V: The Crivit Experiment

by Allen Wold

  "Here's the house," she said, pointing. "And here's the sand pits." She touched another icon, and that part of the image enlarged, filling the flat screen. The screen on the other half of the folder now showed a list of terms in the alien script, each adjacent to a patterned square.

  "Clay all down here," Freda went on. The pattern at the edge of the sand pits matched the term "clay" on the other screen. "Quartz rock outcropping over there, and projecting a bit into the sand. Most of the sand, as you can see, is white alluvial, but some, up in these areas, is like a porous fine red gravel. The important thing is that the clay and/or rock surrounds the sand area completely, though there is some mixing over here." She pointed to an area that corresponded to Durk Attweiler's north acreage. "It's shallow, however and not at all suitable for the animals, and even if they do get there, the clay gets dense again." She touched a few more icons, the image enlarged, than shrank, and she showed them different portions of the range.

  "I think it's really going to work," she said at last, turning off the display and closing the folder.

  "It certainly looks like it," Leon said. "And if it does, Diana may look more favorably on us again."

  "That would be very pleasant indeed," Chang said.

  Chapter 3

  There were no windows in the secret lab deep beneath Data Tronix. Paul Freedman turned from one screen, on which an overlapping series of sine waves recorded power usages at the Visitor headquarters, and went over to where Steve Wong sat stiffly at another monitor showing snapshots of a computer program in progress. Shirley Patchek stood beside Steve—it was her program that was running.

  "That's it," Steve said. His breathing was shallow because of the tight bandages he wore around his chest, covering the wound he'd received over a week ago. "It should run now."

  He rekeyed the computer, and on a larger display a graphic image of the first-floor plan of the Visitor headquarters came on. Shirley reached down beside the lower monitor and picked up a phone handset.

  "We're on, Mark," she said into it.

  "And we're set here." Mark's amplified voice came from the speaker set in the wall so that they all could hear.

  "What lights are on?" Shirley asked. Mark answered with a string of numbers corresponding to windows on the plan display. Steve entered these at the keyboard, making those windows stand out in highlight. He touched another key and the second-floor display came on.

  "Second floor," Shirley said into the phone. Mark responded with another string of numbers. More windows, all on the north side, were highlighted. There weren't very many of these, but that was what they wanted. If all the lights were lit, the power-draw-analysis program would have told them nothing.

  "How about you, Anne?" Shirley asked.

  "First floor, east side," Anne answered, and like Mark, repeated a series of numbers. While she was speaking, Mark was moving around to the west side. Then it was his turn to report again while Anne moved to the south side. It was their fifth cycle around the building in as many days. When all the windows were reported, Shirley told them to come on home.

  A second large graphics display showed a tentative circuit plan, based largely on the construction plans, and modified according to what data they had been able to dig out of the power-draw signals they'd been receiving ever since they'd separated them from other signals of various kinds. Many of these circuits were now confirmed by Mark and Anne's reports, but others were still in doubt.

  "From the lights they saw," Steve was saying, "we can assume that there is a partition here, since this window was lit and the one next to it was dark." He used a graphics program to draw in the new wall. "Same here and here. Now, they might have taken down a wall here, but we can't tell that." He indicated the wall with a question mark.

  "That means that these circuits," Paul said, looking at yet another display, "are all lighting and similar household uses, while these"—as his fingers touched the keys, circuit lines changed from white to green—"are probably used for other things. They're all higher than one-ten."

  Most of the screens showed plans or diagrams of one sort or another. They had, by this time, identified all internal phone lines, but didn't yet know to which rooms or phones they led. That was one of the things they hoped to learn tonight, at the conclusion of Mark and Anne's dangerous observations. If a phone was in use, it would be in one of the lit rooms rather than in a darkened one.

  They had also been able to correlate Mark and Anne's observations with certain other high-power usages. In one case, a light had gone on, there'd been a brief massive power draw, which had stopped just before the light had gone off. From other data, they knew that that power had been used for the simple conversion equipment the Visitors had here and thus they'd been able to locate it exactly.

