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and the guns in the hands of the men had dropped from the ready position. Conversations had sprung up, carried to Linc’s hearing by the breeze that rustled the leaves and parachuted others to the ground.
    â€œI guess the Eyes are late sleepers,” chuckled Myers, “and just can’t get themselves open this early.”
    Linc winced at the levity; yet he felt an answering laugh within himself. Relief? He didn’t know. There was as yet nothing to be relieved about. Maybe the battle wouldn’t be fought and no men would die this morning; but there would be another morning.
    With a whir of wings that shattered the morning stillness, the forest suddenly erupted, spewing forth birds of all sizes. They soared up from the trees, a cloud of them, noisy flaps that were crows, and whirring flutters that were warblers. Joining in a crowded sky, they drove straight over the approaching men and off toward the lab. Their calls were loud, and the men stopped still, startled by the sudden activity.
    Squirrels which had been nibbling along the edge of the woods suddenly were dashing headlong into the dimness, making for cover, and rabbits leaped after them.
    Then, up and over the highest elm came the skin and ball of a giant Eye. It sailed up in a great swoop, clearing the forest, and arcing down for the field.
    â€œThere’s another one.” Wes grabbed his arm. “To the west.”
    They came in a steady dive, now, eight of them—oval obscenities, wide-open, staring in a challenge that sent quivers of gooseflesh down Linc’s back. They banked and rolled and settled groundward with a swaying motion from side to side.
    â€œWhen are the fools going to open fire?” Hendricks cursed. “They’ll come right through to us, if they’re not stopped!”
    The Eyes were nearly over the heads of the fighting force, and just as Linc opened his mouth to scream orders, the guns jerked up and spat orange fire into the morning. The simultaneous explosion of forty guns was a thunder in his ears.
    The Eye Linc was watching shot upward twenty feet in a convulsive jerk, hung there for an instant, then started a wobbling descent. There were two holes in it. It skimmed the heads of the men, coming for Linc’s group. Tears streamed out of the corners of it, dripping to the ground like a trail of rain. And as it neared Linc, blood started to come, seeping from the holes, mixed with fluid.
    Wes was pulling him down, trying to make him crouch with the rest of them, but the sight of the Eye bearing down, bleeding and dying, held him frozen. It halted fifty feet away, ten feet above the ground, soaking the land and the leaves beneath it with red. A glaze came over it as though it had drawn into itself, and as its life ebbed before him, he cursed it, eager to watch it die.
    But the glaze that spread across it reached the bullet holes and the blood congealed on the edges of them. The glaze continued to spread, and before his horrified sight, the sides of the holes firmed up, drew themselves together from a gaping hole to a red line, and then the line changed color, the fresh purple of a scar fading to a gray that softened out until it was gone from sight.
    The Eye was whole again—healed and whole—and it gazed at him with the same empty, alien expression he had seen before. He stared back, into the iris that was bigger than his head, accepting its challenge. There was a pull upon him, a bodily pull, drawing him closer to it, compelling him to walk into it. He wanted to rip it apart with his hands; he wanted to rid the world of the sight of it. He stepped forward.
    â€œYou idiot!” Wes was upon him, knocking him down. “Get away from here. You haven’t got a gun!”
    Linc regained his feet and ran with Wes, sidetracking to go around the Eye. As he passed Hendricks, he heard the man muttering to himself, “They heal themselves. They congeal and heal, repeal the hole and make it