The general stared, his hand creeping automatically toward his pistol
belt. Then he shouted, "Jump, driver! Don't touch that gray stuff."

White-faced, the driver climbed to the hood of his jeep, looked around
him, and jumped clear.

There was complete silence as everyone watched the jeep. First its tires
melted down, and then the rims. The body, resting on the gray surface,
melted, too.

The aerial was the last to go.

The general began to swear softly under his breath. He turned to the
driver. "Go back and have some men bring up hand grenades and dynamite."

The driver ran back to the convoy.

"I don't know what you've got here," the general said. "But it's not
going to stop a U.S. Army convoy."

Micheals wasn't so sure.

* * * * *

The leech was nearly awake now, and its body was calling for more and
more food. It dissolved the soil under it at a furious rate, filling it
in with its own body, flowing outward.

A large object landed on it, and that became food also. Then suddenly--

A burst of energy against its surface, and then another, and another. It
consumed them gratefully, converting them into mass. Little metal
pellets struck it, and their kinetic energy was absorbed, their mass
converted. More explosions took place, helping to fill the starving
cells.

It began to sense things--controlled combustion around it, vibrations of
wind, mass movements.

There was another, greater explosion, a taste of _real_ food! Greedily
it ate, growing faster. It waited anxiously for more explosions, while
its cells screamed for food.

But no more came. It continued to feed on the soil and on the Sun's
energy. Night came, noticeable for its lesser energy possibilities, and
then more days and nights. Vibrating objects continued to move around
it.

It ate and grew and flowed.

* * * * *

Micheals stood on a little hill, watching the dissolution of his house.
The leech was several hundred yards across now, lapping at his front
porch.

Good-by, home, Micheals thought, remembering the ten summers he had
spent there.

The porch collapsed into the body of the leech. Bit by bit, the house
crumpled.

The leech looked like a field of lava now, a blasted spot on the green
Earth.

"Pardon me, sir," a soldier said, coming up behind him. "General
O'Donnell would like to see you."

"Right," Micheals said, and took his last look at the house.

He f