erous, it
can and will be smashed.

The news broadcast ended.

Jill said, obviously speaking of Vale, "He'll make them realize that
men aren't like porcupines and rabbits! When they realize that we
humans are intelligent people, everything will be all right!"

Lockley said reluctantly, "There's one thing to remember, though,
Jill. They didn't blindfold the rabbits or the porcupine. They only
blindfolded men."

She stared at him.

"One of the men in the pit with me," said Lockley, "thought they
didn't want us to see them because they were monsters. That's not
likely." He paused. "Maybe they blindfolded us to keep us from finding
out they aren't."

CHAPTER 4

"The evidence," said Lockley as Jill looked at him ashen-faced, "the
evidence is all for monsters. But there was something in that
broadcast that calls for courage, and I want to summon it. We're going
to need it."

"If they aren't monsters," said Jill in a stricken voice, "Then--then
they're men. And we have a cold war with only one country, and they're
the only ones who'd play a deadly trick like this. So if they aren't
monsters, in the ship, they must be men, and they'd kill anybody who
found it out."

"But again," insisted Lockley, "the evidence is still all for
monsters. You've been very loyal and very confident about Vale. But
we're in a fix. Vale would want you in a safe place, and there's
something in that broadcast that doesn't look good."

"What was in the broadcast?"

Lockley said wryly, "Two things. One was there and one wasn't. There
wasn't anything about soldiers marching up to Boulder Lake to welcome
visitors from wherever they come from, and to say politely to them
that as visitors they are our guests and we'd rather they didn't shoot
terror beams or paralysis beams about the landscape. We were more or
less counting on that, you and I. We were expecting soldiers to come
up the highway headed for the lake. But they aren't coming."

Jill, still pale, wrinkled her forehead in thought.

"That's what wasn't in the broadcast," Lockley told her. "This is what
was. The troops have formed a cordon about the Park. They've run into
the terror beam. The broadcast said it was weakened by distance and
only made the soldiers uncomfortable. But they've moved back. You see
the point? They've moved back!"

Jill stared, suddenly understanding.

"But that means--"

"It means," said Lockley, "that the terror beam is pretty much of a
weapon.