"How about up the road?"
"Nothing doing right now, Chief. Some cars tried to get through here about half-an-hour ago, though. There are a couple of cylinders lying in wait here, and they blew the cars to bits."
"Is the road blocked?"
"The northbound side is. One lane of the southbound side, and about two-thirds of the grass strip, are unblocked."
"The cylinders haven't tried to completely block the road?"
"No, I think they may want to keep it partly open for their own purposes."
"How about the flat farmland below the road?"
The pugnacious towhead spoke up. "Chief, that crew from their ship are crossing it right now. What do you say I let the acid out of their batteries?"
Cardan blinked. "Do what?"
"I got a good look into one of these cylinders a little bit ago. The power to run them comes from some place. It looks to me as if the bottom third or fourth of the cylinder, at least in the center, is some kind of storage battery. If I let the fluid out, they'll be stranded."
"How are you going to do that?"
There was a silence, then the towhead said hesitantly, "I know how this sounds, but I can get through the metal."
Cardan removed his cigar.
The towhead said earnestly, "Sure, Chief, all you do is loosen a tiny bit at a time, then another and another, and when you get the rhythm of it, you can eat right through the metal. It's not a big hole, to start with, but you can enlarge it the same way."
Maclane muttered, as if the thought had just hit him, "Boy, we really let the genie out of the bottle this trip. Listen, Chief, how are we going to keep all this quiet afterward?"
Cardan shook his head, "One mess at a time." He took a fresh grip on his cigar.
The towhead said urgently, "What do you want me to do? They aren't going to wait while we argue over it."
"Let them through," said Cardan. "But if they try to go back, ruin them."
"Does that hold for just these, or for all of them?"
"If you see something really unusual, let me know. If you have to act fast, do what you think best. Otherwise, let them all go through without too much trouble toward the highway. But tie them in knots if they try to get back to their ship."
"Why?"
"So we can cut them off from the ship. The more of them out in the open, the better."
"I get it."
Maclane said, "Chief, that machine is just coming into view. I don't know if I like the looks of it."
From beside Cardan's shoulder, Miss Bowen said apologetically, "General Whitely left a message, Mr. Cardan. Would you like me to read it to you later?"
Cardan looked at the machine being hauled up on a frame carried between two of the cylindrical vehicles. It was still down on the flat land below the highway. Cardan couldn't recognize the machine, but supposed its purpose must be to straighten out the grid. As Cardan watched, the forward cylinder tried to start up the base of the embankment at the shoulder of the highway. After a short run, the cylinders ground to a stop. Both cylinders flung back dirt and rocks, then stopped, rolled backwards, and tried a longer run. This time they got about halfway up the bank, threw out an avalanche of stone and dirt, and then came to a stop, wheels spinning and apparently unable to go forward or back. Spacesuited figures milled around, then began to shove back at the forward cylinder.
Cardan studied the scene of confusion, and said, "Keep an eye on them, Mac. They must be getting desperate, and there's no telling what they'll do." He took off his headset, and turned to Miss Bowen. "What did Whitely have to say?"
Miss Bowen grinned at her notebook. "Do you want the exact words, or just the sense of it?"
"Just the sense."
"He said he'd run across a Civil War locomotive that had been repaired for some centennial, and he's rushing a trainload of troops north with it. He's found a few other steam locomotives here and there, and the tracks are being cleared while these locomotives come in to hook up with trains of specially-equipped troops. Several more locomotives are racing down from Canada, and he thinks the worst of the transportation problem is whipped. Now what he's afraid of is another landing before this one is crushed, and he's trying to get things set up in case it happens. Other countries have offered help, but the general thinks we can finish them off ourselves tomorrow, provided you can keep them tied up tonight."
"Provided what?" said Cardan, sitting up straight.
"He said that he knows you're doing something to them," said Miss Bowen, "and he can finish them off tomorrow provided you can keep them tied up tonight."
Cardan growled, "Did you—"
"Sir," Miss Bowen objected, "I didn't tell him a thing. He said something about ultra-high-altitude photographs, and then he said that no one could get into the mess these aliens are in without help."
Cardan lit up a cigar. "This poses quite a problem," he said. "If he knows that much, he's going to try to find out the rest of it. And we can't tell him the rest of it."
Miss Bowen said hesitantly, "Sir, if it's for national defense—"
Cardan puffed at the cigar and said nothing.
Down the table, someone said, "Chief, I hope you aren't going to sit on this."
Cardan said, "Maybe you'd rather have the government sit on it."
There was a rustle of faint movement, followed by silence, that told him that had a suddenly intent audience.
