"I'm all right," Mary said. Judy began to whimper. Earl was feeling his way across the room.
"I'm all right," Virginia said. "I guess."
The lights flickered and dimmed. Abruptly they went out. The basement was pitch-black.
"Well," Tim said. "There they go."
"I have my flashlight." Earl winked the flashlight on. "How's that?"
"Fine," Tim said.
More roms hit. The ground leaped under them, bucking and heaving. A wave of force shuddering the whole house.
"We better lie down," Mary said.
"Yes. Lie down." Tim stretched himself out awkwardly. A few bits of plaster rained down around them.
"When will it stop?" Earl asked uneasily.
"Soon," Tim said.
"Then we'll be back?"
"Yes. We'll be back."
The next blast hit them almost at once. Tim felt the concrete rise under him. It grew, swelling higher and higher. He was going up. He shut his eyes, holding on tight. Higher and higher he went, carried up by the ballooning concrete. Around him beams and timbers cracked. Plaster poured down. He could hear glass breaking. And a long way off, the licking crackles of fire.
"Tim," Mary's voice came faintly.
"Yes."
"We're not going to—to make it."
"I don't know."
"We're not. I can tell."
"Maybe not." He grunted in pain as a board struck his back, settling over him. Boards and plaster, covering him, burying him. He could smell the sour smell, the night air and ash. It drifted and rolled into the cellar, through the broken window.
"Daddy," Judy's voice came faintly.
"What?"
"Aren't we going back?"
He opened his mouth to answer. A shattering roar cut his words off. He jerked, tossed by the blast. Everything was moving around him. A vast wind tugged at him, a hot wind, licking at him, gnawing at him. He held on tight. The wind pulled, dragging him with it. He cried out as it seared his hands and face.
"Mary—"
Then silence. Only blackness and silence.
Cars.
Cars were stopping nearby. Then voices. And the noise of footsteps. Tim stirred, pushing the boards from him. He struggled to his feet.
"Mary." He looked around. "We're back."
The basement was in ruins. The walls were broken and sagging. Great gaping holes showed a green line of grass beyond. A concrete walk. The small rose garden. The white side of the stucco house next door.
Lines of telephone poles. Roofs. Houses. The city. As it had always been. Every morning.
"We're back!" Wild joy leaped through him. Back. Safe. It was over. Tim pushed quickly through the debris of his ruined house. "Mary, are you all right?"
"Here." Mary sat up, plaster dust raining from her. She was white all over, her hair, her skin, her clothing. Her face was cut and scratched. Her dress was torn. "Are we really back?"
"Mr. McLean! You all right?"
A blue-clad policeman leaped down into the cellar. Behind him two white-clad figures jumped. A group of neighbors collected outside, peering anxiously to see.
"I'm OK," Tim said. He helped Judy and Virginia up. "I think we're all OK."
"What happened?" The policeman pushed boards aside, coming over. "A bomb? Some kind of a bomb?"
"The house is a shambles," one of the white-clad interns said. "You sure nobody's hurt?"
"We were down here. In the basement."
"You all right, Tim?" Mrs. Hendricks called, stepping down gingerly into the cellar.
"What happened?" Frank Foley shouted. He leaped down with a crash. "God, Tim! What the hell were you doing?"
The two white-clad interns poked suspiciously around the ruins. "You're lucky, mister. Damn lucky. There's nothing left upstairs."
Foley came over beside Tim. "Damn it man! I told you to have that hot water heater looked at!"
"What?" Tim muttered.
"The hot water heater! I told you there was something wrong with the cut-off. It must've kept heating up, not turned off... ." Foley winked nervously. "But I won't say anything, Tim. The insurance. You can count on me."
Tim opened his mouth. But the words didn't come. What could he say? —No, it wasn't a defective hot water heater that I forgot to have repaired. No, it wasn't a faulty connection in the stove. It wasn't any of those things. It wasn't a leaky gas line, it wasn't a plugged furnace, it wasn't a pressure cooker we forgot to turn off.
It's war. Total war. And not just war for me. For my family. For just my house.
It's for your house, too. Your house and my house and all the houses. Here and in the next block, in the next town, the next state and country and continent. The whole world, like this. Shambles and ruins. Fog and dank weeds growing in the rusting slag. War for all of us. For everybody crowding down into the basement, white-faced, frightened, somehow sensing something terrible.
And when it really came, when the five years were up, there'd be no escape. No going back, tipping back into the past, away from it. When it came for them all, it would have them for eternity; there would be no one climbing back out, as he had.
Mary was watching him. The policeman, the neighbors, the white-clad interns—all of them were watching him. Waiting for him to explain. To tell them what it was.
"Was it the hot water heater?" Mrs. Hendricks asked timidly. "That was it, wasn't it, Tim? Things like that do happen. You can't be sure... ."
"Maybe it was home brew," a neighbor suggested, in a feeble attempt at humor. "Was that it?"
He couldn't tell them. They wouldn't understand, because they didn't want to understand. They didn't want to know. They needed reassurance. He could see it in their eyes. Pitiful, pathetic fear. They sensed something terrible—and they were afraid. They were searching his face, seeking his help. Words of comfort. Words to banish their fear.
"Yeah," Tim said heavily. "It was the hot water heater."
"I thought so!" Foley breathed. A sigh of relief swept through them all. Murmurs, shaky laughs. Nods, grins.
"I should have got it fixed," Tim went on. "I should have had it looked at a long time ago. Before it got in such bad shape." Tim looked around at the circle of anxious people, hanging on his words. "I should have had it looked at. Before it was too late."
SHELL QAME
A SOUND awoke O'Keefe instantly. He threw back his covers, slid from the cot, grabbed his B-pistol from the wall and, with his foot, smashed the alarm box. High frequency waves tripped emergency bells throughout the camp. As O'Keefe burst from his house, lights already flickered on every side.
"Where?" Fisher demanded shrilly. He appeared beside O'Keefe, still in his pajamas, grubby-faced with sleep.
"Over to the right." O'Keefe leaped aside for a massive cannon being rolled from its underground storage-chambers. Soldiers were appearing among the night-clad figures. To the right lay the black bog of mists and obese foliage, ferns and pulpy onions, sunk in the half-liquid ooze that made up the surface of Betelgeuse II. Nocturnal phosphorescence danced and flitted over the bog, ghostly yellow lights snapped in the thick darkness.
"I figure," Horstokowski said, "they came in close to the road, but not actually on it. There's a shoulder fifty feet on each side, where the bog has piled up. That's why our radar's silent."
An immense mechanical fusing "bug" was eating its way into the mud and shifting water of the bog, leaving behind a trail of hard, smoked surface. The vegetation and the rotting roots and dead leaves were sucked up and efficiently cleared away.
"What did you see?" Portbane asked O'Keefe.
"I didn't see anything. I was sound asleep. But I heard them."
"Doing what?'
"They were getting ready to pump nerve gas into my house. I heard them unreeling the hose from portable drums and uncapping the pressure tanks. But, by God, I was out of the house before they could get the joints leak-tight!"