Kinkaid screeched indignantly. "What! When we could head for cover—live off farms—hide out in the hills—"
"Get this through your miserable skull," bawled Trace. "If so be it these bastards manage to get us into their home system, we will end up in one of two ways: we will be hunted down and slaughtered like vermin, or we'll be caught and bred for food! There won't be any such thing as guerrilla warfare against 'em. They can let loose a billion or two of their people on every continent on the world!" He stepped close to the cowering plump Kinkaid. "I tell you," he hissed angrily, "I think we have a chance to beat them even now. It has to be fast and it'll take every ounce of brains and every last muscle in this whole damn crew to do it. Now take hold of yourself, you excuse for a man, and remember that your breed—not your state or your country or your nationality, but your species—has been slaughtered by the millions; cut down, maybe half wiped out; and now it's heading for the finish, and we're probably the only ones alive who have any idea of the future at all! For God's sake, man, be a man! Come on and fight!"
Kinkaid stared at him, his eyes round and frightened in the darkness. Then he drew a breath they could all hear plainly as it rasped in his throat. "All right," he said. "You tell me what to do and I'll do it."
Johnson nodded. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be scared," he said to Trace. "I'll try to help too."
Well, doggone, thought Trace with satisfaction, I figured they could be made into a fighting force, and so they have been. Doggone.
He briskly shared out the weapons: the revolver to Slough, the rifle with its three remaining cartridges to Johnson, a ray pistol to Bill and one to himself. Then without another word he led them down the hill toward the saucers, which were resting again in their long quiet line beyond the smoking ruin of the town.
Jane Kelly he kept close to him, helping her now and then down a bad stretch of rough, icy ground. Once she asked him, "Trace, why do you think they'll take the earth away so soon? Why have we so little time?"
"Logic. They haven't any reason to wait. They're afraid now of the mythical giants. They'll want to yell for help. And—" he paused, and then with surprise he heard himself telling this woman something he had never said to anyone else. "I'm half Irish, half pure black Irish, and I haven't exactly the second sight, mind you, but I do get hunches and they do pan out. Sometimes I'm all crawling with hunches. Well, I am now. I get the feeling that time's closing down like a goddam—pardon me—like a big steel bear-trap on us. My spine prickles and my flesh is inching around on my bones. It's awful danger we're in at this minute, Miss Kelly, worse than it's been till this minute. My God, maybe they're setting those dials now, and us fiddling around on a hillside!"
"Have you any hunch about whether we'll beat them?" she asked seriously, and a feeling of awe at something unknown in his voice took hold of her. He was phrasing his sentences like a wizard in a bog, and she could almost smell the incense of prophecy.