There was the quick blink of sunlight on steel as Mike and Terry swung their weapons. And as though stunned, the men in white stopped short, suddenly silent, awkwardly-poised statues. Doug knew the spell would last for seconds at best. The half-naked boys stood grimly, feet wide apart, sword-hilts grasped in both hands. Doug, with Dot's limp body in his arms, broke for the car. "Come on!" And Terry and Mike were at his heels. The men in white broke their frozen ranks then and swarmed over the small area of street that the two broadswords had commanded for the telling few seconds. Doug bolted the vehicle into motion. And then they were free. "What dopes," Mike was saying. "Were they scared! I bet they didn't figure we'd be ready to fight 'em! But who did we--?" "Boys, see what you can do for your mother. It is your mother, she just looks different, like we do...." "Mother--" "Hurry up. She's just fainted, that's all. We didn't hit her." * * * * * Dot was conscious when they arrived at the house, and she was managing to speak. "Are they--" "The boys, yes Dot. Our boys. Now look, we've got to run for it. I'll carry you, and you hang on to the pack.... Mike, Terry--" "Ready, Dad. Will there be many?" "I don't know. Maybe none, but if there aren't, it'll only be for a very few minutes. Let's go!" They ran, and the boys burst through the front door with their swords lunging at emptiness. "The cellar!" He heard them clamber down the steel stairs. "It's O.K. Dad--come on!" Dot's face was white, and her eyes were open wide. He carried her as gently as he could, but she had never been so terribly heavy in his arms. It happened at the cellar doorway, at the top of the stairs. He stumbled, fought for balance, fell to one knee, clutched hard and Dot screamed. But he held her, and her arms were choking at his neck. And there was a crashing, clanging noise as the power-pack fell from her, caromed from step to step, and lay finally in a shattered ruin on the cellar floor. CHAPTER XX Slowly, Doug straightened, descended the stairs with Dot's trembling body still in his arms. The boys stood motionless. There was only the sound of Dot's quiet sobbing, and that of Doug's boots as they struck hollow sounds from the steel stair treads, moved heavily as though fitted to the legs of an awkward robot to scatter the shattered bits of the power-pack tubes and crush them as they came underfoot. Gently, he put her down. The boys knelt at either side of her, Doug himself before her. "Don't, please don't, Dot," he said. "Oh, Doug--" And then she clung to him, and her face was wet against his own, but they were the last of her tears. "Afraid?" "No. Scared a little, but just scared. I don't fear them, Doug ... they're not worth enough to fear."