The Greek general agreed drily. He said that free people were not practical people. They were always ready to die rather than cease to be free. Surely the Greeks had proved themselves ready to die. But people like the Bulgarians thought that to continue to live was the most important thing in the world. It was, of course, the practical view-point.…
“They can have it!” growled Coburn.
Janice said hesitantly: “But the Invaders haven’t killed anybody we know of. They could have killed the Bulgarians. They didn’t. The one who called himself Dillon stopped one man from killing them. And they could have killed us, earlier today at the airport. Could they want to be friends?”
“They’re starting the wrong way,” said Coburn.
The Greek general stirred in his seat, but he was pointedly silent.
The pilot snapped abruptly from up at the bow of the plane: “Colonel! sir! Two of the fighters are climbing as if they’ve spotted something. There go the rest.”
Coburn leaned across Janice to stare out the window. When the fighters were below the transport, they could be seen in silhouette against the clouds. Above, their exhaust flames pin-pointed them. Small blue flames climbed steeply.
The big ship went on. The roar of its motors was steady and unvarying. From a passenger seat it was not possible to look overhead. But suddenly there were streaking sparks against the stars. Tracer bullets. Fighters swerved and plunged to intercept something.…
* * * *
And a Thing came down out of the sky with a terrific velocity. Tracer bullets sprayed all around it. Some could be seen to ricochet off its sides. Flashings came from the alien craft. They were not explosions from guns. They were lurid, actinic, smokeless blasts of pure light. The Thing seemed to be made of polished metal. It dodged, trying to approach the transport. The fighters lunged to prevent it. The ghastly game of interception seemed to rush here and there all over the sky.
The strange object was not possibly of human design or manufacture. It had no wings. It left no trail of jet fumes or rocket smoke. It was glittering and mirror-like, and it was shaped almost exactly like two turtle-shells base to base. It was flat and oval. It had no visible external features.
It flung itself about with incredible darts and jerkings. It could stop stock still as no plane could possibly stop, and accelerate at a rate no human body could endure. It tried savagely to get through the swarming fighters to the transport. Its light weapon flashed—but the pilots would be wearing oxygen masks and there were no casualties among the human planes. Once a fighter did fall off in a steep dive, and fluttered almost down to the cloud bank before it recovered and came back with its guns spitting.
That one appeared to end the fight. It came straight up, pumping tracers at the steel flier from below. And the glittering Thing seemed to stop dead in the air. Then it shuddered. It was bathed in the flaring sparks of tracers. Then—
It dropped like a stone, tumbling aimlessly over and over as it dropped. It plummeted into the cloud bank.
Suddenly the clouds were lighted from within. Something inside flared with a momentary, terrifying radiance. No lightning bolt ever flashed more luridly.
The transport plane and its escort flew on and on over the moonlit bank of clouds.
Presently orders came by radio. On the report of this attack, the flight plan would be changed, for safety. If the air convoy had been attacked once, it might be attacked again. So it would be wisest to get it immediately to where there would be plenty of protection. Therefore, the transport plane would head for Naples.
Nearly the whole of the United States Mediterranean fleet was in the Bay of Naples just then. It had been there nearly a week, and by day its liberty parties swarmed ashore. The merchants and the souvenir salesmen were entranced. American sailors had money and they spent it. The fleet’s officers were social assets, its messes bought satisfyingly of local viands, and everybody was happy.
All but one small group. The newspapers of one of the Italian political parties howled infuriatedly. They had orders to howl, from behind the Iron Curtain. The American fleet, that one party’s newspapers bellowed, was imperialistic, capitalistic, and decadent. In short, there was virulent propaganda against the American fleet in Naples. But most people were glad it was there anyway. Certainly nobody stayed awake worrying about it.
* * * *
People were staying awake worrying about the transport plane carrying Coburn and Janice, however. On the plane, Janice was fearful and pressed close to Coburn, and he found it an absorbing experience and was moved to talk in a low tone about other matters than extra-terrestrial Invaders and foam suits and interstellar travel. Janice found those other subjects surprisingly fitted to make her forget about being afraid.
Elsewhere, the people who stayed awake did talk about just the subjects Coburn was avoiding. The convoy carrying Coburn to tell what he knew had been attacked. By a plane which was definitely not made or manned by human beings. The news flashed through the air across continents. It went under the ocean over sea beds. It traveled in the tightest and most closely-guarded of diplomatic codes. The Greek government gave the other NATO nations a confidential account of the Bulgarian raid and what had happened to it. These details were past question. The facts brought out by Coburn were true, too.
So secret instructions followed the news. At first they went only to highly-trusted individuals. In thirty nations, top-ranking officials and military officers blindfolded each other in turn and gravely stuck pins in each other. The blindfolded person was expected to name the place where he had been stuck. This had an historical precedent. In olden days, pins were stuck in suspected witches. They had patches of skin in which there was no sensation, and discovery of such areas condemned them to death. Psychologists in later centuries found that patches of anaesthetic skin were typical of certain forms of hysteria, and therefore did not execute their patients. But the Invaders, by the fact that their seemingly human bodies were not flesh at all, could not pass such tests.
