like that?”
He indicated the flickering screen and Fairbairn stood for a moment with his chin on one hand. “Probably,” he said at last. We can't be sure, yet. But if the apparatus exists. then we have it, or can obtain it. Fairbairn Equipments can do anything but the impossible.”

Thinking of the giant interference wave which had been produced, Glen believed him. During that fraction of a second almost incalculable energy had been released, bending the strata of time and space itself, so that alien galaxies had suddenly become adjacent to Earth. When expense ceased to matter, much that was otherwise impossible could be accomplished.

He went out with mobile equipment in the back of the saloon to measure the field strength of the radiation. Its power surprised him. Had the energies dispersed been directed to more useful purposes they could have kept brilliantly lit many huge cities. He wondered from what kind of plant the aliens drew power.

When he returned McMasters came from the building. “ He reckons they should have ready something by nightfall,” he said. He mopped his brow. “When Fairbairn gets moving things hum! He’s a dynamo, is that man.”

“ Where’s Della?”
" She’s staying with him. There are a few things she wants to see into. Meanwhile, laddie, we must get ready to make the most of it, if they’re successful.”

“ Making the most of it, as you put it, may be dangerous,” Glen pointed out. “ Whoever goes through the blue wall will have to remember several things. First, he may not get through alive. Second, if he does, he may become the target of very rapid action by certain beings inside who resent his presence. Then again, a man with scientific training must go, so that he can discover as much as possible in the shortest time - - ”

McMasters nodded, smiling. “I’ve thought of all those things, laddie. That’s why I’ve decided to go myself.”
Glen started. “Who said so? And if Fairbairn's equipment fails, there’ll be no coming back!"
“ There’s no lass to grieve me. "
Glen snorted. “You're too late, anyway! I had already decided to go!”
The other pulled a face. “Trying to steal the thunder! Wanting to impress that girl, ye are .... !”
"Nothing of the kind! It’s only right that a man with real scientific knowledge should go-- ”
“ Meaning that I haven’t got scientific knowledge?” McMasters demanded.
Glen suddenly laughed. “Look, we won’t argue. Perhaps we can both go.” He slapped the other’s shoulder and McMasters grinned.
“I’m only wanting to keep ye out of danger, laddie,” he said.
“ And I you.”
McMasters sighed. “A pity to risk two necks.”

Glen let him have the last word. Not until evening would they know whether Fairbairn could produce a waveform which would cancel out part of the protective field the aliens had erected, and argument was pointless.

Radiator elements which would transmit power in a tight beam across the mile of countryside to the nearest rim of the wall had been erected. Fairbairn came out of the building.
“ We can’t be ready until dark,” he said. “ And I’m doubtful whether we shall be able to keep the apparatus in action for long. But it should at least enable us to find out what’s going on in there.”

He indicated the alien camp, and Glen followed his gaze. The area was shrouded in mystery. Anything could be happening. He saw that there was some time to spare and decided to phone from one of Fairbairn’s offices.

" Hotel `Elete' speaking.” The reply came promptly and he recognised the voice.
“I visited you earlier.” Glen strove to make his voice
casual. “I wished to see Mr. Peel. Has he come in?"
There was a moment’s pause. “ He was here this morning sir,” the clerk said. “ I can’t understand how you missed him He came down about half an hour after you left.”
Glen felt puzzled and disturbed. “ You’re sure?"
“ Yes, sir."
“You mean he came in, went up to his room, then came down.”
“ No, sir. That is, I didn’t notice him come in .... "
The voice sounded curious and undecided. Apparently the clerk was beginning to think himself less observant than he had supposed.

"Mr Peel isn't there now?" Glen asked
"No, sir. He’s left.”
"Left !”
“ Yes, sir. Cancelled his room. Said urgent business had arisen .... ”
Glen felt disappointed. “ Do you know where he’s gone?"
“ No, sir. He didn’t say.”
“ Thanks.”

Glen rang off. Apparently nothing could be gained from the Hotel “ Elete.” James Peel had gone. Again, that could mean suspicion and flight; or be a mere coincidence. Pondering, Glen stood by the window. In a little while it would be dark. Already shadows broke up the outline of the distant hills, and the aliens’ defensive shield glowed faintly blue.

They must learn what lay behind, Glen thought. Ignorance could endanger the whole of mankind. While hours and days drifted by, one thing was certain- the aliens were not idle. Instead, they would he pressing ahead with their plans, whatever those were. For mankind to be ignorant of those plans could be disastrous.

The door opened abruptly and McMasters put his head in. " Fairbairn's all ready to begin!” he stated.



WITH extreme caution Glen crawled up the slope to where the rim of the aliens’ defensive field had peeled upwards. It flickered and wavered, leaving a gap that fluctuated in size, but through which he was determined to pass.

After long argument McMasters had stayed behind. His last words had been urgent, called from the sheltering trees: “ Don't stay too long, laddie !”

Inside, beyond the gap, a rough outcropping of rock projected from the naked earth. Glen rose from hands and knees and ran. Gaining it, he looked back. The fluctuating aperture torn in the defensive field by Fairbairn’s equipment seemed terribly unstable. At any moment it might vanish, leaving an uninterrupted and impenetrable wall.

