"Exactly," said the President, "as I read it."

"I understand," Oakes rumbled, "that the Russian ambassador is coming over to have a powwow with you."

"You were not supposed to know that, Andy."

"Well, you know how it is, Mr. President. You stay up on the Hill long enough and you get a lot of pipelines. You get told a lot of things. Even things you were not supposed to know."

"It's no secret," said the President. "I have no idea why he's coming. We are trying to work closely with all the governments in this matter. I have had phone conversations with a number of heads of state, including the Russian head of state. I take it that the ambassador's visit is no more than an extension of these talks."

"Perhaps," said Oakes. "Perhaps. I just tend to get a mite nervous when the Russians become too interested in anything at all."

37

There was something in the hazel thicket at the edge of the tiny cornfield — a vague sense of a presence, a tantalizing outline that never quite revealed itself. Something lurked there, waiting. Sergeant Gordy Clark was quite sure of that. Just how he knew he could not be sure. But he was sure — or almost sure. Some instinct born out of hundreds of patrols into enemy country, something gained by the sharp, hard objectivity that was necessary for an old soldier to keep himself alive while others died-something that he nor no one else could quite define told him there was a lurker in the thicket.

He lay silent, almost unbreathing in his effort to be quiet and still, stretched out on the little ridge that rose above the cornfield, with his rocket launcher steadied on an ancient, rotted log and the cross-hairs centered on the thicket. It could be a dog, he told himself, or a child, perhaps even nothing, but he could not bring himself to think that it was nothing.

The drooping sumac bush bent close above him, shielding-him from the view of whatever might be in the thicket. He could hear the faint mutter of the mountain brook that ran just beyond the cornfield, and from up the hollow hugged between the hills, where the farm buildings were located, came the senseless cackling of a hen.

There was no sign of any other member of the patrol. He knew several of them must be close, but they were being careful not to betray their presence. They were regulars, every one of them, and they knew their business. They could move through these woods like shadows. They would make no noise, disturb no brush or branch to give away their presence.

The sergeant smiled grimly to himself. They were good men. He had trained them all. The captain thought that he had been the one who had trained them, but it had not been the captain. It had been Sergeant Gordon Fairfield Clark who had beaten their business into them. They all hated him, of course, and he'd have it no other way. For out of hatred could sometimes come respect. Fear or respect, he thought — either one would serve. There were some of them, perhaps not now, but sometime in the past — had cherished the fantasy of putting a bullet through his skull. There must have been opportunities, but they had never done it. For they needed him, the sergeant told himself — although not really him, of course, but the hatred that they had for him. There was nothing like a good strong hatred for a man to cling to.

The farmer at the buildings up the hollow thought he had seen something. He couldn't tell what it was, but it had been awful, the glimpse he had gotten of it. A sort of thing that he had never seen before. Something that no man could imagine. The farmer had shivered as he talked.

The thing that had been in the thicket came out. It came out with a rush so fast that it seemed to blur. Then, as quickly as it had moved, it stopped. It stood in the little open space of ground between the thicket and the corn.

The sergeant caught his breath and his guts turned over, but even so he swiveled the launcher barrel around so that the cross hairs centered on the great paunch of the monster and his finger began the steady squeeze.

Then it was gone. The cross hairs centered on nothing except the ragged clump of brush beyond the cornfield's edge. The sergeant didn't stir. He lay looking through the sight, but his finger slacked off from the trigger.

The monster had not moved. He was sure of that. It had simply disappeared. One microsecond there, the next microsecond gone. It could not move that fast. When it had come out of the thicket there had been a blur of rapid movement. This time there had been no blur.

Sergeant Clark raised his head, levered himself to his knees. He put up a hand and wiped his face and was astonished to find that his hand came away greasy wet. He'd not been aware that he had been sweating.

38

Fyodor Morozov was a good diplomat and decent man, the two not being incompatible, and he hated what he had to do. Besides, he told himself, he knew Americans and it simply would not work. It would, of course, embarrass them and point out their sins for all the world to see and, under ordinary circumstances, he would not have been averse to this. But under present conditions, he knew, the Americans (or anyone else, for that matter) were in no position to observe the niceties of diplomatic games, and because of this, there was no way one could gauge reaction.

The President was waiting for him when he was ushered in and beside the President, as was to be expected, stood the Secretary of State. The President was all open blandness, but Thornton Williams, Fyodor could see, was a somewhat puzzled man, although he was doing an excellent job of hiding it.

When they had shaken hands and sat down, the President opened the conversation. "It's always good to see you, Mr. Ambassador," he said, "for any reason, or even for no reason. But tell me, is there something we can do for you?"

"My government," said Fyodor, "has asked me to confer with your government, as unofficially as our official positions can make possible, concerning a matter of security which I would assume is of some concern to both of us, in fact, to everyone."

He paused and they waited for him to go on. They did not respond; they asked no question; they were no help at all.

"It is the matter," he said, "of the alien monster that escaped from the Congo tunnel. There is no question, knowing what we do, that the monsters must be hunted down. Since the Congo does not have sufficient military or police forces to accomplish this, my government is offering to supply an expeditionary force and we are about to sound out both Britain and France and perhaps other nations as well to determine if they might want to contribute to a joint expeditionary force against the monster."

"Certainly, Ambassador," said Williams, "your government does not feel compelled to seek our permission to embark upon so neighborly an undertaking. I would imagine that you are prepared to make guarantees that you'll withdraw all forces immediately the monster had been taken."

"Of course we are."

"Then I fail to grasp your point."

"There is also," said Fyodor, "the matter of the monster, or the monsters — I understand that now there are a number of them — on your own territory. We are prepared to make the same offer to you as we will make the Congo."

"You mean," said the President, amused, "that you would be willing to lend us some of your forces to hunt down the monsters."

"We would go, I think," said the ambassador, "somewhat beyond the word you use — willing. I would think that unless you can guarantee absolute effectiveness in containing and disposing of the monsters, we might possibly insist. This is not a national matter; the international community is concerned. The creatures must be obliterated. If you can't accomplish this, then you must accept any help that's offered."