by Keith Laumer
David slammed the vehicle in gear, yanked the throttle lever full down. The big wheels surged and spun; the fork-lift leaped forward. David steered straight for the doors, crouched behind the partial shield of the lifting mechanism. He passed the crate, caught a glimpse of a body folded backwards, the head, blind eyes bulging, jammed between the twisted ankles . . .
There was a flicker of motion ahead, a flash of light. David ducked, and a livid blue beam hummed past him. He saw his attacker, braced against the closed doors ahead, taking careful aim for the killing shot. There was no evasive action open to him, no place to hide. He gritted his teeth, dropped beneath the wheel, steering straight for the door―
A harsh hum, a glare, a shower of sparks, a spatter of molten metal―and then a shock―a rending and smashing, a numbing blow on the shoulder that knocked him from his seat. He fell clear, struck and rolled, saw the fork lift, one head-light blazing like a fierce eye, blunder on into the sub-Arctic night, the dangling body of the gunman transfixed on the out-thrust tine.
3
David came to his feet―and Dorn’s flat voice rang out from the shadows:
“Stop there! I offer you your life―for information―”
David spun, sprinted for the cover of tumbled rocks. Behind him he heard the ripping crackle of the Eruptor. Ahead, vivid light glared, cutting through a great boulder like a knife through cheese as the ravenous beam annihilated the matter in its path.
And then a hoarse howl of agony, a scream that seemed it must rip open the throat it came from. David dived flat, spun to see Dorn whirl, throw the Eruptor from him. It arced high, glowing as bright as a phosphorus flare, dropped down at the edge of the central pit―bounced high, and disappeared into the depths.
For a moment David lay where he was, gasping for breath. Far away, something rumbled dimly. He felt a faint vibration through the rock beneath him, then a harder shock. A continuous, crashing hiss started up, coming from the dark chasm where the Eruptor had fallen. Light glared then abruptly, lighting the tree-tops. Even here, fifty yards distant, the heat was like a physical blow. David staggered to his feet, saw the tall, lean figure of Dorn, gripping his burned hand in agony, outlined against the glare as he ran for cover. Driven by the intense heat, David backed, retreating up the slope as the glow increased.
Now he could see what looked like a lake of fire, rising in the white-hot throat of what David now saw was an old volcanic crater. Choking fumes rose, were whirled away by the wind. The magma reached the rim of the inner bore, spilled over, spreading to engulf the fork-lift, then the warehouse, broaching the door to the tunnel complex, pouring inside. The trees flared up like giant torches as the molten rock reached them.
From the shelter of a point of rock high above, David watched while the boiling hell of energy below spread out among the blackened trees, crept away in crimson fingers among the rocks, remembering Al Lieberman’s fears of a self-sustaining sub-nuclear reaction that would consume any matter in its range, raging on without end . . . .
But at length the glow diminished, the heat waned. In an hour only a hundred-foot pool of dull-glowing lava marked the position of the vanished installation. Then he slumped where he sat and sank down into bottomless sleep.
4
He awoke staring at a ceiling papered with a pattern of pink flowers. Painfully, he turned his head, saw the smiling countenance of an elderly woman in nurse’s costume, beyond her the heavy, stolid features of a State Policeman.
“Only a few minutes, Doctor said,” the woman said softly, and withdrew.
“We saw the eruption,” The policeman frowned, shook his head in perplexity. “Lucky for you; you were more dead than alive, Mr. Vincent. I guess you were the only one that got clear.” He shook his head. “Too bad. All those scientists―all that equipment. I helped them set up the research station just last fall.” He looked at David sharply. “Don’t remember seeing you before . . . “
David thought over his answer quickly, decided against blurting the facts.” I was new there,” he said. “Just arrived. You said―nobody got clear?”
The cop nodded thoughtfully. “Some tracks in the snow―thought for a while one might have made it. But the trail ended up slope on bare rock. Nobody there.” He clucked sympathetically.
