by D. F. Jones
“I — I think, but I can’t say for sure, I think only the body swelled. It happened so fast! The mouth — I think — opened, the body blew up like a balloon — and then it took off.” She started crying. “Gee, Mark, you must think I’m terribly stupid!”
“You’ve told me quite a lot, my dear.” As a human, he sympathized with her; as a scientist he could have screamed. “You’ve been very — ”
Jaimie burst in. “Mark — Shane!”
Mark switched off as the couple practically smothered each other, thinking of the little he’d learned.
Jaimie was full of questions; he clamped Shane tightly in his arms. Mark butted in. “She’s okay, Jaimie. A nasty shock, that’s all, so slow down.” He looked meaningfully at his junior, then at his wife. “Shane, you’d better go fix your face.” The moment she had gone, fear banished by vanity, he dropped the father act, speaking urgently. “Now you listen, Jaimie: Don’t lead her with questions. Play it down; that way you may get more out of her.” He didn’t sound hopeful. “Don’t push — and don’t suggest answers — got it?
“Okay,” Mark continued, “now get over to the diner. Make it fast — and keep in front of her. No, don’t argue. I’ve got a hunch Xeno prefers attacking single humans.”
“Godalmighty,” said Jaimie fervently, still trailing mentally. “She was lucky! You think it had already fed? Jesus! It’s horrible.” He tried to recover his professional calm, but his voice remained high-pitched, strained. “Why d’you think it left her alone?”
Freedman shrugged. “I’m working on it.”
“Yeah. I thought Main looked pretty deserted.” He tried to laugh. “I don’t think there’ll be many more patients today. Hey — how about Maisie?” She was his receptionist.
“Oh, God!” Freedman had forgotten her. “You’d better take her over as well.”
“And you?”
“Bring me back something, anything,” replied Mark carelessly. “No, I’m not just thinking of my own skin, although as of right now, its true I’m too valuable to risk. But I want time to think.”
“From what Maisie said, you took a mighty big chance this morning.”
“Maybe.”
He watched the trio run, hunched forward as if against rain, and heaved a sigh of relief as they disappeared into the diner. He looked at the empty, sunlit street, the black shadows under the roof eaves now so sinister. How could he let them go out? he wondered. But what else could he do? what could anyone do? Perhaps helmets could be improvised, something to protect the back of the neck. The main thing was to destroy the Xenos, and that couldn’t be done without knowledge.
The second phone was ringing. Let it.
What had he learned from the girl? Confirmation that Xeno used jet propulsion. Partial confirmation that Xeno had an exceedingly good optical system, far ahead of any insect. Golden eyes? Maybe. Were they similar to a bird’s — a bird of prey? Pure guesswork: Shane had added very little, but he was stone-cold certain she had not been attacked. Why?
Could it be that a person who had harbored a parasite contained some trace element that made them unattractive as a food source? If so, how the hell did Xeno know?
He hurried back to his office and the time travelers’ files. The phone was still ringing; he dropped the receiver on his desk and ignored it.
With Shane’s experience in mind, he quickly read the post-emergence records, but they suggested nothing to him. He slumped back in his chair. How did Xeno know? Could it be smell? Just because humans were badly equipped with that sensor, they tended to underrate it: Most animals were way in front, and a good many insects. A male moth could pick up the scent of the pheromones of a female of the same species one or two kilometers distant, so there was nothing way-out in Xeno detecting the inedible at, say, a hundred meters.
Okay: Even assuming that — and it was going out on a limb to do so, for there was no supporting evidence — why did Xeno bother with Shane at all? Why land on her — just to confirm the fact? Or could it be that like him, it sought intelligence of its enemy?
The unattractive thought was blown out of his mind as Jaimie came in, white-faced and breathing heavily. Somewhere behind him a woman was crying. They were back, safe, but lunch had been a disaster. Mom, scared blind, couldn’t concentrate on her cooking. Worse, the radio had been on.
In the area covering Abdera and the county hospital, ten or twelve people had died, and at least two more further afield, in Westchester County. On the Governor’s orders, the director of civil defense was assuming control of upstate New York.
