FisherA
TateA
O'KeefeB
HorstokowskiB
SilbermanB
DanielsB
PortbaneA
Domgraf-SchwachB
LanoirA
"I'll be damned," Silberman said softly. "As simple as that. We're paranoids."
"You cluck!" Tate shouted at Horstokowski. "It was A, not B! How the hell could you get it wrong?"
"B was as bright as a searchlight!" Domgraf-Schwach answered furiously. "A was completely colorless!"
O'Keefe pushed forward. "Which was it, Portbane? Which was the positive sample?"
"I don't know," Portbane confessed. "How could any of us be sure?"
The buzzer on Domgraf-Schwach's desk clicked and he snapped on the vidscreen.
The face of a soldier-operator appeared. "The attack's over, sir. We drove them away."
Domgraf-Schwach smiled ironically. "Catch any of them?"
"No, sir. They slipped back into the bog. I think we hit a couple, though. We'll go out tomorrow and try to find the corpses."
"You think you'll find them?"
"Well, the bog usually swallows them up. But maybe this time --"
"All right," Domgraf-Schwach interrupted. "If this turns out to be an exception, let me know." He broke the circuit.
"Now what?" Daniels inquired icily.
"There's no point in continuing work on the ship," O'Keefe said. "Why waste our time bombing empty bogs?"
"I suggest we keep working on the ship," Tate contradicted.
"Why?" O'Keefe asked.
"So we can head for Fomalhaut and give ourselves up to the hospital station."
Silberman stared at him incredulously. "Turn ourselves in? Why not stay here? We're not harming anybody."
"No, not yet. It's the future I'm thinking of, centuries from now."
"We'll be dead."
"Those of us in this room, sure, but what about our descendants?"
"He's right," Lanoir conceded. "Eventually our descendants will fill this whole solar system. Sooner or later, our ships might spread over the Galaxy." He tried to smile, but his muscles would not respond. "The tapes point out how tenacious paranoids are. They cling fanatically to their fixed beliefs. If our descendants expand into Terran regions, there'll be a fight and we might win because we're more one-track. We would never deviate."
"Fanatics," Daniels whispered.
"We'll have to keep this information from the rest of the camp," O'Keefe said.
"Absolutely," Fisher agreed. "We'll have to keep them thinking the ship is for H-bomb attacks. Otherwise, we'll have one hell of a situation on our hands."
They began moving numbly toward the sealed door.
"Wait a minute," Domgraf-Schwach said urgently. "The two workmen." He started back, while some of them went out into the corridor, the rest back toward their seats.
And then it happened.
Silberman fired first. Fisher screamed as half of him vanished in swirling particles of radioactive ash. Silberman dropped to one knee and fired up at Tate. Tate leaned back and brought out his own B-pistol. Daniels stepped from the path of Lanoir's beam. It missed him and struck the first row of seats.
Lanoir calmly crept along the wall through the billowing clouds of smoke. A figure loomed ahead; he raised his gun and fired. The figure fell to one side and fired back. Lanoir staggered and collapsed like a deflated balloon and Silberman hurried on.
At his desk, Domgraf-Schwach was groping wildly for his escape button. His fingers touched it, but as he depressed the stud, a blast from Portbane's pistol removed the top of his head. The lifeless corpse stood momentarily, then was whisked to "safety" by the intricate apparatus beneath the desk.
"This way!" Portbane shouted, above the sizzle of the B-blasts. "Come on, Tate!"
Various beams were turned in his direction. Half the chamber burst apart and thundered down, disintegrating into rubble and flaming debris. He and Tate scrambled for one of the emergency exits. Behind them, the others hurried, firing savagely.
Horstokowski found the exit and slid past the jammed lock. He fired as the two figures raced up the passage ahead of him. One of them stumbled, but the other grabbed at him and they hobbled off together. Daniels was a better shot. As Tate and Portbane emerged on the surface, one of Daniels' blasts undercut the taller of the two.
Portbane continued running a little way, and then silently pitched face-forward against the side of a plastic house, a gloomy square of opaque blackness against the night sky.
