When it was finished he told Jill, “I can only check ion production here.  If it works, it ought to make a lighter-flame flicker when near the points.  If it does that, I’ll go up the road to where the trailer-truck stopped.  I’ve a pretty good idea that the road’s blocked by a terror beam there.”

Absorbed, he threw the switch.  And instantly there was a racking, deafening explosion.  The pistol on the car seat blew itself to bits, smashing the windshield and ripping the cushion open.  The three cartridges in its cylinder had exploded simultaneously.

Lockley seized a pitchfork.  He stood savagely, ready for anything.  Powder smoke drifted through the barn.  Nothing else happened.

After long, tense moments, Lockley said slowly, “That could be another weapon the monsters have turned on.  It’s been imagined.  They could be using a broadcast or a beam we haven’t suspected to disarm the troops of the cordon.  They could have a detonator beam that sets off explosives at a distance.  It’s possible.  And if that’s what they’re turning on they only have to sweep the sky and the bombers aloft will be wiped out.”

But there were no sounds other than the slowly diminishing drip of water from the barn roof, and the house eaves, and the few trees in the barnyard.

“Anyhow they’ve ruined our only weapon,” said Lockley coldly.  “It would be a detonation beam setting off the cartridges.  That would be a perfect protection against atomic bombs, if the chemical explosive that makes them go off could be triggered from a distance.  Clever people, these monsters!”

Then he said abruptly, “Come on!  It’s ten times more necessary for us to get to where somebody can make use of our information!”

“Go where?” asked Jill, shaken once more.

“We take to the woods until dark,” said Lockley, “and meanwhile I’ll check this supposedly promising gadget—­though it looks pretty feeble if the monsters have a detonating beam—­against the road blocking beam up yonder.  Come on!”

He stuffed his pockets with food.  He led the way.

The morning had now arrived.  The sun was visible, red at the eastern horizon.

“Walk on the grass!” commanded Lockley.

There was no point in leaving footprints, though there was no reason to believe the explosion on the car seat had been heard.  Lockley, indeed, considered that if the aliens had just used a previously undisclosed weapon, there would be explosions of greater or lesser violence all over the evacuated territory and all other areas within its range.  There wouldn’t be many farmhouses without a shotgun put away somewhere.  There would be shotgun shells, too.  If the aliens had a detonator beam as well as one that produced the terror beam’s effects, then all hope of resistance was probably gone.

They crossed to the house and moved alongside it.  They went with instinctive furtiveness out of the lane and quickly into the woodland on the farther side.  They were soaked almost immediately.  Fallen leaves clung to their shoes.  Drooping branches smeared them with wetness.  Lockley went barely out of sight of the highway and then trudged doggedly in the direction the Wild Life Control trailer-truck had taken.  He handed Jill the ribbon of bronze that had been the mainspring of his watch.