Therefore, the team would make every effort to keep the discovery secret until they had thrown up proper safeguards to protect not only the visitors but terrestrians. Temple, who got a secret kick out of science fiction, began to visualize a delegation of radioactive pollywogs or super-intelligent octopods.
In the midst of this relaxing reverie he caught sight of his wildly distracted face in the mirror, glared at it, and snarled, “Who the hell do you think you’re kidding, you stupid jerk?”
His telephone rang. The voice was that of Mullane, but it had a curiously flat tone, as if being rebroadcast. “Curt, I know how anxious you are to visit the meteorite fall and to see Lee Mason. I have just been invited to rush down there for some special research. A car is here, waiting to take me, and since this is the weekend with no classes for two days it occurred to me that you might like to go along for a visit. You can fly back for Monday.”
“Mulley,” Temple shouted. “I’m all packed to catch a plane down, but of course I’d rather ride with you. But what’s going on down there, anyhow? Who called you? What kind of special research? Did you talk to Lee? Is everyone all right?”
“Whoa, boy,” Mullane broke in. “Take it easy. We’ve got a long ride ahead, with plenty of time for me to explain everything on the way. Hold your fire and we’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”
Temple was pacing nervously in front of his apartment building when a black sedan with Kansas license plates rounded the corner. He grabbed his suitcase and sprinted to meet it. The driver was a gaunt, weather-beaten man. A younger counterpart sat beside him. They both stared at him with curious, fixed intensity as Mullane, alone in the back seat, swung the door open.
“Get in, Curt. These are the Solles, father and son, who are doing so much to advance our work.”
The two continued to stare without speaking as Temple acknowledged the odd introduction and ducked his head to climb in. At that moment something that felt like an icicle with legs hit the back of his neck. Halfway into the car, Temple brushed at it, feeling nothing but the ridges of scar tissue under his hair. The sensation went away. Young Solle twisted around.
“Not this one,” he cried. “Oh, no! Not this one at all.”
Mullane bent forward, his face twisted. “We’ve made a mistake, Curtis. A terrible mistake. We can’t take you with us after all. Get out quickly and forget the whole thing.”
“The hell I will,” Temple yelled. “Are you off your rocker, Mully? I’m not budging until you tell me what this is all about. Are you being kidnapped?”
He lunged inward and young Gus Solle leaned back to slug him on the cheekbone with a fist that felt like a sack full of scrap iron. Temple was doubled over and off balance, with one foot in the car and the other just lifting from the curb, his right hand occupied with maneuvering his suitcase in.
The blow knocked him back onto the rear seat. He scrabbled wildly to recover his balance, his eyes full of tears and whizzing meteors. Mullane grabbed his shoulders with surprising strength and heaved. Temple flew backward out of the car, still clutching the suitcase, and landed on his back on the grass with an impact that drove the breath from his lungs.
The door slammed and the car took off with a roar. It took the corner with a squeal of tortured rubber and was gone before he could get his breath and climb to his feet. He stood, panting, shaking. There was a sharp, throbbing pain at the back of his skull and he knew a moment’s panic at the possibility that the impact had undone all the doctor’s fine work.
There was nothing he could do about it now. He stumbled back into his apartment, phoned the airport for a reservation and ordered a rental car to be ready at Wichita. A gentle probing at the back of his head found considerable soreness but no evidence of deeper injury.
He gulped aspirins for the headache and examined himself in the mirror. It was something of a shock. Besides dirt, grass stains and general dishevelment, there was a darkening bruise on his right cheekbone and a wild glare in his eyes that added nothing to his looks.
He washed, changed clothes and belted down a therapeutic slug of bourbon. By the time the airport limousine came for him, both the glare and the headache had subsided considerably and he was fairly calm. It was a calm born more of numbness than control, but at least he looked fairly presentable, except for the bruise, and that he could do nothing about.
