With that rage came clear thinking. Little things--like Dead-Eye's firing into the invisible wall, combustion type engines firing when cyc-powered units went dead, shadows disappearing when Elizabeth spat at them; little things, simple things. A thought coalescing, growing sharper, until it was burning in his mind, fueling his spirit with new hope. "Thank you, Dead-Eye," he whispered. The harsh sharp planes of Curt Wing's face were softening. "We've got a chance," he said. "Dead-Eye gave it to us, Pat. But we've got to get away--out of this circle somehow." He waved his hands at the tight circle of shadow-things that hemmed them in. "Any ideas, George? Pat?" Lt. George Packer's shoulders had come up, he was touched by this new assurance in Curt Wing's voice, in the fire of those dark eyes. "Not," he said, and there was new life in his voice, too, "not unless an old wish comes true and the ground swallows us up." "It can," Pat said, the words tumbling out. "We can fall in a hole, can't we? Look at them, Curt. They shuffle along, but they don't step into holes. They just float over them--like they do belong in another dimension and can't anchor themselves to Earth. See?" Her voice rang with excitement. Wing laughed. "But what good would falling in a hole do us? All they'd have to do is fish us out again. And we'd have new bruises." The circle was tight now, and suddenly they felt the push of an invisible wall against them as the shadow-things moved closer. Then they were moving. Pat didn't stop arguing. "If you were a fat man and you dropped something between your feet, wouldn't you have to get your stomach out of the way to see it?" Wing looked at her sharply. "What are you driving at, Pat?" "If they're from another dimension, and all the telecast say they are, and if their vision devices for this world are just for straight-ahead seeing, what would they have to do in order to look down?" "Pat," Wing said softly. "It would be like riding in a rocket car. Once something gets underneath it, out of the range of the windshield, you can't see it. You have to back up or go forward. And if we pick a deep enough hole, the shadows can't back enough or go forward enough to see the bottom. Is that what you mean? Because the high sides cut off their vision?" Her wide smile and sparkling eyes were his answer. * * * * * Curt Wing, nursing a new set of bruises after plunging into a fifteen-foot hole and scrambling out after the shadow-things had finally floated by above them, led Pat and lanky George Packer at a loping run back to the rocket car. It was almost nightfall and the fire and noise and stench of White City were far behind them by the time the speedy little car made it to the mountain retreat of the Council of Seven. During the ride, Curt Wing's sense of loss with Dead-Eye gone was softening, mingling with a gratitude deep and strong to the big, black-bearded giant.