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the home of innocent sport!”
    It eluded Quatermass. “Now what did I read—?”
    “They call it the killing ground.”
    That was it! “They actually encourage—!”
    “Contain it, that was the notion. What the hell, they said, for the price of a few bodies!”
    “It didn’t work.”
    Kapp grinned. “What works?”
    Passing through Ealing they struck a road block. A squat figure waddled into view and held up a gauntleted hand. The mass of plastic armour, helmet, visor, riot shield dehumanized it completely. It also had a gun.
    “Pay cop,” said Kapp. “Got your ID?” He slipped a banknote under their cards and lowered the window.
    “Let us through, officer?”
    The pay cop lowered his gun, palmed the note. “We got a sniper here giving us trouble.”
    Quatermass recognized the clipped nasal accent. South African. He knew enough about them. He hoped Kapp had slipped him enough. The bit about a sniper sounded like a demand for more.
    But confirmation came with the sound of a shot.
    The pay cop grinned at them. “You want to risk it, hey?”
    “Yes.”
    “That way then, man. Make it fast.”
    Kapp swung the waggon. Glancing back, Quatermass saw more pay cops trundling clumsily between abandoned cars their guns at the ready. As their man ran to join them he jerked, then stood quite still.
    Why doesn’t he get under cover, fool, get down! But the pay cop sat down in the road like a toddler whose feet had gone from under him. Then he rolled over. His plastic mask was full of blood and it spilled out.
    Always death.
    The crow-picked skeleton of some animal, a sheep perhaps, lay in the middle of the motorway. Kapp swerved gently to avoid it.
    The road surface was rough and crumbling for long stretches. Speed was out of the question even though there was no sign of other traffic. The road stretched empty for miles ahead.
    “Like the Romans,” whispered Quatermass.
    “What?”
    “The roads the Romans made for their system. Their empire. And then . . . they went.”
    A motorway signboard, all its directions obliterated, covered with graffiti, WHO DONE IT ? THE SANE ARE MAD , THE MAD ARE SANE ! FEEL NOT THINK !
    Badders? Blue Brigade? These struck a different note.
    “Planet People,” said Kapp. Quatermass nodded. He had guessed as much.
    Kapp switched his radio on for a news bulletin. You always knew what to expect, not so much lies as a kind of twisted truth. At the end of it you would feel falsely cheered up, persuaded that things were worse in other countries. Like this one now. There was a reported promise that a serious attempt would be made to restore the North Sea pipelines by the end of the year. A robust official denial that four bodies found in Birmingham City Centre were those of kidnapped councillors. There had been a severe explosion with hundred of lives lost . . . but that was in Brazil.
    Then a late item on the space disaster. “The Government has firmly dissociated itself from the unauthorized statements made by a British scientist last night”—Quatermass looked quickly at Kapp—“which have led to a Soviet demand for a sabotage probe.”
    “I knew it!” shouted Kapp. He snapped the radio off in the middle of the power-cut rota.
    “They may not have meant—”
    “It’s you! They’re dropping you right in it!”
    A scapegoat. The ritual offering a pitifully weak country could make to a powerful, angry one. He would fill the bill. He should never have said those things he did, fatuous posturing. Days spent in indignant preparation, ridiculous now. Senile. If they said that about him, they would be right.
    “We’ll find out what really happened last night,” Kapp said. It was a promise, made with a young man’s vigour. “We’ll keep the stones off you.”
    Quatermass nodded. Soon he dozed.
    It was a deep pot-hole that woke him by sending him six inches up off his seat.
    Kapp was cursing, concerned for his tyres. The waggon was on a minor road now, winding and undulating. Along a