He looked at Watkins. Watkins, seated opposite him, had his hands clasped behind his neck and was rocking gently back and forth.
Dukakis was not amused by the whole situation. But he had begun to wonder if this might be some sort of plot. He thought about old political rivalries. He thought about the Soviets, and the Mafia. Was someone out to get him? Was he being paranoid? Where did paranoia end and prudence begin?
At last the elevator came to a stop. Watkins opened the door.
Outside there was a long corridor.
“Now we walk,” Watkins said. “I’m sorry about that, but this part of the transportation system hasn’t been completed yet. I don’t need to tell you who’s behind the delay.”
Dukakis didn’t know what Watkins was talking about but decided not to ask. “Where are we?” he asked.
“Dulces, New Mexico. Underneath it, I mean. In the topmost level of the alien underground base.”
“But what are we here for?”
“They need to know your decision, Mr. President.”
“On what?”
“Well, sir, that’s what the briefing will be all about.”
They walked down a tunnel-like corridor. It had curving sides, and there were lights recessed into the ceiling. The walls seemed to be made of polished aluminum. There was a soft hum, as of machinery somewhere behind the walls.
Dukakis was getting a little more nervous now. He knew he shouldn’t have come out here without a bodyguard. And he ought to have checked up on Watkins before following him blindly like this, all the way to New Mexico. If only he’d had a day or two in office to accustom himself to command! He hoped he didn’t end up paying for being too easygoing.
They continued down the long tubular hallway with the little lights spaced at three-foot intervals in the ceiling. Neither was saying anything.
After a while Dukakis could see a door at the end of the hall. There was a guard standing in front of it. The guard was very tall, and he was dressed in a dark blue uniform with crimson and gold epaulets. Dukakis made a mental note to find out what branch of the service the guard belonged to. His uniform was not familiar. Dukakis noted also that the man’s face was a featureless blank.
“Who is that guy?” Dukakis asked in a whisper.
“Oh, he’s one of the Synthetics,” Watkins said. “Don’t worry, he’s on our side.”
They stopped in front of the guard.
“May we pass?” Watkins asked.
“Just a minute,” the guard said. He was holding an odd-shaped handgun with a flaring bell-shaped muzzle. “Papers, please.”
Watkins took two plastic-enclosed folders from one of his inside pockets and handed them to the guard.
The guard glanced at them, nodded. “Now I must perform the physical inspection.”
“Certainly not!” Watkins said. “Not on him. He’s the President!”
“I have my orders,” the guard said. “You know what they say: in the Goblin Universe, anyone can wear anyone’s face.”
“But this place is fully shielded against intrusion.”
“That’s what they thought at Ada, Oklahoma,” the guard said.
“Oh,” Watkins said. “I had forgotten.”
“Please, sir, don’t make me use force.”
“Oh, very well.” Watkins turned to Dukakis. “It’s just a formality, sir. He needs to look up your nostrils with a little instrument.”
“I don’t entirely understand—” Dukakis gasped as the guard seized him, pulled him forward. It seemed best not to resist. The guard tilted Dukakis’s head back with one hand and shone a small light up his nostrils with the other. He peered into both nostrils, then turned off his light and released Dukakis.
“You may proceed,” the guard said.
Dukakis was still stunned. Watkins pulled him down the corridor. The two men walked along in silence for a while, until the guard was out of sight.
“What was that all about?” Dukakis asked.
“He was looking for implants, sir,” Watkins said.
“What are implants?”
“Controlling devices put directly into the brain. They insert them up the nostril, sir, into an area near the optic nerve. Implanted subjects have no control over their actions.”
Dukakis frowned. “I do not believe the nostril connects directly with the optic nerve area.”
“I realize that, sir. They have to drill a tiny laser hole and then put in the insert.”
“Who is this ‘They’ ? Who does this?”