  Slowly, piece by piece, their knowledge of the interior of the Visitors' headquarters was building up. During the day, they'd monitored every in-house and out-going phone conversation. Many of these were in the aliens' own language, and could not as yet be translated, but most were in English. All such conversations had been recorded, and those which contained any information or clues about the layout of the headquarters had been studied to help flesh out the picture.

  "I think they've got their main computers over here," Steve said, pointing to a room on the second-floor display. "We know this power line"—he pointed to the other screen—"goes there, and it fluctuates in a way that reminds me of disk drives going on and off."

  "I don't think they use disk drives," Paul objected.

  "Maybe not, but that's what it feels like."

  "What I want to know," Shirley said, "is where's their main communications center?"

  "It's got to be one of these three places," Steve answered. "They all show a constant drain. But we're going to need to fine-tune the carrier-signal analyzer, and we'll need some observations of people actually using phones."

  "We'll have to do that another night," Paul said. "I hate to have Anne and Mark out there in danger, but with their observations, we've been able to learn a lot."

  "We're going to need to learn a lot more," Shirley said, "but I'm too tired to think right now. When are Bill and Lester coming down?"

  "They take over in about fifteen minutes," Paul answered. "Maybe Bill will come up with some bright ideas."

  "Anything's fine with me," Steve said, leaning back in his chair and stretching carefully, "as long as they're not late getting down here. I need about two beers and about twelve hours' sleep."

  "I'm with you on that one," Shirley said as they started preparing to change shifts.

  Peter Frye's favorite tool was a two-foot-long screwdriver. It was lighter than a crowbar, and handier, and with it he had been able to open every filing cabinet in the Courtland Building office. Dave Androvich had wanted to burn all the papers they'd removed, but both Peter and Greta Saroyan had pointed out that that would have set off the sprinklers and brought the fire department. Edna Knight thought that one of the alien machines might be a shredder, but they couldn't identify it and so had compromised by ripping the documents up and soaking them with strong bleach in a big sink in the janitor's closet down the hall. The resulting mess was more than adequately useless.

  Dave had preferred a hammer. With it he broke every terminal screen, pounded in every meter and gauge, and smashed whatever else would smash. At first they worried about the noise, but Benny Mounds had gone out into the hall to listen and came back reporting that as far as he could tell the whole office complex was soundproof. Dave went at it with enthusiasm. Even telephones did not escape his destructive energies.

  Greta had been able to bring in a big pair of wire cutters, the handles nearly three feet long. No cable, wire, or conduit was spared. She cut connectors off short both at the devices and at the wall, and then cut the cables and wires into smaller sections. The cutters were strong enough that she could even use them to snip the knobs off the interior doors, though occasionally Peter or Dave had to give her a hand.

&n
bsp; Edna occupied herself with the contents of the desks. Occasionally Peter would have to pry a drawer open for her, but once in she sorted through everything quickly. Office supplies just went into a wastebasket. Any papers that looked meaningful she shredded and added to Peter's collection in the janitor's sink. There were other things that she didn't recognize, and these she put out on top of the desks for Dave to smash, if he could.

  Benny was the only one who didn't actively participate—at least at first. After letting them into the building, he had followed them up to the offices and just stalked from room to room, watching the destruction, but visibly growing tenser with every passing moment. Several times the others chided him for not joining in, but he just grimaced, shook his head, and wandered off to watch someone else work.

  His turn came when they were almost finished. He took a big spray can with an industrial label out of the paper bag he'd been carrying, and started spraying a colorless fluid on every surface that someone might touch.

  "Keep your hands off this," he cautioned. "It's glue. Very strong, but it takes twenty-four hours to dry." He sprayed slashed chair backs, desk tops, those doorknobs Greta hadn't been able to cut off, doorjambs, cabinet handles, and on and on. He emptied six of the cans before he was finished.

