They turned, there at the portal. And Kenniston saw now that the downward rush of the black visitant upon them had been only an illusion born of its bigness. For the thing, whatever it was, humming like a million tops, was settling upon the plain a half-mile from New Middletown. Sand spumed up wildly to veil the giant bulk, then fell away and disclosed it resting on the plain.
It was, Kenniston saw instantly, a ship. Bud Martin’s description had been accurate. The thing looked for all the world like a gigantic submarine without a conning tower, that had come down out of the sky to land upon the plain.
The deep bass thrumming had stopped. The thing lay there in the moonlight, big, dark, silent. They stared rigidly.
“A ship from another world?” Kenniston whispered. “A spaceship?”
“It must be. But there were no rocketjets. It uses some other kind of power.”
“Why don’t they come out of it, now they’ve landed?”
“What did they come here for? Who are they?”
The bulky enigma out there brooded, silent, unchanged. Then Kenniston heard a calling of voices, a rising uproar in the city behind him. Others had seen, and called the news. The uproar of voices and running feet increased. All the thousands in New Middletown were beginning to stream in wild excitement toward the portal.
Mayor Garris’ pudgy figure ran toward them. “Have they really come? Have the other people come?”
Hubble’s voice crackled. “Keep the people back! They mustn’t go outside yet. Something has come, we don’t know what. Until we do know, we’ve got to be careful.”
Into Kenniston’s mind suddenly flashed the remembrance of that big meeting hall that Jennings had found, with its special section of queer seats that no ordinary human man or woman could have used. He felt a chill along his nerves. What manner of beings were in the looming, monstrous mass out there?
Garris sounded a little scared. “Why—why, I never thought that if people came, they might be enemies.”
He started to shout to the police and National Guardsmen already on hand. “Get those people back! And get your guns!”
Presently the crowd had been forced back into the adjacent streets.
And a score of armed police and Guardsmen waited with Hubble and Kenniston and the others, just inside the portal. The Mayor, his teeth chattering in the cold, said, “Shall we go out to them?”
Hubble shook his head. “No, we’re not sure of anything. We’ll wait.”
They waited, shivering in the cold wind, and as they waited, Kenniston’s mind rioted with speculation. This great vessel from outer space—whence had it come to dying Earth? From the farther stars? Why had it come? And what was going on inside it now? What eyes were watching them?
They waited. All New Middletown waited, and watched, as the Moon swung lordly across the zenith and the stars shifted and the cold deepened. And nothing happened. The monster metal bulk out there lay lightless and without sound.
The stars dimmed. Bleak gray light crept up the eastern sky. To Kenniston, chafing half-frozen hands, the mighty vessel out on the plain seemed unreal and dreamlike.
McLain swore. “If they’re not coming to see us, we might as well go out to see them.”
“Wait,” said Hubble.
“But we’ve waited for hours, and—”
“Wait,” said Hubble again. “They’re coming now.”
Kenniston saw. A dark opening had appeared, low in the side of the distant, looming hull. Figures that were vaguely unreal in the dawn light were emerging from that opening, and moving slowly toward New Middletown.
Chapter 10
FROM THE STARS
Kenniston watched them come, the four vague figures walking slowly through the dawn, toward New Middletown. His heart pounded and his mouth was dry, and he was strangely afraid.
Perhaps it was the manner of their coming that made him so—the brooding, enigmatic bulk of that unknown ship, that long and cautious silence. It came to him that they, too, were doubtful.
The three leading figures resolved themselves gradually into men, clad in slacks and jackets against the biting cold. The fourth member of the party trudged along some distance behind them, a stocky form veiled in the blowing dust.
Mayor Garris said, wonderingly, “They look just like us. I guess people haven’t changed much after all, in a billion years.”
Kenniston nodded. For some reason, the cold knot in the pit of his stomach would not relax. There was something overpowering in this incredible meeting of two epochs.
He glanced at the others. Their faces were white and tense. There was a fooling of excitement verging almost on hysteria.
The strangers were close enough now to distinguish features. The stocky laggard remained indistinct, but of the three who came before, Kenniston saw now that only two were men. The third was a blue-eyed woman, tall and lithe, with hair the color of pale gold smooth-coiled about her head. Kenniston was struck by her. He had seen more beautiful women, but he had seldom seen one who carried herself with such grace and authority, and who looked at the world with such a direct, intelligent gaze. Almost instantly he resented her, for no more reason than that she made him instantly conscious of vast horizons of knowledge and experience which were far beyond his present ken. And yet her mouth was friendly, quite a strong mouth, but ready to smile.
The younger of the two men was broad and hard and healthy, with sorrel hair and one of those frank, jovial faces that is built over flint. Like the woman’s, his attitude was of alert, half-cautious reserve.
The other man was thin and untidy and very human. He had none of the cool reserve of his companions. He was excited, and showed it, blinking eagerly at the Middletowners. Kenniston warmed to him at once.
There was a strange silence, and the woman and two men stopped.
They looked at the Middletowners, and the Middletowners stared at them. Then the woman said something to her companions in a rapid, unfamiliar tongue. The younger man nodded silently, and the thin eager man poured out a tumbling flood of words.
Mayor Garris stepped forward hesitantly, a paradox of pompous humility.
“I…” he said, and stopped. The small word vanished away on the wind, and he could seem to find nothing to replace it. The blond woman regarded him with her bright gaze, intent and faintly amused.
The thin man stepped forward toward them. Forming the words very carefully, he said, “Middletown calling.” And again, “Middletown—calling!”
Kenniston was shaken by a great amazement. Relief and understanding made him almost giddy for the moment, and he heard again his own tired voice speaking those two hopeless, pleading words into a silence that neither heard nor answered. But it had heard. It had answered, from somewhere. From where? Another world, another star? Not from anywhere on Earth, surely. That great ship had never stooped to make such a paltry journey.
He heard Mayor Garris utter a squeaking, strangled cry. A wave of shock, audible in the indrawn breath of every man there, swept the tight-packed group. Kenniston’s wandering thoughts came back with a start.
The fourth member of the party had come up and joined the other three. And Kenniston himself was appalled at what he saw.
The fourth of the newcomers was not human. Man-like, yes—but not a man.
He was tall, his body enormously strong and massive, his thick arms ending in hands like heavy paws. He was clothed in his own shaggy fur, supplemented by a harness-like garment. His head was flattened, its muzzle protruding in the fashion of a beast, his round and tufted ears alert. And his eyes… It was the eyes that were most shocking. They met Kenniston’s, large, and dark and full of a quick, penetrating intelligence.
Good-natured eyes, curious, smiling…