The nurse had left the room now. The cop leaned closer. “It’s OK, Mr. Vincent;” he said conspiratorial-ly. “I got a call from the FBI after I sent out my tracer on you. The other fellow’s in bad shape, but they say he’ll live. Dr. Lieberman, I mean. What is it, a kidnaping ring? They must have worked him over good. Amnesia, they said. Remembers nothing since about two weeks ago. Blanked out.”
“Al’s all right?” David felt a surge of relief.
“Sure. But all four of the FBI boys were dead. Tough. I don’t guess you got a look at the killers’ faces .. ?”
For the next half hour, the cop went on with his questions, supplying most of the answers himself―it was plain that the authorities knew nothing of the real nature of the disaster.
For two days, David rested in the small nursing home, located, he was told, in a small town in Wisconsin. On his feet again, wearing stiff, new clothes bought at the local emporium, he went to a pay phone, called the home office of MID-20th.
“Mr. Vincent!” the voice of Miss Clay, the executive secretary gasped. “We heard you’d been in an accident . . . !”
“I’m all right,” David said. “Let me talk to the General.” He had made the decision while he still lay in the hard, starched bed. There was no point in reporting the fantastic thing he had uncovered direct to the police, or even the FBI or CIA. The only proof had been the strange weapon―the Emptor. And that was gone now, lost at the core of the volcano it had stirred to new life. But if General Moore would believe him―and place the vast resources of MID-20th at his disposal―
“But―Mr. Vincent,” the woman’s strained voice came back. “You mean―you haven’t heard . . . ?”
Coldness gripped David’s chest. Abruptly, the artificial sense of safety about him shattered; he felt again the icy awareness of danger, close and deadly.
“Heard what?”
“The General―he’s dead. He was killed ten days ago, in an automobile accident . . .
In a half-daze, David hung up the phone, Out in the bright street, he looked about warily, sensing a threat in every shadowy doorway, every blind, curtained window.
He knew about them. Only he, of all Earth’s millions. Even Al had had the memory driven from his mind by the terrible experiences he had undergone. But they were here; they were real. The Invaders.
For that was what they were, David knew with a chilling certainty. Invaders, being, not human, not of this Earth. Here, among humanity, infiltrating the society of their victims, working, planning, toward―what?
He didn’t know. But the knowledge that they existed was enough to start with. Perhaps they thought him dead, killed in the destruction of the hidden station. Perhaps that was his ace-in-the-hole. Because he was alive, with the knowledge of their existence. But not enough knowledge, not yet.
But he could get more. Thank God for the healthy balance in his bank account. It would keep him for a while―a year, perhaps if he were careful. He couldn’t risk returning to his home, his job―if it still existed. He would have to work alone, in secret, to ferret out some irrefutable proof of the terrible truth. From now on―from this moment until the day of success―that would be his mission.
Alone, David walked away down the empty street, bearing the burden of his knowledge.
PART TWO―THE MANIAC
Chapter One
From his seat in the cramped corner booth in the down-at heels diner, David Vincent studied the customers seated at the zinc-topped counter: a burly truck driver in a scuffed leather jacket, a small, rabbit-faced man in overalls and mackinaw, a thin, tired-looking woman with colorless hair, lighting her third cigaret in less than five minutes with fingers that shook as she held the match. Not a savory dinn
er crowd—but human enough, David decided. As was the tallowy, thick-fingered woman behind the counter, and the old man at the table near the door, sipping a cup of coffee held in both hands to warm them. Outside, beyond the streaked, neon-festooned window, the night pressed close. It had been three months since David’s life had been turned upside down by the discovery of the creatures he had come to think of as the Invaders. Three months since he had dropped out of sight, leaving his job, his home, his friends. Three months of wandering, never sleeping two nights in the same place, ever on the alert, avoiding all close human contacts, always watching, watching, for any clue, any evidence of the workings of the fantastic plot that he—and he alone-suspected.
The waitress―a slim, auburn-haired girl whose pert face bore only a faint resemblance to that of the obese short-order cook, doubtless her mother―placed a plate in front of him.
“More coffee?” she invited. Her brown eyes tried to hold his; her lips held a smile ready. But he glanced away, muttered a surly “No.”
