by Ray Garton
Rinaldi dove from his spot behind the door and threw an arm around each man’s neck, pulling them over backwards. Johnson’s gun went off harmlessly.
“Curtis!” General Wilson barked.
Two MPs rushed into the office with guns drawn and held on Hollis and Johnson; Curtis was right behind them.
“You’re under arrest!” Rinaldi growled, getting to his feet.
The men on the floor let their guns slide from their hands as they watched the general round his desk and stand over them.
“Now,” General Wilson said with quiet threat, “you two are going to tell me just what the hell this is all about.”
Handcuffs clinked as the MPs unlatched them from their belts.
“Well—” General Wilson folded his arms over his chest. “—I’m waiting.”
Johnson’s mouth was open, he was about to speak, when he and Hollis suddenly arched their backs. They became rigid on the floor, their mouths stretched open, their eyes bulbous. Making straining, gurgling sounds in their throats, Hollis and Johnson simultaneously slapped their hands to the backs of their necks, writhing in silent agony.
The others watched the spasms in horror. General Wilson’s arms dropped to his sides and he gasped, “Jesus, what’s—”
Hollis and Johnson relaxed; their eyes rolled into their heads, shining like white marbles. In an instant, they became very still.
Rinaldi dropped to his knees and touched their throats, feeling for a pulse. Slowly, he pulled his hand away and looked up at the general. “They’re dead.”
“Christ,” General Wilson sighed.
The dead men still held their necks, as if their pain had not gone away. Rinaldi turned Johnson over and moved his hand aside.
“What’s that?” General Wilson asked, leaning forward to get a look at a cut on the back of the man’s neck.
“I don’t—”
Before Rinaldi could touch it, something began to ooze from the small incision, something long and thin. It rotated as it slid out of Johnson’s neck.
“Shit!” the general snapped.
The needle was very delicate, copper-colored, with tiny hieroglyphics engraved on the side. It spun its way out of the man’s neck and rolled onto the floor, glistening with fluids. Another one rolled out from under Hollis’s neck.
“Don’t touch it!” General Wilson said, stepping back. “What . . . ever it is.”
As the needles rolled to the center of the floor, Rinaldi quickly got to his feet and stepped out of their way.
Curtis, the MPs, Rinaldi, and General Wilson watched the needles in amazement.
They glistened with blood and a strange luminescent green fluid, reflecting slivers of light. Tendrils of smoke rose from the needles as they began to sizzle.
As if sensing something dangerous were about to happen, all the men took a step back.
With a sharp pop, the needles exploded, sending up puffs of greenish smoke.
A second later, General Wilson ordered, “Seal the base perimeter! Alert security! And get those NASA boys down here immediately! I want the kid and the nurse brought back here now!”
With hurried “Yes, sirs,” Curtis and the MPs rushed from the room and Rinaldi grabbed the phone.
General Wilson stepped in the doorway and called after the men, “And lock up the launch, for God’s sake!”
C H A P T E R
Eleven
After returning to General Wilson’s office, David stared in amazement at the bank of video monitors. Below the rocket on the launching pad were incomprehensible readouts, data that he someday hoped to understand.
Linda stood beside him, distant and preoccupied.
Taking his attention from the monitors, David listened to the conversation going on across the room. Voices were being raised impatiently. General Wilson was talking with two men. One, a young man with short-cropped dark hair, wore a white coat and looked frustrated, a bit angry. The other was older, with tired eyes below receding, frizzy gray hair. He wore a gold corduroy sport coat, a plaid shirt, and brown tie. He seemed weary.
“No!” the young man snapped adamantly, his arms stiffening at his sides. “Any further delays and we’ll miss the launch window!”
The old man held something long and thin between his fingers, jagged and black as coal. Inspecting it carefully, he said, “Mars won’t wait for us, General.”
“I understand, gentlemen,” the general said placatingly. “We will go tonight, I assure you. But we have to be able to guarantee security first.” He took the small black object from the old man and held it up before his face, squinting at it, his lips parted. “We still don’t know what the hell we’re dealing with here.”
Impatiently, the young man asked, “What do you suggest?”
“I want to put a temp freeze on countdown,” General Wilson said, “until we’re all clear. Then it’s your show.”
The old man put a hand on General Wilson’s shoulder. “You got yourself a deal.”
“What’s it going to Mars for?” David asked, walking toward them.
The men looked at one another for a moment, then turned to David.
“Is it a manned mission?” David went on when he got no reply.
The general was reluctant. “Well it’s . . . it’s not manned, David. But it is a soft landing.”
“But why?”
“We’re looking for life,” the old man said simply.
David’s eyes widened.
“Er, uh, Doctor,” the general said, “this is the Gardiner boy. David, this is Dr. Stout, senior scientist on the Millennium Project, and—” He gestured to the younger man. “—this is Dr. Weinstein of S.E.T.I.”
Stout smiled and shook David’s hand. “How do you do, David.”
Weinstein nodded, but did not smile.
