“It left the lifeboat before the power plant blew,” Vann said. “They’re tracking its aura now. It’s intelligent to a degree—about on par with ourselves, I gather—and it’s big. It’s the largest and most vicious life form they’ve met in kilo-years of startrading.”

He frowned over a concept unsuited to words. “Longer than thousands. Their culture goes back so far that the term doesn’t register.”

“Ellis,” Weyman said. “Tell him to sheer off. Tell him to keep away from that island.”

Vann clapped on the Telethink helmet and felt real panic when he found the net vacant except for a near-hysterical Washington operator.

“Aliens are off the air,” he said. “But I can’t feel Ellis.”

“Maybe he isn’t wearing his Telethink. I’ll try his launch radio.”

He had the microphone in his hand when Vann said, “They got the message in Washington, and they’re petrified. I asked for a copter to pick up Ellis—and the hermit, if they can reach them before this thing does—but they’re thinking along different lines. They’re sending a squadron of jet bombers with nonatomic HE to make sure the beast doesn’t escape to the mainland and devastate the countryside.”

Weyman said incredulously, “They’ll blow the key to bits. What about Ellis and the hermit?”

“Ellis is to evacuate him if possible. They’re giving us twenty minutes before the jets come. After that—”

He didn’t have to finish.

At midnight old Charlie Trask was wading knee-deep in the eastside grass flats of his private lagoon, methodically netting shrimp that darted to the ooze-clouded area stirred up by his ragged wading shoes. An empty gunny sack hung across one shoulder, ready for the coon oysters he would pick from mangrove roots on his way back to his shack.

In his dour and antisocial way, Charlie was content. He had nearly enough shrimp for boiling and for bait, with the prospect of coon oyster stew in the offing. He had tobacco for his pipe and cartridges for his single-shot .22 rifle and a batch of potent homebrew ready for the bottling.

What more could a man want?

The blast and glare of the Morid’s landing on the western fringe of his key jarred Charlie from his mellow mood like a clear-sky 

 Prev. P 5/11 next