“I . . . hope the eggs are the way you like them,” the girl persisted.
“Yeah,” David growled, and lifted his folded newspaper, made a show of reading it. He looked after the girl as she walked away.
Sorry, he thought after her. But I can’t risk involving anyone―even by exchanging a friendly word. Because I never know who―or what―might be watching . . . .
A line in the newspaper caught his eye:
SAUCER CULTISTS TO REVEAL ‘PROOF David read on:
There are aliens among us―or so at least the dedicated members of Wayne-town’s Interplanetary Surveillance and Interpretive Society believe. And tonight, at a special meeting of the group’s members at Society headquarters in the former City Opera House, they will produce evidence to support their contention. Mr. Alphonse Cabrito, President of the UFO-watching organization announced today that new data uncovered only this week will convert thousands of sceptics to acceptance of what he refers to as ‘the obvious’. “To anyone observing the present state of human affairs,” Cabrito stated in an exclusive interview, “it’s plain that malignant alien forces are at work . . . “
There was more, written in the same tongue-in-cheek style, enlarging on the activities of the cultists, milking the material for laughs, as was usual. But David’s smile was more bitter than amused. News items like this appeared in every paper in the country, practically daily. If the Invaders had set out to create a climate of public scepticism as a cover for their activities, they couldn’t have picked a more effective method . . . .
. . . if they had set out to create a cover for their activities . . . .
It was a possibility, the thought flashed in David’s mind. Even if the Invaders had not themselves invented the UFO fad, they might still have seen the possibilities in it, seized upon the opportunity, gone on to lend support to saucer groups, supply misleading hints, even afford glimpses of genuinely alien artifacts or phenomena to selected dupes―or organizations. This organization―ISIS as it was referred to in the article―for example. And if so, perhaps there would be an alien representative at tonight’s meeting, hovering somewhere in the background, keeping an eye on things.
―And even if there weren’t, David checked his sudden enthusiasm, it would be interesting to see what the “proof” consisted of. The article had said the meeting was open to the public. He would go, mingle with the credulous, and keep his eyes open. Maybe―with luck―and it was time for a little luck―he would see something that would give him a new lead into the terrible mystery that had darkened his life.
A knot of people stood on the sidewalk under the sagging marquee, with its rows of dusty, lightless bulbs still spelling out the name of some vanished farce of a forgotten year. A few new posters with lettering amateurishly scrawled in garish color announcing the ISIS meeting were tacked to the warped wooden frames of display boards, covering tattered playbills bleached by time. In the dusty ticket booth, a plump woman in a fantastic hat fussed with a roll of tickets, her eyes darting out hopefully at the sparse passersby.
As David Vincent paid off his cab, the group before the old opera house eyed him silently, watched as he bought his ticket, declining the literature pressed on him by the plump woman.
“Just any contribution you care to make,” she squeaked. “But you must read of Swami Ramchan-dra’s latest psychic energization methods,” her bleating voice followed him as he turned away. A tall, angular woman with a determined chin and severe tweed skirts blocked his path.
“I see that you’re not the sort to be misled by any of that heathen hocus-pocus,” she stated in a flat rnidwestern twang, her coal-black eyes darting past David to impale the plump woman. “This is a matter for modern science, not some greasy foreigner with a towel on his head. Now . . . “ She unsnapped a handbag as big as an overnight case, drew out a pamphlet. “My departed husband perhaps you’ve heard of him, Creely, Doctor M. Creely, not a medical doctor actually, his certificate was from the East Indiana Academy of Manufrictional Sciences, was at the time of his death working on his Manifestor, and it’s been my privilege to carry on his work, inspired directly, of course, by his post mortem communications―”
“Excuse me,” David edged past her, made six yards before being cornered by a tiny, spidery man with a sparse goatee, old fashioned pince-nez, a tarnished frock coat. He held up a veined hand; David was forced to stop to avoid bowling the little man over.
“My boy, have you heard the word?” the old gentleman demanded in a quavering tone.
