Now the trees were thinner and up ahead there were strange gleams and reflections in a darkness that appeared deeper than that which we had left behind. Of course, the canopy that looked like forest from the sky; and beneath it, the buildings and the field and the man-made moon. My blood grew a little colder. The incredible consequences of this expedition, if successful, hit me with the kick of a shod hoof. The end of man ... the end of man ... words so staggering you couldn't actually take them in. The end of man. Thanks to me....
The Old Companions were bunched, two hundred strong in a great knot of dimly-seen figures. Bill Cuff said to Skagarach, "Have them spread out. We go in from this side on a wide front."
Skagarach sent the mental order, and the crew thinned and left us. "You stick with Vance," my cousin said to me. "Just do as you're told. He'll keep you near me, but out of my hair." He bent toward me. "No funny stuff," he said malignantly. "No whooping and hollering to wake 'em up, Ray, boy. No last-minute regrets."
"No, Bill, no regrets." The falsehood of the century, I thought.
Vance carried a big .45 Colt. He was the squat young lug I'd met in the car. He prodded me with the barrel of his weapon and waved me off to the right. Now we were in a line, barely visible to one another, and we began to move slowly over the level ground, crouching, being as silent as so many shadows. I stepped on a stick and broke it and Vance dug his revolver painfully into my ribs.
I had to warn the humans! My fate and—yes, even Nessa's, didn't matter worth a tinker's dam. All the important personal conceits and fears and longings were flushed out of me now. If I'd been a coward, I was now not a strong man, but simply a man, and I'd been absorbed into my race and made its representative. If I was torn apart by these throwbacks it wouldn't even hurt.
But I didn't have an idea in my head.
We neared the field, and its diffused lighting, so like that in the blue cavern, showed me and my fellow attackers the shapes of monstrous unknown creations of metal, of square housings and low machine shops and sheds and barracks. Vance drew a little ahead of me. I heard him cock his Colt. And the idea I had determined to have came to me. It wasn't much of an idea. But the instant it struck me I put it into action, because I was facing great brute force and had no time for complex plots or civilized reasoning.
I took one swift step forward and smacked Vance behind the shoulder as hard as I could, an overhand blow with every ounce of muscle I could summon. At the same time I drew my automatic from beneath my jacket.