Part 2

Wing glanced at the metal desk, heaped with the paper covered with a thousand figures he had set down as he tried again and again to find where in the long ago he had made his mistake in creating his field. If Prof. Packer were still alive, he could find that error. If I can only solve that maybe I can build up a neutralizing field.

"Come on, Dead-Eye, my brain's dulled with too much paper work. Let's go take a first hand look at that damn blue flower."

The blue flower was pulsing faster now, Wing decided, as he and Dead Eye approached a police captain who was directing people with clothing and valuables, toward the line of rocket buses.

Wing looked into the hazy depths of the force field.

Were those figures moving about in there? Or was his tired brain playing tricks on him?

"Gee, Cap," Dead-Eye exclaimed. "There's somebody inside!"

The police captain moved up to them. "We've reported what you see, Commander," he said. "They only became noticeable a half hour ago. But it didn't seem possible there _could_ be any life in there."

"Life within that death?" Wing repeated. His blood-shot eyes peered at the police captain. "I don't see why not. Whoever created it must be able to handle it. They must have some protection, some armor against it. If we could capture one."

"That's it," the captain said. "They're inside and they won't come out. Before, those shadows looked like some sort of beings. They're dimmer now. They walk upright in a sort of shuffle, but they won't come out of the flower."

"If we could entice one of them out somehow," Wing said softly. "If we knew what they were, it might help us find a way of throttling that flower before it destroyed anything else."

* * * * *

The captain grinned ruefully. "We've tried everything to dent that field, and it didn't even change color. I guess maybe we'll just have to wait until they decide to come out, huh, Commander?"

Wing grinned back at the captain. "Maybe we ought to let sleeping dogs lie, Captain? Maybe you're right, but if one of them even looks like he intends to come out, buzz me on the visaplate at once."

Wing and Dead-Eye moved away from the captain, watched the red-clad police herd more homeless families into the rocket buses for transportation to other points. But unless that blue flower is killed, Wing thought, they can go to the far ends of the earth and they'll never escape it. And if they try to escape to other worlds the Mercurians will be their Nemesis.

Wing and Dead-Eye were threading their way through the crowd when the shout reached them:

"Commander, one's coming out!"

Wing spun and sprinted back toward the captain, Dead-Eye's big heavy bulk lumbering behind him. Wing's atomic pistol was clutched in his hand as he jarred to a stop beside the captain. His eyes followed the pointing red arm.

_One's coming out!_

Tensely, Wing waited, aware of Dead-Eye's labored breathing beside him, of the pounding of his own heart, of the sudden quiet among the police and their homeless charges.

What was it? Did it hold the answer he and the Council of Seven were seeking? Would Earth be free of this voracious flower? Could the Mercurians be stopped before it was too late? Would it give up its secret which meant so much to Earth--and Pat's sweet face was smiling at him--and him?

One shadow was growing more distinct as it moved toward the rim of the blue force field. It shuffled along slowly, like an Earth diver moving across the ocean floor. Wing was aware of the police captain's gestures, drawing up a squad of red-clad police with their atomic rifles at the ready.

The shadow moved closer to the outside. As it approached, the blue flower immediately before it began to dim, to grow black as if some intangible hole were opening to let it through.

Then the shadow-thing was outside the blue flower.

The police captain's thumb pointed down. Atomic lightning from the police rifles lashed at the shadow-thing.

Wing saw the lethal bolts strike the shadow. Then a blast of sound and light deluged him, spinning him off his feet, hurling him against a blackness shot through with pain and searing heat.

The pain and the heat were still branded on his mind--raw wounds that made him want to scream out in protest--as he crept slowly back to awareness of the things around him.

His ears came to life first--and he heard the voice whispering over and over again. "Oh, Curt. Oh, Curt." Then his skin was responding to the warm, vibrant fingers caressing his cheek. Into his nostrils came the sweet scent of her loveliness. His eyes opened and he saw the soft brown head cradled on his breast.

Then his mind brushed aside the memory of pain and heat.

"We failed, didn't we?" He didn't recognize the broken, almost lifeless voice as his own.

Pat lifted her head. She didn't need to speak, not when her blue eyes were so eloquent.

"Dead-Eye?" Wing asked.