Above, very high, the field curved upwards in an aerial shield undoubtedly able to withstand the heaviest calibre missiles that the greatest bombers available could carry. Farther up the hill, surmounting its top, stood the craft in which the aliens had come.

He moved round the rocks, climbing. A low whisper of sound came from the inverted bowl of the shield. The light was blue and diffused, throwing no shadows, and his eyes ached as he searched for any movement. The vessels were still, motionless and silent as the intervening gullies and hillocks. On every side the earth was marked with conical depressions such as he had first seen in the muddy lane. The aliens had moved here in great numbers, Glen thought. He wondered whether they were a kind of life that could adopt any external form at will. Many lowly Earthly organisms could change both shape and colour. On other planets evolution might have advanced along similar lines.

He gained a point within twenty paces of the nearest vessel and stood motionless, listening and watching. The naked hillside was too exposed, but there was no cover. If the aliens were within their space-ships, they made no sign. The vessels themselves were of a construction such as he had never seen before, strange and unearthly as their makers. In the side of one, high above the ground, with a ladder leading to it, a sliding door stood open.

On impulse he sprinted to it, mounted the ladder, and climbed up to the opening. Time was passing, and he remembered McMaster’s words and Fairbairn's warning. Worse, a suspicion that could no longer be suppressed was rising more forcefully into his mind.

The vessel was divided into corridors and levels, the centre of the ship being filled with row upon row of saucer-shaped depressions each almost as large as a man could span. Nothing showed what the depressions were for. In the rim of each was set a single ring through which a man could pass his fingers.

Glen went on, hastening and less careful to make no sound. The rear of the craft was divided off and there was no apparent means of entry into it. He judged that the space there was small, and probably filled with propulsive machinery.

In the forepart was a chamber whose walls and ceiling were curved and transparent. A row of instruments with vertical scales, each marked with strange characters, suggested that it was the navigation room. A saucer with a ring stood centrally on the floor. Immediately in front of it projected a lever, mounted on a universal joint of some pink, crystalline material, and topped by a cup that would have held a man`s closed fist.

And nowhere was there a sign of the occupants, Glen thought.
After a further search he returned to the port, mounted the ladder and descended. The other vessels were silent; their exit doors open. No apparatus for creating the shield that surrounded the hilltop was visible.

He stood listening to the whisper of power, eyes screwed up against the blue light. His discovery had shocked him profoundly. The truth was shattering, but could not be denied. .
The aliens had gone.
He turned back the way he had come. They had gone, he thought- but not back to their own world. Instead, they had mingled with the million’s of Earth's unsuspecting population. Now, James Peel’s rapid move from the Hotel “ Elete " was no longer a mystery.


He returned to the gap. It was still there, but smaller. He went through swiftly, and down the hill. McMasters greeted him, obviously expectant. Glen halted, looking back across the dark slopes to the hazy blue. The gap had ceased to exist.

“They’re all gone, Mac," he said flatly. "How long, we can’t say. The shield was undoubtedly left up so that we should think they were still there.”
“ Gone?" McMasters sounded incredulous.
“ Gone!" Glen nodded. “ Do you know what this means? They're among us! May be anywhere!”
McMaster’s gaze travelled along the shadowy slopes. His face was outlined by the blue reflection from the hilltop.
"But - how?" he demanded. “ They would have to hide... "
“They have- somehow! We’ll find out how, in time, I hope.”

He turned abruptly towards the lane. Finding the hilltop vacant had shocked him profoundly. It was a terrible discovery. Its implications were enormous.
“ I’m going back to my office,” he stated. “ There are several things we need to know !”
McMasters followed. “ I’m with you."
“ Where’s Della?”
“She’s staying at the Fairbairn Works. I suspect there’s another reason, besides the one she gave - -”

Glen murmured in understanding. Della would want to find her brother: would not give up searching while there was hope ....
“ We can’t do much until morning, Mac,” he decided. “ A few hours’ sleep would’t come amiss.”


From the mass of information on his desk Glen selected a sheet which had lately come in. He tapped the report.
“ How are we to distinguish those that matter?”
Thirty-six hours had passed. He had asked for cases of disappearance to be made known to him. There was the chance that following them up would help.
McMasters nodded his shaggy head. “It’s evidence- of a sort. At least it suggests that you may be right.”
“And this one- this statement by John Pound- what do you make of it?”
McMasters leaned over and took the sheet again. “ He showed a visitor into his father’s study, listened a moment, then went to telephone a friend. Afterwards he spent about twenty minutes getting ready to go out. All that’s straight-forward enough.”

“ What comes after isn't,” Glen prompted, slipping to his feet. “ That’s where he gets hysterical. And the doctor said he wasn’t to be questioned too closely, at present.”

McMasters grunted. “Says he saw something that came under the study door, flowed down the passage, and away under the door outside. That’s queer. Almost like a long carpet, he said. There’s no sense to it.”