“Civil defense!” Jaimie tried to laugh. “That’ll sure scare Xeno!” He gave Mark a rather squashed hamburger.
“Thanks. We have to start somewhere, Jaimie, and the first thing’s to stop panic.” He looked out of the window. A car went slowly past; Mark recognized a neighbor and watched as he turned the car into his driveway. But the driver didn’t leave it there and walk the few meters to his front door; he drove the car across the grass and spring flowers, then scuttled like a scared rabbit from car to porch.
The reign of terror had begun.
XXVIII.
The smallest stone dropped in a pool creates ripples, Xeno was a large, ugly rock, and the waves spread clear around the world. Press and TV were quick to relate the bizarre events in New York State with the time travelers, their guesswork rapidly confirmed by the happenings in Louisiana; and die whole thing was sewn up when a reporter, working back from the attacks in Georgia, discovered that one of Papa Kilo’s stewardesses had been hospitalized in the area. After that there was no holding off the Fourth Estate, whatever the White House said. Within hours the news from the States blew the lid off the situation in Frankfurt, Germany, where the police were puzzled by two unexplained deaths.
What had been the closest secret in Washington and Moscow alarmed and frightened people all over the world — except in the Soviet bloc. Moscow’s firm hand kept the wraps on Xeno.
The uproar in the States forced the President to make a statement on TV. He came clean, saying the creatures had been “picked up” by the time travelers, admitting the news had been withheld to avoid “unnecessary panic.” Only in the latter part of his statement was he less than honest, saying that the exact number of these creatures was known, and expressing his certain conviction they would be hunted down and destroyed. As for any fresh arrivals, the know-how existed to deal with them. He ended with a few well-chosen platitudes pleading for calm.
Frank Arcasso watched the broadcast at home, glowering at the screen, sprawled on a couch, cigar jammed in his mouth. The big man had been careful not to use the word Xeno: Few people in 1984 had any command of classical languages, but there were enough to know the word meant “stranger,” and that could sound too sinister. Much more important, he’d made no mention of the larger implications.
In general, Frank went along with the President, although he thought he was a bit too optimistic about the ease with which Xeno would be wiped out. Sure they would get it, but it could take a great deal more work than the statement implied. But how about the bigger, more vital question — from what sort of world did Xeno come? On that, not a single word. Frank knew that in making any announcement without Russian approval the President was breaking their agreement; under the circumstances, he had no option. As far as he could, he had kept faith with the Soviets; But caught in a dilemma he’d said, Frank figured, either too much or too little. The world wasn’t entirely populated with fools — it would soon be seen what the real question was. Evasion only destroyed credibility — and that’s what it was, evasion. He had the latest report to the Soviet president on his knee, and a fair idea of its contents. Whatever else, it wouldn’t be evasive.
But Arcasso was in no hurry to read it. He let his mind wander, considering the personalities involved in this nightmare.
Funny how wrong you could be about a guy. Alvin Malin, first-class at his job, had buckled at the knees at the first sight of a Xeno photograph: He wasn
’t just shocked, he was terrified out of his skull. Malin had faced many bad men — gangsters, terrorists — men willing, even anxious, to die for a cause. Once he’d carried a bomb from the second floor of the UN building, a long, slow, nerve-tearing walk down to the entrance and across the plaza, put the device with steady hands in a nest of hastily placed sandbags — and lost a lot of hair and half his clothes when it exploded thirty seconds later. In that sort of situation he had ice-cold courage — but not in the face of Xeno.
At the meeting the President had told Malin to take a look at the situation in Nash County. Arcasso saw the blood drain from Alvin’s face and understood the terror in the FBI man’s mind; he’d seen it happen in combat pilots, men who could only take so much. Arcasso got in ahead of Malin, saying he wanted to go. Maybe the President, for all his worries, had perception too, for he had agreed quickly.
