through the earphone.

Quickly Wang gave his grandfather all the information he had on the
flying thing. By now the whine had become a shrill roar and the thing in
the air had become a silver-pink fish shape.

"I think it's coming down very close to here," Wang concluded. "You call
the authorities and let them know that one of the aircraft is in
trouble. I'll see if I can be of any help here. I'll call you back
later."

"As you say," the old man said hurriedly. He cut off.

Wang was beginning to realize that the thing was a spaceship, not an
airship. By this time, he could see the thing more clearly. He had never
actually seen a spacecraft, but he'd seen enough of them on television
to know what they looked like. This one didn't look like a standard type
at all, and it didn't behave like one, but it looked and behaved even
less like an airship, and Wang knew enough to be aware that he did not
necessarily know every type of spaceship ever built.

In shape, it resembled the old rocket-propelled jobs that had been used
for the first probings into space more than a century before, rather
than the fat ovoids he was used to. But there were no signs of rocket
exhausts, and yet the ship was very obviously slowing, so it must have
an inertia drive.

It was coming in much lower now, on a line north of him, headed almost
due east. He urged the mare forward in order to try to keep up with the
craft, although it was obviously traveling at several hundred miles an
hour--hardly a horse's pace.

Still, it was slowing rapidly very rapidly. Maybe ...

He kept the mare moving.

The strange ship skimmed along the treetops in the distance and
disappeared from sight. Then there was a thunderous crash, a tearing of
wood and foliage, and a grinding, plowing sound.

For a few seconds afterward, there was silence. Then there came a soft
rumble, as of water beginning to boil in some huge but distant samovar.
It seemed to go on and on and on.

And there was a bluish, fluctuating glow on the horizon.

_Radioactivity?_ Wang wondered. Surely not an atomic-powered ship
without safety cutoffs in this day and age. Still, there was always the
possibility that the cutoffs had failed.

He pulled out his radiophone and thumbed the call button again.

This time there was no delay. "Yes?"

"How are the radiation detectors behaving there, Grandfather?"

"One moment. I shall see." There was a silence. Then: "No unusual
activity, young Wang.