I was in such a sublime spin these days I forgot to worry about Wallace Starr’s peculiarities. The questions that had sprouted in my subconscious began to fade. I did what I was told. So, strangely, did Ric Planter. I supplied him with a detailed outline which Starr made up about the Kiriki. That wasn’t enough so we sent him another, with even more details.
He kicked through with story after story about the Kiriki. Big dramatic stories, and in each one the Patterned Contentment boys were built up higher than in the last.
Starr purred like a kitten. He raised Planter’s word-rates and my salary.
Orion caught on.
The fans loved the idea of a pseudo-history of a whole constellation of systems. The Kiriki, with their breathtaking crusade of contentment, sweeping over system after system until finally it outdistanced Orion and tentacled out from their home system into deepest space… It captured the imagination. Where would it end?
Eventually we hit Life magazine, with a big spread. The slicks went after Ric Planter, but Starr had him tied up with an iron-clad contract. After all, the conception was Starr’s. And I could see why he wouldn’t let Planter hit the slicks. Because he could not dictate their policies. Only in Orion could he manipulate the strings from behind. The Kiriki were his babies and they must follow his pattern.
The night before our anniversary issue went to press it happened.
I had left Alice on her doorstep, just off the Drive. It was almost midnight, a blazing hot July night. Everybody and his dog was out for a breather. The Drive was alive with young lovers, old lovers, and dog lovers.
It hit me. In my hurry to get away from this office I had neglected to check with Starr about a last minute cover change. Starr hadn’t been in all day. The printers would be closing the forms first thing in the morning and I had let the change go through without Starr’s okay. Starr never came in until eleven.
I found a Whalen Drug Store and phoned Starr. No answer. I called the operator and found out the line was temporarily out of order.
On impulse, I snagged a crosstown bus. I had never been to Starr’s, never been invited or particularly wanted to visit him. He lived in a loft not far from Third Avenue.
It was an ordinary type building of ancient vintage. It would never cop an Oscar for beauty, nor did it smell from Chanel No, 5. I made my way up in the half-dark from one landing to another without enthusiasm. I don’t know just what it is about musty office buildings, after they’ve been darkened and bedded down for the night; it isn’t anything calculated to cheer. Six flights, and no elevator after eight.
I could see right away that Starr loved to be alone. Most of the upper-floor offices were empty. My mind snagged hold of some creepy ideas as I mounted those stairs. I thought about Starr’s odd ways, his odd voice, for that matter. As if he had a machine down in his throat, a talking machine designed by a clever somebody who had once heard a human voice. About how hepped Starr was on the Kiriki, how painstakingly he had drawn them. He talked about them as if they were real. Of course, being a science fiction writer myself, I understood that brand of wackiness, or thought I did.
I rapped on his door.
There was light pushing out under his door so I knew he must be there. It was noisy inside, which was why he hadn’t heard me. I bent my ear closer. What a noise! It sounded like a bullfrog-grasshopper duet.
I banged on the door again. No answer.
I tried the doorknob. It turned. I was half in when I stopped cold. This I did not believe. Put it on a book jacket and label it Edd Cartier and I’ll buy it.
I blinked to make it go away but it wouldn’t. I whimpered. So it was—what my mind had been half-suspecting for months, and laughing at itself even as it suspected—it was true!
The Thing at the machine was a giant insect. Ten feet high, at least. It was brown-green and had lots of claw-like appendages. The most terrible thing about it was its familiarity. I had surveyed it critically on half a dozen of our cover originals.
I had quibbled with our artists about it. Not horrible enough, I had said. Well, it was. It was horrible…
It was busy with that machine, making noises into a cone and twisting dials and knobs with its many appendages. The noises it made were carefully inflected. Speech, in fact. It was talking into the cone, which absorbed the sounds, and transmitted them—where?
My shoes were glued to the floor.
The Thing finished talking, snapped off the machine, turned. It saw me.
It yelled and tried to duck out. It moved in a blur. Seven pairs of claws flexed out and grabbed for me. Some of the weaving cilia touched me. I screamed at the sting, like a dozen raking barbs, tearing my clothes and me.
I made the hall, yelling.
But I couldn’t reach the stairs. It got me. It pinned me over the elevator shaft. I bent back further and further so those tentacles couldn’t rake my face. Those criss-cross insect eyes were cold as ice, emotionless. The barbs made ready to tear me to rags.
I shrieked and let myself fall. First I didn’t think to save myself. Better a clean jolting death than those hundreds of needle-like cilia. But my hands grabbed involuntarily for something. They caught the cable, clung to it.
It was greasy. I went down fast. I wrapped my legs around it, which helped a little, straining to hold back. When I hit bottom I think every tooth in my head jarred loose.
My legs collapsed under me like rubber. For a minute I blacked out.
The buzzing over my head snapped me up. I was a goner if I didn’t move, but fast. Sobbing, I wrenched my legs to a crouching position, and leaped down off the elevator. I dove for the front door. Then I was outside, gulping air, running like billy-hell for the Lexington subway.