“There may be sense, if we can find it. He seemed jittery, yet sane enough. You’ll see he said something seemed to come from the front door, roll itself into a ball, and slide off among the trees. He thought he was seeing things, or that it was some trick caused by the poor light, but denies that he’d had any drink. He does admit that it might have been mist, though he was doubtful.”

McMasters chewed a lip, reading on. “I see the point,” he said at last. “ His father had gone. The window was open. There had been no outcry, he was sure. His father was outside- dead. There was no apparent sign of violence. The police confirm that.”

Glen nodded. “ What do you make of it?"
McMasters did not answer. Glen was not surprised - an answer was difficult to find. Things were beginning to fit, yet only incompletely, like a jig-saw from which many pieces were missing.

The phone rang. Glen listened, then covered the mouth-piece with a hand. “ It’s him, John Pound. He’s asking to come up.”
“You’ll have him in?"
“ Of course.” Glen gave a quick instruction.
They waited silently until Pound was shown in and the door closed. Glen’s scrutiny did not miss the youngster’s twitching face.
" It- it`s hard to begin, sir,” John Pound said uneasily.
Glen looked encouraging. “ Just tell us what happened in your own words. Strange things have been happening and we suspect that there may be truth in what you suspect. Don't feel we shall laugh at you .... ”

Pound pulled himself together visibly. “I had to come- I wanted you to believe. I’m sure that what I saw was living! It wasn’t mist! It wasn’t an illusion !”
He halted and Glen nodded. “ I’m inclined to believe you.” He liked the lad, who was visibly shaken yet sincere. His eyes were strained, as if be had lived through terrible hours, and his lips twitched.

“ You- you do believe me, sir?” he pressed.
“ Yes.” Glen moved to the edge of the desk and pressed the other’s shoulder fleetingly. “We’ve proof enough, of a kind, to say that you can believe your own eyes. What you saw was strange- but we believe it happened. That should comfort you, at least.”

"It does." Pound was obviously relieved. He rose from the chair into which he had dropped. “ I’ll be going.”
When he had gone McMasters groaned. “ This ties up, but I wish it didn’t! Mists that come under the door! May the saints preserve us !”
Glen’s gaze rested on the papers on his desk. There had been other strange happenings. And a certain number of people had inexplicably vanished. Ever since finding the alien encampment deserted he had wondered what they would find. Now he was beginning to suspect- and his suspicions were proving more frightening than the worst he had imagined.

“Each case that seems to lack a proper explanation must be checked,” he said. “ This is only the beginning.”
An hour passed when the phone rang again. It was the girl below. “ A police officer to see you, sir.”
“ Have him shown up.”
The officer looked worried. He wasted no time. “ You had a visitor a short time ago- a young man called Pound?"

“ We did.”
Glen wondered what was coming. The directness with which the ether had come to the point suggested that it was important
The officer nodded pensively. "He came to us - said he was being followed. He was frightened. I sent a man back with him, as he’s staying in rooms in town.” He paused significantly. “ Apparently his fear was justified .... "

Glen started, wondering abruptly if his guess was true “ You don’t mean- - - ?"
“ Yes. he’s dead.”
McMasters gave an exclamation. “ How?” His voice was gruff.
"That’s what we don't know. He was in his room and it seemed very quiet. After a time my man knocked. There was no answer so he went in. Pound was dead. There was no apparent cause.”

Glen felt shocked. It was so short a time since the youngster had been standing in the very room where they now were. Strange to think of him- dead.
The officer moved towards the door. “We’d like you to come and look.”
His voice held an odd undertone. Glen rose silently and McMasters followed him. They went down and entered the waiting police car.

The building where Pound had stayed was down a modest side-street. They entered, passing a constable in the hall, and mounted the stairs. The officer moved jerkily, an unfathomable expression on his face.

“ You needn’t see Pound,” he said. “ That wouldn’t help.”
If not him, what? Glen wondered. The building was comparatively new, the corridor freshly painted. The officer halted opening a door.
“This was his room.”

It looked ordinary enough. A window gave on to a balcony, narrow, of brown stone, which ran along the face of the building. The officer pointed. Following his gesture, Glen felt an abrupt chill sweep through his veins. Never before had he experienced such sudden, inexplicable dread. His breathing halted momentarily, and his eyes fixed upon the bottom of the door.

The lower edge was abraded away so that a man could place his fist between it and the floor. The paint was gone, revealing clean, naked wood.
McMasters gave an inarticulate exclamation. Glen dropped to a knee, then rose. He knew that the blood had flown from his face.

“ Apparently it was thought that young Pound had seen too much," he murmured.
He forced his gaze away from the shallow indentation at the foot of the door. Closed doors did not count, he thought. If man knew too much they could reach him, even if barred windows and locked doors stood between.
In the corridor, he looked at the adjacent rooms. Their doors were untouched. The bottoms were painted and true, just as the builders had left them.

The police car took them back and the officer did not come in. “If anything arises, we have instructions to inform you, Sir,” he said. his tone conveyed a great deal.
Pondering, Glen went in. Young Pound had died because he had seen too much; that was clear. What had happened once could happen again. He wished Della had not stayed behind with Fairbairn, so near to the strange encampment on the hill.

