"Listen to this, Mac," urged a girl's voice, sounding strange and ethereal after the men had spoken so long. "We don't get how they did it, but those disks have thrown a force screen around every army encampment and station in the country, perhaps in the world. At Fort Bragg they mustered and marched out into an invisible wall. They can't penetrate it. It didn't hurt them, it just stopped them cold. Someplace in Pennsylvania the National Guard got into trucks and lit out for New York and ran into one of the walls that piled them up in heaps. It looks like we're all alone. Nobody's coming to help. We're all alone." "This is London calling," said a cultured, horrified voice. "Hello, America. Can you hear me? We're not sure were getting across the Atlantic. We haven't heard anything from you yet. Are you there? Can't you send us some word? This is the B.B.C. calling. London is gone. Bombed out completely. This is actually--actually Greenwich. Are you there? Is all America gone? Oh, this is ghastly, this is the end. Is it the end of the whole world? Are you there?" CHAPTER X Don Mariner, leaning out of the window of the station wagon as the band emerged, said urgently, "One of them landed. It landed just over there a way, I don't think more than half a mile. There aren't any others in sight. This one floated down not half a minute ago." "What did I say?" exclaimed McEldownie. "They eliminated radioactive dust, so they could come right in after a bombing. It's logical." "We'll go on foot," said Brave, "though I hate to abandon the car. But we'll have to go on foot over this rubble, and I take it we _are_ going to the thing?" "We sure are," said Rob Pope. "Wait a minute. One of us ought to go with Win in the wagon and try to make it back to Project Star. She shouldn't be in this ruckus," protested Alan. "You think she'd be better off out there with Lord knows how many mutants or supermen or aliens?" asked Bill Thihling. "You're not thinking straight, boy. We've got to stick together. Separate now and we may never see each other again." "Besides, you can't get rid of me," said Win finally. Don passed out the heavy sporting rifles, one to each of the men. They each had a sidearm, Brave two, and he and Alan had the wicked knives of the shopkeeper. Win had her little automatic for use in emergencies. Dividing the ammunition, and anchoring Unquote firmly to Alan's left shoulder with lengths of twine fashioned into harness and leash, they set off across the street; passed between buildings and across another street and yet another; and came to the area of near-total destruction. Here the going was precarious and tricky. Brave stared around them. "Looks like Pergamino when we'd finished with it," he said to his friend.