He paralyzed them with some invisible force controlling it from his waist. Others did not need this treatment, because they had fainted.
Then he released them from the paralysis sufficiently for them to walk, but not to run. He motioned to all of them, making it quite plain that they were his prisoners and were to follow him into the jungle.
Without a murmur, they obeyed like somnambulists. The alien leaned over the ones who had fainted and did something else with the controls at his waist. These also revived, in a state of trance, and obeyed his silent commands. In single file they went—Merman, Nelson, the navigator, the commissary steward, Congressman Burley, Dr. Bauml, Dr. Edwards, Dr. Singer, Colonel Rogers, the women, the servicemen—all of them blindly following a trail into the Unknown.
Henry and Martia turned to look at their companions. There were Uncle Andy and Valerie and Peggy. But Pee Bee had gone. His trail of sudden departure was marked cleanly through the otherwise impenetrable underbrush on their right. Sizeable branches looked as though they had been shorn clean.
Silently, these five watched their friends and enemies depart—all of those who had not been killed—and excepting Weston, who seemed also to be dead. He lay face down in the sand, arms pointing toward the jungle, feet awash in the surf. He had been thrown thirty feet.
Henry felt Martia shudder.
It was decided that to trek aimlessly through the jungle unaware of what they were looking for would be futile. Instead, they chose to follow the well delineated trail of the captives in order to determine where the alien was taking them.
Uncle Andy and Henry provided the two women with bows and arrows which had fallen from the hands of some of the alien's attackers.
"Do you know how to use them?" he asked.