General Ohlmsted's cigar stopped shaking. Proudfit took out a sheaf of papers from an inner pocket of his coat, leafed through them quickly and handed one to me. "This authorizes you as a representative of the United States Government, answerable only to the President, and with full authority to act accordingly."

"Fine," I said, putting it away. "Maybe I can use it on these robots Wetzel mentioned!"

Proudfit looked at his strap-watch. "An Army jet bomber will take you and Mr. Wetzel to a point as close to Burdette, Colorado, as can be managed. Wetzel tells us he can locate the spaceship from that point. We don't know, of course, how closely guarded the ship is—or even if it's guarded at all. But Wetzel is confident his training and background as a frontiersman and Indian fighter can get you there under cover of darkness. Once you reach the spaceship, the rest is up to you."

"And if I don't make it?"

Proudfit spread his hands. "Two companies of Army regulars entered that area at 6:30 tonight. They were fully armed, with orders to use those arms if necessary. Nothing has been heard from them since. We're sending you on the theory that where many can't get through perhaps one or two can. You have until noon—slightly more than eleven hours from now—to get word to us. If we don't hear from you by then or if the 'dead' area continues to expand after that time, then we throw our Sunday punch!"

Enoch Wetzel was still standing exactly as he had while telling his story. I walked over to him. "Let's get one thing straight, mister. If you and I are going to work together, we leave personal feelings out of it. A few minutes ago I passed a remark or two about one of your relatives and you tried to knock my head off. I'm willing to forget it if you are. But I don't want any more cracks out of you about my being a half-breed. Is that clear?"

He eyed me stonily, then without change of expression spat on the rug within a quarter-inch of my left shoe. I felt the muscles in my arms twang like plucked wires as I resisted the impulse to swing on him. "Is that your answer, Wetzel?"

"I'll git you thar," he said tonelessly. "I promised these yere gennelmen I'd do thet much. But it don't hold I gotta cotton to you."

We stood there staring into each other's eyes. There was a wall of hatred between us that could never be destroyed, a wall not fashioned by us but by our forefathers generations before. Yet a chain of incredible events had made us allies against an alien foe. In spite of our mutual dislike we must work together.

I turned back to Proudfit. "I'll need a pair of heavy black basketball shoes, dark coveralls, a good heavy sweater, a .38 Colt automatic with plenty of ammunition, and a compass."

The bomber pilot was a fresh-faced youngster who chewed gum and claimed to have been the second-ranking tennis player in Des Moines, Iowa. He shook hands gravely with me, eyed Wetzel and his strange garb and out-size rifle with blank-faced wonder, and mentioned that it was a nice night for flying.

The plane took off at 1:27. We were due over our target by 4:00 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, or 2:00 Mountain Time. The plans called for the bomber to fly at a high altitude, then come in on Burdette with jets off and drop us by 'chute. Wetzel had balked for a while at the idea of stepping off into space, but a brief but patient explanation of how a parachute worked finally brought him grudgingly around.

The trip seemed to take forever. I was torn by a thousand doubts, saddened by not being allowed to say goodbye to Lois, not a little afraid of what I would likely run into in Colorado. And all the while, my companion, out of his normal world and time, surrounded by wonders beyond his wildest nightmares, slept sound as an infant....

A hand shook me awake. In the faint glow of a flashlight I made out the face of the co-pilot. "Twenty minutes, Mr. Quinlan."

Wetzel was already on his feet. The co-pilot helped us don the 'chutes, and five minutes before arrival opened the heavy side door. A rush of wind tore in, but there was no other sound. The jets had already cut off and the plane was gradually losing altitude in a shallow dive. As this was not a plane used for parachute troops there was no wire to hook the 'chute cord to. It meant we would have to pull our own, but both of us had been thoroughly versed in what to do.

"Get ready," shouted the co-pilot.

I grasped the door frame and waited, my heart pounding in my ears. Wetzel stood directly behind me, the muzzle-loader in his hand, the tail of his coonskin cap bouncing in the wind, his eyes narrowed.

"Five," the co-pilot said suddenly. "And a four, and a three, and a two, and a one—target!"

I dived headfirst into blackness. I spun madly earthward, but in the back of my mind a calm voice counted off the seconds. Then I yanked at the ring-cord, black folds of nylon rustled above me, I heard a sharp report like the crack of a giant whip, the straps at my shoulders yanked painfully, and I was floating gently down toward the night-shrouded surface of Colorado.

I landed in a meadow, if that was what they called it this far west. I came down hard but in the way they had told me would prevent injury. There was no wind to yank me about before I could unship the parachute, and within seconds I was on my feet and searching for some sign of Enoch Wetzel.

Unexpectedly a hand struck me lightly on the back. I was jumping aside and reaching for my gun when the frontiersman's quiet voice reached me. "You scare mighty easy for an Injun."

I said, "We should be about a mile, two at the most, south of the road where that Army tank picked you up yesterday afternoon. Let's find it."

"Aye."

The land was by no means as flat as I had expected. Fortunately most of it was relatively open, with only scattered clumps of trees and bushes. There were too many small unexplained night sounds, but none of these appeared to alarm Wetzel in the slightest, so I managed to ignore them. Once we flushed a long-eared rabbit, and it was five minutes before I could get my heart out of my throat.

A barbed-wire fence, the first we had encountered, told me we had reached a road. It wasn't paved or even graveled—just a ribbon of dirt pointing east and west as straight as an Apache lance. Nothing moved along it in either direction as far as I could see. A line of telephone poles bordered one side.

"Recognize any landmarks?" I asked.

Wetzel shook his head.

"We're probably east of where you were found," I said. "We might as well start walking."

He grunted in agreement and we started out. It was a lovely starlit night, no moon at this hour, and a lot warmer than I had expected for October in Colorado. Now and then the road dipped and climbed, and as we reached the crest of the third hill, I saw a good-sized farmhouse set well back from the road among a group of out-buildings.

I pointed to the house. "Maybe they can tell us what's been happening around here."

Wetzel nodded and we turned in at a fieldstone path leading across the large yard to the front door. There were no lights visible from within, no dog barked, no rustle of livestock in the barns or pens.

I saw him just before I stepped on his head. He was lying across the path in the shadow cast by a gnarled tree, a stocky man in overalls and a blue work shirt. A double-barrelled twelve-gauge shotgun lay on the ground near his right hand. One side of his chest was black with a sticky substance that could have been only one thing, and the top of his head was black in the same way, except that no hair was there anymore....

"Scalped!" I whispered hoarsely.

Enoch Wetzel stooped suddenly and picked up the shotgun and wordlessly held it out to me. My jaw fell in astonishment. The twin barrels were bent into a rude V.

I licked my lips and backed away. "Let's get out of here, Wetzel."

He tossed the gun aside and we