The blackness outside the plane seemed to grow deeper. There was
literally nothing to be seen but the instrument dials up at the pilots'
end of the ship.
The Greek general asked a question in his difficult English.
"Where'd they come from?" repeated Coburn. "I've no idea. Off Earth,
yes. A heavy planet, yes. I doubt they come from our solar system,
though. Somewhere among the stars."
The Greek general said something with a sly up-twist of his voice.
Whatever and whoever the Invaders were, he said, they did not like
Bulgarians. If they'd knocked out the raiding party simply to test their
weapons against human subjects, at least they had chosen suitable and
pleasing subjects for the test.
* * * * *
There was light. For an instant Coburn tensed. But the plane climbed and
the brightness steadied. It was the top of a cloud bank, brilliantly
white in the moonlight. They had flown up through it, and it reached as
far ahead as they could see. A stubby fighter plane swam up out of the
mist and fell into position alongside. Others appeared. They took
formation about the transport and all flew steadily through the
moonlight.
"I wish I knew," said the American colonel vexedly, "if those creatures
were only testing weapons, or if they were getting set to start
bargaining with us!"
"Meaning?" asked Coburn.
"If they're here," said the colonel angrily, "and if they do mean to
meddle in our business, they may set up a sort of auction with us
bidding against the Iron Curtain gang for their friendship. And _they'd_
make any deal!"
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.
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.
[Illustration]
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 cooeperation 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."
There was silence. Coburn found himself regarding the faces around him
with an unexpected truculence. Janice pressed his hand warningly.
"All of Earth," said the skipper softly. "Hmmmm. You advise an
arrangement with all the Earth.... What are your politics, Mr.
Coburn?--No, let us say, what are the political views of the
extra-terrestrial creatures you tell us about? We have to know."
Coburn seethed. "If you're suggesting that this is a cold war trick," he
said furiously, "--if they were faking it, they wouldn't try tricks!
They'd make war! They'd try conquest!"
Coburn saw the stout Greek general nodding to himself. But the Skipper
said suavely: "You were with one of the creatures, you say, up in the
village of Naousa. Would you say he seemed unfriendly to the
Bulgarians?"
"He was playing the part of an Englishman," snapped Coburn, "trying to
stop a raid, and murders, and possibly a war--all of them unnecessary!"
"You don't paint a frightening picture," complained the skipper
ironically. "First you say we have to fight him and his kind, and then
you imply that he was highly altruistic. What is the fact?"
"Dammit!" said Coburn. "I hated him because he wasn't human. It made my
flesh crawl to see him act so much like a man when he wasn't. But he
made me feel ashamed when I held a gun on him and he proved he wasn't
human just so Janice--so Miss Ames wouldn't be afraid to drive down to
Salonika with me!"
"So you have some ... friendly feelings toward him, eh?" the skipper
said negligently. "How will you get in touch with his kind, by the way?
_If_ we should ask you to? Of course you've got it all arranged? Just in
case."
Coburn knew that absolutely nothing could be done with a man who was
trying to show off his shrewdness to his listening superiors. He said
disgustedly: "That's the last straw. Go to hell!"
A loud-speaker spoke suddenly. Its tone was authoritative, and there
were little cracklings of static in it from its passage across the
Atlantic.
"That line of questioning can be dropped, Captain. Mr. Coburn, did these
aliens have any other chances to kill you?"
"Plenty!" snapped Coburn. "And easy ones. One of them came into my
office as my secretary. She could have killed me. The man who passed for
Major Pangalos could have shot us all while we were unconscious. I don't
know why they didn't get the transport plane, and I don't know what
their scheme is. I'm telling the facts. They're contradictory. I can't
help that. All I have are the facts."
The loud-speaker said crisply: "The attack on the transport plane--any
pilots present who were in that fight?"