Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition, December 1955 — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE WAITABITS | 39 no sign of them, not a spit or a button. Ergo, they don’t like us. They’ve crawled into a hole because they lack the muscle to do something effective. They’ve ducked under cover hoping we’ll go away and play some place else.” ‘“‘An alternative theory,” put in Walterson, “‘is that they’re tough and formidable just as Boydell implied. They have kept their distance because they’re wise enough to fight on ground of their own choosing and not on ours. If they refuse to come here, we’ve got to go there or accept stalemate. So they are making ready for us to walk into their parlor, after which’”’— he wiped a forefinger across his throat—“‘skzzt!”’ ““Bunk!”’ said Pascoe. : “We'll soon learn where we stand one way or the other,” Leigh informed. “I’ve ordered Williams to get the helicopter out. The Waitabits can’t avoid seeing that thing whooshing around. We’ll learn plenty if they don’t shoot it down.” ‘‘And if they do shoot it down?” inquired Pascoe. “That question will be answered if and when it arises,” Leigh assured. ‘““You know as well as I do the law that hostility must not be accepted until demonstrated.” He went to the port, gazed across the scene to the tree-swathed hills be- yond. After a while he reached for his binoculars, focused them upon the mid-distance. “Holy smoke!”’ he said. Pascoe ran to his side. ““What’s the matter?” ; ‘““Something’s coming at last. And it’s a train, no less.”” He handed over the glasses. ‘“Take a look for yourself.” A dozen crewmen were on the track industriously filing from a rail suffi- cient metallic powder to be analyzed in the lab. They straightened up as the line conducted sounds of the newcomer’s approach. Shading their eyes, they stood like men paralyzed while they gaped toward the east. A couple of miles away the streamlined express came tearing around the base of a hill at nothing less than one and a half miles per hour. The men remained staring incredulously for ten minutes during which time the phenomenon covered a full quarter mile. The Thunderer’s siren wailed a warning, the sample-takers recovered their wits and without undue exertion made more speed up the forty-degree bluff than the possible menace was doing on the flat. The last of them had sufficient presence of mind to bring with him an ounce of dust that Shallom later defined as titanium alloy. Monstrous and imposing, the Thunderer sat waiting for first official contact. Every port held at least three expectant faces watching the track and the train. Every mind took it for granted that the oncoming machine would halt at the base of the bluff and things weird in shape emerge there- from in readiness to parley. Nobody thought for a moment that it might pass on. It did pass on. The train consisted of four linked metal coaches and no locomotive, the Source of power not being evident. The tiny cars, less than the height of a COMMGCHOOKS.COM