by Keith Laumer
"None. Just an undercurrent of general discontent. More products are being turned back as faulty. Morale is low, but even our experienced personnel officers cannot find the cause."
"These faulty products," David asked. "Are they the complete cars, or various parts from different assembly lines?"
"From different assembly lines. The result of slipshod work. It ties in with apathy toward the job, which stems from low morale."
"Resulting in a general slowing down of production?"
"That will be its effect unless we can get to the cause of the trouble. Most plants are pretty well automated. The computers make the machines reject their own faulty work, but some sections in assembly rely on human effort."
"Have you had any computer trouble?"
"Funny you should ask that. We had some yesterday for the first time. The programing was wrong. Six thousand engine blocks were bored out to the wrong dimensions. It's never happened before."
David nodded slowly. "And the programmer's name was Tern Claus?"
"How the hell did you know that?"
David shrugged. "Is it so secret?"
"Are you kidding? Of course it's secret. I know it because the report came through my office as a matter of routine. But it was seen only by the top executives."
"You haven't been asked officially to investigate?"
"There's nothing to investigate. Programmers are the aristocrats among the top echelon. Mistakes by them are a matter for the Computer Control Committee and not for security."
"But their work is double-checked?"
"It's intricate stuff. I wouldn't declare that I understand it but, yes, their work is very carefully checked."
"Yet someone fed a bum tape into the engine block computer. You'd better check your Control Committee, Rumbold. Find out which of them has had an accident recently. Those who havrare aliens."
Thias Rumbold nodded, frowning. "There's no end, is there? I couldn't even trust Adrian Felstead, our President, could I? Yet I've known him since we were at school together."
David smiled grimly. "Not if he's had any sort of accident within the past few months, and he won't be able to tell you that himself. It needn't have been in a car."
Thias Rumbold scrubbed a hand over his face.
"I don't scare. Ask anyone. They'll tell you old Thias don't scare. But what can a man do against this? Who can he trust?"
"I'll give you one tip, Rumbold. Anyone who will discuss the aliens with you and admit they are a menace to the whole country—those people can be trusted. An alien cannot discuss himself. Don't ask me why, but it's a fact." He laughed softly. "They are terribly honest and highly moral. They appear not to have much time for women. I suppose they'll get around to it, but right now they don't seem to understand them."
"Goddam it!" said Ollie. "You don't have to be an alien for that!"
"Skip the cracks, Ollie," Rumbold growled. "This trust business, David—it makes sense. But how in hell can we talk to nearly a hundred thousand workers about the aliens just to find those who won't talk? And anyway, I'd be locked up as a nut case if I tried. People just don't believe in this alien talk."
David smiled. "Now you know how I feel and what I'm up against. Even I have to keep it as simple- as I can. People just can't take it in. I'm surprised you and Ollie have accepted it so well."
"I had no choice," said Ollie. "But I know I daren't tell even my wife about what I've seen and heard today." He spread his hands questioningly. "Tell her I saw a man I've known for years try to kill one of my drivers—maybe me as well—with a gadget like an elongated camera that burned the ground when he fired it. Tell her I saw him just burn up and disappear. Then tell her not to worry, he was dead anyway. Oh, brother! Just how many people can I tell that to?"
"I'm glad you raised these points," said David. "In a discussion like this I listen in the hope that I'll find one clue to lead me further. A great deal that is unbelievable to you has become completely acceptable to me. You have asked how you can possibly check through this vast number of people. There is the clue. How can the aliens? How do they know which people to occupy? Don't imagine that they are omnipotent, all-seeing spirits. They have their limitations. In my previous investigations the aliens have invaded a small sector of society and have been destroyed, largely, I'll admit, through my efforts. The power, the ruling authority of their galaxy—call it what you will—has learned a great deal from those incidents.
"How many UFOs have landed in this territory? How many aliens have been landed all over the country and been given control guidance like a homing device to concentrate here? We know that aliens must have taken a number of months to build up their forces in and around Auto City. Yet we have received only two reports of UFO sightings—both unconfirmed incidentally—from this area."
"These UFOs," said Ollie speaking hesitantly, "do they give off a ligjht or make a noise?"
"Very often a light, and in varying degrees of brilliance and color. Sometimes accompanied by a sibilant, throbbing sound."
"How many of these—er—things, these aliens would they carry? I mean, do they have a shape?"
"They assume a shape," said David. "I've seen landings. I've seen them leave the ship or craft, whatever it is, because that too is hard to define in our terms. They had shape, but I believe that so great is their power they can assume any shape they need. But it is a nebulous thing and couldn't be used physically in our civilization. They're searching for a new world to inhabit when their own galaxy becomes extinct. Therefore they must assume the shape of the things—which are us—that they find. I'll give you a brief example. Two of these shapes passed near a herd of cattle. In a few moments they took the shape of two bullocks. Absurd, isn't it?"
"Good grief! Then they might be all around us?"
"Not as themselves," said David. "They've progressed since those early attempts, and so has our knowledge of them. I was really flattened by certain people in Washington when I begged that all minor wars be halted and troops withdrawn. I said I believed the aliens had to be inside a human before they could become a force in this country. I thought they would occupy wounded soldiers when the men's resistance was low. I was wrong. But I was right in my belief that they had to do that very thing, because it now is happening."