“Yes, indeed, sir,” David came back promptly. “Or-thofoniationality.”
“How’s that?” the little man’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you?”
“Deduction; sheer deduction. Now, if you don’t mind―”
“A wise punk,” the old man snarled, his voice suddenly gravelly. “If I was a couple years younger, I’d break your jaw!”
“Why, Professor Wisdom,” a shocked female voice cut in. David turned, almost choking on a dense cloud of perfume. A strapping blonde girl, at least six feet one in height, fluttered eyelashes at the tiny man, took David’s arm possessively. Her long hair swirled as she shook her head reprovingly at the peppery professor. “You mustn’t be rude to our new friends . . . must he?” she inquired in a cooing tone, turning immense, pale blue eyes on David.
“Maybe he’s got the right idea,” David said. “I think I’m in the wrong place―”
“But you came to hear Alphonse―to hear about the positively incredible vibrations he picked up last night on his orgone tube oscillator . . . “
“My mistake,” David disengaged his arm from her grip, only to have her latch on to his wrist.
“Now, now, naughty boy, you mustn’t run away now, before you’ve even seen―”
“I was looking for the Shriners’ Convention,” David said firmly, and pried her hand loose. “It must be in the next block over.” The big blue eyes stared after him aggrievedly as he tinned―and locked eyes with a neatly dressed, middle-aged man, standing quietly by the wall, smoking a pipe. At once, the man lifted his eyebrows, tilted his head minutely, inviting David to his side.
“You’re not one of these nuts,” the man murmured as David came up. “I saw that at once.” He appeared to be an ordinary citizen of about fifty, with the well-tended hands of an office worker. Only about his pale blue eyes was there a hint of tension, a look of wariness, well-concealed.
“Are you here to listen to Mr. Cabarito’s disclosures?” he said in a neutral tone. As David hesitated he went on: “Cabrito is a fool and a charlatan. He looks on all this as an easy way of making a living.”
“Is there any money in it?”
“The old dragon, Mrs. Creel: she’s worth half a million dollars. The plump one is good for nearly as much. They’re the big contributors. Cabrito keeps them at each other’s throats―keeps the bidding up, you know, for honors as leading patroness.” The man’s mouth quirked in a brief smile.
“I take it you’re not
a Believer?” David asked.
The man’s lip twitched. “Do I look like an idiot? Of course I see through this transparent sham. But . . . “ his eyes were wary. “There just may be something behind all this nonsense, some true raison d’etre for the ISIS group―and others like it.”
“What would that be?” David asked innocently.
“It’s a cover―or it could be. Don’t mistake me; I’m no fanatic, leaping at shadows. But the idea has occurred to me: suppose someone―or some organization―wer e responsible for the things which have been observed lately, all over the country―all over the world, for that matter? Things which they wanted to conceal. How better to hide themselves than behind a screen of ridicule, eh?”
“Interesting idea,” David said. “What do you suppose is being hidden?” As he spoke, he kept his eyes on the saucerites milling in the dingy lobby, which was beginning to fill now as the hour for the featured event grew close.
“I’m guessing, of course,” the man said. “But the thing is too big for any single individual or private organization to be behind it. And our government would hardly be likely to conduct experiments in France, for example, where numerous sightings have occurred. The same holds true for other governments. And the fact that the phenomena have been seen near large cities, including Washington, also discredits that idea. We’re left with the assumption that some other power―perhaps not of this planet―is involved. That, or mass hallucination on a grand scale.”
“You’re assuming that the sightings are real.”
“I’m assuming nothing! But something has caused hundreds, perhaps thousands, of sober, stable individuals to risk their jobs, their reputations, to report something! As to what it might be―that, sir, is what I’d like to know. Which brings me here, to meetings such as this!”
“And instead―you meet . . . these.” David shook his head, glancing at the wild-eyed bearded, floppy-hatted, unhappy people, misfits all, each intent, it seemed, on gaining some miniscule measure of support for a favorite theory, to sell some dog-eared pamphlet, to solve all the world’s ills in one magic moment of conversion.
