'Good idea.'
'I'll help,' Toby said.
'You stay with your mother.' I shoved cordwood into the mammoth living room fireplace and packed starter material-wood shavings, paper, and sawdust — beneath the logs. I was about to light the paper when I had a sudden revelation. 'My God!'
Connie whirled away from the windows, raising the rifle that she held in both hands.
The barrel gleamed in the candlelight. 'What's the matter?'
'I just realized why these bastards knocked out our electric power,' I said.
'Why, Dad?'
'Our oil furnace. It's sparked by an electric wick.'
Connie said, 'So?'
I was still thinking furiously. 'And I think I know why they had to use a bull to destroy
Ed's generator.'
'Don, tell us.'
I looked up and grinned. 'They can't tolerate warmth.'
'Warmth?'
'Fire, heat, warm air,' I said excitedly. 'These creatures must come from an extremely cold planet. They can't live in a room that's warm enough to be comfortable for humans. Maybe they like sub-zero weather like this.
Maybe the temperature has to be below-oh, say freezing, before they can even tolerate a place. They had to send that bull in to wreck Ed's generator, because the tool shed on the Johnson farm was heated.'
'We shouldn't have turned the heaters off in the barn,' she said. 'We gave them their chance.'
'No,' I said.
'They'd have found some animal to use, just like the bull.'
(Later, when I found the dead buck, I realized that they had used an animal even though there had been no heat in the barn for many hours. However, when they had stolen the horses from us, the barn had been heated. And when they'd planned their attack on us, they could not have known I'd let the barn cool off.'
'And now when it gets cold enough in here,' Connie said, 'they'll come after us.'
We stared at each other for a long moment.
She said, 'Better get that fire going.'
I lit the paper, sawdust, and shavings.
'Can we keep them out with fire?' Toby asked.
'I don't know,' I said 'But we can darn sure try.'
22
Outside:
The six aliens split up into two groups of three each. One group moved off to the east and disappeared around the corner of the farmhouse.
The others stayed where they were for another five minutes. Then they moved quickly toward the house.
The time had come.
23
The crumpled paper flared up at once and ignited, in turn, the sawdust.
In a few seconds the wood shavings began to catch, and then the dry bark of the cord wood smouldered and sparked. Gently fanning the growing flames, I smiled when the first vague trace of heat wafted out of the fireplace and across my face — and then the brief illusion of security and safety vanished as a pane of window glass shattered behind me, on the far side of the room.
Toby shouted.
Connie screamed.
Grabbing the shotgun off the flagstone hearth beside me, I rose, turned, and gasped involuntarily.
For the first time, by the light of the three candles, one of the aliens stood totally revealed. It was an insectlike being, and it was trying to smash its way through one of the three windows that opened onto the front porch. It looked somewhat like a praying mantis and a bit like a grasshopper-but it was really not like either of them.
In size, of course, it was like no insect that the earth had ever known: seven feet tall at the head, sloping back for perhaps six or eight feet, with a thick body section, two forelegs as big around as my arms, and six other legs as thick as broomsticks and with three joints each. The thing's head was a yard long and two-foot wide, with those saucer-sized amber eyes, a rippled horny ridge running from between the eyes to the tip of the pointed snout, and saw-edged mandibles that seemed to work constantly as if chewing a tasty morsel. Snow clung to the creature as it straggled through the broken window; and paper-thin pieces of ice dropped from its shiny brown-black carapace. It tore out the window struts which separated the window panes and which barred its progress; although it appeared to be quite delicate, it was a fiercely strong creature.
A window shattered in another corner of the room, toward the rear of the house.
'Don!'
I turned in that direction.
A second alien was trying to get into the living room from the back lawn. Two heavy, hair-prickled, snow- dusted legs came through the window, chitinous legs as hard as metal, and scrabbled for a foothold.
I glanced at the fire. It was building slowly, but it was not throwing off enough heat to compensate for the cold air pouring in at the violated windows.
Glass exploded behind me again.
The second of the three big porch windows had been knocked in, and a third alien was gradually thrusting through the oversized frame.
The first alien to attack was almost inside now. Its large forelegs were firmly planted on the carpet; and only four of the other six legs were still out on the porch. Its enormous head swiveled from Connie to Toby to me to Connie
I used both barrels of the shotgun on it, blew it backwards. Two of the smaller legs were torn off, and they clattered against the wall. The creature made a curious, keening noise and started toward me once more. By that time I had slipped two shells from my coat pocket and had reloaded. I used both shots on it, and it seemed to dissolve, tumbling through the window and onto the porch in a dozen pieces.
I jammed more shells into the chambers.
I felt mental fingers reaching for me, pressing against my skull, slipping inside of me. I fought back with all of my will-fought against not only the control it sought but against the mindless, biological fear it produced. That fear could incapacitate me; it had paralyzed me before. And if I were driven half-mad with fear now, there would be no hope for us.
Bones
Connie used the rifle. It made a sharp, ear-splitting sound in the confines of the room.
I looked back and saw that the insect on her side of the room was three-quarters of the way inside and had not been stopped by the rifle fire.
Glass crashed.
A fourth alien was trying to come in from the third porch window. But that was of little consequence, for the creature at the second window was already inside and coming for me, its head swiveling, its amber eyes brighter than I have ever seen them, the big mandibles clacking noisily.