"How did you know?" said Rumbold. "How could you arrive at that belief?"
"Because of the incident with the cattle and a number of later incidents. They once occupied a child and a woman, but both were mentally backward. Those are physical manifestations, but I draw my belief from the aliens themselves. They have tremendous telepathic power, far greater than we can imagine. The basis of telepathy is belief. The belief that you can accept the thoughts of another person, or that you can will that person to accept yours, providing they believe you can. You see where this brings us?"
"To the nut house," said Rumbold gloomily.
"Forget that sort of talk," said David sharply. "Forget even the thought that prompted it. I began to accept the fact that the aliens could communicate by telepathy as easily as we can with words. In accepting it I believed it. In believing it I made it real. From that moment I began to pick up their impulses. I could intercept their thought waves. These are translated in my mind as a sort of sensing because, as a telepathic subject, my power compared to theirs is like a car battery compared with a giant generator. They do not reason as we reason. They are not physical as we are physical. So in our physical world it is they who are groping and learning."
"As you are in theirs?"
"Yes, but with this difference. I am complete in my own world while they are incomplete. They bring a power of which I know very little, but they are trying to apply it physically in a world of which they know little. But because of this power they learn faster.
"They discovered they could not easily occupy and therefore control the minds of intelligent people in key positions. They could occupy and control people of low mentality, sick people, highly neurotic and weak people. But few
, if any, are in positions of importance in our society. Therefore they are useless to the aliens. So they had to find a means of occupying people through whom they could gradually obtain physical control. They chose death, or that poised and infinite second of time between life and death. In what part of our civilization, apart from sickness and mutilation in war, does death most frequently occur in otherwise healthy and successful people? In an automobile. What is so frequently reported that the public have become hardened to reading the reports of death and myopically believe it can never happen to them? Automobile accidents.
"What better place to infiltrate via that sector of our society than the greatest automobile center in the world? Which brings me to the clue. How have the aliens done it? They knew nothing about cars, or the making of them. But they had built spacecraft more advanced than we've yet dreamed could be made and traveled in them from their galaxy through the thousand million miles of outer space. So they wouldn't take long to master the technical and physical details of that rather ordinary piece of machinery we call a car. So why did they need to occupy so many of our people in the industry?"
"That's obvious," said Rumbold. "To take control. You've already said so. Why repeat yourself?"
"I have not said this before. Not in the same context. You must be more tolerant of me, Rumbold. I have been concentrating in order to sense what they intend to do. And I sense a great massing of aliens." He stared hard out of the window. "Now where—where? And why? Like an army? No, not an army—a collection of units. Cells of aliens just as there are cells of them occupying humans throughout this area? How can they be used? To destroy the plants? No, it is not that sort of destruction."
They kept silent, watching him, seeing his face grow taut under the power of his concentration. Sweat glistened on his forehead, ran in tiny slithers down from his temples. He began talking again.
"A road? No—many roads. Through a valley? No. From a valley? Yes—yes. From or in a valley, spreading out." David suddenly jerked back to life, whipped out the cigarette case, leveled it at Ollie. "You've been there." He eased back to cover them both. "Or you, Rumbold. Maybe both of you. There's a valley somewhere around here—a big valley. Tell me, come on, tell me."
"Put that damn thing away," said Ollie. "This is me, Ollie Temper. Valley? There's no valley around here like that."
"Serenda Valley," said Thias Rumbold. "Could he mean that?"
"It is linked to crashes," said David, holding the case steady. "You crashed there. Damn you, Ollie, you crashed! I'd swear you are not an alien."
"Only to myself right now," said Ollie. "I can't believe this is happening to me. What the hell are you talking about, fella?"
"Crashes," said David. "I sensed crashes. You're connected with them. The valley is connected with the aliens. They've concentrated in a valley. What and where is this Serenda Valley?"
"Miles away," said Ollie. "Damn great dust bowl of a place." He flickered a startled look at Rum-bold.
Rumbold said, "We've not used it in years. He couldn't sense that, surely!" He stared at David. "We used the valley one time to crash vehicles. Destruction tests they were called. Don't need those methods now. Too wasteful."
"Ah!" David released a long-drawn-out sigh, relaxed, slowly replaced the case in his pocket "No, I couldn't have sensed something you did a long time ago. That caught me out. But I'm not wrong. The valley is being used. The power is there. It's linked with Auto City."
"Okay," said Rumbold. "So climb in my chopper and we'll take a look-see."
"No," said David sharply. "I'll go in my own way at the right time. We'll make no physical contact with the place. There are other things you can do. Here they are. Can you stop the cameras from relaying this circuit on the mountain?"
"Yes," said Rumbold. He moved to the wall phone, gave orders, came back. "Next?"
"Do this through your office and through the executives who normally would give such orders. Say that the company is intending to re-open Serenda Valley as a test circuit." David checked some notes. "Name the following drivers who are to be invited."
