The Shadow-Gods
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 
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