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had lost enough wit even to kick over the bolt of the trapdoor.
Gregory, burst it up and climbed out panting. Throughly
cowed, Neckland backed towards the opening until he was
almost out on the little platform above the sails.
"You'll fall out, you idiot," Gregory warned. "Listen,
Neckland, you have no reason to fear me. I want no enmity
between us. There's a bigger enemy we must fight. Look!"
He came towards the low door and looked down at the dark
surface of the pond. Neckland grabbed the overhead pulley for
security and said nothing.
"Look down at the pond," Gregory said. "That's where the
-Aurigans live. My GodBert, look, there one goes!"
The urgency in his voice made the farmhand look down
where he pointed. Together, the two men watched as a
depression slid over the black water; an overlapping chain of
ripples swung back from it. At approximately the middle of the
pond, the depression became a commotion. A small whirlpool
formed and died, and the ripples began to settle.
"There's your ghost, Bert," Gregory gasped. "That must have
been the one that got poor Mrs. Grendon. Now do you be-
lieve?"
"I never heard of a ghost as lived under water," Neckland
gasped.
"A ghost never harmed anyonewe've already had a sample
of what these terrifying things can do. Come on, Bert, shake
hands, understand I bear you no hard feelings. Oh, come on,
man! I know how you feel about Nancy, but she must be free to
.make her own choice in life."
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They shook hands and grinned rather foolishly at each other.
"We better go and tell the farmer what we seen," Neckland
said. "I reckon that thing done what happened to Lardie last
evening."
"Lardie? What's happened to her? I thought I hadn't seen her
today."
"Same as happened to the little pigs. I found her just inside
the barn. Just her coat was left, that's all. No insides! Like
she'd been sucked dry."
It took Gregory twenty minutes to summon the council of
war on which he had set his mind. The party gathered in the
farmhouse,, in the parlor. By this time, Nancy had somewhat
recovered from the shock of her mother's death, and sat in an
armchair with a shawl about her shoulders. Her father stood
nearby with his arms folded, looking impatient, while Bert
Neckland lounged by the door. Only Grubby was not present.
He had been told to get on with the ditching.
"I'm going to have another attempt to convince you all that
you are in very grave danger," Gregory said. "You won't see it
for yourselves. The situation is that we're all animals together at
present. Do you remember that strange meteor that fell out of
the sky last winter, Joseph? And do you remember that ill-
smelling dew early in the spring? They were not unconnected,
and they are connected with all that's happening now. That
meteor was a space machine of some sort, I firmly believe, and
it brought in it a kind of life thatthat is not so much hostile to
terrestrial life as indifferent to its quality. The creatures from
that machine1 call them Aurigansspread the dew over the
farm. It was a growth accelerator, a manure or fertilizer, that
speeds growth in plants and animals."
"So much better for us!" Grendon said.
"But it's not better. The things grow wildly, yes, but the taste
is altered to suit the palates of those things out there. You've
seen what happened. You can't sell anything. People won't
touch your eggs or milk or meatthey taste too foul."
"But that's a lot of nonsense. We'll sell in Norwich. Our
produce is better than it ever was. We eat it, don't we?"
"Yes, Joseph, you eat it. But anyone who eats at your table is
doomed. Don't you understandyou are all 'fertilized' just as
surely as the pigs and chickens. Your place has been turned into
a superfarm, and you are all meat to the Aurigans."
That set a silence in the room, until Nancy said in a small
voice, "You don't believe such a terrible thing."
"I suppose these unseen creatures told you all this?"
Grendon said truculently.
"Judge by the evidence, as I do. Your wife1 must be brutal,
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Josephyour wife was eaten, like the dog and the pigs. As
everything else will be in time. The Aurigans aren't even
cannibals. They aren't like us. They don't care whether we have
souls or intelligences, any more than we really care whether
bullocks have."
"No one's going to eat me," Neckland said, looking decidedly
white about the gills.
"How can you stop them? They're invisible, and I think they
can strike like snakes. They're aquatic and I think they may be
oftly two feet tall. How can you protect.yourself?" He turned to
the farmer. "Joseph, the danger is very great, and not only to us
here. At first, they may have offered us no harm while they got
the measure of usotherwise I'd have died in your rowing boat.
Now there's no longer doubt of their hostile intent. I beg you to
let me go to Heigham and telephone to the chief of police in
Norwich, or at least to the local militia, to get them to come and
help us."
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