"Where'd they go?" Silberman demanded hoarsely, as he appeared at the mouth of the passage. His right arm had been torn away by Lanoir's blast. The stump was seared hard.
"I got one of them." Daniels and O'Keefe approached the inert figure warily. "It's Portbane. That leaves Tate. We got three of the four. Not bad, on such short notice."
"Tate's damn smart," Silberman panted. "I think he suspected."
He scanned the darkness around them. Soldiers, returning from the gas attack, came hurrying up. Searchlights rumbled toward the scene of the shooting. Off in the distance, sirens wailed.
"Which way did he go?" Daniels asked.
"Over toward the bog."
O'Keefe moved cautiously along the narrow street. The others came slowly behind.
"You were the first to realize," Horstokowski said to Silberman. "For a while, I believed the test. Then I realized we were being tricked -- the four of them were plotting in unison."
"I didn't expect four of them," Silberman admitted. "I knew there was at least one Terran spy among us. But Lanoir. . ."
"I always knew Lanoir was a Terran agent," O'Keefe declared flatly. "I wasn't surprised at the test results. They gave themselves away by faking their findings."
Silberman waved over a group of soldiers. "Have Tate picked up and brought here. He's somewhere at the periphery of the camp."
The soldiers hurried away, dazed and muttering. Alarm bells dinned shrilly on all sides. Figures scampered back and forth. Like a disturbed ant colony, the whole camp was alive with excitement.
"In other words," Daniels said, "the four of them really saw the same as we. They saw B as the positive sample, but they put down A instead."
"They knew we'd put down B," O'Keefe said, "since B was the positive sample taken from the attack site. All they had to do was record the opposite. The results seemed to substantiate Lanoir's paranoid theory, which was why Portbane set up the test in the first place. It was planned a long time ago -- part of their overall job."
"Lanoir dug up the tapes in the first place!" Daniels exclaimed. "Fisher and he planted them down in the ruins of the ship. Portbane got us to accept his testing device."
"What were they trying to do?" Silberman asked suddenly. "Why were they trying to convince us we're paranoids?"
"Isn't it obvious?" O'Keefe replied. "They wanted us to turn ourselves in. The Terran monkey men naturally are trying to choke off the race that's going to supplant them. We won't surrender, of course. The four of them were clever -- they almost had me convinced. When the results flashed up five to four, I had a momentary doubt. But then I realized what an intricate strategy they had worked out."
Horstokowski examined his B-pistol. "I'd like to get hold of Tate and wring the whole story from him, the whole damn account of their planning, so we'd have it in black and white."
"You're still not convinced?" Daniels inquired.
"Of course. But I'd like to hear him admit it."
"I doubt if we'll see Tate again," O'Keefe said. "He must have reached the Terran lines by now. He's probably sitting in a big inter-system military transport, giving his story to gold-braid Terran officials. I'll bet they're moving up heavy guns and shock troops while we stand here."
"We'd better get busy," Daniels said sharply. "We'll repair the ship and load it with H-bombs. After we wipe out their bases here, we'll carry the war to them. A few raids on the Sol System ought to teach them to leave us alone."
Tate lay trembling in the dark tangle of weeds. Dripping black stalks of nocturnal vegetables clutched and stirred around him. Poisonous night insects slithered across the surface of the fetid bog.
He was covered with slime. His clothing was torn and ripped. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his B-pistol. His right shoulder ached; he could hardly move his arm. Bones broken, probably. He was too numb and dazed to care. He lay facedown in the sticky muck and closed his eyes.
He didn't have a chance. Nobody survived in the bogs. He feebly smashed an insect oozing across his neck. It squirmed in his hand and then, reluctantly, died. For a long time, its dead legs kicked.
The probing stalk of a stinging snail began tracing webs across Tate's inert body. As the sticky pressure of the snail crept heavily onto him, he heard the first faint far-off sounds of the camp going into action. For a time, it meant nothing to him. Then he understood -- and shuddered miserably, helplessly.
The first phase of the big offensive against Earth was already moving into high gear.
