en in the compost pit shell
and the dumping of assorted small wild life specimens into it with
them.

"But they didn't kill you," said Jill insistently, "and they didn't
kill those three, and there were the two others you say got over the
paralysis and went back to the camp. Counting you, that's six men they
had at their mercy that we know weren't harmed. So why should they
have harmed a seventh man?"

Lockley did not answer at once. None of the spared six, he thought,
had put up a fight. Only Vale had exchanged blows with the crew of the
spaceship. Nobody else had seen them.

"That's right, about Vale," he said after a moment in which he had
been busy. "But this doesn't look good!"

He felt under the car. He squeezed himself beneath its front end.
There was a small, fugitive flicker of flame. It went out and he was
silent.

Presently he got to his feet and said evenly, "We're in a fix. One of
the front wheels is turned almost at a right angle to the other. A
king pin is broken. The car couldn't be driven even if I managed to
get it up on the road. We've got to walk. There ought to be soldiers
on the way up to the lake today. If we meet them we'll be all right.
But this is bad luck!"

It happened that he was mistaken on both counts. There were no
soldiers moving into the park, and it was not bad luck that his car
couldn't be driven. If he'd been able to get it on the road and
trundling down the highway, the car would have been wrecked and they
could very well have been killed. But this was for the future to
disclose.

They took nothing from the car because they could not see beyond the
present. They started out doggedly to follow the highway that soldiers
would be likely to follow on the way to the lake. It was not the
shortest way to the world outside the Park. It was considerably longer
than a footpath would have been. But Lockley expected tanks, at least,
against which eccentric unearthly weapons would be useless. So they
headed down the main highway. Lockley was unarmed. They had no food.
He hadn't eaten since the morning before.

When day came--gray and still--and presently the dew upon grass and
tree leaves glittered reflections of the sky, he moved aside into the
woods and found a broken-off branch, out of which by very great effort
he made a club. When he came back, Jill was listening attentively to
the little pocket radio. She turned it off.

"I was hoping for news," she explained determinedly. "Th