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Renshaw stood up, not hurrying, and backed across the roohts

The Vietna the brown paper beneath it rattle It suddenly overbalanced and fell to the carpet with a soft thud, landing on one end The hinged top opened a crack of perhaps two inches

Tiny foot soldiers, about an inch and a half tall, began to -crawl out Renshaatched the His mind made no effort to cope with the real or unreal aspect of what he was seeing - only with the possible consequences for his survival

The soldiers earing ues, hel across their shoulders Two of them looked briefly across the roolittered

Five, ten, twelve, then all twenty One of the the others They lined thean to push The crack began to widen

Renshaw picked one of the large pillows off the couch and began to walk towards theestured The others whirled and unslung their carbines There were tiny, al sounds, and Renshaw felt suddenly as if he had been stung by bees

He threw the pillow It struck the, then hit the box and knocked it wide open Insectlike, with a faint, high whirring noise like chiggers, a cloud of reen, rose out of the box

Tiny phut! phut! sounds reached Renshaw's ears and he saw pinprick-sizedfroht arot one - sudden pain in his fingers; blood welling The whirling blades had chopped theonal scarlet hashhim like horseflies

The stricken copter thu and lay still

Sudden excruciating pain in his footon his shoe and bayoneting his ankle The tiny face looked up, panting and grinning

Renshaw kicked at it and the tiny body flew across the room to splatter on the wall It did not leave blood but a viscid purple smear

There was a tiny, coughing explosion and blinding agony ripped his thigh One of the bazooka men had come out of the footlocker A small curl of smoke rose lazily fro and saw a blackened, s hole in his pants the size of a quarter The flesh beneath was charred

The little bastard shot me!

He turned and ran into the hall, then into his bedroom One of the helicopters buzzed past his cheek, blades whirring busily The small stutter of a BAR Then it darted away

The gun beneath his pilloas a 44 Magnuh anything it hit Renshaw turned, holding the pistol in both hands He realized coolly that he would be shooting at a ht bulb

Two of the copters whirred in Sitting on the bed, Renshaw fired once One of the helicopters exploded into nothingness That's two, he thought He drew a bead on the secondsqueezed the trigger

It jigged! Goddaed!

The helicopter swooped at hi with blinding speed Renshaw caught a glimpse of one of the BARhis weapon in short, deadly bursts, and then he threw himself to the floor and rolled

My eyes, the bastard was going for my eyes!

He caun held at chest level But the copter was retreating It seenition of Renshaw's superior firepower Then it was gone, back towards the living room

Renshaw got up, wincing as his weight ca freely And why not? he thought griets hit point-blank with a bazooka shell and lives to tell about it

So Moirl, was she? She was all that and a bit more

He shook a pillowcase free of the tick and ripped it into a bandage for his leg, then took his shaving , he shoved it out on to the carpet at an angle and peered in

They were bivouacking by the footlocker, damned if they weren't Miniature soldiers ran hither and thither, setting up tents Jeeps two inches high raced about i over the soldier Renshaw had kicked The reht copters flew in a protective swarm overhead, at coffee-table level

Suddenly they became aware of the mirror, and three of the foot soldiers dropped to one knee and began firing Seconds later the mirror was shattered in four places Okay, okay, then

Renshaent back to the bureau and got the heavy iven him for Christmas He hefted it once, nodded, and went to the doorway and lunged through He wound up and fired like a pitcher throwing a fast ball The box described a swift, true vector and smashed little men like ninepins One of the jeeps rolled over twice Renshaw advanced to the doorway of the living rooave it to him

Several of the others had recovered So formally Others had taken cover

Still others had retreated back into the footlocker

The bee stings began to pepper his legs and torso, but none reached higher than his rib cage Perhaps the range was too great It didn'tturned away This was it

He odda one sent another soldier into a broken sprawl

The copters were buzzing towards hian to splat into his face, above and below his eyes He potted the lead copter, then the second Jagged streaks of pain silvered his vision

The res His face ith blood and he swiped at it with his forearain when he paused The soldiers who had retreated inside the footlocker were trundling so that looked like