Old man Tillson co-operated readily enough, once he was assured that he would be indemnified not only for his ramshackle house but for the young mountain of beer bottles that stood in his back yard, and the command post was moved forthwith to the lip of the valley. Jeremiah Smith was allowed to go along as an observer, and Dexter was accorded a similar favor. By evening, everything was in place. The colonel's Cadillac, parked in the valley's center, had something of the aspect of a chrome-bedizened lamb resting on an altar of crab grass, buttercups and mustard weeds. Surrounding it were half a dozen floodlights, suspended over it was a microphone, standing next to it was a pole supporting three P.A. speakers, and located several hundred feet away was a TV camera. Beyond this impressive display, Old Man Tillson's homestead could be discerned, and beyond the homestead rose his mountainous collection of beer bottles.
Colonel Mortby came out of the command-post tent and walked over to where Dexter and Jeremiah were standing, looking down into the valley. He handed each of them a pair of cobalt-blue glasses. "If you watch the blast, make sure you wear these," he said, raising his voice above the amplified purring of the Cadillac's motor. "You'll be glad to hear that the two VEMs are already on their way, Mr. Foote—our walkie-talkie squad just called in. However, the creatures move so slowly that they probably won't be here before dawn."
Dexter came out of a brown study. "One thing still bugs me," he said. "Why should two members of a race of extraterrestrials technically intelligent enough to build spaceships behave like a pair of gluttonous savages the minute they land on another planet?"
"But you explained that," Jeremiah pointed out. "They just can't resist eating American automobiles."
"I'm afraid I got carried away by my analogy. Civilized beings simply don't go running across the countryside the minute they land, and start grabbing up everything that strikes their eye. They make contact with the authorities first, and then they go running across the countryside and start grabbing up everything that strikes their eye."
Colonel Mortby grinned. "You've got a good point there, Mr. Foote. Well, I'm going to see if I can't grab forty winks or so—it's been a trying day."
"Me too," Jeremiah said, heading for his model A.
Left alone, Dexter wedged a flashlight in the fork of a little tree, sat down in its dim radiance, got out pen and notebook, and began his article. The Solid Cheese Cadillac, he wrote, by Dexter Foote....
Dawn found him dozing over page 16. "There they are!" someone shouted, jerking him awake. "The filthy fiends!"
The "someone" was General Longcombe. Joining him, Dexter saw the two VEMs. They were moving relentlessly across the valley floor toward the helpless Cadillac. Jeremiah came up, rubbing his eyes. Colonel Mortby could be discerned through the entrance of the command-post tent, leaning over a technician's shoulder.