The girl at the reception desk halted him. “ There was a man asking for you, Mr. Robertson. As I expected you back I had him shown up to your office.”
Glen wondered who it could be. “ He left a name?"
“ Yes, sir. A Mr. James Peel.”


THE being that called itself James Peel sat upright near the desk. Clad in a peppered grey suit, he would have passed as a city business man. He had drawn off gloves, revealing long fingered hands.
Glen sat in his own chair, outwardly calm, trying to find some similarity between the shapes which he had first seen on the hill and the individual before him. There was none.
“I understand you have been looking for me?” Peel said.

His voice echoed up as from an empty cask. Gazing at him, Glen wondered if everything was a mistake. Peel looked wholly normal: a human no different from the rest of Earth's millions. But Herbert Royd had had no apparent reason to lie; and the alien encampment had been deserted ....

“Your disguise is perfect,” Glen said evenly, his gaze on the other.
Peel did not move. “I don’t understand. You must have made some error. I have letters and papers to prove my identity.”
So that's it, Glen thought. He was to be made to feel that he had been guilty of some fantastic error.
“Letters and papers can be stolen, he pointed out.
The other made a gesture which was almost, but not quite, one of human incredulity. “ You speak riddles,” he said.
Glen leaned back in his chair, watchful. McMasters was outside, listening. That was comforting to know.

“ If some mistake has arisen, I’d like to help you to clear it up,” Peel murmured.
Glen braced his hands against the edge of the desk. It was a position from which he could rise like a released spring.
“ The mistake is yours,” he said. “ Your bluff won’t work. You’re not human, though you’d like me to believe you are. It was convenient for you to adopt James Peel's identity. You’re not Peel, but-- --”

He halted. Exactly what the other was remained a mystery. Some entity that could change its shape at will . . . ? One of a race who had gained superiority over their own planet by just this adaptability . . . ?
Peel drew on a glove, then removed it, as if practising the action. “ You surprise me,” he said, “ but you don’t convince. Nor do I think you will be able to convince other people.” He laughed. Nine people out of ten would have thought the laugh very human and pleasant.

Glen thought it an admirable imitation. “ I know what you are,” he said flatly.
“ Indeed? And what shall you do?”
“ Destroy you.”
“ A very difficult undertaking.”

The other rose. Nine people out of ten would have thought him a man-about-town about to leave after a rather unsatisfactory interview. He picked up his stick and hung it over one arm.
" There are millions of us, but few of you,” Glen pointed out.
“ Numbers do not necessarily give superiority.”
Glen abruptly realised that the visit had almost made him doubt his own sanity. Royd could be wrong . . . the aliens could have flown to the safety of their own planet...

He rose suddenly and reached the door. James Peel, smiling, stood for him to open it. Instead, Glen caught his left arm at wrist and elbow and exerted all his strength in a ju-jutsu hold which would have brought a scream of agony from nine men out of ten.

Peel’s arm bent back like rubber, tensed, and tore free. Glen knew that he was right. This was no man, but something that called itself man. The arm was not of bone and muscle, but something equally strong and a form of life strange to Earth.
“ Mac!” he yelled.
" Coming, laddie !”

The alien’s response was equally quick. In one smooth movement he gained the window and was through. In a bare second Glen was at it, looking own. Three floors below, at street level, half a dozen people had halted in astonishment. James Peel, walking rapidly, disappeared down a side turning. McMasters leaned out, watching him go.

“ Glen me boy, this is going to he stiff,” he breathed.
Glen closed the window. “ You’ve put it mildly. We don’t even know how many of them there are!”



The sentience that had adopted the identity of James Peel reduced its pace. It had learned that to move rapidly about the city attracted attention. Skilled in adapting its form, it consciously controlled the movements of the pseudo-limbs so necessary to its disguise. It had made errors, it realised. But that was unavoidable, at the beginning. They had arisen from lack of knowledge of the species among which it moved. They need not be repeated.

Brooding, it threaded its way among parked vehicles. It had at its command the knowledge of the man who had been James Peel. That knowledge was specialised, and not wholly useful, the alien realised. So it had been with the knowledge of the man whose identity it had first adopted, and subsequently abandoned in Peel’s study . A knowledge of books and collecting was not useful. Instead, a knowledge of affairs that more closely related to the lives of men was required. Such knowledge could be obtained, the alien thought. It began to look about itself, experimentally using the earthly power of vision. Ahead, at the end of the street, a smartly-dressed man with a briefcase was about to enter a saloon [car] that stood empty near the pavement.

The man had just started the engine when the alien reached the vehicle, bending to speak through the window.
“ I wonder if you will be able to give me a lift ... ?”
“ I'm going east.”
“ That will do splendidly.”
“Jump in, then.” The man leaned over to open the saloon door.