"Don't you fret, Captain. I'm all in one piece, even if Elizabeth did give me six nasty powder burns on my leg."

Curt Wing wearily turned his bandaged head, beheld a mound of bandages sprawled atop the bed beside him.

"You sure look like a hangover, Dead-Eye," Wing observed. Then: "Was it bad, Pat?"

She nodded. "Only a half dozen out of all those hundreds escaped. Most of them were killed in the explosion. The medics don't know how any one came out alive--especially you and Dead-Eye. You were right in the center of the blast."

"Well," Wing observed, and it was an effort to speak lightly, but something had to be done about the horror in her voice, "I don't feel the least bit alive. Maybe I'm a ghost."

Her laughter was a relief, but a little too full for such a flimsy joke. So he said:

"I suppose the shadow-thing wasn't harmed." It was more a statement than a question.

"No," she said flatly. And in the same flat voice, added, "I'd better go. You need rest and quiet."

"Wait," he called. But she was gone. "Pat," he called out, once, twice. That unemotional voice was a dead give away. Something worse had happened and she didn't dare tell him.

* * * * *

Curt Wing dragged his body out of the bed. It screamed in agonized protest. Somehow, his mind held together against the shock and hurt that poured into it as he pulled his body upright, focused his eyes, looking for something to wear instead of the brief hospital garment.

Dead-Eye, from the next bed, asked weakly, "Where you going, Cap?" Wing didn't answer. He was delving into a wall locker, dragging out a burnt tunic, finding torn and broken sandals.

A white-gowned nurse barred his way in the hall.

"You can't leave, Commander. In your condition, you'll kill yourself," she said gently.

"Why not?" Wing grated. "I should be dead anyway. What's a few more minutes more or less? Life won't be any fun anyway if Earth is lost." He had to use his hand to guide himself along the wall as he pushed his weary, beaten body toward outside.

Behind him, he heard Dead-Eye calling,

"Wait for me and Elizabeth, Cap. We're coming, too."

Outside, it was raining--unobtrusively but relentlessly. The early afternoon was drab, but in the little park across the hospital courtyard, there was color. The circular beds of pink roses, of multi-colored pansies, of bluebells seemed brighter for the rain which beat so gently at them.

Wing heard the muted twittering of birds as he stood on the hospital steps. He looked up into the lowering sky and let the raindrops beat at his bandaged face. The door behind him opened and Dead-Eye came stumbling out.

Wing breathed deeply of the wet air, felt it clearing the heat and pain from his mind.

He looked at Dead-Eye, then toward the east where the blue radiance suffused the sky.

"Let's go," he said simply.

They hadn't trudged far in the rain before they found out what Pat Packer's unemotional voice had meant.

Terror was riding through the city, whipping the men and women of Earth into madness and death.

As the two of them moved closer to the edge of the blue flower, wild-eyed humans fled past them, casting fearful glances behind.

These panic-stricken humans ran silently, except for the gasps which burst from tortured throats. Abandoned children sobbed as they ran, not knowing nor caring where they went--driven by the fear of what was behind them.

Behind them, flames from burning houses were growing brighter and dull explosions were growing louder. Soon there were no more humans running, but as Wing Commander Curt Wing and Dead-Eye plodded on, they saw charred and broken corpses and the smell of burnt flesh was mingling with the stench of wood and plastic and paint.

And then Wing and Dead-Eye saw _Them_.

_They_ numbered in the hundreds--spreading in a long single line--moving sluggishly but steadily, bolts of blue flame flaring out ahead of them. The flashing blue bolts melted steel, sent plastic into exploding drops of fire, touched and charred humans who still moved in their path.

Wing dragged Dead-Eye out of the deserted street into a low shop building. They moved to a window and watched those blue bolts leap overhead to jab at building or human somewhere back from where they had just come.

"What are they?" Dead-Eye asked, peering at the thin line moving closer. "They're nothing but shadows, looks like."

"Another dimension," Wing suggested. "Probably on a higher plane than our own. Maybe that's why they're just shadows to us."

Dear God, he thought, what has humanity done to deserve this? We cannot fight them. We don't know what they are. Somehow, though, we must beat them. Earth must not die, not now, when we are on the very threshold of destiny.