  "That ought to hold them for a while," he said.

  "We'd better get moving," Peter said, glancing at his watch. "It's five-thirty, and the custodians will be here in half an hour."

  They left the office complex, closing the outer door carefully behind them, and went down the hall to the stairs of the first floor. The place was silent, and there were no signs of any early visitors—or Visitors.

  They went to the double glass doors at the front, and while the others remained back a ways in the shadows, Benny went to see if anybody was in the quad. Dew sparkled in the morning light outside. He pushed against the bar to open the door but it wouldn't open.

  "What's the matter?" Peter asked, coming up.

  "I don't know," Benny said, pushing harder. "It opened easily enough when we came in."

  "So pick the lock again."

  "I can't. The keyhole is on the outside."

  "Maybe it's just jammed," Edna said. "Let's go around to the side door."

  They went, but the solid wood door there wouldn't open either. Benny tried his lock picks, but by now he was flustered and could make no headway.

  "There's got to be a fire door in the back," Dave suggested. And indeed there was, a double metal door with emergency bars. But when Benny and Peter pressed, the bars swung without resistance and the doors stayed closed.

  "What the hell is going on?" Greta cried.

  "I don't know," Benny yelled, kicking at the immovable panels. "Fire doors are always supposed to open from the inside. All these doors are supposed to open from the inside."

  "So we'll go out a window," Dave said, swinging his hammer. "Which side is closer to the ground?"

  "The sills are all about eight feet up," Peter said. "Let's go to the basement."

  They found the stairs down, but all the offices and storerooms down there were locked. Peter used his screwdriver to pry the lock off one, and they went in. It was a copying room, with Xerox and 3M machines, and a table which they pushed up to a window. But the glass there was wire impregnated, and Dave's blows just starred the glass without breaking it away.

  "Quiet," Edna hissed. They all fell silent. Upstairs they could hear footsteps, several sets of them, moving around.

  "Shit," Peter said. "Damn janitors."

  "At least one of the doors is now open," Benny said. "Look, I'll go up, you follow. I'll distract the guy and we'll go out."

  "They'll know who we are," Edna protested.

  "They'll know who I am," Benny said. "I'll make a sudden trip back home, and lie low for a while."

  "You're a hero, Benny," Peter said with obvious admiration.

  With the other four following at a distance, Benny Mounds left the copy room and went up the stairs to the first floor. But it wasn't a janitor who stood a short way down the hall with a gun drawn. It was a red-uniformed Visitor. Benny's stomach knotted, and he raised his hands.

  "What's happening?" Peter whispered up at him. He could see Benny but nobody else.

  "The game's up," the distinctive resonant voice of the alien answered him. "Everybody come up nice and easy."

  "I can't believe it," Greta whispered, watching as Benny moved out of sight to be replaced by two armed Visitors who stood at the top of the stairs, smiling down at them with drawn weapons.

  "Come along," one of the Visitors, a woman, said. "You've had your fun."

  Peter, Greta, Edna, and Dave all raised their hands helplessly. "At least," Peter said, "you won't be using that office for a while."

  "We don't need to," the male Visitor said, smiling. "That was just the public office. The real one is on the floor above."

  Durk Attweiler drove his truck up Old Pittsboro Road from the bypass into Chapel Hill. It was a quarter to seven, and he wanted to get his business done at the FCX when they opened so he could get back to work ditching. It was still too early for much traffic, so he had no difficulty going by the campus, until he got to the corner of Columbia and Cameron. There, a large, all-white Visitor truck of some kind stood at the corner, with red-uniformed guards all around. One by one the cars ahead of him were stopped, the drivers questioned, and then sent on.

  As he waited his turn, wondering what the hell was up at this hour of the morning, he noticed another group of guards escorting four—no, five students, three boys and two girls, up to the waiting truck. One by one they were shoved inside.