The phone rang and Glen picked it up. “ Robertson here." “This is Fairbairn.”
Glen frowned slightly . The line seemed bad so that Fairbairn’s voice did not have its usual timbre. He wondered what the other wanted.
“ Yes?” he asked.
“ Have you found out anything about Peel?” The tone was flat.
“As much as we need to know,” Glen said. “ It’s as we suspected.”
The line was momentarily silent. Then: “You’re sure?”

“ Yes, Mr. Fairbairn. There’s no doubt at all.” Glen remembered the feel of the arm that was not flesh and bone, and the fact that no man could jump from a third-floor window and walk away unharmed.
“ What shall you do about it?”
" We haven’t decided, Mr. Fairbairn- yet.”
“ You’ll let me know?"
“ Of course.” Glen wondered what had happened at the works. “ Any developments your end?”
“ No. We tried to breach the wall a second time, but failed. Why, hasn’t been discovered.” The voice sounded discouraged. “ It won't be easy to accomplish much.”
" We never anticipated that it would."

The distant receiver was replaced with no reply and Glen felt disappointed. Fairbairn appeared to be losing his enthusiasm.

“ Comes a bonny lass,” McMasters said from by the window.
Glen got up in time to see Della enter the building. He stood with his back to the casement, hands in jacket pockets, wondering about many things. When Della came in he placed a chair for her and returned to his former position by the window: Her eyes were tired, but vividly alive.

"Tell me what's going on," she murmured.
“I think we know now, in essence. The aliens knew that as long as they were on the defensive they couldn’t accomplish much. They slipped away, dispersing. At the same time they left their shield in operation. We were fooled. Not for long- but long enough, it seems. I can’t guess what the next part of their plan will be.”

McMasters scratched a cheek. “ Probably it’ll be secret - and surprising. They’ve got to be found!”
“ We can't accuse people at random, or make everyone submit to examination.” Glen pointed out. “That’s impossible."
The situation seemed one of extreme difficulty, and full of grave danger for everyone.

Della Sherwood nodded slowly. “ Can we find some means of distinguishing between them and real humans? If so, that would help enormously.”
“ Do you think Fairbairn will make progress?"
“I don’t know. He was expecting a visitor. That’s why I came away.”
Glen wondered why nothing had been said about that on the phone. “ A visitor? Who? How long ago?”
She looked at him curiously; " it would be an hour or more ago. A man rang the Works and said he wanted to call. I didn’t hear his name.”

Glen looked at the clock. Apparently Fairbairn had phoned him after his visitor had gone. It was curious that he had not mentioned it.
“I'm going back to the Works later,” Della said. “I expect you’ll be coming?”
“I shall. We need two things- something to show aliens from humans, and a means of destroying or immobilising their craft and other equipment.”
“Yes.” She got up. "Have you thought of asking the authorities to give a general warning?”
“ It would only cause panic and do no good.”
She sighed. “ Perhaps you’re right.”

When she had gone Glen looked at McMasters. “ Don’t you think it odd that Fairbairn didn’t mention having a visitor? The Works are in the cordoned area. The man, whoever he was, must have had official permission.”

McMasters appeared pensive. “ Why not check on that?"
A sound idea, Glen thought. He rang the girl below. “Someone was permitted to enter the cordoned area and visit the Fairbairn Works. Enquire who, and let me know.”
“ Yes, Mr. Robertson.”
Glen waited. The offices of the Ultra-Modern Electric Co. seemed to be becoming a detective agency! At last the reply came.

"Are you sure there’s no error, Mr. Robertson?"
Glen drew in his lips. He remembered, now, that Fairbairn’s voice had sounded not wholly natural.
“Why do you think there’s an error?" He could not keep the snap out of his voice.
“ Because no one has been given permission to visit the Fairbairn Works, sir-- ”

His grasp clenching on the phone, Glen’s eyes flashed to McMasters. McMasters’s face was impassive.
“ Maybe someone overlooked it, laddie,” he breathed.
Glen leaned forward, consciously relaxing his grip on the phone. " Will you have it checked. It’s rather important.”
“ Yes, Mr. Robertson,”
He rang off and sat frowning. He realised that he had not rested or eaten for many hours, and the hum of the adjoining offices had lessened. In another hour or so neons would begin to flash on the building opposite, and the streets buzz with evening traffic. He wondered how many aliens moved among the city’s teeming thousands. It was a chilling thought.

He rose stiffly. “ A man must eat and sleep, Mac.”

He asked himself whether the aliens ate and slept. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Creatures so different might not have the requirements of breathing, feeling, biological life. On the other hand, they might have other needs, strange to mankind. If so, those needs must be discovered so that any weakness could be revealed and turned into a weapon with which men could try to destroy the newcomers to his planet. But that would not he easy. Nor would it he easy to find and destroy the enemy by direct methods. An enemy that could not he found could not be attacked.

Glen awoke with a start, sure that some unusual sound had reached his ears. He lay motionless, eyes open, listening. Reflected light from the road below dimly illuminated the ceiling, changing from blue to red, and red to green as an electric sign on a high building almost opposite flashed on and off. His window was open, but the wall outside had no balcony, ledge, or fire-escape along which an intruder might come. His door was locked, and he had felt safe.