“S.E.T.I.,” David muttered, looking at the young doctor. “That’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. So . . . you expect to find life on Mars.” He turned to Dr. Stout. “I didn’t think the Viking Missions found any sign of life. Except . . .” Something in David’s memory was jarred. He thought quickly to get a handle on it. Something he’d read . . . a picture he’d seen. “I remember! I saw this picture in a magazine. It showed these things on the surface, like . . . they looked like pyramids.”
“I saw that, too,” Linda said, breaking her long, nervous silence.
“Yeah,” David went on, “and what about that gigantic thing that looked like . . . wasn’t it a monkey’s head? It was in all the papers. It was a fake, right?”
Glancing at General Wilson, Dr. Stout slipped his hands into his coat pockets and said, “On the contrary. There were other photos too . . . too sensational to be made public.”
David scratched his head. Something wasn’t right; something about all this didn’t fit. When it finally struck him, he spread his arms in confusion. “But what about water? There’s not enough water on Mars to support life!”
“On the surface,” the old man said, running fingers through his wiry white hair. “That’s why we’re looking below ground this time. Recent data from Viking suggests the possibility of subterranean life.”
David’s eyes locked with Linda’s; they were both thinking the same thing, David was sure.
“The tunnels . . .” Linda whispered.
“And if there is something up there,” General Wilson added gravely, “it might not want to be found.”
The thoughtful atmosphere in the room was shattered by Curtis’s sharp, urgent voice. “Look!” He pointed to the monitors and everyone huddled around them.
Men were scurrying everywhere about the rocket, waving their arms, pointing guns. Some were running from, others running after, a fuel truck that was speeding toward the launch pad. Plastic containers were attached to the truck’s sides, jostling as it sped a path through the men.
“Those are explosives!” the general bellowed, leaning toward the monitors.
“Oh, God, the rocket,” the old man mumbled with quiet dread.
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Klaxons began to sound, and just as suddenly silenced. The lights darkened, the monitors blanked, and the office was filled with an instant of forbidding silence.
The general shouted, “Everybody get—”
Too late.
With a rush of skull-splitting sound, the windows of the office shattered inward. Linda screamed as everyone sprawled on the floor.
MPs rushed into the office with flashlights; one of them shouted, “Is anybody hurt?”
In a second, the general was back on his feet, ignoring the question, yelling, “Go to auxiliary base power, now!”
Rinaldi scrambled to his feet, crunched over broken glass to the phone, and tried to dial.
“General,” he said frantically, “the outside lines are down.”
“God damn it!” the general roared, pounding a fist on the desktop. He turned to one of the MPs. “Get us back on line!”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir.” He rushed out, calling to someone beyond the open door.
David got on his knees and held his hands before him. It was dark, but he saw no cuts on his palms. He touched his face and ran a hand through his hair. Turning to Linda, he said, “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, sniffling. “Just scared. What . . . happened?”
“Somebody blew up the Millennium,” Dr. Stout said wearily.
“It’s them!” David shouted. “They don’t want you up there! That’s why they came here, to Willowbrook! To destroy the Millennium.”
The lights flickered several times, then came on. A raging fire appeared on the monitors.
Staring at one of the screens, Dr. Stout shook his head slowly and said, “It’s gone. Completely wiped out.”
All eyes turned to the monitors as a smaller secondary explosion erupted into the sky.
The phone rang and Rinaldi snatched it up.
“Sir,” he said to the general after listening for a moment, “operations reports that radar was momentarily down, but it’s back in service now.”
“Anything coming in?” General Wilson asked anxiously.
“Negative, sir.”
The general nodded knowingly. “They’re already here.” He turned to David and bent down, bracing his hands on his thighs. “David, can you take us to that place? That sand pit?”
“Yeah. It’s right behind my house.”
Standing, he began snapping orders. “Rinaldi, get a transport officer on the phone and find out if alert force is standing by. Curtis, take a platoon and head for the school.”
“Yes, sir!”
Putting a big hand on David’s head, General Wilson said confidently, “Don’t worry, David. The United States Marine Corps has no qualms about killing martians.”
Numbed by all the excitement, the pain in David’s knee had become no more than a dull ache. He sat in the back seat of another Jeep with Linda. General Wilson was in front and Captain Rinaldi was driving.
Two light assault vehicles led the way to the sand pit. Each one was crammed with armed troops and mounted with 25mm chain guns. There were even more behind them, some armed with TOW antitank missiles, all carrying more troops, a rumbling parade of green metal and canvas.
General Wilson turned to David and Linda, handing each of them a pouch. “These attach to your sides,” he said. “Inside are gas masks. Just in case.”
“Wow!” David gasped, opening his pouch.
“Hang on, David, hang on,” General Wilson chuckled. “That’s just in case.”
“Oh.” David snapped the pouch shut, nodding. “Okay.” He turned to Linda; she was expressionless, eyes forward. She seemed lost in thought, oblivious to the activity around her. Touching her hand lightly, he said, “Are you okay?”
She turned to him suddenly, as if awakened from a doze. “Yeah,” she said breathlessly. “I’m okay. Just a little—” A smile flicked over her lips. “—overwhelmed.”
General Wilson suddenly bellowed, “What the hell is that?”