We've come from the mud and slime of a new born Earth, clawed and fought our way out of nothing to start reaching for the stars. Is this our destiny--to come so far and then be snuffed out before we even realize our talents?

"We've got to beat them, Dead-Eye," Wing said harshly.

"Don't worry, Cap," Dead-Eye urged. "Shucks, they can't be so tough that they can lick us. Besides, Cap, us Earthmen always fight better when the going's rough. Why, just give me and Elizabeth a chancet at them. We'll knock 'em dead."

Wing's dark eyes were soft as they looked at Dead-Eye's earnest, bearded face.

"We sure will, Dead-Eye," he said. "We sure will knock 'em dead."

That is, Wing amended, staring at the relentless shadows as they moved slowly toward their haven, if _They_ don't knock us dead first.

Wing and Dead-Eye hugged the buildings as they retreated. They picked their way along the rubble-strewn streets, their nostrils quivering at the intermingled odor of death, burnt flesh, charred and rain-wet wood.

Ahead and behind them as they retreated, the flashing bolts of the shadow-things smashed buildings, leveled the trees along the boulevard, sending them up in puffs of white smoke and flame, heaving up the walks as tree roots exploded.

The rain was turning heavier now, turning chill, soaking through their own burnt and tattered clothes. It was relentless, that rain, almost as if it were bent upon breaking the spirit of man as the shadow-things were rending and tearing the flesh.

The two limped on alone, ahead of the advancing shadow line. They walked alone through death and destruction as man's promise and hope darkened.

We're walking toward the end of our world, Wing thought. We'll soon be nothing but dust motes kicked up by the tread of a new, more powerful race.

The hell of it is, we're not even fighting back. Why, he thought in amazement, we're not even trying any more.

"Dead-Eye," he asked suddenly. "What are we running away for?"

Dead-Eye's slumped figure straightened suddenly. "Gee, Cap, I was wondering when you'd begin wondering about that. You ain't been acting natural at all. We never ran away from a fight before. Let's go knock 'em dead right now, huh, Cap?"

Wing looked at Elizabeth, strapped snugly to Dead-Eye's left hip, then at his own two empty bandaged hands.

"Well, Dead-Eye, here, as your owlhoot pard would say, 'here goes nuttin'."

Not for many days had Curt Wing felt such a sense of peace and relief as he did that moment when he turned back toward the unknown and implacable enemy. Deep inside he was chuckling. It was silly for the two of them to march against the shadows. Silly, sure, his proud spirit admitted, but wasn't that the way of man?

Wasn't it man's way to thumb his nose at impossibilities and forge ahead? It wasn't a matter of winning, really, but having the guts to go ahead and try.

Dead-Eye snapped open the cylinder of his powder gun, observed candidly: "I hope I don't get rattled again and try to shoot my toes off. Those six slugs jerked out of Elizabeth so fast before that there explosion I couldn't even control her at all."

They moved back deeper into hell.

All around them buildings, trees, streets and sidewalks were being flung about as the power of the shadows smashed. The rain was coming down in torrents now, and the two of them could barely see a few feet ahead.

But always they knew where the shadows were--the slashing bolts pointed them out unerringly. They were very close to that unseen line of shadows. The thunder of those bolts was rending the air and mixing in the fresh smell of ozone with the pall of smoke and putrid smells which even the driving rain could not beat to earth.

Suddenly, Wing and Dead-Eye stopped. It was as if they had walked into a solid wall. But this wall was different. It pushed them backward easily, although they strove to move ahead.

* * * * *

"A harmless force wall," Wing said in answer to Dead-Eye's query. "But we can't get through. There goes our grand gesture, Dead-Eye. We can hardly thumb our noses while we're being pushed backward."

"Huh!" grunted Dead-Eye. "I'll fix 'em." He levelled Elizabeth, aimed her into the unseen obstacle. His thumb flicked at the hammer, and Elizabeth's gruff voice broke through the cacophony of noise with amazing clarity. He strode forward, Wing beside him, and blasted at the invisible wall.

Of a sudden, the noise was gone. Wing halted in amazement. The tremendous symphony of sound which had been pounding at his ears now miraculously was stilled.

