s, the Savage jerking in
his hands. They scattered to either side.

He began to run steadily down the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, using
the butt of the heavy rifle like a battering ram as they came at him. As
he neared Highland, three of them darted directly into his path.
Stillman fired. One doubled over, lurching crazily into a jagged
plate-glass store front. Another clawed at him as he swept around the
corner to Highland. He managed to shake free.

The street ahead of him was clear. Now his superior leg-power would
count heavily in his favor. Two miles. Could he make it back before
others cut him off?

Running, re-loading, firing. Sweat soaking his shirt, rivering down his
face, stinging his eyes. A mile covered. Half way to the drains. They
had fallen back.

But more of them were coming, drawn by the rifle shots, pouring in from
side streets, stores and houses.

His heart jarred in his body, his breath was ragged. How many of them
around him? A hundred? Two hundred? More coming. God!

He bit down on his lower lip until the salt taste of blood was on his
tongue. You can't make it, a voice inside him shouted, they'll have you
in another block and you know it!

He fitted the rifle to his shoulder, adjusted his aim, and fired. The
long rolling crack of the big weapon filled the night. Again and again
he fired, the butt jerking into the flesh of his shoulder, the smell of
powder in his nostrils.

It was no use. Too many of them.

Lewis Stillman knew that he was going to die.

The rifle was empty at last, the final bullet had been fired. He had no
place to run because they were all around him, in a slowly closing
circle.

He looked at the ring of small cruel faces and he thought: The aliens
did their job perfectly; they stopped Earth before she could reach the
age of the rocket, before she could threaten planets beyond her own
moon. What an immensely clever plan it had been! To destroy every human
being on Earth above the age of six--and then to leave as quickly as
they had come, allowing our civilization to continue on a primitive
level, knowing that Earth's back had been broken, that her survivors
would revert to savagery as they grew into adulthood.

Lewis Stillman dropped the empty rifle at his feet and threw out his
hands. "Listen," he pleaded, "I'm really one of you. You'll _all_ be
like me soon. Please, _listen_ to me."

But the circle tightened relentlessly around Lewis Stillman. He was
scream