“If we make this public, it’ll start a panic,” General Fontaine said. “We’ll have to evacuate the eastern half of the state. And if we don’t make it public—”
“We’ll have to make it public,” Allen said.
“I’ll have to order in my five reserve divisions. I’ll need them for police work, and I’ll need their transport to get
the people out. God knows how far that thing may have gone by now.”
“Message from Venus,” a voice called. It was handed to Hilks, who read it and tossed it onto the table disgustedly.
“I asked Venus about the mollusk. They’ve checked all their records, and as far as they know it has no Venusian relatives. They ask, please, if we will kindly send it along to them when we’re finished with it, preferably alive. They’d like to study it.”
General Fontaine got to his feet. “Shall I take care of the news release?” he asked Allen.
“I’ll handle it,” Allen said and reached for a piece of paper. He studied a map for a moment, and then he wrote, “Notice to the populations of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado.”
For five days Allen sat at a desk in the lab plane answering inquiries, sifting through reports and rumors, searching vainly for a fact, an idea, that he could convert-into a weapon. The lab’s location was changed five times and he hardly noticed the moves.
The list of victims grew with horrifying rapidity. A farmer at work in his fields, a housewife hurrying along a quiet street to visit a friend, a sheriff’s deputy investigating a report of looting in an abandoned town, an off-duty soldier who left his bivouac area for reasons best known to himself—Allen compiled the list, and Hilks added the shoes to his collection.
“This may not be the half of it,” Allen said worriedly. “With so many people on the move, it’ll be weeks before we get reports on everyone that’s missing.”
General Fontaine’s Contaminated Area doubled and tripled and tripled again. On the third day the Night Cloak was sighted near the Missouri-Kansas border, and the populations of four states were in panicky flight.
That same night old Dr. Anderson got a call through to Allen from Gwinn Center. “That dratted thing is fussing around my window,” he said.
“That can’t be,” Allen told him. “It was sighted two hundred miles from there this afternoon.”
“I’m watching it while I talk to you,” the doctor said.
“I’ll send someone right away.”
They found Dr. Anderson’s shoes near a broken window, directly under the sign that read, “Doctor is in.”
The next morning an air patrol sighted an abandoned ground car just across the Missouri border. It landed to investigate and found mute evidence of high tragedy. A family of nine had been fleeing eastward. The car had broken down, and the driver got out to make repairs. At that moment the horror had struck. In and around the car were nine pairs of shoes.
Hilks was losing weight, and he had also lost much of his good-natured nonchalance. “That thing can’t travel that fast,” he said. “The car must have been sitting there for a couple of days.”
“Fontaine has traced it,” Allen told him. “The family left home yesterday afternoon, and it’d have reached the place the car was found about ten o’clock last night.”
“That’s when the doctor called.”
“Right,” Allen said.
Lieutenant Gus Smallet was one small cog in the enormous observation grid General Fontaine hung over eastern Kansas and western Missouri. His plane was a veteran road-hopper, a civilian model pressed into service when the general received emergency authority to grab anything that would fly. It was armed only with a camera that Smallet had supplied himself.
Smallet flew slowly in a straight line, his plane being one of a vast formation of slow-moving observation planes. It was his third day on this fruitless search, his third day of taking off into the pre-dawn darkness and flying until daylight faded, and he was wondering which he would succumb to first, fatigue or boredom. His head ached. Other portions of his anatomy ached worse, especially that which had been crushed against an uncomfortable, thinly padded seat for more hours than Smallet cared to remember. His movements had become mechanical, his thoughts had long since taken flight to other, more pleasant subjects than a Venusian Night Cloak, and he had stopped asking himself whether he would recognize the damned thing if he happened to see it.
Suddenly, against the dark green of a cluster of trees, he glimpsed a fleck of color. He slipped into a shallow
dive, staring hypnotically as the indistinct blur grew Iarger and took on shape.
A bellow from his radio jolted Smallet back to reality. His sharp-eyed commanding officer, whose plane was a speck somewhere on the horizon, was telling him to stop horsing around and keep his altitude. “I see the damned thing!” Smallet shouted. “I see—” What he did see so startled him that he babbled incoherently and did not realize until afterward that he had instinctively flipped the switch on his camera. It was well that he had done so. His story was received with derision and his commanding officer sniffed his breath suspiciously and muttered words that sounded direly like Courts-Martial.
Then the developed film was brought in, and what Smallet had seen was there for all to gape at. Not one Night Cloak, but five.
It was dark by the time the transports started pouring ground troops into the area. They lost seven men that night and saw nothing at all.
Solly Hertz was an ordinance sergeant with ability, imagination, and a commanding officer who sought to hide him under the proverbial bushel. Good ordinance men, as the old saying went, did not come off assembly lines.
So when Hertz told his captain that he wanted to go to division ordinance to discuss an idea he had about these Night Cloak things, the captain paled at the thought of losing the one man who could keep his electronic equipment operating. He confined Hertz to the company area and mopped his brow over the narrow margin of his escape.