* * * *
The first streaks of dawn were paling the eastern sky when Curtis Temple pulled up at an all-night diner and gas station on the fringe of a town. He hated to stop, even for minutes, but sheer exhaustion was proving stronger than his desperation. Several times he had caught himself on the verge of falling asleep at the wheel of his rented car.
While a pimply-faced attendant serviced the car, he stumbled wearily into the diner and order black coffee. “How much further is it to Bomer?”
The counterman eyed him suspiciously and finally decided he was not being kidded. “You’re in it, mister—what there is of it.”
Temple stared at him blearily while the words filtered into his consciousness. For the past couple of hours he had driven in such a daze of exhaustion that he had lost track of miles. He blinked. “I’m looking for the Solle farm.”
“That figures,” the counterman said. “That’s where everybody’s headed these days. Just stay on the highway for another twenty miles and watch for Gus’ mailbox on your right.”
A slim man in the uniform of a state trooper had come from the washroom, massaging his hands, and taken a stool down the counter where a cup of pale coffee and two greasy-looking doughnuts waited. He studied Temple in the mirror, then swung around. “You a reporter?”
Temple shook his head and tested his coffee. It was still too hot.
“You won’t need the mailbox,” the trooper said, through a mouthful of doughnut. “If it’s still dark, you can see their floodlights for miles. If it’s light, you can see their tower almost as far.”
Temple set his coffee down so abruptly that it slopped over into the saucer. He stared at the trooper. “Did you say tower?”
“Regular skyscraper,” the counterman contributed. “Clear up to hell and gone into the air, and not a window in it. Nobody can figure out what those eggheads are up to, but they’re spending money like it was going out of style. If you ask me, that’s gonna turn out to be another Cape Canaveral.”
Temple abruptly stood up, threw a quarter on the counter and started for the door. The trooper swung around on his stool. “Just a minute. If you’re figuring to go out there for a look, you can save time and gas. Sightseers aren’t allowed out there any more. They’ve got an electrified fence around the whole layout and armed guards to run off anybody who tries to snoop or hang around.”
“Thanks,” Temple said through his teeth and started on.
The trooper came off his stool with a rush. “Hold it, you! I think I’d like to know who you are and what your business is with that bunch out there. Let’s see your driver’s license.”
Temple fought down a surge of anger and got out his wallet with his license and several other identification cards in the transparent pockets. “I didn’t know Kansas had turned into a police state.”
“It just got that way, Doc,” the trooper said, studying the cards, “when some birds like you took over Solle’s farm and started pulling some very funny shenanigans.”
It was growing harder for Temple to suppress the anger.
“Shenanigans such as putting up a fence to keep rubbernecks from trampling over and interfering with vital research?”
“That and other things. Like putting some kind of hex on Gus Solle so he draws out all his savings and mortgages his farm clear to the hilt. Like making the Solles and a lot of others around here act like some kind of zombies. My Dad’s president of the bank and he hasn’t been himself since the day that blond witch from the camp talked him out of a whopping, unsecured loan.”
Temple suppressed a start. He could only mean Lee Mason. The fear that had been growing in
side him swelled until it absorbed all other emotions.
“It must be legal, because our headquarters got word right from Washington to mind our own business and keep hands off. We have to take it, but we don’t have to like it.” He slapped the wallet into Temple’s hand. “Go ahead, Doc. But you won’t mind if I ride along behind, just to make sure you don’t get lost on the way.”
CHAPTER 5
Armed Camp
Even in the gray half-light of morning, Temple could see the glow of powerful floodlamps from several miles away. By the time he turned off the highway he could make out the dark shape of the tower, rearing a good three hundred feet into the sky. He caught his breath, his brain reeling with the effort of trying to associate it, or anything else he had learned so far, with the original meteorite project.
In the rearview mirror he saw that the police car was no longer following but had parked on the highway shoulder, near the Solle mailbox. The trooper had climbed out and was standing behind it, watching him.
