ered hands
pressed against a smoking hole in his metal tunic. The smoke thickened
and a yellowish ichor poured out bursting into flame on contact with
the air. The fifth alien, Ixtl, was untouched, standing with hands
widestretched in a gesture that at once held command and appeal.

Matson reloaded quickly, but held his fire. The swarming crowd
surrounding the alien was too thick for a clear shot and Matson, with
sudden revulsion, was unwilling to risk further murder in a cause
already won. The tall, silver figure of the alien winced and
shuddered, his huge body shaking like a leaf in a storm! His builders
had never designed him to withstand the barrage of focussed emotion
that was sweeping from the crowd. Terror, shock, sympathy, hate,
loathing, grief, and disillusionment--the incredible gamut of human
feelings wrenched and tore at the Aztlan, shorting delicate circuits,
ripping the poised balance of his being as the violent discordant
blasts lanced through him with destroying energy! Ixtl's classic
features twisted in a spasm of inconceivable agony, a thin curl of
smoke drifted from his distorted tragic mask of a mouth as he
crumpled, a pitiful deflated figure against the whiteness of the
float.

The cries of fear and horror changed their note as the aliens' true
nature dawned upon the crowd. Pride of flesh recoiled as the swarming
humans realized the facts. Revulsion at being led by machines swelled
into raw red rage. The mob madness spread as an ominous growl began
rising from the streets.

A panicky policeman triggered it, firing his Aztlan-built shock tube
into the forefront of the mob. A dozen men fell, to be trampled by
their neighbors as a swarm of men and women poured over the struggling
officer and buried him from sight. Like wildfire, pent-up emotions
blazed out in a flame of fury. The parade vanished, sucked into the
maelstrom and torn apart. Fists flew, flesh tore, men and women
screamed in high bitter agony as the mob clawed and trampled in a
surging press of writhing forms that filled the street from one line
of buildings to the other.

Half-mad with triumph, drunk with victory, shocked at the terrible
form that death had taken in coming to Ixtl, Matson raised his
clenched hands to the sky and screamed in a raw inhuman voice, a cry
in which all of man's violence and pride were blended! The spasm
passed as quickly as it came, and with its passing came exhaustion.
The job was done. The aliens were de