Collected Fiction

by Kris Neville

  “There’s one in there,” the puzzled night watchman said.

  “I want you to get me somebody from the Army that can get me equipment, and fast,” Dr. Norvel told the sergeant. He was standing helplessly by the door.

  “I—”

  “Hurry up, damn it!”

  The sergeant shrugged in resignation. “All right, but they won’t like it. I’m the one you should have sent for the coffee.”

  After, the sergeant was gone, the colonel came back.

  By noon, the laboratory was alive with activity.

  By six o’clock, the signal generator was beginning to grow.

  Julia supervised the crew laying cable. The cable would be connected to the nearest radio transmitter.

  “Your transmitter will handle our signal?” Julia asked.

  “You give it to us, and we’ll tell you.”

  A general interrupted Julia. “I’m from General Tibbets. How’s it going?”

  “Can’t tell.”

  “We’re trying to scatter paratroops—detachments of them. All over. How long do we have?”

  “It’s up to them,” Julia said. “I don’t know when we’ll be finished here.”

  “Our men should be stationed by morning.”

  “I hope we’re through that early.”

  “You disarm these damned mutants, and we’ll capture them.”

  “Hope to.”

  In the yard, a crew was unloading a new power supply.

  “Knock a hole in the east wall and take it inside!” a harried officer bawled hoarsely.

  “Some ass of a newspaper man did a report on unusual activity in the Pentagon and around Washington,” Dr. Norvel said. “He hinted it had something to do with the flying saucer reports of twenty some years ago.”

  “How in hell did it leak?”

  “. . . the Pentagon’s issuing a denial.”

  BY midnight, Julia was superintending the construction of a second signal generator. Work on the first one was temporarily stalled; the technicians were waiting for a special transformer.

  Dr. Norvel was waving an inked-in schematic diagram before the face of a gray haired man in an apron. “No, no, no,” she said. “It’s got to be this way to set up the right harmonics.”

  A major came up and tugged apologetically at Julia’s arm. “Are you in charge here?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Well, if you are—please, Miss, my men have to rest. Can I let them go now?”

  “We’re not quitting ‘til we finish—I’m sure of that.”

  The major went away, looking for someone else in authority.

  Walt, his mutant bridge restored, was inspecting the second signal generator with interest. With it, the technicians would determine the signal that interfered with his frequency. They would set it to throb out that signal.

  One section of the transmitter cable ran to each signal generator. A sergeant had just finished installing a switch that would control the signal being fed into the output line. After the first mutant wave had been captured, the switch would be thrown to the left. The signal covering Walt’s powers would then be transmitted to the same network of radio and television stations that had carried the one covering Julia’s; and the second wave would be reduced to earth normal.

  It was dawn before the first signal generator began operation. It was Sunday.

  Julia sat at a desk, sipping coffee, holding a book suspended in front of her, six inches from the desk top. The last twenty-four hours had left a strain on her face. When the book fell, her mutant powers would be gone.

  Smoking cigarette after cigarette, Dr. Norvel watched. After nearly fifteen minutes, she pleaded, “Drop, damn you, drop!”

  Work on the second generator continued. It was at least half a day away from completion. There was a continual mutter of conversation about it in the background.

  An hour later, sweat covered Julia’s face. The book was still suspended.

  “Put in the next frequency range unit,” Dr. Norvel said wearily.

  A general bustled in. “General Tibbets wants to know how we’re doing here.”

  Silence greeted him.

  “The paratroopers are ready,” the general said defensively.

  LYCAN bustled about, making last minute preparations in the larger compartment. His faceted eyes gleamed with excitement. Now and then he spoke to a mutant.

  “You ready, Fred?”

  “Yes, Lycan. I’m nervous, but I’m ready.”

  “It’s natural,” Lycan reassured.

  The mutants shuffled their feet and cleared their throats and wiped their palms. They smiled uneasily.

  “Form a line!” the Elder called. “We’re ready to load you.”

  The mutants complied. They spoke in hushed undertones. Their focus rods, like tall staffs, bristled unevenly above their heads.

  Lycan led them up the ladder to the second level. Led them down the long corridor. Led them past gleaming, whirring machinery.

  In the huge, open launching area, the other aliens made last minute adjustments on the saucer ships.

  The Elder sent the first group forward. They boarded their ships. The aliens withdrew.

  A section of the wall unfolded. Air hissed away, expelling the saucer ships out into space. The mutants worked their simple controls. The saucer ships floated together as if for protection. On signal, they plunged earthward.

  The section of the wall folded back. Air entered. The aliens rushed out and unloaded more saucer ships from the storage compartments.

  Mutants entered and boarded. The aliens withdrew. The wall unfolded. A second group of saucer ships plunged earthward. The wall folded back. It was as if the space station had opened its mouth; as if the mouth had breathed flying saucers.

  Down they came.

  Early Sunday sunlight burst across the eastern part of the North American continent.

  Nearly a thousand saucers, in five compact groups, one group for each continent, slipped one after another into the atmosphere.

  There was no opposition. No planes rose to challenge them. They braked and flattened and skimmed toward their assigned landing sites.

