by Keith Laumer
"I could have, if the police patrol officers named Hicks and Deltora were ever involved in a car crash."
"You're quick," said Star Two. "Smack on the button. Three months ago they were on highway patrol. They were involved in a multiple crash. Three killed. Two of the Carasel Company's testers also were involved. Named Lester Shalk and Grif Mason."
"Why mention them?"
"Because Lester Shalk is Hicks's brother-in-law, and Grif Mason used to be a racing driver and an old buddy of Chick Verrel. After the crash, which occurred within the city limits on Highway 640, both Hicks and Deltora were transferred to city patrol cars."
"So why were they on Highway 640 this morning?"
"That's for you to find out. I dare not dig that far."
"Who were the three killed?"
"Three women passengers. Their husbands were driving and all were injured, but not seriously. They were strangers to the state, merely passing through."
"Did you discover the cause of the collision?"
"Apparently one of the test cars threw a wheel and slewed across the fast lane. The others piled into it."
"A new car?"
Star Two paused. "That took some pressing to find out. Yes—a Carasel Windflight, but in test trim and not carrying the production bodywork so it wasn't recognized as a new model."
"How about the accident reports?"
"None available. Auto City Vehicle Accidents Bureau had a fire. All Highway 640's accidents records are destroyed."
"Convenient," said David. "So who remembered?"
"Sergeant Banner did, after some pressure."
"So they've no record of witnesses' names, or drivers' insurance companies?"
"None at all."
"Any luck with Tom Claus?"
"Not yet. This will take time. Tom Claus worked on classified data. He has immunity from Federal checks unless he is arrested for espionage activities, which he hasn't been as of right now."
"Since when has automobile design been classified data?"
Star Two said: "Since the automobile industry began the manufacture of certain types of rocket motors and spacecraft instruments. There is scarcely any difference now between their security and that of a space program manufacturer's plant. The whole thing is interlocked."
"I didn't realize that. My God! This could be the really big infiltration!"
"You've always said that the other incidents were try-outs. These two policemen, Hicks and Deltora—are they malformed?"
"Not physically obvious, but there's no doubt in my mind that they are aliens. I'm also certain that they knew Tom Claus would crash and were there to meet him. Six forty is an eight-lane highway with permanent and frequent highway patrols, as is usual with such highways, yet a city patrol car shows up."
"That's a strange point, but can you prove they knew?"
"I will," said David grimly. "I already have the linkage I need to start tracing this new menace to its source."
"Linkage is not enough."
"You don't have to tell me that. But linkage is also the aliens' aim. I might have to kill to find how far the linkage has been forged."
"But won't you be on your own if that happens?" Star Two questioned. "The government won't back you officially, I'm sure. You can trust Willard Knight—unless he, too, has an accident in the near future," Star Two added grimly. "But I doubt if even Willard will stand for that mercury popgun of yours if you fire at someone who isn't an alien."
"They'd have only a mild poisoning from the acid and mercury combination," said David. "I have to use mercury when an alien has possessed a dead body. I've found in the past that a bullet won't kill them, and I can't get at them with poison or a knife. Can't get close enough because of their ray guns. And they may well become immune to these mercurized slugs of mine if they make their linkage strong enough."
"Meaning that the longer they can remain in a human identity, the less risk of incandescent destruction?"
"Meaning just that." David glanced at his watch. "I have a call to make. You'll keep your line open for my contact, day and night?"
"I surely will. How much leeway do you want?"
"Say, eight hours."
"So every report will be at least up to the preceding eight hours."
"That will be the maximum."
"After eight hours' silence I'll get things moving."
"Right. Check this apartment first. I'll try to leave a message in the usual way. Stand by, Star Two. Stand by, Star Two. This may escalate mighty fast."
"You're a brave man, Star One. Good-bye. Good luck!"
He found her number in the phone book. He recognized her voice immediately, but didn't say her name at first.
"I believe you have been referred to as a door without hinges," said David. "Which is a silly way of introducing myself as representing the makers of hingeless doors. I specialize in opening doors which everybody else says cannot or should not be opened. I know it's very difficult to speak on the telephone. Perhaps I could meet you and discuss this matter of doors, about which you were so kind as to make inquiry?" She rose to it, calmly and swiftly. "Why, yes, indeed. How good of you to call! Are you in town?"
"I am here for my usual coverage of the district."
"I suppose I needn't ask you how you obtained my phone number, because I forgot to give it to you."
"We have mutual friends, although you may not think so. And, of course, I much admired your late husband, Chick Verrel."
"I see. I was a little foolish not to give you more information. Would you care to visit me?"
"I really am rather busy and have many calls to make. Perhaps we could meet this evening?"
"I start my work in the evening," she said. "I run the Racing Wheel Club on Sixth Street. Why don't you come along there this evening? We serve very good food, and you can stay for the floor show if you're not too busy."
"I shall look forward to that. You remember my name, of course? It is Trome-—David Trome."
"Ah—yes, Mr. Trome. Well, you come along to the club this evening and bring the details of your—er—hingeless doors."
