The aliens wooed Earth with gifts, love, patience and peace. Who could resist them? After all, no one shoots Santa Claus! Daniel Matson eyed the weapon with bleak gray eyes, the eyes of a hunter framed in the passionless face of an executioner. His blunt hands were steady as they lifted the gun and tried a dry shot at an imaginary target. He nodded to himself. He was ready. Carefully he laid the rifle down on the mattress, which covered the floor of his firing point, and looked out through the hole in the brickwork to the narrow canyon of the street below.