“We’re not entirely sure,” Watkins said. “At first we thought it was the Zeta Reticulis Grays, but now we’re not. We suspect the implanting to be the work of advance elements of reptiloids from Draco. There’s still a chance it’s being done by the Grays, however, since no one has seen a reptiloid on Earth and lived to report it.”
“Who are these Grays?” Dukakis asked.
Watkins smiled ironically. “We used to think they were our friends. Now some of us are having second thoughts about working with them. But please don’t tell them I said so.” Watkins glanced at his watch. “Damn! We’re really late! And there’s miles of corridor ahead. But I think there’s a shortcut around here somewhere . . .”
Watkins felt along the wall, found a place, pushed it. A section of the wall slid out, revealing another, smaller passageway.
It was dark inside. Dukakis looked at Watkins questioningly. “Please don’t balk now,” Watkins said. “We simply have to do it.” Dukakis grimaced, shrugged, and followed Watkins into the hole.
They walked along in the dark for a while. Then the corridor widened out and there were low lights set into the walls. By this dim glow Dukakis could make out that they were in a large room furnished with big vats, bathtubs, and stone tables.
“What sort of place is this?” Dukakis asked.
“Well, it’s a sort of workshop,” Watkins said. “I’m sorry I have to bring you through here, sir, but we are in a hurry.”
As Dukakis’s eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he saw there were hooks set into the low stone ceiling. From those hooks hung chunks of meat, still dripping with blood. Dukakis could see coils of entrails hanging over several hooks. Some of the chunks of meat were entire torsos, thighs, hams, buttocks. All or most of them appeared to be human. As he became aware of this, the rank, rotting smell of the meat rose up and assailed his nostrils.
“Ugh!” cried Dukakis.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Watkins said, handing the president a handkerchief that had been impregnated with a strong perfume.
“Those dripping things hanging from the hooks . . .”
“I know, sir. It doesn’t look good. I’m sorry we had to come this way.”
They came to a row of white porcelain bathtubs. Each was filled with what seemed to be a noisome and horrific experiment. In one, there was a headless male torso, and from the region of its stomach a hand was growing. The other tubs contained similar necrotic apparitions.
“Gawk,” Dukakis said, retching.
Watkins shook his head and in a grim voice said, “It is what comes of aliens using the Earth as a dumping ground for genetic engineering projects from all over the galaxy for all these years. We’ve complained about it, sir.”
Farther on they passed a big vat seven feet deep, ten yards long by five yards wide. In it were hunks of meat, both animal and human—haunches, shoulders, hands. Splashing around among the hunks of meat were small gray men. They seemed to be having a good time. They were playing a sort of volleyball with human heads.
Dukakis mastered himself. “Who is responsible for this atrocity?”
Watkins said grimly, “It seems to be the work of the Short Grays of Zeta Reticuli. The other Grays, the tall ones, rely on glandular secretions and follow a much less messy procedure. It’s those damned Short Grays who like to bathe in the stuff, even though it isn’t strictly necessary for their survival.”
“It’s not?” Dukakis said.
“No, sir. They coul
d take care of their bodily needs much more quietly by a mincing of human and animal parts painted onto their vital organs with a fine-haired brush. But no, they insist on bathing with the human parts.”
“But why?” Dukakis asked.
“They give many reasons, but the chief thing seems to be to serve their perverted sense of humor.”
“You mean they find this sort of thing funny?” Dukakis asked.
“Yes, sir. I’m afraid so. They start giggling as soon as they get into the vat. When they push the first floating parts aside, they begin to get their first bursts of hysterical laughter.”
“But that’s horrible!”
“It is a sure sign of their alienness,” Watkins said. “Aliens don’t have much regard for things that are sacred to us humans, like our bodies.”
Dukakis and Watkins walked on and at last came out of the dark passageway and into a brightly lit area.
Dukakis thought it looked quite like an immense airplane hangar at night. It was lit brilliantly. Several 747s were parked in corners of the hangar. Big as they were, they were dwarfed by the size of the structure itself.
