they can't get a man. But
longbearded or flatchested it's all the same. Gruesome, that's what
they are, gruesome. Forget it. After we get this cleaned up we'll take
care of any others that start, but personally I don't think therell be
any. Sounds like a lot of theory to me."

I looked contemptuously at him, for he had that unimaginative approach
which disdains Science and so holds Civilization back on its upward
path. If the world's future rested with people like this, I thought, we
should never have had dynamite or germtheories or airplanes capable of
destroying whole cities at a blow.

But Captain Eltwiss was a servant to the Science he looked down on. The
answer he had bragged about now appeared and it was a scientific
contribution if ever there was one. A division of tanks, twenty or
thirty of them with what appeared to be sledrunners invertedly attached
to their fronts, rolled into sight. "Wirecutters," he explained with
pride. "Same equipment used for barbedwire on the Normandy beachhead. Go
through anything like cheese."

The tanks drew up in a semicircle and the drivers came out of their
vehicles for lastminute preparations. A final check was made of gas,
oil, and the positions of the wirecutters. Maps, showing the location of
each house now covered by the grass, were studied and compasspoints
checked against them. I admired the thoroughness and efficiency of the
arrangements. So did the captain.

"The idea is simple. These tanks are shocktroops. Theyll cut their way
into the middle of the stuff. This will give us entranceways and a
central operating point, besides hitting the grass where its strength is
greatest. From there--" he paused impressively--"from there we'll throw
everything in the book at it and a few that arent. All the stuff they
used before we came. Only we'll use it efficiently. And everything else.
Even hush-hush stuff. Just got the release from Washington. The minute
one of these stems shows we'll stamp it out. We'll fight it and fight it
until we beat it and we won't leave a bit of it, no, sir, not one bit of
it, alive."

He looked at me triumphantly. Behind his triumph was a hint of the vast
resources and the slowmoving but unassailable force his uniform
represented. It sounded as though he had been correct in his boast and
something drastic indeed would "happen to Mr. Grass."

The tanks were ready to go at last and the drivers climbed back into
them and disappeared, leaving the stee