Operation Terror | Page 6

sank. Deliberately! I don't know why. But there's a party of those ...
creatures out exploring! I don't know what they'll do...."
Lockley said savagely, "Get to the camp and look after Jill! The
workmen may have panicked. The Army'll know by this time what's
happened. They'll send copters to get you out. They'll send help of
some sort, somehow. But you look after Jill!"
Vale's voice changed.
"Wait. I heard something. Wait!"
Silence. Around Lockley there were the usual sounds of the wilderness.
Insects made chirping noises. Birds called. There were those small
whispering and rustling and high-pitched sounds which in the wild
constitute stillness.
A scraping sound from the speaker. Vale's voice, frantic.
"That ... exploring party. It's here! They must have picked up our beams.
They're looking for me. They've sighted me! They're coming...."
There was a crashing sound as if Vale had dropped the communicator.
There were pantings, and the sound of blows, and gasped
profanity--horror-filled profanity--in Vale's voice. Then something
roared.
Lockley listened, his hands clenched in fury at his own helplessness.
He thought he heard movements. Once he was sure he heard a sound
like the unshod hoof of an animal on bare stone. Then, quite distinctly,
he heard squeakings. He knew that someone or something had picked
up Vale's communicator. More squeakings, somehow querulous. Then
something pounded the communicator on the ground. There was a
crash. Then silence.

Almost calmly Lockley swung his instrument around and lined it up for
Sattell's post. He called in a steady voice until Sattell answered. He
reported with meticulous care just what Vale had said, and what he'd
heard after Vale stopped speaking--the roaring, the sound of blows and
gasps, then the squeakings and the destruction of the instrument
intended for the measurement of base lines for an accurate map of the
Park.
Sattell grew agitated. At Lockley's insistence, he wrote down every
word. Then he said nervously that orders had come from Survey. The
Army wanted everybody out of the Boulder Lake area. Vale was to
have been ordered out. The workmen were ordered out. Lockley was to
get out of the area as soon as possible.
When Sattell signed off, Lockley switched off the communicator. He
put it where it would be relatively safe from the weather. He abandoned
his camping equipment. A mile downhill and four miles west there was
a highway leading to Boulder Lake. When the Park was opened to the
public it would be well used, but the last traffic he'd seen was the big
trailer-truck of the Wild Life Control service. That huge vehicle had
gone up to Boulder Lake the day before.
He made his way to the highway, following a footpath to the spot
where he'd left his own car parked. He got into it and started the motor.
He moved with a certain dogged deliberation. He knew, of course, that
what he was going to do was useless. It was hopeless. It was possibly
suicidal. But he went ahead.
He headed northward, pushing the little car to its top speed. This was
not following his instructions. He wasn't leaving the Park area. He was
heading for Boulder Lake. Jill was there and he would feel ashamed for
all time if he acted like a sensible man and got to safety as he was
ordered.
Miles along the highway, something occurred to him. The base line
instrument had to be aimed exactly right for Vale or Sattell to pick up
his voice as carried by its beam. Vale's or Sattell's instruments had to
be aimed as accurately to convey their voices to him. Yet after the

struggle he'd overheard, and after Vale had been either subdued or
killed, someone or something seemed to have picked up the
communicator, and Lockley had heard squeakings, and then he had
heard the instrument smashed.
It was not easy to understand how the beam had been kept perfectly
aligned while it was picked up and squeaked at. Still less was it
understandable that it remained aimed just right so he could hear when
it was flung down and crushed.
But somehow this oddity did not change his feelings. Jill could be in
danger from creatures Vale said were not human. Lockley didn't wholly
accept that non-human angle, but something was happening there and
Jill was in the middle of it. So he went to see about it for the sake of his
self-respect. And Jill. It was not reasonable behavior. It was emotional.
He didn't stop to question what was believable and what wasn't.
Lockley didn't even give any attention to the problem of how a
microwave beam could stay pointed exactly right while the instrument
that sent it was picked up, and squeaked at, and smashed. He gave that
particular matter no thought