Sprague de Camp's New Anthology

"Keep your shirt on. I've got it." He reached over and shook the box; the entity inside glowed brightly. "We'll use Alphonso's own light to fix him by."

"Step on it, Darwin. Here, I'll pour the rest of the rubber cement on the tube. Don't want it coming unravelled."

To the accompaniment of the baleful buzz of the imprisoned entity, three layers of wire were put on the tube, and the whole thing was covered with black machine-tape.

"Okay," said Priest. "Where's the 220 plug?"

The wires from the improvised electromagnet were plugged in, and Gaston pointed the thing at the glass box. Instantly the ball was snatched this way and that by magnetic forces, and finally buzzed into a corner, where it buzzed helplessly. Gaston looked his disappointment. "Not good enough. I can push Alphonso around with my magic wand, but I can't wreck him. Let's see—"

The girl shrieked. A ball was growing out of the cold-water tap. It detached itself, floated up to shoulder height, and began shuttling purposefully across the room. "Damn it!" cried Priest. "It's after us! Oh hell, here's another!" A second sphere was growing out of the faucet. "Must have found the way, and they're lined up in the pipe!" The big surveyor dropped to his hands and knees as the first ball swept over him. The second ball was shuttling, too, and a third one had appeared on the tap. Their humming was like that of a swarm of mosquitoes.

Gaston swung the electromagnet at the first sphere that came near him; the field flung it six feet away, but it came back for more. Priest caught up the glass-topped table. Miss McGlomb was screaming continuously, so that the men had to shout to each other. They tried to project the two other persons. But the third sphere joined the deadly hunt, and a fourth began to take its place. One was persistently trying to get past Priest's table-top; as he blocked each lunge, it backed up and came on from, a new angle.

"Vic!" he yelled suddenly, "is that magnet on direct current?"

"Yes. You mean—"

"Try A.C.!"

The engineer backed up to the wall-socket and snatched the plug out. The slight spark caused thereby attracted two of the balls. They swooped as he fumbled for the alternating-current socket. Gaston in his excitement failed to turn around to see what he was doing. In a fraction of a second the onrushing spheres would plunge into him—they were only inches from the end of the electromagnet, which he gripped like a lance in his left hand—and his fingers found the A.C. socket and thrust the plug home.

The two balls exploded with one shattering detonation. Gaston leaped across the room to the third ball, and the third ball went off likewise. Gaston swung his apparatus at the faucet, and another explosion rewarded him.

"Got 'em!" he whooped. "D.C. just pushes 'em around, but they can orient themselves to a constant field. But the A.C. field changes direction so fast it shorts 'em or breaks down their organisation or something. Come on! We'll hitch a reel to the magnet, and set up a bunch of spark-coils for bait, and clean 'em out of the Centre. Why, what's wrong, Darwin?"

Priest wasn't listening. He was holding a large bare foot in his hands and hopping around on the other, meanwhile filling the ozone-smelling air with the greatest exhibit of plain and fancy cursing anybody in the room had heard. When the fourth ball had exploded, its discharge had melted the faucet, and Priest had gotten a drop of molten pipe-metal inside his shoe.