"If he has a weapon, why didn't he use it?" Marston fumed. "It's probably in that briefcase he dropped." He bellowed into the mike, "Clear the park!"
Numbly Engel watched C. G. stumble past police riflemen at the end of the street and crawl into dense shrubbery. The globe zoomed ahead, then poised motionless over treetops as Marston searched for his prey.
"Watch for him!" Marston whispered huskily.
But Engel watched the screen in horror. A telltale circle of light, its rim overlapping that of C. G.'s, burned steadily brighter. An alarm bell rang on the instrument panel. Dr. Weeve raised a claw-like hand to a switch, then eyed Engel queerly. "Something wrong?" he said. "Stomach queasy?"
His eyes fell on the screen. "Another alien!" he shrieked.
Dr. Weeve's thin lips parted and his fingers fumbled at the safety catch of his gun. Engel hurled him aside and grabbed at the wheel. The globe keeled crazily, the trees rushed up at them. With a dull crash the glass shattered, and struggling out of Marston's flabby arms, Engel kicked open the door and dropped to earth. He scrambled to his feet and crashed through high bushes, ducking as a lance of flame charred branches overhead.
"There's two of them!" Marston's choked voice thundered and reverberated against distant towers.
Engel paused in a dark glade to hear a police whistle shrill and a dry crackling grow louder behind him. Stealthily he crept toward sunlight. With a shock he saw C. G. sitting in the open, exposed and dejected, his head bowed in pain. Engel dashed over to him, hoisted him on his shoulders, and staggered over thick grass to a gravel walk. Then the ground beneath him quaked. The hoarse cries of the hunters faded.
Gently he lowered C. G. to a park bench, and an old man nodding in the warm sunshine raised bleary, astonished eyes. Engel turned to see a nurse pushing a baby carriage and the old, familiar skyline of the city smiling down on them. He shook with relief. Like an enraptured music lover he listened to the faint roar of traffic.