Upon the Dull Earth
Silvia ran laughing through the night brightness, between the roses and cosmos and Shasta daisies, down the gravel path and beyond the heaps of sweet-tasting grass swept from the lawns. Stars, caught in pools of water, glittered everywhere, as she brushed through them to the slope beyond the brick wall. Cedars supported the sky and ignored the slim shape squeezing past, her brown hair flying, her eyes flashing.
"Wait for me," Rick complained, as he cautiously threaded his way after her, along the half familiar path. Silvia danced on without stopping. "Slow down!" he shouted angrily.
"Can't -- we're late." Without warning, Silvia appeared in front of him, blocking the path. "Empty your pockets," she gasped, her gray eyes sparkling. "Throw away all metal. You know they can't stand metal."
Rick searched his pockets. In his overcoat were two dimes and a fifty-cent piece. "Do these count?"
"Yes!" Silvia snatched the coins and threw them into the dark heaps of calla lilies. The bits of metal hissed into the moist depths and were gone. "Anything else?" She caught hold of his arm anxiously. "They're already on their way. Anything else, Rick?"
"Just my watch." Rick pulled his wrist away as Silvia's wild fingers snatched for the watch. "That's not going in the bushes."
"Then lay it on the sundial -- or the wall. Or in a hollow tree." Silvia raced off again. Her excited, rapturous voice danced back to him. "Throw away your cigarette case. And your keys, your belt buckle -- everything metal. You know how they hate metal. Hurry, we're late!"
Rick followed sullenly after her. "All right, witch."
Silvia snapped at him furiously from the darkness. "Don't say that! It isn't true. You've been listening to my sisters and my mother and --"
Her words were drowned out by the sound. Distant flapping, a long way off, like vast leaves rustling in a winter storm. The night sky was alive with the frantic poundings; they were coming very quickly this time. They were too greedy, too desperately eager to wait. Flickers of fear touched the man and he ran to catch up with Silvia.
Silvia was a tiny column of green skirt and blouse in the center of the thrashing mass. She was pushing them away with one arm and trying to manage the faucet with the other. The churning activity of wings and bodies twisted her like a reed. For a time she was lost from sight.
"Rick!" she called faintly. "Come here and help!" She pushed them away and struggled up. "They're suffocating me!"
Rick fought his way through the wall of flashing white to the edge of the trough. They were drinking greedily at the blood that spilled from the wooden faucet. He pulled Silvia close against him; she was terrified and trembling. He held her tight until some of the violence and fury around them had died down.
"They're hungry," Silvia gasped feebly.
"You're a little cretin for coming ahead. They can sear you to ash!"
"I know. They can do anything." She shuddered, excited and frightened. "Look at them," she whispered, her voice husky with awe. "Look at the size of them -- their wing-spread. And they're white, Rick. Spotless -- perfect. There's nothing in our world as spotless as that. Great and clean and wonderful."
"They certainly wanted the lamb's blood."
Silvia's soft hair blew against his face as the wings fluttered on all sides. They were leaving now, roaring up into the sky. Not up, really -- away. Back to their own world whence they had scented the blood. But it was not only the blood -- they had come because of Silvia. She had attracted them.
The girl's gray eyes were wide. She reached up towards the rising white creatures. One of them swooped close. Grass and flowers sizzled as blinding white flames roared in a brief fountain. Rick scrambled away. The flaming figure hovered momentarily over Silvia and then there was a hollow pop. The last of the white-winged giants was gone. The air, the ground, gradually cooled into darkness and silence.
"I'm sorry," Silvia whispered.
"Don't do it again," Rick managed. He was numb with shock. "It isn't safe."
"Sometimes I forget. I'm sorry, Rick. I didn't mean to draw them so close." She tried to smile. "I haven't been that careless in months. Not since that other time, when I first brought you out here." The avid, wild look slid across her face. "Did you see him? Power and flames! And he didn't even touch us. He just -- looked at us. That was all. And everything's burned up, all around."
Rick grabbed hold of her. "Listen," he grated. "You mustn't call them again. It's wrong. This isn't their world."
"It's not wrong -- it's beautiful."
"It's not safe!" His fingers dug into her flesh until she gasped. "Stop tempting them down here!"