So Frank would be off at first light by helo. Meanwhile there was the report. He thought of another man who’d surprised him, the author of this Xeno update, the secretary of state. Now there was a hard, cool brain: unmoved by Xeno and not deeply interested in the ICARUS concept, he concentrated on the use he could make of both. Everybody else might be in disarray, but not that cold, impeccably dressed figure. What with the shock news from the northeastern states, Malin’s near-collapse, the pressure of time, and presidential hesitation, the meeting had been not far short of chaotic — until Lord got moving. He had the report ready; only the latest details needed insertion. He met little opposition. He knew what he wanted; the rest of the committee was much more concerned with fighting Xeno than sending reports to the goddam Russians.
Frank’s wife interrupted his thoughts, bringing him a large rye on the rocks. That was the one good thing about the crisis: At least he’d been able to tell his wife his part in it, sweeping away her suspicions. Right now she was contrite, playing the part of a dutiful wife the way she’d seen it in some movie, forcing him into the role of heavy. With all he had on his mind, it annoyed and at the same time amused him. Hell, it wouldn’t last. The next scene would come in the morning; then she’d be the stern Roman matron, seeing her lord off to war. If he got back in one piece, he’d be knee-deep in emotion for the movie’s final scene.
He took the drink without a word, playing his part. Maybe that was the hell of marriage, knowing your partner inside out. But suppose he didn’t come back — what then? She and the kids would get by; he was worth more dead than alive, and there’d be a pension.
He skimmed through the factual part of Lord’s report, the apology for the “unilateral presidential announcement,” and the reasons for that action. No one could point a finger at it, all good solid stuff; then came the real meat:
4. Historical
4-1-0. The return of the airplanes above mentioned is an established fact.
4-2-0. The arrival of Xeno via those aircraft is an established fact.
4-3-0. Xeno successfully parasitizes humans, and as the latest events prove (2-3-2), it finds humans an adequate food source and earth conditions viable for its life form. These too are established facts.
Arcasso smiled grimly, sipping his drink. No one could deny anything there. He read on.
5. Xeno
5-1-0. Larval form. Examination of the single full-grown specimen and the two embryos (See Report Three) proves beyond question this life form is, by earth standards, a sophisticated creature with many unique features, some not understood by our biologists.
5-2-0. Pupal form. A matter of conjecture, assumed to exist because of
5-2-1. The period of inaction/dormancy between the emergence of the larval form and the sudden arrival of the (assumed) adult form, currently at liberty in this country, Germany, and (probably) in the Ukrainian SSR and India.
Arcasso tossed his cigar butt in the direction of an ashtray, grinning mirthlessly, guessing the secretary’s drift; there certainly would be no room for evasion in the reader’s mind, either, and the Kremlin couldn’t ignore the deadpan reference to the Ukraine.
5-3-0. Adult form. So far no specimen has been obtained, but eyewitness reports, including one from an expert biologist, show this form to be derived from the larval form. For example …
A long technical analysis followed, relating the larval lung formation to the adult’s mode of propulsion and noting the similarity of the toxin in both forms …
In short, it is certain that we are facing a later form of the larval parasite.
6. Action
6-1-0. The prime aim is the destruction of all Xenos. This cannot be achieved without more understanding of the creature’s anatomy, its strengths and weaknesses. The capture of an adult specimen has the highest priority.
6-2-0. A secondary aim is to devise some protective clothing, to be worn in infected areas. Currently, beekeeper veils are being dispatched to New York State for use by personnel at greatest risk. As in 6-1-0, anti-Xeno protective measures will depend upon a greater understanding of the creature.
7. Evaluation
7-1-0. Xeno is of nonearth origin. (See 4-1 thru 5-1.)
7-2-0. It is contrary to all biological knowledge that a creature should spring from nothing to Xeno’s present sophisticated state (5-10). Therefore it has developed elsewhere, possibly over millions or, at very least, hundreds of thousands of years, to its present state.
7-3-0. It follows that to survive in our environment, its natural environment cannot be markedly dissimilar to earth’s.
“Christ!” said Arcasso softly. “That’s really spelling it out!” He drained his glass and glanced at his attentive wife, who quickly refilled his glass. He lit another cigar, tossing the match away. She retrieved it from the carpet without a word.
