This was the end, then. I was nowhere near the solution of my problem, and I knew I wouldn't be able to work for long without food. I glanced outside again. The air was thick with the things; I didn't dare risk a break.
So I turned back to my generator and forced myself to keep working. I did. I worked far on into the afternoon, getting more and more tired—until, sometime near nightfall, I fell asleep.
I slept. Suddenly, I was awakened by the simultaneous touch of a hand on my shoulder and clap of thunder outside. I looked up.
"Laura! What are you doing here?"
"I had to get away," she said. She was soaked to the skin, cold and shivering. She was wearing only a flimsy housecoat over some sort of pajamas. "Daddy wasn't looking, and I ran out of the house. I ran all the way."
"But how'd you get past the—the—?"
"The Invaders?" She pointed outside. "There's a storm going on. They're all in the sky, drinking up the lightning again. They didn't bother me at all on the way over. Much better food available, I guess." She shivered again.
"Look, you've got to get out of that wet stuff," I told her. I threw her a towel and my bathrobe. "Here, get into this, and then we can talk."
"Okay."
She disappeared into my other room, and returned a few minutes later, looking drier but just as pale and frightened. She peered inquisitively at the machine I had been building, then turned to me.