"How would I really know? Want to guess?"
"To create more terror maybe?" Barbara said. "What else? To go around at night—to stir people up with a horror that they've never known before. They'll realize it's vitaplasm, the stuff of the androids too. They'll link hatreds. Maybe it's another trick—a propaganda stunt to force the fight to the finish. A stunt invented by somebody like Granger."
"It seems to fit the pattern," Ed said hoarsely. "You're probably right. But this thing could have been made by the other side, too. The android side. As a means of reprisal. I've admired them. But I don't especially trust their judgment, either."
Ed Dukas felt sick. He wondered now how much longer anything on Earth could last.
Barbara touched his arm gently. "Ed, we should notify the police. For the safety of the neighborhood."
"Of course. And you won't stay out here alone tonight. You'll put up at a hotel, or I'll bunk on your floor."
Barbara managed to laugh. "The building is stout. My window is high. There are plenty of tenants. I'm not dangerously stupid and I don't swoon. But I rather like the idea of having you close by."
Ed Dukas had no trouble convincing the police that he had seen something extraordinary—which was proof enough that there had been other calls, previously. Ed slept a few hours on a divan, listening, while, outside, armed men patrolled the streets and watched the backs of buildings, which were kept brilliantly illuminated. Floodlights lighted up that shaggy wood lot like day. Low, flat robot vehicles plowed through it.
Nothing was found.