now or never. Freev pressed the necessary studs.
There was the sound of things closing. Doors slamming, windows shutting down tight.
"Dyke!" squealed Lorinda. Dyke ran for the front door as it slammed in his face. He pushed at it, fumbling with the latch. Nothing happened. He ran through the house to the rear door. Locked tight. The same with the windows. Then Lorinda screamed. The house was vibrating, the floor beneath them pulsating rhythmically. The vibrations grew stronger . . . and louder . . . and stronger . . . and lоuder!
"What is it, Dyke?" shrieked Lorinda. "What's happening?"
Freev was sending again, "Preparing for blast-off with two specimens. No time to dismantle exterior of house . . . will have to blast through . . . may be disabled on arrival . . . prepare for crash landing."
Dyke hammered at the glass of the windows. They refused to break. They weren't glass. The vibrations were almost unbearable now, like the tremendous surge of trembling power in an airliner the second before take-off, magnified a thousand fold. Lorinda slumped to the floor in a faint.
Dyke ran into the kitchen, if only he could find something to . . . Somehow, he gathered the strength to rip the door of one of the metal kitchen cabinets from its hinges. Using the door as a battering ram, he ran toward the window with all his strength. There was a jarring impact as the metal smashed into the "glass." It buckled outward but did not break. Dyke staggered back, shaken. Again and again he battered tire metal door against the window, the metal curled and bent under the beating, the window gave . . . and gave . . . and finally broke, not shattering; like glass, but merely being penetrated; like tough plastic. He worked frantically, using the door now to ream a larger hole into the window.
Finally it was large enough so that he could ease Lorinda's unconscious form through the opening. She came to as she hit the ground outside with a jarring bump, and she was able to groggily help Dyke himself through the opening. They ran for tire helicar, hand io hand, the still woozy Lorinda and the exhausted Dyke, dragging each other, stumbling, supporting each other, gasping for breath. They collapsed into the familiar bucket seats of the helicar and Dyke gave it full throttle. They did not look back.
Freev was angry and discouraged. Not only had two fine specimens escaped, they had damaged the skin of the Boat. He cut the engines disconsolately. It would take half the night to repair the damage and prepare for blast-off. He would also now have to dispose of the framework of the house, bury each nail and board. If he'd gotten the specimens he could have taken off right through the flimsy structure, leaving the wreckage, but now, no specimens. The Big Ship would have to come back—someday when more funds were voted by the directors of the Galactic Zoo and Museum Endowment Board—oh well, he was just a Hunter. Those problems were really not his concern. After all, he had done his best. Tricky creatures, these Solians III.
That night there was a bright streak across the sky for a second, thousands saw it. It must have been a falling meteor. The strange thing was that it appeared to be ascending, but then . . . the night sky plays funny tricks on the eyes.
Dyke and Lorinda, back in their tiny apartment, did not talk for a long time. For a while, they tried to act as though nothing had happened. Finally, Dyke blurted out, "Well, those sudden Earth tremors are a lot more frightening than they are serious. There must be an earth fault directly under the house. Just a bunch of rock settling, that's all."
"But Dyke, the doors . . . the windows . . . ?"
"Stuck. That's all, just stuck. The temblor got them out of alignment and they slammed shut and stuck." His mind dwelled uncomfortably on those desperate moments when he had battered "glass" with metal and the "glass" had refused to break. But then, they were always coming out with new plastics and things, weren't they?
Lorinda drew a long drag on her cigarette with a hand that still trembled slight-