  And they touched down: in the hearts of industrial cities; in farm communities; at military installations. They streaked up from the horizon; they hovered; they settled gently to earth.

  A few surprised early risers saw them flashing across the sky; saw them land; saw the mutants, armed with focus rods, step out and adjust themselves to the openness all around them. Hate was stamped plainly on the mutants’ faces. They took their time, adjusting their focus rods for death and destruction. The few earthlings who saw them waited or fled or advanced with curiosity.

  At the Infantry School at Ft. Benning, Georgia, a saucer landed in the third cortile. The three jump towers to the left were like bony fingers pointing accusingly at the sky.

  THE troops, alerted, uncertain as to what they were waiting for, were lounging in the barracks. Their orders had been changed several times in the last few days. An orderly coming from “C” Company rec hall saw the saucer first. He watched the female mutant get out, look around, shudder and shrink upon herself beneath the horrible, distant sky.

  He went to report it to the O.D.

  The female began to adjust her focus rod.

  At the airport across the Chattahoochee River in Alabama, five battalions of paratroops were waiting assignment. They had been briefed on their jobs less than twelve hours ago. Cargo planes warmed up off the runways, poised for service.

  The hastily organized message center was the focus of frantic activity. A teletype chattered. Telephones from radar stations rang and were answered. A harried clerk slipped a scribbled slip to a major waiting beside the desk. He read it, whistled, and trotted toward the main body of troops.

  “There’s one over in the third cortile.”

  A nervous captain stood up and field-stripped his cigarette. “Want me to jump—or take a truck?”

  “Ju
mp,” the major said. “There’s planes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Load the third platoon,” the captain called.

  A transport, under instruction from a colonel, wheeled onto the runway.

  The colonel came running up. “Load that platoon for Birmingham, Captain,” he ordered. “Radar traced one down there.”

  “There’s one in the third cortile on the Main Post,” the major said.

  “Get it with the next plane,” the colonel said.

  The major trotted off to get a plane.

  The captain told a lieutenant: “Take the fourth platoon, Hawkins.”

  The lieutenant saluted self-consciously. He crossed to his assignment and began to check his men’s equipment. The men pulled nervously at their parachute harnesses and puffed at their cigarettes. “Don’t forget to hook up in the plane.”

  Several men were waving out the next transport. It lumbered forward as the other one cleared the field and circled west toward Birmingham.

  “I’d feel better with a rifle,” one of the troops told the lieutenant.

  “What the hell,” one of the other men said, “You’d have to clean it when you got back!”

  “Let’s go!” the lieutenant said.

  The platoon moved into the waiting transport.

  A medical aide trailed up at the rear, carrying his hypodermic kit. Once the platoon overcame the mutant, he would inject enough morphine to knock the mutant out for at least twenty-four hours.

  The female in the third cortile saw the lumbering transport, saw the silken blossoms swaying down from it. It amused her to wait. She was in no hurry. She was going to take it slowly at first: savoring the first few: before killing became a mere impersonal, mechanical operation.

  The soldiers were unarmed. They landed, divested themselves of their chutes, trotted toward an assembly area designated by the lieutenant. When they were grouped, they started to close in on her—advancing nervously.

  She lifted the focus rod. So this was the best they could send against her! She concentrated. She would turn them into flaming torches. Then she would demolish all the buildings within range. But first the screaming human torches . . .

  Nothing happened. The focus rod was as useless as wood.

  Her mind was cramped. It was no longer as alert as it had been in the space station. She was now adjusted to the openness around her. She realized something was badly wrong.

  The soldiers, smiling now, were almost upon her.

  She dropped the focus rod and started to run.

  IN Washington, Walt and Julia waited by the signal generator that was in operation, broadcasting its interference across the whole planet. Julia, bereft of her mutant powers, sat limply in a folding chair; her body was a stupor of exhaustion; she watched the activity around her with listless, heavy-lidded eyes.

  General Tibbets paced nervously before the second generator.

  Dr. Norvel hovered at the control panel.

  “It’s finished,” a technician said, straightening stiffly from the electrical wiring at the rear of the panel.

  The general stopped pacing. “Walt! Are you ready?”

  “Okay,” Dr. Norvel said. “Turn it on.”

  “I’m ready,” Walt said.

  A power supply moaned.

  “Here we go, Walt.”

  A technician ran a hand through his hair. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  Walt, seated beside Julia, concentrated on the book. It floated above the desk.

  Dr. Norvel moved the dial. Her face was pale and drawn.

  The general coughed nervously.

  The control light of the generator winked out.

  Everyone held his breath.

  The air was filled with the sharp, acrid odor of burning wiring.

  “Unplug it!” Dr. Norvel cried.

  A technician cut off the power.

  “Oh, damn, damn, damn,” Dr. Norvel said tonelessly.

  The generator still smoked. A technician was trying to see into the wiring behind the panel. “Something shorted,” he said unnecessarily, “It’s a mess.”

  “We’ve got to get it fixed,” Julia said dully.

  Dr. Norvel collapsed, crying quietly. “It’s too late; it’s too late; it’s too late.”

