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.  It has a range up in the miles or tens of miles.  We don’t know how to handle it yet.  Whoever or whatever arrived in the thing Vale saw, it or they has or have a weapon our Army can’t buck, yet.  The point is that we can’t wait to be rescued.  We’ve got to get out of here on our own feet.  Literally.  So we forget about highways.  From here on we sneak to safety as best we can.  And we’ve got to put our whole minds on it.”

Jill shook her head as if to drive certain thoughts out of it.  Then she said, “I guess you’re right.  He would want me to be safe.  And if I can’t do anything to help him, at least I can not make him worry.  All right!  What does sneaking to safety mean?”

Lockley led her down the highway running from Boulder Lake to the outside world.  They came to a blasted-out cut for the highway to run through.  The road’s concrete surface extended to the solid rock on either side.  There was no bare earth to take or hold footprints, and there was a climbable slope.

“We go up here and take to the woods,” said Lockley, “because we’re not as easy to spot in woodland as we’d be on a road.  The characters at the lake will know what roads are.  If we figure out how to handle their terror beam, they’ll expect the attack to come by road.  So they’ll set up a system to watch the roads.  They ought to do it as soon as possible.  So we’ll avoid notice by not using the roads.  It’s lucky you’ve got good walking shoes on.  That could be the deciding factor in our staying alive.”

He led the way, helping her climb.  There would be no sign that they’d abandoned the highway.  In fact, there’d be no sign of their existence except the small smashed car.  Lockley’s existence was known, but not his and Jill’s together.

Lockley did not feel comfortable about having deliberately shocked Jill into paying some attention to her own situation instead of staying absorbed in the possible or probable fate of Vale.  But for them to get clear was going to call for more than sentimentality on Jill’s part.  Lockley couldn’t carry the load alone.

There was an invasion in process.  It could be, apparently, an invasion from space, in which case the terror produced would be terror of the unknown.  But Lockley had conceived of the possibility that it might be an invasion only from the other side of the world.  Such an invasion was thought of by every American at least once every twenty-four hours.  The fears it would arouse would be fears of the all too thoroughly known.