Nicholas Roger Raffles Rathbone stood blankly staring at the screen. “I didn’t do it,” he said repeatedly.

Omally was at his side in an instant. “Play it,” he roared. “You are the kiddie, play it.”

Rathbone drew back in horror, “No,” he shouted. “Something is wrong. I will have no part of it.”

“Play it!” Omally grabbed at the green hair and drew the stinker close to the machine. “You are the unbeatable master, play it.”

Nick drew up his head in a gesture of defiance. As he did so, he stumbled upon a chunk of fallen ceiling and fell backwards, leaving Omally clutching a bundle of green hair and what appeared to be an india-rubber face mask. The figure who collapsed to the Swan’s floor, now bereft of his disguise, resembled nothing more nor less than a young Jack Palance.

“He’s one of them,” screamed Omally, pointing to the fallen Cerean, and dancing up and down dementedly. “He was never playing the machine, he was signalling with it. Get him, get him!”

Pooley hastened to obey. “The left armpit, isn’t it?” he growled.

The erstwhile paperboy backed away, covering his wedding tackle. “Not the armpit,” he whimpered. “Anything but the armpit.”

Professor Slocombe was at the machine. “How does it work?” he cried. “How does it work?”

“Leave him, Jim,” yelled Omally, “play the machine, shoot the bastards down.”

Upon the allotments columns of pure white light were rising into the sky. The door of Soap Distant’s hut was wide open and a great glow poured from it, silhouetting dozens of identical figures gliding through the opening.

When the first great explosion occurred, a small dwarf in a soiled postman’s suit had flattened himself into a sprout bed, but now he arose to his full height and stared about in horror at the bizarre spectacle.

He danced up and down and flapped his arms, “Edgar,” he shouted, “Edgar, help me, help me.” The figures now pouring through the shed doorway were bearing down upon him, and the postman took to his tiny heels and fled. He plunged through the open allotment gates and paused only to assure himself that he still had a tight hold upon the pair of bolt-cutters he had been carrying. Without further ado he continued his journey, bound for a certain lock-up garage upon the Butts Estate, and destiny.

In the Swan, Pooley was at the controls. “There’s eight of them,” he said, “moving in a V formation.” His finger rattled upon the neutron bomb release button, and tiny beads of yellow light swept upwards towards the bobbing cones at the top of the screen.

“Get them, Jim,” screamed Omally. “Come on now, you know how it’s done.”

“I’m trying, aren’t I? Get us a drink for God’s sake.”

Neville, who had fallen rather heavily but happily not upon his tender parts, was on all fours in the middle of the floor. “What the hell is going on?” he gasped. “Get away from the counter, Omally.”

“We’re breaking your machine,” said the breathless Irishman, “don’t knock it.”

“But what was that explosion? My God!” Neville pointed out through the Swan’s front windows. “Half the Ealing Road’s on fire. Call the appliances.”

Pooley bashed at the button with his fist and jumped up and down. “I’ve got one! I’ve got one!”

Overhead, but a little less loudly this time, there was another explosion, followed by the sound of faltering engines and a Messerschmitt dive-bomber scream.

Those present at the Swan ducked their heads as something thundered by at close quarters and whistled away into the distance. There was a moment’s deadly silence followed by a muted but obviously powerful report.

Another Cerean craft had fallen to Earth upon Brentford; given its point of impact, it was unlikely that Jim Pooley would ever again receive a threatening letter regarding an overdue library book.

“There! There!” Neville was pointing and ranting. “It is the third world war and we never got the four-minute warning. I am withholding my vote at the next election.”

Small Dave struggled up from the gutter and shrieked with pain. He had been rather nearer to the library’s destruction and a sliver of shrapnel from the founder’s plaque had caught him in the backside.

“Oh woe, oh woe, oh damn!” he wailed. A less determined man would by now have called it a day and dived for the nearest foxhole, but loathing and hatred overwhelmed the postman, and nothing would turn him from his vendetta. Feeling tenderly at his bleeding bum, he raised the bolt-cutter to the garage lock and applied all his strength. He strained and sweated as he fought with the steel clasp. Finally, with a sickening crunch the metal gave, and the garage door swung upwards.

Small Dave stood panting in the opening, his features shining pinkly by the light of ten thousand blazing dogeared library books. Sweat poured from his face as he surveyed the object of his quest. Snorting and wriggling in the eaves of the lock-up garage was Simon. A camel far from home.

“Now that you have it,” said a voice which loosened Small Dave’s bowels, “what are you going to do with it?”

The postman swung upon his blakeys. “Edgar,” he said, “where in the holy blazes have you been?”

Norman had been almost the first man out of the Swan. As the explosion rang in his ears he had realized that big trouble was in store and that if he was to take his great quest to its ultimate conclusion, now was going to have to be the time.

Clutching his purloined microcircuit to his bosom he had braved the rain of fire and legged it back to his shop and his workroom. Now, as the explosions came thick and fast from all points of the compass, he fiddled with a screwdriver and slotted the thing into place.

“Power inductor,” he said to himself, “will channel all the power from miles around directly into the apparatus. Wonderful, wonderful!”

Norman threw the much-loved “we belong dead” switch and his equipment sprang into life.

In the Swan, the lights momentarily dimmed. “Another power cut,” groaned Neville. “All I bloody need, another power cut. Typical it is, bloody typical.”

Pooley thundered away at the machine, watched by the Professor and John Omally, who was feeding the lad with scotch.

“Go to it, Jim,” Omally bashed Pooley repeatedly upon the back. “You’ve got them on the run. Here you missed that one, pay attention, will you?”

Pooley laboured away beneath the Irishman’s assault. “Lay off me, John,” he implored. “They’re firing back. Look at that.”

The skyline upon the screen had suddenly been translated into that of the immediate area. The silhouettes of the flatblocks and the gasometer were now clearly visible. As the three men stared in wonder, a shower of sparks descended upon the screen from one of the circling craft and struck the silhouette. Outside, a great roar signalled the demolition of one of the flatblocks.

“Get them, you fool, get them.”

Unnoticed, Raffles Rathbone edged towards the door and slipped through it, having it hastily away upon his toes towards the allotments.

The Swan’s lights dimmed once more.

In Norman’s kitchenette, lights were flashing, and a haze of smoke was rising from many a dodgy spot weld.

Norman sat at his console, punching coordinates into his computer, an ever-increasing hum informing him that the equipment was warming up nicely.

Clinging to the controls of a not altogether dissimilar console was a swarthy clone of a famous film star; Lombard Omega had taken the controls.

“Treachery,” he spat, from between his gritted and expensively capped teeth. “Fucking treachery! Those bastards have drawn us into a trap. Bleeding change of government, I shouldn’t wonder. How many ships lost, Mr Navigator?”

The navigator shrank low over his guidance systems. “Four now, sir,” he said, “no, make that five.”