Lockley ground his teeth.  He got out the pistol he’d taken from the truck driver in the lighted room in Serena.  He looked at it grimly.  It would be useless, but....

Jill came and stood beside him, watching his face.

The rumbling of the truck was still nearer and louder.  It diminished for a moment where a curve in the road took the vehicle behind some trees that deadened its noise.  But then the sound increased suddenly.  It was very loud and frighteningly near.

Lockley watched through the gap between the barn doors.  He stayed well back lest his face be seen.

The trailer-truck with the Wild Life Control markings on it rumbled past.  It growled and roared.  The noise seemed thunderous.  Its wheels splashed as they went through a puddle close by the gate.

It went away into the distance.  Jill took a deep breath of relief.  Lockley made a warning gesture.

He listened.  The noise went on steadily for what he guessed to be a mile or more.  Then they heard it stop.  Only by straining his ears could Lockley pick up the sound of an idling motor.  Maybe that was imagination.  Certainly at any other less silent time he could not possibly have heard it.  Jill whispered, “Do you think—­”

He gestured for silence again.  The distant heavy engine continued to idle.  One minute.  Two.  Three.  Then the grinding of gears and the roar of the engine once more.  The truck went on.  Its sound diminished.  It faded away altogether.

“They got to a place where the road’s blocked with a terror beam,” said Lockley evenly.  “They stopped and called by short wave and the beam was cut off, then they went past the block-point and undoubtedly the beam was turned on again.”

He debated a decision.

“We’ll have breakfast,” he said shortly.  “We’ll have to eat the eggs raw, but we need to eat.  Then we’ll figure things out.  It may be that we’d be sensible to forget about cars and try to get to the cordon on foot, robbing farmhouses of food on the way.  There can’t be too many ... collaborators.  And we could keep out of sight.”

He opened a jar of preserves.

“But it would be better for you to be travelling by car, if tonight’s clear and there’s starlight to drive by.”

Jill said practically, “There might be some news....”

Her hands shook as she put the pocket radio on the hood of the car.  Lockley noticed it.  He felt, himself, the strain of their long march through the wilderness with danger in every breath they drew.  And he was shaken in a different way by the proof that humans were cooperating fully with the invading monsters.  It was unthinkable that anybody could be a traitor not only to his own country but to all the human race.  He felt incredulous.  It couldn’t be true!  But it obviously was.

The radio made noises.  Lockley turned it in another direction.  There was music.  Jill’s face worked.  She struggled not to show how she felt.