She disappeared into my other room, and returned a few minutes later, looking drier but just as pale and frightened. She peered inquisitively at the machine I had been building, then turned to me. "Chuck--Dad's out of his mind!" "I've known that a long time," I said. "No--I don't mean _that_ way. He's really insane, Chuck. You know that he's been in contact with these Invaders? That he deliberately brought them here!" "No!" She nodded. "He reached them through some short-wave transmitter of his, and made mental contact with them. They showed him how to build the Gateway--and he let them through! They promised to give him the world, when they get through with it!" I clenched my fists and stared angrily at the cloud-swept sky. "The madman! He was getting his revenge for the years people laughed at him, I guess. But--what's to happen to us?" "I don't know. The creatures won't harm him, and they're under orders not to touch me unless I leave his protection--which I have. But as for you and the rest of the world, I don't think Daddy cares at all. Chuck, he's out of his head!" "We've got to stop him," I said grimly. "We've got to close that gateway and drive off the things he's let through. But how?" "The generator's in his basement," Laura said. "If we could get in there and smash it, somehow, and--" "How would we kill the Invaders that have already come through? There must be thousands of them!" "We'll find some way, Chuck. There _must_ be a way." I looked out the window. The rain was letting up, and there were only occasional flashes of lightning in the dark tormented-looking sky. "The Invaders will be coming back soon," I said. "Do you want to risk a dash over to your place to try to get at the generator?" She nodded. "If we wait any longer, we won't be able to make it. But--" She gasped and pointed to the rear window. I turned, saw what she was trying to show me. Abel Harwood, hovering twenty feet off the ground, riding on a cloud of Invaders. * * * * * "Come out of there, Laura!" His voice was somehow amplified and it seemed to shake my little room. Horror-stricken, we watched as the buzzing horrors bore Harwood closer and closer to my window. Laura shrank back against the wall and tried to flatten herself into invisibility. With a sudden nervous gesture I pushed the table containing my unfinished generator into the closet, and turned to face Harwood. He was right outside the window now. I saw the old man's staring eyes blazing at me, as he stood there astride two of the Invaders. They droned like defective neon signs, a horrifying slow buzz. I picked up a heavy soldering iron and waited as they reached the window. Then Harwood reached out and contemptuously smashed the glass and stepped through--stepped right off the backs of his hideous mounts and into my room. One of the Invaders entered also, squeezing its bulk through the window. There was a pungent odor of ozone in the air.