I didn’t know what else to do, so having put half of Manhattan between me and It, I telephoned Alice. I needed the sound of her voice. I needed her to stop me from shuddering. My tic was slowly jerking my jaw out of alignment.
She listened patiently while I dumped in dimes.
“Max,” she asked when I had finished. “Are you sure you haven’t been eating Benzedrine tablets?”
“No! And I’m not drunk!”
“Where are you now?”
“Some joint in Harlem.”
“How long have you been in there?” She sounded suspicious.
“Alice!” I groaned. “If you could only see me! My suit’s ripped in a dozen places. I’m all greasy where I slid down the cable and my hands are burned raw. I hurt.”
“Poor boy,” she soothed. She was silent for a moment, then became her briskest self. “Listen, Max. We have to consider every possibility. This might be a self-hypnotic illusion brought on by overwork. Remember, you’ve seen these things on many covers and interiors, too. You’ve lived fictionally with the Kiriki for a year. Consider that—”
“Nuts!” I yelled. “I’m going to the police!”
“And spend the night in the drunk tank?” Alice queried severely. “Just who do you think will believe your story?”
“I can take them to this loft.”
“Think, Max! What will they find? Nothing! Even if it is true, do you imagine this—this Kiriki is going to be caught like a fish in a barrel? He has been spotted. Obviously, he will leave the loft at once.”
She was so right, and I knew it. I groaned.
“Who or what is this Thing?” Alice asked, but it was plain she only half-believed my story.
“That’s easy,” I said bitterly. “I should have caught on months ago. It’s Wallace Starr. Starr is a Kiriki.”
* * * *
Having better sense than to go home, I rented a cheap room on 125th Street. I didn’t sleep much. I paced and ate cigarettes. Very early the next morning I woke up a cleaner on Third Avenue and bought a cheap uncalled-for suit out of his window. It was the most uncalled-for suit I ever did see, but it fit pretty well and made m
e decent.
A quick coffee and I went up to the office. I had given Alice strict orders not to come to work until I phoned her. I didn’t want her mixed up in this. Starr hadn’t liked her from the first. Maybe he figured she might catch on to him better than me.
I picked up a manuscript from the slush pile, called Challenge of the Slime People. The phone made me jump.
“Morning, Maxie. This is Ric Planter.”
“Ric,” I found myself blurting. “The most terrifying thing has happened!”
“Invasion of Kiriki, no doubt.”
Planter had that way. You wanted to wring his neck. Somehow, the way he said it, made me backtrack.
I didn’t want to get the horse laugh from him and all fandom. For the first time I asked myself, could Alice be right? Could it have been an illusion?
“Listen. Ric. How does this sound for a plot? Suppose an alien, but alien, culture from the stars decides it wants to take over our system. They don’t want to just drop in on us. They dislike physical warfare because it isn’t orderly. Also they don’t want to kill any of their numbers, or their potential slaves. Also a sudden alien invasion might drive humans completely off their rocker.
“So here’s what they do. They send down a secret fifth columnist. His job is to spread propaganda over the planet, to prepare humans for their advent, make them amenable to this alien culture. Of course he’s to build them up in human minds, make them think their cosmic crusade is beneficent and noble. How would he start?”
“Buy a newspaper. Buy ten.”
“Under ordinary circumstances, sure. But wouldn’t it be hard to slyly mention what great guys the Whoziz are in a daily newspaper? Any comment about his home folks would stick out like a sore thumb. No. It would have to be something less obvious. How about him buying a science fic—”
A long thin shadow blotted the opaque glass door in front of me. The door opened. Wallace Starr stepped in.
“Shall I get to work on it?” Ric asked.
“Yeah. And make it good.” I hung up.
Starr walked over to my desk. I picked up my letter opener.
“You might have told me,” he preluded.
“What?”
“The changes naturally. I spent three hours at the printers last night. Didn’t get home until after two.”
He stalked into his office and slammed the door behind him. Then I phoned the printers.
“Lemme talk to Corky,” I told the girl who answered.
“Mr. Corkendahl is not here,” her Brooklynese voice trilled. “Mr. Corkendahl is home in bed, on account of he spent half the night re-changing some changes for Mr. Starr.”
“Was Mr. Starr there last night?”
“Why yes.”
“Sure?”
“Mr. Corkendahl informed me he was here until almost two. Mr. Corkendahl is not in the habit of prevaricating, Mr. Field.”
I hung up in a daze. If Wallace Starr was definitely not in his loft apartment at twelve-thirty last night, then…I rang up Alice. No answer. I rang her every fifteen minutes until she did.
“Where were you?” I demanded.
“Why, Max.” She sounded piqued. “All right, I’ll tell you. I was up at Wallace Starr’s apartment.”
“But he’s here!”
“I know. I waited until he left. Then I went up to the loft. I told the janitor I worked for Mr. Starr and he let me in. I went over the place with a fine tooth comb. Max, there’s simply nothing there to get excited about. He’s quite neat for a bachelor. Everything very prosaic and natural, except for that big amateur radio of his.”
“Amateur radio?”
