Part 2

He started with the cosmic ray collector, working quietly and efficiently, and concentrating on the electronic and magnetic parts. These had been ordered long before the building itself had been begun. They would be hard to replace.

He passed on to the giant incubator vats, and finally turned his attention to the collection of formulas which reposed in the files. These were important, but he knew that they were not enough. The most important formulas of all lay in the mind of the man who had developed the process, and that was, for the moment at least, beyond him. What Kayin was doing now was playing for time.

He was setting a match to the papers of the last file when he heard a voice. More time had passed than he realized, and they had come early on this day that was to have seen the beginning of a great enterprise.

They must already have noted the absence of the watchman. Now he heard a gasp from Lymer, a groan that must have come from Blayson. Then there was cursing, slow, bitter and steady. Then footsteps, and Lymer was standing at the door of the office and shouting, “Here he is!”

Blayson was shouting to someone outside, and Kayin knew that in a moment the entire building would be swarming with people. He promptly tossed one of the files at Lymer, saw the man stumble and fall in an effort to avoid being hit, and was past the door before the enraged man could scramble to his feet again.

Then he was in the great incubation room, with its monstrous vats, heading for the opposite end. But before he could reach it, a door swung open. A policeman appeared, and shouted, “Hey, you--stop!”

He dashed out through a side door into a small control room. He locked the door behind him. He heard a club pound furiously upon it, and the pounding ceased as the policeman decided against a further waste of time here. Kayin ran to the other door. As he did so the knob turned. He threw all his weight against the door and turned the key. Men pounded on both doors, and he looked around for windows. There were none. He was locked in.

He heard Blayson’s voice, “Open up! You can’t get away!”

There was, it was true, no way out. But Kayin said calmly, “Stay away, or I’ll blow up the building.”

* * * * *

After the destruction he had already accomplished, they had no way of knowing that he was bluffing. The pounding stopped. Through the door he heard the whispered sounds of consultation. Then Blayson’s voice again, “Come out. We won’t hurt you.”

“I realize that.”

“You realize--”

“You think that I am afraid, do you not?”

There was surprise in the tones of Blayson’s reply. “You don’t sound crazy, but--”

“But what other reason could I have had for destroying so much valuable equipment?”

He heard Lymer say, “Over a hundred thousand dollars’ worth. That cosmic ray collector cost at least that.”

A policeman’s voice: “You saw him, Mr. Lymer. Recognize him?”

“No, never saw him before in my life.”

Blayson shouted again, this time with unconcealed anger, “Come on out.”

“With pleasure. But first I should like to talk to you.”

“You’ll talk later.”

“No.” He knew that later they would not listen to him, and he realized that if he could convince Blayson of the danger of the project, his battle would be won. “Do you want to know why I did so much damage, Mr. Blayson?”

“You’ve already answered that.”

“No, I am not insane. It is you who are failing to use your mind properly. Your method is extremely dangerous.”

“How do you know?”

“I have made similar studies.”

“That’s absurd. No one on Earth has done anything like this.”

“_I didn’t mention Earth_,” thought Kayin. Aloud, he said patiently, “You are mistaken. Your experiments are not new, and it is known--” he did not say where it was known--“it is known that they can lead to disaster. They can produce microorganisms of a virulence never before seen here.”

“You’re just imagining things!”

“I do not imagine. At this period, your discovery is of too treacherous a nature to be used.”

Blayson was silent, and Kayin hoped that he was thinking of something else than breaking down the door.

“You will not be the first, Mr. Blayson, to have suppressed a discovery of so great significance.”

“I don’t believe you. Open the door.”

“In a moment. But think of what I have said.”

“Open the door.”

“Half a moment now. You do not care to listen further?”

A policeman growled, “He’s stalling. We’ll break it open.”

“No need for that,” said Kayin. “I shall come out. Perhaps if I speak to you face to face you will believe me.”

He removed the jacket and shirt and tie to which he had become so accustomed these past few months. He stretched his muscles freely, and smiled a bitter smile to himself. He said, “The door opens outward. Please give room.”

He turned the key in the lock, and slammed the door open. Then he leaped forward.

He could hear the shouts of horror, he could see them standing there petrified. It was a reaction that he had counted on. A policeman fired his revolver, but so excitedly that every bullet missed, while he yelled, “It’s not human. It’s not human!”