There were consequences. A Minister of Defense of a European nation amusedly watched the tests on his subordinates, blandly excused himself for a moment before his own turn came, and did not come back. A general of division vanished into thin air. Diplomatic code clerks painstakingly decoded the instructions for such tests, and were nowhere about when they themselves were to be tested. An eminent Hollywood director and an Olympic champion ceased to be.
In the free world nearly a hundred prominent individuals simply disappeared. Few were in position to influence high-level decisions. Many were in line to know rather significant details of world affairs. There was alarm.
It was plain, too, that not all disguised Invaders would have had to vanish. Many would not even be called on for test. They would stay where they were. And there were private persons.…
There was consternation. But Janice, in the plane, was saying softly to Coburn: “The—creature who telephoned and said she was me. How did you know she wasn’t?”
“I went to the Breen Foundation first,” said Coburn. “I looked into your eyes—and they were right. So I didn’t need to stick a pin in you.”
The thought of Coburn not needing to stick a pin in her impressed Janice as beautiful trust. She sighed contentedly. “Of course you’d know,” she said. “So would I—now!” She laughed a little.
The convoy flew on. The lurid round disk of the moon descended toward the west.
“It’ll be sunrise soon. But I imagine we’ll land before dawn.”
They did. The flying group of planes flew lower. Coburn saw a single light on the ground. It was very tiny, and it vanished rearward with great speed. Later there was another light, and a dull-red glow in the sky. Still later, infinitesimal twinklings on the ground at the horizon. They increased in number but not in size, and the plane swung hugely to the left, and the lights on the ground formed a visible pattern. And moonlight—broken by the shadows of clouds—displayed the city and the Bay of Naples below.
&nbs
p; The transport plane landed. The passengers descended. Coburn saw Hallen, the American colonel, the Greek general, and a Greek colonel. The other had been left behind to take charge of things in Salonika. Here the uniforms were American, and naval. There were some Italian police in view, but most of the men about were American seamen, ostensibly on shore leave. But Coburn doubted very much if they were as completely unarmed as men on shore leave usually are.
A man in a cap with much gold braid greeted the American colonel, the Greek general, and the Greek colonel. He came to Coburn, to whose arm Janice seemed to cling.
“We’re taking you out to the fleet. We’ve taken care of everything. Everybody’s had pins stuck in him!”
It was very humorous, of course. They moved away from the plane. Surrounded by white-clad sailors, the party from the plane moved into the hangar.
Then a voice snapped a startled question, in English. An instant later it rasped: “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Then there was a bright flash of light. The interior of the hangar was made vivid by it. It went out. And as it disappeared there were the sounds of running footsteps. Only they did not run properly. They ran in great leaps. Impossible leaps. Monstrous leaps. A man might run like that on the moon, with a lesser gravity. A creature accustomed to much greater gravity might run like that on Earth. But it would not be human.
It got away.
There was a waiting car. They got into it. They pulled out from the airport with other cars close before and behind. The cavalcade raced for the city and the shoreline surrounded by a guard less noisy but no less effective than the Greek motorcycle troopers.
But the Greek general said something meditative in the dark interior of the car.
“What’s that?” demanded someone authoritatively.
The Greek general said it again, mildly. This latest attempt to seize them or harm them—if it was that—had been surprisingly inept. It was strange that creatures able to travel between the stars and put regiments and tanks out of action should fail so dismally to kill or kidnap Coburn, if they really wanted to. Could it be that they were not quite sincere in their efforts?
“That,” said the authoritative voice, “is an idea!”
They reached the waterfront. And here in the darkest part of the night and with the moon near to setting, the waters of the Bay of Naples rolled in small, smooth-surfaced, tranquil waves. There was a Navy barge waiting. Those who had come by plane boarded it. It cast off and headed out into the middle of the huge harbor.
In minutes there was a giant hull looming overhead. They stepped out onto a landing ladder and climbed interminably up the ship’s metal side. Then there was an open door.
“Now,” said the American colonel triumphantly, “now everything’s all right! Nothing can happen now, short of an atomic bomb!”
The Greek general glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. He said something in that heavy accent of his. He asked mildly if creatures—Invaders—who could travel between the stars were unlikely to be able to make atom bombs if they wanted to.
There was no answer. But somebody led Coburn into an office where this carrier’s skipper was at his desk. He looked at Coburn with a sardonic, unfriendly eye.
“Mr. Coburn, I believe,” he said remotely. “You’ve been very well staged-managed by your friends, Mr. Coburn. They’ve made it look as if they were trying hard to kill you, eh? But we know better, don’t we? We know it’s all a build-up for you to make a deal for them, eh? Well, Mr. Coburn, you’ll find it’s going to be a let-down instead! You’re not officially under arrest, but I wouldn’t advise you to try to start anything, Mr. Coburn! We’re apt to be rather crude in dealing with emissaries of enemies of all the human race. And don’t forget it!”
And this was Coburn’s first inkling that he was regarded as a traitor of his planet who had sold out to the Invaders. All the plans made from his information would be based on the supposition that he intended to betray mankind by misleading it.