  The next car was let go, then the next, and now it was Durk's turn, but the procedure halted while the alien paddywagon pulled away from the corner and started up Columbia toward Franklin Street. Damn fools, Durk said to himself. Kids ought to know better than to cause trouble with the lizards right on their campus.

  The guard signaled him to come forward. He stopped by the alien man, rolled down his window, and without waiting to be asked, took out his wallet and showed his driver's license.

  "What's your business?" the guard asked.

  "Going to the Farmers' Central Exchange for some medicine for my goats," Durk answered.

  "Move along."

  Durk did not roll his window up until he was well past the intersection.

  He turned left onto Rosemary, took the right fork at Weaver, then right again up Greensboro to the FCX. Though it was still before seven, there were already several cars parked beside the long building. He pulled into a place and got out to join the four other men, none of them farmers, who were waiting for the Exchange to open.

  At last Wilma Southerland, who'd been clerking there since Durk could remember, came to unlock the door and they all went inside. Durk went right to the medical shelves. He had a pretty good idea what was ailing his goats, but he read the lables on the inoculation kits just the same. Then he checked the prices. Like everything, the cost had gone up. He counted his money. If he drank his own moonshine instead of a couple of six-packs, he could buy three kits instead of two. Maybe two would be enough. He could come back for more later if he needed it.

  Wilma was busy at the moment, answering questions about squash bugs. The man wore a suit, so he was probably one of the faculty doing a little shopping before his first class.

  "That reminds me," the man said for no apparent reason. "New gloves."

  "Just leave your things here, Professor Barnes," Wilma said, putting his purchases to one side of the counter. The man went off.

  Durk went up and put down his two inoculation kits.

  "How you doing, Durk?" Wilma asked.

  "I'm okay, but the goats aren't," Durk answered. Wilma rang up the sale, and took the Exchange card he offered. The rebate at the end of the year wouldn't be much, but every little bit helped.

  "Hope they all pull through," Wilma said, putting the kits into a bag.

  "Hey, Morton," someone called o
ut. Durk turned to see another faculty type addressing Professor Barnes. "We just had a bust on campus." The six or so other customers now in the store stopped to listen.

  "What happened?" Barnes asked.

  "As far as I can tell," the other man said, "several students trashed the Visitor Campus Liaison offices in Courtland. Got caught, of course."

  "Damn fools," Barnes said, coming back to the counter with a pair of women's garden gloves. "Who were they?"

  "I don't know," the other man said. "I wasn't there when they were taken away; that's just what I heard when I came by on my way here. Six of them, I think."

  "Five," Durk said. "Three boys and two girls. One of the guys was black, and one of the girls was very tall."

  "You saw them?"

  "They had a guard checking IDs. Five kids got loaded into a truck and driven off."

  "The only way we'll know who they are," Barnes's friend said, "is when they don't show up for classes."

  "What's going to happen to them?" Durk asked.

  "Prison camp," Professor Barnes answered. "No trial, of course."

  "For how long?" Durk asked.

  "For as long as the lizards want them," Barnes said bitterly. "Not very many people get out once they're in. A student of mine got picked up last semester, but his family had some kind of pull with the Visitors and he was released after only three months. Mostly you never see them again."

  "Where is he now?" the other man asked.

  "Back in Colorado. The red toxin is still effective up there most of the year. I don't blame him. One trip to that camp would be more than enough for me."

  "Do they beat them?" Wilma asked.

  "No, just make them work. I gather from the letter he sent me that life there isn't really very bad, especially when compared to our own prison system. But they have some kind of weird creature guarding the place. Lives in a sand-filled moat just outside the fence. Kenny saw a guy try to make a break for it once. The guards just watched as this guy climbed the fence and started running across the sand. Then all of a sudden these things like big snakes came up out of the sand and dragged him down into it. After that, Kenny decided, if he got out, which he did two weeks later, he'd just stay clear of the Visitors for the rest of his life."