Music screaming, higher, faster, insanely, sending shock after macabre shock thru night air, loosening the stars from their riveted stations. The Piper stretched high, six feet or more, upon his hillock, swaying back and forth, his thin shape attired in brown-cloth. The black mass on the mountain came down like amoebic tentacles, met and coalesced, muttering and mumbling. "Go inside and hide," said the old man. "You are young, you must live to propagate the new Mars. Tonight is the end of the old, tomorrow begins the new! It is death for the men of Earth!" Higher still and higher. "Death! They come to overrun the Earthlings, destroy their cities, take their projectiles. Then--in the ships of man--to Earth! Turnabout! Revolution and Revenge! A new civilization! When monsters usurp men and men's greediness crumbles at his demise!" Shriller, faster, higher, insanely tempoed. "The Piper--The Brilliant One--He who has waited for years for this night. Back to Venus to reinstall the glory of his civilization! The return of Art to humanity!" "But they are savages, these unpure Martians," the boy cried. "Men are savages. I am ashamed of being a man," the old man said, tremblingly. "Yes, these creatures are savages, but they will learn--these brutes--with music. Music in many forms----music for peace, music for love--music for hate and music for death. The Piper and his brood will set up a new cosmos. He is immortal!" Now, hurrying, muttering up the road, the first cluster of black things reminiscent of men. A strange sharp odor in the air. The Piper, from his hillock, walking down the road, over the cobbles, to the city. "Piper, pipe that song again!" cried the old man. "Go and kill and live again! Bring us love and art again! Piper, pipe the song! I weep!" Then: "Hide, child, hide quickly! Before they come! Hurry!" And the child, crying, hurried to the small house and hid himself thru the night. Swirling, jumping, running, leaping, gamboling, crying--the new humanity surged to man's cities, his rockets, his mines. The Piper's song! Stars shuddered. Winds stilled. Nightbirds sang no songs. Echoes murmured only the voices of the ones who advanced, bringing new understanding. The old man, caught in the whirlpool of ebon, was swept down, screaming. Then up the road, by the awful thousands, vomiting out of hills, sprawling from caves, curling, huge fingers of beasts, around and about and down to the Man Cities. Sighing, leaping up, voices and destruction! Rockets across the sky! Guns. Death. And finally, in the pale advancement of dawn, the memory, the echoing of the old man's voice. And the little boy arose to start afresh a new world with a new mate. Echoing, the old man's voice: "Piper, pipe that song again! So he piped, I wept to hear!" A new day dawned. The End _THE ITCHING HOUR_ by Damon Knight