Hertz went A.W.O.L., by-passed division and corps and army, and invaded the sanctuary of the supreme air commander. That much-harassed general encountered Hertz through the accident of seeing a squad of military police leading him away. Fortunately he had enough residual curiosity to inquire about the offense and ask Hertz what he wanted.
“One of your guys sees one of these Night Cloaks,” Hertz said. “What’s he supposed to do about it?” “Blast it,” the general said promptly.
“Won’t do any good,” Hertz said. “Slugs and shrapnel just punch holes in it, and that don’t bother it none. And a contact fuse wouldn’t even go off when it hit. It’s like shooting at tissue paper.”
“You think you can do something about that?” the general asked.
“I got an atomic mini-rocket with a proximity fuse. It’ll trigger just before it hits the thing. It’ll really blast it.”
“You’re sure it won’t go off at the wrong time and cost me a pilot?”
“Not the way I got it fixed.”
“How many have you got?”
“One,” Hertz said. “How many do you want?”
“Just for a starter, about five thousand. Tell me what you need and get to work on it.”
Captain Joe Carr took off the next morning equipped with two of Hertz’s rockets. Before he entered his plane he crossed fingers on both hands and spat over his left shoulder. And once inside the plane he went through a brisk ceremony of clicking certain switches on and off with certain predetermined fingers. Having thus dutifully sacrificed to the goddess of luck, he was not at all surprised an hour later when he sighted a Night Cloak.
It was a big one. It was enormous, and Carr glowed with satisfaction as he made a perfect approach, fired one rocket, and circled to see if another was needed.
It was not. The enormous, rippling surface was suddenly seared into nothingness—almost. The rocket hit it dead center, and when Carr completed his turn he saw the Night Cloak looking, as he said later, like the rind off a piece of bol
ogna.
But even as he yelped news of his triumph into the radio, the rind collapsed crazily and parted, and four small, misshapen Night Cloaks flew gently downward to disappear into the trees.
Private Edward Walker was thinking about shoes. Night Cloaks never ate shoes. Flesh and bones and clothing and maybe even metal, but not shoes. That was official.
“All right,” Walker told himself grimly. “If one of those things comes around here, I’ll kick the hell out of it.”
He delivered a vicious practice kick and felt very little the better for it; and the truth was that Private Edward Walker had excellent reason for his uneasiness.
His regiment was deployed around a small grove of trees. Two Night Cloaks had been sighted entering the trees. The place had been kept under observation, and as far as anyone knew they were still there, but the planes hovering overhead, and the cautious patrols of lift-equipped soldiers that looped skittishly over the grove, from one side to the other, had caught no further glimpse of them.
Walker had put in an hour of lift-patrolling hhnself, and he hadn’t liked it. He had the uncomfortable feeling, as he floated over the trees and squinted down into the shadows, that someone was using him for bait. This was maybe excusable if it promised to accomplish anything, but so far as anyone knew these Cloaks had the pernicious habit of taking the bait and never getting caught. The casualty list was growing with appalling speed, the Cloaks were getting fat—or at least getting bigger—and not one of them had been destroyed.
But the brass hats had tired of that nonsense and decided to make a stand. This insignificant grove of trees could well be the Armageddon of the human race.
Walker’s captain had been precise about it. “If these things go on multiplying, it means the end of humanity. We’ve got to stop them, and this is the place and we’re the guys to do it.”
The men looked at each other, and a sergeant was bold enough to ask a question. “Just how are we going to knock them off?”
“They’re working that out right now,” the captain said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get the Word.”
That had been early morning. Now it was noon, and they were still waiting for the Word. Private Walker felt more like bait with each passing minute. He looked again at his indestructible shoe leather. “I’ll kick the hell out of them,” he muttered.
“Walker!” his sergeant bellowed. “You going off your nut? Sit down and relax.”
Walker walked toward the sergeant. “It’s true, isn’t it? That business about the Cloaks not eating shoes?”
Sergeant Altman took a cautious glance at his own shoes and nodded.
“Shoes are made out of leather,” Walker said. “Why don’t we make us some suits out of leather? And gloves, too?”
The sergeant scratched his head fretfully. “Let’s talk to the captain.”
They talked to the captain. The captain rushed the two of them off to see a colonel, and in no time at all they were in the hallowed presence of a general, a big, intense man whose glance chilled Walker to the soles of his feet and who paced irritably back and forth while Walker stammered his fanciful question about leather suits and gloves.
When he finished, the general stopped pacing. “Congratulations, Private Walker,” he said. “Someone should have thought of this three weeks ago, but no one did. It’s men like you who make our army great. I’ll see that you get a medal for this, and I’ll also see that you get all the leather you want.”
They saluted and turned away, both of them stunned at the realization that they’d been granted the honor of testing Walker’s idea. It didn’t help when they heard the general say, just before they passed out of hearing, “Darned silly notion. Do you think it’d work?”
Dusk was dropping down on them when the “leather” arrived. Walker slipped on a leather jacket and boots that reached his knees. He wrapped pieces of leather around his upper legs and tied them on with strips of leather. He fashioned a rough leather skirt for himself, ignoring the snickers of those watching. Five others did the same— three privates, the sergeant and the captain. The captain tossed leather hats to them, and gloves, and Walker carefully worked the sleeves of his jacket down into the gloves.
