This can't be happening, thought Alan.

Heath, in the meantime, was too busy dodging to think. A bolt of energy flew through the spot his head had occupied a split-second earlier, and ripped a chunk of metal out of a wall beam. The Thrag took aim at Heath again, but by this time the poodle man had found a convenient object to use as a shield.

Grabbing Tegan by the arms, he quickly wrenched her into a sitting position in front of him. Her legs dangled over the bed, and her expressionless head flopped back onto his shoulder.

"What the…" said Mrs. Powers in amazement. "Leave her alone!"

To Heath's elation, the helmeted alien ceased firing for the moment, waving its gun back and forth as if trying to get a fix on him without harming Tegan. Seeing this as an opportunity to escape, he dragged the comatose girl from her bed and stepped backwards toward the hospital room's exit, holding her rigidly between himself and the Thrag's weapon.

"Put her down, you cowardly bastard!" shouted Mr. Powers as Heath hurried past him. The alien, for its part, knocked the bed over with a sweep of its long arm, and sprang in the direction of the fleeing reporter.

It didn't spring far. Alan threw himself to his knees in the creature's path, causing it to stumble and plunge to the floor. "Run!" he counseled his parents.

As Mr. and Mrs. Powers departed the room with haste, Alan slowed down the alien further by hopping along its back and helmet. Tiring of this, he took one brief over-the-shoulder glance at the crackling space portal before heading out. I could've jumped through, and maybe found out what's going on, he said to himself. Or, I could've jumped through, and gotten myself killed.

He found his father waiting in the corridor; his wife was at his side, cradling the unconscious Tegan in her arms. "Where's Heath?" he inquired.

"That's what I'd like to know," said Mr. Powers, tightening his fists.

"What an awful man," Mrs. Powers remarked. "He just dumped Tegan on the floor like a sack of garbage. I hope she didn't hurt her head again."

Alan was about to start running again, when he noticed that nothing was coming out of the hospital room where his sister had laid. "Why isn't it chasing us?" he wondered.

"I don't care," said his father. "Let's get Tegan out of this place. It isn't safe."

His curiosity taking over, Alan flattened himself against the wall and shuffled to the doorway, taking a quick look inside. The bed was still overturned, but the portal and the alien had vanished. He sighed with relief.

"It's gone," he informed his parents.

"It could be hiding," said his mother. "Get back here."

"I don't think it wants to kill kids," said Alan, creeping into the room. Everywhere he looked, there was no sign of the extraterrestrial intruder.

His parents entered the suite cautiously. "Do you know what it was, Alan?" asked Mrs. Powers, clutching Tegan to her breast.

"It was a Thrag," Alan replied. "Thrags are space cops. They enforce the laws of the Alliance."

"What Alliance?" his father inquired.

"It's a federation of planets," Alan told him. "I've talked to Thrags before—they were friendly and helpful, like Earth policemen. I don't know why they'd want to kill Holcombe."

"Maybe they thought he was responsible for the cancellation of Star Trek," Mrs. Powers joked grimly.

"Or maybe one of his tabloid stories hit too close to the truth," her husband speculated.

While the hospital staff moved Tegan to another room and examined her, the rest of the Powers family argued with police about the details of the mysterious attack. They saw neither hide nor hair of Heath Holcombe…

…until they had seated themselves in the family car, eager to return home after a stressful visit. The relentless reporter suddenly appeared at the driver's side window, knocking loudly.

Against his better judgment, Mr. Powers lowered the window. "You've got some nerve," he snarled.

"There's something in that hospital room the aliens don't want me to see," Heath ranted. "Not only that, but your son knows more about them than he's letting on. Just who are the Thrags, exactly, and how are they tied in with the Brainchildren? You may think it's none of my business, but it is my business, and the business of every freedom-loving man, woman, and child on Earth."

"You're crazy," said Mr. Powers, raising the window.

"It's that kind of thinking that's going to get this planet conquered!" yelled Heath as the car pulled away from him.