"Thank you very much. I'll see you then."
He called in at the vast new police block a little farther down the street from his apartment house. Auto City did itself proud. In this new center all departments were under one roof. But it was a very high roof and some forty floors, so that finding the right department was even worse than the old method of chasing through different streets to find the subsections of a city's police force. At last he tracked it down to an end half-a-dozen cubbyholes on the twenty-second floor.
Sergeant Banner was a short, bull-necked, bald-headed man. David noticed he had a deformed left hand. The two smallest fingers were twisted and stiff, although not enough to prevent him from carrying out clerical duties.
"You the guy inquiring about an accident?" Sergeant Banner asked.
"That's right."
"Name of Trome?"
"They must have phoned through the details from downstairs," said David.
"I'm doing the asking. Are you David Trome?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Address?"
David gave him a Chicago address. "What's your interest in the alleged accident?"
"Witness."
"Whaddya know!" Banner sneered. "A guy with a social conscience! Witnesses we usually have to bring in at the point of a gun, but you walk right in. Where was this accident?"
"On Highway 640, this morning. A Windflight car went off the road. Nothing hit it, no vehicle passing or being passed. I thought the driver might need a witness."
The desk phone burred. The sergeant's deformed hand grabbed it.
"Sergeant Banner, Accident Records." He listened, heavy face impassive, then: "Yeah. Could be that way. You saw him. Who? Gin or the old man?" He listened some more. "Okay, you do that." He glanced at the wall clock. "Then check with me. Right." He put down the phone. "Wait," he said to David, and disappeared behind an opaque screen partiti
on.
David could see Banner's bulky outline bending over a desk, turning pages of a large-sized book or ledger. After about five minutes he reappeared.
"You saw this accident—you personally saw it?"
"That's right."
"Anyone hurt?"
"I thought the driver was dead, but he got out of the wreck and walked away." Nothing about seeing Hicks or Deltora. Nothing about speaking with them, nor of meeting Tom Claus. Object of this exercise was to put himself on the target. Two ways to draw the fire of a completely unknown adversary. If the police were a regular force with not one break in their line of honest duty, then those two policemen should have reported the incident even though they were not on highway patrol. If they had reported it, the authorities, meaning the police whose department it would be, would appreciate a witness calling in. An honest police department would be concerned that the witness did not report in, or give a statement and his full address to any police officers present at the time.
Star Two in Washington had spoken of a gag, which meant a blockage between security forces of the city and the police department where one pressured the other, making it difficult for even the Federal authority to obtain clear information. So, if the Auto City police department, as represented through their accident division, reacted in the wrong way to this visit, then David Trome had his clear, strong link into the heart of local authority.
Banner was surveying him coldly.
"You a nut?" said Banner, casual. "I got no record of a Windflight crashing. How do you know about Wind-flights, huh?"
"A dream car, I guess," said David. "I'd heard that Carasel were bringing out this supermodel sports job, but I'd not seen one until this morning."
"Dream is right," said Banner. "You got the wrong department, Mac. Go out this door, turn right. At the passage end there's a small elevator. Take it down to the tenth. Partway along the corridor you'll see a door marked 'Auto Queries.' Go in there. I'll phone down and tell 'em you're coming."
"If you say so." David shrugged.
"I do say so," said Sergeant Banner harshly. "And listen, Mac—when I say go in that elevator, I mean you do just that. We don't like strangers wandering around here, so…" He left the sentence unfinished.
David nodded, walked out of the door, turned right down the corridor, came to the small elevator and pressed the button. Play it by ear, that's the way when you don't know what's coming. That way you pretty soon find out, and that's what he was here for.
The elevator door slid open. The elevator was small compared with the vast express and others in this large building. Small and cozy, paneled in green leather. Not big enough for more than four people and partly filled now with the large form of Danny Hicks, the policeman. He looked even bigger out of uniform, wearing a broad-check tweed jacket.
David had taken a natural step forward as the door slid open so he scarcely needed the helping hand which Hicks gave him by pulling him farther into the elevator. The action slammed him against the far side. By the time he had recovered, the door had closed and the elevator was shooting downward.
He turned from the huddled position into which he'd fallen by the force of hitting the wall, but wasn't in time to duck the slashing backhand blow Hicks aimed across the side of his head. His eardrum felt as if it had split. A bunched fist slammed into his guts.
Gasping and crouched down on one knee he looked up at the huge man. Fortunately he had seen the second blow coming and tensed his muscles in the way that a well-trained judo expert can. But no amount of training can do anything but minimize a full-powered blow from a fist belonging to a man of Hicks's stature.
Hicks was staring down at him with no expression on his face or in his eyes. David had the impression that here was a man doing what he had to do, or what he'd been told to do. The impression clicked into David's mind, linking with other times when physical contact with aliens had shown him this same zombielike expression, even under stress.
He reached into his pocket, gasping more noisily than he actually needed to do. Giving Hicks the idea that he was in a partially collapsed state.
"Can I have a cigarette before you kill me?"