A faint rustling sound came. He sat up, eyes on the door. It was closed and no one was there. The dim light changed from green to blue, darkening the room. The sound came again, infinitely stealthy.
He swung out of bed on the side away from the door, fully awake. The sign changed, suffusing the room with deep red and rendering its contents indistinguishable. Moments passed slowly. Light green glowed in. Glen bent quickly and looked under the bed. The space was empty.

The sound began again- a creeping, whispering as of something being dragged across the carpet. Sometimes it stopped. It was so quiet that he could not be sure that it was in the room. He moved to the window, but only a muted humming from the distant city drifted in.
He turned, and saw that a figure was standing inside the door. Tall and large as a normal man, it had its back against the panels. It glowed red, blue and green as the sign changed, standing out with a faint luminosity from the shadows in the room. Muscles tensed, Glen remembered young Pound. He doubted if anyone would hear if he called.

The shape advanced, keeping between him and the door. It made no articulate sound, rustling on the carpet like dry leaves. Glen felt for a chair, gripping it by its back ready to swing.
The form came on, grotesque in the dim, changing light, arms reaching out to encompass him. He struck, expelling his breath with the effort. The chair rebounded with a dull thud, and was torn from his hands and thrown across the room. In the instant while they stood face to face he realised that here was an opponent with strength beyond the ordinary. Its strength was not that of bone and muscle, but of orbital electrons reacting together within the substance of the alien’s body.

The arms lapped round him, squeezing with intolerable pressure. He struck fiercely with clenched fists - and knew that useless. Here was no ordinary human opponent, with the vulnerable points all humans possessed.
The constricting grip increased, forcing the air from his straining lungs. He curled up in a ball, rolling over on his back, pulling his attacker down with him. The movement allowed him to bring a knee up to his chest. One foot on his attacker’s body, he thrust with all his strength. The alien was lifted and sent spinning backwards across the bed. Glen rose, panting, and sprang for the light-switch at the door.

Something lapped round one ankle before he could reach it. He turned, kicking fiercely into a mass of resilient material, and grappled to unfasten the door.
The catch came off and the door flew open; light from the landing streamed in, killing the dim, greenish hue. The hold on his leg relaxed and a swift rustling crossed the room. A shape momentarily obscured the window.

Glen switched on the light and almost closed the door. From the window he looked down. A form which might have been a city clerk, very late from work and homeward bound, was walking rapidly from view along the opposite pavement.
So his personal danger was as great as that, Glen thought. People who suspected or knew too much were to be eliminated.

He sat on the bed, resting his tortured ribs. He wondered what would have happened had he not been awake . . . .
After a few moments his eyes strayed to the door. At the bottom it was smoothed away as if something had found a passage under it. He shivered involuntarily.
After a time he dressed and went down the corridor. At the ground floor entrance was a phone booth which residents could use, and he rang McMasters’ number. Finally a girl’s voice, sleepy and a trifle annoyed, answered.

“ Mr. McMasters isn't here, sir. He left a message which he asked me to give to anyone who called.”
" What message? "
“ It was quite short." She seemed to be searching for it. "Going to Fairbairn Works. That’s all, sir.”
“ Thanks.”

He rang off and considered the news. McMasters could have gone out there in the normal course of events. Or something new could have arisen.
He rang the Works. The call was a long time being put through and he guessed that security measures were being applied to all messages into the cordoned area. Only after a further interval did an answer come. It was McMaster’s voice.
“ We’re in more personal danger than we think, Mac,” Glen said. “I doubt if it’s safe to sleep alone. An attacker got in here easily enough, though my door was locked. Remember John Pound?"

An exclamation came over the line. “Bad as that?"
“ Yes,” Glen said. “ Thought I'd warn you. Keep on the lookout for trouble. Tell Della and Fairbairn.”
"Can't do that- they re not here."
Glen felt surprise. “ But she said she would be! And Fairbairn left no word about going.”

“He did not,” McMasters agreed. “I was puzzled, and have been asking a few questions. Fairbairn had a visitor - one of the technicians saw him come. But I've checked up with official headquarters and no one was allowed into the area at that time. So where did that visitor come from?"

Where, Glen asked himself. He suspected, now. The suspicion was a troubling one.
"And Della? "
“ She was seen with Fairbairn a short time before I arrived. They went off together in his car.”
"That was after this visitor had been?"
"Of course."
Glen felt doubly uneasy. “ Did Della or Fairbairn tell any one where they were going?”
"No, laddie."

Glen wondered why the pair should leave the Fairbairn Works at all. There was no apparent reason. He recalled Della’s words earlier in the day. She had expected to wait at the Works until he arrived. But Mac had gone earlier, and she had not even been there then.

"You’ve questioned the engineers?" he pressed
“I have. Some of them had been working on the equipment, but they know nothing. Della and Fairbairn simply drove off.”
A thought occurred to Glen. “Did anyone see the visitor leave? "
"Not so far as I know "
It seemed a dead end. “I'm coming round,” Glen stated.

He hung up and bit a lip. These developments were full of possibilities -all unpleasant.