The gravity was a little too great here for him to do any real flying, but at least his wings, unfolded at last, could take him high into the air in the great room, terrifying and confusing them. As he slowly floated down, he could see them racing around madly. He headed for the door to an outer room. A policeman who was standing in his path could not move his bulk out of the way in time. Kayin crashed into him and sent him sprawling. Then, from behind him, another policeman aimed a blow with the butt of his gun. With his extra eyes Kayin saw what was happening, and a blow of his great wings knocked the policeman down.

Then he was running down the corridor, using his wings to give him a little extra speed. The door through which he had just come swung open again, and a bullet sang past him, tearing into the non-fleshy part of his wing. He hardly felt it.

He was outside.

The noise of the shooting had spread the alarm. Another policeman came running, took one look at him, closed his eyes, and swayed there. Kayin seized the man’s own club and hit him over the head with it. He dragged the unconscious body into a deep, clean, concrete-lined pit that had been reserved for some of the dangerously radioactive byproduct that he was now sure they would never make. In the dark of the pit, he stripped the policeman of the uniform. The man was broad across the shoulders, and the uniform fitted nicely across Kayin’s wings.

Now he leaped out of the pit, adding his yells to those of the others. A car, the one in which Blayson and Lymer had arrived, was standing parked at the edge of the yard, and he slipped into it. He was out of the yard before they realized what was happening.

But a policeman’s uniform, he knew, was too conspicuous. A mile away, he stopped a puzzled truck driver, threatened the man with his revolver, and drove away a moment later with an extra, less conspicuous suit of clothes. He turned on the radio and learned, as he had suspected, that an alarm for him had already been broadcast.

He left the car on a deserted side road, and changed into his truck driver’s outfit. He knew enough now about human customs to feel momentarily safe. And he knew enough also to realize that they would institute a nationwide search for a strange creature with wings. He would not be safe for long. He had to get back to his ship, of which, fortunately, they knew nothing. They might suspect, but they could have no idea of where he had hidden it.

* * * * *

That night, still dressed as a truck driver, he broke into a factory that made electrical appliances. When he left, he had with him most of what he needed for repairs.

It was two days later that he reached his ship with a supply of food. He hoped that he had been unobserved, but he could not be sure. He set to work, using the Earth-made supplies to patch up, in makeshift fashion, the damage caused by the crash.

Another two days and the ship would operate. He was short on fuel, but if he looked for it, he knew he could find enough to send him on his way and leave this planet for good.

He realized now that he didn’t want to leave. In the days he had spent here, he had gradually lost some of his feeling of loneliness. Almost despite themselves, these human beings had made him feel like one of them. Their planet would never take the place of the one he had left, but in many ways it had become a second home to him.

He had made it uninhabitable for himself. If he had said nothing, done nothing, then no one would have suspected, and he would have been allowed to stay--until disaster struck them all.

At least he had delayed that. The radio that night brought him the news that Blayson, who had been slightly injured in the struggle, had been taken to a hospital, his mind temporarily gone under the shock of what had happened. He would be unable, for the time, to reconstruct what Kayin had destroyed. Lymer, disheartened by the loss, had announced that he had no plans for rebuilding the factory. Despite their stupidity, Kayin had won them a respite.

He had won nothing for himself. The following day he heard warning sounds, and saw groups of men closing in around the ship. He was pleased to see that, despite all difficulties, they had traced the path he had taken. They were not so stupid after all.

He went into his ship, and the door slid shut. Night was falling, and in the darkness the ship leaped upward at a sharp angle. Now there would be hundreds of people who saw the shooting star, but this time a star that shot upward.

He rose to a height of twenty miles, and remained at that level, cruising slowly. Far above, he could see through the viewplates the star--Vega, they called it here--which was his native sun. Already an exile from his homeland, he was now being exiled from his second home.

Suddenly he knew that being exiled once was enough. He was tired of fleeing through space, tired of making friends and then being forced to leave them. He had made a home here, and here he would stand and fight.

Below him, the surface of the planet was now rocky and deserted. The ship began to sink. It was still dark, and the vessel came to rest slowly and inconspicuously upon a craggy peak where there was little danger that any human being would stumble upon it. Far below he could see the outline of a town, picked out of the darkness by light reflected from clouds above. Looking through a distance viewer he could even distinguish the individual lights, and he was able to read a sign that flaunted its message boldly alongside a bridge: WELCOME TO HARDENDALE.

He smiled, and said softly, in the language that was no longer strange to him, “I accept the invitation.”

Stretching his wings, he parachuted down through the darkness to level ground, prepared to become once more a member by adoption of the human race. And this time, as he walked cautious and alone through the night, he no longer felt lonely.