“You know. Amateur sending and receiving. Mr. Starr is a ham.”
“H-ham?” I swallowed hard. “Alice, you’re right. I’m going off my rocker.”
“Just overwork,” she protested, soothingly. “You take your science fiction too seriously. What you need is a nice vacation, away from the office and everything that even smells like work.”
“I’ll do it,” I said meekly. Right then a thought hit me. It had been simmering in my mind for a long time. Now it exploded into words.
“Alice—let’s make it a honeymoon!”
She gasped. “Max, are you sure you’re well enough?”
“Am I? You’re just what the doctor ordered to put me back on my rollers. Will you marry me, Alice? Please?”
“Yes, Max. Whenever you say.”
* * * *
We told nobody where we were going for our two weeks’ honeymoon, least of all Starr. He grumbled for a while, then kicked through with a nice fat check for a wedding present, along with a bottle of good champagne. We hopped in a rented jalopy and headed north along the river.
There was a pale round moon overhead and as we got out of the city and night came on it brightened and made a glowing path on the water. After while we left the main road and headed into the Catskills. At last we dipped down into a deep little glen where there was a coy two-room cabin I’d often rented before when I had a tough writing assignment that demanded absolute solitude.
There was no one within miles.
We unloaded the car like a couple of kids. I had practically bought out a delicatessen. Then Alice started fussing around the cabin, putting away my fishing tackle and hanging up some curtains and pictures she had picked up at Woolworth’s. I kept on pinching myself to believe she had really married me and marveling how every little thing she did suited me perfectly.
“Hungry, darling?”
“You said it!” I made a tentative bite at her ear, grinning, but she eluded me teasingly.
I uncorked the champagne, managed to spill my first glass, then decided I was too hungry to bother with it now. We ate cold chicken and all kinds of fixings. Outside the night lay deep and warm. The moon shimmered on the evergreens.
I got up from my chair and went to Alice.
Now she wanted that kiss. She put up her lips.
I kissed her.
The world rocked.
A buzzing noise sounded behind me. It made my blood crawl, because it was familiar. I jumped back from Alice just in time.
“No,” I moaned. “No—Alice!”
But it happened.
I imagine that I’m the only man who ever kissed his bride on their wedding night, then watched her turn into a monstrous bug before his eyes…
* * * *
Outside the owl hooted.
Max Field tossed aside his notebook and pounded his knee with his fist. God! To have seen that happen! To sweet little Alice!
His dream girl. But naturally. She had been too perfect, actually. She was designed for him, perhaps only a clever illusion clothed in flesh by his own imagination. At any rate she was the reason for him filling out all those forms. To discover just what he liked in every department. To give them a pattern for “Alice”.
They were cute. Even to the point of having Starr pretend to dislike her. When Starr pretended to poke carefully into her background, that was enough to prevent Max from doing just that. Because actually she had no background. It was phony.
That phone call he had made to Corky. The girl who answered. That could have been Alice, using a heavy Brooklyn accent to cover her voice. She had been so convincing he hadn’t bothered to check back later.
Now, the two of them were in the kitchen planning his death. “Science Fiction Editor Accidentally Killed in Mountain Retreat. Bride Stricken.” Then the grief-stricken bride would carry on in his place. Orion was going great guns now. It really didn’t need Max Field. And without him their propaganda machine could move forward all the faster—forward to the day when the Kiriki cosmic crusade moved down into this solar system. The Patterned Contentment boys would take over.
Whose pattern? Kiriki, of course…
The kitchen door opened slowly.
Max tensed.
It was—Alice.
She wore that clinging black lace negligee he had bought in an exclusive Fifth Avenue shop.
“Max.”
He stood up stiffly, staring.
“Change, damn you! Change!”
“Why, Max,” she pouted. “Don’t you love me any more?”
It was intended to drive him nutty, maybe to suicide.
“You should have drunk the champagne,” she said softly, “It would have been easier for you. Would you like a drink now?” She held out a glass.
All of a sudden he wanted that glass more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. Even Alice. It was the end of the line, the dropping off point. He couldn’t take it any more. Not Alice—like that.
He walked over to her and took the glass. He lifted it to his lips.
Something slapped the glass out of his hand as the window behind them shattered inward. Alice flashed an angry glance at the face in the window, then moved quickly back into the kitchen.
“Ric!”
Max’s bewilderment changed to sudden hope.
“Hurry!” Planter cried. “Get through this window!”
Max dove through while the writer yanked him by the elbows. Max was shivering and sweating at the same time. But the cool night breeze helped a little.
“W-where in the billy-hell did you—”
“Come from?” Ric finished. “Been on Starr’s trail for weeks. Had this thing figured out for some time, even before you tipped me off on the phone that day. I followed Starr here. Been watching and waiting.”
He was wearing a fish-basket and, incongruously, it was filled with bombs. He handed some to Max.
“Start heaving. Aim for the kitchen door before they close it.”
He tossed a handful of the bombs into the room. Max followed suit. Inside, the bombs broke, letting out a pungent gas.
The Alien MEGAPACK® Page 32
