e
look at el grasso grosso by the moonlight."

_17._ However, it was not moonlight illuminating the weird tumulus, but
the glare of a battery of searchlights, suggesting, as Gootes
irreverently remarked, the opening of a new supermarket. During my
absence the National Guard had arrived and focused the great
incandescent beams on the mound which now covered five houses and whose
threat had driven the inhabitants from as many more. The powdery blue
lights gave the grass an uncanny yellowish look, as though it had been
stricken by a disease.

The rays, directed low, were constantly being interrupted by the bodies
of the militiamen hurrying back and forth to accomplish some definite
task. "What goes on?" inquired Gootes.

The officer addressed had two gleaming silver bars on his shoulder. He
seemed very young and nervous. "Sorry--no one allowed this far without
special authorization."

"Working press." Gootes produced a reporter's badge from the captain's
bars.

"Oh. Excuse me. Say, that was a sharp little stunt, Mr--"

"Name of Jacson Gootes. _Intelligencer_."

"Captain Eltwiss. How did you learn stuff like that?"

I looked at him, for the name was somehow vaguely familiar. But to the
best of my knowledge I had never seen that smooth, boyish face before.

"Talent. Natural talent. What did you say all the shootin was about?"

"Getting ready to tunnel under," answered the officer affably. "Blow the
thing skyhigh from the middle and get rid of it right now. Not going to
let any grass grow under our feet."

"But I read an article saying neither dynamite, TNT nor nitroglycerin
would be effective against the grass; might even do more harm than
good."

"Writers." Captain Eltwiss dismissed literature without even resorting
to an exclamationpoint. "Writers." To underline his confidence the
boneshaking chatter of pneumatic chisels began a syncopated rattle.
Military directness would accomplish in one swift, decisive stroke at
the heart of things what civilian fumbling around the edges had failed
to do.

I looked with almost sentimental regret at the great conical heap. I had
brought it into being; in a few hours it would be gone and whatever fame
its brief existence had given me would be gone with it.

With swift method the guardsmen started burrowing. In ordered relays,
fresh workers replaced tired, and the pile of excavated dirt grew. Since
their activity, except for its urgency and the strangeness of the
situ