V
It was not yet forty-eight hours since Coburn had been interrupted in the act of starting his car up in Ardea. Greek newspapers had splashed lurid headlines of a rumored invasion by Bulgarians, and their rumored defeat. The story was not widely copied. It sounded too unlikely. In a few hours it would be time for a new set of newspapers to begin to appear. Not one of them would print a single word about the most important disclosure in human history: that extra-terrestrial Invaders moved blandly about among human beings without being suspected.
The newspapers didn’t know it. On inside pages and bottom corners, the London papers might refer briefly to the remarkable rumor that had swept over Greece about an invasion force said to have crossed its border. The London papers would say that the Greek government officially denied that such a happening had taken place. The New York papers would be full of a political scandal among municipal officials, the Washington papers would deal largely with a Congressional investigation committee hearing, Los Angeles would have a new and gory murder to exploit, San Francisco news would be of a waterfront strike, Tokyo would talk of cherry blossoms, Delhi of Pakistan, and the French press would discuss the political crisis. But no newspaper, anywhere, would talk about Invaders.
* * * *
In the United States, radar technicians had been routed out of bed and informed that night fighters had had a fight with an alien ship manned by non-humans and had destroyed it, but their radars detected nothing at all. An hour after sunrise in Naples they had come up with a combination of radar frequencies which were built to detect everything. Instructions were going out in code to all radar establishments on how to set it up on existing equipment. Long before that time, business machines had begun intricate operations with punched cards containing all known facts about the people known to have dropped out of sight. Other machines began to integrate crackpot reports of things sighted in divers places. The stores of Hunter and Nereid rockets—especially the remote-control jobs—were broken out. Great Air Transport planes began to haul them to where they might be needed.
In England, certain establishments that had never been mentioned even in Parliament were put on war alert. There was frantic scurrying-about in France. In Sweden, a formerly ignored scientist was called to a twice-scrambled telephone connection and consulted at length about objects reported over Sweden’s skies. The Canadian Air Force tumbled out in darkness and was briefed. In Chile there was agitation, and in Peru.
There was earnest effort to secure coöperation from behind the Iron Curtain, but that did not work. The Iron Curtain stood pat, demanding the most detailed of information and the privilege of inspecting all weapons intended for use against anybody so far unnamed, but refusing all information of its own. In fact, there was a very normal reaction everywhere, except that the newspapers didn’t know anything to print.
These secret hassles were continuing as the dawnlight moved over Italy and made Naples and its harbor quite the most beautiful place in the world. When daylight rolled over France, matters were beginning to fall into pattern. As daybreak moved across the Atlantic, at least the measures to be taken began to be visualized and orders given for their accomplishment.
And then, with sunrise in America, real preparations got under way.
But hours earlier there was consultation on the carrier in the Bay of Naples. Coburn sat in a wardroom in a cold fury which was in part despair. He had been kept in complete ignorance of all measures taken, and he felt the raging indignation of a man accused of treason. He was being questioned again. He was treated with an icy courtesy that was worse than accusation. The carrier skipper mentioned with detachment that, of course, Coburn had never been in any danger. Obviously. The event in the airport at Salonika and the attack on the convoy were window-dressing. They were not attempts to withdraw him from circulation, but to draw attention to him. Which, of course, implied that the Invaders—whoever or whatever they might be—considered Coburn a useful tool for whatever purpose they intended.
; This was before the conference officially began. It took time to arrange. There were radio technicians with microphones. The consultation—duly scrambled and re-scrambled—would be relayed to Washington while it was on. It was a top level conference. Hallen was included, but he did not seem happy.
* * * *
Then things were ready. The skipper of the carrier took over, with full awareness that the very highest brass in Washington was listening to every word.
“We can skip your technical information, Mr. Coburn,” he said with ironic courtesy, “unless you’ve something new to offer.”
Coburn shook his head. He seethed.
“For the record,” said the skipper, “I repeat that it is obvious that your presence at the scene when those Bulgarians were knocked out, that you were attacked in Salonika, that the ship carrying you was also attacked, and that there was an incident on your landing here:—it’s obvious that all these things were stage-managed to call attention to you, for the purposes of…whoever staged them. Have you anything more to offer?”
“No,” growled Coburn. “I’ve told all I know.” He was furiously angry and felt completely helpless.
“Your information,” purred the Skipper, “and the stage-managed incidents, make you look like a very patriotic citizen who is feared by the supposedly extra-terrestrial creatures. But we don’t have to play any longer, Mr. Coburn. What were you told to tell your government? What do these…extra-terrestrials want?”
“My guess,” snapped Coburn, “is that they want Earth.”
The skipper raised his eyebrows. “Are you threatening us in their name?” he asked, purring.
“I’m telling you my guess,” said Coburn hotly. “It’s just as good as yours and no better! I have no instructions from them. I have no message from them. I’ve only my own opinion, which is that we humans had better get ready to fight. I believe we ought to join together—all of Earth—and get set to defend ourselves.”
The Murray Leinster Megapack Page 81