Hour of the Horde

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “This,” said the disembodied voice of the Chief Executive, “is a picture of what the predator looks like, according to our two visitors. The predator is born, lives, and dies within his ship or ships in space. His only concern is to survive—first as a race, then as an individual. His numbers are countless. Even the ships in which he lives will probably be numbered in the millions. He and his fellows will be prepared to sustain staggering losses if they can win their way into the feeding ground that is our galaxy. Here, by courtesy of our two visitors, is a picture of what the predator fleet will look like. Collectively, they’re referred to in the records of our galaxy as the Silver Horde.”

  Once more the image in the television screen changed.

  “This is one of their ships,” said the President’s voice.

  A spindle-shaped craft of some highly polished metal appeared on the television screen. Beside it, the silhouette of a man had shrunk until it was approximately the size of a human being standing next to a double trailer truck.

  “This is a scout ship, the smallest of their craft—holding a single family, usually consisting of three or four adults and perhaps as many young.”

  The image on the television set shrank almost to a dot, and beside it appeared a large circular craft nearly filling the screen.

  “And this is the largest of their ships,” said the President. “Inside, it should have much the appearance and population of a small city—up to several thousand individuals, adult and young, and at least one large manufacturing or tool-making unit required by the Horde for maintenance and warfare, as well as food-processing and storage units.”

  The voice of the Chief Executive lifted, on a note that signaled he was approaching the end of what he had to say.

  “Our visitors have told us,” he said, “that defense of the galaxy is a common duty. For our world to join in that defense is therefore a duty. What they require from us, however, is a contribution of a highly specialized nature.” His voice hesitated and then went on more strongly. “They tell us that the weapons with which our galaxy’s defensive force will meet the Horde are beyond the understanding of our science here on Earth. They tell us, however, that they are part physical, part nonphysical in nature. The number of fighting individuals we can contribute, therefore, to our galaxy’s defense is limited by our relatively primitive state of awareness as far as these nonphysical forces are concerned. We can send only one man. This one individual—this one man who is best suited to be our representative by natural talent and abilities—has already been selected by our visitors. He will shortly be taken over by them, adjusted so as to make the best possible use of these talents, and then turned loose for a brief period to move about our world and absorb an identification with the rest of us. This process of absorbing an identification has been compared by our visitors to the process of charging a car battery, to exposing its plates to a steady input of electrical current. Once he has been so ‘charged,’ all of us on this world who have managed to contribute to the ‘charging’ will continue to have some sort of awareness in the backs of our minds of what he is going through up on the battle line, to which he will then be transported. And from this linkage he will draw the personal nonphysical strength with which he will operate his particular weapon when the encounter with the Horde occurs.”

  The President’s face once more appeared on the television screen. He paused, and standing in the bar, Miles felt the impact of the older man’s eyes upon him—as, evidently, did everyone else in the room.

  “That is all for now,” said the President slowly. “As soon as we have more information, people of America and people of our world, it will be released to you. Meanwhile, in this trying and strange time into which we have suddenly been plunged by events, let me ask you all to go on with your lives in their ordinary fashion and show patience. As we approach what lies in store for us, what lies in store for us will become more plain to us all. God bless you, and good afternoon.”

  His face vanished from the screen. There was a moment of grayness; then the face of an announcer flickered on.

  “The voice you have just heard,” the announcer said smoothly, “was that of the President of the United States…”

  There was a slowly beginning, gradually increasing combination of sighs and rustles of movement within the bar as the people there came to life and action again. Miles turned to Marie and saw her standing white-faced, still staring at the television screen.

  “Come on,” said Miles. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He had to take her by the arm before he could break the trance that held her. But when he touched her, she started and seemed to come awake. She turned obediently and followed him out once more into the red-lighted street.

  In the street she leaned against him, as if the strength had gone out of her. He put his arm around her to steady her and looked anxiously about him. Two blocks down the street, a lone cab was coming toward them. Miles whistled, and the cab came on, angling into the curb to stop before them.

  Miles bent down to open the rear door. As he did, he became conscious of the fact that besides the driver, there was a man in a blue suit in the front seat and another man sitting in the back seat. He checked, with the door half-open.

  “It’s all right,” said the man in the back seat. “You’re Miles Vander, aren’t you? And this will be Miss Bourtel.”

  He reached into his inside suitcoat pocket and brought out a leather case, which he flipped open. Miles saw a card in a plastic case, with the man’s picture and some lines of fine type underneath.

  “Treasury Department,” said the man. “You’re to come with us, Mr. Vander. We’ll drop Miss Bourtel off on the way.”

  Miles stared at him.

  “Please get in,” said the man in the front seat beside the driver, and the evenness of his tone made the words more a command than an invitation. “We were told we’d find you here. And there’s no time to lose.”

  Within the circle of Miles’ arm, Marie leaned even more heavily against him. Worry for her tightened Miles’ chest.