An open-sided bus came out of a passageway and speeded toward Dukakis and Watkins. At the last moment it skidded to a halt. A door opened in the bus. A man came out, and said to Watkins, “Is that the new president there?”
“Yes, Budkins,” Watkins said. “He’s here.”
“We need to confer with him at Central Planning at once.”
“I’m afraid there’s no time for that,” Watkins said. “He’s seen the feeding vats. I think I’d better get him back to Washington immediately.”
“Couldn’t he just come to the meeting, and tell us what he thinks about Evacuation Plan Craven B?”
“My dear fellow,” Watkins said, “he’s only just learned about the alien conspiracy. There’s been no time to brief him on the evacuation plan.”
“Even a snap judgment would be useful.”
“Out of the question,” Watkins said.
“No, wait a moment,” Dukakis said. “I want to hear this. What is the evacuation plan, Mr. Budkins?”
Budkins said, “The proposition, Mr. President, was that in the event of attack and takeover of America by aliens, all male government officials from the level of GSC 04 and higher would be led to the secret spaceships and taken to our secret Mars colony.”
“What about their families?” Dukakis asked.
“No time for that, sir. Sometimes it’s better to begin again. On Mars the male government personnel would begin a program of breeding, using for that purpose the bodies of secretarial female personnel who would be transported to Mars for that purpose.”
“I’m not sure what I think of that,” Dukakis said. “Government officials should stick to their posts, even if the ship is sinking.”
At that moment a diminutive figure with a bald head, standing about three and a half feet high, wearing a black uniform with silver markings, and carrying on his back a small backpack, stepped out of the wall, crossed the corridor and stepped into the wall on the opposite side, disappearing into (or perhaps behind) it.
“What was that?” Dukakis asked, startled.
“I didn’t get a good look,” Watkins said, “but I think it was one of the Very Short Grays from Belletrix. What they call the Small Men from Belletrix.”
“But he walked through the walls!”
“Yes, sir. It was made possible by that special backpack you might have noticed he was wearing. I sure wish we could get our hands on a couple of those things.”
“What could you do with them?”
“They’d enable us to search the aliens out and find out for ourselves just what they’re up to. It’s very confusing not knowing for sure.”
At that moment Dukakis suddenly had had enough. “I gotta get out of here,” he said. He looked at Watkins and Budkins. Their faces were pale, fanatical, inhuman. Budkins raised a hand in which there was something white and soft and ugly. Dukakis turned and ran. He heard a splintering explosion behind him. He continued running, turned a corner, and found a branching of the ways. He chose the left branch and continued down the polished steel tube.
Ten minutes later they had Dukakis cornered. He turned to face them. Suddenly a smile broke out across his glum face. He raised one hand. In it was a Wand of Power.
“My God!” cried Watkins. “Where did he get that?”
“More to the point,” Budkins said, “who is he, really?”
“No time to find out,” Watkins said. “Have you got your laser cane?”
“Of course.” Budkins took the small rod out of his right-hand jacket pocket. Pressing the expansion stud, he caused the rod to extend to its full three feet. Watkins had done the same.
“Ready?” Watkins asked.
“Ready!” Budkins said.
“Then let’s fire!”
Caught in the intersecting laser beams, the figure of Dukakis leaped and kicked, transfixed by the twin beams like a bug on a pin. He struggled and writhed, but he did not fall. His face changed, lengthened, whitened, became unfamiliar. His hands grew, changed color from hairy brown to glassy green. Those hands grasped the twin laser beams, and their touch seemed to render the energy beams palpable. Dukakis’s hands twisted, and the laser beams fell apart like shattered glowing glass-strands. Dukakis straightened and turned toward Watkins and Budkins, his body hunched over in a posture of aggression. He started toward them and they cowered back. Budkins dropped his laser rod and pulled out a .45. He fired, and the slug recoiled from Dukakis’s chest. Laughing horribly, Dukakis reached out with his terrible hooked hands . . .
