The thought of Miles and Pat jolted through his mind in a delayed reaction. They'd seen him come into this airless space without a helmet. They knew now he wasn't human! Discovered! Explode the ...
"No!" he shouted silently into the airless room. He had to get the Alien first!
He had no idea how much time he had left as he snapped a flashlight battery into place, and tried to line the weapon into resonance with the detector settings. He lifted his eyes, to stare up through the open roof of the building. He knew there should be a faint black dot in the sky, but he couldn't see it against the blackness of space.
He lifted the weapon, pointed it toward where the Aliens should be, and depressed the little trigger, moving the rheostat back and forth to be sure he had the lethal frequency well covered.
He felt a tremor on the floor beside him, and his eyes caught a glimpse of Pat at his side before he could force his gaze toward space again. She was shouting something inside her helmet.
Then he caught the first visible sign of the Alien ship, already within miles of the building, and big enough to show in the side-light of the sun. It came rushing down in an unchecked plunge, apparently heading straight for him! He strained his eyes, tracing its path. Then he relaxed. It was moving sideways and would land a mile away. The weapon had worked. No ship would have risked such speed so near the surface if the pilot had been alive.
He gripped Pat by the shoulder, and dragged her to the floor, away from the threat of falling debris. There was no sound, but a tremendous jolt rocked the floor of the building, and for a terror-fraught moment the ground seemed to dance madly. A shaft of greenish-yellow radiance merged with a glaring red that lit up the sky for miles. The ship had struck at a terrific speed—fast enough to reduce everything inside it to a pulp. The instant everything was quiet, Norden sprang to his feet.
Now! There is no time to be lost!
He caught the thought in time. He couldn't let himself explode in the workroom. He had to get outside, away from the two humans. The compulsion squeezed and writhed in his mind, and he could not throw it off. It was tenfold as strong as the previous commands—and the need to overcome it a hundred times as great.
He stumbled toward the seal as Pat stood by. His body slipped through the seal, and he almost bumped into Miles, who was apparently waiting for him. Norden had no spare effort for speech or thought. He headed dumbly for the airlock, determined to get outside as quickly as possible.