7-4-0. Given 7-3, it can be assumed Xeno is also a parasite in its natural habitat. What, therefore, does it parasitize? It is evident that its victim — for convenience we call it the “Entity” — has the following features:
7-5-0. It can pluck our aircraft out of our time and space, and return them unharmed, aside from their contamination by Xeno (4-1). It may be argued that the Entity is not necessarily Xeno’s host; if so, then we are forced to accept there is more than one Entity. To accept this view would only complicate the problem, and in no way alter the following conclusions:
7-5-1. The Entity has superhuman powers (7-5-0).
7-5-2. The Entity is not ill-disposed to Earth, possibly regarding it as we might regard a bush in a garden. Using the same analogy, our aircraft might be the equivalent of a ladybug, something to be picked up, admired, and carefully replaced, the Entity not understanding — any more than we do — the consequences of that action for the ladybug. Of course, it cannot be ruled out that not all aircraft captured have been returned.
7-5-3. We do not know whether the infection of our aircraft with Xeno is intentional or accidental. If intentional, it is a remarkably clumsy action for an Entity with the powers we know it to possess. Alternatively, if Xeno is an accidental implant, it follows that the Entity has little or no awareness of Xeno, no more than we humans are aware of the myriads of mites and other life forms which exist in and on us in symbiotic relationships.
7-6-0. Of the space-time relationship and the Entity’s ability to bridge it, we know nothing and seem unlikely to know more, but the factual evidence we have, and the conclusions we may safely draw, are inescapable. The Entity, by our standards, must be physically immense, for Xeno, which means nothing to It, is lethal to us, and the certainty that Xeno is not lethal to the Entity is confirmed by the self-evident fact that no parasite can exist if it kills its host, for in so doing it seals its own fate.
8. Conclusion
8-1-0. In short, the evidence is conclusive: somewhere in space-time, beyond human understanding, exist Entities, immeasurably superior to us, physically and mentally. Depending upon the human individual’s beliefs, they may be regarded as the gods of the Ancient Greeks, the angels of the Jewish God, the angels or archangels of the Christian God, or whatever fits any parti
cular theology. But however we may see them in our minds, they exist. Again undeniably, they have taken an interest in us. Earth has been found. We must hope and pray that their interest is only passing, that we may be left to work out our own salvation, for by our standards we face a life form unimaginably vast in all respects. We may well be less to these Entities than an anthill is to us, and in their case we have much less power than ants, for while they can reach into our world, we cannot reach theirs.
9-0-0. Your comments are invited.
“The snide bastard!” said Arcasso admiringly.
“Your comments are invited! Fit your dialectical materialism around that!” He dropped the report on the floor, failing to notice copies had also been sent to the Head of State, Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and Doctor T. Marinskiya. A footnote added that a Russian translation of the report had been included.
Secretary of State Lord had done his best to make sure the impact of his literary bomb was not dampened, and had the widest distribution diplomacy allowed.
XXIX.
At nine A.M. the next day Arcasso’s helicopter touched down on Abdera’s baseball diamond. Freedman met him, and at the doctor’s suggestion the big Sikorsky’s rotors were kept running. Their swishing, slapping sound, added to the scream of the air intakes, might give some protection.
Frank clambered out and dropped clumsily to the ground; the helo door shut instantly. Arcasso was wearing — again on Freedman’s advice — a combat suit and steel helmet. But in spite of that, and the quivering bulk of the helo behind him giving some physical and sonic protection, he felt exposed, vulnerable. Freedman took a chance on the rotors, driving right up to the aircraft. He beckoned to Arcasso through the windshield.
Arcasso opened the door, swung his grip into the back, and got in, all in one swift motion, but it wasn’t fast enough for Freedman.
“Shut that door!” he shouted against the roar of the helo. The car jerked, shooting away from the aircraft, bumping and swaying on the uneven surface. Once clear, Freedman stopped, turned the car off, and leaned back, his hands grasping the wheel, watching the now ascending copter. To Arcasso he seemed a lot older and very tired.