Being nearly killed by a Thrag had only doubled the Weekly Spyglass reporter's determination. Seeing he would get nowhere with the Powers family, he sought out the one person in Elwood City whom he had heard openly confess to being an alien.

"Yes, I know who the Thrags are," Sue Ellen related. "They're like the policemen of the galaxy—except they're not men, really. They don't have male and female, boy and girl, like we do."

"Fascinating," muttered Heath, scribbling on his notepad. The poodle man, now wearing a blue overcoat, fedora, and dark glasses, had taken a seat next to the girl in the Krantz living room.

"The Thrags I met were nice," Sue Ellen went on. "They helped us rescue Buster when he was abducted by Yordilians. Maybe there are bad Thrags—I don't know."

"I should like to talk to Buster about his experience as an abductee," said Heath. "Unfortunately, his mother won't allow it."

"You could try George," Sue Ellen suggested. "He and Buster are always talking about alien stuff."

Heath looked at his watch. "You've been very helpful," he said, rising quickly.

"You're leaving already?" said Sue Ellen. "You just got here."

"I don't know what kind of device the Thrags are using to determine my location," said Heath in a hurried tone, "but I don't dare stay in the same place too long."

His next stop was George's house, where Mr. Nordgren redirected him to Muffy's condo. Heath was welcomed in by Mrs. Crosswire, and found the two children watching TV while holding hands.

"Hey ho," he greeted them, tipping his hat politely.

"It's that nutty reporter again," moaned George.

"He may be nutty," said Muffy wistfully, "but he's an impeccable judge of female beauty."

Heath went right to the point, holding up a sketch he had made of a round-headed figure. "Have you seen this alien?" he inquired.

Muffy and George immediately recognized the humanoid shape—they had seen similar creatures.

George leaned over to his girlfriend. "We should tell him," he whispered in her ear.

"You tell him," Muffy whispered back. "I made a promise."

George swallowed and looked at Heath seriously. "Yes," he replied, "we have. Aliens like that one arrested the Belnaps."

"Belnaps?" said Heath curiously.

"A mom and three girls who lived here for a while," George continued. "They turned out to be aliens themselves—illegal aliens."

"I've got pictures," said Muffy, bounding off the couch.

She led George and Heath to her computer, where a photo directory contained images she had taken with her digital camera. Among them were several high-resolution pictures of the Belnap triplets at a picnic with the rest of Mrs. Krantz' fifth-grade class.

"They all looked the same," Muffy commented. "We could only tell them apart from the letters on their foreheads."

Noticing Heath's intrigued expression, George asked, "Do you recognize them?"

The poodle man shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not."

"That one's Becky," said George, pointing at one of the cat girls on the screen. "She was my girlfriend for a while."

"She has a lovely face," Heath remarked.

"She does," George agreed. "I guess that's why I…"

He stopped in mid-sentence, feeling a tingling in his antlers.

"George?" said Muffy in a concerned tone.

"It's…happening…again," muttered the moose boy.

Muffy's eyes went wide with panic. "Omigosh…they're here…"

Heath was the last of the three to notice the portal that had appeared without warning, and the armed, uniformed alien that had begun to step through it.

He leaped upward, nearly knocking over George and Muffy. Reaching into the folds of his overcoat, he drew out a black revolver and raised it toward the menacing figure.

Before he could get off a shot, the alien's weapon discharged a ray directly into his chest. Heath hurtled backwards, his overcoat flapping, the gun in his hand spinning across the room. Muffy screamed with fright.

As Heath landed on the carpet and became lifeless, his revolver hit the floor between the two children. George, certain that the Thrag would come after them next, quickly reached for the weapon and lifted it into the air.

"He's gonna kill us!" Muffy shrieked.

George raised his head in time to see the alien swiveling its long arm so that the barrel of its firearm now faced him and Muffy. Death was coming, and he knew he had to act bravely and promptly.

Sucking up his breath, he pointed Heath's revolver at the Thrag and squeezed the trigger…

to be continued