rumbled. "I did see something strange
disappearing over the horizon. It--I mean they--might have been what
Tony says; but whatever it was, there were three of them. But I saw
something else, because I was looking in another direction. What I saw
first was a couple of funny-looking shapes floating down near the
ground. Didn't look like parachutists, yet they seemed big enough to be
men--or at least, small men."

"Interesting. All right, what about the rest of you? How many saw the
ships?"

* * * * *

A chorus answered him. "I see," Clayton mused. "You all agree on the
behavior. And you all think there were three--not four--not two. Three?"

It was agreed.

Clayton rustled the pile of newspapers. "The reports in here vary. I
learn with amazement that you gentlemen seem to have missed completely
the spurts of flame that issued from the alien ships--flame which is
reported to have set a house on fire. And no one seems to have noticed
that the invaders, in descending, glided on huge black wings."

Corelli blushed a fiery crimson. "Dr. Clayton," he protested, "we aren't
making these things up for popular consumption. We're just telling you
what we actually saw--that is--what--what--we--saw looked like to us."

Clayton nodded. "Of course. That is all people were doing back in 1938
when the Martians landed in New Jersey, at the time Orson Welles
presented a radio version of H. G. Wells' 'War of the Worlds'. Or when
the 'Flying Saucer' craze first started. Or when Fantafilm put on their
big publicity stunt for the improved 3-D movie, 'The Outsiders', and
people saw the aliens over Broadway and heard them address the populace
in weird, booming tones.

"Gentlemen, I am not pleased to find students of this University
engaging in such unwanted extra-curricular activity as inventing
interplanetary scares. I don't think Washington will be amused, either."

Corelli clicked his heels. "Sir," he stated in dignified tones, "I
resent these implications. I assume they have been directed at me. At no
time have I talked about this to reporters, or in any way engaged in
what you accuse me of. If you want my resignation from this school, you
may have it."

"Really? You think that an air of dignified innocence will undo the
damage done? I am well aware of your experiments with the _y_ wave,
gentlemen--and it was on the _y_ wave that the messages came. You may be
interested to know that the number of li