about an invalid brother. It wasn't hard—there was no danger yet the way he was going, and the police were badly overburdened.

Fallon kept the radio on as he drove. There was a lot of wild talk—it was too early yet for censorship. A big naval battle east of Wake Island, another near the Aleutians. The defense, for the present, was getting nowhere.

Up on the crest of a sun-seared hill, using powerful glasses from his car, Fallon shook his head with a slow finality.

The morning mists were clearing. He had an unobstructed view of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the vast bowl of land sloping away to the sea. The broad boulevards to the east were clogged with solid black streams. And to the west....

To the west there were barricades. There were clouds of powder smoke, and fleets of low-flying planes. And there was something else.

Something like a sluggish, devouring tide, lapping at the walls of the huge M-G-M studios in Culver City, swamping the tarmac at Clover Field, flowing resistlessly on and on.

Bombs tore great holes in the restless sea, but they flowed in upon themselves and were filled. Big guns ripped and slashed at the swarming creatures. Many died. But there were always more. Many, many more.

The shallow margin of the distant ocean was still churned to froth. Still the things came out of it, surging up and on.

Fighting, spawning, dying—and advancing.

Joan Daniels pressed close against him, shuddering. "It just isn't possible, Webb! Bombers, artillery, tanks, trained soldiers. And we can't stop them!" She stiffened suddenly. "Webb!" she cried. "Look there!"

Where the bombers swooped through the smoke, another fleet was coming. A fleet of flat triangular bodies with bat-like wings, in numbers that clouded the sun. Rays, blind and savage and utterly uncaring.

Machine guns brought them down by the hundred, but more of them came. They crashed into heavy ships, fouled propellers, broke controls.

Joan looked away, "And there are so few planes," she whispered.

Fallon nodded. "The whole coast is under attack, remember, from Vancouver to Mexico. There just aren't enough men, guns, or planes to go round. More are coming from the east, 

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