Sprague de Camp's New Anthology

"Have to trust to luck that it doesn't find them for a while. They're pretty complicated, and if it isn't alive, it gives a damn good imitation."

Gaston looked through the glass door. "It's them," he announced. "The ones in the hall are oozing through the door-knob. Four in the control-room now." The glowing balls hovered about the room. The only sounds were their hum and Priest's heavy breathing as he laboured over Kuyper.

Gaston continued: "Seems like animated lightning-balls, sort of. Nobody knows what lightning-balls are, or what holds 'em together against the mutual repulsion of their electrons. My guess is our visitors are balls of electrons, spinning rapidly."

Priest grunted: "Bill's pulse is getting stronger. How do these things move?"

"Don't know, but it might be by repelling ionized air-molecules out one side. The one that attacked us has shrunk; must be getting worn out."

The smallest of the balls fastened itself to an open light-fixture. The men could see a blue flicker inside the thing's body. The ball grew as they watched.

"Hey!" cried Priest, "it eats juice! It shorts the light-circuit, and feeds off the spark it makes through its own body!"

"Sure," said Gaston. "What'd you expect it to eat, hamburger and onions? Oh, hello!" This was to Miss McGlomb, who had come to.

"Where am I?" she asked. Gaston explained. The girl cried: "Get me out of here! Get me away from those awful things!"

Gaston explained that the emergency exit to the surface was through their bedroom, which could be reached only through the control-room. Miss McGlomb wept. Gaston looked jitterier and jitterier. Priest said: "Look here, young lady, you're missing something very interesting. If we watch these things maybe we can figure out how to handle them."

"I'm not interested in your fire-balls! I want to get out! Captain Sella would know a way out! He's a real man!"

The ball detached itself from the plug and flew vigorously around the room. It joined another ball. The two whirled around one another. Then there was only one, the size of a grapefruit. The big ball changed to a torus, and the torus broke up into four small balls. These raced for the open fixture. The first to arrive anchored itself and began to grow. The others buzzed off, apparently looking for more light-sockets.

Priest said: "They're alive all right. You've just seen a red-hot drama of stark passion. Like this!" He made a pretended grab for Miss McGlomb, who squeaked and snatched up a burette stand, with: "Don't you dare! I'll brain you!"

"Act your age, Darwin," said Gaston. "Guess you're right; they reproduce like paramecia. Wonder where they come from? Not the Moon, or somebody would have seen them. Can't travel through a vacuum, which is an insulator. Somebody brung 'em."

"Sella!" cried Priest.

"Exactly! From Maleyev's Object!"

"What?" It was Miss McGlomb. "Nonsense! I won't have you vilifying my friends this way!"

Gaston and Priest looked hard at the young woman, evidently not thinking beautiful thoughts. But a vice-president's daughter is a vice-president's daughter.

Priest turned back to the door. "We'd better do something. They're exploring the wiring system."

"Sure, but what? Let's see: what's their world like? Ours is made up of gravitational fields, and certain electromagnetic waves and sound waves, like the soundwaves between sixteen and 20,000 cycles. Our balls are probably blind to gravitational fields and sound-waves, but strongly conscious of magnetic and static fields. The wires and pipes are like hallways to them. Insulators are like walls or closed doors. Air they can move slowly through, like a man swimming."

"But that doesn't get us out," protested Miss McGlomb. "You scientists are supposed to be so smart—"

Gaston jumped nervously. "I'm not a scientist, my dear young lady. I'm just a poor dumb engineer—"

Gaston put in: "Don't rattle him, sweetheart. The great brain has to—"

"But," the girl persisted, "all you do is sit around and talk about walls and bicycles. Can't you do anything but lecture? Captain Sella—"

"Miss McGlomb," snarled Gaston tensely, "will you be so very kind as to shut up—before I stove your ports for you? Where was I? Oh, yes. They shouldn't be able to see, lacking organs for focusing light-rays. But they might be able to tell which direction electromagnetic waves are coming from, the way you can locate the heat from a fire. If they feed on current, and can locale a source ...I know, a trap!"

In a few minutes the men had rigged up a box of miscellaneous glass plates, precariously held together by machine-tape. The plate at one end was fastened at the upper edge only, so that it was free to swing.

"Now," said Gaston, "the bait." He rummaged around until he found a spark-coil. He explained: "We'll put the secondary inside, and the primary outside next to the glass."

"Yeah," said Priest, "but how to get the ball through the door?"

"We'll open the door."

"What?" shrilled Miss McGlomb.. "Let those things in here?"

"We'll pin Bill's and my rubber aprons together," said Gaston. "Curtain. Stuff up the spaces on the sides of the box with glass wool."