Elizabeth's last shot still echoed, but the crash of masonry and plastic, the scream of tortured steel, the growling crackling of the shadows bolts, the snapping as fire gulped at wood and inflammables--all these were gone.

But while they still marveled at this change from noise to silence, something happened. They were thrown off their feet, and they once more found themselves out in the noise and fire.

No more had they picked themselves up from the rubble than the invisible wall was nudging at them again, shoving them ahead of it.

The insentient wall kept nudging them backward--ever backward until there was no longer any sense of time or place to them. A confused roar of crashing buildings, explosions, groans of tortured metal; an indiscriminate blend of smells, of smoke, fire, charred flesh and wood; a heterogeneous awareness of pain, cold heat; a knowledge that this, for Earthmen, was the end.

What did it matter now that Zhan Nekel and his rocket fleet thundered ever closer to Earth? That Pat, who had come back with her promise of happiness, loved him? What did anything matter anymore, except dying like an Earthman should--in the ruins of his world, still trying to lick something so much stronger that his greatest effort was breath against a cylinder?

Curt Wing stumbled, fell. Then the force wall was rolling over him over and over, always back, back. The broken pavement, the shattered rubble pounded and tore at his already burned and battered body.

Then suddenly:

"Here they are, Pat!" The voice cut through into his dulled mind. A powerful light, hurting his eyes, struck at him, and in its reflection he caught sight of a figure in space blues, gargoyle eyes glinting. Lt. Packer! Packer shouted:

"Swing the rocket car around, Pat. Quick! Something's shoving Curt and Dead-Eye around and it might upset the car."

His light suddenly twisted crazily and Packer grunted, "Damn, it's like a moving wall." Then Packer swung back, lifted Wing to his feet, dragged him ahead of the crawling wall. Wing felt the heat of the rocket exhaust, muted by its muffler, fan his cheek. Then he was inside the car. Moments later, Dead-Eye's heavy bulk followed him, and Packer was leaping in with them, urging:

"Get going, Pat, but watch out for those rubble piles and holes." Then, in the bucking car, Packer was tearing open a package of antiseptic drug needles. Wing felt the sting in his neck, and the dullness and pain were fleeing from his mind.

"You're a couple of space zanies," Packer muttered, yanking the gargoyle-like smoke glasses from his eyes and pulling off his space crash-helmet. "Pat almost went crazy when she found you'd left the hospital. We've been searching for you ever since in this hell. It was only luck Pat spotted you with the infra-red, or you'd be rolling still."

Curt Wing leaned back against the car cushion. "Well, Lieutenant," he said, "I might as well be rolling still for all the good I can do against these shadow-things." He lifted his bandaged head, his dark eyes almost black now with weariness and hate of the beings who were casually flicking man into the limbo of forgotten things.

"You know what we're up against, don't you, George?" he asked. From the pilot seat, Pat said bitterly:

"We know, Curt. The whole world knows. The telecasts have been bombarding the world with it ever since the first shadow came out and hurled our own destruction back at us a hundred-fold."

George Packer added, "I was recruited to pull our biggest space guns out and hook them up on land rockets. The ships can't rise, somehow, and when we've called for ships from other points, they get so close and then their power gives out."

"But, gee," put in Dead-Eye, "this car's running. How come?"

"Don't know why, Dead-Eye," Packer added. "These, of course, don't have the new cyc motors; still run on the old combustion principle. The force field probably neutralizes the cycs, but doesn't faze the firing gas in the cars."

"The space guns didn't help, I suppose?" Wing asked.

"No," Packer said, twisted his face ruefully. "The shadows thrived on it and threw our bolts back ten times as hard. It wasn't nice to see."

"Sometimes," he said, wistfully, "I wish we were back in your beef-striker--sorry, Dead-Eye--cow-puncher days. It was man to man then, and you knew that it wasn't the weapon but the wielder." He ran his hands through his tousled blond hair.

"Yep," said Dead-Eye. "Elizabeth and me'd fix 'em if we could see 'em."

* * * * *

The bucketing car began to have smoother going; the darkness outside was lifting, and the beat of the rain seemed to decelerate.

In the comparative quiet and peace, Curt Wing's dulled mind, clarified by the stimulating drug, was beginning to work again; his spirit numbed and beaten down by pain and inability to solve the enigma of the shadows and their weapons was lifting itself, shaking itself from its lethargy, as something stirred within.

