ally alive, impersonally living. The armored tube with
vision-slits at its ends must have been the counterpart of a ship's
bridge, but it looked like the eye-ridge of an insect's face. The
bulbous control-rooms at the ends looked like a gigantic insect's
multi-faceted eyes. And the huge treads, so thick as to constitute armor
for their own protection, were so cunningly joined and sprung that they,
too, seemed like part of a living thing.

It came within twenty yards of the staff-car with the 'copter man in it
and Sergeant Walpole smoking outside. It ignored them. It had destroyed
all life at this place. And Sergeant Walpole alone was visible, and he
sat motionless and detached, unemotionally waiting to be killed. The
Wabbly clanked and rumbled and roared obliviously past them. Sergeant
Walpole saw the flexing springs in the tread-joints, and there were
hundreds of them, of a size to support a freight-car. He saw a
refuse-tube casually ejecting a gush of malodorous stuff, in which the
garbage of a mess-table was plainly identifiable. A drop or two of the
stuff splashed on him, and he smelled coffee.

And then the treads lifted, and he saw the monstrous gas-spreading tubes
at the stern, and the exhaust-pipes into which he could have ridden,
monocycle and all. Then he saw a man in the Wabbly. There were
ventilation-ports open at the pointed stern and a man was looking out,
some fifteen feet above the ground, smoking placidly and looking out at
the terrain the Wabbly left behind it. He was wearing an enemy uniform
cap.

* * * * *

The monster went on. The roar of its passing diminished a little. And
the 'copter man came suddenly out of the staff-car, struggling with the
portable vision set.

"I think we can do it," he said shortly. "It's in constant beam
communication with a bomber up aloft, and I think they're worried up
there because they can't see a damned thing. But it's a good team. With
the Wabbly's beam, which takes so much power no bomber could possibly
carry it, the bombers are safe, and the bombers can locate any
motor-driven thing that might attack the Wabbly and blow it to hell. But
right now they can't see it. So I think we can do it. Coming?"

Sergeant Walpole threw away his cigarette and rose stiffly. Even those
few moments of rest had intensified his weariness. He flung a leg over
the monocycle's seat and pointed tiredly to the trail of the Wabbly. It
nearly paralleled,