“And,” said Jill, “if there’s a way to generate high frequency on a man’s skin there’s nothing that can be done?”

“Nothing,” said Lockley dourly.

“Maybe,” said Jill, “you can figure out a way to prevent that high frequency generation.”

He shrugged.  Jill frowned as she followed him.  She hadn’t forgotten Vale, but she owed some gratitude to Lockley.  Womanlike, she tried to pay part of it by urging him to do something he considered impossible.

“At least,” she suggested, “it can’t be a death ray!”

Lockley looked at her.

“You’re wrong there,” he said coldly.  “It can.”

Jill frowned again.  Not because of his statement, but because she hadn’t succeeded in diverting his mind from gloomy things.  She had reason enough for sadness, herself.  If she spoke of it, Lockley would try to encourage her.  But he was concerned with more than his own emotions.  Without really knowing it, Jill had come to feel a great confidence in Lockley.  It had been reassuring that he could find food, and perhaps more reassuring that he could chase away a bear.  Such talents were not logical reasons for being confident that he could solve the alien’s seemingly invincible weapon, but she was inclined to feel so.  And if she could encourage him to cope with the monsters—­why—­it would be even a form of loyalty to Vale.  So she believed.

In the late afternoon Lockley said, “Another four or five miles and we ought to be out of the Park and on another highway we’ll hope won’t be blocked by a terror beam.  Anyhow there should be an occasional farmhouse where we can find some sort of civilized food.”

Jill said hungrily, “Scrambled eggs!”

“Probably,” he agreed.

They went on and on.  Three miles.  Four.  Five.  Five and a half.  They descended a minor slope and came to a hard-surfaced road with tire marks on it and a sign sternly urging care in driving.  There were ploughed fields in which crops were growing.  There was a row of stubby telephone poles with a sagging wire between them.

“We’ll head west,” said Lockley.  “There ought to be a farmhouse somewhere near.”

“And people,” said Jill.  “I look terrible!”

He regarded her with approval.

“No.  You look all right.  You look fine!”

It was pleasing that he seemed to mean it.  But immediately she said, “Maybe we’ll be able to find out about ... about....”

“Vale,” agreed Lockley.  “But don’t be disappointed if we don’t.  He could have escaped or been freed without everybody knowing it.”

She said in surprise, “Been freed!  That’s something I didn’t think of.  He’d set to work to make them understand that we humans are intelligent and they ought to make friends with us.  That would be the first thing he’d think of.  And they might set him free to arrange it.”

Lockley said, “Yes,” in a carefully noncommittal tone.