  “All right,” he said abruptly. He helped Marie into the back seat of the taxi next to the man sitting there and then got in himself, closing the door behind him.

  “We’d better go—” he was beginning, when the man in the front seat cut him short.

  “That’s all right. We’ve got our instructions on that, too,” he said. He sat half turned in the front seat, with one elbow over the back to the seat so that he looked directly into Miles’ face. “Look at her.”

  Alarmed, Miles looked sharply around again at Marie. She sat with her head against him, her eyes closed, unmoving, breathing deeply and slowly.

  “Don’t worry,” said the man in the front seat. “She’s only asleep. The aliens arranged it—the two from the ship—to get her through the business of seeing you picked up by us. We’re to deliver her to the university hospital, where they’ll take care of her for an hour or two, until she wakes. When she does wake up, she won’t be alarmed about what’s happened to you anymore.”

  Miles stared at him.

  “What is all this?” Miles burst out.

  “I don’t blame you for not suspecting,” the man in the front seat answered. The taxi was already pulling away from the curb and heading off down the street in the direction of the distant university. “We’ll be taking you immediately to the airport, where a military airplane will fly you to Washington. You’re the man that the two aliens from the spaceship—our two visitors from the center of the galaxy—have picked to be this world’s representative, defending the galaxy against the Silver Horde, and everything we’ve done so far, like our finding you and Miss Bourtel’s falling asleep, has been arranged by them.”

  4

  The process by which Miles was whirled away after that to the university hospital, where they left Marie sleeping, to the airport, by jet to Washington, by blue civilian sedan there to a large building which he dimly recognized as the Pentagon, and within the Pe
ntagon to a suite of rooms more resembling a hotel suite than anything else—all this passed like the successive shapes of some bad dream. And after all the rushing was over, after he had at last been settled in the suite of rooms, he discovered that he had nothing to do but wait.

  The two men who had picked him up in Minneapolis and brought him here stayed with him through the dinner hour. After the dinner cart with its load of clinking empty plates and dirty silverware had been wheeled out again, the two men watched television, with its endless parade of announcers, throughout the evening—the sound turned low at Miles’ request. Miles himself, after prowling restlessly around the room and asking a number of questions to which his guardians gave noncommittal answers, finally settled down with a pencil and some notepaper to while away his time making sketches of the other two.

  He had become lost in this, to the point where he no longer noticed the murmur of the television or the passage of time, when there was a knock at his door and one of the guards got up to answer. A moment later Miles was conscious that the man had returned and was standing over him, waiting for him to look up from his sketching. Miles looked up.

  “The President’s here,” said the guard.

  Miles stared, then got hastily to his feet, putting his sketches aside. Beyond the guard, he saw the door to his suite standing open and a moment later heard the approach of feet down the polished surface of the corridor outside. These came closer and closer. A second later the man Miles had been watching on television earlier that day walked into the room.

  In person, the Chief Executive was not as tall as he often appeared in pictures—no taller than Miles himself. Close up, however, he looked more youthful than he appeared in news photos and on television. He shook hands with Miles with a great deal of warmth, but it was something of the warmth of a tired and worried man who can only snatch a few moments from his day in which to be human and personal.

  He put a hand on Miles’ shoulder and walked him over to a window that looked out on a narrow strip of grass in what appeared to be a small artificial courtyard under some kind of skylight. The two men who had been with Miles and the others who had come with the Chief Executive quietly slipped out the door of the suite and left them alone.

  “It’s an honor…” said the President. He still stood with his hand on Miles’ shoulder, and his voice was deep with the throatiness of age. “It’s an honor to have an American be the one who was chosen. I wanted to tell you that myself.”

  “Thank you… Mr. President,” Miles answered, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar words of the title. He burst out then in spite of the urgings of courtesy. “But I don’t know why they’d want to pick me! Why me?”

  The older man’s hand patted his shoulder a little awkwardly, even a little bewilderedly.

  “I don’t know either,” murmured the President. “None of us knows.”

  “But—” Miles hesitated, then plunged ahead. “We’ve only got their word for everything. How do we know it’s true, what they say?”

  Again the Presidential hand patted him sympathetically on the shoulder.

  “We don’t know,” the older man said, looking out at the grass of the artificial courtyard. “That’s the truth of the matter. We don’t know. But that ship of theirs is something—incredible. It backs up their story. And after all, they only want—”

  He broke off, looked at Miles, and smiled a little apologetically.

  Miles felt a sudden coldness inside him.

  “You mean,” he said slowly, “you’re ready to believe them because they want only one man? Because they want only me?”

  “That’s right,” said the Chief Executive. He did not pat Miles on the shoulder now. He looked directly into Miles’ eyes. “They’ve asked for nothing but one man. And they’ve shown us some evidence—shown us heads of state, that is—some physical evidence from the last time the Horde went through the galaxy millions of years ago. We’ve seen the dead body of one of the Horde—preserved, of course. We’ve seen samples of the weapons and tools of the Horde. Of course, these could have been fakes—made up just to show us. But, Miles—” He paused, still keeping Miles’ eyes locked with his own. “The best guess we can make is that they’re telling the truth.”