  “We worked too fast—”

  Walt stood up. The book fell with a sharp, explosive sound now that he had stopped concentrating on it. “We’ll have to find my frequency on the other generator.”

  “Not until we get all the first wave of mutants under control,” Julia said. “We can’t shut off their interference before.”

  “Suppose it takes as long on your frequency as it did on Julia’s?” Dr. Norvel said. “. . . I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time. As soon as they realize something’s wrong . . .”

  “What else can we do?” Walt asked.

  Nobody answered.

  Dr. Norvel rummaged nervously through her smock. “Anybody got a cigarette?”

  The general fumbled in his uniform. “. . . I’m out . . . Colonel?”

  “I’ll send out for some, sir.”

  “Try in my handbag,” Julia said. “I think there’s some there.”

  The general went to the handbag. He opened it. He removed the birth certificates and found the cigarettes.

  Dr. Norvel took one from him and lit it. “Thanks.”

  “What’s these?” the general asked.

  “Birth certificates,” Julia said.

  “Uh—?”

  “Of some of the mutants,” Julia said. “I kept them, kept them to establish paternity. When they were all captured.”

  The general tossed them on the table. “It doesn’t look like we’ll need them . . . Well, let’s get that second machine going.”

  Technicians were already stripping out burned wiring. One of them was scribbling a list of replacement parts on a loose sheet of paper.

  “I better see how many we’ve captured, so far,” the general said. “How long it will take to get them all.”

  The colonel stood respectfully aside, and the general walked heavily to the office.

  THE laboratory was silent. After they heard him speak into the telephone, the technicians resumed conversation, hushed and hopeful, and nervous.

  The general listened to the staff report from the Pentagon.

  The overall situation was confused. The Army had no idea of how many mutants were still at large. Some had gone into hiding, and dressed as earthlings, they were impossible to identify by appearance.

  A group of civilians had reported one mutant in custody. They had been told to knock him unconscious and keep him unconscious until further word.

  Since all radio and television transmitters were in use, it was impossible to solicit aid from the great body of civilians—most of whom, indeed, knew nothing as yet of the invasion; most of whom were jamming switchboards with angry calls aimed at determining why their television sets weren’t working. The official explanation, issued by the stations themselves, was sunspots.

  The general listened quietly.

  “Break it to the press,” he said at last. “Ask that all civilians cooperate.”

  The Pentagon resumed the report.

  It was estimated that more than eight hundred saucers had already landed across the planet. There was only a little information so far from foreign countries, all of whom had been alerted. Russia had reported nineteen mutants captured. England reported two. France—

  “Thanks,” the general said.

  THE Elder detected the interference when a control needle on the frequency transmitter began to jump erratically. Instantly he checked the displacement coupling. There was nothing wrong with it. The frequency was being properly transmitted.

  He was petrified with terror. His eyes glazed. His tentacles hung limp. Breath gurgled in his body; bubbled and rattled and rasped.

  Then, leadenly, he moved one tentacle.

  **Conference!** he shrieked to his colleagues. **Conference,*
* he sobbed brokenly.

  Circuits opened up; the Elder gave them his knowledge.

  They had no difficulty in deducing the general picture of what was happening on Earth.

  *Walt failed,** they accused Forential.

  **Save us, Elder! Save us!**

  There was a hysterical babble of thought throughout the space station.

  Forential raced down the ladder like a tumbling spider. He threw himself along the second level corridor. He stopped, gasping, before the frequency transmitter governing his charges.

  It still functioned perfectly.

  The other aliens fled aimlessly through corridors, huddled in dark corners; they whimpered and moaned and waved their tentacles in terror.

  **Make peace!** one of them screamed shrilly.

  **Surrender!**

  **They’ll kill us anyway! Don’t be a fool!**

  **No, no, no!**

  Lycan embraced the Elder for protection. Trembling, he looked up into the Elder’s contorted face. They both sobbed dryly.

  Forential could not think. He was paralyzed.

  It was almost half an hour before they quieted.

  **My mutants aren’t jammed,** Forential told them for the dozenth time. **Maybe there’s still hope.**

  **Send them all down; send them all—**

  **No! Wait!** Fierut interrupted sharply. **Wait! Reason! Suppose there is interference on Forential’s frequency. Suppose it just isn’t strong enough for us to detect it. Suppose they’re throwing most of their power into interfering with Lycan’s transmitter. Suppose there is only local interference with Forential’s. We’ve got to take that into account.**

  Great hopeless whimpers echoed in their minds.

  **Wait, now, wait!** Fierut commanded. **We must assume it’s true. But if we throw all available power into Forential’s transmitter, maybe we can breach that purely local interference.**

  **Yes? Yes? Yes?**

  **Lycan: cut off your transmitter. Channel every unit of power to Forential—**

  **Madness—**

  **Suicide—!**

  **They could change over—!**

  There was a rising babble of protest.

  **Earth can’t tell it’s off!** Fierut thought. **They must be using the two mutants down there for negative tests. They couldn’t possibly have detection equipment for a displaced field.**