Hicks shrugged. "Kill?" he said. "You ain't getting killed, Mister. You're going to wish you were, but you ain't. You wouldn't take no warning from my friend Deltora, would you? 'Don't be sorry,' he told you. Now you're gonna be sorry."
The elevator stopped as the long, thick cigarette case came into David's hand. The larger part of the case held cigarettes. The other section appeared to be a lighter. He put a cigarette in his mouth.
As the door slid open, Hicks gripped him with one massive hand and levered him out of the elevator. They marched along between fat, round concrete pillars. The air was dank and around them the pulsing beat of the air-conditioning plant could be heard through huge steel vents along one wall.
They were deep in the bowels of the great building and obviously Hicks knew exactly where he was going. He hurried David along to where a door was set into a corner. Hicks unlocked this door, threw it open and thrust David through into a long rectangular room, with racks bearing plastic-covered objects.
Hicks slowly took off his coat, draped it over a rack.
"Not kill," he said. "But you don't ever come back to Auto City."
"A smoke?" said David. "I'm a coward. I can't stand punishment."
"I'd kill," said Hicks. "I don't see why not. Trouble, you are." He advanced toward David.
David waited, raising the cigarette case slowly as if to light the cigarette, almost level with his eyes, sighting along it, when he pressed the small release button.
The compressed-air charge hissed as the tiny mercury and acid bullet sped on its way into Hicks's chest.
At that second David moved swiftly, becoming not the cowed, frightened man but a lithe, active opponent whose legs were like coiled springs as he leaped and whirled around the big man. He wasn't sure how long this would take. He wasn't sure about anything, except that this had to be done.
He avoided Hicks's grasping hands, clawing at him, but could not detect any expression yet on the big man's face, or in his eyes. The zombie look was still there.
Then suddenly it happened. The big chest began to glow—faintly pink at first, then brighter and brighter. Hicks halted, suddenly swaying.
David rushed to the far corner of the room, shielding his eyes in the crook of his arm.
The body of Hicks began to glow brighter and brighter, spreading out from his chest over the great torso, down to the abdomen and legs, finally around the shoulders and arms. The last part David could not watch. Even from behind his tight-closed eyes the terrific, flaring, incandescent burning was a fearsome thing.
When at last he looked up there was only vapor where Danny Hicks once had lived.
Chapter 5
COME—RACE WITH ME!
David emerged from a long passage winding up to the subbasement parking floor. It seemed that the small elevator and this passage were the only way in and out of that eerie place, with its huge concrete piles upon which the whole structure was balanced. He learned later that its emptiness was due to dampness; the building site had originally been marshy ground and the piles went forty feet down. A drying plant was being installed, but until then, this place remained ghostly but conveniently empty.
He came on to the parking floor behind some police trucks, clutching two of the plastic-covered packages, walked nonchalantly to his cat. Numerous drivers, patrol-car cops, men in civilian clothes and service mechanics in blue work clothes moved around, or stood talking. Several glanced at him, but no one challenged his presence. David drove out into the rush-hour traffic.
In his apartment he unwrapped one package, made a detailed inspection of the contents before dialing Star Two's Washington number. Star Two's recorded voice gave the code sign, then:
"Shall return at twenty-one hours. Wait for the signal, then record your message."
When the signal came, David said, "St
ar One has just used the mercury gun to save himself from severe injury. The man Hicks was occupied by a member of the alien force from the galaxy we already know about. This man, while obviously under domination, possessed an advanced human-reaction control. A very frightening thing to observe, and proof that the aliens have made considerable progress from their earlier and somewhat clumsy attempts to occupy the human form. They appear now to have mastered the technique of infiltrating the body at the precise moment that physical life, as we know and understand it, ceases to exist but before brain, nerve or tissue deterioration occurs. This means they have to be in complete control of the circumstances of apparent death and avoid any mutilation."
"If we cannot destroy their linkage fairly quickly, it's my opinion they will learn even more and make each alien-occupied body function so perfectly it will be impossible for us to recognize them. Even now, it's not possible for the ordinary person to do so unless that person accepts and believes in the danger of alien presences in our society. But this very disbelief prevents them from accepting the facts as we know them. Therefore, they see only certain types of personality change."
"In their work, these characters are probably more efficient than before because their bodies cannot feel pain, nor do they suffer physical tiredness. Although unable to project a natural human emotion, they do at times appear to react emotionally, but this is only in keeping with what the aliens have assumed and learned. We know so little about their own functional persons that we have to assume a number of things, some of which have already been proved and others we can reasonably accept as accurate. There are many things we have yet to discover, but time is not on our side, so we have to accept more and not keep stopping to make detailed analyses."
"The man Hicks will be missed by colleagues in the force, but the aliens will know he's been destroyed. The aliens' extrasensory power can be applied to any situation in which they know the movements of their members. This is a constant-flow power, passing back and forth from and between members and to and from their control. But destruction of one unit prevents the information from that unit flowing back. So they won't know that I'm responsible for the destruction of Hicks."
