_ the same," Julia said. "Maybe some day we will
be...."

She wheeled onto the super-highway and headed toward San Francisco.

She switched on the automatic-drive and turned her attention to Walt.

She was unable to awaken him. After such a severe shock as he had
experienced, his nervous system demanded rest; he no longer had the
recuperative powers of a mutant.

Even if I alert Earth, she thought what can we _do_? How can we prepare?
I could ... but I'm only one. They'd gang up on me and kill me in a
minute.... Earth will fight; at least we won't give up. I'll have to get
us as ready as I can, and we'll fight.

I need Walt. What kind of weapons will we be up against? Where will the
invasion strike first? When? He'll have scraps of information that I can
put together to tell me more than he thinks he knows.

How can I convince him to help me?

... if I've figured it out right, there's got to be records somewhere.
Birth certificates, things like that. If I'm right about babies being
missing the year of the last big saucer scare, there's got to be birth
certificates. I'll check newspaper files in San Francisco.

If I can just find Walt's birth certificate! That will convince him!

She thought about the space station floating somewhere in the sky; she
tried to picture the aliens who manned it.

God knows how, she thought, but we'll fight!

* * * * *

In the space station, the aliens were in conference.

**There can't be any doubt but that she's dead,** Forential projected.

**Your Walt is a good one,** Lycan thought. **Best mutant on the ship.**

Jubilation flowed back and forth. The other aliens congratulated
Forential.

**It was nothing,** Forential told them.

**I feel infinitely better, now that she's out of the way,** the Elder
commented.

**We'll strike with the main force a day before we planned to,** Lycan
told them. **That's best all around. We expect most trouble from the
American Air Force. It will be least alert on a Sunday morning.**

* * * * *

In San Francisco Julia drew up in front of an unpretentious hotel on
Polk Street. Walt, was still unconscious in the back seat.

After she arranged for a room, she returned to the car. She seized Walt
at his arm pits and hauled him to the sidewalk. She held a tight
distortion field around his body. He was dead weight against her. She
draped one of his arms about her neck. When she be