ed miles per
hour--hardly a horse's pace.

Still, it was slowing rapidly--very rapidly. Maybe--

He kept the mare moving.

The strange ship skimmed along the treetops in the distance and
disappeared from sight. Then there was a thunderous crash, a tearing of
wood and foliage, and a grinding, plowing sound.

For a few seconds afterward, there was silence. Then there came a soft
rumble, as of water beginning to boil in some huge, but distant, samovar.
It seemed to go on and on and on.

And there was a bluish, fluctuating glow on the horizon.

_Radioactivity?_ Wang wondered. Surely not an atomic-powered ship without
safety cutoffs in this day and age.

He pulled out his radiophone and thumbed the call button again.

This time, there was no delay. "Yes?"

"How are the radiation detectors behaving there, Grandfather?"

"One moment. I shall see." There was a silence. Then: "No unusual
activity, young Wang. Why?"

Wang told him, then asked: "Did you get hold of the air authorities?"

"Yes. They have no missing aircraft, but they're checking with the space
fields. The way you describe it, the thing must be a spaceship of some
kind."

"I think so, too. I wish I had a radiation detector here, though. I'd
like to know whether that thing is hot or not. It's only a couple of miles
or so away. I think I'd better stay away. Meanwhile, you'd better put in a
call to Central Headquarters Fire Control. There's going to be a holocaust
if I'm any judge unless they get here fast with plenty of equipment."

"I'll see to it," said his grandfather, cutting off.

The bluish glow in the sky had quite died away by now, and the distant
rumbling was gone, too. And, oddly enough, there was not much smoke in the
distance. There was a small cloud of gray that rose, streamerlike, from
where the glow had been, but even that faded away fairly rapidly in the
chill breeze. Quite obviously, there would be no fire. After several more
minutes of watching, he was sure of it. There couldn't have been much heat
produced in that explosion--if it could really be called an explosion.

Then he saw something moving in the trees between himself and the spot
where the ship had come down. He couldn't quite see what it was, but it
looked like someone crawling.

"Halloo, there!" he called out. "Are you hurt?"

There was no answer. Perhaps whoever it was didn't understand Russian.
Wang's command of English wasn't too good, but he called out in that
lan