Was the Aurigan moved by anger? Had the pigs, in their blind charging, injured it? Gregory raised the gun and aimed.
As he did so, he saw a giant hallucinatory column in the air; enough dirt and mud and blood had been thrown up to spot the Aurigan and render him partly visible. Gregory fired.
The recoil nearly knocked him off his perch. He shut his eyes, dazed by the noise, and was dimly aware of Nancy clinging to him, shouting, “Oh, you marvellous man, you marvellous man]
You hit that old bor right smack on target!”
He opened his eyes and peered through the smoke and dust.
The shade that represented the Aurigan was tottering. It fell. It fell among the distorted shapes of the two sows it had killed, and corrupt fluids splattered over the paving. Then it rose again. They saw its progress to the broken door, and then it had gone.
For a minute, they sat there, staring at each other, triumph and speculation mingling on both their faces. Apart from one badly injured beast, the building was clear of pigs now.
Gregory climbed to the floor and helped Nancy down beside him. They skirted the loathsome messes as best they could and staggered into the fresh air.
Up beyond the orchard, strange lights showed in the rear windows of the farmhouse.
“It’s on fire! Oh, Greg, our poor home is afire! Quick, we must gather what we can! All Father’s lovely cases”
He held her fiercely, bent so that he spoke straight into her face. “Bert Neckland did this! He did it! He told me the place ought to be destroyed and that’s what he did.”
“Let’s go, then”
“No, no, Nancy, we must let it burn! Listen! There’s a wounded Aurigan loose here somewhere. We didn’t kill him. If those things feel rage, anger, spite, they’ll be set to kill us now don’t forget there’s more than one of *em! We aren’t going that way if we want to live. Daisy’s just across the meadow here, and she’ll bear us both safe home.”
“Greg, dearest, this is my home!” she cried in her despair.
The flames were leaping higher. The kitchen windows broke in a shower of glass. He was running with her in the opposite direction, shouting wildly, “I’m your home now! I’m your home now!”
Now she was running with him, no longer protesting, and they plunged together through the high rank grass.
When they gained the track and the restive mare, they paused to take breath and look back.
The house was well ablaze now. Clearly nothing could save it. Sparks had carried to the windmill, and one of the sails was ablaze. About the scene, the electric lights shone spectral and pale on the tops of their poles. An occasional running figure of a gigantic animal dived about its own purposes. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning and all the electric lights went out.
One of the stampeding animals had knocked down a pole; crashing into the pond, it short-circuited the system.
“Let’s get away,” Gregory said, and he helped Nancy on to the mare. As he climbed up behind her, a roaring sound developed, grew in volume, and altered in pitch. Abruptly it died again. A thick cloud of steam billowed above the pond.
From it rose the space machine, rising, rising, rising, suddenly a sight to take the heart in awe. It moved up into the soft night sky, was lost for a moment, began dully to glow, was seen to be already tremendously far away.
Desperately, Gregory looked for it, but it had gone, already beyond the frail confines of the terrestrial atmosphere. An awful desolation settled on him, the more awful for being irrational, and then he thought, and cried his thought aloud, “Perhaps they were only holiday-makers here! Perhaps they enjoyed themselves here, and will tell their friends of this little globe! Perhaps Earth has a future only as a resort for millions of the Aurigan kind!”
The church clock was striking midnight as they passed the first cottages of Cottersall.
“We’ll go first to the inn,” Gregory said. “I can’t well disturb Mrs. Fenn at this late hour, but your landlord will fetch us food and hot water and see that your cuts are bandaged.”