camp for a long way now. But there
came a sharp curve ahead. Lockley drove into it. There was a roar, and
a car came from the opposite direction, veering away from the road's
edge. It sideswiped the little car Lockley drove. The smaller car
bucked violently and spun crazily around. It went crashing into a
clump of saplings and came to a stop with a smashed windshield and
crumpled fenders, but the motor was still running. Lockley had braked
by instinct.

The other car raced away without pausing.

Lockley sat still for a moment, stunned by the suddenness of the
mishap. Then he raged. He got out of the car. Because of its small
size, he thought he might be able to get it back on the road with
saplings for levers. But the job would take hours, and he was
irrationally convinced that Jill had been left behind in the
construction camp.

He was perhaps five miles from Boulder Lake itself and about the same
distance from the camp. It would take less time to go to the camp on
foot than to try to get the car on the road. Time was of the essence,
and whoever or whatever the occupants of the landed ship might be,
they'd know what a road was for. They'd sight an intruder in a car on
a road long before they'd detect a man on foot who was not on a
highway and was taking some pains to pass unseen.

He started out, unarmed and on foot. He was headed for the near
neighborhood of the thing Vale had described as coming from the sky.
He was driven by fear for Jill. It seemed to him that his best pace
was only a crawl and he desperately needed all the speed he could
muster.

He headed directly across country for the camp. All the world seemed
unaware that anything out of the ordinary was in progress. Birds sang
and insects chirruped and breezes blew and foliage waved languidly.
Now and again a rabbit popped out of sight of the moving figure of the
man. But there were no sounds, or sights or indications of anything
untoward where Lockley moved. He reflected that he was on his way to
search for a girl he barely knew, and whom he couldn't be sure needed
his help anyway.

Outside in the world, there were places where things were not so
tranquil. By this time there were already troops in motion in long
trains of personnel-carrying trucks. There were mobile guided missile
detachments moving at top speed across state lines and along the
express highway systems. Every military plane in the coastal area was
aloft, kept fueled by tanker planes