The entrance to the tunnel was in the basement, through a door that looked like any other door.
Blekeke took off the earphones he was wearing and tossed them aside.
"This 'nizer blow up with house," he said.
The tunnel was wide, straight and brightly lighted. The opposite end was a small black dot, but it didn't take us long to get there.
My thoughts were running wild, now that no one was listening.
The dogs had bothered Blekeke, but how badly? He seemed so damned sure of himself now. No hesitation at all. Or--was it merely resignation? I didn't know. But if he once got us aboard that spaceship, his plan had a ridiculously good chance of succeeding.
... And would that be so bad? Were his motives so ignoble, or his methods so very atrocious?
I drove that line of thought from my mind. I could think about that later....
From the outside entrance of the tunnel, the dark spaceship seemed disturbingly close, and the expanse between it and us free of impediments of any kind. Only fifty or sixty quick steps, and then....
The Martians at the ship saw us and climbed aboard. The ship was beginning to vibrate again.
The two policemen were wandering around by the water's edge. We could hear the dogs howling. Several others had joined in now, but we couldn't see them. They were above us.
"Walk slow to ship," Blekeke instructed, tenseness obvious in his voice.
"Casual. Like nothing. I right behind."
Maxwell and I glanced at each other and stepped from the aperture to the gravelly beach and started walking very slowly and casually toward the spaceship.
We had gone about ten feet when we heard, in the short intervals when the dogs weren't howling, the crunching footsteps of Blekeke behind us.
They were faltering.
I couldn't resist a backward glance.
I saw about a half-dozen dogs on the hill behind and above Blekeke. They were squatting on their haunches, noses pointed at the spaceship, and they were creating the damnedest racket I had ever heard. Surely the cops would at least _suspect_ something!
Blekeke was walking stiffly, slowly, keeping the blaster pointed at us, making a visible effort not to turn around.
"Hey, you goddam dogs!" one of the policemen on the beach shouted.
"Shut the hell up!" He picked up a rock and threw it, but he was too far away. The missile whizzed low over my head. I ducked instinctively, turning to see where the stone hit. It missed the dogs by a good fifteen or twenty feet.
Other policemen were appearing from the direction of the road, running anxiously toward the dogs, looking in the direction the dogs were pointing.
And seeing nothing.
Other dogs were appearing, too, some well within the vision of Blekeke--but another quick glance showed me that he was staring rigidly ahead and walking steadily.
We were entering the shadow of the spaceship. Less than twenty feet to go. Even in the dim light, I could almost distinguish the features of the Martian waiting there to haul us aboard.
The policemen on the beach were now walking back to join the others. The one who had yelled and thrown the stone now whistled shrilly, and shouted, "Commere, you lousy, flea-bitten mutts, and shut up!"
He whistled again. Insistently.
One dog stopped howling and slunk forward timidly, then halted.
The whistle was a shrill command.
I heard a soft gasp, perhaps a sob, from Blekeke.
The dog trotted slowly, reluctantly, forward, tail between its legs, growling and whining at the same time.
"Running! Running! Hurry!" Blekeke screamed.
Instead, I turned around to watch, and so did Maxwell.
The policeman continued to whistle. Another dog, a large, shaggy collie, left the pack. But it was not timid, and it paid no attention to the policemen--it had seen Blekeke, and it rushed at him, snarling and yapping.
The Martian made a gurgling noise. A shudder shook his frame, and he turned and fired.
I was watching, without really comprehending what I saw, the policeman who had been whistling. Abruptly he stopped whistling. He was _looking_.
But not at the dogs, nor at the other policemen. Not even at the shaggy collie that vanished suddenly in a blinding flash.
He was looking at the spaceship. And seeing it. He rubbed a hand across his eyes.
When the collie was hit, the terrier which had slunk forward turned. At five feet from Blekeke, it growled and leaped at him.
Blekeke collapsed. The blaster dropped from his hand, and he crumpled into a trembling, twitching, sobbing lump on the ground.
I rushed to grab the blaster, and Maxwell kicked the snarling, frightened dog away.
At the same time, the policeman yelled, "Jupiter! It _is_ a spaceship! I knew I seen somethin'. I may have had a drink, but I ain't crazy!"
He fired while he was yelling, and the Martian who had been leaning from the port ducked inside. The ship shuddered and rose quickly, with a rumble that was almost drowned by the racket the dogs were making.
The policeman rubbed his eyes. "Huh?... I coulda swore I saw a spaceship. Right _there_. Just _now_. Just a second ago."
"Man, you really _are_ drunk," his companion said.
The house blew up an instant later. No policemen were killed or injured in the explosion. They were all gathered on the beach to see why the dogs were howling.
It took a bit of explaining.