And at that moment Watkins pulled out a strange-looking handgun. He squeezed the firing stud. A white light shot out, touched Dukakis, and instantly covered him with coruscating energy. Dukakis screamed as his body fluids boiled off. His body moisture vaporized, and the paper-dry nerves and flesh flared up briefly and died away. A few wisps of black ash floated to the floor.
“Are you all right?” Watkins asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Budkins said. “But who or what was that?”
“Something or someone we hadn’t anticipated,” Watkins said.
“A new player in the Earth game?” Budkins asked.
“Yes,” said Watkins. “There always was the possibility that the Teal Greens of Aldebaran, who have hitherto showed no interest in Earth, would take a hand.”
“As if we didn’t have enough problems,” Watkins said. “Now the Teal Greens!”
“But I think we can still do something about it,” Budkins said. “You must contact the Master Programmer at once. Tell her it’s essential she take a couple of months off the Earth Main Sequence Time Clock and reset for a Bush victory.”
Watkins wasn’t sure. “You know how she hates to redo human history. You know what she says: too many anomalies spoil the construct.”
“She’s got to do it,” Budkins said. “The time-line of the Bush presidency is now the only available one that doesn’t have the Teal Greens taking over. It’ll give us a breathing-space to mount a defense against them.”
“All right,” Watkins said. “I’ll do it. But you know the time-line forecast: with Bush we get the Kuwait invasion and the Persian Gulf War.”
“I know,” Budkins said, “but what can we do? It’s either that or the Teal Greens.”
“All right.” He went to the door, then turned. “What do you want us to do about Dukakis in this new time-line?”
“Don’t worry about him. It’s Bush we have to worry about now.”
THE STAND ON LUMINOS
Frank Livermore was on his way to the blue briefing room, where the assignments for his section were being given out. Frank was more than ready, too. He was tired of waiting around while the high brass sat in their plush conference rooms on the Hawking’s upper levels and decided the fate of middle-level officers like Frank. He might be assigned to outpost duty on some lonely, deserted little world where he’d be expected to watc
h for the arrival of the Ichton fleet, and then try to get out at the last minute. Or he could be assigned to one of the task forces that civilization had set up in various locales as part of their great effort to contain the Ichtons before they reached the home worlds.
“Hey, Frank, wait up!”
Frank turned, recognizing the voice of Owen Staging, the trader, who had made his acquaintance early in the trip. Staging was a big, barrel-chested man with a boxer’s pug nose and the forward-thrust shoulders of a belligerent bull. He was a tough man, cynical and profane, who managed to stay popular with everyone aboard the Hawking. Frank liked him, too, though he neither entirely trusted Owen nor subscribed to his ethics.
“Where you off to in such a hurry?” Owen asked.
“They’ve called a briefing session,” Frank said.
“About time,” Owen said.
“These things take time,” Frank said.
Owen shrugged. “Where do you think they’ll send you?” the trader asked.
“You know as much about it as I do,” Livermore said.
“I just might know more about it than you do,” Staging said.
“I don’t get you,” said Frank.
Owen smiled and laid a forefinger alongside his nose. “I got a kind of idea about where they’ll send you.”
“Where?”
“Hell, no sense talking about it yet, it’s only a hunch,” Owen said lazily. “Tell you what, though. Come have a drink with me after you get your assignment, Frank. In the Rotifer Room, okay? I’ve something to tell you I think you’ll like to hear.”
Frank looked at Owen with mild exasperation. He knew how the trader loved to pretend to have inside information. And perhaps the man did have such knowledge. Some people always seemed to know what was going on behind the closed doors in the upper-level boardrooms where senior officers conducted the day-to-day business of fighting the war against the Ichtons.
“All right, I’ll see you there,” Frank said, then hurried off onto the express walkway that led to Blue Briefing B.
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