World War Three’s going to break out, Soames thought bitterly, and the only defence for freedom and democracy is me and fifty bullets. Charming. Why did it have to happen right now? Why not in an hour’s time when my shift is over?
The footsteps came ever closer, but look as he might, he could see nothing. The shuffling footsteps were near enough to be able to touch whoever was making them, but still he could see nothing. They passed between him and the hangar lights, but nothing was silhouetted, and nothing could be seen, even though he lay flat on the ground and looked all around. Then, incredibly, the footsteps began to die away and still he had seen nothing. He jabbed with his rifle, even swung it round him in a complete circle. His wild efforts met with no resistance at all. The sweat that poured off his face and neck and ran in rivulets down his body had little to do with the temperature, hot though it was. His stomach churned and the world seemed to blur with an odd, shimmering motion. The whole situation was impossible. If he hadn’t seen, or rather not seen with his own eyes, he would never have believed it. How could there be a sound without something to produce it? How could footsteps have a disembodied life of their own?
By now badly frightened and trembling in every limb, but determined to discover the truth of the matter if only for the sake of his own sanity, Soames followed the sound of the slowly receding footsteps, and there, in a tiny pool of light reflected from the hangar lamps, he saw what it was that had terrified him so much. No bigger than a human hand, a little desert rat was hopping along as though he had all the time in the world, oblivious to the presence of the man, oblivious to the fact that it had come within a whisker of having fifty rounds of ammunition pumped into its tiny body.
’If this gun works,’ muttered Soames. ’Which I doubt.’
Just the