He came to in a hospital room, with a nurse and two doctors and an
elaborate oxygen-administering apparatus. The apparatus was wheeled out.
The nurse followed. The two doctors hurried after her. The American
colonel of the airport was standing by the bed on which Coburn lay,
fully dressed.
Coburn felt perfectly all right. He stirred. The American colonel said
sourly: "You're not harmed. Nobody was. But Major Pangalos got away."
Coburn sat up. There was a moment's bare trace of dizziness, and that
was gone too. Coburn said: "Where's Miss Ames? What happened to her?"
"She's getting oxygen," said the colonel. "We were rushed here from the
airport, sleeping soundly just like those Bulgarians. Major Pangalos
ordered it before he disappeared. Helicopters brought some Bulgarians
down, by the way, and oxygen brought them to. So naturally they gave us
the same treatment. Very effective."
The colonel looked both chastened and truculent. "How'd you know Major
Pangalos for what he was? He was accepted everywhere as a man."
"His eyes were queer," said Coburn. He stood up experimentally. "I
figured they would be, if one looked. I saw the foam suit that creature
wore up-country, when he wasn't in it. There were holes for the eyes. It
occurred to me that his eyes weren't likely to be like ours. Not
exactly. So I hunted up the real Dillon, and his eyes weren't like I
remembered. I punched him in the nose, by the way, to make sure he'd
bleed and was human. He was."
Coburn continued, "You see, they obviously come from a heavy planet and
move differently. They're stronger than we are. Much like the way we'd
be on the moon with one-sixth Earth gravity. They probably are used to a
thicker atmosphere. If so, their eyes wouldn't be right for here. They'd
need eyeglasses."
"Major Pangalos didn't--"
"Contact eyeglasses," said Coburn sourly. "Little cups of plastic. They
slip under the eyelids and touch the white part of the eye. Familiar
enough. But that's not all."
The American colonel looked troubled. "I know contact lenses," he
admitted. "But--"
"If the Invaders have a thick atmosphere at home," Coburn said, "they
may have a cloudy sky. The pupils of their eyes may need to be larger.
Perhaps they're a different shape. Or their eyes may be a completely
alien color. Anyhow, they need contact lenses not only to correct their
vision, but to make their eyes look like ours. They're painted on the
inside to change the natural look and color. It's very deceptive. But
you can tell."
"That goes to Headquarters at once!" snapped the colonel.
He went out briskly. Coburn followed him out of the room to look for
Janice. And Janice happened to be looking for him at exactly the same
moment. He was genuinely astonished to realize how relieved he was that
she was all right.
He said apologetically: "I was worried! When I felt myself passing out I
felt pretty rotten at having failed to protect you."
She looked at him with nearly the same sort of surprised satisfaction.
"I'm all right," she said breathlessly. "I was worried about you."
The roaring of motors outside the hospital interrupted them. More and
more vehicles arrived, until a deep purring filled the air. A Greek
doctor with a worried expression hurried somewhere. Soldiers appeared,
hard-bitten, tough, professional Greek soldiers. Hallen came out of a
hospital room. The Greek general appeared with one of the two colonels
who'd been at the airport. The general nodded, and his eyes seemed
cordial. He waved them ahead of him into a waiting elevator. The
elevator descended. They went out of the hospital and there was an
armored car waiting. An impressive escort of motorcycle troops waited
with it.
* * * * *
The Greek general saw Coburn's cynical expression at sight of the
guards. He explained blandly that since oxygen brought sleeping
Bulgarians out of their slumber--and had been used on them--oxygen was
handy for use by anybody who experienced a bright flash of light in his
mind. The Bulgarian soldiers, incidentally, said that outside the
village of Ardea they'd felt as if the sunlight had brightened
amazingly, but they felt no effects for two hours afterward, when they
fell asleep at Naousa. So, said the general almost unintelligibly, if
anything untoward happened on the way to the airport, everybody would
start breathing oxygen. A sensation of bright light would be untoward.
The armored car started off, with motorcyclists crowded about it with
weapons ready. But the ride to the airport was uneventful. To others
than Janice and Coburn it may even have been tedious. But when she
understood the general's explanation, she shivered a little. She leaned
insensibly closer to Coburn. He took her hand protectively in his.
They reached the airport. They roared through the gateway and directly
out upon the darkened field. Something bellowed and raced down a runway
and took to the air. Other things followed it. They gained altitude and
circled back overhead. Tiny bluish flickerings moved across the overcast
sky. Exhaust flames.
Coburn realized that it was a fighter plane escort.
The huge transport plane that waited for them was dark. They climbed
into it and found their seats. When it roared down the unlighted field
and took to the air, everything possible had been done to keep anybody
from bringing any weapon to bear upon it.
"All safe now!" said the voice of the American colonel in the darkness
of the unlit plane, as the plane gained height. "Incidentally, Coburn,
why did you want to look at Pangalos' palm? What did you expect to find
there?"
"When I started for the airport," Coburn explained, "I bent a pin around
the band of a ring I wear. I could let it lie flat when I shook hands.
Or I could make it stand out like a spur. I set it with my thumb. I saw
Pangalos' eyes, so I had it stand out, and I made a tear in his plastic
skin when I shook hands with him. He didn't feel it, of course." He
paused. "Did anybody go to the address I gave Hallen?"