There were six people in the living-room of the old New Jersey
farmhouse, and only one of them was an Earthman.
It seemed a madly impossible thing, to Birrel. The year was
nineteen-fifty-seven and it was twenty-five minutes to midnight on the
eighth of July, and this couldn't be happening but it was.
"You were easy, easy," Vannevan was saying. "Did you think I _wanted_
to overtake you out there on the road? All I wanted was to get close
enough to pop a tracer on the back of your vehicle, and then follow
you."
He was a very happy man, Vannevan. He had outwitted and beaten his
enemies, and he was enjoying that part of it more than the actual
capture.
He strode up and down on the old, faded carpet, but he was careful not
to get in front of Birrel and Kara and Holmer.
The three sat in chairs and across the room stood Vannevan's two men.
Each of them held one of the fluted metal cylinders, and each cylinder
was pointing toward the three prisoners, reminding them how quickly
they could be paralyzed again, or killed.
The incongruity of it gave Birrel a crazy desire to laugh. The musty
old farmhouse, the smoky kerosene lamp, the ticking cuckoo-clock on the
wall--and five strangers from the stars.
He wondered what a "tracer" was. He supposed it was some sort of tiny
gadget that could be shot to stick onto a moving car, and broadcast a
signal that could be read and followed. He doubted if he'd live long
enough to find out if that was right.
Vannevan said to Birrel, "You killed Jull, didn't you?"
There was no amusement in his hard face now. It was cut out of cold
iron, and Birrel had the feeling that Vannevan was every bit as tough
as he thought he was.
"Who," said Birrel, "is Jull?"
"A man of Ir," said Vannevan. "My man. The man you trailed and killed.
We found the blaster-scar in the ground."
Birrel began to understand a little. He shrugged. "If you know, why ask
me?"
Vannevan came closer and his eyes had a yellow glow in their dark
depths.
"You wouldn't just blast him outright. You'd shock him and search him
first. Just as we're doing to you. Where are the"--(he used another
unfamiliar word)--"you found on him?"
Birrel said, "I found nothing. I just blasted."
Something exploded in his face. He reeled in the chair, putting up
his hands blindly, half-stunned. Then he saw Vannevan's clenched fist
drawing back. Vannevan, keeping carefully to one side, let the fist go
again in Birrel's face.
"You're lying," he said. "You wouldn't come all the way here from
Ruun, spying on us, and trail Jull all that way, and then just blast
him. Did you pass them on to Holmer before the Earthmen caught you?"
Birrel felt blood running down his face, and he felt a hate and rage
that he had never suspected he could experience. He started to get
up, and the Irrians with the weapons across the room pointed their
cylinders at him. He didn't want to die, any sooner than he had to. He
sat down again.
"The men of Ruun are brave," said Vannevan, mockingly. "Now will you
tell me--"
He stopped suddenly. An expression of interest and amazement crossed
his face. He reached out his hand, toward Birrel's eyes.
Birrel recoiled--but Vannevan's hand swiped across his forehead, across
his eyebrows. Then Vannevan uttered an incredulous exclamation.
"This isn't a man of Ruun at all. He's an _Earthman_!"
* * * * *
Birrel realized what had happened. The blow, the blood streaming down
his face, had effectively ruined the careful work of Connor's make-up
experts.
Before he could resist, Vannevan rubbed a handkerchief across his face.
Birrel, a little dazed and half-blinded by the blood in his eyes,
struck out savagely but hit nothing.
Kara's voice reached him. "Rett, you can't be--" Her voice trailed
away, and then it came on a different note. "But you're not Rett. He's
right, you're an Earthman. Where's Rett?"
Birrel got his eyes open, and now he could see her face, and Holmer's,
and the pallor of shocked surprise on both.
He felt a queer guilt. There was no reason for it, they were spies and
he was a counter-spy defending his country, defending Earth, but he
couldn't rid himself of the feeling.
"Yes," said Vannevan fiercely, "where is Rett? Where's the man you've
been impersonating?"
Birrel looked at him and said nothing.
One of the Irrians came to Vannevan's side and spoke so rapidly that
Birrel could not follow it.
Vannevan said somberly to him, "Your people--the Earth people--have
this Rett, don't they? They captured him, didn't they?"
That was so obvious that there was no use denying it. "They did," said
Birrel.
"And they disguised you as Rett, and published that report of a
captured spy, to draw the others," Vannevan said, "Of course. Which
means--they know there are strangers on their world."
Holmer said, with a taunt in his voice, "You don't like it, do you,
Vannevan? It spoils the plans of Ir, doesn't it?"
Vannevan looked at him. "No. There will be no check at all in the plans
of Ir. And when we've got what we need from Earth, our plans for _your_
world will go right ahead. Be sure of that."
Birrel's mind vainly tried to grapple with the hint in that byplay.
Then this was not merely a personal enmity, or a factional one? Then
the world of Ir and the world of Ruun--wherever those far worlds
might be--were enemies? Then the Irrians, at least, had come to Earth
secretly for something they needed for conquest?
It didn't make sense! These star-strangers had already used weapons far
subtler and more complex than any weapon of Earth. Why would they need
to filch the arms of a less scientifically advanced planet?