"I can see it now," said Cardan, eying the glowing tip of his cigar. "Bureaus, agencies, regulations, committees, boards, advisors, directives, appropriations, cutbacks, crash programs, reappraisals, closed hearings, progress reports, security clearance, secret files—"
Several of the men groaned, and Cardan said, "I couldn't squash this if I wanted to. The work would just go quietly on in cellars and attics, regardless what I said. With the government, it's a different matter. Consider the size and expense of the defense programs, for instance. This one device puts the whole business on the edge of being obsolete. What good, for instance, is a liquid-fueled ballistic missile when someone miles away and out of sight can get at the fuel lines before the missile takes off? What good is a naval vessel if the pressure to the turbines that drive the vessel can be leaked out by someone out of sight and reach in the distance? All calculations are thrown into doubt. The whole point and purpose of gigantic sections of industry employing millions of men, becomes questionable. Do you think the government won't be tempted to sit on this?"
There was a low angry murmur.
Cardan said, "And while that problem has everyone in a state of indecision, what are our cat-faced friends going to be doing? Let's just imagine for a little bit that we aren't us, here. Let's imagine for a minute we're the general staff of some interstellar feline race expanding into this region of space. Earth has been scouted, found suitable for colonization, and a force landed sufficient to throw the inhabitants in chaos. After a good start, the landing force gets smashed to bits. What is this feline general staff going to do when word of that comes in?" Cardan glanced around. "Just imagine we are that general staff. What do you say? Shall we forget the planet? Or shall we go back with twenty times the force?"
There was a tense silence.
Then from down the table, someone said with conviction, "Go back and finish the job. Otherwise there'll be trouble later on."
Cardan nodded slowly. "That's what I think, too."
There was a slow stirring in the room. Miss Bowen said, "But—if every man in our armed forces had one of these circuits—"
Maclane shook his head. "It's easy to see with this, once it's focused. But to hold your mind concentrated long enough and hard enough to move something—I don't know."
Cardan handed Miss Bowen his own headset. "Here, try it." He watched Miss Bowen sit down, slip on the headset, shut her eyes, frown, and ask for pointers. Maclane, wearing a headset that showed the same scene, gave her advice. Miss Bowen's attractive features gradually grew pale, and her face tense. At length, she blurted, "Bu
t what do you do?"
"Just keep your mind on one small object."
"I'm dizzy with watching one small object."
"Then you—watch each part of it in turn, see it all, and take hold of it, mentally."
She bit her lip. The minutes dragged by. Abruptly she slumped, her features twisted, and she reached up to take off the headset. Then with a plainly violent effort of will, she brought her hand down again, and sat up straight. The color seemed to drain from her face. All visible trace of emotion vanished, like ripples on a lake when the air becomes intensely calm. Gradually, the calm lengthened out. Still she sat, with a look of intense quiet.
Then she relaxed, and after a moment smiled, and reached up to take off the headset. Her eyes opened and gradually focused, and her face was that of pretty woman waking from anesthesia.
"Well," she said smiling. "I did it. It was little, and it was light. But I moved it." She drew in a careful breath. "And I'd rather learn shorthand all over from the beginning then to do that again."
Cardan laughed. "It gets easier with practice."
Miss Bowen shook her head, and stood up. "I had no idea it was like that."
Maclane said, "I keep thinking, Chief, this isn't going to be everybody's dish. If we try to handle it the way we would handle . . . say . . . a new kind of rifle, there's going to be a lot of confusion, and all at the wrong time. Maybe we'd better keep it quiet, develop it ourselves, and not to be too anxious to hand it over till we know what we're doing. So far as defense is concerned, we've tied this crew of aliens in knots, just on the spur of the moment. If sixteen times as many come down on us in half a year . . . well, by then we ought to be sixteen times as tough—provided we keep working on it."
Cardan nodded, and looked down the table. "How does that sound?"
There was a unanimous murmur of agreement.
"O.K." said Cardan. "It remains to be seen how we come out of this present mess, and then there's the problem of getting Whitely off our track. But at least we know what we're trying to do." He glanced at Miss Bowen. "When Whitely called up the last time, did he have anything else to say?"
"He wanted to know how the enemy device operates that keeps gas or Diesel engines from working, or guns from firing properly."
Cardan frowned. "Tell him he won't find that out till he captures them. How should I know?"
"He wanted a rule of thumb explanation he could give so people will know what to expect."
"Oh. Say that the enemy has a device that sets up what you might call a damping field. Any release of energy creates a reaction in the field, and this reaction tends to choke off the release of energy. The more sudden and violent the release of energy, the greater the reaction of the field. A slow smooth release of energy isn't affected too much, but a violent explosion is sharply choked back by the reaction it sets up."
Maclane said, "Chief, excuse me. This crew is slowly getting that machine up onto the road."
Cardan could hear the rapid movement of Miss Bowen's pen on her note pad as he put the headset back on, and saw that the spacesuited figures, using a winch, had the big machine almost up the bank. They had set up tall, apparently self-contained, lights on poles, and several of the aliens were studying the warped grid.
