"Give it here," I said. And used a little of Schmendrick's Magic lessons.

Extra hands. Mine, invisible, fast, and I was holding their rifles in a clumsy armful. I threw the guns overhand, whipping them past a few rows of black statues.

They responded differently: one flat-out ran, which made sense. The other went for his sidearm, a pistol I'd never seen the like of. I grabbed the bullets from the clip, from the entirety of the gun, showed them to him in my palm, let them patter to the grass at my feet.

His eyes widened. I heard Commander Grayson Pitt approaching fast, his boots on that polished floor. I spun, reached, grabbed for this and that. Among other things, I had the little weapon he'd been holding, a buzzing thing that made sparks.

"Gross," I said, and threw it the same way I'd thrown the rifles. "Everyone done?"

"All done," said Schmendrick through the Radio.

Then the Radio began playing a rousing big-band number, one I knew as Sing Sing Sing by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra. The drums boomed, the horns blared, and it was a pretty cool song, no denying it.

Shouts and cries of alarm. Stampeding feet. Human feet in boots, running away from the shore, away from the camp. Other feet pursuing them. Pointy ones.

Many small, picklike feet, each set of ten supporting the armored bulk of a Maker. There were many of them, possibly thirty, each of them at least the size of a refrigerator. Each maker was a kind of sentient crustacean, a hermit crab that devoted its life to making the most distinctive, coolest shell it could make.

Their shells were gleaming chrome, black iron in all shapes, brass, tin, glass, gemstone. The Makers were flooding in from the ocean, all interested in this new Human technology that had been delivered to their neighborhood. I could see the glyphs of their communication: excitement, joy, laughter.

"Stand down!" It was Commander Pitt, sighting down the barrel of his futuristic pistol. Aimed at me. "Stand down and call off your attack!"

"Are you serious?"

He pulled the trigger, his face red, snarling. Click, no bullets; I'd already harvested them when I'd snagged his nasty little stunner.

I stepped forward. "Cool it with the guns, man," and grabbed the pistol from him with my actual Owen hands, not my Magic Schmendrick Soul Hands.

He reared back, shielding his face. "Get on the ground now!" he shouted. Like he had a set number of lines he could use.

"Will you please relax? If you don't, the guys will probably have to kill you, dude."

The two solid buildings were being neatly dismantled by the team of Makers. Their intricate technological goodies were exposed to the greedy claws of the armored aliens.

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"That's not your property," Grayson Pitt shouted. He was getting control over himself. "This is an act of aggression and will be answered by the authorities."

"The authorities are me," I said. "And the guys. Schmendrick, you're an authority."

"Okay sure." She faded into visibility. She'd been at Grayson's side the entire exchange, watching him, waiting to see if he would need killing. I was glad he hadn't needed killing. Five more of her pack flickered out of the Stalk, surrounding Commander Pitt.

Grayson Pitt up and ran. He fled past his cool table, me, and his unrecognizable camp. The Makers were dissecting what had to be attack drones, and it looked like Christmas for them.

"Kind of disappointing," I said to Schmendrick. "The first guy? He was badass."

"None of us were hurt. I'm not disappointed at all."

The soldiers were clumped in a corner of the Obsidian Chorus, disarmed, discouraged and terrified. I'd thought military training would have better prepared them for this, but I suppose it's a lot to deal with all at once.

I rounded the corner accompanied by Schmendrick, five of her pack and two Makers. "Anyway," I said. "Commander Pitt, are you here?"

He slowly walked around his cover, which was a big statue of a sort of sentient pachyderm elephant situation, holding a fencing saber with its trunk.

"Any injuries?" I asked him, the group in general. "Everyone okay?"

He watched the Makers and Los Cazadores warily. He looked haggard, tired. "No casualties,"

"I'm glad. I'm here to let you know that this is officially an act of war against the Feast of Fools. We declare war against whoever sent you. Who was it, for official purposes?"

A chorus of replies: "Taco Bell!." "I always thought it was Tesla." "Your mom!"

"Wasn't my mom. I need to know who I'm dealing with going forward, the heirarchical nature of Human societies will demand it. Who are you here fighting for, officially?"

"What are your intentions," Commander Pitt asked. He wasn't afraid, I think he knew we weren't going to hurt his people. We'd have done it already.

"What were your intentions, coming here?"

"Invasion." He swallowed. "A beachhead, establishing a presence, working with the locals, all that. But it was invasion, no doubt about it."

"Invasion by whom, officially? Officially."

He stood a little straighter. "The United States government. What are your intentions, Mr. Walsh?"

He struck me as a weak person. I'd expected military training to be something that made good people, respectable people. I'd had an uncle in the Navy, long ago. I'd admired him. It seemed likely that the training of old was long gone.

"Mr. Walsh?" He was waiting. Then he said: "Damn..."

Because the group of them, the entire batch of undisciplined militia men, were being squeezed.

Their hands were rounding, fingers disappearing. Their arms were suddenly like sleeve-wearing hot dogs, rounded with cloth on the end. Then their legs, shrinking towards their bodies which hovered in midair. Then their torsos, and finally their heads were gone with a pop.

It was a four-dimensional push. Or pull, in this case?

Pitt's face was insistent, shouting as he was yanked into another slice, back to Earth. "Mr. Walsh! Your intentions!"

I had just enough time to tell his shrinking head with his anxious face. "Me too," I said. "Invasion."

Then the entire crew of idiots was gone.

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