"_You_ can wait," said Vannevan to Birrel, with a certain contempt. He
turned and looked at Holmer and Kara. "But you two are important. No
word is going back to Ruun of our plans! Where is your ship hidden?"
"Where is the ship of Ir hidden?" countered Holmer.
Vannevan smiled grimly. "Where you couldn't find it. And you've tried
long enough, haven't you? This planet has a lot of wild places. Which
one is your ship hidden in?"
Holmer merely laughed.
"You'll tell, one of you," promised Vannevan. He spoke to the Irrian
beside him. "The man, first. Take him upstairs. He'll talk more freely
and readily if she can't hear him."
The other man pointed his weapon at Holmer. Holmer, without a look
at Kara or Birrel, started up the old stairway in the hall, with the
Irrian close behind him.
Vannevan followed them.
Birrel looked at Kara. Her face was a stony mask. He looked at the
Irrian across the room. In the yellow light of the lamp, the man's face
was wrong. It was wrong because it was just a dark, average face. It
didn't belong to an enemy from the stars. But the cylinder in his hand
pointed levelly at Birrel and the girl.
The dusty cuckoo-clock ticked toward midnight. Strange, that it was
running, Birrel thought. One of them--Kara or Holmer--must have started
it out of curiosity.
He knew he was only thinking these thoughts so that his brain wouldn't
crack from the insane unreality of the situation.
Birrel suddenly felt sweat on his forehead. Sounds were coming from
upstairs, not loud sounds, but thumping, gasping noises. There was a
voice, and then more of the gasping sounds.
Kara started to get to her feet and the man with the fluted metal
cylinder said, "Sit down."
Birrel looked at the clock. Two minutes to midnight. A cuckoo-clock and
a spy from the stars. Unreal. But a wild notion began to grow in his
mind....
* * * * *
A shriek, a fading, choking death-cry, came down the stairs. And then
Vannevan's voice came down, loud with anger.
"Damn him, he's dead."
"_Sit down_," said the armed Irrian, again.
A half-minute to midnight. He'd have to try it, there'd never be
another chance, not after Vannevan came down those stairs for another
of them, for Kara first, and then for Birrel--
The cuckoo-clock said, "_Cuckoo_."
At the sharp sound, at the little flirt of movement by the out-popping
bird, the Irrian with the weapon looked up, startled.
Birrel had thought he would. He thought it unlikely that they had
cuckoo-clocks out in the stars. He had waited for the moment, and as
the Irrian's head turned, he sprang.
He didn't try to reach the Irrian himself. He was too far off. He went
for the table with the kerosene lamp on it, which was quite near. He
hooked his fingers under the edge of the table and heaved it over as
hard as he could. The lamp went flying. It hit the floor, splashing hot
oil and flame, and the Irrian screamed. The carpet was suddenly burning
around his feet and little flames blossomed like magic where the oil
spattered his clothes. There was no need for Birrel to tackle him. He
fled screaming into the hall, tearing off his coat and beating in panic
at his legs.
The room was in darkness now except for the splashes of fire that ran
over the floor and up the window curtains and in erratic streaks on the
wallpaper. Birrel grabbed Kara's hand and lunged for the outer door.
"Holmer!" she cried frantically, dragging back.
"He's dead, you heard--come _on_!" He pulled her, with rough
determination.
They banged out over the sagging porch-floor into darkness, and he ran,
not toward the car but toward the brush beyond the house, the black
thickets that promised protection.
He looked over his shoulder and saw the leaping red glow spreading fast
inside the grimy windows. The screams of the Irrian had sunk to a kind
of groaning, and Birrel could hear Vannevan's fierce voice over it.
He kept tight hold of Kara's wrist, and now they were in the thicket,
moving through saplings and brush. Then Birrel stopped.
Back there, three dark figures had come out of the house. Two of them
were twined together, as though one half carried the other. The third
was alone and in the lead. They stood silhouetted against the glowing
windows, looking this way and that.
Birrel whispered to Kara, "Quiet. If we try to get any farther, he'll
hear us."
"They will search until they find us," she whispered.
He shook his head. "That house is beginning to burn nicely. I don't
think they'll stay here long."
He felt her gesture of negation. "I don't understand."
"We have a thing on Earth called a Fire Department. In the country
every man is his brother's fire warden. Pretty soon the place will be
swarming with trucks and volunteer firemen. Stand still and wait."
They waited.
Vannevan and the men spoke together. Finally they left the hurt one to
groan and crawl in the grass, and the two of them began to move back
and forth in the brush, circling out.
A great plume of flame shot up through some air-shaft in the house and
stood out gloriously above the roof.
Vannevan and his man had vanished now in the brush. Birrel held Kara's
hand and sweated, and prayed for a sound.
It came. The hoarse, harsh wailing of a country siren, designed to
waken every sleeping volunteer in the township.
It rose and fell on the night air, ominous and loud. Vannevan and his
man hastily reappeared in the shaking red light. They picked up the
hurt man and took him limping away between them. They went down the
dark road. Presently, in the distance, Birrel heard a car start.
When he could not hear it any more he said, "All right, let's go."
And he took Kara away across the dark brushy fields running, stumbling,
toward a future whose incredible outlines he was beginning vaguely and
against his will to see.