Birrel made out the dark loom of an unlighted farmhouse.

Was this "the house"? He dared not ask them that—as Rett, he might have forgotten the network of roads but he certainly wouldn't have forgotten this. But if he turned in, and it was the wrong place.

Birrel thought of a stratagem. As they approached the dark house, he slowed down as though to turn in. If they protested, he could explain that he only wanted to stop and listen again.

But they didn't protest, it must be the place. Birrel turned the car right into the rutted drive, with the headlights striking past an old lilac bush to the front of a ramshackle barn.

"Cut off the lights," said Holmer, worriedly. Birrel did so, his hand shaking a little. He couldn't gamble like this forever without slipping.

They went into the dark house, Kara first going through the rooms and pulling down the blinds, and then carefully lighting a kerosene lamp. They had, Birrel thought, picked a hideout far off the main roads indeed, to be without power.

The place was cold, musty, with some battered old furniture that looked as though it had been here for a long time. There was no evidence at all of how many people had been living here, and there was no evidence that its occupants were aliens from a far world. It was just an old house in the country, silent and lonely.

Birrel sat down and he was glad to do so, for his feeling of desperation was increasing. So far, he'd found out little. This house was obviously only a temporary headquarters. The real base of these people was somewhere else—but where? That was what he had to find out for Connor.

He gambled once more. He said, "Haven't any of the others been here with you?"

The others. The ones who had come with them to Earth, who must have come with Kara and Holmer and Rett to Earth, and who must be found!

Holmer, setting down his square black box on the floor, said uneasily, "Thile was down last week. He's afraid of the ship being discovered, he kept urging us to leave. I told him we couldn't, without you."

Kara came and sat down in front of Birrel. She said, "I know you've been through a lot, Rett. But we have to decide fast. Have you enough proof of what Vannevan's doing on Earth to take home?"

And this was it, 

 Prev. P 21/57 next