instructions to the construction camp had become known, and all the world knew that Boulder Lake National Park had been evacuated to avoid contact with non-human aliens.  The aliens were reported to have hunted men down and killed them for sport.  They were reported to have paralysis beams, death beams and poison gas.  They were described as indescribable, and described in “artist’s conceptions” on television and in the newspapers.  They appeared—­according to circumstances—­to resemble lizards or slugs.  They were portrayed as carnivorous birds and octopods.  The artists took full advantage of their temporarily greater importance than cameramen.  They pictured these diverse aliens in their one known aggressive action of trailing Vale down and carrying him away.  This was said to be for vivisection.  None of the artists’ ideas were even faintly plausible, biologically.  The creatures were even portrayed as turning heat rays upon humans, who dramatically burst into steam as the beams struck them.  Obviously, there were also artist’s conceptions of women being seized by the creatures from outer space.  There was only one woman known to be in the construction camp, but that inconvenient fact didn’t bother the artists.

The United States went into a mild panic.  But most people stayed on their jobs, and followed their normal routine, and the trains ran on time.

The public in the United States had become used to newspaper and broadcast scares.  They were unconsciously relegated to the same category as horror movies, which some day might come true, but not yet.  This particular news story seemed more frightening than most, but still it was taken more or less as shuddery entertainment.  So most of the United States shivered with a certain amount of relish as ever new and ever more imaginative accounts appeared describing the landing of intelligent monsters, and waited to see if it was really true.  The truth was that most of America didn’t actually believe it.  It was like a Russian threat.  It could happen and it might happen, but it hadn’t happened so far to the United States.

An official announcement helped to guide public opinion in this safe channel.  The Defense Department released a bulletin:  An object had fallen from space into Boulder Lake, Colorado.  It was apparently a large meteorite.  When reported by radar before its landing, defense authorities had seized the opportunity to use it for a test of emergency response to a grave alarm.  They had used it to trigger a training program and test of defensive measures made ready against other possible enemies.  After the meteorite landed, the defense measures were continued as a more complete test of the nation’s fighting forces’ responsive ability.  The object and its landing, however, were being investigated.

Lockley tramped up hillsides and scrambled down steep slopes with many boulders scattered here and there.  He moved through a landscape in which nothing seemed to depart from the normal.  The sun shone.  The cloud cover, broken some time since, was dissipating and now a good two-thirds of the sky was wholly clear.  The sounds of the wilderness went on all around him.