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Martin as living quarters a little distance off.
    â€œYou and your friend will be going with us,” she said. “Had anyone thought to tell you that? I hope that you don’t mind. I am sorry that you got mixed up in this.”
    He said grimly, not entirely joking, “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
    â€œDo you really mean that?” she asked.
    â€œI’m not quite sure,” he told her. “One thing I do know. When you leave, I’d rather go with you, wherever you may be going, than stay here in this place, unable to get out.”
    Corcoran and David had turned to the left to go around the house.
    â€œRight after the funeral,” said Enid, “we’ll get together and make a final decision what to do.”
    A high-pitched, ragged screech came from somewhere behind the house. It cut off for a moment, then took up again, a caterwaul of fright which kept on and on, its pitch going up and up.
    Boone started running toward the sound, sobbing as he ran, for suddenly the terror in the shrieking closed down all about him and seemed to grasp him by the throat.
    As he was about to round the corner of the house, something going fast and hard struck him in mid-stride and bowled him over, tumbling him across the grass until he brought up in a thicket of rosebushes, half in, half out of the thorny clump. He tipped forward into the soft earth that extended beyond the clump and landed nose down in the dirt.
    He pawed at his face to wipe away the clinging dirt, scrabbling with the other hand to claw himself free of the bushes, which was not an easy thing to do, for the sharp and solid thorns had snagged into his clothing and resisted all attempts to pull loose.
    With the dirt partially off his face, he saw Emma streaking for the Martin traveler, with some, perhaps all, of the others close behind her—all running as if the very devil were nipping at their heels. It was Emma, he thought, who ran into me.
    He lunged desperately to pull himself free of the bushes, but a clinging rose sprout with a grip still on his trouser leg tripped him so that he sat down solidly upon the ground, facing back along the left side of the house.
    Something was coming along the side of the house, a sort of thing he had never seen before nor would have believed possible. It was like a living spider web a good twelve feet or more across. It throbbed with pulses of energy, or what he thought of as energy, running all across it, flickering and sparkling and flashing all along and across the tiny threads that made up the web. Behind the threads was a mirror, or a disk of some sort that might have been an eye. Through the flashing energy, Boone dimly saw what could have been mechanical appendages that were beginning to reach out and down toward him. There were other things immersed within the web, but what they could be he could not imagine.
    A voice shrieked at him. “Boone, you fool! Run! I’ll wait for you.”
    He lunged to his feet, jerking his trouser free of the bush, and spun about, beginning to run.
    There was only one of the smaller travelers left upon the lawn, standing with the port wide open and Enid beside it.
    â€œRun!” she shouted. “Run!”
    He ran as he had never run before. Enid leaped into the traveler. From the entrance, she beckoned at him desperately.
    He reached the traveler and sprang into the port, catching his toe on the edge of it and sprawling on top of Enid.
    â€œGet off me, you dunce!” she shouted, and he flung himself to one side. The port banged shut. As it closed, he glimpsed the web, almost on top of them. Enid was scrambling frantically toward a glowing instrument panel in the front of the traveler.
    Boone started to crawl forward, but there was a sudden shock that pinned him to the floor, and with the shock came darkness, the utter, unnerving darkness he had experienced when the Martin traveler had left New York.

6
    Enid and Boone
    Light