Lyssa Arthurs barred his way here, her lips firm though smiling. Her dark eyes had a roguish glint that admired and challenged. She looked like a courageous small boy standing up for his rights, that way, Perry thought with a strange pang. "I'm responsible for the patients in this ward," she said pertly. "Where do you think _you're_ going, Mister?" Perry shoved her unceremoniously aside. "Places," he grunted almost good-humoredly. "You said before that I had responsibilities." He rushed down the hall. In thirty seconds he was out in the street, with the bustle of behind-the-lines activity around him. He dodged ahead of trucks and tanks on his way to the river. Once, from a radio in a house he passed, he heard the rich, high voice of Lyman Kerwin, exhorting, commanding, praising himself in subtle terms, using fear as a means to power: "All my resources are at the disposal of the nation to combat the Murgatroyd-Wilcox Horror. The response has been good to our appeal for money. But it must be better. Better! We are pitted against something incredible--something that possesses many unknown weapons. The women and children of America must be protected...." Perry Wilcox growled. And almost simultaneously a youth hurled a rock at him, shouting: "There he is! There's Wilcox, one of the two mugs who started all the trouble!" A gang was after Perry then, pelting stones; and he knew that Kerwin's propaganda had already achieved a very considerable success. But he didn't stop to argue. He just ran on, limping a little. He reached the powerhouse dam. There he paused briefly to don his oxygen mask and tanks. Then he leaped into the swirling water, and sank into its concealing depths. He didn't try really to swim. He made only a few strokes to keep himself righted, and safely beneath the surface. The current was swift, and it flowed in the proper direction. He had air to breathe. There was nothing much to do but wait. Dusk began to settle. Perry heard guns on the banks of the stream, and shouts and cries, as he drifted invisible through the human battle lines. Presently, looking through the goggles of his air-tight oxygen mask, he saw light around him, then darkness, then light again. It was the regular play of a great searchbeam from up there on the hills. And there were noises too, now loud and near. At least he'd come this far without being detected. Clinging to a rock of the river bottom, he waited a little till it got darker. Then, still being careful to keep well beneath the surface of the water, he swam toward the shore. * * * * * He came up in the reeds at the river's edge, and peered cautiously toward the low bluffs. He had to duck his head again, before he saw anything but humping, moving shapes, and part of a great, half-restored battlement; for the search beam, swinging majestically and regularly back and forth, swept blindingly toward him.