Cardan immediately tried the technique of cutting through the strands of the cable the winch was slowly turning around. At first, he had no luck at all, but then he got a tiny speck of metal loose, then another and another. A fine stream of powder began to sift down from the cable. He said, "Mac, we're going to want to keep these birds from getting back to their ship. If Whitely is going to capture whatever operates this field, we're going to have to keep the ship from escaping with a part of the puzzle."
"I'm willing," said Maclane. "What do you want me to do?"
"Make up some more of these sets, and focus them in a line from here back to that place where we were hunting last fall. You remember that hollow maple tree on the edge of the woods?"
"Chief, that must have been three or four miles from this place."
"What's to prevent us from taking that handling machine near the lattice, grabbing one of those lights on poles, jamming a couple of the finger-controls on the handling machine, and relaying it from one place to the next?"
"It will take time," Maclane said.
"This grid," said Cardan, "attracts them like garbage attracts rats. They don't like to give it up when they seem so close to winning. I think I can string them along here for a couple of hours."
"Then we switch what's in the maple tree into their ship?"
"That's the picture."
"We'd still have to get them out of those spacesuits."
"Don't worry about that," said Cardan. "We'll get them out."
"O.K., then," said Maclane, "if you think you can handle this end alone."
In the glare of the floodlights at the road, the cable suddenly parted. The end whipped back and snapped two of the spacesuited figures into the ditch. The machine rolled halfway back down the bank, to stick in the same holes it had just been dragged out of.
Maclane said, "I guess you can handle it all right." A moment later he got up. "I'll get these other sets focused as fast as I can."
The night passed slowly. Once again, the winch drew the machine up the bank, and this time chocks were driven under the wheels every foot or so as it went ahead.
Cardan located a vital pin in the winch, and cut it away so that it sheared off. The winch unwound and the wheels jammed back onto the blocks.
Cardan could see the intent feline faces behind the faceplates as they replaced the pin.
When the machine was again almost at the top of the bank, Cardan snapped the cable for the second time.
The spacesuited figures ran out a new cable, and again dragged the machine to the top of the bank.
Cardan cut through the fitting that supported the right rear corner of the framework stretching between the two big cylindrical vehicles. The frame tipped, and the machine slid halfway off onto the bank.
The spacesuited figures stared at it for a long moment, then slowly hooked cables to it, and began to winch it up the bank on its bottom.
Cardan looked the situation over intently. He wanted to keep the aliens from actually accomplishing anything, while letting them come close enough so they wouldn't turn to something new and harder to block. But he thought all the trouble at the embankment had about brought them to the end of their patience. One more delay there and they'd try something else.
Studying the stalled cars, it occurred to Cardan that there was a lot of gasoline in the tanks of all those cars.
He glanced around and saw that the machine was coming up the bank slowly and heavily. He had a certain amount of time to work.
Methodically, he cut through several of the car bodies into the gas tanks, and liberally doused the interiors with gasoline. He stripped the soaked upholstery into long strands, rectangular sheets, and wads of various sizes, which he built into a low mound in a shadowy place as close to the grid as he could find. Next, he stripped the insulation from a wire under the dash of another car, and touched the bare wire to the dash. A spark jumped.
Cardan looked around, and saw that the machine was now up the bank. Several of the spacesuited figures lifted off a panel to expose the controls, while others pulled out long thick cables, and began dragging them over to the grid.
Cardan brought a small square of gasoline-soaked cloth next to the bare wire as he again moved it against the dash. The cloth burst into flames. He whipped it forward to ignite the pile of soaked upholstery. From this he lifted blazing squares and strips of fire, which he wrapped around the alien's helmets and faceplates, and dropped onto the controls of the big machine, followed by sodden wads from which streamed fingers of fire as the blazing gas ran out.
In the midst of this chaos, there flashed out from some place on the far side of the traffic jam, a number of long hunting arrows.
Maclane's voice said, "I'm ready for that handling
machine, Chief."
Cardan located the handling machine, knocked over all but one of the tall floodlights, seized that last one with the handling machine, and passed it to Maclane.
Off over the flat land to the east, as he did this, he saw a plume of fire and sparks racing steadily northward. That, he realized, must be the general's Civil War locomotive, bringing fresh troops to the scene.
Cardan glanced at the highway, and saw half-a-dozen motionless figures lying sprawled under the big grid, long feathered shafts jutting from their spacesuits. Others were behind the machine, firing into the jam of cars. Cardan stripped pieces of blazing upholstery from the pile, and wrapped them around the air hoses of the spacesuits. As the hoses burned through, he stuffed wads of gas-soaked padding into the hoses. As the aliens flung these out, he jammed and unjammed the valves of their suits, giving them just enough air to struggle out of the helmets.
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