CHAPTER XV

Trace flung himself on the ground, sheltering Jane; he felt rather than saw that Bill had done the same with Barbara. He gazed up, and saw the great rack of clouds torn and dispersed by the force of the blast. There was a chain of brilliant green-white balls of light, like so many bursting sky-rockets, that stretched from horizon to black horizon across his world. He thought of the shards of metal, the evil whistling splinters and hunks of meteoring death that would rain out of the sky after such a multiple explosion, and he buried his face in Jane's soft hair, trying desperately to cover her whole body with his own. The noise above them was so mighty a roar that Trace was deafened, and his head hummed and rang intolerably.

In that moment, oddly, he thought again of Slough, and realized what he must be. The Irish intuition, second sight, or what-have-you it works in a cockeyed way, he said to himself, waiting for the shower of molten hail.

Slough was of the extraterrestrials too!

Oh, not the Graken, the wicked green one-eyed bird-footed destroyers. But he was a saucerman, right enough. Lord knew how many of them had been living among us before the greenies attacked. No telling how many had died, how many still lived.

Trace remembered the saucer sightings that had perplexed the Air Force for so many years before. The blue-lit disks that soared and dipped and shot away from pursuit, the disks which had been seen by reputable folk for--well, possibly for centuries. Funny he hadn't thought of it before, but all those well-vouched-for sightings could not have been Graken. The Graken shot into our system no longer ago than late December! And all the long while before we'd been under the surveillance of _blue-lit_ saucers--not green, but blue at night and silvery in the sunlight!

He wriggled, his body awaiting the impact of the metallic missiles, his mind occupied with Slough.

And if there'd been saucers here for so long, and even saucer-people among us, what had happened to them when the Graken came? Any space battles between warring saucers would have been seen. Had they retreated to their own planet at sight of the Graken fleet, through space or interdimensional sub-space? Maybe. Or maybe they'd hidden in or on the earth.

Why hadn't they fought? The Graken had no allies in the universe. The blue-disk cowards had run! Except old Slough, if he were one, he hadn't run. Why had the great ships left Terra? Not their fight? Or....

Or suppose they couldn't fight! Suppose they had no weapons in their craft, no rays nor bombs--Trace exclaimed wordlessly as this probable truth occurred to him. The blue disks were only observers, they weren't warcraft. Perhaps their people had no weapons at all. Perhaps they were a nation of peace, as the Graken were a nation of eternal war. And their long watch over the world had been either curiosity, or hopeful friendliness.

In which case, they'd likely be back. Trace hoped they would; he had liked Slough. Terra could use friends now.

He jerked his head up and stared at the sky. Even if the Graken ships had been three miles up, their remains should have showered down to earth by this time. He got to his feet with a grunt. The gimmicking of the controls in that saucer had been better than he'd known; the ring of saucers had not only exploded, they'd been atomized.

* * * * *

Trace helped Jane to her feet, as Bill Blacknight did the same for Barbara. "Well," said Trace, "let's not sit on our cans out here all night. Let's get this show on the road. We have a hell of a lot to do."

"Such as what?" asked Bill.

"Mac," said Trace firmly, "this is still the Army of the United States, and we got a world to police up. There'll be more left than us four; there'll be millions of people, here and on the other continents too, who'll need all the help we can give 'em."

"We can help the world?" asked Barbara. "Us four?"

"We've done a lot already," said Jane drily.

"There's more, we haven't begun yet. We have to find a radio, get in touch again," said Trace, his voice strong and happy. "There ought to be some planes left, in private airports and out in the country. We got to scrape together what's left of civilization and patch it up and make it better than it ever was. You know anybody that could do the job better?"

"No," Jane said, "darling." Trace blinked. He was not a demonstrative man, but he leaned over and kissed her on the nose with haste and embarrassment. "Come on," he said, gulping a little, "we got work to do."

They started off along the crest of the hill, and then Bill grasped Trace's arm and said in a whisper, "Oh, oh Lord, we forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"We may be in the Graken's star system, what the hell was it, in Lluagor! They took such a long time--maybe they got us there before they blew up!"

The four people searched each other's faces silently, and even Trace was too appalled at the thought to verify it for a moment. Then Jane Kelly turned her face up to the sky, where the clouds had been rent and scattered by the blast.

After a long moment she put her hand in Trace's.

"I'm not much of an astronomer, Trace," she said, her voice calm and sweet and proud. "But even so, I can recognize the Big Dipper when I see it." She pressed his fingers affectionately. "And I _do_ see it," she said....