Just that buoyant spirit of man which refused to admit defeat? Wing was wondering. Or was despair so deep that I couldn't go any deeper so I have to come up toward hope again?

The rocket car suddenly sloughed to a stop.

"Sorry," Pat said softly, and laughed. There was a note of hysteria in that laugh. "But we're surrounded." The three men peered out through the plastic windshield. The shadow-things were ahead, moving toward them.

But no destruction was spitting from those ghostly figures. For the first time, Curt Wing had a chance to observe closely.

They seemed about the height of a man--but distorted like a man's shadow falling before him as he trudged up a hill with the sun behind. Yet not so distinct. They wavered, too, within themselves, although the outline remained constant.

The rain was only a light patter now and the sky was brightening as the three men and one woman crawled out of the rocket car. The shadows were very close now, but there still was no sign that their weapons would speak.

Silently the shadows moved, scores of them. That straight line they made began to bend and curve around the four who stood waiting.

No threatening gestures, no weapons visible, just that relentless, closing circle.

"Damn you," said Dead-Eye suddenly. "Elizabeth didn't get a chancet at you before. But she will now."

"No!" Curt Wing snapped. "I think they want to take us alive. Maybe we can learn something. No, Dead-Eye, no!"

But it was too late.

Dead-Eye had snapped his ancient powder gun from its holster, and his left hand was fanning Elizabeth's sharp-biting tongue. The hammer snapped down thrice--three shots blasted out.

In that breathless second before the awful blast of sound and light struck, Curt Wing saw three shadows suddenly disappear. Then the sound and light struck as Wing steeled his muscles and mind against it. But, amazingly, at the first touch, it was gone, and he was standing unharmed.

He twisted his head. Pat was standing close beside him, and George. But Dead-Eye was gone. Only Elizabeth, her metal twisted and white hot, lay smoking on the ground where Dead-Eye had stood.

Dead-Eye, Wing's mind was crying, you big, dumb, blundering bear, where are you? Oh, you damn fool, pitting an old, crazy powder gun against atomic power! You killed yourself, you crazy, gallant guy. Now you're gone--who am I going to have to look out for after this?

Pat's fingers were soft on his arm, drawing him back from the pain of the loss. "He always wanted it that way, Curt. Quick, while he was in action."

Rage began to boil in Wing's heart against these tenuous shadows who scorned giving an Earthman even a hopeless chance. The ache for Dead Eye, who was like a big good-natured puppy; that ever-conscious nagging of the doom of mankind at the hands of these callous shadows; the knowledge that even if this doom could be somehow stopped or turned aside there was Zhan Nekel's space fleet coming nearer, churned his mind. And from his whirling brain came only one driving thought. Avenge Dead-Eye--the thousands of Dead-Eyes who never would have the chance for their simple joys and pleasures if man knuckled down under this greatest threat!

With that rage came clear thinking. Little things--like Dead-Eye's firing into the invisible wall, combustion type engines firing when cyc-powered units went dead, shadows disappearing when Elizabeth spat at them; little things, simple things.

A thought coalescing, growing sharper, until it was burning in his mind, fueling his spirit with new hope.

"Thank you, Dead-Eye," he whispered. The harsh sharp planes of Curt Wing's face were softening.

"We've got a chance," he said. "Dead-Eye gave it to us, Pat. But we've got to get away--out of this circle somehow." He waved his hands at the tight circle of shadow-things that hemmed them in. "Any ideas, George? Pat?"

Lt. George Packer's shoulders had come up, he was touched by this new assurance in Curt Wing's voice, in the fire of those dark eyes. "Not," he said, and there was new life in his voice, too, "not unless an old wish comes true and the ground swallows us up."

"It can," Pat said, the words tumbling out. "We can fall in a hole, can't we? Look at them, Curt. They shuffle along, but they don't step into holes. They just float over them--like they do belong in another dimension and can't anchor themselves to Earth. See?" Her voice rang with excitement.

Wing laughed. "But what good would falling in a hole do us? All they'd have to do is fish us out again. And we'd have new bruises." The circle was tight now, and suddenly they felt the push of an invisible wall against them as the shadow-things moved closer. Then they were moving.