David gripped the seat before him and pulled himself forward. Ahead of them, a police car had been parked lengthwise across the street, blocking their path. Others were on the shoulder. Policemen gathered on each side of the street while a single officer strode to the middle of the street. He held a shotgun.
The two assault vehicles ahead of the Jeep separated so Rinaldi could drive between them. As they neared the roadblock, David recognized the policeman standing in the street.
“He chased me in the street today!” David shouted, pointing. “He’s one of them, General!”
As the Jeep rolled to a stop, General Wilson stood.
The officer held up a hand and shouted, “Stop! This is the police! No one is allowed through!”
The general leaned toward Captain Rinaldi and said quietly, “Pull over.”
As Rinaldi backed up the Jeep and drove to the shoulder, General Wilson motioned for a third assault vehicle to come forward. It was armed with antitank missiles.
“This,” General Wilson shouted, “is the Marines! We’re on official government business! If you don’t clear the road, we will!” He turned to the drivers of the vehicles beside him and nodded, putting on his gas mask. Everyone, including David and Linda, followed suit.
The policeman raised his shotgun and aimed at the general, but tear-gas cannisters were exploding before he could pull the trigger. White gas billowed over the road, engulfing the police cars and officers. The men staggered and coughed, clutching their throats.
Waving an arm, General Wilson commanded, “Get that goddamned heap out of the way!”
One of the Marines on the middle assault vehicle nodded and fired the cannon mounted before him.
The police car erupted into a ball of fire and blew out of the road like a leaf in a breeze, mowing down several of the wretching policemen.
General Wilson patted Rinaldi’s shoulder and said, “Take off.”
As they drove through the swirling wall of gas, David could see the policemen kneeling and lying on the road, hacking and writhing. Those who had been struck by the flaming car were sprawled motionless, some with small spots of flames burning on their uniforms.
Linda put a hand to her forehead, clenched her eyes, and turned away.
As the convoy was speeding toward the sand pit, Curtis and his men were blowing their way through the locked doors of W. C. Menzies Elementary School. The man firing his automatic weapon stopped, stepped forward, and kicked aside the jagged glass and remaining shards of wood, clearing a path for the others.
The puttering of two helicopters descending outside was muffled by the heavy footfalls of the men as they hurried down the dark hall with Curtis and Dr. Weinstein in the lead.
His pistol drawn, Curtis shined his high-powered flashlight on every door they passed.
“The boy said it was in the basement,” Weinstein said.
“I know that,” Curtis snapped. He resented the doctor’s presence, certain he would only get in the way. His light passed over the red and white sign. “This is it,” he said, pushing the door open.
At the foot of the first staircase, Curtis slid the metal door aside and the troops thundered down the metal stairs into the basement, coming to a sudden halt halfway down.
The furnaces were mangled around the edges. The staircase hung unsteadily from its supports. Chunks of concrete were scattered over what was left of the floor. In the center of it all was a hole, perhaps twelve feet in circumference, from which an orange glow illuminated the dark basement.
From the landing, Curtis could tell that the hole was very deep, and whatever had made it had been big. Shaking his head with slowly growing disbelief, he muttered, “Jesus H. Christ.”
Troops swarmed around David’s house. They charged up the walk ahead of him, nearly knocking him over. When they found the door to be locked, they broke it down.
David watched with alarm as they plowed into the house. He stopped on the path and watched as more of them stormed through the broken front door. Through the
darkened windows, he could see the darting beams of their flashlights.
Didn’t they realize that someone lived there? Couldn’t they be a little more careful?
A helicopter hovered over the house, its spotlight shining like a bar of daylight over the house and yard.
David hurried into the house, ignoring Linda’s call.
“David! David, wait!”
Inside, the men were rushing up the stairs, going through the rooms and closets one by one.
“Hey!” David shouted when a blue vase of silk flowers was knocked to the floor. The vase shattered and the pieces crunched under stomping feet.
David raced up the stairs to his room, trying light switches along the way. The power was out. From the open doorway of his bedroom, David watched as the troops walked over his toys. Godzilla’s head was crushed, the cardboard Tokyo was flattened, a plastic robot was shattered, comic books and magazines were torn underfoot.
“This is my room!” David cried.
He was ignored. The men opened his closet and looked under the bed.
“David,” Linda said behind him. “Let’s go outside. We might be in the way here.”
“But . . . my things . . .”
He let her lead him down the hall, down the stairs.
They don’t care, he thought. The house doesn’t matter to them. They just want to find the martians.
They went out the back door and stood in the yard. Lights were shining beyond Copper Hill; voices called and the hulking assault vehicles rumbled. Linda took David’s hand and started up the path.
Tension ached in David’s neck and shoulders and his eyes stung with tears. This wasn’t what he’d wanted when he turned to General Wilson for help. True, the martians had to be stopped. But most important of all to David were his parents—he wanted them back. They were somewhere within the bowels of the ship, most likely. And if they weren’t, David knew that was where he could break the link that held them to the martians.
At the crest of the hill, they saw winches being set up. Vehicles were surrounding the pit. Bright floodlights washed over the sand making it gleam a pure white.
Linda gasped when the squad leader, a short, bullet-shaped man, charged past them and went over the hill toward the general. They followed him, picking up their pace.