The rutted, unpaved country road topped a small rise in the rolling prairie land. Temple sucked in his breath sharply. Nothing had quite prepared him for the sight ahead.
Rising out of the parched land was virtually a small city. Its heart and center was the weird tower looming skyward, capped by a network of uncovered beams and girders over which a horde of workmen swarmed like ants. The turquoise brilliance of acetylene torches winked on and off like fireflies, and the dawn wind brought the faint clatter of riveting hammers.
Around the base of the tower were open lots piled high with lumber, girders and what seemed to be sheets of steel. Outside this circle were buildings of various sizes. Some were still under construction, revealing a flimsy frame and tar paper basis to account for the speed with which the complex had gone up.
A lump rose in Temple’s throat as he spied the familiar prefab huts of the original meteor camp tucked off to one side, dwarfed by the huge new structures. They looked forlorn and forgotten, as forgotten as Curtis Temple who had created them.
But the most obvious item of all was the fence, glinting like polished silver in the first rays of the rising sun. A full ten feet high, it surrounded the entire complex, including the weathered, unpainted buildings of the original Solle farm. The only visible gate was the one barring the road a half-mile or so ahead.
Temple had halted the car on the crest. As he sat gaping at the incredible scene, his ears caught a faint, throbbing rumble that grew steadily louder. Suddenly it was overhead and, leaning out, he saw a large multi-passenger helicopter bearing the orange-red markings of the Air Force. It swept by, made a wide circle and drifted down out of his sight to a landing behind the Solle barn.
“I’ll be damned!” Temple whispered aloud. He reached for the automatic transmission lever and saw that his hand was shaking violently.
He got himself under control and drove on, stopping a few yards from the massive gate. At intervals along the fence he saw big red-lettered signs reading:
WARNING !
DANGER—CHARGED FENCE
10,000 VOLTS
TO TOUCH OR APPROACH CAN BE FATAL
At the approach of the car, a beefy, hard-faced man with a revolver holstered from his belt ran from a small guard shanty inside the gate. He raced to the road, well back of the gate, waving powerful arms and bawling something.
Temple ignored him until he had made a closer inspection of the fence and the layout beyond. As far as he could see into the camp, a veritable army of workmen were sawing, hammering, lugging or dashing about, in and out of the buildings. Everything they did was at a frenzied speed that reminded him sharply of the old-time movies.
The gate guard was still yelling hoarsely when Temple finally got out, leaving the motor idling. His eyes were glittering slits in the taut gray mask of his face. He tramped purposefully toward the gate, clenched fists swinging loosely as his sides.
“Get back, you goddamn idiot!” the guard bawled, windmilling his arms violently. “Can’t ya read? There’s enough hot stuff in this gate to kill an elephant, and plenty of it leaks into the ground. Get back in that bus and clear out quick. This is private property. Nobody gets in and nobody’s allowed to hang around outside. Now beat it, buddy.”
“Shut up!” Temple said coldly. “Get on your phone in there and tell Miss Mason that Curtis Temple is out here. She’ll see me.”
The beefy man gave his pistol belt a hitch, spat into the dust and gave Temple a malevolent glare. “A hell of a lot you know about it, buddy. I’ve got news for you. My orders are not to bother Miss Mason or none of the others with calls like this when they’re busy workin’. If you got sump’n important to say, write a letter. They might read it. So now, clear out, bud.”
“Can’t you even call them in case of an emergency?”
“It would have to be a pretty damn big emergency, I can tell you that. So—”
“It will be, my friend,” Temple said gently.
He turned and tramped along the edge of the road until he saw fair-sized rock half-buried in the dry earth. He squatted down, worked his fingers around it and tugged, ignoring a profane yell from the guard. It came loose in his hands.
He smiled sweetly at the gaping guard, carried the rock over to the car and propped it on top of the accelerator. Under its weight the gas pedal went almost to the floor and the engine’s murmur climbed to a shattering roar. Reaching in the open door, Temple took hold of the transmission lever.