“All right,” the captain said. “This will have to do. If it works they’ll design a one-piece leather suit with something to protect the face, but we’ll have to show them that it works. Let’s get in there before it’s too dark to see.”
The grove was already ringed with lights that laced the half-darkness with freakish shadows as far as they were able to penetrate. The captain arranged them in a tight formation, himself in the lead and the sergeant bringing up the rear. A quick glance to see that all was ready, a nod, and they worked their way forward.
After an advance of ten yards the captain held up his hand. They stopped, and Walker, in his position on the right flank, looked about uneasily—up, down, sideways. A light breeze stirred the treetops high overhead. From the sky came the hollow buzz of a multitude of planes. The noise had a remote, unreal quality.
The captain signaled, and they moved on. Someone stumbled and swore, and the captain hissed, “Silence!”
They reached the far side of the grove and turned back. The tension had lifted somewhat; they spread out and began to walk faster. Walker suddenly realized that he was perspiring under the leather garments, that his inner clothing was sopped with sweat.
“I could do with a bath,” he muttered, and the captain silenced him with a wave of his hand.
At the center of the grove they wheeled off at an angle, Walker became momentarily separated from the others when he detoured around a dense clump of bushes. There was a warning shout, and as he whirled the Night Cloak was upon him.
He shielded his face with one arm and swung a clenched fist. His hand punched a gaping hole, and he withdrew it and swung again. There was almost no resistance to his blows, and he riddled the pulsating, multicolored substance that draped over him. He had a momentary feeling of exultation. The leather worked. It was protecting him, and he would fix this Cloak but good. He punched and clawed and tore, and huge pieces came away in his grasp. Someone was beside him trying to tear the Cloak away, and he had a glimpse of a furious battle with the other Night Cloak taking place a short distance away.
Then he was completely enveloped, and he screamed with agony as a searing, excruciating pain encircled one knee and then the other. There were several hands fumbling about him, now, pulling shreds of Night Cloak from his struggling body. He raised both arms to protect his face and became aware for the first time of a vile odor. Then the thing flowed, slithered around his arms and found his face, and he lost consciousness.
He awoke gazing at the restful pale gray ceiling of a hospital.
Someone in the next bed chuckled. “Came around, did you? It’s about time.”
He turned. Sergeant Altman sat on the edge of the bed grinning broadly. Both of his wrists were bandaged; otherwise he seemed unhurt. “How do you feel?” he asked.
Walker felt the bandage that covered most of his face. “It hurts like the devil,” he said.
“Sure. You got a good stiff dose of it, too—around your knees and on your face. But the doc says you’ll be as good as new after some skin grafts, and you’re a hell of a lot better off than Lyle. It didn’t get your eyes.”
“What happened?” Walker asked.
“Well, the leather works good. None of us got hurt except where we weren’t protected or where the Cloaks could get underneath the leather. So now they’ll be making those one-piece leather suits with maybe a thick plastic to protect the face. All of us are heroes, especially you.”
“What happened to the Cloaks?”
“Oh, we tore them into about a hundred pieces each.”
Walker nodded his satisfaction.
“And then,” Altman went on, “the pieces flew away.”
Hilks had a scientific headquarters set up near what had been a sleepy little town north of Memphis. It was a dese
rted town, now, in a deserted countryside where no living thing moved, and the bustling activity around the lab plane seemed strangely inappropriate, like a frolic at a funeral.
John Allen dropped his plane neatly into a vacant spot among the two dozen planes that were parked nearby. He stood looking at the lab plane for a moment before he walked toward it, and when he did move it was with the uncertain step of the outsider who expects at any moment to be ordered away.
At this moment the Night Cloaks were, as a general had put it that very morning, none of his business.
Two weeks previously his assignment had been canceled and his authority transferred to the military high command. It was not to be considered a demotion or a reprimand, his superiors told him. On the contrary, he would receive a citation for his work. His competence, and his years of devotion to duty, had enabled him to quickly recognize the menace for what it was and take the best possible action. He had identified the Night Cloak on the sketchiest of evidence, and no one could suggest anything that he should have done but didn’t.
But control of the investigation was passed to the military because the Night Cloaks had assumed the dimensions of a national catastrophe that threatened to become international. The nation’s top military men could not be placed under the orders of a civilian employee of an extranational organization.
“Can I continue the investigation on my own?” Allen demanded.
‘Take a vacation,” his chief said with a smile. “You’ve earned it.”
So Allen had taken vacation leave and immediately returned to the zone of action. Unfortunately, he was temperamentally unsuited to the role of observer. He made suggestions, he criticized, and he attempted to prod the authorities into various kinds of action, and that morning a general had ordered him out of the Contaminated Zone and threatened to have him shot if he returned.
The lab plane was inside the Contaminated Zone, but word of Allen’s banishment seemed not to have reached it. A few scientists recognized him and greeted him warmly. He went directly to Hilks’s office, and there he found Hilks sitting moodily at his desk and gazing fixedly at a bottle that stood in front of him.
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