"What makes, Peter my love?" she asked, and bent back to the ledger. Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said, "Darling, what's wrong?" He said, "Have you seen the news recently?" She frowned. "Why, no--Harry and I have been working for thirty-six hours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why?" "You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox?" She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. "Pete, you know I haven't one--it bores me or upsets me, depending on whether there's trouble or not. What--" "I'm sorry, I forgot," he said. "But you have a scanner?" "Yes, of course. But really, Pete--" "You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei." She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and then walked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain of papers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to "News" and pressed the stud. A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, and suddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded by the warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past the transport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should have been dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there, yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. They disappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in a heartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehow defiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle of flesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, those men and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossibly joined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass of helpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was more horrible than any cry of agony. "The Invaders are here, citizens," the commentator was saying in a strangled voice. "Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off the streets...." His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. * * * * * Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately. "Peter!" she said faintly. "Why do they broadcast such things?" "They have to," he told her grimly. "There will be panics and suicides, and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, where the noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to be any noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know about them, so that he can fight them--and then it may not be enough."