The downward swoop of Superior had taken it out of the immediate path of the second missile, but whoever had changed the townoid's course had apparently failed to take the inhabitants' inertia into immediate consideration. The missile was headed into their midst.
Then two things happened. The missile exploded well away from the falling people. And scores of kangaroo-like Gizls appeared from everywhere and began to snatch people to safety.
Great jumps carried the Gizls into the air and they collected three or four human beings at each leap. The leaps appeared to defy gravity, carrying the creatures hundreds of feet up. The Gizls also appeared to have the faculty of changing course while airborne, saving their charges from other loose objects, but this might have been illusion.
At any rate, Geneva Jervis, who had been hurled up from the roof of Hector's palace, where she had gone in hopes of catching a glimpse of Senator Thebold, was reunited with the Senator when they were rescued by the same Gizl, whose leap had carried him in a great arc virtually from one edge of Superior to the other.
Don Cort, pressed close to Alis and grasped securely against the hairy chest of their particular rescuer, was experiencing a combination of sensations. One, of course, was relief at being snatched from certain death.
Another was the delicious closeness of Alis, who he realized he hadn't been paying enough attention to, in a personal way.
Another was surprise at the number of Gizls who had appeared in the moment of crisis.
Finally he saw beyond doubt that it was the Gizls who were running the entire show—that Hector I, Bobby the Bold, and the pseudo-scientific Garet-Rubach Axis were merely strutters on the stage.
It was the Gizls who were maneuvering Superior as if it were a giant vehicle. It was the Gizls who were exploding the missiles. And it was the alien Gizls who, unlike the would-be belligerents among the Earth-people, were scrupulously saving human lives.
"Thanks," Don said to his rescuing Gizl as it set him and Alis down gently on the hard ground of the golf course.