  Miles opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, helplessly.

  Finally, he got the words out.

  “But,” he said, “if they’re lying…”

  The President straightened. Once more he put his hand on Miles’ shoulder, in a curious touch—a touch like an accolade, as if he were knighting Miles.

  “Of course,” he said slowly, “if it should turn out to be that… your responsibility might turn out to be even greater than it is.”

  They stood facing each other. Suddenly Miles understood—just as in the same moment he understood that it was just this message that the other man had come personally to give him. It was clear, if unspoken, between them. Yet Miles felt a strange, angry need to bring the understanding out in the open. A need to make it plain the thing was there, like touching with his tongue, again and again, the exposed root of an aching tooth.

  “You mean, if it turns out that they want to make me into something dangerous to people back here,” he said, “you want me to do something about it, is that it?’

  The President did not answer. He continued to look at Miles and hold Miles’ shoulder as if he were pledging him to some special duty.

  “You mean,” said Miles again, more loudly, “that if it turns out that I’m being made into something dangerous to… the human race, I’m to destroy myself. Is that it?”

  The President sighed, and his hand dropped from Miles’ shoulder. He turned to look out at the grass in the courtyard.

  “You’re to follow your own judgment,” he said to Miles.

  A great loneliness descended upon Miles. A chilling loneliness. He had never felt so alone before. It seemed as if the President’s words had lifted him up and transported him off, far off, from all humanity into an isolated watchtower, to a solitary sentry post far removed from all the rest of humanity. He too turned and looked out at the little strip of grass. Suddenly it looked greener and more beautiful than any such length of lawn he had ever gazed upon in his life. It seemed infinitely precious.

  “Miles,” he heard the older man say.

  He lifted his head and turned to see the President facing him once more, with his hand outstretched.

  “Good luck, Miles,” said the President.

  “Thank you.” Miles took the hand automatically. They shook hands, and the Chief Executive turned and walked away across the room and out the door, leaving it open. The two Treasury agents who had picked up Miles originally came back in, shutting the door firmly behind them. They sat down again without a word near the TV set and turned it on. Miles heard its low murmur again in his ear.

  Almost blindly, he himself turned and walked into one of the two bedrooms of the suite, closing the door behind him. He lay down on the bed on his back, staring at the white ceiling.

  He woke suddenly—and only by his waking was he made aware of the fact that his drifting thoughts had dwindled into sleep. Standing over him, alongside the bed, were two figures that were vaguely familiar, although he could not remember ever having seen them before in his life. Slowly he remembered. They were the two figures, still business-suited, that had been shown on the television screen as he and Marie had watched the President’s broadcast in the bar. Suddenly he understood. These were the two aliens from the monster ship that overhung Earth, under a sun that they had colored red to attract the attention of all the people on the world to the coming of that ship.

  Reflex, the reflex that brings an animal out of sound sleep to its feet, brought Miles to his. He found himself standing almost between the two aliens. At close range their faces looked directly into his, no less human of feature or color or general appearance than they had looked before. But this close, it seemed to Miles that he felt an emanation from them—something too sti
ll, too composed to be human. And yet the eyes they fixed upon him were not unkind.

  Only remote, as remote as the eyes of men on some high plateau looking down into a jungle of beasts.

  “Miles,” said the one on his left, who was slightly the shorter of the two. His voice was a steady baritone—calm, passionless, distant, without foreign accent. “Are you ready to come with us?”

  Still fogged by sleep, still with his nerves wound wire-tight by the animal reflex that had jerked him up out of slumber, Miles snapped out what he might not have said without thinking, otherwise.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  The two looked steadily at him.

  “Of course you have a choice,” said the shorter of the two calmly. “You’d be no good, to your world or to us, unless you wanted to help us.”

  Miles began to laugh. It was harsh, reflexive laughter that burst from him almost without intention. It took him a few seconds to get it under control, but finally, he did.

  “Want to?” he said—his real feelings bursting out in spite of himself. “Of course I don’t want to. Yesterday I had my own life, with its future all planned out. Now the sun turns red, and it seems I have to go to some impossible place and do some impossible thing—instead of what I’ve been planning and working toward for five years! And you ask me if I want to!”

  He stared at them, checking just in time the bitter laughter that was threatening to rise inside his throat again. They did not answer.

  “Well?” he challenged. “Why should I want to?”

  “To help your race live,” answered the shorter one emotionlessly. “That’s the only reason that will work. If you don’t want that, then we’ve been wasting our time here—and time is precious.”

  He stopped speaking and gazed at Miles. Now it was Miles’ turn to feel that they were waiting for him to say something. But he did not know what to say.