He grinned at the slack-jawed guard and lifted his voice above the racket. “You’d better get back a little further, fellow. I wouldn’t want you run over or electrocuted when my car smashes through your gate.”
“Wait! Don’t do it, for God’s sakes! I’ll phone Miss Mason. Just don’t do no more damn fool tricks. I only work here.”
He galloped for the guard shanty, throwing fearful glances over his shoulder. Temple waited grimly, letting the engine race and keeping a hand on the lever until the guard reappeared, nodding and mopping his red face. He leaned in and slid the rock off the accelerator, cutting the roar back to a murmur.
“She’ll be right over, mister. You just wait and don’t try no more screwy tricks.”
Temple saw her then, hurrying along the camp street at the same accelerated tempo that seemed to mark everyone inside except the guard. His breath caught at the sight of her remembered loveliness.
Then, as she came closer, a wave of almost physical sickness knotted his middle. She was the same Lee Mason, yet not the same. It was not the cold anger on her face, nor anything else tangible he could put a finger on. All the perfection of line and color was there, yet something was lacking. It came to him that she resembled a beautiful wax doll, a perfect image of Lee Mason, yet without some vital inner spark. The words of the state trooper leaped into his mind: “like some kind of zombies.” He tried to greet her, to call her name, but he could push no more than a wordless croak through the lump in his throat. She halted a few yards from the gate and stared at him with no trace of the warmth he remembered in her eyes.
“Why are you creating a disturbance out here, annoying all of us and interrupting our work? President McCabe gave you express orders not to come here at all, Curtis.”
The rebuke was like a knife stab through his heart. “I had to come, to find out what happened to you. You suddenly stopped writing or phoning, and when I couldn’t get through to you I nearly went crazy. I happen to be in love with you, Lee.”
“Sentiment,” she said furiously. “I will not have it interfering with our vital work.”
“What is this vital work, Lee? What kind of a mad tangent have you all gone off on? If I had some idea of what you’re doing, I might be able to understand your strange actions, maybe even help you.”
“You can help us, Curtis,” she said earnestly. “You can help more than you know…by quietly going away and staying away. Don’t come here again or try to contact or spy on any of us. When the proper time comes, you will understand. Until then, you
are keeping me from my work. Good-bye, Curtis.”
“Lee—” he cried, but the torrent of words died unshouted.
She turned her back and snapped her fingers at the guard. “If you ever see this man sneaking around or trying in any way to get inside or attract our attention, you are to deal with him as you would any other intruder. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am!” He slapped the bolstered pistol and glared at Temple. “If he hadn’t tried to ram the gate—”
“It won’t happen again,” Lee said flatly. “This afternoon there will be an outer barricade of slanting steel spikes installed across the road. No vehicle will be able to pass them until they are lowered from inside your guard shanty.”
Temple watched her depart with that same automaton speed. Dull-eyed and heavy-hearted, he got into the car, turned around and headed back toward the highway, dropping the useless rock off beside the road. He almost wished now that he had made good his threat to crash the gate, though it would probably have gotten him shot. He had a sick feeling that the Lee Mason he had just listened to would order his execution without the slightest hesitation if he interfered with the mysterious “work.”
That was not the Lee Mason he knew and loved, the girl who had worked with him in the laboratory and walked hand in hand with him under the stars. This was a totally alien creature, a lovely shell from which all human emotions had been drained.
How or why he could not even guess. Was she hypnotized, possessed, enslaved? He beat a clenched fist against the wheel and his jaw ached from the tension of clenched teeth. Whatever the answer was, he would find it and somehow bring back the spark of life to her eyes and the laughter to her voice.
Meanwhile, he was groping in total darkness without even an idea of where to start. He knew only one thing for certain: In order to save Lee Mason he would have to steel himself against emotions, become as cold and ruthless as she.
The Gods Hate Kansas Page 3