e--like Mahon-modified machines--had great resistance ...
outside the Iron Curtain.

There was, though, almost a vacuum of news and mechanical operations at
the rim of a nearly perfect circle some four thousand miles in diameter,
whose center was in a Compub research installation.

It was very bad. Such a panic as had never been known before swept the
free world. Some mysterious weapon, it was felt, had been used to
cripple those who would resist invasion, and the Compub armed forces
would shortly be on the march, and Armageddon was at hand. The free
world prepared to die fighting.

But war did not come. Nothing happened at all. In three days there were
sketchy communications almost everywhere outside that monstrous circle
of silence. But nothing came out of that circle. Nothing.

In two weeks, exploring parties cautiously crossed the barbed-wire
frontier fences to find out what had happened. Those who went farthest
came back shaken and sick. There were survivors in the Compubs, of
course. Especially near the fringes of the circle. There were some
millions of survivors. But there was no longer a nation to be called the
Union of Communist Republics. There were only frightened, starving
people trudging blindly away from cities that were charnel-houses and
machines that would not run and trees and crops and grasses that were
stark dead where they stood. It would be a long time before anybody
would want to cross those lifeless plains and enter the places which
once had been swarming hives of homes and people.

* * * * *

And presently, of course, Sergeant Bellews was let out of the
guardhouse. He could not be charged with any crime. Nor could Graves nor
Lecky nor Howell. They were asked, confidentially, to keep their mouths
shut. Which they would have done anyhow. And Sergeant Bellews was asked
with reluctant respectfulness, just what he thought had really happened.

"Some guys got too smart," he said, fuming. "A guy that'll broadcast a
wave that'll wreck machines ... I haven't got any kinda use for him!
Dammit, when a machine treats you accordin' to the golden rule, you
oughta treat it the same way!"

There were other, also-respectful questions.

"How the hell would I know?" demanded Sergeant Bellews wrathfully. "It
coulda been that we did make contact with 2180, and they were smart an'
told the Compubs to try out what we told 'em. But I don't believe it. It
coulda been a kinda mons