The gravity was a little too great here for him to do any real flying, but at least his wings, unfolded at last, could take him high into the air in the great room, terrifying and confusing them. As he slowly floated down, he could see them racing around madly. He headed for the door to an outer room. A policeman who was standing in his path could not move his bulk out of the way in time. Kayin crashed into him and sent him sprawling. Then, from behind him, another policeman aimed a blow with the butt of his gun. With his extra eyes Kayin saw what was happening, and a blow of his great wings knocked the policeman down.
Then he was running down the corridor, using his wings to give him a little extra speed. The door through which he had just come swung open again, and a bullet sang past him, tearing into the non-fleshy part of his wing. He hardly felt it.
He was outside.
The noise of the shooting had spread the alarm. Another policeman came running, took one look at him, closed his eyes, and swayed there. Kayin seized the man’s own club and hit him over the head with it. He dragged the unconscious body into a deep, clean, concrete-lined pit that had been reserved for some of the dangerously radioactive byproduct that he was now sure they would never make. In the dark of the pit, he stripped the policeman of the uniform. The man was broad across the shoulders, and the uniform fitted nicely across Kayin’s wings.
Now he leaped out of the pit, adding his yells to those of the others. A car, the one in which Blayson and Lymer had arrived, was standing parked at the edge of the yard, and he slipped into it. He was out of the yard before they realized what was happening.
But a policeman’s uniform, he knew, was too conspicuous. A mile away, he stopped a puzzled truck driver, threatened the man with his revolver, and drove away a moment later with an extra, less conspicuous suit of clothes. He turned on the radio and learned, as he had suspected, that an alarm for him had already been broadcast.
He left the car on a deserted side road, and changed into his truck driver’s outfit. He knew enough now about human customs to feel momentarily safe. And he knew enough also to realize that they would institute a nationwide search for a strange creature with wings. He would not be safe for long. He had to get back to his ship, of which, fortunately, they knew nothing. They might suspect, but they could have no idea of where he had hidden it.