"How about the Hunters? How did they get to earth?"
"They are insubstantial creatures," said Foster, "yet they can endure the vacuum of space. I can only surmise that they followed the lifeboat down."
"They were tailing you?"
"Yes; but I have no idea why they pursued me. They're harmless creatures in the natural state, used to seek out the rare fugitive from justice on Vallon. They can be attuned to the individual; thereafter, they follow him and mark him out for capture."
"Kind of like bloodhounds," I said. "Say, what were you: a big-time racketeer on Vallon?"
"The journal is frustratingly silent as to my Vallonian career," said Foster. "But this whole matter of the unexplained inter-galactic voyage and the evidences of violence aboard the ship make me wonder whether I, and perhaps others of my companions, were being exiled for crimes done in the Two Worlds."
"Wow! So they sicced the Hunters on you!" I said. "But why did they hang around at Stonehenge all this time?"
"There was a trickle of power feeding the screens," said Foster. "They need a source of electrical energy to live; until a hundred years ago it was the only one on the planet."
"How did they get down into the shaft without opening it up?"
"Given time, they pass easily through porous substances. But, of course, last night, when I came on them after their long fast, they simply burst through in their haste."