The phone rang when his hand was on the door. He took up the receiver. It was McMasters again, agitated.
“You still there, laddie?”
“ Just going. What is it?”
McMasters swallowed audibly. “ One of the engineers was looking for some equipment in the stores basement. He found Fairbairn.”

The tone was grim. Glen felt that he had been almost expecting something like this. He knew what was coming.
“ He was dead,” McMasters said. “ He’s been dead hours.”
“ And how long is it since they thought they saw Della and Fairbairn leave together?” Glen asked slowly.
“ Not much more than half an hour, laddie.”


HEAD bent under the brilliant light, Glen worked on.
The hours that had passed since Della and the pseudo Fairbairn had vanished had been filled with unfruitful search They had apparently ceased to exist.

The small bench before him was littered with midget radio components, and he was stiff from the long period during which he had occupied the mushroom stool. But the task he had set himself was almost completed. It was only a beginning, but could help.

He fitted a tiny reproducer behind one ear. Flesh coloured, it was practically invisible. The amplifier and microphone, extremely small and powerful, went in his breast pocket. The tonal response had been modified, eliminating high frequencies, and the microphone rendered directive by shielding.

He had been alone, but a glance at the wall clock showed that one of the department foremen would be in soon. Glen sat on the stool facing the door, waiting, his mind on Della..

It was clear now, what the aliens planned . First, people most dangerous to them were to be eliminated. Fairbairn, with his great technical knowledge, had been such an individual. Probably his body would have been hidden, had there been more time. Della, all unsuspecting, had not realised her danger.

The door opened and a sandy-haired man looked in. He nodded. “All right, Mr. Robertson. Didn’t know you were here - ”
“ Don’t go, Sam,” Glen said.
Sam Harding had been with the Ultra-Modern Electric Co. or many years. He was to be trusted.
He came in and closed the door, his eyes curiously on the littered bench.
“ Your heart’s beating, Sam,” Glen said. “I can hear it.”

Sam Harding looked astonished. “ You feel all right, Mr Robertson . . . ?”
His gaze traversed the ten paces between them and Glen smiled. He removed the microphone and amplifier from his pocket, and the reproducer from behind his ear. Sam Harding’s heart-beats had come through strong and clear, a dull, measured thud, thud.

“ You’ve got one thing the aliens haven’t, Sam,” he pointed out. “ A heart-beat!”
After a moment the other’s face cleared. “ I've heard rumours. They look like men - - ”

“ Speak like men, act like men, too,” Glen added. “They’re excellent imitations. But they haven’t a heart-heat. With luck, and one of these amplifiers, which I’ve screened from the wearers heart-beats, we should at least know when we’re face to face with a human being or not.” He felt pleased. The apparatus which he had made was a trifle, but it would help.

“ So what I’ve heard is true,” Sam Harding murmured. "What we need is an apparatus which would both show them up for what they are -and destroy them!”
Glen looked at him quickly. The words had been bitter. He remembered, suddenly, that Sam did not live in the city: his home had been in a tiny village. That village had ceased to be.
He looked down. “ I’m sorry, Sam.” He paused. “You’ve - ideas?”

“Nothing definite. But something I'd like to try.” His lips were compressed, white. “I had a little house--once. It was impossible to tell where it had stood. And- that house wasn’t all I lost. I was at work .... ”

Glen felt there was nothing to say. Sam Harding’s loss had been bitter and personal; his hatred against the aliens was great.
“If you’ve got any line you’d like to try you’ve my permission to work on it, Sam,” he said quietly. “We need something just as you mentioned- something to reveal and destroy these newcomers. There need be no thought of mercy They’re showing none. It’s a battle to the end. If we don’t win, they will. If they do, it’s the end of humanity.”

He got up, pressing Harding’s shoulder in passing. “ If you can accomplish something, all humanity will be eternally grateful, Sam."
Outside, he placed the reproducer and amplifier in position and switched it on. Never would he be without it, he determined. Others could be made, too. But secrecy must be preserved. The aliens controlled the substance of their bodies so perfectly that they could produce a copy of the human voice. Heart-beats, too, could be simulated- if they knew.

He ascended to his office, preparing to go out. The search for Della must go on. A little later he went down to his saloon, listening every time he passed anyone for the tell-tale thud, thud which proved them human. A careful questioning of the skeleton staff of the Fairbairn Works seemed indicated, he decided.


A group of men had descended from a transport lorry at the barrier and were waiting in the road. Each side stood armed soldiers. Behind them, visible through the trees, were bell-tents and camouflaged vehicles. Glen braked his saloon to a halt and got out. He recognised several of the waiting men, and frowned. They were from the Fairbairn Works.

One came to him. “ We’d be willing to stay, Mr. Robertson," he said. “ We want to stay, if it’ll help.”
Glen frowned. “ What do you mean?”
“That we don’t like being moved from the Works. We know we haven’t done much good, but we’ve tried .... ”
“ Moved?" Glen echoed.
“ Yes, Mr. Robertson. Some official order or other."
The man looked disgruntled. His companions, too, appeared almost on the point of argument.
“ This is the first I’ve heard of it,’ Glen said. “ How did it come about?"
The man jerked his head towards a staff car drawn up on the roadside. “ Better ask him!”