Silvia laughed hysterically. She pulled away from him, out into the blasted circle that the horde of angels had seared behind them as they rose into the sky. "I can't help it," she cried. "I belong with them. They're my family, my people. Generations of them, back into the past."
"What do you mean?"
"They're my ancestors. And some day I'll join them."
"You are a little witch!" Rick shouted furiously.
"No," Silvia answered. "Not a witch, Rick. Don't you see? I'm a saint."
The kitchen was warm and bright. Silvia plugged in the Silex and got a big red can of coffee down from the cupboards over the sink. "You mustn't listen to them," she said, as she set out plates and cups and got cream from the refrigerator. "You know they don't understand. Look at them in there."
Silvia's mother and her sisters, Betty Lou and Jean, stood huddled together in the living room, fearful and alert, watching the young couple in the kitchen. Walter Everett was standing by the fireplace, his face blank, remote.
"Listen to me," Rick said. "You have this power to attract them. You mean you're not -- isn't Walter your real father?"
"Oh, yes -- of course he is. I'm completely human. Don't I look human?"
"But you're the only one who has the power."
"I'm not physically different," Silvia said thoughtfully. "I have the ability to see, that's all. Others have had it before me -- saints, martyrs. When I was a child, my mother read to me about St. Bernadette. Remember where her cave was? Near a hospital. They were hovering there and she saw one of them."
"But the blood! It's grotesque. There never was anything like that."
"Oh, yes. The blood draws them, lamb's blood especially. They hover over battlefields. Valkyries -- carrying off the dead to Valhalla. That's why saints and martyrs cut and mutilate themselves. You know where I got the idea?"
Silvia fastened a little apron around her waist and filled the Silex with coffee. "When I was nine years old, I read of it in Homer, in the Odyssey. Ulysses dug a trench in the ground and filled it with blood to attract the spirits. The shades from the netherworld."
"That's right," Rick admitted reluctantly. "I rememb
er."
"The ghosts of people who died. They had lived once. Everybody lives here, then dies and goes there." Her face glowed. "We're all going to have wings! We're all going to fly. We'll all be filled with fire and power. We won't be worms any more."
"Worms! That's what you always call me."
"Of course you're a worm. We're all worms -- grubby worms creeping over the crust of the Earth, through dust and dirt."
"Why should blood bring them?"
"Because it's life and they're attracted by life. Blood is uisge beatha -- the water of life."
"Blood means death! A trough of spilled blood. . ."
"It's not death. When you see a caterpillar crawl into its cocoon, do you think it's dying?"
Walter Everett was standing in the doorway. He stood listening to his daughter, his face dark. "One day," he said hoarsely, "they're going to grab her and carry her off. She wants to go with them. She's waiting for that day."
"You see?" Silvia said to Rick. "He doesn't understand either." She shut off the Silex and poured coffee. "Coffee for you?" she asked her father.
"No," Everett said.
"Silvia," Rick said, as if speaking to a child, "if you went away with them, you know you couldn't come back to us."
"We all have to cross sooner or later. It's all part of our life."
"But you're only nineteen," Rick pleaded. "You're young and healthy and beautiful. And our marriage -- what about our marriage?" He half rose from the table. "Silvia, you've got to stop this!"
"I can't stop it. I was seven when I saw them first." Silvia stood by the sink, gripping the Silex, a faraway look in her eyes. "Remember, Daddy? We were living back in Chicago. It was winter. I fell, walking home from school." She held up a slim arm. "See the scar? I fell and cut myself on the gravel and slush. I came home crying -- it was sleeting and the wind was howling around me. My arm was bleeding and my mitten was soaked with blood. And then I looked up and saw them."
There was silence.
"They want you," Everett said wretchedly. "They're flies -- bluebottles, hovering around, waiting for you. Calling you to come along with them."
"Why not?" Silvia's gray eyes were shining and her cheeks radiated joy and anticipation. "You've seen them, Daddy. You know what it means. Transfiguration -- from clay into gods!"
Collected Stories 3 - The Father-Thing and Other Classic Stories Page 26