"Invited?" Rumbold growled. "The money we pay those boys they'll damn well go where they're told."
"This time you invite them. Because I want to know who refuses. Offer a double bonus, anything you like to make it sound good."
Rumbold drew out his notebook. "The names?"
David said, "Mike Lasser, Wayne Draycott, Ken Holt, Rod Baker, Pietro Donelli, Ace Blumen, Grif Mason, Drew Markham, Ollie Temper."
"I accept," said Ollie. "And stuff you, too! How much is the bonus?"
"I need your name with the others," said David.
"It will cause comment if we leave you out. Where do you draw your pit crews and mechanics from?"
"From the plant," said Rumbold. "We choose men for their ability, give them special courses and assign them to the racing-car teams. Others are assigned to the test track back at the plants, and to Clem Makim here at the mountain scrutineering point."
"Right. Then we'll ask for volunteers to go to Serenda Valley as mechanics, and invite certain names I've already checked. These are: Sam Kyatt, Ben Bow, Saul Conifer, Mitch Forrester and, of course, Clem Makim. I'll let you know if there are any other names."
"This will need careful handling," said Rumbold. "It cuts across current company policy. But I'll swing it through Adrian Felstead."
"Yes," David nodded. "Do it at the highest level."
"Do we ask what you're trying to achieve?" Ollie asked.
"I'm trying to build a team that can be moved into action fast. A team we can rely on one hundred per cent. All those who refuse will be transmutes. The aliens will not allow them to go to Serenda Valley. I'm convinced of this, but don't ask me to prove it right now."
"It could make sense," said Rumbold. "Anything else?"
"I suggest you work closely with District Attorney Shelden and Willard Knight. Check the reports they should be getting now on the Halo Highway accidents. I believe they will have found evidence of firing points from trees around the highway or some other nearby area. By careful cross-checking they'll have discovered that none of these points was more than two hundred yards from any accident or multiple crash. You'll be on the way to clearing up the mystery of your Halo Highway. There might be one or two ordinary crashes among them, but as it is such a safe highway those accidents will have a different character."
"Okay. I'll work in with them. What else?"
David paused for a moment, thinking.
"Going back to that withdrawal order for the production models—I think you'd better make it confidential to dealers. Top secret. Rush it through."
"Not leave it to the press, as you suggested?"
David grinned. "Test how your dealer security works. We may need a few days before you can come out in the open. Bluff it through your public relations boys if the press come asking."
"Okay. There's one helluva lot of organizing to do. Anything else?"
"Not from your end. I'll be in touch."
David stood up. Thias Rumbold shook hands as he said, "It's been good to be doing something constructive at last." He went out to his helicopter.
Ollie said, "Now he's gone I can tell you something about Serenda Valley."
"You could have told me while Thias was here. We have to trust each other."
Ollie grinned. "Okay, I trust him in the aliens' business. But when it's all over he might have a long memory for other things."
"Such as?"
"Such as me doing some crafty off-the-record testing over this circuit using company cars out of company hours."
David smiled. "I guess every company suffers from it."
"Don't get me wrong," said Ollie. "I don't steal anything. I pay for the gas and any extra labor costs for servicing. It's just that I coach a few up-and-coming racing drivers in my spare time. Well, okay, so I've got a lot of expenses and I charge high fees. But I haven't the capital to buy a trainer car like the Wind-flight."
; "Skip the sob stuff. So you use the circuit and a company car for selected clients. It's not my business, Ollie, unless you've found a new type of alien among them."
"Not that. But I've seen things over in the direction of Serenda Valley. I do night tests. Sometimes if they're using their own cars I wait at the top clocking them around the circuit. That's when I saw these"—he hesitated—"sort of lights. I can't swear they are directly above the Valley, but they're sure enough in that direction."
David's eyes gleamed. "Ollie, I love you! Come on, give—give! Explain the lights. Are they like subdued neon with occasional flare-ups of orange and blue? Are they sometimes misty, a kind of opalescent, grayish blue with something that appears like a tail of reddish light?"
Ollie stared, wide-eyed. "You're dead right, fella! It's almost desert land over there. I thought those lights were a trick of the sunset, but it's dark here at the time I see them."
"So the timing is just after sunset. Have you ever been up here just before dawn?"
"Yes, on official night tests, but I've never had time to go staring out over the valley."
"Can you let me have Shalk's car to use?"
"Sure."
"Are there phones in all the huts? Phones with outside lines?"
"Yes, they all have phones, and the hut on the top of the mountain is pretty well stocked with emergency rations. Sometimes we get shut in by thick cloud and fog up here. Might be marooned for all of a day and a night."
"Take the big car back and get on with your routine work," said David. "Don't tell anybody I'm up here. In fact, you don't know where I am."
"Okay," said Ollie. "You're the boss."
"I'm beginning to feel like it," said David.
Chapter 11
BEAUTY IN THE NIGHT
David ran the car out of sight between shrub-covered rocks below the plateau. It was bright up here, but dusk had come to the plain below Clawgut Mountain. The lights of Auto City glowed in the distance. The mountain road signs were at green, showing that the road was clear for normal traffic.