An officer Glen did not recognise stood outside the car. Medals shone on his breast. He was speaking rapidly, issuing instructions. The workmen’s passes were being checked, and they were being told to board the lorry again. Its engine was running, and it appeared to have come from the Fairbairn Works.

The officer entered his car and Glen saw that he was going. An aide closed the door smartly, walking round to take the driver's seat.
Glen raised a hand. “A moment, please!”
The officer looked through the open window, his face irascible. “ What is it?"
“Are these men being withdrawn from the Fairbairn Works?”
Cold eyes snapped. “ As a matter of fact, they are!"
"Why?"

An expression of contempt came to the other’s face. “I do not discuss such matters with civilians!"
Glen refused to feel annoyed. He showed the official pass he had been given. It changed things, he thought. He put it away.
“Am I to understand it was an official order? You have seen I am justified in asking.”
The other hesitated. “ Very well. It was an official order. It was thought that these men were accomplishing nothing useful, and only in danger.”
“ Upon whose authority was the order given?” Glen pressed.
"That I am not prepared to discuss even with you!" Heavy sarcasm underlay the words.

Glen held his ground. “I shall learn it through other channels.”
“ Do so, then!”
Glen did not reply as there was a sudden argument among the men. One stood behind the lorry, gesticulating. A soldier came to the staff car, saluting.

“ He has no pass, sir.”
“ Hmm!” The officer’s eyes flashed and he got out. He followed the soldier and both halted. The workman looked discomforted.
"I must have left it behind, sir! It was in my overall."
"It was your duty to guard it and keep it with you !”
" Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
“ You could get into serious trouble!”

Glen walked nearer, listening. Three men stood at the rear of the lorry. Directing his microphone towards them, he could hear only two sets of heart-beats. He turned his body slightly, assuring he was not mistaken. There was no error he realised. Three men appeared to be there, arguing. One was an alien...

“ I- I can’t think where I left it, sir,” the workman was saying.
The officer swore. “Very well, go on with the others!’ He waited until the man had entered the lorry. “ You will have to report your loss !” he snapped.
“ Yes, sir.”

The lorry lurched forwards and Glen raised a hand, about to cry that it be stopped. The words did not come. The lorry was gaining speed. Two men now stood in the road behind it- and there was only one heartbeat. The workman who had lost his pass was genuine.
The soldier saluted, withdrawing towards the barricade. The officer turned smartly upon his heel and strode towards his car. Glen turned, following both with his hidden microphone. No measured thud-thud came when it was directed towards the officer.

Aghast, he watched him enter the staff car. It was hopeless, Glen thought. Who would believe him? They would think him insane!
Gears whirred and the car shot forward. He watched it go from view along the winding road.
The aliens were seeking positions of authority and responsibility, he thought. It would he increasingly difficult to unmask them!


After returning to his office Glen sought out Sam Harding. A means of discovering and destroying the aliens was more imperative. Their destruction would be difficult, and Glen doubted normal means would succeed. Their bodies appeared to have no vital spots. A bullet might pass through and leave them unharmed.

Sam Harding was bent over a complex mass of electrical equipment. Tea from the canteen, cold and forgotten, stood on the bench. He straightened, momentarily rubbing his back.
“ Think you’ll do any good ?” Glen asked.
“ Perhaps, Mr. Robertson.” He was cautious. “ It’s early to say. We don’t know enough about them, yet.” His eyes glowed. “ If it would work, it would be ideal...”
Glen was thankful for his enthusiasm. “Would you like to tell me?"
“ Not yet. It isn’t clear in my own mind. But if it works it’ll be a perfect weapon for us."

“A perfect weapon will he difficult to devise," Glen said doubtfully. “ We need something which would destroy them, yet be harmless if directed against a human by mistake.”
“ It may do exactly that, sir!”

Examining the equipment, Glen did not answer. It would he useless to press Harding to explain when his ideas had not yet become clear. Apparently Harding had given much thought to the subject, and the apparatus on the bench was complex and bulky. Powered from the mains, it would require a large car to transport it.

Harding seemed to guess his thoughts. “ I could probably cut the size down a good bit, later, if it works . . . .”
After a time Glen returned to his office, closed the door, and sat down to consider his future actions. Della must be found. That was priority. A means of disclosing and destroying any alien was required. That was essential. At the same time the old encampment on the hill must be watched. It could form a landing point for further invaders.

A newspaper had been placed on his desk- probably by McMasters, he supposed. As he raised his chin from his hands the headlines, obviously intended for him to see, met his gaze.

THE ALIEN ATTACK HAS BEEN REPELLED

NO FURTHER ALIEN DANGER!

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An early story of alien infiltration was the 1938 short story "Who goes there" by John W Campbell Junior, filmed in 1951 as "The Thing from Another World".
Infiltration by aliens was popular in the post war fifties, with Jack Finney writing The Body Snatchers in 1954 (to become a film Invasion of the Body Snatchers).